Apostolic Style and Greeting, 1 Corinthians 1:1-3.1. Paul, called to be an apostle—See note on Romans 1:1. Neander says, “Καλειν, to call, is used to denote the way in which God specially appoints men to any particular end.” Not quite correct. It strictly designates only God’s own act of summoning or inviting to an end. It expresses the divine side of calling; but the human side of obedience to the call being implied, the word does, in cases of obedience, presuppose the consequent assignment of the man to the mission. Notes, Romans 1:1; Romans 8:30; 2 Corinthians 8:20. Will of God—And so not an uncalled apostle, through man’s will only, as we shall find in the two epistles that Paul’s opponents at Corinth maintained. Sosthenes our brother— Literally, the brother; so that the great apostle and the humble brother unite in this epistle. And this subordinate cooperation of the brother in this epistolizing is beyond question best explained by supposing that Sosthenes (like Tertius in Romans 16:22, and Sylvanus and Timothy in 1 Thessalonians 1:1) was his amanuensis. And as we find a Corinthian Sosthenes in Acts 18:17, (see note on Acts 18:8,) so what is called in logic the “law of parsimony,” namely, the law that we should not suppose more things than necessary, requires that we should not make more than one Sosthenes where one will suffice. If Sosthenes, the synagogue-ruler of Corinth, became a Christian, he was, doubtless, the proper man to be Paul’s aid, and his fellow-epistolizer to the Corinthians. 2. Sanctified in Christ Jesus—For every justified man is also, in some degree, a sanctified man. Every true Christian is a saint. And the word saints is a usual New Testament appellation for the body of true believers.Romans 15:23; 1 Corinthians 6:1-2; Ephesians 1:1; Ephesians 1:18; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:2. Called to be saints—Literally, called saints. As Paul was a called apostle, so they were called saints.Saints—That is, holy ones; a term, as just said, with different degrees of verity, applicable, as it is here applied, to all Christians. With all—That is, they are called saints not alone; but in blessed unity with the living, universal Church. Call upon—So that there is a mutual call; Jesus Christ calls them, and they call upon Jesus Christ. By call upon, is meant, praying to. So Stephen, in Acts 7:59; and so Acts 9:14, and Romans 10:13. This last text, in particular, shows that the phrase means prayer in its highest sense as to God, and is a very conclusive proof that the very mark of a Christian, in Paul’s view, was truly praying to Christ, as that of a Jew was blaspheming him, and that of a Gentile was worshipping idols. In every place—The Greek order of words is thus:with all that call upon the name of the Lord in every place, both theirs and ours. Theirs and ours—Some make this mean their place or locality of residence and ours. Ours would then include Paul and his Corinthian brethren; theirs would refer to all others praying to Christ. But our English version makes a richer sense. Jesus is declared to be Lord alike of the Corinthian and the universal Church. Paul exults to address his Corinthians as not solitary Christians, but as part of the great body of saints. 3. Grace—Note on Romans 1:7. In both passages both God and Christ are made sources of peace and grace. 4. My God—The possessive my is intensive, expressive of the earnest faith of the apostle that God was truly his, and of the intimate approach to God which he made in his thanksgiving for his Corinthians. By Christ—Rather, in Christ. That is, the grace which, treasured in Christ, is thence imparted to you. This grace in Christ is the basis and substance of the charisms which he next specifies. 5. Every thing—Every respect. Utterance—Preaching, prophesying, and tongues. Knowledge—The perception of sacred doctrines, the discerning of spirits, and the interpretation of charismatic tongues. 6. Testimony of Christ—The apostolic testimony to Christ’s history and doctrine. Was confirmed—Was firmly grounded in your faith. 7. Come behind—Such was the vivid Greek temperament of the Corinthian Church, and such the operations of the Spirit within it, that they equalled any Church in charismatic manifestations. This was the bright side of their case. The shadier side was, the fact that this was no demonstration of their preeminent piety; and even in the use of their gifts there was such a mixture of human with divine, that they needed the guidance of apostolic wisdom. Gifts—Grace, ÷áñéò, is sanctifying; gifts, charisms, are edifying as manifestations of divine power. Coming—Note on 2 Thessalonians 2:2. 8. Who—Referring to Jesus Christ. Shall confirm—Will confirm; being the simple future. Fatalistic doctrine interprets this will confirm to mean that there can be no failure of their firmly enduring to the end; that the passage “furnishes a guarantee against that greatest of dangers, the fickleness of the human will.”—LANGE’S Bibel-werke, on the passage. Such an interpretation violates the true doctrine of probation, and ignores the true nature of the freedom of a responsible will, which must be allowed the power and the area for choosing either way. See our note on Romans 2:9. Hence Grotius well says, “God does his own part,” in confirming. We say as above, 1 Corinthians 1:1, the apostle expresses only the divine side of the work, implying the required performance of the human conditions which are elsewhere expressed in countless cases. That is, assuming that the Corinthian Church are earnestly anxious to be confirmed blameless to the end, he promises that God on his part will be faithful to confirm them. Blameless—Being forgiven of every sin and sanctified unto all holiness; so that at the end we are perfectly blameless. Note Romans 8:33. The end—the coming of Christ to judgment. See note on 1 Corinthians 15:24. 9. God is faithful—If you fail, it will be from no want of faithfulness in God. Note above on 1 Corinthians 1:1. Fellowship of his Son.—Not a fellowship with Christ, but a common sharing, with all Christians, of Christ. So 1 Corinthians 10:16, fellowship, or common participation or communion of his blood and of his body. And with this earnest symbol of Christian union, Paul prepares for the contrast of disunion which follows. 10. Beseech—The apostle begins with supplication, but he will end with self-assertion and even menace, 1 Corinthians 4:18-21. It is not as such a leader that he will serve; yet on the proper basis, the basis of the cross, (1 Corinthians 1:18,) as himself a complete imitator of Christ, and as their special founder and father, (1 Corinthians 4:15,) he will claim their following of himself. Brethren—As in spite of their shortcomings they still were. By—Rather, through. The name—This powerful name has thus far been nine times mentioned; so that, as Chrysostom well says, “He nails them to this name.” And, we add, the very purpose of nailing to this name is to substitute it as the basis of his apostolic authority, instead of any sectarian leadership. Speak the same thing—Not that there should be a forced unity of talk where there was no unity of thought. That can be only by insincerity; or, as among Papists, by despotism. But, as he will further say, their unity of speaking must be based on their unity of mind. For at bottom there was a unity, Christ and his cross; and all their partisan talk was simply the superfluous result of diverging in puerile pride and loquacity from that deep and holy centre. Deep, central, praying piety is the true healer of Church strifes. No divisions—No σχισματα, schismata, schisms. Schism is, here, a division in a Church rather than a departure from it; as heresy, at the present day, is a departure from true Christian doctrine. Mind—Interior mental state. Judgment—Exterior purpose, as exhibited in action and practice.It is curious that Ignatius, years afterward, quotes in substance this verse, yet reversing the order of thought and words: “That in one common obedience ye be united in the same mind and the same judgment, and all speak the same thing.” Paul proceeds from external speech to internal mind; Ignatius proceeds from mind to the resulting speech. The cause of Paul’s beginning with speech was, that it was the talk of the parties that had been reported to him. If people will cease their quarrelsome talk, that may stop their quarrelsome feeling. 11. Declared unto me—I left you in Corinth a short time ago a unit; I am told here in Ephesus that you are split into fractions and factions. Of Chloe—The words which are of the house, are in italics, as being not in the Greek but added by our English translators. Chloe seems to have been an eminent Corinthian lady, known to the Church, who, like Lydia at Philippi, kept an establishment, and her people, perhaps her children, were ample vouchers for their report to Paul. It is not probable, as Wordsworth suggests, that Fortunatus and Achaicus were they; for these two were evidently delegates selected by the Church. 12. Now this I say—Now what I mean to say is this. The preceding general report is to be expanded into its particulars. Every—Rather, each one of you. Paul’s each is not to be pressed as absolutely including the whole, as the same word every does not, 1 Corinthians 4:5. It signifies individuals generally. I am of—The present paragraph furnishes a glimpse of the divisions in the apostolic Church, on which see our note on Acts 15:6, and the notes to which reference is there made. As in most cases, the partisanships were based partly upon personal preferences, especially so in the instances of Paul and Apollos, who had both been at Corinth, and who essentially agreed in their views; and partly upon the principles the persons were held to represent, as specially in the case of Peter and Christ, who had neither been at Corinth. The leaders who were named participated not in the partisanships of these their professed followers. Of Paul—Paul mentions himself first; partly as their known founder, and partly to lead the way in rebuking the partisans who used and abused his name. The followers of Paul, of course, maintained the non-necessity of circumcision and the ritual for salvation, and the complete oneness of Jew and Gentile in the new Church. There may have been a tendency to Marcionism; that is, in addition to the rejection of the Jewish ritual, there may have been a predisposition to reject the Old Testament—to hold the Jehovah of the Old Testament to be a malignant being inferior to the true God, and to base Christianity, as a separate religion, on it own sole foundation. Of Apollos—Though Apollos’ style of oratory was much more rhetorical than that of Paul, yet his theology was doubtless the same. He was taught Christianity by Paul’s dear friends and pupils, Aquila and Priscilla, and his intimate friendship for the apostle remained unbroken. Yet some tinge to his views there may have been derived from Alexandrian influences. Such tinge we recognize in the book of Hebrews; and something resembling it in the writings of John, both gospel and epistles. Cephas—The name of Peter in the colloquial Hebrew of the day, (the Syriac or Aramaic,) signifying rock, of which Petros (Peter) was the Greek equivalent. See note on Matthew 16:18. According to the best readings the form Cephas is used in the following places: John 1:42; 1 Corinthians 1:12; 1 Corinthians 3:22; 1 Corinthians 9:5; 1 Corinthians 15:5; Galatians 2:9; Galatians 1:18; Galatians 2:10; Galatians 2:14. It is uniformly used in the Syriac (Peshito) version, and uniformly, as a Jew, by St. Paul. The Petrine party at Corinth were, probably, mostly Jews. They were inclined to question Paul’s apostleship, to exalt themselves above their uncircumcised brethren, to maintain the value of the ritual, and the extremists among them tended to Ebionism. Of Christ—It seems, at first, strange that the special advocates of Christ should lie under the apostle’s condemnation. But in our own age and country we have a special sect of Christians, who profess the name, but deny the deity, of Christ. Many rationalists at the present day, who reject evangelical doctrines, profess special reverence for Christ. That is, they admire the moral sayings of Jesus, especially the sermon on the mount, while the doctrines of his Godhead, his substitutional atonement, etc., they reject. So this sect of Christ probably rejected the apostles, and professed to be admirers and followers of the traditional sayings of Christ. They approved his ethics, but rejected the doctrines outlined in the Gospels, and more fully expanded in the epistles. They were probably Christianized rationalists from the Greek side of the Church. 13. Christ divided—The Christ here is the Christ of 1 Corinthians 1:30, the embodiment of an entire redemption and all connected blessings. Is, then, this Christ whole and one, and the one on whom the Corinthians can be of one mind, (1 Corinthians 1:10,) or is he torn in pieces; each party having a part, or slice, of their own? Paul crucified—Your true Lord and Master was crucified for you; can Paul show his cross as a claim on your allegiance? For you—This clearly implies that Christ suffered for us as no saint or martyr ever suffers for us. He suffered, then, not merely as an example, or simply for our benefit, but in a far higher sense. Baptized in the name— Rather, into the name or authority of Paul, so as to be rightly called by his name. Baptized here expresses the import of the rite, consecrated. Note, Romans 6:3. 14. I thank God—For the unexpected good result of our actions, we may thank not our own wisdom, but God’s. Some might have thought his omission to baptize a guilty neglect; others may have felt the not being baptized by him a slight; he sees in it a complete condemnation of their making him their master. Baptized none of you—A remarkable fact that of so many converts of Paul, so few were baptized by him. A remarkable object of thanks. Baptism, solemn as is its import, being, nevertheless, more a performance of the hand than of brain or soul, is subordinate to preaching and government. At Corinth the rite was at first, doubtless, performed by Timothy and Silas, Paul’s attendants, and afterwards by elders and deacons ordained. Note, Acts 10:48. But Crispus—Note Acts 18:8. The notability of Crispus, the chief ruler, being converted by Paul, induced his being baptized by him. Gaius—At whose house probably he wrote the Epistle to the Romans. See our introduction to Romans, vol. iii, p. 286. 15. Lest—Lest any should claim from the fact that they were baptized by me to be my special disciples and bearers of my name. 16. Also… Stephanas—Paul had hastened to give his reason before he had finished his catalogue; and he now adds the household of Stephanas, Stephanas himself, of course, included. He may, in this writing, have been reminded by Stephanas, who, being one of the delegates sent from Corinth was with Paul at the present writing in Ephesus. 1 Corinthians 16:17. I know not—Of the limitations to inspiration see our notes vol. i, p. 345, 1; also on Acts 27:22; Acts 27:24. 17. Sent—’Απεστειλε, the word whence apostle is derived. Note on Matthew 10:2. Christ apostled me not to baptize. Baptizing was not named in his apostolic commission. Acts 9:15; Acts 22:15; Acts 26:16-18; Galatians 1:16. Yet baptism was included in the commission of the twelve, (Matthew 28:19,) to be done, doubtless, either by themselves or by subordinates appointed. Wisdom of words—Not hereby meaning skill in speech; nor, as Olshausen, “word-wisdom;” nor philosophical discourse; but wisdom or philosophy which is the subject of words or discourse by philosophers. This will appear in our progress. The Greek word here rendered wisdom, σοφια, sophia, is the last half of the word φιλοσοφια, philosophia, philosophy; and means throughout this chapter precisely the same thing, except that the former signified wisdom, and the latter, signifying love of wisdom, was the more modest profession for a sage to make. Both terms mean that system of thought, originated by the intellect of deep thinkers, which assumes to decide on the origin of all things, the existence of God, and the nature and destiny of man. The systems were admired for their profundity, and men divided into sects and schools following different leaders of thought, just as the Corinthian Christians were following different leaders. That such is the meaning of the word here is plain from 1 Corinthians 1:22, where the sophia is expressly affirmed to be that which was the object of the search of the Greeks. In its best form this sophia was the nearest approach to true religion that the unaided reason of man could attain. Yet, source of pride and partisanship as it was to the intellectual Gentile world, the apostle triumphs in declining a similar homage from the Church, and in abasing sophia to the bottom, and placing the cross at the summit. Not but that there was a value and a grandeur positively in the Greek sophia. It was only as it came in competition with the cross, as a substitute for the Gospel, as a means of enlightenment and salvation to men, that it was to be abased; just as all things belonging to mere man must be abased before that which is truly of God. Hence the sophia, with all of its human nobility, power, and pretension, must all be trampled in the dust when the triumphs of the cross were approaching. Socrates and Plato were illustrious men; their philosophies were a noble product; but when they come into collision with Christ and his cross into what nothingness must they not sink! 2. He abases all beneath the supremacy of the cross, 18-31.18. That perish—That are perishing. Foolishness—The precise opposite of sophia. Are saved—Are being saved. Note Acts 2:47. 19. Written—Quotation of Isa 24:14, essentially after the Septuagint. Wisdom of the wise—The sophia of the sophoi; the philosophy of the philosophs; the sagas of the sages. 20. Where—An exclamation of assumed triumph, as if all these competitors of the cross were nowhere. The wise—The sophos, the philosoph. The scribe—As the apostle advances, his mind recognises that the Jewish parallels to the sophoi and philosophs of the heathen world, namely, the scribes, must be included in the same humiliation. He deals, mainly, with Greek philosophs because Corinth is a Greek city. Disputer of this world—A generic term including both the preceding, sage and scribe. Made foolish—Stultified, reduced to idiocy. The maxim of Socrates, said to have been inherited from Pythagoras, was, that “sophia, in truth, belongs to God alone.” 21. For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God—Rather, For after that in (the light of) God’s wisdom the world by (human) wisdom knew not God. Man’s wisdom ought, in accordance with God’s wisdom, as a lesser in a greater light, to have known God. Had the finite sophia accorded with the infinite sophia, man would have truly known God: but since in the divine wisdom human wisdom did not learn God, it pleased God to provide a new method. The foolishness of preaching became a method of presenting God to man’s faith, and bringing about salvation by that faith. In this word foolishness, as well as in the words (1 Corinthians 1:25) foolishness of God, weakness of God, and (1 Corinthians 1:27) foolish things, the apostle ironically styles things as the world styles them. By a similar irony the apostle asserts that since wisdom failed to know God, God accomplished the result by a foolishness. The foolishness of preaching, is the antithesis to the wisdom of (philosophic) words, or lecturing, 1 Corinthians 1:17. Believe—By unbelief man lost God; by faith he recovers God. Of the nature of this faith, as a condition of salvation, see notes on Romans 12:23. By what un-wisdoms both Jews and Greeks missed God Paul now declares. 22. A sign—Accustomed, under their dispensation, to miracles, the Jews prescribed signs. Christ, indeed, worked miracles—was himself a miracle; but they demanded that he should come in Messianic glory, renew the earth, and give to them its supremacy. That is, they required at his first coming the manifestations of his second coming. See note, Matthew 12:38. But as instead of the throne he received the cross, this became to them a stumbling-block. Wisdom—As to the Jew miracle was the route to truth and God, so to the Greek philosophy, demonstration, starting from intuition and winding through logic, was the sole guide and test. But though Christ is thus a stumbling-block instead of a sign, and a foolishness instead of a philosophy, yet Paul will soon prove that Christ is, after all, truly and transcendently a sign and a philosophy. 24. Called—With a calling obeyed by faith, (1 Corinthians 1:21,) and so an effectual and permanent calling. Note on 1 Corinthians 1:1. Power—Which is required in a sign. Wisdom—Which is required in a philosophy. 25. Foolishness of God—A remarkable ironical phrase, and refers to the preaching of 1 Corinthians 1:21. Foolishness is it? But it is God’s foolishness, and God’s foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom. God’s foolishness is the preaching of the cross; man’s wisdom is the philosophy of the Grecian schools, the noblest efforts of the human mind in that direction, yet yielding no reposeful certainty for the human soul on the great question of the origin of things or the destiny of man. 26. Ye see—Rather, in the imperative, Behold, contemplate your calling. Your calling—Not, says Wordsworth, “τηνκλησινυμετεραν your calling; but τηνκλησινυμων, the calling of you.” That is, God’s calling of you into the kingdom of Christ, implying your acceptance and all its blessed results. Not many wise—Why were not many sophoi called? Because the pride of their sophia was in the way. They were called, indeed; but they never, by faith, became the called. They were called to repentance and faith; but never were the called, upon repentance and faith, to be saints.How their sophia was in the way we see in the case of Gallio, the philosopher, at this very Corinth. Acts 18:12-17, where see notes. Christianity, brought before him by our illustrious apostle, was repudiated even from examination by antecedent contempt, as a mere matter “of words and names.” He heard of it with nervous impatience, and dismissed it with unmannerly abruptness. What was true in Corinth was true on a larger scale in the whole Roman world. The sages of the age of Tacitus, Seneca, Pliny, and hundreds of lesser literati and philosophers, deemed Christianity unentitled to investigation. And yet, according to the skeptical historian Lecky, and others, of the same school, the true cause of the triumph of Christianity in the Roman empire was not miracles, but the obvious superiority of Christianity over all rival systems of religion. Not many mighty—Few statesmen, warriors, princes. The government of the Roman empire, civil and military, was a stupendous system, at the head of which was Nero, a butcher and a fiddler. Ecclesiastically it was paganism, with Capitoline Jupiter at its head. Politically and ecclesiastically it was a sham, destined in due time to go down to ruin. Not many noble—Ancient Corinth was celebrated for its brilliant, high-born, old nobility. Its great, ancient families, now extinct, were instances how transient are all earthly grandeurs. But of the new and rather vulgar aristocracy of modern Corinth, restored from the conflagration inflicted by Mummius, probably few deigned to enter the house of Justus, near the synagogue, where Paul held forth the foolishness of preaching to busy Corinth. Slaves, artisans, and a few of the higher class, in whom religious interest overcame the pride of rank, received the holy truth. 27. God hath chosen—It is a divine revolution; and we have the divine honour of being its instruments chosen of God. In this revolution the foolish things and the weak overthrow the wise and the mighty. 28. Things which are not—Nothings and nobodies. So are they viewed by the world; so in themselves they are. Yet, through the divine gift which they have received, they are intrinsically and truly the realities, and their opponents are the shams. Nero, the Roman empire, Jove, paganism, pagan philosophy, are all the transient; God, Christ, Christianity, the Church, are alone the permanent and the eternal.The overthrow of paganism and the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman empire were, however, but the outward verification of the apostle’s words. His was a more profound meaning. What he recognised was, the infinitely surpassing spiritual power of Christ and his religion in the work of the soul’s regeneration; in the saving it from death and hell and the raising it to immortality and heaven. 29. Flesh should glory—Or, as it is in the more forcible Greek, that all flesh should glory not in his presence. For truly it is God on one side and all flesh on the other, arrayed in each other’s presence. It is the infinite Reality in comparison with the finite unreality. What, indeed, are the great men, great things, and great events of this world, but a phantasmagoria, gorgeous for a moment to the eye of sense, fleeting and false to the eye of the spirit? 30. Of him—Paul now shows how the Corinthian Christians are identified with the real and the permanent. The true reading, rightly translated, is, From him ye are in Christ Jesus. Being incorporated into Christ, they are sharers in his being and triumph. Who has become unto us wisdom— Christ is our sophia; our substitute for the Greek philosophy. On 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 our apostle will fully explain the nature of this Christian sophia. Righteousness, and sanctification—These two words are, in the Greek, closely conjoined as two parts of the same work; justification as the negative, and sanctification as the positive, side. Redemption embraces Christ’s whole work of rescue from sin, even to glorification. The whole verse shows how in Christ the believer is triumphant over this world’s wisdom and greatness. 31. Written—According to the Septuagint, Jeremiah 9:24. In the Lord—That is, in Jehovah, and not in any human unreality, in the face of all the power, aristocracy, wealth, philosophy, and vice of Corinth, the believer is taught by Paul calmly to rest in the consciousness that he possesses a gift and a glory before which these were pompous nothings. 1. And I—As in myself one of the nothings of 1 Corinthians 1:26-28. Speech or of wisdom—The same intellectual or philosophical leadership rejected by me in 1 Corinthians 1:12-17, was refused by me when I first came to Corinth to preach the Gospel. Excellency of speech, does not mean oratorical excellence; nor does Paul, as some think, aim here or elsewhere any slants at Apollos’ rhetorical style or ability, the phrase really meaning, excellency of philosophical lecturing or discourse. Or wisdom— Sophia, or philosophy; the invariable meaning of the word as used in 1 Corinthians 1:22. 2. I determined not to know—Rather, I did not determine to know. He had no purpose of holding forth any philosophical substitute for the Gospel. By this is not meant that a minister must preach on no other topic than the crucifixion of Christ. It is not meant that he may not in preaching denounce particular sins, or instruct in particular virtues. Nor is it meant that he may not preach the law, or draw lessons from Scripture characters or events even in the Old Testament. Nor is it meant that he may not devote entire sermons to particular doctrines not in immediate connexion with the crucifixion. What Paul meant was, that he knew nothing but Christ’s atonement—no substitute for it in the systems and philosophies of mere men—as a ground of salvation. His meaning was, as in 1 Corinthians 3:11, that there can be no other foundation than Christ. 3. Weakness… fear… trembling—A blending of feelings arising, perhaps, from different causes, yet uniting in one effect. We have intimated that Paul, coming to Corinth fresh from his ill-success at Athens, may have felt a check upon his spirit. Note on Acts 18:3. The loneliness of his separation from Silas and Timothy chilled his courage. His experience at Athens may have deeply impressed him with the feeling that less of appeal to natural reason, and a more forcible pressure on the religious sensibilities by the presentation of Christ and the atonement, should frame his whole discourse. This was that foolishness of preaching in renunciation of all Grecian sophia which he proved to be the power of God to the founding of the Corinthian Church, and which he has described in those flashing and triumphant antitheses that run through 1 Corinthians 1:22-28. 4. Enticing words—Not rhetorical or elocutional in style, but the persuasive utterances of a true philosophy. Demonstration— Manifestation. Of the Spirit—From or by the divine Spirit and divine power. 5. Wisdom of men—The philosophy of the Grecian schools. Power—The powerful influence of the Spirit of God. 6. Howbeit—Notwithstanding all this depreciation of sophia. Perfect— Not to the carnal or babes, (1 Corinthians 3:1,) but to the adult, (for such is the meaning of the word perfect) in Christ, and who are, therefore, called spiritual, 1 Corinthians 2:15, and who have attained a higher Christian life. The carnal, 1 Corinthians 3:3, are under influence of evil passions, 1 Corinthians 3:4, are to be rebuked for sin, 1 Corinthians 3:17, and threatened with judgment, 1 Corinthians 4:21. See note on 1 Corinthians 3:1. The privileges of the perfect are now described, 9-16. Princes… nought—Notes on 1 Corinthians 1:26-28. 7. Wisdom of God—Note on 1 Corinthians 1:17. 8. Had they known it—How far they were ignorant, and how far their ignorance was an excuse, is discussed in note on Luke 23:34. Lord of glory—An epithet too lofty for a mere man. 9. Written—Isaiah 64:4 paraphrased by Paul, and adapted to his purpose. The words, of course, describe not the future happiness of the redeemed in heaven, but their present. 10. The Spirit searcheth—A striking ascription of personality to the Spirit. All things—Within the universe nothing is hidden from the search of the omniscient Spirit. Deep things—Rather, the depths of God. Nothing but omniscience can know omniscience. Nothing but God’s Spirit can know what is in the divine Mind. 11. For—An illustration of the divine consciousness is drawn from the human consciousness. The things of a man—The interior things of his thought. Spirit—Which, by the power of consciousness turning our attention inward, reads our own inner thoughts and purposes. The only reason why human reason cannot absolutely know the existence of the divine Personality is, that man can only infer it from the works of creation and providence, and cannot walk into the divine Consciousness, and know it. But no more can a man know the consciousness of another man, and can only infer his neighbour’s possessing thought and reason from his external manifestations. So that we have the same sort of proof of the personality of God that we have of the mentality of our fellow-man. 12. The spirit of the world—As every man has an individual spirit, so the world has a collective spirit, a common moral tone and temper; and that spirit is at variance with the divine Spirit. As the wisdom of man is antithetical to the wisdom of God, so the spirit of the world is antithetical to the Spirit of God. That we might know—By blessed experience. Things… given—Namely, (1 Corinthians 2:9,) the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 13. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual—For as we reason about, and understand, and realize, secular things by comparison—comparing things secular with secular—so we comprehend and reason of spiritual things by comparing spiritual with spiritual. So that there is a blessed logic in spiritual things. 14. The natural man—The secular or worldly man, who possesses only the worldly “understanding that judges only by sense” and time. See note on 1 Corinthians 3:1. The word natural or psychical, derived from øõ÷ç, psyche, (soul,) seems to presuppose the threefold division of man into body, soul, and spirit. In that division the spirit is the highest nature of man, in which he bears the nearest affinity to God, by which he is a moral, conscientious, or religious being; while the soul embraces man’s animal and secular understanding, by which he is acute in things of sense. Notes Matthew 5:3, and 1 Corinthians 15:44. The natural man is one whose spiritual nature is torpid or deadened by sin and the predominance of earth and sense. His is the spirit of the world and the wisdom of men, but not the spirit which is of God or the wisdom of God. Receiveth not— His torpid spirit is unsusceptible to communion with God. Foolishness— How intensely does the purely secular man scout the utterances of the devout spirit! How sneers he at the very thought of communion with God! How easy it is to burlesque the language of piety! True, those very men have their solemn moments, and their trying crises, when conscience is touched and their ridicule is hushed. And how will men who scorn the thought of communion with God abide to meet him in the judgment, face to face? Can he know—He has an absolute incapacity for knowing the beauty of holiness and the blessedness of divine things. Spiritually discerned—While his spirit is torpid and unsusceptible. Even in natural science there are recognised unseen truths. Says Professor Tyndall, “Besides the phenomena that address the senses, there are laws, and principles, and processes, which do not address the senses at all, but are spiritually discerned.” 15. Judgeth all things—All the things of 1 Corinthians 2:12-13; the deep things of God. By these all things are not meant merely the doctrinal truths of theology, which are comprehended by the logical understandings, but the deeper things of holiness of heart and spirit. Judged of no man—He is not subject, in his experience and realization of divine things, to the understanding of the natural man. The spirit from God is not to be judged by the spirit of the world. For God is right and the world is wrong. 16. We—The spiritual. Mind of Christ—We having the mind of Christ, whom none can instruct, cannot be judged by any natural man. Our experience and gifts from God the world knows not of, and has no right or power to pronounce judgment upon. High communion with God, with exalted excitement of emotions, while it has its blessedness is not without its dangers. The human imagination is therein liable to catch fire, and a wild fire it is liable to be. The experience of the Church suggests the following cautions:—1. Our spiritual experiences must be in accordance with the teachings of Christ, and regulated by the laws of the inspired written word. Those whose spiritual emotions, impressions, or cognitions contradict the word of God, are actuated by a delusive spirit.2. Such spiritual exercises should accord with natural decency and becomingness; for “nature itself teaches” that decency and propriety are of God.3. Our spiritual enjoyments should not exert themselves in mere emotional pleasure; but purify our daily life, make us honest in business, courteous in manners, faithful in our secular duties, and enterprising in good-doing. A mere contemplative or monastic piety lacks the true spirit of Christ.4. True communion with God is modest and not boastful. It can bear with patience the pretence of the world to sit in judgment upon it. Nor does it endow its own personal opinions with the attribute of divine omniscience.5. Our spiritual joy should give us firm faith, and a holy yet modest boldness in presenting religion to others; not obtrusively, but studying the occasion; not driving or persecuting, but winning souls to Christ and goodness. When we truly feel our religion to be a great treasure, we are most likely best to succeed in the effort to impart it to others. 