Bible Commentaries
1 Corinthians 2

Verse 2

The Sum of saving Knowledge

For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.— 1 Corinthians 2:2.

There is another way of translating the text. Some have translated it thus: “For I did not determine to know anything among you.…” According to Godet, “the Apostle does not say ‘I determined (judged good) not to know …’ but ‘I did not judge good to know …’ He intentionally set aside the different elements of human knowledge by which he might have been tempted to prop up the preaching of salvation. He deemed that he ought not to go in quest of such means.”

I

The Apostle’s Determination

1. I determined. There is no doubt or hesitation in this statement. These are the words of one who had weighed the matter well, and knew whereof he spoke. Here is one who blows the trumpet of truth with no uncertain sound, who speaks with no tremor in his voice; who has a decided conviction of what he knows and believes, and who thinks, and speaks, and acts in accordance with that knowledge and belief. St. Paul has decided for himself what is true; and is determined to declare it and to stand by it.

St. Paul was no hired teacher—not an official expounder of a system. He preached what he believed. He felt that his words were Eternal Truth; and hence came their power. He preached ever as if God Almighty were at his side; hence arises the possibility of discarding elegance of diction and rules of oratory. For it is half-way towards making us believe, when a man believes himself. Faith produces faith. If you want to convince men, and ask how you shall do it, we reply, Believe with all your heart and soul, and some souls will be surely kindled by your flame. 1 [Note: F. W. Robertson.]

2. Not improbably this determination of St. Paul’s represents a temptation conquered, a soul-conflict won. To such a one as he, it would be a trial of spirit to contemplate service in such a city as Corinth. Corinth was a centre of fashion. Shall he essay to appeal to the fashionable crowd with “Christ crucified” as the central theme? Will he not repel them thus? May he not emphasize other aspects of Christ which will be attractive and not repellent? Thus the evil one would ply him. But the God of peace crushed Satan under his feet, and his splendid “I determined” rings out. Corinth was an æsthetic city. Its architecture is a proverb still, and its brasses are still famous. Corinth was an intellectual city. Its typical Greek love of philosophy all men know. It was an opulent commercial city too. Shall he not soften the truth and smooth his message? Will not taste, and culture, and materialism, and wealth resent the preaching of “Christ crucified”? It may be, but, “I determined,” cries this hero of the Cross. He will cry out and shout in the delicate ears of Corinth nothing but the crucified Lord.

3. What is the ground of this intense and all-absorbing faith? St. Paul believes that he has in his hand something that will explain man to himself, a man’s life to himself. He is so firmly convinced of this that, although his mind is large and capacious and he can view with a sympathetic admiration many of the magnificent manifestations of world-power, still, in his own estimate, the sacred message which he has to give to the world is worth all else besides. He is quite alive, as his letter shows, to the variety of powers, the nimbleness of intellect, the ambitious skill which the Corinthians possess; he knows that they are a people eager to express themselves in many ways, that they rejoice in the powers of rhetoric, in the gifts of tongue, in skilful elucidation of philosophical mysteries. But still he comes to these, and he says: “I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” He has made up his mind that this particular formula, “Jesus Christ, and him crucified,” expresses for the world a great, a central, an extensive truth. This is the knowledge for which St. Paul counts all else but loss—“to know Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” This is the simple gospel: its simplicity is its offence in the eyes of many. Nevertheless there are infinite depths in it. It is as when we look into the clear depths of some swift-flowing river. Its very clearness had deceived us. We thought it but a shallow stream, and are astonished at its undreamed-of depths. So with this message of St. Paul, we notice its simplicity first, its apparent narrowness, its exclusiveness; and then we see something of its depth, its boundlessness, its comprehensiveness.

Berry told some of his Bolton friends, at the time, how startled and disappointed he had been at finding himself powerless for a while to give help and comfort to a woman who was dying, amid tragic and squalid surroundings, in one of the lowest parts of the town. He had been called upon to minister to her, but as he unfolded the Christian message, as he was wont to preach it then—the doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood and the Eternal Love—as he told the story of the Prodigal and the Magdalene, her heart gave no response, and she looked up with eyes which seemed to him to ask if that was all he had to say to a lost and dying woman. Under a new afflatus, that came he knew not whence, he began with trembling voice to speak on evangelical simplicities, to tell of Christ’s death for a world’s sin, and to point her to the Cross for pardon. To his joy and wonder he found that in response to words as simple as those he heard at his mother’s knee, the sinful one found rest and peace. 1 [Note: J. S. Drummond, Charles A. Berry, 35.]

Who speaketh now of peace?

Who seeketh for release?

The Cross is strength, the solemn Cross is gain.

The Cross is Jesus’ breast,

Here giveth He the rest

That to His best belov’d doth still remain.

How sweet an ended strife!

How sweet a dawning life!

Here will I lie as one who draws his breath

With ease, and hearken what my Saviour saith

Concerning me; the solemn Cross is gain;

Who willeth now to choose?

Who strives to bind or loose?

Sweet life, sweet death, sweet triumph and sweet pain. 2 [Note: Dora Greenwell.]

II

The Concentration of his Message

Every act of self-determination involves a corresponding self-repression. Every selection includes at least one alternative. No man commits himself to a really practical resolution without first putting away and rejecting. Many pursuits invited St. Paul. They were attractive, pleasant, honourable, useful to the world. He had all the instincts of a student. He was a scholar with splendid capacity. He might have been, we feel persuaded, a greater than Philo, than Seneca—a greater than Plato himself. “To know Jesus Christ, and him crucified” is the end for which everything else is sacrificed. By “Jesus Christ,” the Apostle understands His manifestation in general—His life, death, and Messianic dignity. Yet, while confining himself to this elementary theme of preaching, he might still have found means to commend Jesus to the attention and admiration of the wise. But he determined “not to know anything, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” He will not know even Jesus Christ except in one aspect. That is the idea. One of our best exegetes thus renders the words: “And even Him as having been crucified.” It is the crucified Christ alone that he will know. Observe the far-reaching word “know.” Not merely does he refuse to speak on any other theme, but he will “know” none other. The crucified Saviour shall fill the whole horizon of his mind and heart. He will, so to say, severely limit his Christology to this phase: “Even Him as having been crucified.”

1. St. Paul disdained systems of philosophy or the teaching of morality merely. The Gospel has been presented as a philosophy. The development of the Church, the innumerable attacks of scepticism, the rise of problems within Christianity itself have rendered imperative the presentation of the Christian system as a well-ordered scheme of philosophical thought. Profound thinkers have arisen from time to time in the Christian Church who have demonstrated the reasonableness of Christianity as a philosophical system, and the work of these thinkers is of great value. But where one man is converted by reading books of apologetics or theology, a thousand are drawn and held captive by the pathos of Calvary—the moving, subduing story of the Cross. Men of all orders and degrees, of all climes and tongues, have owned the wondrous contagion of the Cross, and have yielded to its strange compulsion.

We are philosophers who have found the truth, chemists who have discovered (or rather been told of) the elixir of life; as we read again our Plato and Aristotle, and even the modern searchers after truth, we are the children

On whom those truths do rest

That they are toiling all their lives to find.

To be at the centre of all things; to have disclosed in our undeserving ears the secret of the ages; to know for certain how the world came into being; to have in the Cross the long sought after key to the suffering of the world; to be told what all this curious world is tending towards—that is our real position in the realm of thought. 1 [Note: A. F. Winnington Ingram, Messengers, Watchmen, and Stewards, 16.]

