28 THE SUM OF SAVING KNOWLEDGE
with all your heart and soul, and some souls will be surely kindled by your flame.1
2. Not improbably this determination of St. Paul's represents a temptation conquered, a soul-conflict won. To such a one as he, it would be a trial of spirit to contemplate service in such a city as Corinth. Corinth was a centre of fashion. Shall he essay to appeal to the fashionable crowd with " Christ crucified " as the central theme ? Will he not repel them thus ? May he not emphasize other aspects of Christ which will be attractive and not repellent ? Thus the evil one would ply him. But the God of peace crushed Satan under his feet, and his splendid " I determined " rings out. Corinth was an aesthetic city. Its architecture is a proverb still, and its brasses are still famous. Corinth was an intellectual city. Its typical Greek love of philosophy all men know. It was an opulent commercial city too. Shall he not soften the truth and smooth his message ? Will not taste, and culture, and materialism, and wealth resent the preaching of "Christ crucified"? It may be, but, "I determined," cries this hero of the Cross. He will cry out and shout in the delicate ears of Corinth nothing but the crucified Lord.
3. What is the ground of this intense and all-absorbing faith ? St. Paul believes that he has in his hand something that will explain man to himself, a man's life to himself. He is so firmly convinced of this that, although his mind is large and capacious and he can view with a sympathetic admiration many of the mag- nificent manifestations of world-power, still, in his own estimate, the sacred message which he has to give to the world is worth all else besides. He is quite alive, as his letter shows, to the variety of powers, the nimbleness of intellect, the ambitious skill which the Corinthians possess ; he knows that they are a people eager to express themselves in many ways, that they rejoice in the powers of rhetoric, in the gifts of tongue, in skilful elucida- tion of philosophical mysteries. But still he comes to these, and he says : " I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." He has made up his mind that this particular formula, "Jesus Christ, and him crucified," expresses
1 F. "W. Robertson.
i CORINTHIANS n. 2 29
for the world a great, a central, an extensive truth. This is the knowledge for which St. Paul counts all else but loss — " to know Jesus Christ, and him crucified." This is the simple gospel: its simplicity is its offence in the eyes of many. Nevertheless there are infinite depths in it. It is as when we look into the clear depths of some swift-flowing river. Its very clearness had deceived us. We thought it but a shallow stream, and are astonished at its undreamed-of depths. So with this message of St. Paul, we notice its simplicity first, its apparent narrowness, its exclusiveness ; and then we see something of its depth, its boundlessness, its comprehensiveness.
If Berry told some of his Bolton friends, at the time, how startled and disappointed he had been at finding himself power- less for a while to give help and comfort to a woman who was dying, amid tragic and squalid surroundings, in one of the lowest parts of the town. He had been called upon to minister to her, but as he unfolded the Christian message, as he was wont to preach it then — the doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood and the Eternal Love — as he told the story of the Prodigal and the Magdalene, her heart gave no response, and she looked up with eyes which seemed to him to ask if that was all he had to say to a lost and dying woman. Under a new afflatus, that came he knew not whence, he began with trembling voice to speak on evangelical simplicities, to tell of Christ's death for a world's sin, and to point her to the Cross for pardon. To his joy and wonder he found that in response to words as simple as those he heard at his mother's knee, the sinful one found rest and peace.1
Who speaketh now of peace ?
Who seeketh for release ? The Cross is strength, the solemn Cross is gain.
The Cross is Jesus' breast,
Here giveth He the rest That to His best belov'd doth still remain.
How sweet an ended strife!
How sweet a dawning life ! Here will I lie as one who draws his breath With ease, and hearken what my Saviour saith Concerning me ; the solemn Cross is gain ;
Who willeth now to choose ?
Who strives to bind or loose ? Sweet life, sweet death, sweet triumph and sweet pain.2
1 J. S. Drunimond, Charles A. Berry, 35. 2 Dora Greenwell.
3o THE SUM OF SAVING KNOWLEDGE
II.
The Concentration of his Message.
Every act of self-determination involves a corresponding self- repression. Every selection includes at least one alternativa No man commits himself to a really practical resolution without first putting away and rejecting. Many pursuits invited St. Paul. They were attractive, pleasant, honourable, useful to the world. He had all the instincts of a student. He was a scholar with splendid capacity. He might have been, we feel persuaded, a Greater than Philo, than Seneca — a greater than Plato himself. " To know Jesus Christ, and him crucified " is the end for which everything else is sacrificed. By "Jesus Christ," the Apostle understands His manifestation in general — His life, death, and Messianic dignity. Yet, while confining himself' to this elemen- tary theme of preaching, he might still have found means to commend Jesus to the attention and admiration of the wise. But he determined "not to know anything, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." He will not know even Jesus Christ except in one aspect. That is the idea. One of our best exegetes thus renders the words : " And even Him as having been crucified!' It is the crucified Christ alone that he will know. Observe the far-reaching word " know." Not merely does he refuse to speak on any other theme, but he will "know" none other. The crucified Saviour shall fill the whole horizon of his mind and heart. He will, so to say, severely limit his Christology to this phase : " Even Him as having been crucified."