2. This God-revealed philosophy not understood by the partisan carnality of the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 3:1-4.1. And I—In accordance with the elevated character of the spiritual in 1 Corinthians 2:14-16. Could not—Consistently with the reality of the case. Spiritual… carnal… babes—In 1 Corinthians 2:14-15, the spiritual man is opposed to the natural, or entirely unregenerate; here he is opposed to the regenerate, who are in Christ, and yet, by being in a degree carnal, are but babes. Were they wholly carnal they would not even be babes, but be unregenerate. Short-comings, infirmities, and sins, have reduced them from spiritual manhood into babyhood. For these carnal are clearly a part of that whole who are called in 1 Corinthians 1:2, saints, sanctified in Christ Jesus. They are that same class as in 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 are guilty of the shame of going to law, and yet, 1 Corinthians 3:11, are in part sanctified. And throughout this epistle the class so severely reprehended, and even menaced, by St. Paul, are held by him Christians, but faulty Christians, who needed to ascend into a higher level of holiness. From this it follows that there may be “sin in believers.” Not every sin forfeits regeneration. Such sin dwarfs the spiritual stature, and lessens the glorious reward. But not until all justifying faith is lost is the name blotted from the book of life. As babes is the antithesis in the Greek to perfect— adult, in 1 Corinthians 2:6—so it duly defines it. Babes implies childhood; perfect simply implies adulthood. So the Jews had the distinction of novices or babes, and adults or full grown, in knowledge of the law. And Alford quotes Philo as saying, “Since to babes the food is milk, and to adults (same Greek word as perfect, 1 Corinthians 2:6) cookeries of grain, so also there are of the soul milk diets suited to child-stature; adult foods for men.” A perfect man in Christ Jesus is simply an adult man in Christ Jesus. But this adult man is also the spiritual, and includes the full attainments and privileges of 1 Corinthians 2:12-16. Any thing short of this is short of adulthood in Christian life, and approximates toward childhood.But many commentators err in making this adulthood, or Christian perfect growth or perfection, depend, as in physical development, upon time. Scripture and experience show that in spiritual life there is many a babe of two and threescore; many a soul that springs almost from spiritual birth, by a strong, living, persevering faith, to vigorous adulthood.These two classes may not be divided by a sharp line; they may, indeed, shade into each other, just as the old and the young are classes that shade into each other; but they are, on the whole, so clearly diverse that they can be classified and specified by two different terms. Such a spiritual class is recognised in 1 Corinthians 14:37. It does not appear, here or elsewhere, whether the individual made a distinct profession of being spiritual; though others may have recognised him as such from his life and spirit. Yet it cannot be required of the man who lives in nearness to God that he should withhold full statement of the fact, whether profession or not. It is the best kind of profession of holiness when a man does not so much profess it himself as oblige his friends, by his holy life, to profess it for him. Carnal—According to the best readings, the Greek word here rendered carnal differs in termination from that in 1 Corinthians 3:3-4. The former is σαρκινοις, the latter σαρκικοι. The terminations differ needy as our English terminations ine and ic differ; the former indicating the material of which a thing consists, the latter the quality of the thing. The former word, signifying consisting of flesh, is used in 2 Corinthians 3:3 in a good sense. As σαρκικοι is a New Testament word, not used in the classics, Stanley thinks that the other word has here been substituted by copyists, to make a confirmation with classical usage; but Alford believes it to be the true reading. The meaning would then be, as unto beings made of flesh— human—like the men of 1 Corinthians 3:3. 2. With milk… meat—By these terms is not meant the easier and the harder doctrines of theology, as foreknowledge and predestination, resurrection, etc. These are easily intelligible by the logical understanding to those who are not even babes in Christ, but are unregenerate. Paul refers to the principles of the lower and the higher Christian life. Milk is the doctrine of repentance, of avoiding sin, while meat represents those higher views of the spiritual (1 Corinthians 2:14-16) which the carnal could not receive, such as deep communion with God, profound purity of conscience, and the utter consecration of all to holiness and God. Yet now—This entire epistle, as to babes, deals almost exclusively with the principles of Christian ethics and doctrine; whereas that to the Ephesians, as to spiritual, mounts to the very heights of Christian spirit and life. 3. Yet—The reports by the household of Chloe indicate no advance in spirituality. Carnal—Fleshly. Though their strifes were what are distinctively called “sins of the spirit,” their existence proved to the apostle’s mind their fleshly quality. This use of the word flesh is not founded in the doctrine of the necessary evil of matter, but in the fact that our bodily appetites are so largely the source of temptation and sin.Properly regulated—fixed upon the right object in the right degree—all our appetites, desires, and passions are right. It is in their exercise on the wrong object, or their exercise in excess, that the act of sin lies. As men— Note on 1 Corinthians 3:4. Are ye not carnal—True reading, are ye not men? in which men is a synonyme for unspiritual. So our Lord’s words, But beware of men. Matthew 10:17. 4. The true position of the people under such ministry, 16-23. As the temple of God, he by whom they are destroyed shall be himself destroyed, 16, 17. Knowing the folly of all sophia, (see notes, 1 Corinthians 1:12, etc.,) let them glory in no special leading men, but claim all as their own, as they are Christ’s and Christ is God’s. 5. Ministers—Διακονοι, deacons or servitors. Notes Acts 6:1, and 1 Timothy 3:8-15. We are not leaders of philosophical sects (note on 1 Corinthians 1:10, etc.) but simply servants, and servants under divine selection and guidance. Every man—Rather, and as the Lord gave to each one. That is, ye believed as the Lord gave to each minister the gift of attracting your belief. Paul proceeds to show how God gave different gifts to himself and to Apollos. And this connexion shows that every man, like any man in 1 Corinthians 3:12, and every man in 1 Corinthians 3:13, refers to teachers, and not, as Alford, to hearers. 6. Planted—It was Paul’s pre-eminent gift to be a founder. His was the rare power, less conspicuous in Apollos and John, to convince the unbeliever, and create a new Church. Hence he sought new fields, and avoided to build on any other man’s foundation. Note on Romans 15:20. Increase—Growth. As the seed planted in the earth produces no herb or fruit without the showers and sunshine from above, so the preached Gospel, sown in the soul or in the world, produces no increase without God’s gracious aid. 7. Any thing—Any thing to be followed by partisans, as if, like the philosophers, their effects were all produced by their own brains. 8. Are one—And so should not be divided between contending parties. Every man—That truly either plants or waters God’s heritage. According to his own laborer—As is fully shown in 1 Corinthians 3:12-15. 9. Labourers… with God—Literally, For we are God’s fellow-labourers; God’s farm, God’s building are ye—The distinction already existing between ministers and people is very marked through this and the next chapter, as begun in this verse. It is by no means correct to say that in the Church of the New Testament this division had not commenced. The figure of a building here commenced is continued to 1 Corinthians 3:17. 10. Wise master-builder—At the proper time Paul does not hesitate to style himself a sophos—a wise. I laid… another—Nor does he at all abdicate his prerogative as founder. But—From this point commences a solemn caution to ministers, even who build on Christ as their foundation, what structure of doctrine, or morals, or churchdom they build thereon. The fire of the judgment day will test whether its materials be combustible. If so, the building will be burned up; yet the builder, as having built on Christ, will escape, like a householder, through the conflagration of his home, losing all else, but saving his life. All this, and what follows to 1 Corinthians 4:6, Paul figuratively speaks as in the persons of himself and Apollos, 1 Corinthians 3:4-8; but it is equally applicable to all other preachers and to all ministers in all ages. 11. Can no man lay—For other foundations, however laid, would prove to be no foundations at all. b. Every man’s work subject to the test of fire, 1 Corinthians 3:12-15.12. Any man—Any preacher of religion. Gold—Paul mentions six materials: three incombustible and precious, and three combustible and inferior. 13. Work—Whether doctrine he has taught, or morals he has enjoined, or Church organization he has founded. Made manifest—Shall come under clear review. The day—Not as Calvin, the day of millennial enlightenment; nor the day of Jerusalem’s destruction, with which the Corinthians had no relation; nor the process of time: but the day of Christ’s coming to judgment. See notes on 1 Corinthians 4:3-5. Declare it—As if the shades of uncertainty were dispersed by the light of the judgment blaze. Revealed by fire—Its true, indestructible character be disclosed by the fiery test. Every man—No teacher or founder’s work will evade this trial. 14. Abide—Unconsumed. Built thereupon—Upon Christ, the true foundation; for those who build not on Christ but reject him, will not only suffer loss but be lost. A reward—For him whom Christ is the foundation, good works are an investment with God. See note on Romans 3:27. 15. Suffer loss—Like a householder who loses his home. It is true, the parable starts with the man as a builder; but the image becomes more expressive by allowing a change; namely, from a builder to an occupant. As by fire—Like a refugee from his own “house-a-fire;” his home lost, his life scarce saved. This text plainly teaches the doctrine neither of purgatory nor of restorationism. It describes not the purging away by fire the sin or guilt within a man either before the judgment day, as in purgatory, nor after, as in a temporary hell; but the destruction of all false systems by the light of Christ’s final judgment, and the loss of their reward by the inventor of those systems. 16. Know ye not—Recognise you not this solemn fact? Temple of God— Not only are ye a building, 1 Corinthians 3:9-15, but ye are a temple. Dwelleth in you—As the Shekinah or divine Presence, dwelt in the holy of holies. 17. Any man—Note on 1 Corinthians 3:12. Defile—Or destroy, instead of building up, like a wise master builder, 1 Corinthians 3:10. 18-21. In this passage Paul slightly reiterates his repudiation of human wisdom, fully expressed in 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, where see notes. It is this wisdom which, arousing sectarian strifes, is threatening to defile, destroy, the temple of God, in 1 Corinthians 3:17, and which now calls for this reiteration. Wise—Claims to be a leader from his philosophic ability. A fool—Abdicate his pretended philosophic profundity, and accept the revelation of the Gospel. May become wise—May attain the divine philosophy of 1 Corinthians 2:7-16. 19. Wisdom… foolishness—Parallel with 1 Corinthians 1:25, where see notes. Own craftiness—So that this world’s wisdom is the destruction of its possessor and professor. 20. Wise—Psalms 94:11. Instead of the thoughts of the wise, the Hebrew has it, “the thoughts of men;” a term which includes, of course, men especially who pride themselves in original and philosophic thoughts and reasonings. Vain—Liable to error and defect. 21. Glory in men—As the Corinthians were so zealously doing. 1 Corinthians 1:11-16; and 1 Corinthians 3:4-5. Let no man be fascinated by, and proud of, some partisan leader. All things—Why greedily snatch for particular favouritisms and special leaders when you may comprehensively claim all as your own? 22. Paul—Claim not one or two apostles sectarianly; but liberally make them all your own collective wealth. Cephas—In 1 Corinthians 3:4-5, where he speaks depreciatingly, he selects himself and his dear associate Apollos; but now, when he speaks honouringly, he brings in Peter, who was claimed by the party opposed to himself. World… to come—Compare notes on Romans 8:38-39. Not only were all the apostles and all Christian teachers theirs, but all the glorious truths and wonders revealed by Christianity through those apostles are also theirs. They, under Christ, as Christ under God, are proprietors of all things. For as God has made Christ heir of all, and the Christian is heir of (or with) Christ, so the Christian inherits all. Away, then, with human philosophies and leader-ships. The world is viewed as created for unfallen man. Lost by Adam, it is regained by Christ. Lost for all in Adam, it is regained for all renewed by Christ. Hence, though the wicked seem to possess the world, it really possesses, masters, and ruins them. This world, then, is the theatre for the Christian’s development for the world to come. Life is the Christian’s commencement for a life eternal. Death is the gate through which he passes from the lower life to the higher. Things present—All events and objects that fill this world and this life. Things to come—The glorious events, sceneries, and personages of a blessed eternity. All are yours—How, then, in view of so sublime and boundless a wealth, can you be engrossed in quarrels and partisanships about the comparative talents of your Christian leaders? And so, also, Paul asks, 1 Corinthians 6:4, since Christians are judges of angels, how can they be judged by pagan courts?Wonderful it is how this apostle, surrounded by the pomp and power of the world, should be thus able to see by the eye of faith and truth that the world belonged to his humble flock of despised disciples of Jesus. It was because he was gifted with the power divine to look through the deceptions of the phenomenal and temporal, and descry the real and eternal. Ye are Christ’s—As all below you belong to you, so you belong to Christ above. Christ is God’s—The God-man is now subordinate to the Supreme Deity, whose only begotten Son he is. And so God is now supreme, as he finally will become all in all. 1 Corinthians 15:28.Both as the result of 18-24, and as the point to which the whole epistle has thus far tended, St. Paul has shown how apostles, and so all Christian teachers, must not be viewed, namely, as partisan dividers of the Church: he will now describe how they should be viewed. 1 Corinthians 4:1-13.There are many at the present day who declaim vigorously and indiscriminately against creeds and dogmas. They are fond of saying that Christianity is not a doctrine but a life. It is easy to carry such declamation to a dangerous extent. Christianity is both a doctrine and a life. No doubt there are unessential dogmas, and subtle distinctions, which, even while valuable in themselves, should not be allowed to produce quarrel and division. Yet there are truths which even he who builds on Christ may neglect or deny to his own loss. There are doctrines of great positive value, and it is right that they should be expressed in concise forms and adopted as articles of Churchly concord. a. Apostles are dispensers of God’s mysteries, to be judged solely by God, 1 Corinthians 4:1-5.1. A man—Any or every person. Us—The apostles, and, inferentially, all true ministers. Ministers—The Greek word signifies etymologically under-rowers; as if Christ were chief navigator in the boat and his apostles were rowing under him. Thence it commonly means any servant or subordinate aid. Stewards—Any dispensers of any treasured value, as cashiers or distributers of property. Mysteries—The entire mass of divine truths, hitherto held secret by God, but now for the first time revealed in Christ; hence embracing all that was truly new to the world, Jews or Gentiles, in the doctrines and institutes of the Christian dispensation. The disclosing these mysteries was the high office of the first commissioned evangelists and apostles. To them primitively Christ had said, (Matthew 13:1,) “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.” In this, Paul means to say, consists the broad difference between the Christian apostle and the sages of Greek philosophy. The former received their system by revelation from Christ; the latter invented theirs from their own brains. Christ is alone the divine original. 2. Faithful—The sophos, or sage, was expected to be original, fertile, creative of plausible and, if possible, true theories. Of the steward could only be required that he be faithful in transmitting and communicating what he had received. 3-5. In these verses, though Paul speaks in the first person singular, as a chief specimen and instance, yet the other apostles, and all true ministers, are, by analogy, included. Judged of you—The steward is not responsible to the receivers of the bounty he dispenses, but to the giver from whom he receives. Let the apostle be but the true and faithful reporter of what he receives from Christ, and he is responsible to no other judge. Judge not mine own self—From the first hour that he surrendered himself, on the road to Damascus, to the Lord Christ, he had received Christ to judge in all things for him. 4. Know nothing by myself—I am conscious of nothing against myself— Such is the sense of the Greek; and such was the sense of the English at the time our version was made. Paul was unconscious of any wrong. Not hereby justified—For our judgment of ourselves is often very partial, and so erroneous. The maxim of human law is, that no man is a true judge in his own case. Yet though conscience is no infallible judge of right in our own case, it is the best natural guide that man possesses, and when followed with profound and devout honesty the man will, by divine goodness, be guided to salvation. Judgeth… Lord—Our final Judge is the only infallible Judge. And our only sure way is to repent most deeply of every even unknown sin, and submit ourselves supremely to him. Judgeth me—Having placed himself entirely under the service of that Judge, Paul claimed to be solely judged by him. Judge nothing—We cannot, indeed, avoid forming an opinion before the judgment day; but what Paul claimed was, that he was by apostolic office, as by them admitted, superior to their present judgment. Bring to light—Shed light upon. Hidden things of darkness—Things hidden or covered by darkness. All the partisan conclaves and plots at Corinth. Counsels—The mental plans and purposes of parties and leaders. Praise—From delicacy speaking of praise only, though plenty of blame may be supposed in many cases. Of God—Hence, 1 Corinthians 3:21, glory in men is unnecessary. 5. The true Dignity of the Apostles, 1 Corinthians 4:1-13.1. Stewards of divine mysteries to be judged by their own masters, 1 Corinthians 4:1-5.2. Not to be treated with partisan arrogance, 1 Corinthians 4:6-8.3. The effects of which arrogance on the suffering apostles is vividly depicted, 1 Corinthians 4:9-13. b. Apostles not to be treated with arrogance, 1 Corinthians 4:6-8.6. In a figure—By way of illustration. Transferred—Applied. Though the same things or utterances might be well predicated of other apostles and apostolic men, nay, even of all true ministers in all times, yet he had spoken them of Apollos and himself as representative cases. Your sakes—That you might understand the position in which, as your apostles, we stand.Might learn in us—By taking the example of Paul and Apollos they might learn that these true leaders shared not their strifes, and so return to unity and peace. Above… written—In the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the only Scripture perhaps then known to Corinth. The Scripture standard according to which they should think of men, is suggested by Paul in his quotations 1 Corinthians 3:20-21. 7. With their haughty spirit, St. Paul now expostulates. Christian modesty should inspire us, not with pride in our superiorities, but with gratitude to Him who gave them. Maketh… differ—This question refers not to that difference by which one man is an heir of heaven and another is an heir of hell; for that stupendous difference is made by God to result largely from ourselves. For if even our salvation be of God, certainly our damnation is of ourselves. It refers to those temporal advantages by which one set was proudly swelling over the other. Didst not receive—Piety does not require us to be unconscious of wealth, or talent, or power. It indeed breathes into us a sweetly humbled gratitude to God, who gives, and an earnest desire to use them with sweeter zest to his glory. Glory—Implying a self-inflation as repugnant to manly character as it is to Christian piety. 8. Full—St. Paul describes them, with a gentle irony, as they felt themselves. Full, implying a general self-satisfaction, as if they had all they could wish. Rich—Referring to that secular wealth by which, in a rapidly growing city, many of the members may have grown suddenly rich. Have reigned… kings—Kings in royal fancy. Without us—All this was in Paul’s absence; and although their power and true glory as a Church was due to him, their inflation had forgotten him and had only puffed up themselves. I would… ye did reign—As the righteous will reign in glory. With you—For in the blessed reign of the glorified kingdom all the saints of God will reign together. 9. For—I could desire to reign with you, for we are sad sufferers in our present state. With a deep pathos the apostle describes his own personal sufferings, yet in words includes the other apostles in the picture. The passage seems to justify the belief that the other apostles had a history of suffering, but lacked an historian. God—He recognises the appointment of God in this divine mission of suffering. The suffering had to be endured by somebody, and God wisely selects his instruments. Set forth—St. Paul here delicately pictures an ideal amphitheatre, familiar to the Corinthian memory. The world, with angels and men for spectators, and the apostles as victims to the beast. Such ideal martyrdom was realized in later history, of which this passage is a shadowy prophecy. The theatre was a semicircle, the amphitheatre a double theatre in full circle. Apostles last—Equivalent to lowest. A spectacle—The original is a theatre; for exhibition in the amphitheatre. Unto men—Literally, to the world—both to angels and to men. 10. Wise… strong… honourable—These were the epithets with which the proud element of the Church puffed themselves and each other up. Fools… weak… depised—Such were the epithets the apostles were obliged to encounter in their missions through the world. 11. Even unto this present hour—While I write to you from Ephesus I am the subject of such a life. Buffeted—Struck with the clenched fist. No certain dwellingplace—Without position, or fixed residence. 12. Working… hands—Not only at Corinth at first, (Acts 18:3,) but in Ephesus now. Acts 20:34. Reviled… bless—The words, perhaps, indicate that St. Paul had read the Gospel of Matthew. See Matthew 5:39; Matthew 5:44. 13. Filth… offscouring—Washings, scrapings. The former word refers to matter or things washed off by water in cleansing the object; the latter signifies matter rubbed off by scraping or friction. Hence both terms are figuratively used to designate worthless persons. But as it was customary among the pagans in time of any great calamity (as plague or defeat) to put to death some worthless person as a sacrifice to the gods to avert the evil, so both these words came to be used to signify a sacrificial victim. 14. I—Whether he has spoken in the singular or plural heretofore, he has generally meant himself only as a representative, including a constituency. Here he means his own personal self. These things—The ironies upon their pride, (1 Corinthians 4:7; 1 Corinthians 4:10,) and the pictures of apostolic sufferings, 1 Corinthians 4:11-13. Warn you, that these feuds and prides will bring penalty upon you. 15. For—As the ground of my assuming this authority. Instructors— Tutors, or children-governors. Fathers… I—At this decisive point Paul asserts his authority as one and sole. 16. Followers—Imitators, as of a model. Christianity is new; and what fashion of character it requires us to shape ourselves to needs not only an inspired instruction but a living pattern. It was a greatness in St. Paul, that, disclaiming all originality, and claiming to be like Christ, he could call the world to imitate himself. Notes on Acts 20:17-38. 17. For this cause—To keep my model of Christianity fresh before you. For as I imitate Christ so Timothy imitates me, and so do you imitate Timothy. Thereby, through me and Timothy, you shall be shaped to the true Christ-model. Bring… into remembrance—You learned it once, when I was with you; but, alas! through my absence and your sinfulness you have too much forgotten it. My ways—My style of Christian character as an example; and my methods of promoting the conversion and sanctification of souls. As I teach—In doctrine and morals, of which the future chapters of this epistle are an example for later ages. 18. Some—They must have been a small and bitter minority. The large majority was Pauline; the admirers of Apollos were in affinity with the Pauline; and even the Christine party would prefer the apostle of the Gentiles to the Judaizers, who abused the name of Peter by writing it upon their banners. It is among these last that we must specially look for this bitter some. Puffed up—Swelling with boastful hostility. Would not come—This spurious apostle, say they, who never saw Christ except in a fancied daydream, and who abolishes circumcision, will scarce dare to return to Corinth and face us, the true circumcised disciples of Peter, the chiefest of Jesus’ own apostles. 19. I will come—Emphatic will, if not defiant. Lord will—A reverent proviso qualifying the defiance. See James 4:15. Will know—By direct issue and full experiment. Not the speech of them—Which is all we have thus far had. Power—Their efficiency in refuting my gospel and impeaching my apostolic authority to preach it. 20. Kingdom of God—God’s sovereignty in establishing the gospel and Church of his Son on earth. Not exerted in word only, but in power both of a divinely energized preaching and miraculous deeds. 21. What—Now St. Paul brings the assertion of his apostolic absoluteness to its final and sharpest point. A rod—An emblem denoting right to punish, whether by parent, by tutor, or by magistrate, and St. Paul was now all three. Love—As the antithesis of severity, which, however, is often only a form of love. Spirit—The temper. Meekness—Gentleness in action.On this chapter we note:—1. St. Paul claims to speak with a binding authority; not because he was personally infallible in all he said and did, but because he was writing to the Church in his apostolic office, whereto he was called by Christ, and wherein he spoke with the inspiration and authority of Christ. Reciprocally the spiritual in the Church was endowed with more or less power to discern the Spirit of Christ as speaking in him with a divine authority. So St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:15 appeals to the wisest Corinthians to judge what he says; in 1 Corinthians 14:33 he quotes the “Churches of the saints;” and in 1 Corinthians 14:37 he appeals specially to the judgment of the “spiritual.” Hence it is by the double witness of inspired apostle and inspired Church that our holy canon of Scripture is authenticated.2. The Church is, indeed, earlier and older than Scripture. The Church of the New Testament was for a time without a New Testament. And we may concede to the Romanist that it is the Church that gives the Scriptures to the world. Nevertheless the same Spirit that gave the Church gave also the Scripture, as rule and law to the Church. Just because tradition is, by lapse of time, liable to mutation and misunderstanding, the Spirit moved holy men to write. The Church of Corinth, being endowed by the Spirit to realize the divine authority of the apostle, was bound by that authority. So even the Church that gives the Scripture is not superior, but subordinate, to the Scripture she gives, and must be judged by it.3. Doubtless the apostles wrote many a letter which has not been preserved, as they spoke many a word that was never recorded. It does not follow that those lost letters were inspired, or that the loss was a loss to the sacred canon. Very probably the Church, as a whole, was moved and overruled to deposit in her archives, to read in her Sunday service, and to hand down to posterity, only those writings that were truly canonical. PART SECOND. ST. PAUL’S TEN ,1 Corinthians 5:1 to 1 Corinthians 16:4.PAUL’S FIRST :—TO THE RUMOURS THE REPORT OF INCEST, 1 Corinthians 5:1-13.a. Judgment upon the incestuous man, 1 Corinthians 5:1-5.1. Reported—This report, like those touching the Church strifes in the first chapter, must have come from the “household of Chloe,” or from the three special messengers; probably the latter. Commonly—Literal Greek, wholly. This cannot mean, as it is rendered by some, “every-where,” or “generally;” for in Ephesus it could have not been generally spread, and at Corinth Paul could know nothing of the extent of its spread. The Greek word, with a negative in a sentence, would signify “not at all;” as here, with an affirmative, it must signify, reversely, absolutely, or as Alford, actually. The word, then, does not indicate the extent of the report, but aggravates the heinousness of the sin reported. Fornication—A term here comprehending any sexual criminality, and designating a case of incest. So much as named—According to the best manuscripts this clause should be omitted. Have—The word would indicate either by marriage or by concubinage. How dissolute a city Corinth was, how prostitution was even there made a religious rite, and courtezans were regular priestesses to the goddess of lust, we have stated in the introduction to this epistle. The present transgressor was a member of the Church, and so probably was his father, against whom the sin was committed. 2 Corinthians 7:12. We may suppose the transgressor to have been a Gentile, who construed the morality of the new religion to be “liberal” on the laws of sex. Paul, therefore, in the next clause admonishes them that such a looseness would place Christianity below the average morals of paganism. Among… Gentiles—Though from the necessity of the case marriage among near relations at the commencement of the race was tolerated, yet in time it would be disclosed by experience that such “marrying in” would depreciate and destroy the race. Then the powerful intuitions of our nature have placed abhorrence of incest among the fundamentals of moral law.Instances of incest as narratives of abomination and horror are given in many of the classic authors. Edipus, by sad mistake marrying his own mother, is the subject of one of the most thrilling dramas of Sophocles. 2. Puffed up—Note on 1 Corinthians 4:6. Neither shame nor grief over this foul sin reduced their inflation. Sensuality was a fashionable indulgence in Corinth. The precise shape and rigidity of Christian ethics were not in their minds fixed; the Church took the matter easily; neither its exultation over its worldly prosperity, nor its pride in possession of spiritual gifts, was toned down. Rather mourned—Instead of indifference and persistent pride the whole Church should have melted in grief for the downfall of this one man. The Christian body should have sympathetic nerves for the sin or sorrow of each and every member. That—To the end that. Their grief should have prompted them to the instant removal of the sin, even at the expense of the excommunication of the sinner. Taken away—By the law of Christ, the great head of the Church. That not by death but by excommunication is meant, is clear from Paul’s directions 1 Corinthians 5:4-5. 3. Present in spirit—Though I am here in Ephesus, yet do you conceive me as sitting in apostolic power and spirit in your midst at Corinth, ordering the execution of the sentence I now write. Have judged already—In instant contrast with your tardiness and tolerance. 4. In name… Christ—This severance of the guilty from the Church is performed, 1.) By the divine authority of Christ; 2.) By the declaratory authority of the apostle; and 3.) By the executive authority of the collective Church, in whom the normal authority permanently resides after the miraculous apostolic authority is withdrawn. When—When ye and my spirit are gathered together.This power of excommunication was first exercised by the Jewish Church. There was a “cutting off from the people,” as in Exodus 30:33; Exodus 30:38; Exodus 31:14; Leviticus 17:4; and there was an exclusion of the leprous from the camp, Leviticus 13:46; Numbers 12:14. So Christ commands that he who will not hear the Church becomes as a “heathen man and a publican;” that is, his Christian character and brotherhood are no longer to be recognised, and he is no longer of the Church but of the world.In the primitive and persecuted Church, when men, “lapsed” through fear from Christianity became pagans, anathematized Christ, and sacrificed to idols, their apostasy had an awful aspect to the eyes of the faithful. The communion of the Church became unspeakably valuable, and excommunication from it a terror to the soul. And then, when Christianity became the religion of the State, this prerogative of excommunication became a weighty power in the hands of the hierarchy. The ecclesiastical ban pronounced upon the victim isolated him from society like a leper. It deprived him of all rights in court or in Church; made it criminal to pray with him, feed him, give him drink, or even speak to him. When the pope assumed this power, he could ban kings and absolve their subjects from all obedience to them as sovereigns, and all duty or kindness to them as persons. The most appalling form of excommunication was that of “bell, book, and candle.” By the solemn sound of the tolling bell the bishop and twelve priests, each with a lighted candle, marched in solemn procession, while the people assembled, to the cathedral. The bishop, attended by the twelve, sitting before the grand altar, read in solemn voice from the book to the congregation the most direful curses that language could frame; and when he had finished, the candles were at once dashed down, the bell recommenced to toll, and the people departed, filled with supernatural terror and an awful abhorrence of the victim accursed. According to Protestantism, excommunication being the means of securing the purity of the Church, is simply the severance of the guilty from the sacraments and from all membership of the Church. 5. Unto Satan—From the Church, under Christ, they are to surrender him unto the world under Satan. Destruction of the flesh—As was inflicted, with instant death, upon Ananias and Sapphira. It is not to be supposed, as some commentators would have it, that this destruction is inflicted by Satan, but by the judgment of God upon one who is handed over from Christ to Satan. By destruction of the flesh some commentators, excluding all supernaturalism, understand the destruction or correction of the carnal disposition, as the natural result of the admonition and discipline of the Church. Such would be a feeble meaning. A supernatural bodily emaciation would, indeed, tend to destroy the lust of the flesh, and so would be a very suitable discipline; just as blindness inflicted upon Elymas was a suitable penalty for his blindness of soul, and tended to open his spiritual perceptions. Spirit may be saved—The excommunication, though an act of severity, is an act of love. It is the Church’s last admonition of the guilty to win him unto repentance. And the destruction of the flesh, by illness or consumption short of death from supernatural infliction, as a divine penalty, would show the truth of Christianity, the value of the Church, and the guilt of sin; and might perhaps bring the apostate to reflection, conviction, and salvation. So St. Paul delivered Hymeneus and Alexander unto Satan, in order that, admonished by the consequent destruction of the flesh, they might learn not to blaspheme.Upon this case St. Paul now (1 Corinthians 5:6-8) states the object of Church discipline, namely, the purity of the Church, and (9-13) the degree of separation from the wicked required, and the limitation of the Church’s discipline to its own membership. b. Sin, like a pervading leaven, must be purged from the Church, 1 Corinthians 5:6-8.6. Your glorying—Rather, your ground of boasting; namely, an entire forgetfulness of your disgrace from this sensuality. Not good—Not honourable or noble. It was a base insensibility to moral reproach. Know ye not—A solemn phrase indicating a truth it behooved them well to know: used by St. Paul in this epistle ten times. Leaven—Is a portion of old dough in a high state of fermentation, which, added to a new mass of dough, spreads the fermentation through the whole lump, and so renders the bread, upon baking, porous and light. As this fermentation is a sort of disintegration, and proves so pervasive, the ancients saw in it an image of moral corruption. So Plutarch (quoted by Wetstein) says: “Wherefore is it unlawful for the priest of Jove, called Flamen Dialis, to touch leaven? Because leaven itself comes of putrefaction, and being commingled corrupts the mass; and leaven itself seems, indeed, a putrifying; for by abounding, it altogether acidifies and corrupts the flour.” Wetstein also thus quotes a Jewish author: “Our rabbins call lust a leaven in the lump; for as a little of the yeast impregnates the whole mass and corrupts it, so lust corrupts the whole man.” 7. Purge out—By expelling the sinner if impenitent. Old leaven—This refers not to any process by which leaven can be expelled from the impregnated lump; but more probably to the practice at passover of expelling all old leaven from their houses. Note on Matthew 26:2. The original reason of this use of unleavened bread was to typify the haste of Israel’s departure from Egypt, as admitting no time for leavened bread to “rise.” But to this was subsequently added the condemnation of leaven, as a type of corruption and a relic of old Egypt; and so a ritual display of expulsion was performed. On the fourteenth day of Nisan, the whole household at night, in formal procession, searched with lighted candles through every nook and corner of their residence for any fancied possible particle of old leaven to be expelled. Hence arises before St. Paul’s mind a full allegory of the purification of the Church by the expulsion of sin. Our passover—Point after point St. Paul takes in the whole symbolism of the passover. How truly the slaying of the victim was a sacrifice, and how truly Christ was the reality of which the victim was a symbol, we have shown in note on Matthew 26:2. 