2. Theology cannot take the place of the Cross. Nothing has been more fatal in the history of Christianity than that marvellous intellectual curiosity which has been earnest to invent doctrine after doctrine, experience upon experience, till there appears a complete scheme of dogmatic ideas which is called systematic theology. But theological ideas, however systematic, lead only to barrenness and dryness if theologians ignore the fundamental principle which the Apostle has laid down—that the key is not to be found in a theology apart from a person, nor in a person apart from a theology. Whatever the Apostles teach, they always teach Christ. They never turn their teaching into dry intellectual formulae; they abhor the exaggerated rationalism—for it is nothing more—of the extreme dogmatist, just as they have no sympathy with the incoherent gush which satisfies indolent devotion.

A man may be a great theologian and at the same time a great sinner. If theology could save anybody the devil himself would have been converted long ago. He is one of the most expert theologians alive; he can quote Scripture for his purpose with marvellous propriety; but he is the devil yet for all that. On the other hand, there are many whose theological knowledge is hardly worth the name, but whose devout and godly lives are a pattern and an inspiration to all who see them. 1 [Note: H. W. Horwill.]

3. Science cannot take the place of the Cross. Some are constantly asserting the claim of science to supersede Christianity. Many well-meaning Christians are spending the time which might be devoted to evangelistic work in endeavouring to reconcile the book of Genesis with the latest scientific theory, or in attempting, from a very superficial knowledge of the subject, to reply to men who not only possess an enormously larger stock of facts on scientific matters, but who also—and this is far more important—have had the advantage of a scientific training. Let us leave to experts investigation into the condition of the early inhabitants of the world. The most serious question in the world is not, What think ye of Darwin? or even, What think ye of Moses? It is, What think ye of Christ?

O world invisible, we view thee,

O world intangible, we touch thee,

O world unknowable, we know thee,

Inapprehensible, we clutch thee.

Does the fish soar to find the ocean,

The eagle plunge to find the air—

That we ask of the stars in motion

If they have rumour of thee there!

Not where the wheeling systems darken,

And our benumbed conceiving soars!—

The drift of pinions, would we hearken,

Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places;—

Turn but a stone, and start a wing!

’Tis ye, ’tis your estrangèd faces,

That miss the many-splendoured thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)

Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss

Shall shine the traffic of Jacop’s ladder

Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,

Cry,—clinging Heaven by the hems,

And lo, Christ walking on the water

Not of Genesareth, but Thames! 1 [Note: Francis Thompson.]

4. St. Paul disdained human eloquence. It is certain that St. Paul was not unversed in the wisdom, or unskilled in the rhetoric, which was all the vogue in his day. The Apostle could have presented his message in a beautiful dress, and might have recommended himself to his hearers by polished periods; but he knew very well that the power of the Gospel did not consist in these things.

5. St. Paul was careful to efface self. He did not mar his message by any reference to himself. His eye was fixed on Christ. His desire was to exalt Christ. His zeal expended itself in proclaiming Christ the Saviour of sinners. There were no side glances at his own prospects, his own reputation, his own success. He was content to hide behind the person of Christ, so that He might be seen and loved, and honoured and exalted. Like John the Baptist, whose business it was to cry “Behold the Lamb,” and to point his hearers away from himself, saying, “He must increase, but I must decrease,” so it was St. Paul’s business to declare Christ crucified and to keep himself in the background.

In any work which is to live, or be really beautiful, there must be the spirit of the Cross. That which is to be a temple of God must never have the marble polluted with the name of the architect or builder. There can be no real success, except when a man has ceased to think of his own success. 2 [Note: F. W. Robertson.]

As Michael Angelo wore a lamp on his cap to prevent his own shadow from being thrown upon the picture which he was painting, so the Christian minister and servant needs to have the candle of the Spirit always burning in his heart, lest the reflection of self and self-glorying may fall upon his work to darken and defile it. 3 [Note: A. J. Gordon.]

III

The Comprehensiveness of his Message

When the Apostle tells us that he is determined to know nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified, he impresses upon our minds that this is “the hidden wisdom which God hath ordained before the world.” He means that to know Christ crucified is the maximum of knowledge, not the minimum. He means that in Jesus Christ and Him crucified all doctrines culminate, and from Jesus Christ and Him crucified all duties emanate and evolve. We live in a world which may well be illustrated as a labyrinth, and as we pursue our way, there are many deviating paths down which we may be tempted to wander. But for us who desire practical wisdom for the conduct of life, we do not want a map of the whole labyrinth; what we do want is a silver thread which may pass through our hands and guide us to the secret part of all things. That guiding thread St. Paul claims to give us in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

“You are going down to the assize, my lord?” “Yes.” “What do you think you will do with that remarkable series of frauds committed some time ago?” “I do not know.” “What do you think you will do with that case of forgery, the most elaborate and intricate piece of business I ever heard of in all our criminal jurisprudence—what do you think you will do with it?” “I do not know.” “Why, are you going down to the city in a loose mind?” “No.” “What have you resolved to do?” “One thing. I have determined nothing except one thing.” “What is that, my lord?” “That the law shall be administered and justice shall be done.” That is what St. Paul said. 1 [Note: J. Parker.]

Mr. Guyse did not condemn, but both approved and practised, the preaching of Christian morals, while he denied that such preaching is all that is meant by the phrase and commission, “to preach Christ.” His statements on this department were the following:—

Preaching Christ (in a latitude of the expression) takes in the whole compass of Christian religion considered in its reference to Christ. It extends to all its noble improvements of natural light and principles, and to all its glorious peculiarities of the supernatural and incomprehensible kind, as each of these may, one way or other, be referred to Him. In this sense there is no doctrine, institution, precept, or promise—no grace, privilege, or duty toward God and man—no instance of faith, love, repentance, worship, or obedience, suited to the Gospel state and to the design and obligations of the Christian religion—that don’t belong to preaching Christ. But to bring all these with any propriety under this denomination, they must be considered, according to their respective natures or kinds, in their reference to Christ, that He may be interwoven with them and appear to be concerned in them. They must be preached, not with the air of a heathen moralist or Platonic philosopher, but with the spirit of a minister of Christ, referring them up to Him, as revealed, or enjoined, or purchased by Him—as shining in their brightest lustres and triumphing in all their glories through Him—as built upon Him and animated by Him—as lodged in His hands who is head over all things to the church—as standing in the connections, uses, and designs in which He hath placed them—as known, enjoyed, or practised by light and grace derived from Him—as to be accounted for to Him—as acceptable to God, and advantageous to our salvation, alone through Him, by faith in Him—as enforced upon us by motives and obligations taken from Him—and as tending to His glory and the glory of God in Him. 1 [Note: John Guyse.]

A company of young men were once met at supper in the old days of Athens, and Socrates, the great teacher of morality, was present. The conversation turned on their guest. “Socrates,” said Alcibiades, “is like the figure of the Wood-god which you see in the workshops of sculptors: if you open it, you shall find it filled with images of all the gods.” That was the highest praise which in those days of heathen worship it was possible to give to a human being. It was as much as to say that all the forms of Divine life imagined and worshipped at that time were to be found in the one life of Socrates. And, far off, it may be taken as an outshadowing of the reality presented to us in this word of St. Paul concerning Christ. 2 [Note: A. Macleod.]

In Tennyson’s “Palace of Art” we have the story of how a soul tried to satisfy herself with an environment completely beautiful. Art and Literature were drawn upon lavishly to make her a meet dwelling-place. But into this paradise of all beauty despair crept, and made havoc. Fear fell like a blight, and the question of questions came to be

What is it that will take away my sin,

And save me lest I die?

