PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)
Alexander Maclaren, 1826-1910 · 251,651 words · 349 reading sections
Calling On The Name
But what is it to call on the name of Jesus? That name implies all the sweetness of His manhood. He is our Brother. The name 'Jesus' is one that many a Jewish boy bore in our Lord's own time and before it; though, afterwards, of course, abhorrence on the part of the Jew and reverence on the part of the Christian caused…
920 wordsSECTION 182Calling On The Name
'In every place.' We may venture to subject the words of my text to a little gentle pressure here. The Apostle only meant to express the universal characteristics of Christians everywhere. But we may venture to give a different turn to the words, and learn from them the duty of devout communion with Christ as a duty fo…
327 wordsSECTION 183Perishing Or Being Saved
'For the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.'--1 COR. i. 18. The starting-point of my remarks is the observation that a slight variation of rendering, which will be found in the Revised Version, brings out the true meaning of these words. Ins…
789 wordsSECTION 184Perishing Or Being Saved
This, then, being the one side, what about the other? If this be salvation, its precise opposite is the Scriptural idea of 'perishing.' Utter ruin lies in the word, the entire failure to be what God meant a man to be. That is in it, and no contortions of arbitrary interpretation can knock that solemn significance out o…
700 wordsSECTION 185Perishing Or Being Saved
So the process of being saved is going on as long as a Christian man lives in this world; and every one who professes to be Christ's follower ought, day by day, to be growing more and more saved, more fully filled with that Divine Spirit, more entirely the conqueror of his own lusts and passions and evil, more and more…
817 wordsSECTION 186Perishing Or Being Saved
III. And now, lastly, notice the determining attitude to the Cross which settles the class to which we belong. Paul, in my text, is explaining his reason for not preaching the Gospel with what he calls 'the words of man's wisdom,' and he says, in effect, 'It would be of no use if I did, because what settles whether th…
548 wordsSECTION 187The Apostle'S Theme
'I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.'--1 COR. ii. 2. Many of you are aware that to-day I close forty years of ministry in this city--I cannot say to this congregation, for there are very, very few that can go back with me in memory to the beginning of these years. You wi…
694 wordsSECTION 188The Apostle'S Theme
That is not all. The history of the life and the death want something more to make them a gospel. The fact, I was going to say, is the least part of the fact; as in some vegetable growths, there is far more underground than above. For, unless along with, involved in, and deducible from, but capable of being stated sepa…
780 wordsSECTION 189The Apostle'S Theme
II. So let me ask you to notice the exclusiveness which this theme demands. 'Nothing but,' says Paul. I might venture to say--though perhaps the tone of the personal allusions in this sermon may seem to contradict it--that this exclusiveness is to be manifested in one very difficult direction, and that that is, the he…
888 wordsSECTION 190The Apostle'S Theme
III. Lastly, observe the all-sufficient comprehensiveness which this theme secures. Paul says 'nothing but'; he might have said 'everything in.' For 'Jesus Christ and Him crucified' covers all the ground of men's needs. No doubt many of you will have been saying to yourselves whilst you have been listening, if you hav…
694 wordsSECTION 191God'S Fellow-Workers
Dear friends, ours has been a long and happy union but it is a very solemn one. My responsibilities are great; yours are not small. Let me beseech you to ask yourselves if, with all your kindness to the messenger, you have given heed to the message. Have you passed beyond the voice that speaks, to Him of whom it speaks…
825 wordsSECTION 192God'S Fellow-Workers
Now, the first way in which I desire to look at this great idea expressed in these words, is that we find in it I. A solemn thought. 'Labourers together with God.' Cannot He do it all Himself? No. God needs men to carry out His purposes. True, on the Cross, Jesus spoke the triumphant word, 'It is finished!' He did no…
672 wordsSECTION 193God'S Fellow-Workers
So 'we are fellow-labourers with God.' Alas! alas! how poorly the average Christian realises--I do not say discharges, but realises--that obligation! Brethren, I do not wish to find fault, but I do beseech you to ask yourselves whether, if you are Christians, you are doing anything the least like what my text contempla…
873 wordsSECTION 194God'S Fellow-Workers
And now, lastly, we have suggested by this text III. A strong encouragement. 'Fellow-labourers with God'--then, God is a Fellow-labourer with us. The co-operation works both ways, and no man who is seeking to spread that great salvation, to distribute that great wealth, to irrigate some little corner of the field by …
605 wordsSECTION 195The Testing Fire
'Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble: 13. Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.'--1 COR. iii. 12, 13. Before I enter upon the id…