8. Keep the feast—As Christ is our sacrifice once offered, with perpetual efficacy, for us, so our redeemed life is a perpetual paschal feast. Old leaven—The unregeneracy of our old man. Leaven, consisting of malice— Greek, êáêéá, internal evil disposition. Wickedness—In permanent, external practice. Sincerity—The Greek word implies such a pure transparency of substance that the sun shines through it without detecting a speck. Hence purity. Truth—The opposite of error or deceit. c. Separateness must be from evildoers in the Church—where it must be rigid—rather than from those without, over whom Church discipline has no authority, 1 Corinthians 5:9-13.9. I wrote—In a former epistle not now extant. Note on Acts 19:12. A respectable minority of commentators doubt the reality of this former epistle. They argue, 1. The words an epistle (literally, in the Greek, the epistle) might be rendered this epistle; and that the reference might be to 1 Corinthians 5:1-5. But this reference we think to be scarcely admissible. 2. It is not to be supposed that an apostolic epistle, a part of the sacred canon, would be lost. But we have no reason to suppose that Paul and the other apostles wrote no more letters than we now have in the New Testament. See note at close of preceding chapter. 10. Of this world—In Paul’s last epistle the prohibition of associating with the sensualists had been apparently over interpreted, so as to make any association in the dissolute world of Corinth impracticable. This at once produced a stern asceticism, and overlooked the true field of discipline, which was to preserve both the purity and the reputation for purity of the holy Church. Or with—He now extends the rule to other vices than incontinence. Covetous—Overreachers in business. Extortioners— Rapacious men of all classes, embezzlers, pillagers, robbers. Idolaters— Image worshippers. Said by Grotius to be the first time the word occurs in any document extant. Go out… world—And St. Paul here clearly assumes that it is the Christian’s duty to stay in the world. Christianity allows no right to shut one’s self up in a monastery, convent, or cave; no right to become a monk or a nun. 11. But now—In this letter written here to define more clearly my former words. Called a brother—Whom your associating with would, constructively, sanction his claim to brotherhood in the Church. Not to eat—In such a way as would seem to admit to the pagans of Corinth a Church association with him. This does not mean merely to refuse sacramental communion with him, but the interchange of table hospitalities; a separateness necessarily more severe in a heathen than a Christian community. The intention is not to punish him, or to make an enemy of him, or to render him miserable; but to secure the Church equally from the infection and the disgrace of his fellowship. Seneca (quoted by Wetstein) says: “It matters not so much what, as with whom, you eat and drink.” 12. For—I limit the application of this rule to a brother, for the following reason. What… to do—What right do I possess? Judge… without— Church discipline assumes but to govern the Church, whose members have voluntarily placed themselves under its authority. The Church is a holy republic, governed by its own laws. Do not ye—Do not you, as a Church, limit your discipline to your own number, and thereby show that such was the meaning of my letter? 13. God judgeth—Many pagan Corinthians may have been far more corrupt than this incestuous Church member. But they could not be expelled the Church, for they were already without its pale. Nor had the apostle any miraculous power to emaciate their bodies or blind their eyes. If he had possessed such power he would have also had a stupendous amount of penal work on his hands. Judgment enough was impending over them, from inflicting which the apostle was exempt by God’s own power. 1. Dare—The word strikes a high keynote. However humble its externals, the Christian republic is, in Christ, far above all principalities and powers. It is, therefore, a flagrant and treasonable daring to bring it to the bar of heathendom. Litigation between Christian men is ever a scandal, because it is rightly expected that they will be just and peaceable. But in our Christian land, such often is the character of our courts, that a civil trial is, from their power of compelling the evidence, often surer of a just result than an ecclesiastical court can be. Unjust—He says unjust, rather than unbelieving, inasmuch as it is matter of judging and justice that is in discussion. Saints—Sancti, sanctified or holy ones. Note on 1 Corinthians 1:2. 2. Not know—As they ought to know from Daniel 7:22, and other scriptures. Saints—The very saints to whom Daniel affirms that the kingdom shall be given. Judge—Or, rule. For in ancient times, as judges ruled much by discretion, and kings often held the judicial to be part of the royal office, to judge and to rule are very much the same thing. The Judges of the Book of Judges were executive as well as judicial rulers. Our final Judge, even in the act of sentencing, is also King. Matthew 24:34; Matthew 24:40. Nor does St. Paul’s argument require a literal judicial action by the saints over the world in order to show their superiority over pagan tribunals. In the two clearest pictorial presentations of the final judgment in the New Testament, namely, Matthew 25, 26, and Revelation 20:11-15, the saints are depicted only as judged, and not as judges. Alford maintains that the saints will, at the advent, judge as assessors, or side judges, with Christ; but when he comes to the angels of 1 Corinthians 6:3 he confesses a break down. How or when, even as assessors with Christ, will saints judge angels? It is not, we think, as assessors with Christ merely that the saints will judge and reign, but as IN CHRIST; as mystically one with him (1 Corinthians 6:15) and represented by him. Note, 1 Corinthians 3:22. Personally, though they have no subjects, yet are they kings in his royalty; though they perform no sacrifice, yet they are priests in his priesthood; though they arraign no criminal, yet they are judges in his judgment. They are one with him; their cause is his cause; and they suffer in all its defeats, triumph in all its triumphs, and rule in all its dominations, whether over men in time or over men and angels in eternity. If… world… be judged by you—In the sphere of the Spirit the apostle tells us that even now (1 Corinthians 2:15) “he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.” In the triumphs of the apostolic age the twelve sat upon twelve thrones judging (that is, ruling) the twelve tribes of Israel. If, then, the realm of the true Church is truly far above that of the world, certainly it ought not to be judged by the pagan world. Unworthy… smallest matters—As, comparatively, all worldly matters are. 3. Shall judge angels—Our interpretation dismisses the question so puzzling to some commentators, whether good or bad angels, or both, are meant. For Christ, truly, is Lord and Judge of both heaven and hell; of men and angels good and bad; and those who suffer and rejoice in union with his mystical body here will reign in him and with him through eternity.Hence Olshausen well says, “Angels themselves stand lower in the order of beings than those in whose hearts Christ is formed.”This symbolism, of which Paul gives us an occasional glimpse, is unfolded in full volume by John in the Apocalypse. The suppression of the cause of Christ on earth is beautifully represented by the symbolical souls of the martyrs under the altar, (Revelation 14:4;) and its triumphs by the symbol of these same souls having attained to a first resurrection, and reigning in the spirit-world with Christ, over the evangelized earth. Revelation 20:4. 4. Least esteemed—Alford truly calls this “a lofty irony.” And yet it implies a divine truth. Earthly matters are comparatively trifles in the light of eternity; and he who is a priest and king, through Christ, unto God, might easily trust a trifle of time to be decided by the humblest brother king. Yet the next verse shows that St. Paul is not seriously advising them to trust their disputes to the arbitration of incompetent hands. 5. Your shame—He has shown them the high ideal of their state in Christ to humiliate them for debasing that ideal before heathen magistrates. Able to judge—On the level of plain, literal thought, St. Paul here advises them to place their disputes before some competent Christian arbiter. 6. Brother goeth to law—By favour of the Roman government (see note on Acts 9:2) the Jews were permitted to establish courts of their own for the trial of cases between Jew and Jew. And by a law of the Jews it was unlawful for a Jew to arraign a Jew before a Gentile court. Christian courts were early established by the Church for settling disputes between Christians. Stanley quotes from the Apostolic Constitution, a document of the middle of the second century, a striking passage to this effect. The Christian rule, however, did not forbid the prosecuting of a heathen by a Christian before a heathen tribunal. A narrative is related of St. Julitta, who, having prosecuted a pagan for theft, withdrew her suit when required by the court, as a condition of a verdict, to renounce her Christian faith. When, at length, Christianity became the established religion of the Roman empire, these courts gradually grew into powerful ecclesiastical courts, and became a stronghold of the popish hierarchy. 7. A fault—A shortcoming; a failure to attain the true high Christian level, requiring them to suffer wrong rather than to do wrong by abasing the Church before heathendom. Defrauded—To be deprived, that is, of rights or property. The spirit prescribed by the apostle would strike at the roots of all Church divisions. It is a favoured country where law is both just and supreme. But a diminution of litigation is a good proof of advancing civilization. It arises from a disposition to suffer rather than contend. 8. Nay—You follow the reverse of the Christian course, and are, therefore, in need of the following warning of failing at last of the kingdom of God. 9. Kingdom of God—In which the holy do, through Christ, overrule the unholy. Be not deceived—Middle voice, Deceive not yourselves. Neither your past rich experience nor your membership in Christ’s Church can save you in your sensuality and other vices. Idolaters—A large share of whose ritual is sensual indulgence. Effeminate—Pathics. Abusers—Sodomites. Romans 1:26-27. 11. Washed—Greek middle voice, Ye have washed yourselves; that is, by regeneration internally, symbolized by baptism, externally. Sanctified— And, therefore, these sensualities are the opposite of your character. Justified—And so such practices must forfeit your justification, and exclude you from the kingdom of God.This paragraph condemns, 1. All idea that the being once justified insures, in spite of relapse into vice, a secured inheritance of God’s glorified kingdom; and, 2. All Antinomianism; that is, the doctrine that a Christian’s professional holiness renders his sin and vice righteous and safe, so that he may transgress with impunity. 12. All things—All gratifying objects. We are endowed with natural appetites, desires, and preferences by our very constitution. Innumerable objects are, correspondently, endowed with the quality to gratify and satiate all those our internal appetences. The world is thus to us a storehouse of enjoyments. And this, being God’s own constitution, is lawful. Unto me—St. Paul, as a fellow-Christian with those using this reasoning, uses it as applicable to himself. Not expedient—However gratifying to our appetences many of these objects, yet most of them, unless rightly used, become injurious to body or mind. So that the universality becomes immensely reduced. Under the power—As we may sin, and ruin ourselves by selecting the wrong object, so we may do the same by accepting and using the right object in excess. And that excess often enslaves us to the power of the object. Food is lawful for the stomach, but gluttony is unlawful. 13. Meat… belly—An instance of the above mentioned correspondence or correlation between the internal appetite and the external object. Food and the stomach were made for each other. God shall destroy—This correlation between appetite and supply, the stomach and the food, though divinely established, is transient. Death will demolish it; and in the reorganization at the resurrection it will be omitted from the glorified body. Body… fornication—If there are correlations there are also repugnances. The stomach and the due food are rightly correlated; the body and the harlot are fearfully opposite and repugnant. For the Lord—The true transcendent, spiritual, eternal correlation is between the sanctified body and the Lord. Lord for the body—The correlation between the appetite and the food is earthly and transient; the correlation between our body and the Lord is heavenly and eternal, being, as shown in 1 Corinthians 6:14, carried up into the resurrection. It springs from the fact that our glorious Lord will glorify our bodies. Here, as in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul bases our hope of a future life, not distinctly on the immortality of the soul, but upon the resurrection through Christ. 14. And—In accordance with this correlation between our bodies and the Lord. Raise up us—So that while the correlation between the stomach and the food God will destroy at death, the correlation between our body and the Lord, God will renew in the resurrection. 15. The nature of this last blessed correlation he will now declare. Know ye not—As you seem, by your easy dealing with the fornicator, not to know. Members of the mystical body of Christ—A oneness foreshadowed in the Church below, but to be gloriously disclosed in the Church of the resurrection. Members of a harlot—Under this awful conception (explained in next verse) St. Paul opens to his Corinthians the intense opposition of Christianity to the characteristic vice of their city. 16. One body—He holds the transient union to be, as it were, a brief Satanic marriage, in which the whole being of the guilty pair is lawlessly identified, and the members of each are members of both. Saith he—Saith God. St. Paul quotes words originally applied to holy marriage. 17. One spirit—With the Lord. 18. The apostle now breaks out in direct address, Flee, O ye Corinthians, your destroying vice, fornication. Flee—As Joseph fled from the wife of his master; for, as St. Anselm says, “other vices are best conquered by fighting, this by running away.” Without the body—Extra of the body. That is, every sin is really committed by the soul, through the will, and the body is only the instrument. Against—Rather, into. Fornication differs not from other sins touching its being committed by the soul; but pre-eminently of all it pours the sin into and throughout the body. And this striking of this sin through the whole body consists not merely in its withering, and wasting, and destroying power upon the body, but in something deeper, more awful, and more truly eternal. As the whole being is satanically unified with the harlot, so the whole body becomes, in its uncleanness, the perfect opposite of the pure person of Jesus the pure. How awfully incapable, then, of coming into mystic oneness with him. And from these views it would seem to follow that lawless love is really more truly opposite to Christ than even lawless hate. Our Corinthians may now infer how detestable is that religion with which their city so abounded, and of which debauchery was one of the consecrated rites. 19. What!—A term of indignant surprise at his Corinthians not having realized this in their easiness with the fornicator. Body—Your soul is the resident of the body as its home; while the Holy Ghost consecrates it as his temple. Materialistic philosophers of the present day have reproached Christianity with endeavouring, in its effort for exalting the soul, to depreciate the real worth and dignity of the body. Popish monasticism has, indeed, done so. The macerations, and flagellations, and other cruelties inflicted by Romish monkery on the body of its devotees are not drawn from the New Testament, but borrowed from the Buddhisms and Brahmanisms of the East. On the contrary, true Christianity, by its doctrines of the incarnation and resurrection, puts an honour upon the body of which materialistic philosophy knows nothing. Not your own—Ye walk on earth as beings belonging to the holy God, pervaded by his indwelling Spirit. 20. With a price—Directing their thoughts to the blood of the atonement. Therefore glorify God—Honour, and spread the honour, of the holy God by the spirit of purity in your body. So that holiness is not confined to the soul. It must reign in the body and act forth in its actions. PAUL’S THIRD :—TO THE , 1 Corinthians 7:1-40.Meyer here enters into a prolix discussion as to which party among the Corinthians raised this question. He decided that, as Peter was married, it could not be the Petrines; and as the Christines appear not to have cherished any idealisms, it was not they; but as Paul was not then in the married state, and the chapter favours celibacy, (1 Corinthians 7:7,) it was probably the Paulines. We suppose that the epistolary inquiry was the result of a conflict of opinions.There were probably three tendencies of thought among the Corinthians on the subject of marriage. 1. The Jewish view regarded marriage as a duty, so that the celibacy of a man beyond twenty was a sin. 2. The Roman opinion, in whose schools of philosophy it was a standing topic of debate whether a wise man should marry. Those who decided from self-interest, arguing from the temper of women, the cares of living, and the responsibility for children, took the negative. Those who argued from the public good, the order of society, the restraint from licentiousness, and the need of posterity, maintained the affirmative. 3. Ascetics, who held all sin to lie in matter, who condemned all bodily indulgences, forbade meats, denied our bodily resurrection, and some of whom even questioned the corporeity of Christ. See our note on Acts 8:9. No wonder, then, that Paul’s converts resorted to him by letter for decision between the three. 1. Advisory counsel as to marriage and celibacy, 1 Corinthians 7:1-9.1. Concerning—This concerning is repeated at 1 Corinthians 7:25, 1 Corinthians 8:1; 1 Corinthians 12:1, as commencing responses to the several written queries. Good—Καλον, proper to a Christian man; the reverse of αισχρον, shameful, improper.Paul here compares celibacy and matrimony, not in respect to their intrinsic holiness, but in respect to the comparative probability that a given person will be holy in one or the other. If persons have not the gift of continence they are not likely to be holy in celibacy; and they had better prefer the chance of being holy in marriage. If they have the gift of continence they had better remain celibate, as they would thereby be free from the moral dangers of marriage. That is, some persons can be most holy in celibacy, others most holy in marriage. And here comes in the suggestion of Stanley, that marriage and the family constitution stand on a much higher moral plane in these later European Christian ages than in the old Orient. Paul’s reasoning would land him in far stronger matrimonial conclusions in our day than his own. Protestantism prefers, for many good reasons, that even her foreign missionaries should be married.That the apostle sees no superior holiness in celibacy is plain. 1. He utters no rapturous eulogy upon it, like later monastic writers; advocates no vows of virginity; proposes no convents nor monasteries. Celibacy is holy only if one is holy in it. 2. Marriage, with Paul, has a holy ideal, being typical of the unity in the Trinity, (1 Corinthians 11:13,) and of the union between Christ and his Church. Ephesians 5:25; Ephesians 5:32. Similarly St. John (Revelation 14:4) honours the virgins, but yet makes the glorified Church to be “the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” Revelation 21:2. Says Jeremy Taylor: “Single life makes men in one respect like angels; but marriage, in many things, makes the chaste pair be like Christ.”Touch—A term of modesty (equivalent to the Latin tangere) to express any contact with sexual purpose or feeling. Same word in Genesis 20:4.St. Jerome, “in his heat against Jovinian,” as Fulke (Confut. of Rhemish Test.) says, argued, “If good not to touch a woman, it is evil to touch; for nothing is contrary to good but evil.” And again the same ascetic saint argued, in a similar “heat,” “If, as Paul commands, we must always pray, we must never serve marriage; for so often as I render due to marriage I cannot pray.” This last logic would equally forbid sleeping. And as for the inference from the contrariety of “evil” to good, St. Paul holds that celibacy and marriage are not the one good and the other oppositely evil; but each to be good or evil according to the case. 2. To avoid fornication—The translators have inserted to avoid, as the italics show; but incorrectly. The Greek means, Nevertheless, on account of the fornications; that is, the prevalent licentiousnesses, as in Corinth. Own wife—A clear implication against polygamy. Indeed, through the whole chapter the Christian law of one with one is assumed. The present words of the apostle at once abolishes the ascetic view, which holds all sexual union as based in unholy corporeal matter to be unholy. Romish monasticism, which was really based in that view, is hereby invalidated from its very foundations. Stanley notes the different phrases of the apostle’s Greek for his own, τηνεαυτου, and her own, τονιδιον. The former Greek phrase is not, in the New Testament, interchangeable with the latter; intimating, apparently, a deep difference between the proprietorship of the husband from that of the wife. 3. Due benevolence—The best reading omits benevolence. Let each party, instead of an ascetic abstinence, render to the other the conjugal due. 4. Hath not power—Or rightful authority. The original vow, as well as the nature of the institution, presupposes this concession. 5. Defraud—Deprive. Consent—Not by the sole will of one alone. For a time—Says Olshausen, “Probably it was an early custom, previous to the festivals, especially before Easter, for people to devote a lengthened time to solitary prayer, in which beautiful custom originated Lent.” Fasting— Omitted, according to the best authorities. Indeed, it is remarked by Stanley that this chapter has an unusually large number of false readings, interpolated by ascetics, to whom the apostle did not seem rigid enough.Come together again—Greek, επιτοαυτοητε, be at the same ordinary habit of matrimony. For your incontinency—Rather, through your incontinence, or incapability of self-control. 6. But—Although this is often a proper course. This—The temporary abstinence prescribed in 1 Corinthians 7:5. By permission—It is a divinely allowable but not commanded suspension of the command in 1 Corinthians 7:3-4. 7. For—Greek, but. This verse does not assign a reason for the last verse, but adds a qualification. I cannot command this suspension of marriage intercourse, but I wish that, in some way, suited to each case, every man may attain my standard of Christian perfectness, a standard which I have attained in the way of continent celibacy. As I—Whether Paul was a widower or a bachelor there is nothing to decide. But this phrase implies that at this writing he was in the unmarried state. Gift of God—A natural gift in the person’s constitution as the base, and a gracious gift superadded by the Spirit. For God suits his special gracious gifts to the natural qualities of a man’s mind and body. Paul’s blended gift, both natural and gracious, were perfect continence. This manner—Of temporary abstinence, as in 1 Corinthians 7:5, or of permanent abstinence, as Paul himself. Another after that— In the order and condition of matrimony, as in 1 Corinthians 7:2-4. Each in his own way may be as completely perfected as I myself.The power of continence may or may not be an admirable quality. It may be a happy physical balance; it may be a physical defect; it may be a strong power of will, able to subject itself to reason; and it may, finally, be a complete subordination, through the Spirit, to the will of God, aided more or less by the natural qualities. Through it Paul attained his Christian development; but he does not prescribe it to all others as the only way. For he now proceeds to show how others, in their own way, and after their proper gift and calling, may attain their own best Christian state. The unmarried, (1 Corinthians 7:8-9,) the married, (1 Corinthians 7:10-12,) the married with the unchristian, (1 Corinthians 7:13-16,) each and all, as God hath distributed, (1 Corinthians 7:17,) may become holy in their own way as Paul has in his way. 8. Unmarried—Bachelor or maiden. Widows—The feminine widows are named as the more obvious, and the widowers are simply implied. Good— More conducive to holy life for the possessor of the gift than marriage; as marriage is more so to those unendowed with the gift. Marriage, as well as celibacy, has its complex temptations and avenues to sin. 9. Cannot—The cannot is not in the apostle’s Greek. The true rendering is, If they do not be continent—if experience shows the certainty of failure. Burn—An ordinary figure, expressing both the intensity and consuming power of lust. Relief from the burning impulse allows the soul, by cultivating the other virtues, to attain as high a piety as celibacy would afford. The very exaggeration of the virtue of celibacy in the post apostolic age of the Church had, no doubt, the good effect of almost recreating the lost virtue of chastity in the Roman empire. It was the restoration of the balance of the virtues, as presented here by Paul, since the Reformation, that has, as it were, brought the family virtues to a lustre of development unknown to former ages. 2. Law and counsel as to separation of married parties, 1 Corinthians 7:10-17.10. Not I—By my own authority. But the Lord—By his recorded command in Matthew 5:31-32; Matthew 19:3-12, where see our notes. It is not at all improbable that Paul was acquainted with Matthew’s gospel; yet, no doubt, both pure verbal traditions (see our vol. ii, p. 5) and authentic documents (see our note on Luke 1:1-4) furnished to him the words in which the Lord laid down this law. Mark 10:12, (which gospel was not now published,) states the law for both men and women. But one side is stated here; perhaps, as Alford suggests, because it was the Corinthian women who were conscientiously most inclined to hold celibacy as obligatory on all. 11. If—A provision both for cases of separation already existing, and for separations from unavoidable causes. The party must then remain single, or if a resumption of the connexion be practicable, it must be made. 12. To the rest—The rest of the Corinthian inquirers; namely, those intermarried with Jews or pagans. Christianity does not dissolve the tie, but ennobles it, and seeks to make it the instrument of salvation. Speak I— With an apostolic and inspired authority, supplementing what the Lord has in express words said. It is a very mistaken perversion of the apostle’s words which imputes a mere human authority to his injunctions, in contrast with the Lord’s words. His real antithesis is between the Lord’s recorded words, and his own apostolic words given by the Lord’s inspiration. 14. Sanctified—A Jew marrying a pagan is desecrated, and his marriage a sin, and so void; but, reversely, if a Christian marry an antichristian his sacredness is conceived as extending to and covering the unbeliever, so far, at any rate, that the marriage is still “holy matrimony,” and the tie must not be broken. Unbelieving—If under Christianity, as under Judaism, the infidel desecrated the believer by marriage and the marriage was void, then, by parity, the children would be illegitimate, and by inheritance, infidel. Now—Under the Christian law. Holy—Undesecrated and legitimate.During the old dispensation the pagan child had, under the common atonement of Christ, the same right to circumcision that the Jewish child had; but his misfortune was, that not being born within the chosen seed, where the institution was imperative, he failed to inherit it as a performed rite, with the accompanying nurture that followed. He was, therefore, ritually not holy. Under the new dispensation, similarly, all children being under the common atonement have an equal right to baptism. They stand in a common justification and salvability, which baptism now, as circumcision of old, does not create, but recognises; holding the infant as a virtual believer. The child of Christian parents inherits, as did the child of the Jewish, not a special right to baptism, but a special inherited probability of receiving the rite, with its consequent recognition by the Church as being her nursling, to be embodied into her full membership when, at responsible age, the responsibilities of such a membership are properly accepted.Hence, by parity, the child of Christian parents, like the child of Jewish parents, may be called holy. Yet the child under the new dispensation has this advantage over the child of the old, that under the latter the infidelity of either parent disfranchised him.It will be seen that the words sanctified, holy, and unholy, are here used, not in reference to inward holiness of heart, but in the sense that Jerusalem is called the holy city, that the temple, and even its consecrated vessels, were called holy, and even the Jewish race was holy; namely, in the sense of sacred, chosen, consecrated to a special divine purpose. So St. Paul says, “If the root be holy, so are the branches,” (Romans 11:16;) a holiness which, in view of ultimate restoration, he considers as still inherited by the Jewish race. The child of Christian parents is here called holy in the same sense that the child of the Jew was holy, namely, as providential heir, and probably recipient, of the consecrating ordinances of the Church. 15. If the unbelieving depart—The Christian may not desert the infidel; but suppose the infidel desert the Christian? Let him depart—Use no legal obstacles to prevent his going. Is not under bondage—Literally, is not enslaved; but the question now is, How far is the Christian emancipated? Different replies have been given, as, 1. That the Christian is released from the duty of compelling the unbeliever to remain in cohabitation; but to this the obvious replies are, first, that no such duty of compulsion to cohabit can have been supposed to exist, and, therefore, no emancipation from such duty was needed: and, second, it is a very awkward interpretation to make the apostle say, that the Christian is not enslaved to the duty of enslaving the opposite party. 2. That the Christian is required to let the infidel depart rather than give up Christianity in order to retain him. But, surely, Paul could not have understood any Corinthian believer as inquiring whether he should not apostatize in order to save the marriage cohabitation! Obviously, therefore, the only meaning is, that though the Christian may not dissolve the marriage tie, the infidel may. To peace— But the Christian calling to peace forbids the so conducting as to induce the unbeliever to depart. On the contrary, the Christian spirit should be most earnestly exerted to induce the unbeliever to remain, with the hope, expressed in the next verse, of a conversion to Christianity. 16. For—Assigning as a reason for peace. Whether—The Greek word usually means simply if. And as there is no negative so as to make if not, so Stanley, Alford, and others make the apostle ask, How knowest thou that thou wilt convert the infidel party? And then the question gives a reason to let the party go without interposing any legal obstacle. Let him go, for you know not that you shall convert him. We reject this view. For, 1. The not is not necessary in order to indicate that a question implies an affirmative hope. Dr. Hodge rightly quotes 2 Samuel 12:22; Joe 2:14; Jonah 3:9. Take the first passage. David fasted and prayed in the hope of his child’s life being spared, asking, “Who can tell if the Lord will be gracious, that the child may live?” Thus David conducts, as Paul would have the married Christian conduct, in the hope expressed by the interrogative if, that a favourable issue might result. 2. The meaning given by Alford is very un-Pauline. It makes Paul, by emphatic repetition, very earnest to expel the hope of saving a soul, and very earnest to prevent action for that purpose! The Christian could not, indeed, know that the opposite party would be converted, and it would be very superfluous for Paul to so inform him. But there often might be a hope; and it would be very unlike Paul to deny that such a hope should be a ground of action to save a wife or husband from infidelity, sin, and death. To act from such hopes, where he did not know a favourable result, was one of the fundamental purposes of Paul’s life. 17. Distributed—Allotted. This new Christianity does not intend, as some aspiring spirits are inclined to fancy, to break up the order of society, but rather to make every man stay where he is, and perform the duties of his place in the very best way. Nay, it considers every man’s position rather a providential allotment, a calling which he should retain and adorn. And this maxim Paul now enforces, both by illustration and repetition. 1 Corinthians 7:20; 1 Corinthians 7:24. Ordain I—Implying that an apostle possesses authority to supplement the ordinances of Christ. All churches—So that the Corinthians need not feel themselves specially burdened by this injunction. It is the law for universal Christianity. 3. Counsel, generally, as to abiding in present calling, 18-24.18. Circumcised—The first illustration. Uncircumcised—Put off his Jewish relationships. The physical circumcision could be undone, or at least modified, by a surgical operation. See 1Ma 1:13-15. 19. Is nothing—It has no moral or religious significance. It has become by Christianity a mere condition of the body. Keeping of the commandments—Holy living, regardless of the physical fact, is the condition of acceptance with God. 20. Same calling—This calling does not imply what is theologically called an “effectual calling,” excepting so far as the agent’s voluntary acceptance has made it “effectual,” and so his regular and permanent calling. See our note on Romans 1:1. He was called—A play upon words. Let every man remain in the secular calling wherein he was when the Gospel gave him a successful call to its blessings. 21. Servant—As opposed to freeman in 1 Corinthians 7:22; the word, doubtless, here implies a slave. Care not for it—Care not in the sense of repining. You have a divine freedom; let that inspire you with a free contentment with your condition. That fully obeys the law of abiding stated in 1 Corinthians 7:20. But—A limitation now comes to the extent of that law of abiding. If—In the Greek εικαι, if also; that is, if, in addition to, or over and above this Christian uncaringness, thou art able to become a freeman, for such is the Greek reading. Use it rather—The question is to what the it here refers. Some refer it to δουλεια, slavery, implied in the word servant or slave. Others refer it to ελευθερια, freedom, as is implied in the words made free. Stanley considers the grammatical question between these two as remarkably evenly balanced, assuming that there is no third supposition. We think, on the contrary, that it refers to neither. Beyond reasonable doubt, we think, it refers to the chance of being free implied in δυνασθαι, art able. (Whilst revising these notes for the press we find, with satisfaction, that Dr. Fairbairn suggests the same reference. Our own notes stand precisely as they were written months before seeing his work on the “Pastoral Epistles.”) Alford maintains that the meaning is, use slavery, and supports it elaborately by a series of arguments which we think to be so many mistakes.1. He argues that also implies an additional thought in the same direction with the antecedent thought. This is true, and our interpretation, as above, provides for it. The antecedent thought is the moral freedom of Christian quietude, and the also implies an additional thought in the same direction, namely, the actual chance of emancipation. 2. But the position of this also, (και,) he says, ought, by the interpretation he opposes, to be not before, but after art able. That is true, we reply, if freedom is supplied as the reference of it; but if, as we suppose, the chance implied in art able is the reference, the also is placed just right. 3. The but, he says, expresses too strong a contrast. Assuredly not. The contrast is between remaining a contented slave and the becoming a freeman; a contrast justifying a very strong but. 4. The absence of a supplied objective after use (it is supplied by the translator, as the italics show) flings us back, not on the secondary subject of the sentence, freedom, but the primary, slavery. But our interpretation makes it refer to neither slavery nor freedom, but to the being able to be free; and that is the subject of the entire sentence after the but; if thou hast a chance to be free use it in preference. 