At last, come to her true self, and awake to her need of God,

“Make me a cottage in a vale,” she said,

“Where I may mourn and pray”.

Yet Tennyson had too wide a vision of the truth to make an end there. He honours the “first needs” in his poem, but he is careful to leave room for all that enriches life. And so he makes his penitent soul ask as a last request,

Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are

So lightly, beautifully built:

Perchance I may return with others there

When I have purged my guilt. 1 [Note: Arch. Alexander.]

i. To know Jesus Christ

It is perfectly possible to know the things that are said about Christ, and not to know Him about whom these things are said. Theological cobwebs have been wrapped round the gracious figure of Christ with disastrous results. He must be known—by personal, persistent, private communion; by long, intense contemplation—known as He was known to Loyola, on whose upturned face and uplifted hands the very stigmata of the Cross started out.

1. To know Jesus Christ is to know man in ideal development. In Him we behold our human nature fully inspired and possessed by God. He is at once a revelation of God and a manifestation of human perfection. As much of God as could be held in a human mind and heart, and shown in human virtues, was found in Christ Jesus. He is the Son of Man, the only perfect specimen of humanity that has lived upon the earth, the ideal of what we ought to be, and the type of the new creation.

The Cross had become the unchanging centre of my thoughts, but these, as they revolved around it, had gradually, yet surely, formed for themselves an orbit widely diverging from the circle in which Christian consciousness is wont to move. The Cross, as I looked at it more and more intently, became to me the revelation of a loving and a suffering God. I learnt to look upon the sacrifice of the death of Christ, not only as being the all-sufficient satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, but also as the everlasting witness to God’s sympathy with man. The mystery of the Cross did not, it is true, explain any one of the enigmas connected with our mortal existence and destiny, but it linked itself in my spirit with them all. It was itself an enigma flung down by God alongside the sorrowful problem of human life, the confession of Omnipotence itself to some stern reality of misery and wrong. 2 [Note: Dora Greenwell.]

2. To know Christ is to know God. Christ, reveals God to us. The life of Christ shows us the holiness of God; the patience of Christ shows us the longsuffering of God; the compassion of Christ shows us the mercy of God; the tenderness of Christ shows us the gentleness of God; the sympathy of Christ opens to us the very heart of God: while the death of Christ reveals to us the justice of God.

Here hast thou found me, oh mine enemy!

And yet rejoice not thou, by strength shall none prevail.

By noon thine arrows fly,

None faileth of its mark; thou dost not tire;

And yet rejoice not thou! Each shaft of fire

That finds me here becomes a living nail.

What strength of thine, what skill can now avail

To tear me from the Cross? My soul and heart

Are fastened here! I feel the cloven dart

Pierce keenly through. What hands have power to wring

Me hence? What voice can now so sweetly sing

To lure my spirit from its rest? Oh now

Rejoice my soul, for thou

Hast trodden down thy foeman’s strength through pain. 1 [Note: Dora Greenwell.]

ii. To know Jesus Christ crucified

Education, Plato tells us, is the turning away of the soul from the images, shadows, simulacra of things, to the facts and verities of real existence. Education is not increase of knowledge, nor is it the quickening and strengthening of one faculty, such as the intellect. Education is the awakening and unfolding of the whole nature, due regard being had to those capacities which belong to the higher range. Nothing contributes more to man’s education than the discovery of a great fact, the recognition and contemplation of a great thought. It uplifts, expands, and augments the entire being. Now “Christ crucified” is the greatest, the most transcendent fact in the whole universe. It is the master-thought of the Eternal. To know Christ crucified is to know the meaning of life. The death of Christ is the solving power of the mystery of the universe. It is also to know how to live and how to die. The Cross is the moral lever for the world. It lifts men above the power of sin.

In a letter to a friend, Elmslie describes his experience among the children in an Edinburgh east-end Sabbath School: “When I was ending I spoke of how Jesus deserved to be loved, and that they should ask to be made to love Him. One little girlie whispered, ‘I will ask Him, for, oh, I do want to love Him!’ and when I said it was time to go away they cried, ‘Oh, dinna send’s away yet, tell’s mair about Jesus’; and then they came round me, and made me promise to tell them ‘bonnie stories about Jesus’ next Sabbath. I have found that nothing interests them more than what is directly about Jesus. I could not help telling you all these little things, but I never had the same sort of feeling in teaching a class before, and I would like you to remember sometimes my poor little children down in the Canongate. I wish I could take them all into a better atmosphere, for it is sad to think of their chances of ever becoming good in such an evil, wretched place. Harper and I have been having many nice talks. I mean to preach often in the summer—I want to.” 1 [Note: W. Robertson Nicoll, W. G. Elmslie, 41.]

1. To know Christ crucified is to know the meaning of life.

(1) In the Cross of Christ we come to understand the mystery of human suffering. Sorrow and pain pass no man by; and no reasoning can argue them out of existence, or reduce our fight with disease and suffering to a phantom battle. Living in a world where the blows of misfortune are constantly falling; where the ravages of suffering are nowhere long absent; where every joy is every moment exposed to blight; where development yields new pain; where increasing knowledge, increasing refinement, increasing goodness and sympathy mean increasing sorrow, and men and women suffer, not for being worse, but for being better than their fellows, it is no wonder that the Cross appeals to human hearts everywhere as a symbol of human life, and holds us under the spell of a solemn fascination. Rejoice as we may,—and we ought to rejoice—in all that brightens and sweetens life, yet the fellowship of suffering is wider and deeper than the fellowship of happiness. A German poet has said that the image of humanity, broken in all its limbs, transfixed in hands and feet and sorrowful unto death, has become distasteful to men; but that can be true of men only in their light, careless, self-indulgent hours. In all our deeper experiences our feet tread the path that leads to Calvary, and we seek the Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief. Christ has not diminished the suffering of the world, but He has given it a new and nobler meaning, made it appear to be no longer God’s wrath and curse, but God’s love and blessing.

The Cross is the supreme instance of the law that no moral or spiritual victory is won, no glorious thing can be done, without suffering, and here suffering was borne to its farthest verge in death. 1 [Note: P. A. Ellis.]

(2) In the Cross of Christ we learn the meaning and power of self-sacrifice. The Cross, as the revelation and symbol of redemption through sacrifice, needs to be brought back to our common life. So far as the principle is concerned, it is right to apply, and we do instinctively apply, all the New Testament phraseology of redemption to parents sacrificing themselves for the good of their children, to patriots suffering and dying for the sacred causes of justice and freedom, to the vast army of labourers who procure for us our necessities and luxuries at the cost of their nobler growth and comfort. Without shedding of blood—blood of body, blood of brain, blood of heart—there has been no remission of sins, no redemption from evil conditions, no progress from a lower to a higher state of society. Figuratively, if not literally, men have been crucified, their hands torn, their hearts pierced through with many sorrows, in the interest of every onward step and movement of mankind. The work which really helps the world—work of statesman and philanthropist, work of poet and painter and doctor, work of teacher and preacher—is work into which men put their life, their heart’s blood. It is this power to give without counting the cost to one’s self, this power of suffering and sacrifice, that is the secret of all redeeming work.

There are elements of suffering for sin which are not only possible to the guiltless, but which only they are capable of. Not only can a good man suffer for another’s sin, but it is just in proportion to his goodness that he will suffer. The sin of a dearly loved child will give pain to a saintly mother far more keen than the child himself will feel. The child’s sin blunts his sensitiveness to holiness and to the evil of sin. The mother’s holiness and love will be the measure of her suffering. No suffering for sin can be so deep as that which is endured for the bad by the good who love them and do not partake of their guilt. 1 [Note: P. A. Ellis.]

