The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 65

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-5.-How St. Paul preached the gospel. A great truth is capable of manifold presentations. To be seen fully it must be viewed in various aspects, ,iach of which is relative to the wholeness of the idea, while supplying to the student 1m increased sensibility to its excellence. Sir Joshua Reynolds speaks of his disap- pointment when he first saw the painting of the Transfiguration, but it grew upon llim and educated his eye, the mind in the eye, to appreciate its sublimity. Hazlitt mentions a similar experience in his own case. Such impressions are not due to simple recipiency ; the active intellect is aroused, and the thinker himself becomes a voluntary party to the object affecting him. Evidently, now, St. Paul's idea of preaching, as given in the first chapter, returned upon him and solicited further con- -sideration. Accordingly, we find him in the second chapter detailing his personal 11istory as a preacher while at Corinth, and, as usual in his Epistles, the autobiographical ·element discloses its presence in his logic. Whenever there was an important issue in his ministry, we see the man in the fulness of his proportions and look into his Yery heart, so that we are at no loss to understand the reason of his impassioned -energy. In this instance he declares that he did not come to the Corinthians" with -excellency of speech or of wisdom," as the world regarded speech and wisdom. But l.e was with them "in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." It was not the "weakness" of cowardice, nor the "fear" that brings a snare, nor the "trembling" that comes from an apprehension of criticism and hostility. Agitation and solicitude were the product of bis fine sensibility, not rising from below, but descending from the highest realm of his being, the ideal of duty and responsibility so vast within him as ·to oppress the capacity of performance. A most blessed "weakness" this, the best possible assurance of truthful power, the most reliable token our latent nature offers -as a promise of success. The throb of the engine in a huge Atlantic steamship sends its own quiver into eYery plank and bolt of the vessel. 'l'here is a "trembling" in all its compartments, but it is the trembling of power. St. Paul had no ~ift more remarkable than the gift of feeling to the utmost the doctrines of the gospel. Christ in him, Christ as the ~elf of self, was the Christ he preached; and hence no discourse CII, II, 1-16.] ·nm FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. he ever delivcretl, no letter he ever wrote, affected others as much as they affected him. EITcctivo speakers and writers are never on a level with their hearers and readers. 'l'hey see more, feel more, than those whom they impress, and their personality is no small constituent in tho effect produced. Rightly enough, St. P>1ul specializes " my ~pecch and my preaching." 'l'he "mv" means a man "determined not to know anything . . . save ,Jesus Christ, and him crucified." Self-exaltation he had none; for self-exaltation is al ways a. parody on the truthfulness of one's nature, and Christ was ~o real to St. Paul that he could not be other than real to himself in his ministerial work. And, in accordance with this fact, his manner of preaching the gospel is itself evidential of the diuineness of the gospel. It was a "demonstration of the Spirit and of power." Of what avail that the "Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom"? Give them the "sign" and the "wisdom:" what then? The belief, or "faith," if you so call it, is the man's own product, standing in his own strength, the pride of his own intellect, the joy of his own vaniiy. Not so the doctrine of "Christ crucified." The way it comes to the soul proves its infinite truth. It does not approach a man on the sense side of his nature, but on the spiritual side. Unlike education and culture, which begin with the intellect of the senses and develop upward, Christianity arises from the instant of its initial contact with the human soul at the highest moral capacity, and recognizes this soul as it stands related to God its Father, to Christ its Redeemer, to the lioly Ghost its Convincer and Sanctifier. Man 11s the image of the natural universe is regarded subsequently. Therefore the emplrns1s of St. Paul on the "demonstration of the Spirit and of power," and therefore the strength and glory of faith, which stands, not "in the wisdom of men, but in the power ofGod."-L. Yers. 6-13.-Contents of the revelation. But the apostle claims "wisdom" for the gospel. The counterfeit has been exposed, and the genuine coin is now presented. And how does he proceed to verify his right to use a term that, in the estimation of all thinkers, commanded respect and admiration? He will honour the Word; he will restore its meaning and clear it of obscurity, nay, expand its significance and invest it with a charm not known before. Solomon had used his splendid intellect to give the word "wisdom" a wide currency among his people, and Socrates had ln.boured for the Greeks in a similar way, each of them an agent of Providence, to teach intellect its legitimate uses ahd rescue it from bondage to the senses. And there was that old world in which these men, under very different circumstances and sharing very unlike illumination, had taught their countrymen what they knew of wisdom, and this remnant of its former state-the mere effigy of earlier grandeur-stood confronting St. Paul at Corinth, with its conceits, prejudices, and animosities, arrayed most of all against him, because he resisted so bravely its earthly arts and methods. From a far loftier standpoint than Greeks and Jews acknowledged, an infinite distance, indeed, between the disputants of either side, he preached wisdom that came from God- a wisdom long hidden and hence called" a mystery," but now revealed in the fulness of the times. Yet, during the ages when this wisdom had been concealed, when eye and ear and the subtlest ima!!ination had been unable to probe the secret, when humau thought had exhausted itself in vain research, and had sunk nt last into unnatural content with its own imbecility,-through all this probation of intellect in the school of the senses, God had reserved "the hidden wisdom" for "our glory." The demon- stration of man's utter weakness had to be made, and Judrea and Greece had been chosen to make it. Rome's task was to gather up the results and exhibit them in n solidified form; nor could there have been such a Rome as that of the Ca~sars unless the experiment with the "wisdom of this world," aud of the "princes of this world," had proved a failure disastrous in the extreme. That time had passed. And now this "hidden wisdom" had been made known ns a spiritual certainty, which was nothing less than a "demonstration of the Spirit and of power." "There is a spirit in man," and it "knoweth the things of a man." \Vho can gainsay its consciousness? Who can appeal from its testimony to anything higher in himself? So too the Spirit of God "searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God," and, furthermore, the Holy Spirit is given to our spirit so that we "might know the things that are freely given to us of God." Just beforo St. Paul liad stated that the mystery, the hidden I, CORIN1'11IANS F  CG THE FIRST :£PISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. [cH. u. 1-Hi.