5. Our interpretation, Alford says, is inconsistent with the context; for the context tells the Christian to remain as he is, and the interpretation tells him to change his position. But Alford entirely misconstrues the context. Paul does not, as Dr. Hodge well says, forbid a man to “better his condition.” He does not forbid a journeyman mason becoming a boss mason: or an employe laying up money and becoming a capitalist and an employer; or a rail splitter’s behaving himself well and becoming president. What he is forbidding is, the expectation that Christianity is to break up the social order and fling every believer out of his position in the general system. The direction, therefore, to the slave, to remain a free-hearted slave, or to become free in accordance with social order, is truly telling him to remain in the system as he is. 6. But our interpretation, he says, makes the apostle “turn out of his way to give a precept of merely worldly wisdom, that a slave should become free if he could.” But is the direction to rise, if possible, from slavery, “a precept of mere worldly wisdom?” For a man to remain a voluntary slave when he might be free is a base self-degradation, an endorsement of the enslavement of others, and thereby a heinous wickedness. It is none the less this because, under the Mosaic law, a slave might prefer slavery, and so have his ear bored as a token of perpetual bondage; for that, like polygamy and free divorce, was on account of the hardness of the hearts of that age. A perverted state of society may, no doubt, exist under pagan despotism, where all are virtual slaves, in which emancipation may bring no higher wellbeing, moral or economical, especially for some individuals. But as Christianity asserted the law of marriage, so it could not but assert the moral obligation of every man to be free, unless the social state held him fast. The Christian was morally bound to be a freeman if possible. And in the day when a government becomes Christian—when right and progress are understood principles, slave laws and fugitive-slave laws are crimes and have no validity—then it is the duty of the slave, according to the law of revolution, when the opportunity arrives to assert his freedom by war and blood. Short of that it is his right, if possible, to escape; and the “underground railroad,” that aids his passage, is no unrighteous institution. 7. Finally, Alford asserts that the Greek for use is better suited to the word for slavery than for freedom, and he quotes so old an author as Herodotus to justify his criticism on the New Testament. All this has nothing to do with our position; which is, that neither freedom nor slavery is the object of use, but the chance of emancipation. And it is conclusive to our purpose for us to say that every instance in the New Testament of the Greek word for use has for its object a means to an end. And here it means to use the chance of emancipation as a means to the end of becoming a freeman. 22. For—Assigning, now, a reason for the precept just given for both contentment in necessary slavery and use of means for emancipation. The slave is the Lord’s freeman, and, therefore, can be content. The freeman is Christ’s servant, and should, therefore, choose to be not the slave of man. 23. Bought—Carrying out the metaphor of the slave; but it is still used to show that, as purchased by Christ, they are wrongfully bought and sold and owned by men. Be not ye—By any consent of your own. If slaves you are by compulsion of men, the crime is that of men, not yours. But whether you are compulsory bonds-men or not, be in soul so completely the liege of Christ that you are freemen as to men. There is every reason to believe that slaves formed a large part of the first Christian Churches. Says Mr. Withrow, in his Catacombs of Rome, p. 487.“The condition of the slave population of Rome was one of inconceivable wretchedness. Colossal piles built by their blood and sweat attest the bitterness of their bondage. The lash of the taskmaster was heard in the fields, and crosses bearing aloft their quivering victims polluted the public highways. Vidius Pollio fed his lampreys with the bodies of his slaves. Four hundred of these wretched beings deluged with their blood the funeral pyre of Pedanius Secundus. A single freedman possessed over four thousand of these human chattels. They had no rights of marriage nor any claim to their children. This dumb, weltering mass of humanity, crushed by power, led by their lusts, and fed by public dole, became a hotbed of vice in which every evil passion grew.”Yet how Christianity ignored degrading distinctions is thus shown by the records on their tombs. “Out of eleven thousand Christian inscriptions of the first six centuries, scarce half a dozen make any reference to a condition of servitude, and of these, as Dr. Northcote remarks, two or three are doubtful. Yet of pagan epitaphs at least three fourths are those of slaves or freedmen. The conspicuous absence of recognition of this unhappy distinction is no mere accident. We know that the Christians were largely drawn from the servile classes, but in the Church of God there was no respect of persons.”—Catacombs, p. 485. 25. Virgins—Unmarried females. Yet the advice given would, by analogy, be in some degree applicable to males. No commandment of the Lord— That is, no recorded or traditional words of Christ. Note 1 Corinthians 7:10. My judgment—Note 1 Corinthians 7:40. Faithful—Not only persevering, as a believer, but trusty, as God’s dispenser of inspired truth. 26. The present distress—Present αναγκην, compulsion. Necessities of the times compelling a caution against forming ties, for such ties would involve trouble, 1 Corinthians 7:28. Alford absurdly explains this distress as referring to the second advent, then imagined by Paul to be at hand. In refutation of which we esteem it sufficient at present to say, that the Greek word here rendered present is, in 2 Thessalonians 2:2, the very word which is translated at hand, and is denied to be predicable of our Lord’s coming. So to be—Just as he is. 27. Loosed—The word seems naturally to imply a previous marriage, and hence, in some periods of the Church, second marriages have been disfavoured. But the word loosed is adopted by Paul as merely an antithesis to bound, and means unbound. See note on 1 Timothy 3:12. 28. If thou marry—There doubtless were those in the Corinthian Church “forbidding to marry as a sin.” While Paul, on prudential grounds, advises celibacy for the present, he discountenances the depreciation of the sacred institution as if it were an un-holiness. Trouble—Rendered, in Matthew 24:21, “tribulation.” In the flesh—In our temporal circumstances. Spare you—From dwelling on a topic so unpleasant as your coming troubles and the privations they demand. 29. But, though I thus “spare you,” yet this I must say. There is a truth that must be declared. The time is short—We may note three different interpretations put upon this sentence: 1. That of Alford, Stanley, and many German commentators, which makes it affirm that time is short before Christ’s second advent, and imply, positively, that that event would cut short the earthly life of Paul and his Corinthian brethren. This interpretation we peremptorily reject. It makes Paul affirm a positive untruth under inspiration. It makes him contradict what a short time previous he had said to the Thessalonians, denying the impending advent: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3, where see our notes. We can freely grant that Paul, even under inspiration, knew neither the day nor the age when the advent is to take place. But to make him claim to know and to tell the age, under inspiration, is quite a reverse thing. This pruriency for making every expression in the apostolic writings expressing the transitory duration of human probation signify the end of the world, does most unwisely make it difficult for the sacred writers to describe earthly time as it truly Isaiah 2. The interpretation of Grotius and others, which makes it mean that the time before the impending persecution is short; and so, in view of possible martyrdom, we must hold to earthly things as not permanently possessing them. This is more plausible, but we reject it in our note on 1 Corinthians 7:31. 3. That of Barnes, Hodge, and others, that the time of our probationary existence is short. This is, no doubt, essentially the correct view. Short— Or, rather, contracted; that is, made short by our Creator, for a purpose soon to be stated. It remaineth—By most commentators the Greek for this phrase, τολοιπον, is joined, more properly, perhaps, to the previous sentence, so that it would read, the time is contracted as to the future; that is, our remaining sublunary time is brief: our day is nearly past, and our future is abbreviated. That—So that. 30. Weep—Weeping must be done. The sorrow has its actual existence; and, when looked at by itself, has its reality. But when surveyed in comparison with the eternity within a step’s distance, it becomes—nothing. Weep, then, as weep you may; but weep as realizing that your weeping has its nothingness. Rejoice—For joy is becoming in our finite sphere. Even on these low grounds of earthly existence there is a round of pleasantnesses that may prompt the smile and the gratitude. But forget not that there is a higher, an eternal joy, that dwarfs this earthly rejoicing to nothing. Buy— Trade, labour, literature, politics, all have their place as duties and engagements of an earthly life; but there is a life whose interests are so stupendous as to shrivel them all to insignificance.Men boast of worldly greatness. Statesmen, warriors, and princes, figure proudly in human history. And these will and must exist—accomplish their programme—and amaze and fill the minds of men. But it is only by forgetfulness of eternity that they are great. One thought of the infinite truth empties them, like a pricked balloon, of all their swell. 31. Use this world—For every man must, in his sphere, use his little share of this world. Not abusing—Rather, overusing it; that is, grasping it as hard as if it were not only a reality, but the only reality, and our own full possession forever. That is the way men do use, overuse, and so abuse the world. The apostle’s next sentence exposes their mistake. Fashion—The scheme, present phase. The word seems figuratively drawn from the change of scenes in a theatre. Passeth away—And we, as part of its scheme, pass with it. How great the folly of those who use the world as if it was the only permanent thing! 32. But—Rather, and, as he states a wish in accordance with the previous context. You—This pronoun is emphatic. The Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians 3:6-12) who were neglecting their temporal affairs in false expectation, perhaps, of the approaching advent, he ordered to attend to their own business; but to the overworldly Corinthians he gives directions that they, in view of impending trouble, present distress, should remember the transitoriness of the world, and keep from too deeply involving themselves in its complex cares. Without carefulness—With that freedom from care which celibacy affords. Paul does not, by this, favour a mere contemplative, inactive piety, dwelling in the luxury of its own motions. That is the truest inner life which produces the purest, and most energetic outer life. He desired for his Corinthians an exemption from secular cares, that they might consecrate themselves to a life of holy welldoing. 33. Please his wife—And there is a sad chance that the things that please his wife may not please the Lord. Hence there is a danger in every marriage; but a danger which in many a marriage turns out a safeguard. 34. Is difference—The difference stated by Paul between a wife and a virgin is not that virginity is intrinsically holier than marriage, as Romanism teaches, but that it affords advantages for a more exclusively religious life. Married careth… world—In the practical duties of married life her style of Christian character may nevertheless be perfected; yet if all are married, the style of usefulness which celibacy affords is lost. Please her husband—Dr. Poor, on the passage, (in Schaff’s Lange,) well says: “This is not charged upon her as a sin, but it is a part of her obligation of marriage, and is, therefore, expected of her. And if she has married in the Lord, then even this very effort to please her husband may be a part of the service she renders unto the Lord. Yet, while this is so, the obligation of the husband, it must be confessed, not unfrequently presents a temptation to a divided service; and in her endeavours to gratify his wishes, especially if he is of a worldly, or even partially sanctified spirit, is often betrayed into acts which militate against her piety, and interfere with her higher obligations. This is how it happens that many a Christian woman comes to be found absenting herself from the place of prayer, frequenting the ball-room, giving parties on the Sabbath, and in other ways compromising her conscience, to her own spiritual injury and the discredit of her profession. And it is to the danger of such evils, incurred by marriage, that the apostle points.” 35. A snare—A lasso by which, being thrown, an animal is caught in its noose; figuratively, a fetter by which one is hampered and burdened. Paul would not lay fetters upon the Corinthians by these injunctions, requiring them to be celibates against their will. His object is their profit. The apostle’s condensed Greek is difficult to be given in exact parallel English, and so our translators have paraphrased it. We translate: I speak not that I may throw a lasso upon you, but in behalf of the becoming, and well-beside-sitting to the Lord, undistractedly. And now our English will need translating about as much as St. Paul’s Greek.He alludes, we think, to Luke 10:38-42, where see our notes upon the relation between outward and inner piety. Both passages have several of the same peculiar Greek words, and the comparison conclusively proves to our own mind that Paul had read Luke. The word which we literally render well-beside-sitting, has a close parallel with the Greek of Mary’s sat at Jesus’ feet. But among manuscript critics there was a curious contest (see Bloomfield’s Recensio Synoptica) whether the true reading is ευπαρεδρον, well-beside-sitting, or ευπροσεδρον, well-toward-sitting. Anciently the suppliant was accustomed to sit ευπροσεδρον, with face toward the altar, and the pupil with face toward the rabbi or sophos; and so we should have expected that Luke would make Mary sit (as our English translation really does) facing Jesus; whereas his real words are παρκαθεσθεισα, beside-sitting. Without distraction—Produced by worldly cares. 36. Behaveth himself uncomely—Either by bringing upon her the discredit of celibacy, or exposing her to the danger of incontinence by disregarding her inclinations. Pass… flower—And so the plea of immaturity is past. So—Refers to marry at the close of the verse. A closer rendering would be, ought so to become. St. Paul, though recognising the absolute legal authority of the parent, holds that the daughter’s wishes, character, and happiness should be the paramount consideration in the Christian parent’s decision. Let him do what he will—What Paul assumes from these considerations will be the father’s purpose. Let them—May mean the daughter and her suitor; or it may refer to daughters, generally, in such circumstances. 37. Nevertheless—St. Paul now presents the reverse supposition; and the clauses are well explained by being contrasted with each other. Standeth steadfast—Instead of suspecting that he is behaving uncomely. In his heart—Wordsworth well says: “The virgin daughter’s resolves are blended in one with her parents; but the parent (in his decision) gives expression to them. Power over his own will—Opposed to the need so require of the preceding verse. No need or requirement controls his will, so that he can rightly and freely decide for celibacy. Decreed—Rather, judged from the circumstances. Keep his virgin—Instead of giving her to her suitor.The Jewish custom condemned celibacy in all cases; the oriental pagan customs, imported from Buddhism and Brahmanism, assuming the necessary impurity of all matter and all corporeality, condemned marriage. Paul, Christianity, and truth agree with neither, but decide that the propriety of marriage depends upon the facts of the particular case. 38. Doeth well—For he avoids the evils of celibacy, though he incurs the evils of matrimony. Doeth better—For he is secure from the evils both of celibacy and matrimony. 39. The wife… bound—And by parity, doubtless, the husband is under the reciprocal law. Death or adultery is the only dissolution of the tie by the law of Christ, however it may be by the law of any State. The looseness of human laws can justify no laxity in the Church or the individual Christian. To marry in the Lord is either to marry a Christian, or one whom the conscience is assured will not hinder the Christian life, and may become a Christian under connubial Christian influences. 40. Happier—More safe and blessed. So abide—As a widow. St. Paul assumes her power of continence in the case. I think—A modest reserve of language, with, perhaps, delicate reference to the Corinthian party who denied his authority. Yet we receive the inspired validity of the apostolic writings not on the authority of the writers themselves solely, but on the concurrent authority of the apostolic Church which accepted them. A charismatic Church sympathized with the inspired apostles, and from the concurrent witness of the two, under the authority of Christ, did the New Testament Canon grow into existence and authority. See notes at the close of chap. 4. Have… God—A single man has often falsely supposed himself inspired; but the miraculous Church, founded by the Son of God, guided by apostles whom he selected, could not be mistaken in accepting the inspiration of St. Paul. I have the Spirit of God—An expression of amazing energy. The divine Spirit is within the human spirit, so that the outward utterance is the expression of both the divine and the human spirit. PAUL’S FOURTH :—TO THE EATING IDOL , 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; 1 Corinthians 10:14 to 1 Corinthians 11:1.St. Paul is informed by letter that cultured Corinthian Christians, having full knowledge that an idol and an idol temple are a nothing, feel that they may eat meat offered to idols as they would any other meat, and eat it in an idolatrous temple just as they would anywhere else. He, in reply, reprehends this knowledge, that is so unloving as to override the tender conscience of the less knowing and more scrupulous. 1. Assuming the first verse to introduce a passage from the Corinthian letter to the apostle, we would print it somewhat thus: Now concerning idol sacrifices, “we are convinced,” [you say,] “that all have knowledge.” Knowledge, [I reply,] puffeth up; it is love that buildeth up; and if any man imagine he KNOWS any thing, he knows nothing as he ought to know.”Were the words on both sides spoken, not written, we would suppose Paul to cut short their soft, apologetic words rather abruptly, with a firm expression of countenance, softened by a smile, showing that his was a rebuke of love. Knowledge—Γνωσις. Gnosis—knowledge—is the word whence the Gnostics drew their title, and designates what claimed to be a deep insight into a profound subject, requiring a penetrative mind. And upon this their pet word, knowledge, the apostle plays with a covert sarcasm through the chapter. 1 Corinthians 8:2-4; 1 Corinthians 8:7; 1 Corinthians 8:10-11. Its arrogance was a quality largely belonging to the sect which assumed it as their title. Puffeth up—An unloving knowledge, even where it is real knowledge, often results in haughty assumption, and in scorn of humbler minds. Knowing perfectly the nothingness of idols, the proud believer might be reckless of the difficulties and dangers of feebler minds. Charity—An unfortunate rendering of the Greek for LOVE. St. Paul affirms that it is love, mixed with knowledge, which perfects knowledge into true wisdom. Edifieth— Buildeth the possessor into a true Christian edifice. If knowledge be the bricks of the edifice, love must at least be the mortar. 2. Any man—Destitute of this love, and with gnosis alone. Nothing—He that knows every thing with his brain, but nothing with his heart, fails of true wisdom. Satan is the model of intellect without love. 3. Love God—As no one does who does not love his brother man. Known of him—He who loves God, and so man, is known of God as so loving. And that, be sure, is a knowledge worthy of being the object of. 4. We know—We have, indeed, this knowledge. Nothing in the world— A literal rendering would be: There is no idol (that is, idol-god) in the world. The definition idol-god is given to the Greek word Ειδωλον in Robinson’s N.T. Lexicon, and sustained by quoting Sept. of Numbers 25:2; 2 Kings 17:33, and other texts. The import of the gnosis, therefore, is, that there is no statue or image with any divinity or other important significance in it. An idol is a nothing in the world, expresses the true, contemptuous idea of Paul, both as a Jew and a Christian. But the more exact verbal rendering preserves more clearly Paul’s antithesis: There is no idol-god in the world, none other God but one. 5. Called gods—The world is full of pantheons and mythologies of gods, so called by their worshippers. In heaven or in earth—Chrysostom says, that in heaven means the sun and stars, worshipped by Persians and others; on earth, the gods and demigods in human form, as in the Greek mythology. Yet the phrase refers, perhaps, to the name of God as above, and to Christ as manifest on earth. There be—In men’s estimation and worship. 6. To us—Emphatically to us Christians. St. Paul now takes occasion to lay down the positive Christian creed on the subject, cleansing our moral sky of all mythologies, and giving us alone God in heaven and our Lord Christ on earth. God, the Father—Father here used not of his divine paternity of us, but in relation to the Son. Of whom—As himself the unrevealed background of Deity. One Lord… Christ—The divine Manifestation on earth of the hidden Infinite in heaven. Lord as being the executive of the divine power and grace immediately upon us, on earth. Idolatry was the unregenerate effort of fallen man to frame an earthly representative of God. Christ is the true living representative, humanizing the divine, and bringing the Infinite into finite sympathy with us. The idol-lord is therefore a false, fabricated, rival to the true Lord. It must be abolished in order that He may stand supreme and alone. God, therefore, is not here so styled God as to exclude Christ from the Godhead, any more than Christ is styled Lord to exclude God from the Lordship. One is distinctly God and the other Lord, yet both are both God and Lord. And St. Paul thus states the true Christian gnosis as abolishing the idol as a nothing in the world. 7. Howbeit—Nevertheless. Whatever you Corinthians may say in your letter, (1 Corinthians 8:1,) it is certain that not in every man is that gnosis. He denies the full accuracy of their statement. Some—Who were doubtless Gentile converts, who could not expel their old habits of thought so but that the impression of the reality of the idol-god would impress their minds.This was, doubtless, a large class of persons. It was impossible for the more sound-minded Christians to eradicate their lifelong tendencies; and to trample upon them with cool philosophic indifference might be a desolating course. Conscience of the idol—One reading with a habituation of the idol: that is, with their habitual view of the idol, contracted from paganism. Conscience—With a consciousness, intellectual and moral, that recognises it as an idol-god, and not a mere nothing. Being weak—Still under the power of old pagan associations of thought. Defiled—Induced by Christian example to eat, and yet trembling with fear for the imaginary guilt of their own act, they really transgress their own conscience, and are thus condemned; and, perhaps, learn to brave conscience and thus become wicked. Note on Romans 14:23. 8. But—This verse, as being repeated by Paul from the Corinthians’ letter, might also be included in quotation marks. It is in continuation of their apology for free eating of idol sacrifices. Their first position was, (1 Corinthians 8:1,) we all have a gnosis that an idol-god is a nothing; this, their second, is, that meat being a physical substance is not impregnated with any moral quality, and so can make a man neither better nor worse. Paul grants this last position, and yet shows that it does not secure the safety of the practice. 9. But—Nevertheless; there is still a drawback. Take heed—Paul’s reply to the Corinthian statement of the last verse. Liberty—Εξουσια, right, prerogative. Paul grants the existence of the intrinsic right to eat. 10. If any man—Scarce firmly converted from idolatry. Knowledge—The boasted Γνωσισ of 1 Corinthians 8:1. Sitting—Greek, reclining, as was the ancient custom at meals. See note on Matthew xxiii, 6. Idol’s temple—Greek Ειδωλειον, an idoleum. The word, Stanley says, “is only used by Jewish writers, apparently to avoid designating heathen temples by the sacred word ναος, naos, used to express the temple of Jerusalem. 1Ma 1:47; 1Ma 10:83. It is a kind of parody on the names of temples, as derived from the divinities to which they are dedicated.” Similar words are museum, lyceum. Emboldened—Built up. The beauty of the apostle’s word is lost; it being the same Greek word as for edified, in 1 Corinthians 8:1. The weakling is built up, but in a bad direction, to a proud wrong-doing. 11. And—The Greek is for. This particle in Greek often refers to some omitted phrase, easily understood by the context. The true rendering, with the omitted phrase supplied, with the verb perish brought into its true present tense, and the spurious interrogation point removed, is this: [Alas that it should be so,] for the weak brother perishes by thy knowledge. See note on Romans 14:15. Christ died—A pathetic and forcible argument, drawn from the depths of Christian truth and Christian feeling, and possible for a Christian solely to adduce. Will you not suffer a privation in behalf of the soul for which Christ died? 12. Sin against Christ—By destroying the fruit of his death. This was a new argument in the world, drawn from a new source, and in behalf of a new virtue, namely, tenderness for the souls of men. 13. Offend—Note on Matthew 18:7. I will eat no flesh—Mark how delicately the apostle passes now from the second person plural, ye, to the first person singular, I. He enjoins upon them a somewhat burdensome take heed; but when it comes to the intensity of perfect self-denial he takes it upon himself. It is a sublime, nay, a daring height of self-consecration, rising to the level of an apostle, and that apostle, Paul. And, as in other high things, there is some danger in it. Note Romans 14:16; Romans 14:21. We may by obeying another man’s false conscience confirm his self-conceit, encourage his tyranny, or establish a false morality, and make it a part of the present Christianity. Against this last danger Paul specially here provides. While he complies with the weak brother’s error he openly proclaims that it is an error, and that he complies, not for truth, but from tenderness. He yields to the unsound conscience; but nothing would induce him to admit that the conscience was sound. While temporizing with the weakness, he takes all care for the abolishment of the error.At this point St. Paul suspends, not terminates, his discussion of the idol sacrifices, and resumes it at 1 Corinthians 10:14 to 1 Corinthians 11:1. He suspends it in order, through an extended and interesting digression, (1 Corinthians 9:1 to 1 Corinthians 10:18,) at once to illustrate this principle of resigning one’s rights for others’ good, and to defend himself from the charge of depreciating his own apostleship in making such surrender. Though a digression, and a long one, it is so full of the noblest sentiments and loftiest piety that none should wish it shorter. 1. Assertion of his apostolical right and prerogative, 1 Corinthians 9:1-6.1. Am I not free?—By the best readings this question stands first, and forms the hinge from the previous topic to what follows. Do I thus subject myself to privation for others, even of food, because I am not truly a free man like yourselves? Nay, more, am I not an apostle?—And so entitled to the apostle’s maintenance, which I decline to receive? And as his apostleship is questioned, he adds a running interrogative assertion of it. Seen Jesus—The requisite qualification for being an apostle. See our notes on Luke 1:2; Acts 9:3. Ye my work—This practical proof convinced the council of Jerusalem of Paul’s apostleship, (notes on Acts 15:4; Acts 15:6; Acts 15:12,) as Paul more fully asserts to the Galatians, Galatians 2:7-9. 2. I am to you—A direct argumentum ad homines. Whoever else could gracefully question his apostleship the Corinthians could not. If they were true Christians, he was a true apostle. Seal—A seal on a document is a voucher for its genuineness and validity. The Corinthians converted by Paul, and their Church by him founded, were as a confirmatory seal upon his apostolic diploma. In the Lord—Note on Romans 9:1. Christ is the very embodiment of spiritual Christianity, and whoever is deeply centred in that is centred in Christ. 3. Them that do examine me—A judicial term, and may be rendered, my triers. It alludes to a class of Corinthian detractors who are brought into the foreground, and more fully answered in the second epistle. This— Followed by a period, and properly referring to the answer just given, not to what follows. His answer as to the validity of his apostleship is now complete. What follows is to assert that he is free. 4. Power—Rightful authority. The change from the I of the previous verses to the we of this doubtless anticipates the mention of Barnabas, 1 Corinthians 9:6, as included in the question. Eat… drink—Of the contributions of the Church. 5. Lead about—Implying an itinerancy, not a settled pastorate. A sister, a wife—A sister of the Church, who is a wife of the apostle. The English version gives the exact verbal Greek, except that the latter word may signify either wife or woman. That here, however, the word does not mean woman is plain, for a sister is of course a woman, and the latter word would be superfluous. If sister express a relation, so must the latter term. Dr. Wordsworth, however, renders it, as do some of the Greek and Roman fathers, a Christian woman. But the word sister alone would express that meaning. Wordsworth’s rendering assumes that the apostles took upon their circuits female attendants of suitable character, who should perform those Christian offices, such as baptism for females, who were in that age inaccessible to the male minister. But of this practice there is no trace in the New Testament or earliest Church history. Nor is the case of those women who upon occasions ministered to our Lord at all parallel. This erroneous view of the text was probably the occasion of the later introduction into the Church of an order of women called after this passage συνεισακται, which led to such immoralities that it was abolished by the Council of Nicea. The Rhemish (Romanistic) version unscrupulously transposes the terms, and reads a woman, a sister, which would give the same sense as Wordsworth, liable to the same objection. Tradition (which Romanism usually presses upon us as a binding authority) asserts, as this passage also implies, that several of the apostles were married, and Matthew 8:14 asserts that Peter (claimed as the first pope) was. Paul declares that “a bishop must be the husband of one wife.” When Orientalism became more fully developed in the Church, about the middle of the second century, virginity began to become an exaggerated virtue. As the popedom developed itself, the celibacy of the clergy, contrary to the above quoted express Scripture, was found to be a powerful aid to the central despotism. Separated from all other ties, the clergy became, as now, the devotees of absolute ecclesiastic power. Hence the pope has been the most violent advocate of celibacy, and the late enactment of the infallibility of the pope renders the dogma of clerical celibacy absolutely immutable. The brethren of the Lord—Who were not of the twelve apostles, but who, after the Lord’s resurrection, became apostolic men. See note on Matthew 13:55. Cephas—Mentioned here specially as the high authority with the Judaizers whom Paul is answering. 6. Barnabas—Note on Acts 15:39. It would appear that though Barnabas never visited Corinth, yet his name was familiar there. This is, indeed, probably true of most of the personages mentioned in the preceding verse. Indeed, the Corinthians seem to have been lively and critical canvassers of the eminent Christian leaders. Probably the fact that Barnabas was commissioned by the Gentile Church of Antioch (Acts 13:2) at the same time with Paul, would bring his name into the discussion. The Judaizers would maintain that the apostolic authority of both was equally illegitimate, having neither come from Christ nor started from Jerusalem. The inference drawn by some commentators, that Barnabas, like Paul, maintained himself by his own manual labour, is not valid. During the first apostolic tour, in which Barnabas and Paul were associated, their career appears to have been too rapid for such labour, and nothing of the kind is intimated in the narrative. Paul here asserts only Barnabas’s right; not that he declined to use the right. Forbear working—Working at manual labour for our support while we preach a gratuitous Gospel. Is it I and Barnabas alone that must preach for nothing, and support ourselves? 7. Who feedeth—Literally, who shepherdeth the flock. Eateth—Not the milk, but of or from the milk; that is, food made from the milk. 8. As a man—Literally, after or according to man, that is, to man’s authority; in distinction from, according to God’s law. 9. Doth God take care for oxen—This passage we have lately seen quoted in a beautiful sermon on tenderness to brutes (by a “liberal” Christian preacher) as inhuman language. He understands the apostle as affirming, contrary to many beautiful texts of sympathy for the lower creatures, that God has no care for brutes! Darwinism, while it confessedly degrades man, claims to elevate the lower animals and to prompt to mercy toward them—a happy result of error, if real. Sad, if Paul’s Christianity were in this below its level!Alford thus interprets it: “We must not, as ordinarily, supply ìïíïí, only, for oxen, and thus rationalize the sentence. The question imports: ‘In giving this command, are the oxen, or those for whom the law was given, its objects?’ And to such a question there can be but one answer. Every duty of humanity has its ultimate ground, not the mere welfare of the animal concerned, but its welfare in that system of which man is the head, and, therefore man’s welfare. The good done to man’s immortal spirit by acts of humanity and justice infinitely outweighs the mere physical comfort of a brute which perishes.” Our own view is, however, that the question is an argument a fortiori: Cares God for oxen in this law? Much more cares he for men, and for ministers who work like oxen. If the law of compensation includes even the honest labouring cattle, it surely includes us apostles. 10. Altogether—Παυτως, wholly; not meaning that the law speaks exclusively for men, but completely, and without defect of application. Plougheth—In God’s spiritual husbandry, as appears from the following verse. In hope—Sustained by the Church, the minister is cheered in hope of a blessed result of his labours. Thresheth—Both the earlier and the later labourer in the spiritual field. In hope—Cheered by the same anticipation as the plougher, the thresher should be partaker of his, the plougher’s, hope—namely, the crop. 11. Carnal things—That is, secular goods. 12. Others—The parties, for instance, mentioned in 1 Corinthians 9:5. We—As in 1 Corinthians 9:6 : I only and Barnabas. This power—The right of maintenance by the Church. Hinder—By burdening the poor and subjecting ourselves to the charge of being mercenaries. St. Paul, now rising above the analogical argument for compensation drawn from labourers and oxen, quotes the analogy of the Jewish Levites and priesthood. 13. They which minister—Alluding to the Levites. Wait at the altar— The priests. 14. Even so—The third and conclusive argument—the command of Christ. Matthew 10:10; Luke 10:7. Another instance indicating, probably, Paul’s acquaintance with the gospels of Matthew and Luke. 3. Reason why Paul renounced his right of Church maintenance— because his glory and pay was a gratis gospel, 1 Corinthians 9:15-22.15. But I—Omitting all others, Paul drops his we and comes down to his own personal I. So done—That I might be maintained by the Church. Better… die… than… glorying void—Since that glorying is the salvation of souls and the honour of Christ. 16. For necessity… woe—A divine requisition, enforced by a penalty of woe, obligated him to preach the gospel. But this was upon the level plane of absolute duty, while his holy ambition aspired to a Christian glory from higher self-denial and emprise. Barely to escape the woe did not suffice. 