(3) In the Cross of Christ we realize the meaning of sin. Before that, the world treated sin lightly; after that it could not. The world will always treat sin lightly until it understands the meaning of God condemning sin in the flesh where Christ died. Belief in Christ means, and must mean, a sense of the guilt of sin, a hatred of sin, a personal sense of sin and penitence for it. Apart from this there could be no coming to the Saviour, or trust in Him, since there would be no felt necessity for salvation.

The true cross of the Redeemer was the sin and sorrow of this world—that was what lay heavy on His heart—and that is the cross we shall share with Him, that is the cup we must drink of with Him, if we would have any part in that Divine Love which is one with His sorrow. 2 [Note: Dinah Morris in Adam Bede.]

(4) In the Cross we come to know the victory of failure. The Cross is the revelation and symbol of victory, but of victory in failure and because of failure. There never was such an apparent failure as the Crucifixion. But the Cross was not the end but the beginning—the beginning of victory—an endless victory to the cause of goodness in the world. There are successes that are sadder than any failures, and failures that are more glorious than any successes. And the history of all that is best on this earth is one continuous illustration of this law of the Cross. The lives of not a few of the great religious leaders of the last century seemed more or less a failure—Robertson’s, Maurice’s, Colenso’s; but they are having now a second and a better life—the victory which comes of the apparent defeat, and because of it.

He passed in the light of the sun,

In the path that the many tread,

And his work, like theirs, was done

For the sake of his daily bread;

But he carried a sword, and, one by one,

Out there in the common light of the sun,

The sins of his life fell dead.

His feet never found the way

That leads to the porch of fame,

But he strove to live each day

With a conscience void of blame;

And he carried a cross whose shadow lay

Over every step of his lowly way,

And he treasured its splendid shame.

So life was a long, hard fight—

For the wrong was ever there,

And the cross ne’er out of sight,

The cross of a grey world’s care;

But right through the day to the failing light

He carried the cross and fought the fight,

Great-hearted to do and bear.

Night fell—and the sword was sheathed,

And the cross of life laid down,

And into his ear was breathed

A whisper of fair renown;

And the nameless victor was glory-wreathed,

For the Voice that said, “Let thy sword be sheathed,”

Said also, “And take thy crown.” 1 [Note: Percy C. Ainsworth Poems and Sonnets, 17.]

(5) To know Christ crucified is to know God as a loving Father. In St. Paul’s day this was an idea so new and so wonderful and so wonderfully helpful that it excluded in the Apostle’s mind all other knowledge. God was no longer a wrathful potentate, He was no longer the patron of the Jewish nation only, He was the Father of all men, who willed not that any should perish. In the knowledge of Jesus Christ there had burst upon the Apostle’s mind the all-transforming thought that God was not law, but love. The death of Christ—this is the great truth of truths in the gospel, the great wonder of wonders, the finishing and perfect proof of that love of God to us, beyond which we can conceive nothing higher. All in the gospel rests upon it; without it the gospel could not be understood. From the Cross of Christ streams all the light which makes the gospel the message of peace and comfort to sinful and dying men.

In one of the ancient churches of Central Italy there is a unique representation of the Crucifixion. Behind the Christ on the Cross we catch a dim vision of the Eternal Father; the hands of the Father behind the hands of the Son, and the nails which pierce the Son piercing the Father also. We shrink from it at first as coarse and rude, but as we think about it we feel that it is the old painter saying, in the only language which he could command, what has been so long and strangely forgotten, if not in form yet in reality, that God is in Christ, that the Father is in the Son, that His love had not to be won by sacrifice, that it is His love which is embodied in the sacrifice, that the Cross and Passion are the revelation in time and space, in visible and historical form, of the grief and pain of a God who suffers for. and with His creation and His children. 1 [Note: J. Hunter.]

2. To know Christ crucified is to know how to live and how to die.

(1) St. Paul wanted to find a power that should be adequate to cope with men’s dispositions and reach down to the very centre of feeling, and that should take hold of men’s wills. And he found that power in Christ. They who long after better things find their ideal in Him; He lives on by the cords of love, He bids them live righteously and holily in this present world; and with the command comes the power. There is power in Christ to transform the nature and to renew the life; and because the Apostle knew this, he made Him the theme of his preaching, and uplifted Him before the longing eyes of Jew and Gentile.

Does God have no heroes but those who lead on a great battlefield? Has He no saints but those in pictures, with a halo about their head? Heroism in the common life, that is what the world needs; men and women who in common places will do everyday duties without noise or glitter, just because the heart and conscience say, “This is the way, walk ye in it.”

(2) There is one study, the deepest, hardest of all; which is equally and supremely necessary for every one to make some progress in before the application of it comes. It is the study of how to die. We cannot think how ever it will be possible for us to go through that. One thing we hope. We hope that we may not die reluctant, as if under doom, but with life’s onward action and life’s hopefulness still present in us; looking tenderly back, but looking calmly, earnestly, before us. If that is our hope, on what can it rest? It is assured to us as soon as Christ crucified is assured to us. The saints of all time, in proportion to the measure of their faith and of their self-sacrifice, have found death robbed of its terrors.

Pausing a moment ere the day was done,

While yet the earth was scintillant with light,

I backward glanced. From valley, plain, and height,

At intervals, where my life-path had run,

Rose cross on cross; and nailed upon each one

Was my dead self. And yet that gruesome sight

Lent sudden splendour to the falling night,

Showing the conquests that my soul had won.

Up to the rising stars I looked and cried,

“There is no death! for year on year, re-born

I wake to larger life: to joy more great,

So many times have I been crucified,

So often seen the resurrection morn,

I go triumphant, though new Calvaries wait.” 1 [Note: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Poems of Experience, 31.]

The Sum of Saving Knowledge

Literature

Alexander (S. A.), The Christianity of St. Paul, 13.

Benson (E. W.), Living Theology, 191.

Bigg (C.), The Spirit of Christ in Common Life, 267.

Brooks (P.), Seeking Life, 259.

Clayton (C.), Stanhope Sermons, 366.

Cooper (T. J.), Love’s Unveiling, 93.

Davidson (A. D.), Lectures and Sermons, 1.

Ellis (P. H.), Old Beliefs and Modern Believers, 69.

Goulburn (E. M.), Occasional Sermons, ii. 235.

Horton (R. F.), The Triumph of the Cross, 31.

Horwill (H. W.), The Old Gospel in the New Era, 1.

Hunter (J.), De Profundis Clamavi, 74.

Little (W. J. Knox), The Hopes of the Passion, 106.

Lucas (A.), At the Parting of the Ways, 1.

Mabie (H. C.), The Meaning and Message of the Cross, 47.

MacArthur (R. S.), The Calvary Pulpit, 1.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions: 1 and 2 Corinthians, 19; A Rosary of Christian Graces, 273.

Melvill (H.), Lothbury Lectures, 224.

Moore (A. L.), The Message of the Gospel, 16.

Neale (J. M.), Sermons in Sackville College Chapel, ii. 187.

Park (E. A.), Discourses, 45.

Parker (J.), Studies in Texts, i. 76.

Potts (A. W.), School Sermons, 201.

Shelford (L. E.), By Way of Remembrance, 13.

Vaughan (D. J.), The Days of the Son of Man, 337.

Wardell (R. J.), Studies in Homiletics, 32.

Wheeler (W. C.), Sermons and Addresses, 44.

