Becrated. It is not to be inferred from the feet that the apos- tle addresses all the nominal Christians in Corinth as saints and as sanctified in Christ Jesus, that they were all true be- lievers, or that those terms express nothing more than external consecration. Men are uniformly addressed in Scripture according to their profession. K they profess to be saints, they are called saints ; if they profess to be believers, they are called beUevers ; and if they profess to be members of the church, they are addressed as reaUy belonging to it. This passage teaches also, as Calvin remarks, the useful lesson that a body may be very corrupt both as to doctrine and practice, as such corruptions undoubtedly prevailed even in Corinth, and yet it may be properly recognized as a church of God. Locus diligenter observandus, ne requiramus in hoc mundo ecclesiam omni ruga et macula carentem : aut protinus abdicemus hoc titulo quemvis coetum in quo non omnia votis nostris respon- deant.
With ail that in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. To call upon the name of any one is to invoke his aid. It is properly used for religious invocation. Compare Acts 9, 14, 21, and 22, 16. Rom. 10, 12, 13. 2 Tim. 2, 22. To call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, is to invoke his aid as Christ, the Messiah predicted by the prophets, and as our almighty and sovereign possessor and ruler. It is in that sense Jesus is Lord. All power in heaven and earth has been committed unto him ; and he died and rose again that he might be the Lord of the dead and of the Uving ; that is, that he might acquire that peculiar right of possession in his people which arises from his having purchased them mth his blood. To call upon the name of Jesus as Lord is there- fore to worship him. It is to look to him for that help which God only can give. All Christians, therefore, are the wor- shippers of Christ. And every sincere worshipper of Christ is a true Christian. The phrase expresses not so much an in- dividual act of invocation, as an habitual state of mind and its appropriate expression.
It might at first view appear from this clause that this epistle was addressed not only to the church in Corinth, but to all the worshippers of Christ. This would make it a catho- lic, or general epistle, which it is not. To get over this diffi- culty some explain the connection thus : ' Called to be saints together with all who call upon the name of Christ : » that is, the Corinthians as well as all other worshippers of Christ were