17. For—Literally translated—For if willing I do this, I have a reward; if unwilling, with a stewardship am I intrusted.By willing, here, is meant a willingness not enforced by the necessity and the woe, but free and enterprising, ready to sacrifice rights and perquisites. By unwilling, is meant a reluctant and obligated consent from fear of penalty. A reward—For the heartiness and the sacrifices resulting. A dispensation—A stewardship; an obligation sustained by penalty to discharge the sacred office remains, with a correspondent low blessing upon him. 18. What… reward—Of this eager and self-sacrificing willingness, at the expense of a livelihood, what is my reward? The answer to this question is not, as Stanley and others give it, “My reward is, that I have no reward!”By no means. His reward is a gratis gospel to the people, with all the blessedness embraced in that glorious fact. His service is willingness for any sacrifice; his reward, his glory, dearer than life itself, is that unpaid yet priceless gospel. If Paul’s commentators cannot see that this is a reward, he could see it to be so; a reward pregnant with salvation to unnumbered souls, and with the richest blessings of his divine Master on his own soul. This view is confirmed by the entire following context, 19-22; where he declares that for various self-abnegations, the reward is that he might gain more, save some. An earnest will is the antecedent; the gospel’s rich success is the consequent reward. Not that he fails to include in this reward all the resultant blessedness to others and himself. Such inclusion is proved 23-27, where he claims, as in the result, the being partaker with you, the final prize an incorruptible crown. It is in the vigorous faith of the apostle to lump all the glory of this eternal future in the present and the future immediate. Make the gospel… without charge—Literally, I may present an expenseless gospel. Such an attainment Paul holds to be a glory and a reward. That—To the end, or result, that. He makes the gospel expenseless, terminating in the fact that he has underused his power in the gospel.In full accordance with the magnanimity with which St. Paul renounced pecuniary support did he also renounce his own preferences, tastes, and conveniences, in order that by conceding to others he might win them to Christ. That in this accommodation he never surrrendered the right and the true, he does not consider it necessary to say. That might be assumed as of course. The history of his own conduct on that point, as given by Luke, is a better statement of his most delicate discrimination on this point than any profession of his own. Note on Acts 15:6; Acts 21:24. 19. Free… made myself servant—Greek, εμαυτονεδουλωσα. Free from all, I have enslaved myself to all, is his terse, antithetic language. It presents his independence of soul and body by nature; the enslavement of both to all by grace. Yet in that very enslavement he finds a dignity, a reward, a glory. Gain the more—A prize above all other earthly gain. To submit to the whim and caprice of others is a hard trial to the flesh and spirit. It reduces a high-spirited man from a freeman to a slave. If done for self-interest, it is a sordid debasement. If so done as to sacrifice truth and righteousness it is a crime. If by such conformity we confirm a caprice, a falsity, a superstition, it is an error and a danger. But if done for a high moral purpose, with careful limitations for rectitude, with the aim of delivering from falsity and superstition, then it is a high attainment, worthy the chief of the apostles. This is a renunciation of self, not of a mere mystic kind, or that shows itself in self-mortifications or self-flagellations, but in renouncing self-gratification for human good. It is thus that Paul, Luther, and Wesley have become the objects of reverence to mankind. 20. Became as a Jew—Not became a Jew. In circumcising Timothy Paul became as a Jew; in refusing to circumcise Titus he refused to become a Jew. Them that are under the law—But not born Jews; namely, the proselytes to Judaism. His adjustment to these “he proved by non-observance of the law, by the rejection of circumcision, by intercourse with the Gentiles, or by accommodation to their language and arguments, as in Acts 14:16-17; Acts 17:28; 1 Corinthians 8:1-7; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.”— Stanley. 21. Them… without law—Gentiles. Note on Romans 2:14. Not without law—For the being as a thing is not being the thing itself. Paul defines his position as showing that the gospel emancipation from law is still submission to the law of Christ. Paul, as Bengel says, is neither lawless nor anti-law. 22. To the weak—The weak in faith, of which the weaklings of Romans 14, where see notes, and 1 Corinthians 8:10, are classes. Paul studied and sympathized with their weakness in order to save and bring them from weakness to strength. All things—Transforming himself, as it were, to all the shapes of character he met, yet without hypocrisy or partaking in sin, in order to save those to whom he accommodated himself. 4. These various self-denials are undergone for an eternal future prize, 1 Corinthians 9:23-27.23. Partaker thereof—Partaker, that is, of the gospel, embracing therein all the blessings, temporal or eternal, in the included gospel. Note on 1 Corinthians 9:18. This gospel includes the prize of 1 Corinthians 9:24, the incorruptible crown of 1 Corinthians 9:25. You—In italics; it is not in the Greek. Literal rendering, be a fellow-partaker of it; that is, a sharer with, not only you, but all the glorified, of the blessed results wrapped up in the gospel. So a blissful eternity is ever present to the faith of Paul, being included in the very gospel he preaches. 24. Know ye not—They had abundant chance to know, from the exhibitions at the Isthmian stadium, near their city. A race—Here, for the first time in the New Testament, occurs an allusion to the ancient games. They are mentioned neither in the gospels nor in the Old Testament. The solemn Hebrews never practised them; and when introduced, with theatres and other spectacles by the Herodian family, they were the abhorrence of all earnest Jews. In the days of his bigoted Judaism Paul would, probably, never have used them as a religious illustration.But with the Greeks these games, traceable to an heroic age of gods and demigods, were a part of their religion. They were practised to bring the human form to that same idealized perfection as Grecian genius endeavoured to produce in its statues of heroes and gods. They formed a part of the worship of beauty in the human person, as in all other noble forms. Hence the victor in those games, at which all Greece was ambitious to be present, was a noblest of the race, a masterpiece of humanity. He was gazed at, as he proudly passed, as a model of manhood. He was the pride of his family, and honoured by his state and city among her great generals and statesmen. From the victory he departed crowned with a garland, was escorted home in a triumphal chariot, and, in some instances, instead of being received through the ordinary gate, a breach was made in the city wall, that he might be received with a unique triumph.When, a short time before the birth of Christ, Rome conquered the known world, she adopted the games, varying their form, and in every respect debasing them. By the Greeks they were idealized, by the Romans brutalized. They were no longer heroic exercises in which the noblest men engaged for self-perfection, but exhibitions of ferocious and bloody contests by professional or compulsory combatants, for the gratification of spectators gazing from their safe and cowardly seats upon scenes of savage bloodshed of which others were the inflictors or victims. There were beast fights; of men with beasts or beasts with beasts. There were gladiatorial fights of men with men. These sanguinary exhibitions were not, like the pugilistic fights of our day, followed solely by the baser classes in violation of law, but by the highest aristocracy, and provided for by either eminent individuals or the state itself. The civilization of the age exerted itself in the invention of new ferocities, or in the increased amount of the exhibition. Sylla, the despot of Rome, sent a hundred lions into the arena to be butchered by as many men. But Pompey had six hundred lions and twenty elephants thus slaughtered. Under the Emperor Titus (surnamed “The Delight of the human race”) five thousand wild and four thousand tame animals, and under Trajan eleven thousand animals, were slain for Roman amusement. Still more ferocious were the gladiatorial fights, in which professional combatants, or captives taken in war, or criminals, were made to slaughter each other. This practice began B.C. 264, and made such progress that Trajan exhibited a bloody fight of ten thousand gladiators on the arena for Roman amusement. These scenes created not bravery in the public heart, but a base and cowardly appetite for blood. They aided in spreading that utter depravity through all classes of society that prepared the empire to sink before the northern barbarians.With these games in their Grecian form the Corinthians, and St. Paul at Corinth, would be familiar. As he travelled from Athens to Corinth he passed the stadium, or race-course, of the celebrated Isthmian games, so called from the Corinthian Isthmus. In the nature of those games he saw the elements of a vivid physical imagery (especially in the race) for the illustration of the Christian life. Almost every point of the gymnastic contest he has in some part of his writings brought into use. Galatians 2:2; Galatians 5:7; Philippians 2:16; Philippians 3:14; 1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 12:1; Hebrews 12:4; Hebrews 12:12. In the present passage we have the race, the racer, the prize, the temperance, the garland, the herald, the rejected combatant. At 1 Corinthians 9:26, by a momentary change, the boxing match is the source of allusion.Run all—All the competitors. One—Paul here illustrates by contrast. In the Isthmian race there could be but one victor among all the runners; in the Christian race every candidate that rightly runs may win the garland. So run—With such applied vigour, with such self-control and concentration, with such increasing persistence, to the end. Obtain—Win. 25. Every man that striveth—Every agonistes, or champion. Is temperate—Is self-controlling. Then, as now, the candidate for the race put himself under a long and severe training, in diet, in potations, in exercise, in order to tone himself up to the highest vigour. Even the professional pugilist of our modern execrable prize-fights will, in order to obtain victory, put himself upon a regimen of strict temperance, making himself an example of physical virtue for better men. He is a practical proof that strict abstinence from intoxicating drinks is ordinarily, a requisite condition to the highest health and vigour. He shows too, that the most profligate of men are amply able to discover and recognise the severest truths, when they have even a sordid interest in knowing them. Would the pugilist be as wise, as keenly searching after the truth, as energetic and as self-denying in pursuing the eternal prize as he is the temporal, he could not fail to win. But Paul uses a Greek word that covers more than bodily temperance. It includes self-denial of every kind, and is used by him in reference to his own self-denials in eating idol sacrifices, (1 Corinthians 8:13,) in refusing Churchly maintenance, (1 Corinthians 9:15,) and in all the self-mortifying compliances of 1 Corinthians 9:19-22. And this reference runs through to the end of the chapter; nay, even to the end of the next chapter. It is a thread of which the reader should not for a moment lose hold who would completely understand St. Paul. Crown—From the pine groves contiguous to the stadium the Corinthians would gather the branches, and wreath a garland for the brow of the victor, amid the applauding crowds of spectators. It was an evergreen; a not unfitting emblem of that earthly immortality of renown which it indicated that the wearer had attained. But, alas! this emblem of imperishability was itself perishable. The lyrics of the poet Pindar are almost the sole mementos of the victors, but they, too, in time will perish.The most eminent emblematic garland of victory was the laurel. It was said that Apollo, after having slain the dragon Python at Delphos, wreathed his brows with the laurel, and established his oracle at the Castalian spring issuing from the cave at Delphos. At the Olympic games they used the wild olive; at the Nemean, the parsley. An incorruptible—Our Christian life is the race, crowned with everlasting triumph at its close. St. Paul, as he drew near his martyrdom, beautifully styles it the crown of righteousness. 2 Timothy 4:8. 26. Uncertainly—Making sure work; leaving nothing to chance. So fight—As a boxer. Beateth the air—Alluding, not to the mock-fight (σκιομαχια, shadow-fight) used by combatants beforehand for practice, but to the missing his antagonist and striking into vacancy. It stands parallel to uncertainly. Both in his race and his battle Paul did a sure business. In the battle for eternity there is an infinite difference between winning the crown and becoming a castaway. 27. I keep under—Viewing his body as ready, with its fleshly appetites, (the reverse of the temperate of 1 Corinthians 9:25,) to break the certainty and surety of his running, he beat it to discoloration. Note on Luke 18:5, where the same Greek word is used in a slightly different sense. The term is a pugilistic one; literally, to black-eye one. Paul refers not, as the Romanists pervert the word, to any bodily flagellation, any more than beateth the air refers to a muscular blow. Nor, as Mr. Alford well says, does it refer even to “fasting and prayer,” but to the self-subduing and self-denial, as we have specified in note to 1 Corinthians 9:25. Bring it into subjection—Literally, enslave it. Have preached—Have heralded. The Greek word for preacher in the New Testament is êçñõî, herald, and to preach is to herald, (the word used here,) that is, to proclaim, to announce, to call. In the games the herald was one who made the proclamations; so that Paul happily uses the word in its double sense. So Chrysostom, quoted by Wetstein, says: “Tell me, I pray you, at the Olympic contests does not the herald stand proclaiming strong and high, ‘Does any one charge that this candidate is a slave? a thief? a man of bad morals?’” A castaway—A rejectee, or reprobate, who could not stand the double scrutiny. The first scrutiny was to decide whether he was worthy to enter the games: the second was to decide whether he had so run, honourably and according to rule, as to be entitled to the evergreen chaplet. If not, he was rejected as a reprobate and a castaway. It is by only an apparent confusion that Paul here makes himself play the part both of herald and athlete. In fact, the Emperor Nero did once play both these parts. He was combatant, victor, and chosen herald to proclaim his own triumph.This elaborate illustration of the Christian life from the Isthmian games, for the first time drawn by Paul, must have formed a striking picture to the Corinthians, who were so familiar with the animating spectacle. Henceforward the sight of the stadium would awaken higher thoughts. It had a lesson to inspire them to new earnestness in the Christian race to make sure work of winning the incorruptible crown. 5. Israel’s wilderness-sojourn a type of the Christian race, 1 Corinthians 10:1-13.1. I would not that ye should be ignorant—Or that ye should ignore what you so well know. All—This word occurs five times in the passage, (1 Corinthians 10:1-4,) and stands in contrast with the many of 1 Corinthians 10:5. All started from Egypt, but only Caleb and Joshua, with perhaps a few others, arrived in Canaan. So in the last chapter all run, but only one wins. Under the cloud—The miraculous pillar of cloud by day, which was a pillar of fire by night, in which “the Lord went before” Israel. Exodus 13:20-22. In the passage of the Red Sea this cloud removed, and so went behind the camp of the Israelites as to hang between them and the Egyptians. The cloud thus between the two shed at once darkness upon the Egyptians and light upon Israel. In passing from front to rear of the Hebrew camp it may have so passed over it that the people were literally under the cloud. At any rate they were under its protection. Of course it was not a water cloud, and no rain or sprinkling can be supposed to have dropped from it. Passed through the sea—In safety. Exodus 14:29-30. 2. Were baptized—Greek middle voice, baptized themselves; that is, accepted the virtual baptism. Their own wills concurred with the divine act. Unto Moses—Greek, åéò, into Moses; into that religion of which Moses was representative. So Romans 6:3, baptized into Christ. In the cloud—As overshadowing them. In the sea—The sea, like the flood in1 Peter 1:2, suggests the baptismal element from which the simile of baptism takes its start. No definite image of the form of baptism, whether by affusion or immersion, is framed in either case.Satan is our Pharaoh, Christ is our Moses, the pass of the sea is our baptism, the Holy Spirit is our guiding, protecting, separating, and consecrating fiery-cloudy pillar. 3, 4. All… same—The same baptism, the same spiritual meat, the same spiritual drink were shared by all. And all shared the same faith. The people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord and his servant Moses. This emphatic repetition of the same spiritual state of all deserves a more marked attention than has usually been bestowed upon it. Israel was now the complete Church, in which all had the same faith, baptism, and, consequently, the same regeneration. Yet the large majority of them apostatized utterly and totally, and under divine wrath their carcasses strewed the wilderness. Here not the bare possibility of apostasy is affirmed, but its actual reality. The racers all start in the same Christian race alike. The Israelites all start alike through regeneration for the promised land. Yet they fail of both the earthly and the heavenly Canaan. Spiritual meat… spiritual drink—Of which the manna and the water from the smitten rock are the suggestive similes. Like the bread and wine of the sacrament, the manna, the water, and even the rock, are all emblematical of the body or blood of Christ. Hence all Israel partook not only of the manna, but of the spiritual meat of which the manna was the emblem. Spiritual drink—The water of life, of which the water from the smitten rock was an emblem. Spiritual Rock… Christ—Hence it is not the rock smitten by Moses that St. Paul calls the spiritual Rock; but Christ, typified by the smitten rock, is the real spiritual Rock, of which they all did drink. Dr. Hodge and most other commentators involve themselves in inextricable confusion by making Paul call the material manna water, and rock spiritual. Rock that followed them—Rabbinical tradition affirmed that either the rock smitten by Moses, or the water flowing from it, followed the Israelites through all their journey from Rephidim to Canaan. If, as Dr. Hodge interprets, it is the material manna, water, and rock, that Paul means, then it follows conclusively that Paul endorses the tradition as true. And Alford not only carries the physical interpretation through, but he affirms that it is violence not to agree that Paul actually affirms the truth of the tradition! But when Paul tells us that the Rock was Christ, it is inadmissible to make him say that the material rock, or the stream from it, followed them.That Christ was the Jehovah of the Old Testament, the angel-Jehovah, has ever been a scriptural maxim in the Christian Church. Dr. Hodge well says: “Our Lord said, Abraham saw his day, for he was before Abraham.John 8:58. John says, (John 12:41,) Isaiah beheld his glory in the temple; Paul says, the Israelites tempted him in the wilderness, (1 Corinthians 10:9;) and that Moses suffered his reproach. Hebrews 11:26. Jude 1:5 says, the Lord, or (as Lachmann, after the ancient versions and manuscripts, reads) Jesus, saved his people out of Egypt.” Hence there was a rock and a stream that followed Israel all their journey through; but that rock was not the rock of Horeb, as the rabbins fancied, but Christ himself.Schoettgen quotes a Jewish writer thus: “There was a rock, shaped like a beehive, globular, and it rolled itself and went with them in their journeyings. When the camps stopped at their stations, and the tabernacle stood still, this rock came and placed itself in the threshold of the tent. Then came the princes, and, standing near it, said, Spring up, O well, etc., (Numbers 21:17,) and it sprung up.”Dr. Wordsworth says, that as there were clouds to rain manna all their journey through, so there were rocks (genetically, rock) to supply water.“He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths.” Psalms 78:15. “He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out; they ran in the dry places like a river.” Psalms 105:41. 5. Many—All ate and drank sacramentally of Christ, but many apostatized. Overthrown—Rather, strown; their carcasses lying on the desert surface. This refers not to the myriads who died a natural death, but to the numbers that were slain by divine sentence for sin. 6. Examples—Literal Greek, types. Yet not divinely-established types, to which we are to conform; but figures of wrongs which we should avoid. Lust—As the mental source whence sins, especially of the sensuous kind, proceed. Literal Greek, That we be not lusters of evil things. It was to these sensuous sins, especially, that Christians in the licentious, idolatrous, and heaven-daring city of Corinth were liable. 7. Idolaters—Lust, or sensuous desires, in Corinth as in Israel, craved after idolatry. The revels and feasts of the golden calf were the very type of those wanton rites by which Paul’s Gentile Christians were lured to idolatry. People sat down—At the banquet of sacrifice to the golden calf; held by them to be an image representative of Jehovah, yet made in disobedience to the second commandment of the decalogue. Precisely so the Corinthians were liable to join in idolatrous banquets under supposition that the compliance was in perfect allegiance to Jesus. To play—To dance, and other antic sports, tending to but not necessarily including lasciviousness. 8. Let us—Paul, perhaps, reverts here to the first person from delicacy. Fornication—Any illicit sexual connexion. This caution well follows next after that against idolatry; for the idol rites consisted largely of debauchery, as is illustrated by the case to which Paul now refers. Committed—While the Israelites yet sojourned on the east side of the Jordan, the Moabite women first invited them to their sacrificial banquets, and thereby seduced them to whoredom. Numbers 25. The worship of the Corinthian Venus was of precisely the same kind; in which debauchery was consecrated as a religious rite. How liable the Corinthian Christians were to that sort of seduction the case of the incestuous man indicates. Three and twenty thousand—The Old Testament (Numbers 25:9) says, four and twenty thousand. Scholars generally admit that Paul wrote as this present text stands; and many, as Alford and Kling, treat it as a failure of apostolic memory. Alford considers it discreditable to maintain any other view. Grotius reconciles the contradiction by supposing that the twenty-three thousand were slain by the plague and one thousand by Phinehas and his fellows. Wordsworth supposes that Paul gives the number who fell in the single day, while Numbers gives all that fell in consequence of the crime. Bengel supposes, that both accounts giving only the round numbers, the exact count might be between the two, and so both numbers be equally correct. Of course no moral truth is affected by the variance. 9. Tempt Christ—Some manuscripts read the Lord, instead of Christ. The meaning would then be the same, but the analogy of 1 Corinthians 10:4 and of Heb 11:26 is convincing proof that Christ is the true reading. To tempt the Divine Being is to provoke and dare his wrath by a persistence in presumptuous sin. The allusion is to Numbers 21:4-6, where Israel is described as provoking God by reproaches for bringing them into the desert and feeding them upon manna. So the Corinthian Christians might rebel at their separation from the pagan social world, and their restriction under the severe morality of Christ. In this way myriads of professing Christians have tempted Christ, have apostatized from his religion, and died of the fiery bite of the old serpent or his “infernal brood.” 10. Murmured—Korah and his company murmured against Moses and Aaron, (and so against God,) and more than 14,000 of the people were destroyed. Numbers 16:49. By analogy this warns the Corinthians to beware of those who would excite a captious rebellion and schism, not only against the gospel and the Church, but against the authority of Christ’s true apostles. Destroyer—In the pestilence following the crime of Korah and his company no personal destroyer is mentioned; but one is presupposed as executing that divine judgment, perhaps from the analogy of Exo 12:23, where the destroyer, the divine executioner of death for sin, is mentioned. 11. For ensamples—Greek, typically; that is, illustratively. The world— World in the Greek, here, is plural, making ends of the worlds. The word signifies age or dispensation; implying a cycle of time in which some great round of Providence is accomplished. Hence, if the word here be rendered world, it must be understood to signify not κοσμος, cosmos, the material world, but a world-period, or time-world. These ages or time-worlds of sacred history can be variously measured. We may reckon the antediluvian period or world; the patriarchal; the Mosaic and the Christian. In Matthew 24:3 the Greek for end of the world is τηςσυντελειαςτουαιωνος; literally, the together ending of the age, or present time-world. The term together ending, or con-summation, implies the converging of several threads of providential events to a common close. Similarly, here we have the (plural) endings, convergings to one close, of all the previous ages into the present final age. The age of the Messiah is the age for which the previous ages, or time-worlds, were framed. Hebrews 1:2. Hence the wilderness-histories of Israel find their antitype in the present history of the Church, and so were written for our admonition. We are heirs to all the past. 12. Wherefore—As a deduction from the wilderness-history, Paul draws this inference: beware of apostasy. And as this whole passage (1 Corinthians 10:1-14) is parallel to 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, so this warning against apostasy (1 Corinthians 10:12-14) is parallel to Paul’s avoidance of becoming a castaway, 1 Corinthians 9:27. Thinketh—Each one’s own consciousness must decide for himself whether he standeth on the Christian journeying-ground or not. But the exhortation of persons not to fall, in this and all other cases, must presuppose that they are really standing in a state of grace. The presupposition is, that if they stand as they are they will be saved. If, as some maintain, they are false professors, either by hypocrisy or self-deception, the sooner they cease to stand the better. Hence all exhortations not to fall are made on the assumption of the possibility and practical liability to fall from a true state of grace, or they are absurd. Take heed—By believing it possible and guarding against it. Fall—From a state in which, if he persevered, he would be saved.To all this it cannot be wisely replied that, although there is danger of a Christian’s fall, yet the danger will never result; the very warning will be successful and prevent the falling. For in the present case the warning is based on the historic fact that thousands of Israel did fall; and we must not fall as they DID. We are exhorted not to fall from a true state of grace as they fell from a true state of grace. And Paul has taken great pains to declare and show, in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, how they were all, all, all a true part of a true Church, baptized and sacramented, so that their final perdition was a true and fearful fall; a type for true Christians carefully to avoid. If they never truly stood, they never fell; and if they fell, they once stood. If their fault and ruin was in actually falling, then their salvation would have been in actually standing—standing just as they were. 13. There—But your falling from grace, though possible, is by no means necessary. God, on his part, has done every thing for your perseverance if you do yours. He will keep you, none can pluck you from his hand, he will provide your escape from every temptation; only you must consent to be kept, to stay in his hand, and to escape by the way he provides. Sinners and apostates can defeat all the provisions of God’s grace. See our Note on Romans 8:35-39. Common to man—A prolix but correct rendering of the Greek word ανθρωπινος, human. No temptation not ordinary in the level of human probation. Whether to idolatry, to fornication, to presumption against Christ, or to murmuring against his Church, all are no greater than Israel suffered before you and others will suffer after you. To escape—Even if force compels a mechanical wrong act the will may refuse consent, and the deed is guiltless. If there were no power of escape, these would (unless we have wickedly destroyed our own power) be irresponsible for yielding to the temptation. Able to bear—Thus far does God’s grace go. No power of motive will oblige our wills to apostatize or sin. When we choose to sin, it is not because we have not the power of contrary choice, but because we do not use it, or have guiltily forfeited it. On the other hand, no divine efficiency or decree—no motive force—will oblige us to use the way of escape. When God purposes to leave our free wills to act on trial, he does not destroy the trial by previously fixing the way we shall choose. From the very nature of trial or probation that would be to upset his own divine purpose.Resumption (from 1 Corinthians 8:13) of the response touching the eating of idolatrous sacrifices, 1 Corinthians 10:14 to 1 Corinthians 11:1. 14. Wherefore—As an inference from all the above warnings, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, and 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. Idolatry—Which resumes the thread of thought from 1 Corinthians 8:13, touching idol offerings, and continues it to 1 Corinthians 11:1. 15. Wise men—In the apostolic Church there was, in spite of every shortcoming, an inspired wisdom, responsive to the inspired teachings of the apostles, and ratifying them as the true doctrine of Christ. Judge ye— For the statement of the true nature of the holy communion he relies on their full knowledge of its history and character. All this shows that the evangelical history was familiar both to apostle and Church, and is full proof of its truth and reality. 16. Cup of blessing—Note on Matthew 26:26. Communion is the common ownership of an undivided property; participation or partaking is the taking of a part of the common property for individual use. The Church in common possess the sacramental cup and bread; thereby the Church is one, as the cup and the bread are one. Is it not… blood—Note Matthew 26:26. 17. One bread—The bread is one, not by being a single loaf, as some suppose, but by being one species or substance, and so one emblem. We are one bread, as all the particles of the bread are one composite whole. One body—Being members of an organic whole, which is Christ’s body. Partakers—Note on 1 Corinthians 10:16. 18. This unity and communion Paul now illustrates from the Jewish system, where partaking of the sacrifices rendered all adherents of the common altar. Israel after the flesh—in distinction from Israel after the spirit.Note Romans 9:8. Partakers of the altar—If the altar be an idolatrous one, the partaker is an idolater; if it be an altar of Jehovah, then he acknowledges Jehovah. Such may not be the intention of the partaker, but such is the established and public import of the act. 19. What say I then?—What is the import, then, of what I am now saying? Do I attribute any real existence to the imaginary gods and demigods represented by the idol, as Jupiter, Venus, Apollo? Or that the sacrifice is any thing more than a fiction? 20. But—On the contrary, what I say is that, etc. Devils—Demons. Note on Luke 10:17. Our translators should never have confounded devil and demon. In pagan mythology a demon was intermediate between gods and men. One class were supposed to be the spirits of dead men, either good or evil, according to their character in life. Another class were beings of supernatural origin, somewhat like the angels. They might be good, like the demon which Socrates claimed to be his supernatural monitor; and it is singular to note how wonderfully many of the attributes of the Pythian Apollo prefigured Christ! They might be evil, as held by the wisest philosophers, and send diseases and pestilences to men and animals, and supply temptations to wrong.In the Septuagint the word demon is used to designate, generally, an evil supernatural spirit, or whatever evil living reality there was to appropriate the service of pagan worshippers. So Psalms 96:5. All the gods of the pagans are demons; Deuteronomy 32:17, they sacrificed unto demons, and not unto God. It is clear from 1 Corinthians 10:22 that the apostle has this passage in mind. Josephus uses the word demons to denote the surviving spirits of wicked dead men, who often possess the living, and are to be expelled by exorcisms and fumigations.In the New Testament the word is always used in a bad sense. There is but one Satan, one devil, and his angels, (Matthew 25:41,) and his angels are doubtless identical with the demons. There is no intimation in Scripture that they are the surviving spirits of the wicked dead. Wherever in our translation the plural word devils is used, the Greek is demons. Paul denies that there is any real god or goddess in paganism, but Satan’s spiritual emissaries may so impersonate those imaginary beings as to appropriate the honours of the worship, and keep the worshippers in paganism. Notes on Mark 5:2, and Acts 16:16; Acts 16:18. Not to God—They belong to the idolatrous and infernal, and antagonize the true religion and the true God. I would not—And this would not, he shows next verse, involves a cannot. 21. Cannot—Ye can do one or the other; but ye cannot do both. It is a cannot arising from the incompatibility of the two things. It was the contrariety of the kingdoms of light and of darkness, and the apostle solemnly warns them to beware on which side they stand. Cup of the Lord—The Jehovah of the Old Testament, who was at war with all idolatries, the Christ of the New Testament, who is establishing the kingdom of light on earth. Cup of devils—This refers to the festal cup at the pagan sacrifices, from which the libations were poured forth, symbolizing the treating the god with wine. “Wherefore,” says Eneas in Virgil, “come forth, O youths, and in honour of so much excellence, wreath your foreheads, bring forth the cups, invoke the common deity, and present your wines.” Whatsoever Jew drank of these cups or ate the meats was denounced as an apostate. Lord’s table—The Rhemish (Romanistic) commentator makes here a desperate effort to show that St. Paul sustains the doctrine that in the sacrament of the Lord’s supper there is a living victim, Christ, repeatedly and literally sacrificed upon an altar. His opponent, Dr. Fulke, very truly replied that neither the word victim, sacrifice, or altar is once used. The Christian holy sacrament is simply selected as the opposite image to the heathen sacrificial feasts, to present strongly the contrast by which the Christian is forbidden to be sharer in the other.Doubtless as being the successor of, and substitute for, the sacrifices of the old covenant to figure one real sacrifice, once and for evermore offered, the sacrament may be viewed as a symbolic sacrifice. It sustains the same relation that baptism does to circumcision, and that our Sunday holy-day does to the Jewish sabbath. Hence very beautifully did the Council of Ephesus say, “We celebrate in the Churches the un-bloody service of the sacrifice.” And here, as the Council by the word “un-bloody” recognises that the wine is no literal blood, so it follows that the sacrifice is of no literal victim. 22. Provoke the Lord—As we have above intimated, St. Paul has in mind Deuteronomy 32:17-26, and this is an allusion to 1 Corinthians 10:21. Stronger than he—So as to meet all the threatenings of Deu 32:21-26. 23. All things—All natural gratifications are, in their proper kind and degree, lawful. See note on 1 Corinthians 6:12-13. But—This primitive all has its limitations. Not expedient—And so, being unprofitable and injurious, may thereby become unlawful. And now he proceeds to lay down some of the moral expediences and prudences by which the eating of meats must be regulated. 24. His own—Advantage or gratification. Another’s—Regulating your practice, not solely by your own convenience, but for another’s spiritual safety. And he proceeds now to specify how this is to be done. 25. Whatsoever is sold—The meats of idol sacrifices were often exposed to sale in the shambles, especially by the priests, when they had on hand a surplus above their own consumption. To the Christian this was intrinsically as lawful as any other meat. Shambles—Not markets, nor buildings; but meat stalls in the market. In view of this lawfulness, therefore, without any questions for conscience’ sake, even if well knowing that a pagan priest had just exposed it for sale, the believer might purchase and eat. 26. The Lord’s—This meat is like any thing else in the Lord’s earth made for man’s use so far as it is usable. Fulness—All with which the earth is filled. The passage is quoted from Psalms 24:1. It was used by the Jews in their thanksgiving before meal. It probably formed part of the eucharistic blessing, and indicates that the meat so eaten was consistent with the sacramental communion. 27. If—St. Paul has thus far stated the rule for the market; now comes the rule for the table. Bid… feast—A Christian is invited by a pagan friend, not to a temple banquet, but to a feast at the latter’s residence. Disposed to go—Though a pagan, he may still be a dear friend, and Christianity requires not that the innocent tie be broken. 