Young (D. T.), The Crimson Book, 71.

Christian World Pulpit, ii. 385 (Saphir); xvii. 289 (Brown); xxv. 219 (Shalders); xxvii. 38 (Rogers); xxxviii. 420 (Whittaker); lii. 264 (Campbell); liii. 67 (Parker); lvii. 67 (Rogers); lxi. 193 (Boyd Carpenter); lxiv. 182 (Smith); lxx. 58 (Lee).

Church of England Pulpit, liii. 230 (Boyd Carpenter).

Church Family Newspaper, Aug. 26, 1910, p. 676 (Tetley).

Verse 9

Things Prepared for Love

But as it is written,

Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not,

And which entered not into the heart of man,

Whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9 .

Nowhere in the Old Testament are these words literally found. But the source of the quotation is undoubtedly the passage, Isaiah 64:4 combined with Isaiah 65:17: “Men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen a God beside thee, which worketh for him that waiteth for him …”; and, “The former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” Similar combinations of several prophetic quotations are not rare in St. Paul’s writings.

The context of the verse is the assertion of the Apostle that there is about the Gospel a hidden wisdom, an inner truth; and that this truth was invisible to the minds of those who rejected and crucified the Saviour; for, had they seen it, they would not have crucified Him. And then comes in the text, to prove that such blindness of the soul was recognized long before in the Old Testament Scriptures as a mystery and a fact. The blindness of those who slew the Lord did but answer to what “was written”—that solemn formula of final appeal with the Apostles and their Master. Isaiah had spoken of the acts of God in redeeming mercy as things beyond the reach of à priori discovery by human senses, and reason, and imagination. Man could receive them when revealed; there was that in man which could respond to them when revealed; but for that revelation there was needed the action of the Divine Spirit on the spirit of man. No record of facts, no witness of phenomena, without the special action of the Holy Spirit, could bring them home to the heart. But to Christian believers, to St. Paul and his disciples, they were brought home. And it was so, not because their eyes or ears were keener than those of the Lord’s executioners, or because their hearts were more imaginative or more sympathetic, but because the Holy Ghost had unveiled to them this wisdom, this esoteric wisdom and glory of the ways of God.

The Apostle’s quotation of the Prophet plainly refers to the whole gift of salvation, not only to the bright eternal future of the saved. The words cannot indeed exclude the thought of the glories of heaven, which assuredly senses have not seen, nor imagination conceived, but which God has prepared for them that love Him. But neither can they exclude the wonders of grace on earth; which equally are things of eternal plan and preparation.

I

The Things of God are not Revealed to the Natural Man

“Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man.”

1. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.” The preaching of the Apostle Paul was rejected by numbers in the cultivated town of Corinth. It was not wise enough or eloquent enough, nor was it sustained by miracles. The man of taste found it barbarous; the Jew missed the signs and wonders which he looked for in a new dispensation; and the rhetorician missed the convincing arguments of the Schools. To all this the Apostle was content to reply that his judges were incompetent to try the question. The princes of this world might judge in a matter of politics; the leaders in the world of literature were qualified to pronounce on a point of taste; the counsellors of this world to weigh an amount of evidence. But in matters spiritual they were as unfit to judge as a man without ear is to decide respecting harmony; or a man, judging alone by sensation, is fit to supersede the higher truth of science by an appeal to his own estimate of appearances. The world, to sense, seems stationary. To the eye of reason it moves with lightning speed, and the cultivation of reason alone can qualify for an opinion on the matter. The judgment of the senses is worth nothing in such matters. For every kind of truth a special capacity or preparation is indispensable.

2. By the natural man is meant the ordinary faculties of man; and it is said of these that they cannot discover spiritual truth. By combining the three terms seeing, hearing, and entering into the heart, the Apostle wishes to designate the three names of natural knowledge: sight, or immediate experience; hearing, or knowledge by way of tradition; finally, the inspirations of the heart, the discoveries of the understanding proper. By none of these means can man reach the conception of the blessings which God has destined for him.

i. The Eye

“Eye saw not.”

1. Eternal truth is not perceived through the eye; it is not demonstrable to the senses.

(1) God’s works in nature give us wonderful pleasure. Let us not depreciate what God has given. There is a rapture in gazing on this wonderful world. There is a joy in contemplating the manifold forms in which the All Beautiful has concealed His essence—the Living Garment in which the Invisible has robed His mysterious loveliness. In every aspect of Nature there is joy; whether it be the purity of virgin morning, or the sombre grey of a day of clouds, or the solemn pomp and majesty of night; whether it be the chaste lines of the crystal, or the waving outline of distant hills, tremulously visible through dim vapours; the minute petals of the fringed daisy, or the overhanging form of mysterious forests. It is a pure delight to see. But all this is bounded. The eye can reach only the finite Beautiful. And the fairest beauty is perishable.

(2) Art has many devotees. The highest pleasure of sensation comes through the eye. He whose eye is so refined by discipline that he can repose with pleasure upon the serene outline of beautiful form has reached the purest of the sensational raptures. The Corinthians could appreciate this. Theirs was the land of beauty. They read the Apostle’s letter, surrounded by the purest conceptions of Art. In the orders of architecture, the most richly graceful of all columnar forms receives its name from Corinth. And yet it was to these men, living in the very midst of the chastely beautiful, upon whom the Apostle emphatically urged—“Eye hath not seen the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”

(3) Science cannot give a revelation. Science proceeds upon observation. It submits everything to the experience of the senses. Its law, expounded by its great lawgiver, is that if we would ascertain its truth we must see, feel, taste. Experiment is the test of truth. Men have supposed they discovered the law of Duty written on the anatomical phenomena of disease. They have exhibited the brain inflamed by intoxication, and the structure obliterated by excess. They have shown in the disordered frame the inevitable penalty of transgression. But if a man, startled by all this, gives up his sin, has he from this selfish prudence learned the law of Duty? The penalties of wrong-doing, doubtless; but not the sanction of Right and Wrong written on the conscience, of which penalties are only the enforcements. He has indisputable evidence that it is expedient not to commit excesses: but you cannot manufacture a conscience out of expediency: the voice of conscience says not, “It is better not to do so,” but “Thou shalt not.”

2. “Eye saw not.” When He came into this world, who was the Truth and the Life, in the body which God had prepared for Him, He came not in the glory of form: He was a root out of a dry ground: He had no form nor comeliness; when they saw Him, there was no beauty that they should desire Him. The eye did not behold, oven in Christ, the things which God had prepared. This is an eternal truth. There is a kingdom which is appreciable by the senses, and another whose facts and truths are seen and heard only by the spirit.

It was rumoured that underneath a certain piece of ground there was iron to be found, and two men were appointed to go and inspect the land and see whether there was really iron there. One man, a scientist and mineralogist, was very conscious of his own limitations; and, knowing his own weakness, he took with him some scientific instruments. The other man, who was buoyant and self-confident, said, “I believe what I can see, and what I can’t see I won’t believe”; and so he walked over the field, and got over it in no time. He said, “Iron? nonsense! I see no iron; there is no iron here.” This man went to the syndicate and said, “There is no iron there: I walked all over the field and I could not see a trace of it.” The other man did not trust to his eye at all. He carried in his hand a little crystal box, and in that little crystal box there was a needle, and he kept watching that needle. He paused, for the needle in that crystal box had pointed down like the very finger of God, and he said, “There is iron there.” He passed on, until again that needle pointed down, and he said, “There is iron there,” and when he handed in his report he said, “From one end of the field to the other there is iron.” “Oh!” said one of the adherents of the first man, “how do you know, when you did not see it?” “Because,” he said, “that which cannot be seen with the eye can be magnetically discerned.” 1 [Note: A. G. Brown.]

ii. The Ear

“Ear heard not.”

