The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 330

communion; idolatrous feasts a communion w'ith demons; law, expediency, conscience. "Wherefore,'' says St. Paul, as a deduction from the foregoing argument," my dearly 'beloved," his heart kindled anew towards his brethren, "flee from idolatry." This ~read of idolatry is the key to what follows. Idolatry, in those days, was a sin that included all sins, and Corinth was behind no city in the charm and splendour it threw around this iniquity. Bodily indulgences of the worst sort were notorious. Throughout Greece, Corinth was the common synonym of the most shameful vices, and that too, not in despite of idolatry, but ns a constituent of religious worship, especially of Venus. Art among the Greeks had done its utmost to destroy the uglier features of the ohi heathenism, had called beauty and culture into the service of the priests and the ceremonial of the temples, and had succeeded in making the resthetic a reproach to pure taste and a mocking insult to every moral virtue. Corinth was a leading centre of all the corrupting and lascivious influence of idolatry, and hence St. Paul's tender and fervent entreaty, "My dearly beloved, flee from idolatry." The connection with his foregoin~ argument is clear. If the athlete must subject himself to a severe and protracted discipline; if God's elect race so largely perished in the wilderness by reason of transgression; if any and every temptation ruay be successfully resisted, so that neither the throng of evil-doers nor the show and fascination of a pompous idol-worship can be an excuse for sin ;-with what force could he urge, "Flee from idolatry"! St_ Paul knew the strength of his appeal. And he credited these Corinthians with insight sufficient to see this strength, for he bade them hear him "as wise men," and "judge" what he said. Is he satisfied to leave the argument at this stage? Observation of current facts, historical examples preserved from oblivion for their warning, God's faithfulness, have been brought to bear on the question; and yet, so far from being content to dismiss the subject, he resumes it with new vigour of thought and a deepened intensity of emotion. The language changes. Few or no metaphoric wordd occur. 'l'hroughout the paragraph, it is the vocabulary of pure feeling and impassioned earnestness that he employs, for the imaginatiou has retired from its task and left the heart to consummate the work. Ho begins with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, binding the argument to the point whence he ha,l digressed at the openin~ of the ninth chapter. " This liberty of yours," he bad ~aid, "might provo ruinous to weak brethren 'for whom Christ died,'" 1md therefore such an abuse of freedom was a sin "against the brethren" and a "sin against Christ." \Vhat is the special connection of the Lord's Supper with the completion of the argument? Obviously the position it occupies in the logic of the case is one of eminence, St. Paul having reserved it for his conclusion. It would seem that ho had before his mind Oil<l particular and engrossing idea in relation to the Supper, which, although perfectly consistent with other ideas of the sacrament, and, indeed, essential to their import, was detached at the moment and set forth with very distinct and comnrnndin~ prominence. It is the idea of the communion. "Cup of blessing,"" bread which we break,'' the th11nksgiving, the faith nnd love exercised, the recollected obligntions, the spiritual conception of" the blood" and "the bod_y of Christ" as means of an inwanl holiness; are not these a communication, a participation, an entering into Christ', death, e. true and real fellowship with him e.s "the Lnmb of God that taketh away the sin of the world"? If so, it means separation from all evil compliances and from all dangerous associations. "Separate from sinners" was a distinguishing fact in Christ's life;" not only" holy, harmless, undefiled," but, by his separation from men, exhibiting in the fullest and most effective way tho three characteristics mentioucd. Near, very near, to all about him, and yet the nearer ho was the further removed ho stood in the dignity of his person and the exclusiveness of his office, so that the mysterious awe which invested him was profoundly felt by his friends even while· ignorant of his nature and mediatorship as Son of God and Son of man, and on variou~ occasions acknowledged by his enemies. And this separateness appeared even m?rc conspicuously in his vicarious e.nd propitiatory death. His life was n new revelnt10n of life; his death was a new revelation of death. " Separate" was that death from all deaths actual and possible. He spoke of it as be never spake of aught else _in volviug himself. He had feelings concerning it that he never indicated as touchmg other personal interests. For its loneliness and secret agony, for its public dishonour and humiliation, for its apparent triumph of his foes and its seeming discomfiture of 334 THE FIUST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. [cu. x. 1-33.