966 wordsSECTION 196The Testing Fire
The inconsistencies of the Christian life are what my text, in the application that I am venturing to make of it, suggests to us. Ah, dear friends! we do not need to go to Jacob and Peter; let us look at our own hearts, and if we will honestly examine one day of our lives, I think we shall understand how it is possible…
752 wordsSECTION 197The Testing Fire
We have all experience enough of how but a few years, a change of circumstances, or a growth into another stage of development, give us fresh eyes with which to estimate the moral quality of our past. Many a thing, which we thought to be all right at the time when we did it, looks to us now very questionable and a plai…
720 wordsSECTION 198Temples Of God
Brethren, I dare not enlarge upon that great metaphor. It is meant for us professing Christians, real and imperfect Christians--it is meant for us; and it just tells us that there are degrees in that future blessedness proportioned to present faithfulness. We begin there where we left off here. That future is not a dea…
724 wordsSECTION 199Temples Of God
All creatures have God dwelling in them in the measure of their capacity. The stone that you kick on the road would not be there if there were not a present God. Nothing would happen if there were not abiding in creatures the force, at any rate, which is God. But just as in this great atmosphere in which we all live an…
814 wordsSECTION 200Temples Of God
And then, further, Christian men, as the temples and habitations of God, are appointed to be the great means of making Him known to the world around. The eye that cannot look at the sun can look at the rosy clouds that lie on either side of it, and herald its rising; their opalescent tints and pearly lights are beautif…
672 wordsSECTION 201Temples Of God
IV. And, lastly, this great truth of my text enforces the solemn lesson of the necessary sanctity of the Christian life. 'The temple of God,' says the context, 'the temple of God is holy, which (holy persons) ye are.' The plain first idea of the temple is a place set apart and consecrated to God. Hence, of course, fo…
687 wordsSECTION 202Temples Of God
And in regard to sins of this kind, which it is so difficult to speak of in public, and which grow unchecked in secrecy, and are ruining hundreds of young lives, the words of this context are grimly true, 'If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.' I speak now mainly in brotherly or fatherly warning t…
254 wordsSECTION 203Death, The Friend
'... All things are yours ... death.'--1 COR. iii. 21, 22. What Jesus Christ is to a man settles what everything else is to Him. Our relation to Jesus determines our relation to the universe. If we belong to Him, everything belongs to us. If we are His servants, all things are our servants. The household of Jesus, whi…
730 wordsSECTION 204Death, The Friend
For, if we come to analyse the thoughts of humanity about the last act in human life on earth, what is it that makes the dread darkness of death, which all men know, though they so seldom think of it? I suppose, first of all, if we seek to question our feelings, that which makes Death a foe to the ordinary experience i…
683 wordsSECTION 205Death, The Friend
Then, still further, another of the elements which is converted from being a terror into a joy is that Death, the separator, becomes to Christ's servants Death, the uniter. We all know how that function of death is perhaps the one that makes us shrink from it the most, dread it the most, and sometimes hate it the most.…
912 wordsSECTION 206Death, The Friend
Nor need I do more than remind you how the manner of our Lord's death shows that He is Lord not only of the dead but of the Death that makes them dead. For His own tremendous assertion, 'I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again,' was confirmed by His attitude and His words at the last, as is …
469 wordsSECTION 207Servants And Lords
'All things are yours; 22. Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; 23. And ye are Christ's.'--1 COR. iii. 21-23. The Corinthian Christians seem to have carried into the Church some of the worst vices of Greek--and English--political …
661 wordsSECTION 208Servants And Lords
So the true democracy of Christianity, which abjures swearing by the words of any teacher, is simply the result of loyal adherence to the teaching of Jesus Christ. And that proud independence which some of you seek to cultivate, and on the strength of which you declare that no man is your master upon earth, is an unwho…
926 wordsSECTION 209Servants And Lords
And now all these three things--the contempt of earth, the use of earth for growing souls, and the use of earth as the field of service--all these things belong most truly to the man who belongs to Christ. The world is His, and if we live near Him and cultivate fellowship with Him, and see His face gleaming through all…
652 wordsSECTION 210Servants And Lords
IV. And lastly, Christ's servants are the lords of time and eternity, 'things present or things to come.' Our Apostle's division, in this catalogue of his, is rhetorical rather than logical; and we need not seek to separate the first of this final pair from others which we have already encountered in our study of the …