Eternal truth is not reached by the sense of hearing; nor does traditional knowledge reveal it.

1. The many beautiful and varied sounds of nature speak to us of God, if God’s existence be already thrilling our hearts, but of themselves they do not reveal the things of God. How many sounds there are that gladden us! Think of the cooling sound of a rippling stream, or a waterfall, or a playing fountain on a hot summer evening. Think of the many pleasing notes and songs of birds. Think of the human voice. There is no sound that we would miss more than that. Then think of music, with all its varied modes of appealing to our feelings. Think of the music of the great masters, how it attracts and fascinates and subdues us, how it inspires and strengthens us, how it makes us glad! But “things which ear heard not,” and which ear can never hear, are prepared by God for those that love Him.

2. No revelation can be adequately given by man to man, whether in writing or orally, even if he be put in possession of the Truth itself. For all such revelation must be made through words: and words are but counters—the coins of intellectual exchange. There is as little resemblance between the silver coin and the bread it purchases as between the word and the thing it stands for. Looking at the coin, the form of the loaf does not suggest itself. Listening to the word, you do not perceive the idea for which it stands, unless you are already in possession of it. Speak of ice to an inhabitant of the torrid zone, the word does not give him an idea, or if it does, it must be a false one. Talk of blueness to one who cannot distinguish colours, what can your most eloquent description present to him resembling the truth of your sensation? Similarly in matters spiritual, no verbal revelation can give a single simple idea. Talk of God to a thousand ears, each has its own conception. The sensual man hears of God, and understands one thing; the pure man hears, and conceives another thing. So that apostles themselves, and prophets, speaking to the ear, cannot reveal truth to the soul—no, not if God Himself were to touch their lips with fire. A verbal revelation is only a revelation to the ear.

3. Traditional knowledge will not reveal eternal truth. There are men who believe on authority. They have heard with the hearing of the ear that God is Love, they have heard that the ways of holiness are the ways of pleasantness and all her paths peace. But a hearsay belief saves not. The Corinthian philosophers heard St. Paul; the Pharisees heard Christ. How much did the ear convey? To thousands exactly nothing. He alone believes truth who feels it. He alone has a religion whose soul knows by experience that to serve God and know Him is the richest treasure.

I have a little kinsman

Whose earthly summers are but three,

And yet a voyager is he

Greater than Drake or Frobisher,

Than all their peers together!

He is a brave discoverer,

And, far beyond the tether

Of them who seek the frozen pole,

Has sailed where the noiseless surges roll.

Ay, he has travelled whither

A winged pilot steered his bark

Through the portals of the dark,

Past hoary Mimir’s well and tree,

Across the unknown sea.

Suddenly, in his fair young hour,

Came one who bore a flower,

And laid it in his dimpled hand

With this command:

“Henceforth thou art a rover!

Thou must make a voyage far,

Sail beneath the evening star,

And a wondrous land discover.”

With his sweet smile innocent

Our little kinsman went.

Since that time no word

From the absent has been heard.

Who can tell

How he fares, or answer well

What the little one has found

Since he left us, outward bound?

Would that he might return!

Then should we learn

From the pricking of his chart

How the skyey roadways part.

Hush! does not the baby this way bring,

To lay beside this severed curl,

Some starry offering

Of chrysolite or pearl?

Ah, no! not so!

We may follow on his track,

But he comes not back.

And yet I dare aver

He is a brave discoverer

Of climes his elders do not know.

He has more learning than appears

On the scroll of twice three thousand years,

More than in the groves is taught,

Or from furthest Indies brought;

He knows, perchance, how spirits fare—

What shapes the angels wear,

What is their guise and speech

In those lands beyond our reach—

And his eyes behold

Things that shall never, never be to mortal hearers told. 1 [Note: Edmund Clarence Stedman.]

iii. The Heart

“Which entered not into the heart of man.”

Eternal truth is not discoverable by the heart of man, with all its powers of imagination and all its powers of affection.

1. Great thoughts originate from a large heart.—It is a grand thing when, in the stillness of the soul, thought bursts into flame, and the intuitive vision comes like an inspiration; when breathing thoughts clothe themselves in burning words, winged as it were with lightning; or when a great law of the universe reveals itself to the mind of Genius, and where all was darkness, his single word bids Light be, and all is Order where chaos and confusion were before; or when the truths of human nature shape themselves forth in the creative fancies of one like the myriad-minded Poet, and you recognize the rare power of heart which sympathizes with and can reproduce all that is found in man. But all this is nothing more than what the material man can achieve. The most ethereal creations of fantastic fancy were shaped by a mind that could read the life of Christ, and then blaspheme the Adorable. The highest astronomer of this age, before whose clear eye Creation lay revealed in all its perfect order, was one whose spirit refused to recognize the Cause of Causes. The mighty heart of Genius had failed to reach the things which God imparts to a humble spirit.

2. The heart has the power of affection.—To love is the purest, the serenest ecstasy of the merely human—more blessed than any sight that can be presented to the eye, or any sound that can be given to the ear; more sublime than the sublimest dream ever conceived by genius in its most gifted hour, when the freest way was given to the shaping spirit of imagination. This has entered into the heart of man, yet this is of the lower still. It attains not to the things prepared by God; it dimly shadows them. Human love is but the faint type of that surpassing blessedness which belongs to those who love God.

There are unexhausted possibilities in our lives, and our human hearts are conscious of unrest. Have you never stood in the presence of a commanding and lovely landscape and had the thought come to you that you could conceive a landscape of infinitely greater loveliness than that which unrolled before your eyes? Have you never, if you are a lover of music, been in the midst of great music and had the thought visit you that you could conceive of harmonies greater and more majestic than the ear of man ever heard? Have you not, although surrounded by many of the joys of life, had thrilling moments visit you, when it seemed to you that you could realize a happiness that was infinite and perfect in its fulness? And so, on the other hand, have not the possibilities of suffering sometimes shot across your consciousness with almost awful force? As the traveller climbing the mountain sometimes comes upon the deep and dark crevice opening at his very foot, so has there not sometimes come to you in the mysterious journey of life a realization of the potential ability of your nature to suffer miserably? It is the sense of unexhausted possibility, the yearning of the heart towards something beyond itself, towards the things which “eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man.” 1 [Note: C. Cuthbert Hall.]

I know ’tis but a loom of land,

Yet is it land, and so I will rejoice,

I know I cannot hear His voice

Upon the shore, nor see Him stand;

Yet is it land, ho! land.

The land! the land! the lovely land!

“Far off” dost say? Far off—Ah, blessed home!

Farewell! Farewell! thou salt sea-foam!

Ah, keel upon the silver sand—

Land ho! land.

You cannot see the land, my land,

You cannot see, and yet the land is there—

My land, my land, through murky air—

I did not say ‘twas close at hand—

But—land ho! land.

Dost hear the bells of my sweet land,

Dost hear the kine, dost hear the merry birds?

No voice, ’tis true, no spoken words,

No tongue that thou may’st understand—

Yet is it land, ho! land.

It’s clad in purple mists, my land,

In regal robe it is apparellèd,

A crown is set upon its head,

And on its breast a golden band—

Land ho! land.

Dost wonder that I long for land?

My land is not a land as others are—

Upon its crest there beams a star,

And lilies grow upon the strand—

Land ho! land.

