The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 312

Vers. 24-27.-Runningandfigliting. The crown of eternal life is here set forth as the issue of successful conflict with difficulties and foes. It would seem as if all Divine excellence must needs present itself to our minds as the negation of opposite forms of e"l'il. \Ve cannot think of God but as the "Licrht" that contends with our darkness, the "Fire" that consumes our corruption. God's Law is but the Divine restraint of our wayward propensities, the Divine rebuke of our traacrressions. The Divine life in the soul is an energy that reveals itself in ceaseless stru.;'crle with forces that would otherwise destroy it, a perpetual battle with the powers of d;ath. Heaven is victory, the rising up of the soul out of the region of trial and strife and sufferincr to its true destiny and inheritance in the glorious presence of God. Look at this pass';cre 0 as suggesting certain conditions of success in this spiritual conflict. l. CoKCE~TRATION OF THOUGHT ON THE PRIZE AS A MATTER OF INTENSE PERSONAL I:S-TEUEST. " .A.II run, but one receiveth," etc. The analogy here instituted is not complete, inasmuch as in the Christian race all who "run with patience" will attain. But it serves to enforce the need of great fixedness of thought and purpose, as if each runner felt that only one could win, and he would be that one. There is nothing Darrow, envious, selfish, in this. .A. great difference lies here between the heavenly and the earthly striving. He must be a man of very elevated spirit who is able to r.ise <!ntirely above the narrowing influence of secular rivalry. In urging his way to success along the crowded thoroughfares of the world, a man almost inevitably thrusts some -0ne else aside. The gigantic system of commercial competition means this. And it is an important problem of social life to determine how one may claim as he ought that personal inheritance in the world that God has placed within his reach, and yet not fall into the sin of a selfish violation of the rigb ts of others. There is no room, however, for anything of this kind in the spiritual race and warfare. Mutual emula- tion is mutual profit. The success of each one is to the advantage and the joy of all. Strive to \Yin the heavenly crown as if you alone could wear it, and the more intensely earnest you arc in your striving, the more does your example inspire your fellow- combatant, the more do you become a fount of healthful influence, a source of enrich- ment and blessing to all around you. II. SELF-llESTRAINT AND SELF-DISCIPLINE. 'l'he severe physical discipline to which the athletes subjected themselves was gladly borne for the sake of the "corruptible -crown" they sought to win. Not that the perishable wreath of wild olive encircling the vict.or's brow was in itsdf the thing he cared for. It was but the symbol of something else. 'l'o be conscious of the mastery, to have his name proclaimed by the herald before the assembl.ed multitude as one who had conferred honour and renown .aa his family, his tribe, his country,-that was his reward. So that the very ephemeral character of the crown made it the more striking witness to the nobility of man's nature, to the truth that he can never find his satisfactions in the region of sense; they belong, after all, to the super-sensible, the ideal world. Every form of ambition greater than the apparent object will account for or warrant, is proof of this. The enthusiasm that magnifies its objects beyond their real dimensions, and invests them with a fictitious charm, is always a significant memorial of man's relation to a higher and a better world. At the same time, this striving for the corruptible crown reminds us how ,·ain often are the rewards of earthly ambition, and how the price men pay often for their successes is a very costly one. They surrender that which is far more precious than the thin<T0 they gain. '!'hey "spend their money for that which is not bread, and their labour for that which satisfieth not." In "seeking. to save their life, they lose it." '!'he law of the heavenly race is the reverse of this. As the unsubstantial, the delusive, the perishable, is relinquished, the soul wins for itself the "inheritance incorruptible, and uncleliled, and that fa<lcth not away." You lose tlie lower life to gain the higher. "Temperate in all things." Let not the word "temperance" have to our minds a limited ~nd ~xc_lusive meaning, one ";~ich, howe~er important, does not cover the whole field of its Scnpture appl1cat10ns. l be Clmst1an ell. ix. l-2i.J 'l'HE J<'InST EPISTLE 'l'O THE CORIN'rHIAKS. 315