The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 89

His e:rnrnple in this has not been sufficiently considered, thon~h it bears so directly on his chnrncteristic submission, and on the virtue of his sacrifice as purely a voluntary act. Enemies of Christ endeavour to set this to his disadvantage, but a glurifyin" light shines upon it from the consideration that he knew the cross to be then ll.nd ther~ thci consummation of his earthly life as designed by the Father. Yet the apostle suggests that the cross might conceivably have been avoided, We can see threc possible ways in which this might have been. I. BY AN EXERCISE OF Goo's SOVEREIGNTY. It might have pleased God to save man- kind in another way. While we see the wonder and the grace of the way God did choose, wo are not justified in affirming that it was the only way Divine wisdom coulil have devised. Or, in God's sovereignty, he might have read the perfect willingness and obedience of Jesus, and spared him the actual shame and pain of the cross. If such exercise of Divine sovereignty was not made, we may be sure that concern/or us and for our full redemption made God send his "Lamb to the slaughter." 'l'hat which was abstractly possible was impossible to him who "so loved the world" as to make even so extreme a sacrifice that it might be saved and won. II. BY CHRIST'S WILFULNESS. He might have failed in obedience under this last and extreme test. He might have refused the cross, and put away from him his Father's cup. He was a free agent, and such wilfulness was possible. But the consequences would have been so serious as to be most painful for us to conceive. Man's salvatio11, though in part accomplished by our Lord's teaching and life, would at last have faile,l utterly. Christ could have won no saving power. He would have been no more than. a Moses, a Zoroaster, a Socrates, or the Buddha; he could not have been the one only and all-sufficient Sia-bearer and Saviour. Ill. BY THE RULERS' KNOWLEDGE OF WHO HE WAS A:).'1) WHAT HIS MISSION WAS. This is St. Paul's point here in the text. The rulers could only put Christ to death. while deceiving themselves 01· deceived as to his character and claims. They coukl not have put Messiah to death. The whole hope of their race centred in him. But for that very reason their feelings were the more intense against a man of despised. Nazareth, who claimed to be the Messiah, and, they thought, dishonoured the very idea of the Messiahship by his imposture. Had they known-had they seen his glory, they too would have bowed the knee to him, and crowned him with the many crowns. Had they known, they would have sought no false witnesses, nor started the cruel shout, "Crucify him! crucify him!" Often we go over in our thought what might have been, and wish things had been other than they were; and yet God so overrules for good that we may even rejoice in that they "crucified the Lord of glory." From our meditations two things come impressively to view. 1. Our Lord's death, was no accidental circumstance, but a Divine ordination ; and this is true though the outworking of the events show what may be called the usual, or common, orderinglt of Providence. 2. Our Lord's death was entirely a voluntary act. His will was set on. fully carrying out the Divine will, whatever of bearing, doing, or suffering that will might have in it. The virtue of the sacrifice lay partly in the sublime nature of the Victim; partly in the representative character he bad taken; but partly also in the free surrender of his will and life to God, and the unforced voluntariness of his obedi- ence, as tested by a painful and ignominious death. "By the which will we arc sanctified."-R. T. Ver. 9.-The surprising freshness of the new dispensation. The precise words, as quoted by the apostle, are not found in the Old Testament. They are probably Isa. !xiv. 4, given from memory and modified by the thought of phrases found in other parts of Isaiah. Only an unreasonable Eentiment concerning verbal inspiration would make difficulty about the inexactness of quotations given from memory. The sense of a passage may be precisely indicated when the words are set in a different order am1 form. This text has often been used as the basis of elaborate descriptions of heaven, but such treatment is only possible when ver. 9 is separated from ver. 10. The apostle is plainly dealing with some glory which !1as been revealed and is now realized. He conceived of the Divine dealings with men as having been arranged in "ages," or "dispensaLions." \Ve may thus distinguish the Adamic, Patriarchal, Mosaic, Davidic, Exilic, 11nd post-Exilic. In the passage before us St. Paul shows, not,  THE FIHST EPISTLE TO 'l'I:IE CORINTHIANS. [c11. n. 1-16.