Give me the helm! there is the land!

Ha! lusty mariners, she takes the breeze!

And what my spirit sees it sees—

Leap, bark, as leaps the thunder-brand,

Land ho! land. 1 [Note: T. E. Brown.]

II

The Things of God are Revealed by His Spirit

“Whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him.”

1. Only the spiritual man can apprehend spiritual truth; and only the spiritual man can comprehend spiritual experience.

(1) Only the spiritual man can apprehend spiritual truth.—Just as a blind man cannot possibly form any conception of colour, or a deaf man of music; so the artist, merely as an artist, has no sort of title or qualification to pronounce on questions of scientific research, and in like manner the scientist, as such, is no more competent to discuss matters of religion than the humblest clodman of the land. The man of science, therefore, who loudly vaunts that in all his scientific researches he can find no trace of God, is merely proclaiming to the world his own unreasonableness; for not as a man of science, restricting himself to one set of faculties, but only as a man, giving play and scope to all his faculties, can he learn the things which are hidden from the wise and understanding, and revealed unto babes ( Matthew 11:25). Still more unreasonable are the thoughtless and careless, who find no God in all their gaiety of life, and then say there is none; for from all such God hides Himself, and His glory is absolutely indiscernible by the wanton eye of worldly pleasure. What, then, is the great law of knowledge of Divine things? “If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know.” Obedience to spiritual laws, conformity to spiritual conditions, is essential to real knowledge of God, and to true insight into the Divine meaning of the facts and forecasts of human life. Spiritual blessings cannot be attained, cannot even be apprehended, save by the humility of faith.

I remember once being present at the Geological Society, when a bottle was produced which was said to contain certain Zoöphytes (delicate water-animals, having the form of plants). It was handed round in the first instance among the initiated on the foremost benches, who commented freely with one another on the forms of the animals in the fluid; but when it came to our hands, we could discover nothing in the bottle but the most limpid fluid, without any trace, so far as our eyes could make out, of animals dead or alive, the whole appearing absolutely transparent. The surprise of the ignorant, at seeing nothing, was only equal to that of the learned, who saw so much to admire. Nor was it till we were specifically instructed what it was we were to look for, and the shape, size, and general aspect of the Zoöphytes pointed out, that our understanding began to co-operate with our sight in peopling the fluid which, up to that moment, had seemed perfectly uninhabited. The wonder then was how we could possibly have omitted seeing objects now so palpable. 1 [Note: Captain Basil Hall.]

(2) Only the spiritual man can comprehend spiritual experience.—People say to us: “Your joys are imaginary, your perceptions of God are self-delusions, your assurances, and hopes, and peace of mind, and consciousness of forgiveness, are your own creations: they are things which we do not feel, and do not understand, and do not believe.” It would be a wonderful thing if they did understand what they have never felt. There are simple things in everyday life that are closely akin to this. There are natures to whom sunsets and flowers and the infinitely varied landscapes of nature are utterly unattractive and meaningless.

Once in a dream I saw the flowers

That bud and bloom in Paradise;

More fair they are than waking eyes

Have seen in all this world of ours.

And faint the perfume-bearing rose,

And faint the lily on its stem,

And faint the perfect violet,

Compared with them.

I heard the songs of Paradise:

Each bird sat singing in his place;

A tender song so full of grace

It soared like incense to the skies.

Each bird sat singing to his mate

Soft cooing notes among the trees:

The nightingale herself were cold

To such as these.

I saw the fourfold River flow,

And deep it was, with golden sand;

It flowed between a mossy land

With murmured music grave and low.

It hath refreshment for all thirst,

For fainting spirits strength and rest;

Earth holds not such a draught as this

From east to west.

The Tree of Life stood budding there,

Abundant with its twelvefold fruits;

Eternal sap sustains its roots,

Its shadowing branches fill the air.

Its leaves are healing for the world,

Its fruit the hungry world can feed,

Sweeter than honey to the taste

And balm indeed.

I saw the Gate called Beautiful;

And looked, but scarce could look within;

I saw the golden streets begin,

And outskirts of the glassy pool.

Oh harps, oh crowns of plenteous stars,

Oh green palm branches many-leaved—

Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,

Nor heart conceived.

I hope to see these things again,

But not as once in dreams by night;

To see them with my very sight,

And touch and handle and attain:

To have all heaven beneath my feet

For narrow way that once they trod;

To have my part with all the saints,

And with my God. 1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Paradise.]

2. What are the things which God has revealed?

“Things” is a short way of saying “thinkings.” Everything was first a thought. This world before it became a thing was a thought in the Creator’s mind. Every cathedral that has ever been built was a thought in the mind of the architect before it became a thing in the hands of the builder. Every book of poems was first of all a thought in the poet’s mind. The things here spoken of are God’s thinkings, God’s thoughts; but God’s thoughts are realities; they are no mere myths, they are things. What are these “deep things of God” to which the Apostle refers? There can be no doubt that St. Paul was thinking of the glorious total of redeeming mercy and the wonders of redeeming grace.

(1) The knowledge of Christ as God was to St. Paul one of the most wonderful revelations of the Spirit. He had known Christ after the flesh; he was aware that He had said and done certain things, and had been crucified; and the crucifixion he had regarded as a triumphant refutation of His claims, and as covering Him with well-merited contempt. But as soon as he was changed, the veil was taken from his eyes; and what eye, and ear, and intellect had sought in vain, God revealed by His Spirit.

If Christ, as thou affirmest, be of men

Mere man, the first and best but nothing more,—

Account Him, for reward of what He was,

Now and forever, wretchedest of all.

For see; Himself conceived of life as love,

Conceived of love as what must enter in,

Fill up, make one with His each soul He loved:

Thus much for man’s joy, all men’s joy for Him.

Well, He is gone, thou sayest, to fit reward.

But by this time are many souls set free,

And very many still retained alive;

Nay, should His coming be delayed awhile,

Say, ten years longer (twelve years, some compute),

See if, for every finger of thy hands,

There be not found, that day the world shall end,

Hundreds of souls, each holding by Christ’s word

That He will grow incorporate with all,

With me as Pamphylax, with him as John,

Groom for each bride! Can a mere man do this?

Yet Christ saith, this He lived and died to do.

Call Christ, then, the illimitable God,

Or lost! 1 [Note: Browning, A Death in the Desert.]

(2) The revelation of God as Love comes also by the Spirit. It is in vain that you reiterate that “God is love,” if my terrified conscience and cruel temper shut out the very notion of love, and empty the word of all true meaning. The spirit of love must dawn upon our consciousness; no mere description will enable us to understand it; but as soon as its light arises within, a revelation is made, and the spiritual mind apprehends what was hidden from intellect and sense.

O Thou—as represented here to me

In such conception as my soul allows,—

Under Thy measureless, my atom width!—

Man’s mind, what is it but a convex glass

Wherein are gathered all the scattered points

Picked out of the immensity of sky,

To re-unite there, be our heaven for earth,

Our known unknown, our God revealed to man?

Existent somewhere, somehow, as a whole;

Here, as a whole proportioned to our sense,—

There, (which is nowhere, speech must babble thus!)

In the absolute immensity, the whole

Appreciable solely by Thyself,—

Here, by the little mind of man, reduced

To littleness that suits his faculty,

In the degree appreciable too;

Between Thee and ourselves—nay even, again,

Below us, to the extreme of the minute,

Appreciable by how many and what diverse

Modes of the life Thou madest be! (why live

Except for love,—how love unless they know?