28. Any man—The word idols, in the remark of this any man, being contemptuous, shows that it is not uttered by the host or any other pagan. Nor is it uttered by a Jew, since such never ate with Gentiles. It is, therefore, from some fellow-Christian, who hesitates not to attend a pagan’s feast, but is scrupulous to pick out and reject all idolatrous meats. This brother is weak; but your example of eating may either lead him to be unscrupulous and low in his Christian life, or to condemn the religion that keeps not (as he thinks) its followers unspotted from idolatry. His sake— As he is in danger. Conscience sake—Which is ever a most sacred thing. 29. Of the other—St. Paul is here particular to reiterate that it is not his conscience that weakly objects, but the inquirer’s; and that it is by his conscience you must avoid being condemned. Judged—Condemned. The meaning, then, is: For why incur by my license a condemnation from my fellow-Christian’s conscience? It must be a doubtful, perhaps a reckless, use of my liberty, which is indulged in disregard of his judgment. Better offend against a man’s tastes, or his wishes, or even his temporal interests, than so transgress against his conscience as to endanger his soul. Not thine own—When you yield external compliance you do not yield also the secret convictions of your own conscience. The conscientious principle you still hold in your own heart, that the eating is not unlawful, in the expectation that when superstition and prejudice have passed away the truth will predominate. Of the other—Externally, you spare his conscience; internally, you retain your own. My liberty—Which is judged and approved by my own conscience. Judged—So as to displace my own decision. Of another man’s conscience—The unalienable rights of the individual conscience, the private judgment of every man, is here conclusively maintained against all usurpers, whether priests, popes, or potentates. No other man’s conscience can be for me a substitute for my own. St. Paul would have, in delicate regard for his neighbour’s conscience, avoided eating meat in his presence, but nothing could have compelled him to declare that the eating of it was intrinsically a sin. 30. For—In enforcement of this view of the rights of his own conscience. By grace—And, therefore, rightfully. Give thanks—In a devout and conscientious spirit. Why… evil spoken of—For I act in accordance with my own moral and religious nature.We have given what we think to be clearly the sense of 1 Corinthians 10:28-30. But there are several other interpretations, of which we need notice but two. 1. That maintained by Stanley and others, which makes the two verses to be the objection of others, perhaps contained in the Corinthian letter, to Paul’s doctrine of compliance with the weak brother’s scruples on the ground that it is consenting to be judged by another’s conscience. The view is plausible, but it is not easy to see that the following verse (1 Corinthians 10:31) aims to be any reply to such an objection. On the contrary, the therefore seems to imply a conclusion drawn in accordance with 1 Corinthians 10:29-30. 2. The view of Alford, after Meyer, which makes 1 Corinthians 10:29 mean: For why incur by my license a condemnation from my fellow-Christian’s conscience? It makes 1 Corinthians 10:30 also say that I must not induce my good procedure to be evil spoken of. Such an interpretation accords well with the train of thought. But it cannot easily be forced upon 1 Corinthians 10:30, for that verse is clearly the utterance of one who is sure he is right, and therein ought not to be maligned by another. 31. Therefore—As a concluding rule from the whole of 1 Corinthians 10:23-30. Eat, or drink—At feasts or elsewhere. Glory of God—As a servant of God, willing ever to bring honour to his law and name.This does not require that in every motion or deed we make God’s glory a distinct object of thought. It requires that we should plan and order our whole life in accordance with God’s law, and with the gospel of his Son. This supreme purpose should control the whole scheme, and be so carried out that our life, in whole and in all its parts, should be a lesson to men, inspiring them to glorify our Father which is in heaven. 32. None offence—No scandal. Jews—The apostle ever avoided offence to his kinsmen after the flesh. Gentiles—Crossing none of their prejudices where God’s law does not require it. Church of God—Endeavouring to maintain its purity and peace by purity and peace on his own part. 33. Please all—That is, in purpose and effort, whether with successful result or not. Be saved—His compliances and subserviences were neither for flattery nor self-interest, but for the eternal good of his fellow-beings. In this direction he was the most complying of men; in all others the most independent. In all these things he would have the Corinthians, according to the first verse of the next chapter, (where see note,) his followers. 1. Followers—This verse belongs to the close of the last chapter, and should be read in continuation. Of Christ—He would have followers, not as being original and independent, but as he was imitator and follower of the divine model. 2. Now I praise you—Softening the warnings of the previous chapters. That—Literally rendered, All of mine ye have remembered, and all the deliverances I have delivered ye receive. This is to prepare the way for his now prescribing the methods of worship. Ordinances usually imply doctrines handed down from generation to generation; here, the directions personally imparted. 3. Head of every man—Of every Christian, says Grotius. Yet in the redemption Christ has a headship of the race. See notes on Romans 5:12-21. Here, however, as a harmonious ruling and obeyed headship is implied, Grotius’s limitation is correct. Of every man, by Paul addressed, the Head was Christ.The headship of our Lord over the Christian man is a headship of divine authority, in which, however, when complete and perfect, the authority merges into a blessed spontaneity and concurrence of wills. Such is the apostle’s view of marriage, of which the union of Christ and his Church is the type. A divinely-constituted headship similarly belongs to the husband in the family; but the true idea of the family is a unity of love, in which the command is the expression of the common happiness, and obedience is a loving concurrence of wills. If the realization of the idea is seldom complete, that is true of all sublunary constitutions, arising from the jars of sin. The man—That to the masculine side of humanity (as of all other living races of beings) belongs the force, the executive endowment, and the consequent headship, is plain to every eye that looks at male and female through all animated nature as they are created. It is shown in every quality of their respective human frames. Size of brain and body; strength of bone, fibre, and nerve; tendencies of instinct, feeling, and will; all proclaim that man should bear the brunt of the battle of life, and, therefore, must plan the campaign and order the particular manoeuvres. To talk of equality here contradicts God and nature. It is one of “the rights of woman,” as it is one of the instincts, to retire to the rear of the fight, and live under the protection of a stronger arm than her own. It is one of her “rights” to lean on that arm for aid, and to look to that head to plan for her well-being.And to this it is the noblest instinct of man that responds. It is the thought of wife and children, rather than thought of self, that prompts the soldier to the fiercest bravery, or the labourer to his cruelest toil. He can bear any thing; but how subject the tender ones at home to hardship, disgrace, or disgusts. To win for her at home honour, ornament, and happiness, is the crown of his own enjoyments. The whole history of civilization shows that the robust thought and toil are man’s. The pyramids, the temples, the capitoliums, the city walls and towers, the aqueducts and bridges, the railways and telegraphs, are all the products of man’s hand and brain. The battles by him are fought, and by consequence to him belong (save in exceptional instances) the diplomacies, the senates, the cabinets, and the executive chairs. In short, to man belongs, by nature and by God, the national as well as the domestic rule. If in a free government woman should ever possess the right of suffrage, it would be (like her consent or her veto in accepting or rejecting an offered husband) rather the particular right to choose her ruler than a power to rule. 4. Every man praying… covered—Either from the Corinthian letter or the messengers that brought it, Paul learned that the Christian rule of worship was unsettled. Men following the Hebrew or Roman custom probably prayed with the head covered. Women, doubting what under the Christian system was the law for their sex, in what they perhaps considered Christian freedom removed the customary hood from their heads. The notion of Ruckart and others, that the motive of these uncovering women was to display their beauty, has not one syllable in the apostle’s rebuke or argument to sustain it. On the contrary, his whole force of reasoning goes to show that a proper subordination truly belongs to the female sex; and it is solely a questioning of this truth which his argument presupposes. It does not appear that any real disorders occurred. They were holy women endowed with spiritual gifts, who would need these directions from the higher authority of their founder apostle.Paul gives caution to the men first here and in 1 Corinthians 11:7. The ancient commentators held that St. Paul wrote to check the men as well as the women; but later writers, as Ruckart, Alford, and Stanley, say that he refers to the men merely, in illustration of the case of the women. We hold that the former are clearly correct. As we have shown, different customs for men on this subject prevailed among the different nationalities and religions which were now promiscuously crowded into Corinth. Jewish and Roman converts would be predisposed to pray with heads covered, while the Greeks would uncover. The fact that Paul treats the case of woman so much more fully is because it was a question of propriety; and of the proprieties and refinements of life, woman, being the special guardian, needed to be very fully set right. From all this it is clear that St. Paul decides for the covered head, not from any divine command, or any immutable propriety, but because, in the existing state of customs, the covered head was the symbol of modesty. It is the modesty that is the permanent principle; the covered head is the transient expression of the principle. Dishonoureth his head—Stanley makes head, here, possess a double reference, namely, to Christ and to the man’s own head. The latter, however, is doubtless Paul’s real meaning; the former can be brought in only by inference. Josephus says, “Izates, throwing himself to the earth, and dishonouring his head with ashes, fasted calling upon God.” To the Christian man belonged a triumphant, unblushing worship. Christ, his head, not being visibly present, there was no mere humanity before which it became him to cover. See note 1 Corinthians 11:7. In modern times men are uncovered in Christian worship in consequence of Paul’s rule, but not for his reason. It is now rather the uncovering of reverence for the Divine presence, or respect for the congregation or service, which a Jew expressed by putting off his sandals. To the universal modern Christian practice of bared heads in church, Stanley says that “Holland is the only exception. In Dutch congregations, men uncover their heads during the psalmody only.” 5. Every woman that prayeth… prophesieth—Grotius thus comments: “So in the Old Testament women were prophetesses, as Miriam, sister of Moses, Exodus 15:20; Deborah, Judges 4:1; Judges 4:5; the wife of Isaiah, Isaiah 8:3; Huldah, 2 Kings 22:14; so also in the New Testament, the daughters of Philip, Acts 21:9, and others. Such were accustomed also to expound the sacred prophecies publicly, as appears from the passages above quoted from the Old Testament. Wherefore Paul’s prohibition of women from performing the office of teaching, is to be understood with this exception, unless they have the special commandment of God.”Wetstein says, similarly: “It was not permissible for women to teach or lead prayers in the congregation, (xiv, 34,) unless, for an exceptional reason and in a special manner, they were impelled to so doing by the Spirit of God. Acts 2:17; Acts 21:9; Luke 1:41-42; 1 Samuel 10:5; 1 Samuel 10:10; 1 Chronicles 25:1-3; 2 Chronicles 29:30; 2 Chronicles 35:15.” It is sometimes denied that any female prophet ever prophesied in public. But in Judges 4:4, Deborah is styled “a prophetess” who “judged”—that is, ruled—Israel in peace and led her army in war. Her “judgment,” (Judges 4:5,) her generalship, and her chant of triumph, were all public. Her judging itself was by divine mission and impulse; and so was, strictly, in the biblical sense, prophecy. Her chant was prophecy, for 1 Chronicles 25:1-3 shows that music and psalm came under the head of prophecy. It is ludicrous to suppose that it was in accordance with feminine modesty for Deborah to judge the people and command an army in public, but a violation of that virtue to utter a supernatural sentence in a religions assembly! Miriam’s rhythmical prophecy was uttered with timbrel before Israel’s whole camp. Huldah was installed in the prophetic college, and it was permitted her to teach a body of men sent to her by the king, including the high priest. These cases completely negative the doctrine that an inspired or gifted woman was unauthorized to speak in public. To make Paul forbid a woman’s public prophesying is to make him nullify some of the most striking facts of Old Testament history.Both the above eminent commentators (with whom Wesley concurs) maintain that Paul in this passage assumes the right of women in the proper exceptional cases to pray or prophesy in the congregation, and maintain that in 1 Corinthians 14:34 he forbids the mass of women to interrupt the service with their noisy chatter. Alford, Stanley, and others, maintain that Paul, in 1 Corinthians 14:34, not only forbids the uncovered head in these services, but forbids the service by women at all. Thus Calvin is quoted as saying: “In here disapproving of the one, he does not approve of the other. Paul attends to one thing at a time.” But the “one thing” which this makes him “attend to” seems a very unwise “thing.” Why should he forbid praying uncovered when he condemns and prohibits their praying at all? Such a view vacates this whole paragraph of sense, rendering it so much blank paper. The Corinthian query clearly was, Ought women to have the head uncovered in their public prophesying? And St. Paul’s brief, plain answer should have been, There is to be no women’s public praying or prophesying at all. Prohibiting the incident permits the main thing. It assumes that if the incident is set right, the whole thing is right. Both Grotius and Wetstein hold that feminine prophecy is “for exceptional reason,” and by divine specialty. Hence it is often said that the female at the present day must, in her own case, in order to be accepted, be able to show an express divine authorization to prophesy or preach. To this, however, it may fairly be replied, that even the male prophet must individually profess to be “moved by the Holy Ghost,” to his office. Such a “call,” in either case, is not miraculous, but is supernatural and individual. In the case of the man, it is in accordance with the nature of man, and with the ordinary rule of Providence. In the case of the woman, it is less accordant with the feminine nature, and is more extraordinary and special; especially where it implies the exercise of authority over both sexes.With her head uncovered—Before the gaze of masculinity it often is at once the modesty and the dignity of woman to vail herself. That unrestrained gaze is often profane; and it is a divine reserve that shrinks and conceals from it. In that reserve is contained even the proudest and noblest self-respect; so that under the forms of humiliation resides woman’s exaltation. Thereby she becomes, to man’s idea, a something sacred and imperial. Let her forfeit that ideal and she dethrones herself, and becomes an unlovely being. By most divine law each sex is confined to its own nature. It is equally shameful for manhood to become effeminate, and for womanhood to become masculine. All one as if… shaven—One in shamefulness, for both are an unwarrantable exposure, but different in degree; for the former is a beginning and the latter is the consummation. The covering of the head as a sign of womanly modesty before man was a rigid point with the Jews. And noblest was the woman that carried it out most nobly. “The lady Kimhith bore seven sons, of whom each one attained the high priesthood. They inquired of her what she had done to accomplish so great a felicity. She replied: “At no time did ever the ceilings of my house behold the locks of my head.” — Quoted by Wetstein. Doubtless this, however, was but a sample of the tone of her character on all other points. This energy of self-control and severity of obedience to law is the very essence of a lofty moral nature. No wonder the woman of such a nature should give a line of high priests to the world; she is a born high priestess.Of course the apostle at the present day would not consider the hood as possessing any religious significance. Women now sit or stand before men with heads uncovered, not only in the social circle, but in large assemblies; nor is it any religious obligation that requires her to wear a bonnet in church, or forbids her to speak or pray with bonnet off. And all this, when the letter of the apostle’s language condemns the uncovered head in the most explicit terms. But really, Paul condemned the uncovered female head of his day because it then expressed the moving of woman from her sphere, and suggested a dishonouring association, calculated to bring the purity of the Church into suspicion. 6. Let her be—Let her carry out the principle, and see where it will land her. This is, of course, not a real command; the imperative being simply a form of the argument. Shorn—As with shears. Shaven—As with a razor. Be covered—The obvious impropriety alike of either of the three exposures brings to the conclusion that she should be covered. The shaving of the woman’s head assimilated her, in the existing state of customs, to the disreputable class. “The antiquaries and philologists,” says Bloomfield, “have proved that all the ancient nations agree in accounting this as the greatest dishonour and disparagement to the person of a woman.Hence it was adopted only as a sign of extreme grief, (see Deuteronomy 21:12,) or was imposed as a mark of infamy and disgrace.” Even among the Germans, as Tacitus informs us, the penalty for the adulteress was to be expelled from her husband’s house with a shaven head. A Jewish commentator on the words “uncover the woman’s head,” (Numbers 5:18,) says: “For what reason? Because it is not the custom of Israelitish women to have their heads uncovered. Wherefore he shaves her and says, ‘Inasmuch as thou hast seceded from the manner of the Israelite women, whose custom it is to cover their heads, and hast followed the manners of the Gentiles, who are accustomed to go with the head shaven, lo! it happens to thee as thou hast willed.’” 7. Image and glory of God—As God is Lord of the universe, so man is authorized lord in the earth. Genesis 1:27. Hence, as having no visible superior in the world among the creatures of God, modesty never compels him to cover his head before any. Woman… glory of… man—As emanating from himself, as he emanates from God, and as a beautiful and wonderful second self, just as he is God’s representative or finite second self on earth. 8. For—Explaining how woman is man’s glory. Of, or literally, from the man—Woman is, according to the Genesis history, derived from man, as the glory is radiated from the luminary. 9. Woman for… man—The narrative of Genesis, which derives woman from man, and makes her his feeble and tender yet necessary and mighty auxiliary, if it were not true in history, is true in philosophy and in nature. If man, directly and solely, accomplishes the splendid works of civilization above described, yet it is man with his help-meet for him. She is his complement; and both male and female form the one composite MAN, by which all is achieved. Woman works not directly upon these products; but she works upon him by whom they are directly wrought. 10. Power on her head—Power to which she is subject, not power which is subjected to her. And by this abstract word εξουσια, power, Paul plainly designates the hood covering her head. it may be that this Greek word was the name of the hood; but there is no other instance of such a use of the term. Olshausen says, that in the Middle Ages imperium (a Latin word of the same meaning as this Greek) was certainly the name for a woman’s headdress. Similarly Diodorus Siculus says, that a certain queen “had three royalties (crowns) upon her head, to signify that she was daughter, wife, and mother of a king.” Because of the angels—In whose presence the worship of the Church below often is. So 1 Timothy 5:21, “I charge thee… before the elect angels;” as if the angels witnessed the charge and would mark and testify how it was fulfilled. So angels desire to look into the mysteries of redemption, 1 Peter 1:12; and we are “a spectacle to angels, and to men.” 1 Corinthians 4:9. The expedients of commentators to avoid this beautiful meaning are many, but absurd and useless. They are completely given and disapproved by Stanley. The Jewish writers, both before and after Paul, carried out a similar idea to a puerile extent. Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai (quoted by Wetstein) says: “If the hair of a woman is uncovered, the evil spirits will come and sit upon her, and upon all in her house.” In a more Christian strain, Chrysostom says: “If you wish to see both martyrs and angels, open the eyes of your faith, and you shall behold the spectacle; for if the air is full of angels, much rather the Church.For that all the air is full of angels hear what the apostle says, admonishing the women to have a vail upon their heads,” etc. Again, “If you despise men, at any rate reverence the angels.” Perfectly accordant with all this is Bengel’s beautiful thought, that as angels vail their faces before God, so would they require that the female face should vail before men.” Harmony and order should prevail in their angelic presence. 11. Neither… man… without the woman—Each is indispensable to the other. Neither can exist without the other. Each possesses what the other lacks. 12. Of, rather, from the man—By derivation from his side, according to Genesis. By the woman—By natural birth. But all things of God—By whom the sexes and their relations have been constituted. 13. In yourselves—Look into your own breasts and hearken to the dictates of your intuitive feelings. Man’s true nature affirms the truths of God. Comely—Accordant with an inborn sense of propriety. 14. Nature itself teach—Our natural sense of beauty affirms that long and flowing hair (of the Caucasian woman, not of the African) is one of the permanent points of female attraction. To shear it diminishes woman’s beauty; to shave it off deforms her, for the naked scalp is ever and by nature a disagreeable object to the sight. On the other hand, for a man to imitate this beauty is effeminate and contemptible. And this effeminacy was especially exemplified by a class of infamous males guilty of unnatural basenesses. Note on Romans 1:24-25. Yet if nature—that is, the instinct of propriety—did teach that long hair was a shame to a man in Paul’s day, it equally taught the Homeric Greeks that it was a pride, and teaches the Chinese at the present day that a pigtail is a dignity to every male celestial. That is, the instinct varies its decisions according to circumstances, to customs and feelings of age and race, and to reasons derived from symbol and sign. Paul radically assumes that Christianity ratifies the authority of the instinct; but he gives the applications and decisions of the instinct as they suited his age and peoples. 15. A glory to her—And beauty is the rightful prerogative of womanhood, as force is that of manhood. And this divine gift of beauty it is her right to cultivate within the laws of modesty; and, united with cultured gifts of mind and character, it forms a loveliness which is the true source of her rightful power. A covering—The apostle sees, even in the glory of the woman’s long hair, the symbol of concealment and of modesty. It is nature’s sign, suggesting, if it does not require, that art and custom should follow and add a covering to the female head. 16. Contentious—The whole question had, it seems, been a subject of Corinthian debate. Men, perhaps, maintained, that according to Jewish and Roman custom their heads should be uncovered in worship. Women, perhaps, maintained that Christ had emancipated woman from her reserve and subjection. The apostle replaces the law of propriety and of God in their proper authority. Such custom—As these mistaken reformers would introduce. Churches—The debate, probably, had scarce extended beyond Corinth. At least propriety and apostolic and churchly authority had elsewhere settled the question. The authority of the churches of God in this, the age of the gifted Church, was co-ordinate with the authority of the inspired apostles. 1. The Corinthian abuses of the Lord’s Supper, 1 Corinthians 11:17-22.17. This—Refers, we think, not to what precedes, (as Alford,) but to the paragraph now commencing. Declare—Rather, enjoin. Alford says, that no injunction or command immediately follows; which is true: but all preceding 1 Corinthians 11:23-27, which is injunction, does but state the case upon which the injunction is based. I praise you not—As he did in 1 Corinthians 11:2. Come together—Assemble in congregation. Worse—Result. Your assemblages do you more harm than good. 18. First—But what is the second to this first? Clearly, as Alford shows, the paragraph upon the Lord’s supper (17-34) is the first, and the entire subject of spiritual gifts, beginning at the next chapter, is the second to it. And Alford’s showing on this point shows, also, that declare takes in the commencing paragraph. Divisions—Σχισματα, schisms. In modern ecclesiastical phraseology schisms are secessions from the Church; and heresies (next verse) are doctrines contrary to the belief of the Church. Such is not the apostle’s use of the words. By schisms here he means the separations in feeling produced by the sets and cliques at the Lord’s supper. Partly—He believes some of the report, but cannot quite, in charity, believe the whole. 19. Must be—Not from God’s purpose, but from man’s perverseness. See note on Luke 17:1. See also Matthew 24:6; Matthew 26:54. Heresies among you—See note on last verse. Heresies is derived from a verb signifying to choose, and refers to the wilfulness of Church partisanship. It now includes false doctrine, as being adopted rather by the perverse will of the heretic than by any good reason. Church factionists, as Grotius remarks, often concoct some special dogma in order to give permanence to their faction. Approved—The divinely approved, upon test and trial. When commotion and secession prevail, the true sons of peace reveal themselves in calmness and firmness. In doctrines, also, error, by reaction, draws out investigation and defence on the side of truth, and renders its evidences more clear and the doctrine itself more defined. The creeds of the Church have thence arisen. They are attempts by the Church to state her doctrines in defence against disputers and gainsayers. 20. Not… supper—The performances they came to enact were truly no Lord’s supper at all, but a burlesque and dishonour upon it, being only their own supper. The possessive, Lord’s, is in the Greek an adjective for which we have no proper English word, as Lordic. So the Lordic supper and the Lordic day (Revelation 1:10) are parallel terms. And the word Church is generally derived from a similar Greek phrase, which might similarly be Lordic house. The Lord’s supper, though primitively associated with, was distinct from, the agape. It usually, but probably not always, succeeded the agape. 21. Every one—Each one. Instead of spreading a table for a common supper, each one made an own supper, of his own food, and preoccupied it entire. Thereby separate sets were established, and what was meant for union became disunion. Hungry—He whom persecution had made poor was left hungry; so that what was meant for liberality became insult. Drunken—At the symposium (which term was compounded of two Greek words, signifying a drink together) even Socrates was said not seldom to have appeared too vinous for a philosopher. The philosopher, therefore, sadly incurred the rebuke of the apostle. Paul, probably, uses as condemnatory a word as truth would allow. It does not necessarily follow from the word, yet it may have been, as Renan says, that some “went reeling from the table of the Lord.” The pagan Corinthians would doubtless consider the apostle as an extremist in temperance. Modern temperance reformers would, perhaps, think that Paul had better go further and prohibit the wine from the agape entirely; but the existence of more fiery liquors, like brandy and whisky, had not suggested the necessity of the law of entire abstinence for all persons from wine. Even now the law of abstinence from wine should be based not upon the intrinsic wickedness of a limited drinking of wine, but upon the obligation to abstain as part of a great reformatory enterprise, and as a prudential safeguard from moral danger. On the word drunken, see note on John 2:10. The antithesis to hungry would suggest that the opposite word would mean surfeited. 22. Houses—Homes. If you sink the sacred supper to a secular rank, let the eating be done in a secular place. Despise ye—As too proud to eat in common with the commonalty. The church of God—Said emphatically to remind them what this despised commonalty truly was. Have not—Alford explains it, have not houses. But those who have not, is a phrase sometimes in Greek used for the poor. The poor and the rich are the have nots and the have alls. Praise you not—And so emphatic a withholding of praise was a strong dispraise and rebuke. 23. Have received of the Lord—The question is raised whether Paul received from the Lord this narration by immediate revelation from Christ, or only mediately through the narration of eyewitnesses. Alford objects that in that case he would have said we rather than I. But he uses the first person singular as the founder-apostle of the Corinthian Church—I received… I delivered unto you. It is clear from these clauses that the Corinthians knew all this history, and that Paul is only calling it impressively to their recollection. Night—It is wonderful that the large body of Christian brethren who maintain that the word baptize signifies solely immersion, and that the example of Christ demands immersion, do not also insist that deipnon, supper, signifies an evening meal, and that the example of Christ requires his supper to be taken at night. And yet this Christian body excludes from that eucharist, which they perform in violation of the meaning of the word and the original example, all those whom they hold to be baptized in violation of verbal meaning and example. With the same persistence, in the same logic in the former as in the latter case, they could prove that a right supper has seldom been performed since Christ died. The same night—Full of pathos is the thought that we are re-enacting, the supper scene of the night before the crucifixion. It is an hour for weeping and not for revelry. It demands the purest, calmest thought, instead of the excitement of intoxication. Thought should go back to that solemn hour, should picture to the heart the agonizing scene, and melt us into contrition that our sins have their share in betraying and crucifying Him. 24. This and the following verse have so many phrases identical with Luke 22:19 as to show them to be the same tradition. In regard to the passover consult our note, Matthew 26:2 : in regard to the Lord’s supper, notes on Matthew 26:20-30. Yet it must be noted that this epistle and this passage may have been written before the gospel of Luke. Whether this is the earliest existing narrative of the Lord’s supper, as Stanley says, may he doubted. At any rate, we believe that the original Hebrew of Matthew’s gospel was written before this; and that the Greek Matthew is a translation of that document. Given thanks—From this giving thanks, eucharistia, the Lord’s supper has been called the eucharist. Brake—Note on Matthew 26:26. Matthew adds “and gave it to the disciples.” Take—This, with the analogy of the head of the family at the passover, implies that an administrator of the elements, who would be an apostle or presbyter, is one of the essentials to a proper communion. Body—See note on Matthew 26:26. In remembrance of me—With the Christian individual this remembrance appeals to the heart, touching his feelings with thoughts of Him who spake these words to his own soul—the dying Jesus. With the Church and the world they are an appeal to the intellect to demonstrate the historical truth of Christianity. There are several lines of evidence that fasten the belief to the historical Christ, the existence of which cannot be accounted for except upon the truth of the New Testament history. The rite of baptism can be traced from the present time to John the Baptist. The Christian sabbath forms line from the present to the resurrection of Christ. The succession of Christian bishops carries us, even on the loosest theory, through the great Churches to the apostolic age. These various lines all verify each other: they converge in the Christ history; and no other origin can be assigned. Baptism indicates the beginning of Christ’s mission; the eucharist his death; the Sunday-sabbath his resurrection; the line of bishops, the historic Church. 26. As often—In some periods of the Church, daily communion has been the practice. But a wiser Christian custom is to consider it as more an extraordinary event than the Sabbath service. The monthly period preserves the medium between making it too ordinary and too unfrequent. Bread—As the bread of the passover was appointed by God with a significant purpose to be unleavened, there was some show of reason for using such bread by the Roman Church, but no show of reason for the Greek and Roman Churches making the use a matter of fierce contention. As it is a matter of mere inference, fixed by no definition or command, the Protestant Churches (except the Lutheran) have considered it a matter of indifference. Cup—See our note on Matthew 26:27. Show—Literally, ye announce, as a messenger or herald, to the world. The act, with its surrounding circumstances and utterances, proclaims to the world Christ’s atoning death, and the believer’s acceptance of its avails. Till he come— When the entire system of sublunary Church and probation will be closed. Thus the communion is a chain whose links connect the first and second advents of Christ. This corrects the error of the Quakers, who, aiming at too naked a spirituality, have rejected all ordinances, and have thus made their religion a soul without a body. It is, doubtless, owing to this cause that they are fading from existence as a Christian body. Neglecting the great injunction to show forth the Lord’s death, they have become (1 Corinthians 11:30) weak and sickly, and are apparently going to sleep. 27. Eat… and drink—The and, by the best readings, should be or. Alford thinks, apparently, that our translators have “unfairly” made it and to evade the Romish argument drawn from it in favour of withholding the cup from the laity. But the or does not aid the Romish practice. The or does make Paul say that dishonouring either one—the bread or the cup— renders guilty; but it does not, therefore, say that either one shall be withheld. Guilty of the body—That is, it is the body and blood of Christ which he slights or insults. He is guilty, not of dishonouring mere bread and wine; he is guilty of dishonouring what they represent—Christ’s body and blood. 3. A reform of treatment of the Lord’s Supper enjoined, 1 Corinthians 11:28-34.28. Examine himself—The strict meaning is, try himself by tests; such tests as his rectitude of life, his purity of thought, his zeal for Christ. So— Either with the approval of his conscience of his spiritual state, or with repentance where wrong. 29. Damnation—Not eternal perdition; but, literally, judgment. And that judgment Paul seems to have considered as likely to be inflicted upon the body of the Christian offender, as intimated in the next verse.Discerning… body—Treating the elements as if they were mere bread and wine in disregard of their holy symbolism. 30. Weak and sickly… sleep—Commentators generally agree that Paul here ascribes a then prevalent sickliness and mortality in the Church to their desecration of the holy supper. That at a miraculous era the apostolic mind was given to know such to be the case might readily be conceded. The monstrous idea that disease and death were produced naturally by their excesses would imply that the apostolic excommunication was quite as much required as in the case of the fornicator. But the word sleep seems scarce the term the apostle would use of those dying by judgment of God.It naturally expresses a peaceful repose. We are strongly inclined to prefer understanding Paul as declaring the judicial effect of their dishonouring the communion to be their becoming weakly, sickly, sleeping Christians. 