4. For power to purge out the old leaveu, we must have some participation in Christ, by which there is given to us that new life which conquers evil. In the words immediately preceding the text, the Apostle bases his injunction to purge out the old leaven on the fact that " ye are unleavened." Ideally, in so far as the power possessed by them was concerned, these Corinthians were unleavened, even whilst they were bid to purge out the leaven. That is to say, be what you are; realize your ideal, utilize the power you possess, and since by your faith there has been given to you a new life that can conquer all corruption and sin, see that you use the life that is given. Purge out the old leaven because ye are unleavened.
If Power, that is the great practical matter for us men, once our faces are set towards the light ; and in the life in Christ the way of power is marked out. Everywhere, all over the world, in its darkest places, as a man follows the light he sees, the power comes, and more light comes, and power grows anew, Divine power flowing in upon him and through him, whether he knows it or not. But in the Christian faith we are given an open vision of the way of power, as well as of the light and truth of men ; open-eyed we may yield to Christ being made Man in us — the Christ who ever comes to enlarge the realm of His Incarnation ; and we may possess and wield His power as our own, reason giving consent, heart warmed by the vision, and the presence of Him who reigns. In this, too, Christianity stands at the centre of things, and fulfils and completes them all.2
^ "When God was about to call Abraham to a higher level of service and a higher range of truth — to require of him a perfection which might seem unattainable, and to unfold to him a grace which might seem incredible, He prefaced the call with the revelation, "I am El Shaddai — God Almighty, the Wielder of power, the All-sufficient." After that nothing is impossible, nothing incredible. The august title reveals the infinite resources from which man can draw, the Divine energy which ensures his success. Absolute reliance on God's almightiness is the condition of power. For every duty there is an appointed dynamic : " Thy God hath commanded thy strength." The Almighty will not let His servants fail or be put to shame, else that is not His name.
1 William Drummond. a William Scott Palmer.
182 FOR THE FEAST
He links His power to His imperatives. What we can do in our
own strength is one thing ; what we are empowered to achieve by omnipotent grace is far different. The possibilities of life are to be measured, not by the ability of man, but by the power and will of God. Instead of desiring a lower ideal, we should pray for a higher energy. "Lord," said Augustine, "give what thou com- mandest, and command what thou wilt." " Attempt great things for God, expect great things from God," said Carey. "Who is sufficient for these things ? " asked St. Paul, and presently answered, "Our sufficiency is of God."1
If It does not matter how intricately sin may have been woven into all the tissues of life and coloured word and deed and thought ; Christ by the Spirit can take it all away. He can " purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin." A lump of ore, when mixed with clay and mire, may be washed clean, as the soul by the washing of regeneration ; but fire acts upon it in a different way. It liberates the metal from the stoney or clayey surround- ings, and sets one free from the other. Often more than one mineral is contained in the same rock. Take, for example, a piece of Cornish arsenical mundic. Here is stone speckled all through with minute but thoroughly distributed portions of the poison known as arsenic. Here also in close neighbourhood is a vein of pure copper ore. Mixed with both is the quartz and earthy matter in which they are imbedded, which is the earliest deposit. We will call the stony portion the simple creature life ; the arsenic the evil nature, injected as a foreign substance by some external power ; and the copper representing the new life, also foreign to nature, and also external in its introduction into the heart. Here they are together in close association, though not in fellowship. Can nothing separate them ? Yes, fire can, and every particle of the arsenic can, by its power, be separated from its companions.
II.
Ouk Passover.
" Our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ."
It is very remarkable that this is the only place in St. Paul's writings where he articulately pronounces that the paschal lamb is a type of Jesus Christ. There is only one other instance in the New Testament where that is stated with equal clearness and emphasis, and that is in St. John's account of the Crucifixion,
1 J. Strachan, Hebrew Ideals, i. 97.
i CORINTHIANS v. 7, 8 183
where he recognizes the fact that Christ died with limbs unbroken, as being a fulfilment, in the New Testament sense of that word, of what was enjoined in regard to the antitype, " a bone of him shall not be broken."