588 wordsSECTION 211The Three Tribunals
'But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. 4. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified; but he that judgeth me is the Lord.'--1 COR. iv. 3, 4. The Church at Corinth was honeycombed by the characteristic Greek vice o…
704 wordsSECTION 212The Three Tribunals
But not only in these higher forms of seeking after reputation, but in lower forms, this trembling before, and seeking to conciliate, the tribunal of what we call 'general opinion,' which means the voices of the half-dozen people that are beside us and know about us, besets us all, and weakens us all in a thousand ways…
970 wordsSECTION 213The Three Tribunals
II. Note the higher court of conscience. Our Apostle is not to be taken here as contradicting what he says in other places. 'I judge not mine own self,'--yet in one of these same letters to the Corinthians he says, 'If we judged ourselves we should not be judged.' So that he does not mean here that he is entirely with…
852 wordsSECTION 214The Three Tribunals
His estimate will dwindle the sentences of the other two tribunals into nothingness. What matter what his fellow-servants say about the steward's accounts, and distribution of provisions, and management of the household? He has to render his books, and to give account of his stewardship, only to his lord. The governor…
434 wordsSECTION 215The Festal Life
'Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven ... but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.'--1 COR. v. 8. There had been hideous immorality in the Corinthian Church. Paul had struck at it with heat and force, sternly commanding the exclusion of the sinner. He did so on the ground of the diabolic…
892 wordsSECTION 216The Festal Life
But there is another thing that we can do; that is, we can clearly recognise the occasions for sorrow in our experience, and yet interpret them by the truths of the Christian faith. That is to say, we can think of them, not so much as they tend to make us sad or glad, but as they tend to make us more assured of our pos…
730 wordsSECTION 217The Festal Life
Feed upon Him; that is the essential central requirement for all Christian life, and what does feeding on Him mean? 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' said the Jews, and the answer is plain now, though so obscure then. The flesh which He gave for the life of the world in His death, must by us be taken for the…
695 wordsSECTION 218The Festal Life
But let us remember that absolute cleansing from all sin is not essential, in order to have real participation in Jesus Christ. The Jew had to take every scrap of leaven out of his house before he began the Passover. If that were the condition for us, alas! for us all; but the effort after purity, though it has not ent…
510 wordsSECTION 219Forms _Versus_ Character
'Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.'--1 COR. vii. 19. 'For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.'--GAL. v. 6. 'For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new …
682 wordsSECTION 220Forms _Versus_ Character
They have their value. As long as we are here on earth, living in the flesh, we must have outward forms and symbolical rites. It is in Heaven that the seer 'saw no temple.' Our sense-bound nature requires, and thankfully avails itself of, the help of external rites and ceremonials to lift us up towards the Object of ou…
719 wordsSECTION 221Forms _Versus_ Character
Then notice with what remarkable fairness and boldness and breadth the Apostle here adds that other clause: 'and uncircumcision is nothing.' It is a very hard thing for a man whose life has been spent in fighting against an error, not to exaggerate the value of his protest. It is a very hard thing for a man who has bee…
733 wordsSECTION 222Forms _Versus_ Character
But, then, I can fancy a man saying: 'It is all very well to talk about bowing the will in this fashion; how can I do that?' Well, let us take our second text--the third in the order of their occurrence--'For neither circumcision is anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.' That is to say, if we are ever to ke…
697 wordsSECTION 223Forms _Versus_ Character
But faith leads us to obedience in yet another fashion, than this opening of the door of the heart for the entrance of the new-creating Spirit. It leads to it in the manner which is expressed by the words of our text, 'worketh by love.' Faith shows itself living, because it leads us to love, and through love it produce…
609 wordsSECTION 224Slaves And Free
'He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's free man: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant.'--1 COR. vii. 22. This remarkable saying occurs in a remarkable connection, and is used for a remarkable purpose. The Apostle has been laying down the principle, that the effect …
818 wordsSECTION 225Slaves And Free
The founder of the Jesuits laid it down as a rule for his Order that each member of it was to be at the master's disposal like a corpse, or a staff in the hand of a blind man. That was horrible. But the absolute putting of myself at the disposal of another's will, which is expressed so tyrannously in Loyola's demand, i…