31. We—Softening his rebukes by adopting the first person. Judge ourselves—God has given us a judge within our breasts—our conscience—before whose bar, enlightened by Scripture and quickened by the Holy Spirit, we may arraign ourselves and regulate and shape our character. By that judgment we may forestall the divine judgment, and escape the divine condemnation. 32. We—Christians. Are judged… chastened—Those divine earthly judgments which are wrathful punishments upon the wicked are discipline, severe blessings, to the righteous. Not be condemned—The very purpose of these judgments to the Christian is mercy and salvation. With the world—A sad assumption, therefore, that the world of that period was lying in wickedness and sinking to death. 33. Wherefore—In view of the corrective and saving power of these judgments. Tarry—We do not understand the injunction to be to wait until the others had all arrived at the place of meeting. It does not appear that one could not come as early as the other. Nor does the discourteous taketh before of 1 Corinthians 11:21 refer to an earlier coming and eating before the others had appeared; but to the richer parties refusing to wait for a spreading of all the contributions before the whole company, and their hurrying to the consumption of their own supply. To tarry, or wait, therefore, would be a social, deliberate placing each share at the common disposal, as if all were one, and had an equal right, irrespective of the amount contributed. But Wordsworth, Bloomfield, and others render the Greek word for tarry, receive, entertain one another, by a free interchange of provisions. This is a usual meaning of the word, and is far to be preferred, as accordant with Paul’s unselfish and whole-hearted spirit of courtesy. 34. Hunger—The very name agape indicated that these love-feasts were for the cultivation of the affections, not the gratification of the appetite, or the sustenance of, at any rate, the well-off class. The rest—Referring, doubtless, to other matters in regard to the good order of their assemblages contained in the letter of the Corinthians. From this passage Romanists argue in favour of traditional customs added by them to the institutes of the Church, and especially to the Lord’s supper: such as having a thin wafer for bread, withholding the cup from the laity, and the worshipping the wafer as the body of Christ. We may easily concede that the apostles did make regulations in the Church. If any institute can be shown to have been established by apostles for the universal Church, it must, doubtless, be accepted as part of the Christian system. But of most of the peculiarities of Rome we know the date of their origin, and reject them as innovations and novelties. We have known in our own day, in the Romish enactments of the immaculacy of the Virgin, and the infallibility of the pope, how dogmas are manufactured. And in the last dogma we find the amplest power provided for the pope to enact, with a sentence a new Christian doctrine whenever he pleases. PAUL’S EIGHTH :—AS TO OF GIFTS, 1 Corinthians 12:1 to 1 Corinthians 14:40.This triad of chapters on spiritual gifts (twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth) must, in order to be properly comprehended, be read as one piece. In the whole St. Paul speaks of these gifts with reverence, but not with that jubilation which probably many a Corinthian would have expected. It might at first be supposed that inspired persons would, of course, be right; that the divine endowment would secure its own rightful exercise. But if it is a God who bestows, man, who receives and exercises, is a feeble free-agent; and the divine wisdom leaves the freedom undiminished. The danger of error was supplemented by the superintendence of a master apostle, as shown in this triad of chapters. Where no such superintendence exists, the incapacity of the human to harmonize with the supernatural is likely to end in morbid and ungraceful results. The fulness of the Spirit at the pentecost overcame and ruled the human. In the latter day, of which the pentecost may be a type, the harmony between the divine Spirit and the human soul may be so perfected, that the unison may be complete and completely beautiful. Man may then realize his own highest earthly ideal. In this first of the three chapters, as Paul sees that the Corinthians most valued the showier gifts, as that of tongues, so he directs them to a valuation according to utility. As they were liable to be made a matter of emulation, strife, and of erratic straying from the truth and from the Church, so he struggles to make them a means of binding the Church in a body. And then he is prepared to show, in the next chapter, that there is one gift within the reach of all, to which all other gifts are inferior—the GIFT of LOVE. The third chapter is occupied in cautions and regulations against the disorderly use of gifts. 1. Of gifts—their true place and value, 1 Corinthians 12:1-31.a. The source of these varied gifts, the One Spirit, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11.1. Now—As there is no reference in this triad of chapters to any inquiries made by the Corinthians, it is probable that this piece is based on information. Ignorant—As just-converted Gentiles, with their ideas of Christian morality but imperfectly shaped, little acquainted with the Old Scriptures, and the New not as yet having been fully written, it is no wonder the Corinthians were ignorant. Paul seeks here to efface from their minds some traces of their old polytheism by impressing them with the truth that all their variety of gifts is from one Spirit, the Infinite Unity. Ten times in thirteen verses does he trace their varied gifts to one Spirit. 2. Carried away—Literally, ye were led as ye happened, (by your priests,) to idols that were voiceless. They were bandied about among a multitude of dead and dumb gods, knowing nothing of the living, speaking One. 3. Jesus accursed—The pagans who blasphemed Christ, and the persecuting emperors who required Christians to blaspheme Christ, were under dumb idols, adverse to the one Spirit. Say—From the heart and in truth. Holy Ghost—Unless the Holy Spirit give the power, Christ can neither be truly received nor savingly confessed. 4. Diversities of gifts—Which Paul will soon enumerate. Same Spirit— Do not, as of old, suppose that one man is inspired by Apollo to prophesy; another by Minerva to utter the word of wisdom; another by the Muses to give forth a psalm or pour forth the utterances of tongues. All these, then, are the various breathings from one Power. 5. Differences of administrations—Different Church offices, duties, or exercises, in which the gifts were employed. 6. Operations—Better, in-workings. Divine operations within the soul, whereby the exercises referred to were wrought. The apostle having thus enforced the unity of origin, now (1 Corinthians 12:7-10) analyzes the variety of gifts, in order still more emphatically (1 Corinthians 12:11-13) to trace them all to one Source. 7. Manifestation—The exhibition in the exercise. To profit—Utility is made the test of the rank and value of the gift, as in 1 Corinthians 13:19 more fully.The gifts here mentioned have been variously classified, but not in the order of their mention by the apostle. We propose a classification into gifts of mind, of voice, and of action; thought, word, and deed. Under mind, are gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, discerning of spirits, and interpretation; under gifts of voice or utterance, prophecy and tongues; under gifts of action, healing and working of miracles. 8. Word of wisdom… knowledge—Our knowledge is the amount we know; that is, the mass of facts and principles embraced in our memory. Or, wisdom is the capacity for applying our knowledge in judgments or practice. The word of knowledge would draw from the stores laid up in the mind of the Christ-history and the Old Testament records, with the whole mass of Christian truths. Wisdom would unfold itself in profound maxims, and sagacious counsels, plans, and courses of conduct. 9. Faith—Chrysostom and the current of modern commentators understand the faith of miracles, which can remove mountains. 1 Corinthians 13:2. But that is included in the working of miracles itself, in 1 Corinthians 12:10. Hodge comes nearest to the truth: “Such a faith as enabled men to become confessors and martyrs, and which is so fully illustrated in Hebrews 11:33-40. This is something as truly wonderful as the gift of miracles.” Or, as we should express it, that realization of divine realities by which a powerful and heroic Christian character is formed, shown in maintaining truth resistlessly, and suffering for it unshrinkingly. St. Stephen, both in his contests with gainsayers and his martyrdom, was a striking specimen. Thus there is the faith of miracles and the faith of heroism. Healing—See note Acts 3:4. Healing, though usually included under miracles, is placed by itself, inasmuch as there were those endowed with the power for this only. 10. Working of miracles—Literally, the in-working (by God in the man) of powers, that is, supernatural or miraculous powers. Prophecy—Inspired preaching; either predicting the future, unfolding mysterious truth, or searching the secrets of men’s hearts and characters, 1 Corinthians 14:24-25. Discerning of spirits—The power of detecting the hypocrite, as Peter did Ananias; of distinguishing true and false gifts; of recognising genuine inspiration. Traces of this power, more or less active, by spiritual sympathy with true inspiration pervading the body of the Church, enabled it to select the right books for the New Testament canon. The pretensions of modern criticism to decide whether one or another book belongs to the canon are often arrogant. On the original pentecostal miracle of tongues, see our note Acts 2:4. In that primal miracle we suppose every individual heard the self-same word each in his own language. But later, as indicated in that note, by decline, only those understanding the one language miraculously spoken took the meaning; later still, a specially inspired interpreter was necessary; and finally, perhaps, the utterance lost all language form, was unintelligible to the utterer himself, being only the emotional vocal outflow of fervent religious emotion. See notes on 1 Corinthians 14:1-19. Thus there were various kinds of tongues.Interpretation of tongues. See notes 1 Corinthians 14:27. 11. One… Spirit—Let there be no strife or rivalry between the possessors of different gifts; but let all in unison trace them up to one source, and exercise them in harmony. Dividing—It was not that these exercises were a spontaneous welling up of religious excitement, and assuming these forms, but a definite, divine assignment to each individual of his particular charism. As he will—Wills. b. The various gifts should harmonize the Church into one body, 1 Corinthians 12:12-26.The semblance between the human body and the body politic or social is so striking, and pregnant with so many lessons of loyalty, peace, and patriotism, that it has been popular in all ages. The apologue of Menenius Agrippa, as given by Livy in the early history of Rome, is memorable in literature. The common people, wearied with the tyranny of the aristocracy, and determined no longer to feed its greediness, had seceded from Rome, when Menenius related to them how the limbs of the human body rebelled against the lazy belly, and refused to work for it any longer until want of nourishment and digestion taught them that the refusing to feed the centre was to starve the whole. Applied to the sacred organism, the Church, Paul here uses the same parable to soothe the rivalries between the different possessors of charisms. 13. One Spirit—As the vital principle organizes and holds in shapely unity the various elements of a living body, so does the one Spirit organize, vivify, and unify the body of the Church. That same divine One holds alike the various charisms in harmony and the body in unity. Baptized—The descent of the pentecostal Spirit, like the outpouring of baptismal water, consecrated its subjects into the living Church. So the same spiritual outpouring sanctifies the members into one holy Church. Jews or Gentiles—Whether formerly worshippers of Jehovah or of dumb idols. Bond or free—Irrespective of rank or condition of life. The slave is enlarged into spiritual freedom; the freeman is bound, and yet ennobled, into the service of Christ. Drink into one Spirit—Into is omitted by the best authorities. In John 7:37 the Spirit is compared to water which is drank. So that in the first part of the verse the Spirit is applied to us, and in this part we drink the Spirit. 14. Body… many—The apostle varies the phases of the body to meet the complaints of the different cavillers. There were the weaker members met in 14-20, and the stronger in 21-27. The former would have all equal and essentially identical. But this would destroy the variety of members in the body. The whole body cannot be one limb. 15. No one must think he does not belong to the Church because he is a supporter, and not an executive, of the Church; any more than a foot shall claim that it is not of the body because it is not the hand. 16. No one must claim that he is not sharer of the Church because he is only a hearer and not an overseer, any more than the ear is excluded from the body because it is not the eye. 17. Whole body—If all are clergy where are the laity? If all are captains where are the privates? 18. Now hath God—This variety in unity is established by God. Men are variously endowed to perform different parts in the social organization; and when any part refuses its allotment, it first deranges the system and then destroys itself. Pleased him—For it is wonderful to observe how the whole system of nature is an organism in which the unity exists, lives, works, and prospers, by the harmonious working of the individuals. 19. One member—All reduced to a monotonous sameness. Body—The entire organism would lose its power of operation. 20-21. Thus far St. Paul has sought to convince the members envious of others’ superiority. He now seeks to humble the arrogant in their dealings with the humble class. 21. The overseer, the eye, cannot dispense with the worker, the hand. The official, the head, cannot spare the membership, the feet. 22. Nay, much more—The ruled can do without the rulers even better than the vice versa. It is for the ruled that the rulers exist. And often, in some way or other, the ruled are the real rulers. Just as the humblest parts of the human system really rule the rest. More feeble—The most delicate nerves and fibres are most necessary to vitality. 23. Less honourable—The digestive and reproductive systems in the human frame, while, strange as is the problem, propriety shrinks from naming them, are still the objects of our most earnest care. In the apologue of Menenius Agrippa it was the belly that was the aristocracy. The sexual passion, as a sentiment or as an appetite, rules a large share of human life. Uncomely… comeliness—We make an ornament of that dress which was originally a mere cover; a cover for comfort or for modesty. It is marvellous to note how small a share of the human system propriety allows to be uncovered. 24. Comely… no need—The ruling parts of the body in active life, the head, the hands, and sometimes the feet, need no concealments nor ornamental dress. Tempered—Adjusted. 25. No schism—Paul suggests here the application of the apologue to the schisms between the rival possessors of charisms. 26. One… all… suffer—So wonderfully is our nervous system diffused through the body that every part sympathizes with every other part, and the whole with any one part. All… rejoice—Joy, like pain, experienced in one part becomes the joy of the whole. A striking illustration of the oneness of a true Christian Church. c. Of this figurative body, the Church is the literal counterpart, 1 Corinthians 12:27-31.27. Now ye, the Corinthian Church, are the literal of this body, being as ye are the body of Christ. 28. God hath set—As all are inspired from one Spirit, (1 Corinthians 12:1-13,) so all are set by God. First—Paul traces the first three in order of rank, the remainder miscellaneously. Apostles—Men who had seen Christ, like the twelve (note on Luke 1:2) and like Paul, who were personally commissioned by him, and endowed with plenary powers. Prophets— Note 1 Corinthians 5:10. Teachers—Perhaps catechists. Note Luke 1:4. Persons, like Luke himself, profoundly interested in the Christian history, and qualified to educate the young Christian in its first principles. Notes on Luke 1:1-4. Miracles—Paul now leaves the officials and takes up the gifts that were not confined to ranks but distributed miscellaneously. Healings—Note on 1 Corinthians 12:9. Helps— Assistants or aids to official men in the subordinate parts of their duties; as deacons and curates. Something like this Mark, Timothy, and Titus were to Paul in his travels. Governments—Superintendents over any department; such are stewards and class leaders in John Wesley’s system. Tongues— Though an order of rank is not, probably, extended through the whole list, yet as apostles are placed first, as if in honour, so tongues are placed last, probably as least. 31. Covet—Earnestly desire and aim at. Best gifts—Namely, not tongues, but prophecy, the word of knowledge, of wisdom, and others that profited the Church. For though they be the gift of God, they are given to those who are qualified by faith, prayer, piety, and culture. More excellent way—Than the attainment of, or the aiming at, spiritual gifts. Said comparatively; for the main purpose of Paul’s vivid portraiture of love, in the next chapter, is to show the superiority of that one grace of love permanently in the Church, over the transient charisms which were but the temporary stagings while the structure was being built. 1. Though I speak—A case, it is said, which never will happen; but the particle though, or if, (åáí,) here used, implies a case objectively possible, and which experience will decide as to its real occurrence.—WINER, Grammar, page 291. See the note on 1 Corinthians 13:2. Tongues—The Corinthians’ favourite charism, first mentioned in order to humble it before love. Of men—Though my tongue could speak every language of the entire human race. Of angels—Whether the gifted Corinthians claimed that one of their charisms was to speak in angel dialect is more than we know. St. Paul himself, (2 Corinthians 12:4,) when caught up into paradise, “heard unspeakable words,” apparently the speech of higher natures. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus implies speech of disembodied spirits, so telegraphic as to reach from paradise to hades inferior. I am become—To this, if gifted yet loveless, I am brought. Sounding brass—Corinthian brass (a metal formed by the mixture of silver and gold) was proverbially famed for its ringing sound when struck, or blown as a trumpet. Tinkling—Clanging is better, as more truly denoting the sound produced. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/whedon/ 2. All mysteries—Blessed mysteries, such as Jesus indicated, Mark 4:11, “Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven;” namely, the revelations unfolded by Christianity to man. These mysteries were for ages concealed. Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:26. There are also mysteries of iniquity. 2 Thessalonians 2:7. Faith—A divinely energized power of will, so that it moves external nature as the ordinary volition moves the body. See note on Matthew 17:20. Have not charity—That miraculous endowments are not confined to the holy is indicated by the cases of Balaam, Samson, and the witch of Endor. Note on Acts 8:24. The apostle only supposes a possible thing in a most extraordinary degree. Nothing—All these endowments put together leave me a moral cypher. 3. Bestow… goods—It is curious that the word charity has come to signify just that alms-giving which Paul here declares may be performed without it. Churches, colleges, alms-houses, asylums, may all be founded by loveless men to perpetuate a name, or, vainly, to expiate their sins. Body to be burned—Mr. Barnes pertinently remarks that martyrdoms in ancient times were not by burning, but by axe or sword, by stoning or crucifixion. Burning, first introduced by Nero, was adopted by the Romish Inquisition, and by Queen Mary in England. The words of the apostle were almost prophetical. Yet the fiery furnace was the penalty visited on Shadrach and his comrades in Babylon.The braving certain death by burning or otherwise is often displayed by men from motives excluding love. There are crises in which men prefer death to life, especially, for instance, when stimulated by a point of honour. For this the North American Indian dares and defies the cruelest of tortures; the Hindu widow mounts the funeral pyre of her dead husband; and the Japanese gentleman executes the hari-kari by ripping open his own body in the presence of a public assembly gathered to witness and honour the deed. These actions may have their own proper reward. But in the apostle’s sense, if loveless, they profit nothing so far as salvation is concerned. Our Lord, in commanding his disciples to flee from persecution, divested martyrdom of its vainglory. Yet in times of bloodiest persecution by pagan powers the expectant victim often rejoiced in the hope of the martyr’s crown. There were those who would have rushed to that end by exposing themselves to arrest, but, instructed by our Lord’s words, the Christian leaders dissuaded such a course. 4. Charity—The love of the apostle is not merely an emotion, but also a principle and purpose. It is, indeed, more or less grounded in the moral and sentimental feeling, but it often exists in full action in unemotional persons. It is a strong wish, desire, and purpose for the happiness of another or others, and a happiness in seeing that other’s happiness accomplished. It is verified by the blessed Spirit; it co-exists with the love of God. The two great commandments are, supreme love to God, and love to our fellow as to ourself. It is the primal virtue, of which all other virtues are but varying forms. This love, though unknown to heathendom, was taught in the Old Testament, and appears in full glory in the New, incarnated in Christ and registered in his evangelic law. Suffereth long—The stronger that love the greater the suffering it will endure, both for and from its object, and still remain kind in feeling and manner. Love is the parent of patience, forbearance, and firmness. Envieth not—In the eight negatives now following Paul reprehends the various forms of selfishness which lovelessness assumes, namely: envy, braggartism, ostentation, offensiveness, self-interest, irritability, suspicion, injuriousness.This selfishness is not identical with, but is the exaggeration of, that self-love or desire of happiness which is the right and duty of every intelligent being. The primal law does not forbid us to love ourself, nor require us to love our neighbour more than ourself. Indeed, duty to ourself, the obligation of self-love, stands first. We owe and must perform duties to ourselves which we cannot perform for others, nor others for us. This the law of love, the golden rule, presupposes. If we love our neighbour as ourself we will not require him to do for us what we should do for ourself; and we should concede to him the right to perform to himself solely the duties each one owes solely to himself. There is thus an equal circle of right and duty drawn around every individual self. But selfishness undertakes to secure one’s own advantage in disregard, or at the expense of, the rights of others. It violates the law of equal love for every one. Vaunteth not itself—Brags not of personal superiorities, false or real. Not puffed up— Imaginary assumption of personal importance. 5. Behave… unseemly—Lovelessness cares not how offensive its demeanour towards others. It cares not how much mortification it creates in other breasts by its coarse, offensive, or haughty style. Even religious people often clothe their religion in a hard, stiff, legal aspect, rendering it unattractive, and producing rejection by those whom it should win. On the contrary, true love, brought to the surface, seeks to please, and thereby sheds a winsomeness over the manners and character. And it is wonderful how this quality does win its way; not by fighting a fierce battle, but by disarming beforehand, and rendering, the battle unnecessary. Worldly self-interest, policy, diplomacy, and courtliness often put on this manner. The gentleman is a gentle man. It is one of the benefits, indeed, of a common interest that it creates a common desire to please, and thus promotes more or less courtesy and cordiality of temper. It is thus that trade and commerce are, as intended by Providence, wonderful promoters of peace, civilization, and humanity. There is a contest between commerce and war, in which the former is gaining a gradual and most humane victory. Not… provoked—Not exasperated. For just so far as the exasperation extends love is neutralized. Hence the easily, inserted by the translators, without Greek, is unnecessary. But the not being exasperated now and then requires a permanent and perfected love. That is very necessary, indeed, to soothe by anticipation the irritability and prevent the exasperation. This irritability is often a sin of the disordered and sensitive nerves. It is a physiological sin. It requires an immense deal of love to neutralize the sharp sensations that sting the irritable nerves of some persons to fretfulness and exasperated words. This is the trial of some temperaments. And such persons should be careful how they excuse themselves for their sin on the ground of temperament. The moment they do this they are in great danger of giving themselves the privilege of the sin, and so making the sin of the nerves the sin of the will and the consent. We should, like a skilful general, rather concentrate our strongest force at our weakest spot. Seeketh not her own—Love may arise from common interest, and even from self-interest. It is provided by God that these should be productive of this good result. But love, just so far as it is pure love, thinks not of itself. It is happy in the happiness of others, having no regard for any happiness of its own, excepting this very delight in the others’ well-being. Its very excellence is, that it places its own happiness in the happiness of others. Thinketh no evil—An unfortunate translation. Literally, imputeth not the evil. Not, as Alford, “the evil which is, but love does not impute it;” but rather the evil imputation when the good one was equally probable. For love, as will soon be said, rejoices in the truth. Even love prefers the truth above the friend. But love imputeth not the evil construction where truth will permit the good. 6. Rejoiceth… iniquity—The word rendered iniquity, properly signifies injustice, wrong. And here, as in all the clauses of this paragraph, we must keep the special person or persons loved in mind, and not rise too far into generality. Love sympathizes not in the wrong-doing committed by its object. This, the true and a most important sense, seems to have been lost sight of by the commentators. While love imputes the most favourable construction possible to its object, it does not rejoice in his real wrong doing. Rejoiceth in the truth—Instead of rejoicing in the wrong, it sympathetically rejoices in the truth by which the wrong is reproved, exposed, and corrected. It plainly tells the corrective truth to the loved wrongdoer, as Nathan did to David. 7. In rendering the clauses of this verse we must, with the apostle, keep the loved object in view; as, for instance, his dear Corinthian Church. The verses picture to the life, for example, the persistent love of a mother for an erring son—the most beautiful of all human loves. The all things four times said are, of course, to be limited by the law of truth and justice just given, and made appropriate to the verb which each follows in the clause. Beareth all things—Rather covereth all things. Such is the strict meaning of the Greek word. To render it beareth gives the same sense as endureth in the last clause. The word covereth implies the idea expressed by Pope in his Universal Prayer:“Teach me to feel another’s woe, To hide the fault I see, That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me.”So does a mother seek to cover the faults of her child; so would Paul rather cover than expose the errors of his Corinthians. Believeth all things— Favourable to the beloved object. Such is the temper of deep love, limited in action by the laws of truth. Hopeth all things—All future good for its object. Endureth all things—How often is it said of a mother in regard to a son, “She bears every thing from him.” Paul bore countless things from the Corinthians, and sought to correct their faults for their own sake. c. The transiency of all charisms contrasted with the permanency and supremacy of Love, 1 Corinthians 13:8-13.8. Never faileth—From divine love in its daily life, Paul now springs at once into its transcendent and eternal nature. The charisms—prophecies, tongues, knowledge—are all provisional and partial; soon to be merged in the perfect and the universal. 9. In part—Our knowledge and our prophecies, based upon our knowledge, are alike limited and temporary. 10. The perfect will in due time supersede these partial gifts and performances. This does not mean that the gifts shall cease in the Church on earth in process of time, though that may be implied; but that they will be outgrown in eternity. Nor does it mean that our knowledge as a faculty will disappear; or that we shall cease to know any thing we now know in the future; but that our knowledge as a special gift, supernaturally bestowed over others, of which some Corinthians were so proud, should disappear. These, like glittering but needless ornaments, would drop off in our advancing stages of existence. 11. When—The specialties will all be superseded by eternal things, as childhood joys are superseded by manhood. Was—Whately says the emphasis should be placed in reading on was, to imply that the playthings of childhood are suitable and right for childhood. As Pope says,“Behold the child, by nature’s kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.”It was said by Lord Brougham that the human being learns more during his ten first years than in all his life afterwards. 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db47fd84034e1eb733b290863bfbc916841e12e53c5fa1622a7aa16a14dcde5269b03460a83dbd965e656516eaa7e941c59 This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/whedon/ 12. Through a glass—Not through a transparent glass, as window glass, but through or in a mirror. The word through is used because the objects seen in a mirror seem to be back of it, and we to look through the glass. The mirrors of antiquity were made not of glass, but of polished metal; and hence the image was seen darkly. Darkly—Literally, in enigma. We can no more clearly understand the realities of eternity than childhood can understand the experiences of manhood. No words, however plain, can make him realize them as they really are. And so, to us, heaven and eternity are problems and mysteries, illustrated only by analogies which after all are enigmas. Face to face—By direct, clear sight; not in mirror and enigma. As… known—As I was known by God in my earthly existence, just so in eternity shall I, with perfect exactness, know the realities. 13. And now—As the net result from all these premises. Abideth—In endless permanence. Faith—Not the transient charism of 1 Corinthians 13:12, (where see note,) but the sure reliance on God that will be ever sure in heaven. Hope—That even amid the highest good looks for a still higher. We cannot remember any other passage in the Bible that indicates the existence of progress for the soul in heaven than this word in this place. These three—In view of the many passages of Paul in which the trinity is shadowed without being fully expressed, we cannot quite reject the opinion of Grotius, that Paul means a trinity of graces. Greatest… is charity— Love is not only an eternal grace, but the highest among the eternal. Faith is indeed the condition to our Christian life, but love is its completion. Faith but unlocks the door by which we enter into the blessedness of its superior, love. Other graces contribute to heaven; love constitutes heaven: for a heart of love in a world of love is heaven. If love is a happiness derived from the happiness of others, how rich must be that happiness where countless millions are as happy as the boundaries of their finite natures permit! And this love is but a continuance and enlargement of a grace here possessed. If a spark of God’s love beams now in our heart, it is of the nature of heaven. If not, then we have no true faith, no well-grounded hope, no godlike love. These three go hand in hand, and never can be separated; nor can one exist without the others. 3. Management in the use of Gifts, 1 Corinthians 14:1-40.This chapter closes the triad upon spiritual gifts. See Introductory Note to chaps. 12 and 13. Paul, in exercise of apostolic authority, now pronounces the relative rank of the charismatic exercises, and gives rules for their regulation. 1. On the principle of utility, tongues are inferior to prophecy, as less building-up the Church, 1-21. 2. This illustrated by a picture of the comparative effects of the two, 22-25. 3. Directions for the most orderly and effective exercise of both gifts, 26-33. 4. And this order must not be disturbed by the garrulity of the women, 34, 35. 5. A silencing conclusion pronounced on all who gainsay these apostolic directions, 36-40.There belongs to man’s nature a side by which he stands in relation to the supernatural world. In different ages and countries, and under various religions, the preternatural dream, trance, ecstasy, revery, clairvoyance, and presentiment, have appeared, especially in seasons of excitement. These indicate the elements in man preparing him for a future state. Even in ages of pure Theism, as in Judea, and also among Mohammedans; or Polytheism, as in Greece; or Pantheism, as in the Neo-Platonists; men self-consecrated to the contemplation of the supernal have found themselves wrapped into preternatural frames, in which they exhibited phenomena impossible to the ordinary human conditions. Socrates not only had his demon, but, as Plato informs us, was subject to the contemplative trance. The Protestants of France, under the bloody persecutions of Louis XIV., abounded in prophetic gifts. Nor is it any wonder that in the powerful excitements that aroused these gifts unseemly events should take place. Such took place in Corinth, where the divine Spirit had to struggle with the lower nature of man. That the phenomena here were not merely preternatural but supernatural—that they were not merely the excitement of the human susceptibilities but the touch of the blessed Spirit upon those susceptibilities, inspiring them into action, we know, because we know that the Head of the Church after his resurrection promised such gifts, and declared that he was on high dispensing them to his followers. The susceptibility and the inspiration are correlatives of each other. Man is thereby capable of communion and cooperation with God. a. Tongues inferior to prophecy, as less building-up the Church, 1 Corinthians 14:1-21.1. Follow after love—Which all are able to attain, and which is the ordinary, central, permanent grace of the Church. Desire—Be emulous for. Spiritual gifts—Which are for the few, and are transient. 