Each of them, only filling to the edge,

Insect or angel, his just length and breadth,

Due facet of reflection,—full, no less,

Angel or insect, as Thou framest things. 2 [Note: Browning, The Ring and the Book.]

(3) With the revelation of God as Love comes an understanding of the Divine plan of Salvation, a comprehension of the meaning of the Cross of Christ. And with the sense of sin that this inevitably brings come also the promise of the forgiveness of sin, and the still more blessed promise of the conquest of sin. This boon—the suppression and extinction of sin—is one of the great gifts which God has prepared for them that love Him.

Sin! wilt thou vanquish me!

And shall I yield the victory?

Shall all my joys be spoiled,

And pleasures soiled,

By thee!

Shall I remain

As one that’s slain

And never more lift up the head?

Is not my Saviour dead!

His Blood, thy bane; my balsam, bliss, joy, wine,

Shall thee destroy; heal, feed, make me Divine. 1 [Note: Traherne.]

(4) Union with Christ is one of the deep things of God, and in that union are endless spiritual blessings. To conquer the world by loving it, to be blest by ceasing from the pursuit of happiness, and sacrificing life instead of finding it, to make a hard lot easy by submitting to it—this was St. Paul’s Divine philosophy of life. And the princes of this world, amidst scoffs and laughter, replied, Is that all? Nothing to dazzle—nothing to captivate? But the disciples of the inward life, the humble of heart, and the loving, felt that in this lay the mystery of life, of themselves, and of God, all revealed and plain.

“Eye hath not seen”:—yet man hath known and weighed

A hundred thousand marvels that have been:

What is it which (the Word of Truth hath said)

Eye hath not seen?

“Ear hath not heard”:—yet harpings of delight,

Trumpets of triumph, songs and spoken word,

Man knows them all: what lovelier, loftier might

Hath ear not heard?

“Nor heart conceived”:—yet man hath now desired

Beyond all reach, beyond his hope believed,

Loved beyond death: what fire shall yet be fired

No heart conceived?

“Deep calls to deep”:—man’s depth would be despair,

But for God’s deeper depth: we sow to reap,

Have patience, wait, betake ourselves to prayer:

Deep answereth deep. 1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

3. These things God has prepared. The term used recalls the words of Christ: “The kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” ( Matthew 25:34).

God prepared the things that He knew man’s heart would long for. A thing prepared is a thing ready at the moment it is needed and expected. So, when we feel the yoke of sin heavy, then is the moment to accept the prepared deliverance. It was prepared on the Cross, it is found at the Cross. As deliverance from sin is found at the Cross, so also was union with Christ and likeness to Christ prepared at the open grave of Christ, and found by faith in a risen, living Saviour. The hope of our calling, the riches of the glory of our inheritance, the exceeding greatness of His power, these are not future blessings, they are prepared here and now for those who believe and love. And what of the things on before? Truly the glory of them is past man’s understanding—the city prepared, the place prepared, the rest, the work, the joy, the crown that God is making ready.

There is a Stream, which issues forth

From God’s eternal Throne,

And from the Lamb,—a living stream

Clear as the crystal stone.

The stream doth water Paradise;

It makes the Angels sing;

One cordial drop revives my heart;

Hence all my joys do spring.

Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,

From fancy ’tis conceal’d,

What Thou, Lord, hast laid up for Thine,

And hast to me reveal’d. 2 [Note: John Mason.]

4. The things are prepared by God for them that love Him.

Everything is seen by its own glass; everything looks foolish when seen through any other glass. Music is meaningless when addressed only to the eye; painting has no message to the ear. The deep things of man can be seen only by their own faculty. So is it with the deep things of God. There are things in religion which are mysteries to every organ but one—the spirit of love. There are depths which love alone can fathom.

The good things are for those who love. Repentant sinners they may be, like David, yet because they are forgiven much they will love much. Love is the condition without which revelation does not take place. No selected child of grace can remain unloving and cold, and yet see and hear and feel the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.

For the heart only dwells, truly dwells, with its treasure,

And the languor of love captive hearts can unfetter;

And they who love God cannot love Him by measure,

For their love is but hunger to love Him still better.

For the lack of desire is the ill of all ills,

Many thousands through it the dark pathway have trod;

The balsam, the wine of predestinate wills,

Is a jubilant pining and longing for God.

Oh, then, wish more for God, burn more with desire,

Covet more the dear sight of His marvellous face!

(1) To love God is to love His character.—God is Love: and to love men till private attachments have expanded into a philanthropy which embraces all, at last even the evil and enemies, with compassion—that is to love God. God is Purity: and to be pure in thought and look; to turn away from unhallowed books and conversation, to abhor the moments in which we have not been pure, is to love God. God is Truth: to be true, to hate every form of falsehood, to live a brave, true, real life—that is to love God. God is Infinite: and to love the boundless, reaching on from grace to grace, adding charity to faith, and rising upwards ever to see the Ideal still above us, and to die with it unattained, aiming insatiably to be perfect even as the Father is perfect—that is love to God.

(2) Love is manifested in obedience.—Love is the life of which obedience is the form. “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.” Nothing can be love to God which does not shape itself into obedience. We remember the anecdote of the Roman commander who forbade an engagement with the enemy. The first transgressor against his prohibition was his own son, who accepted the challenge of the leader of the other host, met, slew, spoiled him, and then in triumphant feeling carried the spoils to his father’s tent. But the Roman father refused to recognize the instinct which prompted this as deserving of the name of love. Disobedience contradicted it, and deserved death. So with God: strong feelings, warm expressions, varied internal experience co-existing with disobedience, God counts not as Love. Mere weak feeling may not usurp that sacred name.

About this time I had constantly in my mind that wonderful reconciliation of half the theological enigmas which ever have arisen, which Maurice points out in one of his sermons on the Temptation, and expounds more fully (tho’, I think, not so forcibly) in one of his latter Prayer-book series on the Consecration Prayer. He reminds us how “worldly men in their carnal and proud hearts cannot conceive how the Father commands because the Son obeys, and the Son obeys because the Father commands.” This had for some time given to me a most blessed and practical solution of the question of Free Will. I dared not apply the term “servile” to this loving and willing yet eternal obedience of the Son “begotten before all worlds”; yet surely it was the fullest, completest obedience, the perfect type of all imperfect obedience on earth, and likewise was the authority of the Father the fullest, completest authority, the perfect type of all imperfect authority on earth. This fundamental doctrine of the filial subordination of the Son from all eternity (in no wise interfering with His co-eternity and co-equality with the Father) is hard to receive, and will always be rejected when the understanding seeks to exert an universal empire; yet I fully believe that it is the keystone of theology and humanity. 1 [Note: The Life and Letters of Fenton J. A. Hort, i. 135.]

While abhorring war, M. Coillard always had the strongest sympathy with the military profession. His mind seemed to move in its imagery. Christianity, as he conceived it, was the march of an ever-victorious army; to him it meant a loyalty, not a philosophy, still less a ceremonial system. He had no other ambition than to be “a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” “A French general,” he once wrote, “told his aide-de-camp that the politeness of a soldier was obedience; and I myself hold that in all circumstances our duty to our Master is fidelity.” 2 [Note: C. W. Mackintosh, Coillard of the Zambesi, 106.]

Lord of the host of deep desires

That spare no sting, yet are to me

Sole echo of the silver choirs

Whose dwelling is eternity—

With all save thee my soul is pressed

In high dispute from day to day,

But, Love, at thy most high behest

I make no answer, and obey. 1 [Note: John Drinkwater, Poems of Men and Hours, 21.]

Things Prepared for Love

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