The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 503

for his own sake nnd for the sake of others. The change was a momentous affair in the history of the Jewish Church no less than the Christian Church, and, accordino-ly he speaks of liimsclf as hnving "received" the grace of God in an exceptional rnan~er: But were humnn means disowned? Was naturalness set at nought or even depreciated~ Not so; what he "received" was altogether in unison with the true creed of Israel as- contained in the records of her national faith. "According to the Scriptures," argues- he, was the truth of Christ's cleath ,vhich I "received.'' Above the effulgence that flashed from the Syrian noon upon his eye, there was another light, and it spread all over Pentateuch, Psalms, prophecies. What, indeed, Gamaliel stood for, but was not~ what Sadducee and Pharisee ideally meant, but utterly failed to make real; what priest and scribe had been designed to represent, but bad hidden under cnrnal observances;. what temple and sacrifices had been set apart to commemorate and prefigure, but had obliterated in sign and symbol ;-all these were now illumined. "According to the Scriptures," which he had learned wben a boy in Tarsus, and had come to Jerusalem that he might enlarge and perfect his knowledge of these holy writings; "according to the Scriptures," which St. Stephen had expounded before the Sanhedrim when the shadow of death retreated before the glory descending upon the youthful saint from the "Son of man standing on the right hand of God;" "according to the Scriptures" that Ananias had explained to him at Damascus, when " there fell from his eyes as it had been scales," and, in no long time, the inner eyesight was made clear and strong. Thu& it was that providence in the past became providence in the present, the Holy Ghost alike in each, and Tarsus, Jerusalem, and Damascus brought, though seemingly so wide apart, into the unity of his soul's development. Verily, a wondrous scheme of personal history, recognizing home and parents, life in "no mean city," life in the metropolis that was venerated as the glory of -the elect nation, life in the leadership of an assault on the young Church, and for ever memorable in her annals because of the crown of martyrdom then first won ; a marvellous interweavfog of the natural and supernatural as warp and woof in one and the same fabric. Back to the original promise spoken in Eden that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head; back to the early institution of sacrifice, and thence on to the organization of the Divine idea in a most solemn and august ceremonial that allowed no day to escape its impressive symboliza- tion; all through penitential psalms and instructive prophecies. The great doctrine was present everywhere that "without shedding of blood there is no remission," that "he bath borne our µ:riefs and carried our sorrows," and that " the Lord bath laid on him the iniquity of us all." No emaciating criticism here; no destructive intellect; no disposi- tion inclining St. Paul to obscure Christ in the shadow of the Jewish nation, and mini- mize his figure to the smallest dimensions consistent with any faith at all. No such taste and temper had this man, fresh from the schools and master of the theology of his times. Nor is it other than one of his very marked peculiarities, that he so frequently cites his thorough and familiar acquaintance with the Scriptures, and that from first to last in his Epistles, he is quite as much a commentator of the Old as an exponent of the New. The two grand hemispheres of religious thought formed one globe in him. From the one to the other, he passed with unobstructed step. Over the immense domain, divided and cut up to so many other minds, adverse or even hostilo sections to not a few honest souls; over all this stretch of diversified territory, there was to St. Paul the very per- fection of unity. His footsteps never missed their pathway; his eye never lost a land- mark. For him, Christ was in Eden, in Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Hosea; and the Old Testament was what it was and all it was because Christ was in every one of its doctrines and institutions. The present Christ to him-the Christ of Damascus, and Arabia, and Jerusalem, and Athens, and; Ephesus, and Corinth-was the Christ of th~ past, and he was this because he was the " Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Is it likely, then, that we shall find too much of Christ, and especially as it respects the legal bearings of bis death, in the Old Testament? Clearly St. Paul did not think so. "According to the Scriptures" was prefatory, and essentially so, to the logic sentiment, fervour, of the grand argument he was about to make. What was this :IT"u:Oent 0 to be? A defence-the defence-of the doctrine of the resurrection of the hu man body. Observe now that the historical fact. of the Lord's re1Jurrection was not in debate. No one of the Corinthians denied or even doubted that. ,vhat, then, was in controversy? This it was, viz.: Did the doctrine involved in the Lord's rising from  '512 'l'llE FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. [cu. xv. 1-58.