895 wordsSECTION 226Slaves And Free
The one bright point in the hideous institution of slavery was, that it bound the master to provide for the slave, and though that was degrading to the inferior, it made his life a careless, child-like, merry life, even amidst the many cruelties and abominations of the system. But what was a good, dashed with a great d…
950 wordsSECTION 227Slaves And Free
And if we are the servants of Christ, we shall be set free, in the measure in which we are His, from the slavery which daily becomes more oppressive as the means of communication become more complete, the slavery to popular opinion and to men round us. Dare to be singular; take your beliefs at first hand from the Maste…
265 wordsSECTION 228The Christian Life
'Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God.'--1 COR. vii. 24. You find that three times within the compass of a very few verses this injunction is repeated. 'As God hath distributed to every man,' says the Apostle in the seventeenth verse, 'as the Lord hath called every one, so let him wal…
813 wordsSECTION 229The Christian Life
I. Thus we are led from the words before us first to the thought that our chief effort in life ought to be union with God. 'Abide with God,' which, being put into other words, means, I think, mainly two things--constant communion, the occupation of all our nature with Him, and, consequently, the recognition of His wil…
1,213 wordsSECTION 230The Christian Life
II. The second idea which comes out of these words is this--Such union with God will lead to contented continuance in our place, whatever it be. Our text is as if Paul had said, 'You have been "called" in such and such worldly circumstances. The fact proves that these circumstances do not obstruct the highest and rich…
684 wordsSECTION 231The Christian Life
If, then, we have once got hold of that principle that all which is--summer and winter, storm and sunshine, possession and loss, memory and hope, work and rest, and all the other antitheses of life--is equally the product of His will, equally the manifestation of His mind, equally His means for our discipline, then we …
1,003 wordsSECTION 232The Christian Life
And so, finally--a remark which has no connection with the text itself, but which I cannot avoid inserting here--I want you to think, and think seriously, of the antagonism and diametrical opposition between these principles of my text and the maxims current in the world, and nowhere more so than in this city. Our text…
420 wordsSECTION 233'Love Buildeth Up'
'Now, as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. 2. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. 3. But if any man love God, the same is known of him. 4. As concerning therefore the eating of …
711 wordsSECTION 234'Love Buildeth Up'
'Love builds up,' or 'edifies.' Probably the main direction in which that building up is conceived of as taking effect, is in aiding the progress of our neighbours, especially in the religious life. But the tendency of love to rear a fair fabric of personal character is not to be overlooked. In regard to effect on char…
671 wordsSECTION 235'Love Buildeth Up'
The considerations in verse 7 would naturally be followed by the further thoughts in verse 9, etc. But, before dealing with these, Paul interposes another thought in verse 8, to the effect that partaking of or abstinence from any kind of food will not, in itself, either help or hinder the religious life. The bearing of…
587 wordsSECTION 236The Sin Of Silence
'For though I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel! 17. For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward.'--1 COR. ix. 16, 17. The original reference of these words is to the Apostle's principle and practice of not receiving f…
735 wordsSECTION 237The Sin Of Silence
Of course, there are diversities of forms of obedience to this commandment; of course, the restrictions of locality and the other obligations of life, come in to modify it; and it is not every man's duty to wander over the whole world doing this work. But the direct work of communicating to others who know it not the s…
662 wordsSECTION 238The Sin Of Silence
A stringent obligation, not to be shuffled off by any of the excuses that we make, is laid upon us all. It makes very short work of a number of excuses. There is a great deal in the tone of this generation which tends to chill the missionary spirit. We know more about the heathen world, and familiarity diminishes horro…
689 wordsSECTION 239The Sin Of Silence
'Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel.' If you are a dumb and idle professor of Christ's truth, depend upon it that your dumb idleness will rob you of much communion with Jesus Christ. There are many Christians who would be ever so much happier, more joyous, and more assured Christians if they would go and talk about C…
653 wordsSECTION 240The Sin Of Silence
Heaven is not a dead level. Every man there will receive as much blessedness as he is capable of, but capacities will vary, and the principal factor in determining the capacity, which capacity determines the blessedness, will be the thoroughness of obedience to all the ordinances of Christ in the course of the life upo…
795 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.