2. Unknown tongue—The word unknown, though interpolated by the translator, expresses the truth. The “tongues” were unintelligible to the congregation unless interpreted. And herein they were far inferior to the pentecostal tongues, which spoke to every man in his native dialect. Perhaps we may say that the difference was, that the pentecostal Spirit brought all (save the mockers) into full spiritual communication with the speakers, so that they were all charismatic interpreters.Dr. Poor, in Schaff’s Lange, takes the ground that the Corinthian charismatic language consisted not in speaking foreign languages, but in speaking a speech, “new and clean,” formed by the Spirit himself, inasmuch as the foreign tongues of that day were defiled with paganism. But we reply, by the ordinary view the pentecostal tongues were foreign and pagan. Yet may we not unite his view with our own? Let us suppose that the true new tongue was the Spirit language heard by St. Paul near the third heaven. This language can be received only by those like St. John, (Revelation 1:10,) more or less “in the Spirit.” Yet the converse of pure spirits is not through the medium of sound, but is the pure and perfect impartation of the thought itself. When man receives it into his spirit it tends to take the form of language—sometimes of his own native language; sometimes, by diffusive sympathy, of foreign human dialects; sometimes of vocalities belonging to no known language, yet inherently expressive of the thought. In the latter case the man may lack the power of interpreting the thought into ordinary language, and yet the hearer, brought into sympathy, may perform the office of interpreter, as explained in our note on 1 Corinthians 14:5. Unto God—As his only real hearer. In the Spirit—In his own spirit. Mysteries—The mysteries of the gospel previously unknown to men.A modern resemblance to the gift of tongues was that in the church of the celebrated Edward Irving. We give the following passage from a witness of the phenomena, which we take from Stanley, p. 252:— “As an instance of the extraordinary change in the powers of the human voice when under inspiration, I may here mention the case of an individual whose natural voice was inharmonious, and who, besides, had no ear for keeping time. Yet even the voice of this person, when singing in the spirit, could pour forth a rich strain of melody of which each note was musical, and uttered with a sweetness and power of expression that was truly astonishing; and, what is still more singular, with a gradually increasing velocity into a rapidity, yet distinctness, of utterance which is inconceivable by those who have never witnessed the like: and yet, with all his apparently breathless haste, there was not in reality the slightest agitation of body or of mind. In other instances the voice is deep and powerfully impressive. I cannot describe it better than by saying that it approaches nearly to what might be considered a perfect state of the voice, passing far beyond the energies of its natural strength, and at times so loud as not only to fill the whole house, but to be heard at a considerable distance; and though often accompanied by an apparently great mental energy and muscular exertion of the whole body, yet in truth there was not the slightest disturbance of either; on the contrary, there was present a tranquillity and composure both of body and of mind the very opposite to any, even the least degree of, excitement.“The consciousness of the presence of God in these manifestations is fraught with such a holy solemnity of thought and feeling as leave neither leisure nor inclination for curious observation. In a person alive to the presence of the Holy Ghost, and overwhelmed by his manifestations beside and around him, and deeply conscious that upon his heart, naked and exposed, rests the eye of God, one thought alone fills his soul, one wail of utterance is heard, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’ Nor can the eye be diverted from the only sight that is precious to it, far more precious than life itself, ‘The Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.’”The following is from a subject of the influence:“I read the fourth chapter of Malachi; as I read the power came upon me, and I was made to read with power. My voice was raised far beyond its natural pitch with a constrained repetition of parts, and with the same inward uplifting, which at the presence of the power I had always experienced. Whilst sitting at home it came upon me, but for a considerable time no impulse to utterance; presently a sentence in French was vividly set before my mind, and under the impulse to utterance was spoken. Then, in a little time, sentences in Latin were in a like manner uttered; and, with short intervals, sentences in many other languages. Judging from the sound and the different exercise of the enunciating organs, my wife, who was with me, thought some of them to be Italian or Spanish; the first she can read and translate, the second she knows but little of. Sometimes single words were given me, and sometimes sentences, though I could neither recognise the words nor sentences as any language I knew, except those which were French or Latin.… My persuasion concerning the unknown tongue, as it is called, (in which I myself was very little exercised,) is, that it is no language whatever, but a mere collection of words and sentences; and in the lengthened discourses is, most of it, a jargon of sounds; though I can conceive, when the power is very great, that it will assume much of the form of a connected oration.”—P. 254.Dr. Bushnell has, in his “Natural and Supernatural,” a suggestive chapter on gifts. He relates that in New England, at a place designated as H., at a religious meeting, “After one of the brethren had been speaking in a strain of discouraging self-accusation, another present shortly rose with a strange, beaming look, and, fixing his eye on the confessing brother, broke out in a discourse of sounds wholly unintelligible though apparently a true language, accompanying the utterances with strange and peculiarly impressive gestures, such as he never made at any other time; coming finally to a kind of pause, and commencing again as if at the same point, to go over in English, with exactly the same gestures, what had just been said. It appeared to be an interpretation, and the matter of it was a beautifully emphatic utterance of the great principle of self-renunciation, by which the desired victory over self is to be obtained. The circle were astounded by the demonstration, not knowing what to make of it. The instinct of prudence threw them in an observing, a general, silence; and it is a curious fact that the public in H. have never to this hour been startled by so much as a rumour of a gift of tongues, neither has the name of the speaker been associated with so much as a surmise of the real or supposed fact, by which he would be, perhaps, unenviably distinguished. It has been to him a great trial, it is said, to submit himself to this demonstration, which has recurred several times.”—P. 479. 3. Prophesieth—As the Spirit selects for its instruments the persons most qualified by nature for its special work, so the individual naturally susceptible to presentiment would be gifted with the prophetic charism. 4. Edifieth himself—The very inspiration elevates and delights his spirit, while his own utterance of divine mysteries reacts upon and edifieth himself. Though he keep silence, (1 Corinthians 14:28,) he goes not unblest. Edifieth the Church—By clear and instructive thought, and, perhaps, supernatural prediction. 5. I would… all spake with tongues—Not a mere concession to the prejudices of the Corinthians, but a hearty endorsement of the gift as good in its place. But rather… prophesied—The apostle is wisely utilitarian.He adjudges the palm of superiority to the more useful gift. Catalepsies and trances are viewed with wonder; but that very wonder is not religious or sanctifying, and may take the place of holier thought. Nor has it been found that the subjects of them are the holiest persons in the Church; just as the Corinthian Church, though most exercised by these gifts, was by no means eminent among the Churches for its holiness. And so the existence of this phenomenon in the Irvingite assemblies was no proof of superior holiness. Except he interpret—For either the charismatic speaker may follow his utterance with an interpretation, (as in the case adduced by Dr. Bushnell,) or another person gifted with interpretation might interpret. This clause seems to imply that the utterer with tongues could not always explain his own utterance. The inspiration reached the spirit, and wakened powerful emotions, but did not quicken the understanding; so that the vocality, though expressive, was not understood as words by the subject himself. 6. If I—St. Paul states, as often, the disparaging supposition as of himself. He makes this supposition in order at some length to unfold the lesser utility of tongues. Either by—Some process by which intelligent thought is conveyed. Of the four, revelation means some vision or announcement from the spiritual world; knowledge, some perception by the discerner of spirits; prophesying, some prediction or supernaturally heart-searching discourse; doctrine, or teaching, some exposition of the established truths of Christianity or of the Old Testament. 7. Distinction—Into high or low, sharp or obtuse, etc. 8. Trumpet—By different notes, or even tunes, upon the military trumpet the army was signaled either to advance, retreat, prepare for battle, go into quarters, etc. Sometimes the opposite army learned the signals and were able to use them by stratagem. Sometimes by counter stratagem the enemy was made to believe the signals, and was deceived to his own damage. Prepare… battle—If the signal should be uncertain the army would be in confusion, not knowing what movement to make. 9. Words easy to be understood—The unexplained tongue is like the uncertain trumpet; it communicates no idea, and leaves the hearer no wiser than it found him. Speak into the air—Just as the unaiming athlete beateth the air. If your speech be a nothing, your proper hearer is empty space. 10. So many… voices—So many speeches, dialects, or languages. The Jews customarily reckoned human languages to be seventy in number. Without signification—Literally, none of them (speeches) is speechless. They all say something; express a signification. 11. Meaning of the voice—Literally, the force of the speech. A barbarian—The Greeks were proud of their own race and of their own language, and the talk of a foreigner was a mere bar bar, and so they called the foreigner a barbaros, or babbler. Hence Greek and barbarian, in Romans 1:14, is an antithesis for all the world, like Jew and Gentile.The antithesis was first founded, as here, on language; but barbarian has finally come to signify uncivilized. 12. Edifying—Be not by your tongue a barbarian to the Church, but an edifier, an upbuilder of it. 13. Pray… may interpret—This has been construed by many commentators to mean pray in order that, or with the purpose to, interpret. This must not imply that the speaking with a tongue was always prayer. For, 1. The pentecostal tongues were rather praise than prayer, and apparently addressed to the people. 2. An interpreter would usually be more suitable for a discourse than for prayer. 3. It is not unworthy of consideration that in Mr. Bushnell’s narrative the tongue was hortatory, and, 4. We can see nothing in the nature of the “tongue” prohibiting the idea of its being used for every mode of exercise. We render it, Let him so pray that he may be enabled afterwards to interpret his prayer. By that means, as in Mr. Bushnell’s instance, he may follow the discourse with an interpretation, and the divine charism gives the discourse a divine authority. 14. If I pray—And do not follow with an interpretation. Spirit…understanding—The former is the religious faculty by which we commune with God; the inner and higher man; the seat of sacred emotions: the latter is the intelligence by which we know and reason about matters presented to our thought. Prayer in an unknown tongue may stir the man’s own holy emotions, but no definite ideas are conveyed to the understanding of the hearers. Perhaps his own understanding does not form any distinct and expressible ideas, so that he does not, in fact, take the precise meaning of the words he utters. Unfruitful—Productive of no distinct ideas which can be remembered and carried away by myself and others. 15. What is it then—Compare notes on Romans 3:9; Romans 6:15. This is a question by which the general result of the argument is asked. What is the conclusion of the whole matter? With the spirit—My higher spiritual emotional nature. Understanding also—With my intellect, so that complete, active thought may be exercised and retained both by myself and others. Sing—Paul had no Quaker hostility to sacred music. Very early must the Church have formed some sort of a hymnology. One is, indeed, inclined to wonder why no psalms or hymns have formed a part of the New Testament canon. But this word does not necessarily imply the regularly formed hymn in all cases, but the lofty chant of the charismatic tongue. 16. Bless—The explanation given by Stanley is here apposite: “The ‘thanksgiving’ or ‘blessing’ of which Paul speaks seems to be that which accompanied the Lord’s supper, and whence it derived its name of the ‘eucharist.’ In answer to this thanksgiving the congregation utter their ‘amen.’ ‘After the prayers,’ says Justin, (Ap., c. 65, 67,) ‘bread is offered, and wine and water, and the president offers, according to his power, prayers and thanksgivings at once, and the people shout the amen.’ The president offers praise and glory to the Father of all, through the name of his Son and of the Holy Spirit, and at length returns thanks to God for having vouchsafed us to partake of these things. When he has finished the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present shout, saying, ‘Amen,’ which is the Hebrew for ‘So be it.’” The unlearned—The Greek word here (same as in Acts 4:13, where see note) signifies an unofficial or non-professional man, in antithesis with the official officiating, or professional man. In reference to a priest or clergyman, it signifies a layman; a private man instead of a public man, or a philosopher. Here it signifies the ungifted, in opposition to the gifted. But even the gifted might, while listening to another’s charismatic performance, be said to occupy the room of the ungifted. Amen—In the Greek with an article, the Amen. “The ‘amen’ thus used was borrowed from the worship of the synagogue, and hence, probably, the article is prefixed as to a well-known form. It was then regarded as the necessary ratification of the prayer or blessing. ‘He who says amen is greater than he that blesses,’ (Barashoth, 1 Corinthians 8:8.) ‘Whoever says amen, to him the gates of paradise are open,’ according to Isaiah 26:2, whence they read, ‘Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the amen may enter in.’—, ad loc. An ‘amen’ if not well considered was called an ‘orphan amen.’—(, ad loc.)‘Whoever says an orphan amen, his children shall be orphans; whoever answers amen hastily or shortly, his days shall be shortened; whoever answers amen distinctly and at length, his days shall be lengthened.’— (Barashoth, 47:1; , ad loc.) Compare the use of the word as uttered by the vast assembly of pilgrims at Mecca, to express their assent to the great sermon at the Kaaba.—(BURTON’S Pilgrimage, iii, p. 314.)“So in the early Christian liturgies, it was regarded as a marked point in the service, and with this agrees the great solemnity with which Justin speaks of it, as though it were on a level with the thanksgiving; ‘the president having given thanks, and the whole people having shouted their approbation.’ And in later times, the amen was only repeated once by the congregation, and always after the great thanksgiving, and with a shout like a peal of thunder.”— Stanley, p. 263. 17. Not edified—Completely and conclusively does Paul’s language and reasoning forbid the Romish use of the Latin language in divine service all over the world. It is an unknown tongue, and, therefore, the people are not edified. It is useless for Rome to reply that it was only unknown charismatic tongues that were forbidden. For if even an inspired person might not speak Latin without a translation, much more the uninspired.This was often done in former times by priests who did not themselves understand Latin; and Fulke, in his “Confutation of the Rhemish Testament,” gives some amusing specimens of murdered Latin current in the Romish utterance of the ritual. 18. Thank… God—Paul here indicates, 1. That the charism of tongues was a gift to be thankful for; 2. Calls to mind, in a manner implying that the Corinthians would not deny, the affluence of his gifts; 3. Implies that he not only possessed, but used, the power in actual exercise; 4. That, therefore, he assigned tongues a subordinate place from no envy to those displaying them; and, 5. Prepares by all this for his decisive sentence next to be uttered against the use of tongues uninterpreted. 19. In the church—In the Christian assembly gathered for religious exercises, as prayer, praise, (singing,) prophecy, (preaching,) and other modes suggested by the Spirit. Five words—A definite small number designed to give sharpness to his sentence. Ten thousand—Besser, quoted by Kling, says “rather half of ten, if of the edifying sort, than a thousand times ten of the other.” So that “the edifying sort” was twenty thousand times the better. 20. Brethren—Beginning on another key, with an affectionate confidential undertone, yet of reproof. Children—They were like children preferring profitless sound to profitable thought. Howbeit—As if suddenly recollecting that there was a point, namely, malice, in which they might well resemble infants, which the Greek for this second word children really signifies. Men—Perfect, grown up persons. 21. The law—The Old Testament as a whole; as in John 10:34; John 12:34; John 15:25. The passage alluded to by Paul is Isaiah 28:13. The Israelites had complained that Jehovah had drilled them like children, with precept upon precept and line upon line; and Jehovah retorts, with terrible sarcasm, that he would give them instructors with another tongue, namely, the Assyrian armies, and yet they will not hear. St. Paul quotes this as an impressive type, indicating that foreign tongues spoken in the Church, though intended for the conversion of unbelievers, had a fearful precedent of failing of the effect. Other tongues—Gentile tongues, like those of the charismatic Corinthians; not miraculous tongues, however, yet brought by God’s overruling providence upon Israel. b. Illustration of the inferiority of tongues to prophecy, 1 Corinthians 14:22-25.22. Wherefore—In peculiar conformity with this type. Tongues… a sign… to them that believe not—Their miraculous and startling character rendered them a sign for the conviction of unbelievers; just as the Assyrian tongues were for the bringing Israel to repentance. For the conviction of unbelievers were the charismatic tongues intended, and this they would often effect if rightly exercised. The notion of some commentators, that Paul teaches that tongues are a sign of judgment upon incorrigible unbelievers, is contrary to the whole history and character of that charism and entirely unsustained by Paul’s words. The pentecostal tongues, though rejected by the mockers, were intended to convert all who heard them, and did effect the object to a glorious extent. The charism, by its very nature, points to a reception of the gospel by the nations. If they are an adumbration of the one tongue of Paradise, they are a cheerful and glorious image. By their appealing to the ear of the foreigner in his own home dialect, as well as by their thrilling, supernatural impressiveness, they were a sign most convincing to the unbeliever; just as Paul says the signs of an apostle were wrought by him for the conversion of the Corinthians themselves. Yet all happy results depended upon their proper use, otherwise unbelievers would reject those displaying them as mad; as in next verse. 23. If therefore—Paul now shows how a mismanagement of tongues will verify the prediction, (Isaiah 28:12,) they would not hear; and in so doing furnishes in these two verses one of the most vivid and interesting pictures of the process of conversion in a live Church of the apostolic age. We learn how improper management aggravated unbelief and brought obloquy upon religion: and how the vivid presentation of truth searched the life and soul of the hearer though and through, pierced him with conviction, and brought him down in prayer and complete self-surrender on the spot. Paul, no doubt, was familiar with such events, and many a powerful preacher since his day has witnessed the power of truth to convert the soul. All speak with tongues—Not all at once; (just as all prophesy, in the next verse, does not mean all prophesy at once;) but no performer does any thing else but speak with tongues. There is no prophesying, or teaching, or interpreting; nothing but one lofty chant of tongues from different performers through the whole meeting. It is all vox et praeterea nihil. Not one distinct idea for the stranger through the whole.Unlearned—Same word as in 1 Corinthians 14:16—ungifted persons; who neither speak, nor interpret, nor understand charismatically. Their want of share in the gift results in want of sympathy and in unbelief. Unbelievers—Pagans or Jews. Ye are mad—They will pronounce you at once unintelligent fanatics. From all this it would seem to follow that these Corinthian tongues did not express to the unsympathizing foreigner any connected discourse; and this sinking below the pentecostal standard was the reason of Paul’s just disparagement of them. From the Greek word for mad, μαινεσθε, come our words mania, maniac. The Greek word μαντις, a prophet, belongs to the same root, because the sacred mania by which the prophet was possessed was considered as a prophetic influence. 24. If all prophesy—If a strain of inspired preaching continue through the whole meeting, then intelligent thought is produced and conviction of sinners follows. Convinced—Literally, detected, or convicted. That is, he is detected to himself as a transgressor, a sinner beneath the eye of God. His sins are brought before his own view. The word for judged signifies to cross-examine, as a judge or lawyer, with probing questions. The truth searchingly questions the man as to his character before God. He is like a culprit under the inquisition of his judge. Of all—Of or by all the prophecies. Not that they directly question him in person; but the truths they deliver do compel his conscience to question himself. 25. Secrets of his heart—The man (as has often been the case under a searching ministry) feels as if the speaker knew him through and through, and was preaching at, and to, and through him alone. Falling… face—In complete submission, self-surrender, and worship. Report—As Dr. Hodge says, “The man who has had such an experience cannot keep it to himself.” He will joyfully declare, in substance, that he “has experienced religion;”or, if witlings will so have it, he “has got religion.” That God—No longer identified with the deities of heathen mythology. Is in you—Both among you as a Church, and in your hearts individually by his Spirit. c. Rules for the most orderly and effective exercise of both tongues and prophecy, 1 Corinthians 14:26-33.26. Every one—Rather, each one. Used not to indicate that all of them had an exercise to offer, but to signify that the gifts were distributed one to an individual, and not all to one or all to all. Hath a psalm—Some train of Christian thought expressed in rhythmical language, to be chanted or sung. Hath a doctrine… revelation—See note on 1 Corinthians 14:6. Edifying—St. Paul would again test the gift or the exercise by its results—does it profit, convert sinners, build up the Church? 27. By two… three—That is, let but two or three exercise the unknown tongue at a single meeting; and not even that unless one, either the speaker himself or another, interpret. By course—One at a time; neither two together, nor one eagerly interrupting the other. 28. No interpreter—If there were no interpreter, neither the charismatic speaker himself, nor any other person, then the charismatic must keep silence. If the power of the Spirit was so great as not only to fill his human spirit and prompt vocal utterances, but without so pervading his understanding that he could interpret the words, it might nevertheless bring into communication with itself the understanding of some susceptible person present, so that he could interpret. The divine thought would then be given to the supernatural vocality, and both together would combine to fulfil the purpose of being a sign to them that believe not. It would then be felt by the consciences of men that the tongues were not only supernatural, but that they were holy and divine. Speak to himself—The divine thoughts wrought in the man’s spirit refused to be shaped into words of his own vernacular; and his only resources, if silenced, was to yield a mental utterance of the charismatic words to himself, and thus experience the blessed reaction described in our note on 1 Corinthians 5:2. To God— Since often the utterance would be prayer or praise. 29. Two or three—At a single meeting, in order to secure variety. He does not add at the most, as in regard to tongues, because he would not make the limitation so positive. 30. Revealed… sitteth by—If while one charismatic is speaking a special revelation is made to another, let the first stop and allow the latter to utter it, and not discourteously keep on talking and so create disorder. The reason why the first should promptly be silent is, that a revelation, just made, if genuine, is supposably not only more authoritative, but is given for immediate use, and should suspend, if not entirely supersede, the ordinary current of prophetic discourse. 31. Ye may—Rather, ye are able. St. Paul has given the above directions for preserving order, for they thereby were able, if they took proper care, all to prophesy, who had the gift, not simultaneously, but one by one, and so all the congregation may, by hearing a variety of discourse, learn and be comforted, or instructed. 32. And—Additional to the above ability of self-control, is the fact that the human spirits of the inspired prophets are not, from their inspiration, irrepressible and disorderly, but are subject to the prophets, exercising their rational powers. This means, not that the divine Spirit should be overruled; but that the disorder of the human spirit, under divine influence, should be steadied and ruled by the rational faculty, in accord with the principles of order and becomingness. This is true of each individual prophet. It is possible to be true of the collective body. So that let no one claim that he is obliged by the powerful and uncontrollable impulses of the Spirit to overbear reason, order, or decency. 33. And that such claims of being moved by the divine Spirit to disorder are false, is clear from this solemn fact, that God is not the author of confusion. The Greek word for confusion often signifies the political tumults of cities, and here indicates that there had been very decided disorders in Corinthian assemblies. As in all Churches—Here, as in 1 Corinthians 11:16, Paul finishes by nailing fast his directions with the authority of the Churches of the then small Christendom. This precedent shows the incorrectness of later scholars, who, in opposition to all ancient authority, bring this clause to begin the following paragraph, making it read: “As in all the Churches of the saints let your women keep silence in the Churches.” The jingle of the double use of Churches, here, is offensive; which Dr. Hodge covers up, but does not remove, by illegitimately translating: “As is the case in all other Christian Churches, let your women keep silence in the public assemblies.” Some of the old commentators have thought necessary to insert “I teach” after as, but it is the authority of the Churches, not his own teaching in them, that Paul intends to adduce. No additional words are needed to be understood. The as, taking into its grasp 1 Corinthians 14:33, necessarily includes under one glance all the laws laid down by Paul for the Corinthian Church, under the great maxim that God is author of order alone, and places them under the sanction of the then Catholic Church. It unquestionably so lay in the apostle’s own mind. 34. Your women—If we suppose the mind’s eye of the apostle to be “isolated” upon such a set of women as Chrysostom, Dr. Anderson, and Thomson describe, we should utter a hearty amen to his keep silence! That he does not expressly except cases like Phoebe, whom he commended to a whole Church, or the daughters of Philip, is explicable on the ground that such a class have already been provided for in chapter 11. The New Testament contains no case of public preaching more unequivocal, and scarce any more successful, than that of the woman of Samaria to her townsmen. Not permitted—Either by custom, propriety, or divine law. Speak—The verb λαλειν, the root of which is λαλ, lal, is a word like prattle, chatter, and jabber, formed from imitation of senseless or childish utterances. In the classic Greek it usually retains that import, but in New Testament Greek it signifies, as here, to talk or discourse in any mode, usually with the idea of continuance. No argument can be drawn from the word in regard to the nature of the utterances which St. Paul forbids.Under obedience—Under control both of the proper decorum of the meeting and of the regulative authority of the other sex. Saith the law— ”Thy desire [or request] shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” Genesis 3:16. See note, 1 Corinthians 11:3-16. The law is permanent, but the application of the law may vary from age to age. When obedience to, or concurrence with, the will of the other sex requires a lady of talent to lecture before an audience or preach before a congregation, it may be as proper as it was for Miriam, in obedience to Moses, to prophesy upon the timbrel before the camp of Israel. 35. Ask their husbands—With whom, according to the Jewish custom, all the education was. According to Schoettgen, women were allowed in the rabbinical schools; but only to hear, and never to speak, or ask a question. Shame—Contrary to the existing views of propriety. Just as in 1 Corinthians 11:14, (where see note,) it is a shame for a man to wear long hair. When women are so cultured that it is not a shame, but a beauty, for a woman to speak, then the prohibition ceases because the reason for it ceases, just as the prohibition of long hair to a man ceases. e. A silencer upon all rebellion against the apostolic directions in these three chapters, 1 Corinthians 14:36-40. 36. What—The abrupt exclamation seems to aim at some surprising revolt heard of by Paul, as coming from some rebellious Corinthians against his authoritative regulations. From you… or… unto you—Did you originate Christianity, or are you only its receivers from Jerusalem, from the universal Churches and from your founder-apostle? 37. A prophet, or spiritual—Endowed in either case with inspiration. Let him acknowledge—As he can if his inspiration is true. That I write—In this whole section of three chapters, in which spiritual gifts according to Church order are discussed. The commandments of the Lord—Delivered not to you in his own person, but through his commissioned and inspired apostle. This is a very peremptory claim to divine inspiration. This passage confirms our view, that the canon is sustained by the double authority of the inspired apostle and the charismatic Church. See note, 1 Corinthians 4:21. 38. If—A second if antithetic to the first if of 1 Corinthians 14:37. If any man be spiritual, let him acknowledge my words; if, on the other hand, he be not spiritual, but so refractory as to ignore what I say, let him be left to his ignoring as incorrigible and unworthy further labour. Here the ignorance is held to lie in the will, and is, therefore, impervious to argument. Another, but not well-authorized reading would be, let him be ignored. 39. Wherefore—The net conclusion of the entire section. Covet… forbid not—The settled rank of these two gifts; one to be a chief aim, the other to be regulated and allowed. 40. Decently—Seemlily; the reverse Greek word to unseemly in 1 Corinthians 13:5. That which accords with the sense of the becoming. Order—Each exercise single and in due succession. So Josephus is quoted by Alford as saying of the Essenes, “Neither loud voice nor tumult ever dishonours their house, but their discourses they yield to each other in order.” ST. PAUL’S NINTH :—IN REPLY TO THE DENIAL OF THE , 1 Corinthians 15:1-58.This chapter crowns the climax of the epistles with the fullest defence and sublimest description of the resurrection contained in revelation. It forms a response, not to any letter of inquiry of the Corinthians, but to an intelligence received that there were among the Corinthians deniers of the resurrection.St. Paul answers them by showing that such a denial is a contradiction, and destruction of the very foundations of the Christian system as unanimously stated by the apostles of Christ, and as received by the then Catholic Church: 1. He states the historical doctrines of Christianity, as narrated by the apostles, of Christ’s atoning death, burial, and especially the six resurrection appearances of the risen Christ, as reported by veritable apostolic witnesses, (1 Corinthians 15:1-10.) 2. The object of this firm and formal statement is covered, until suddenly (1 Corinthians 15:11-19) he arraigns the deniers of the resurrection, and places them at once in uncompromising issue with fundamental historical Christianity, of which the resurrection of Christ is the basis. It is maintained and shown to be a life and death contest. 3. He then eloquently reaffirms Christ’s resurrection, and, by sublime apostolic apocalypse, states the organic position of the universal resurrection and its sequents in God’s system of human destiny, (1 Corinthians 15:20-28.) 4. He then retraces, as if in continuance of 1 Corinthians 15:1-10, the devastating consequences of denying the resurrection upon all their hopes, and all the motives for their heroic Christianity, (1 Corinthians 15:29-35.)So far the positive argument. It is not “a demonstration of the resurrection” as based upon nature, philosophy, or logic, but a showing that its denial is a deadly contradiction to the very foundations of the Christian system. Christianity or that denial must die.The second part meets a Gnostic objection based on the inherent evil of matter, and the consequent baseness of our present material body as unworthy of resurrection in any form. To this Paul gives a reply based on nature, showing that matter is not necessarily degraded; but that, composed of the same matter, there may be glorious as well as inglorious bodies, (1 Corinthians 15:35-41.) He draws a brilliant contrast, in a series of antitheses, between the body corruptible and the body glorified, admitting in conclusion that it is only by a change in the properties of our present body, from inglorious to glorious, that a resurrection can take place, (1 Corinthians 15:42-49.)The third part is another apocalypse, revealing prophetically the glories of the Christian resurrection, and inferring a closing lesson of firmness and energy for his Corinthian brethren, (1 Corinthians 15:50-58.) 1. I declare—I now here state, I recapitulate, spread out before your view. The gospel—The joyful Christ-history, with its doctrines embodied in the history. Note on Matthew’s title, before Matthew 1:1. 2. Saved—It is by holy truth, received and kept in memory, that we are saved. 3. I delivered… received—St. Paul rigidly expresses the fact that his message was given, as received, with perfect exactness. In this Christ-narrative every item has been carefully guarded. He repeats it with all the formality of a profession of faith. For our sins—’Υπερ, on behalf of our sins. So says Alford, and he very strikingly adds, “It may be noticed that in 1 Kings 16:19, where it is said that Zimri ‘died for (υπερ) his sins which he had done,’ it is for his own sins, as their punishment, that he died. So that υπερ may bear the meaning, that Christ’s punishment was of the sins of our nature which he took upon him. But its undoubtedly inclusive vicarious import in other passages where υπερημων and the like occur, seems to rule it to have that sense here also.” According to the Scriptures—See note on Luke 24:26. The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and the whole system of Jewish sacrifices, were predictive of the one real sacrifice. The Scriptures, here, mean the Old Testament, for the New was but yet partially written. 4. Buried—Entombed. According to the Scriptures—Christ’s resurrection was not an isolated event, like a resuscitation from catalepsy or drowning of some apparent corpse. See note on Acts 17:31; Acts 2:24. It is the crowning fact of a great organic system of facts, binding each other into one common solidity. 5. The twelve—Though Judas was dead and Thomas absent, so that they were but eleven, Paul calls the apostolic college by its habitual numerical title, the twelve. See our vol. ii, p. 81. 6. Five hundred—An appearance not elsewhere mentioned; nor do the conjectures of commentators much illustrate the time or place. But most probably, as indicated in Matthew 28:16-17, in a mountain or highland of Galilee. (On the phrase a mountain, see our note on Luke 6:12.) As this was an appointment in Galilee, where so much of the ministry of Christ was spent, it were no wonder if there Jesus met a full assembly. Greater part—A majority; more than two hundred and fifty. This event was between twenty and thirty years ago; but plenty of eyewitnesses still live. It was no myth formed by popular imagination. Asleep—A beautiful image of death, implying the hope of an awakening to future life. See note on Luke 8:52. it conclusively implies that the same body that dies is raised, and not another substituted.The epitaphs inscribed by the primitive Christians upon their tombs as found in the Roman catacombs abound in this cheerful image of repose and sleep. The following specimens are given by Mr. Withrow in his very interesting book on the Catacombs:“We find also such expressions as follow: (sic) IN PACE FIDEI , (sic)—’Buried in the peace of the Catholic faith,’ A.D. 462; HIC. REQ. IN PACE DEVS, (sic)— ‘Here rests in the peace of God,’ A.D. 500; IN PACE — ‘In the peace of the Church,’ A.D. 523; IN PACE ET —’In peace and benediction;’ SEMPER FIDELIS MANEBIT APVD DEVM—’Ever faithful, he shall remain with God,’ (circ. 590); ZOTICVS HIC AD — ‘Zoticus here laid to sleep;’ ELPIDIS— ‘The sleeping-place of Elpis;’ DORMIVlT ET — ‘He has slept and is at rest;’ DORMIT SED VIVIT—’He sleeps but lives;’ IN DOMINO IESV— ‘He reposes in the Lord Jesus;’ IVIT AD DEVM— ‘He went to God;’ A DOMINO— ‘Called by God;’ ACCEPTA APVD DEVM— ‘Accepted with God;’ ΕΤΕΛΕΙΩΘΗ—’He finished his life;’ ΕΚΟΙΜΗΘΗ—’He fell asleep;’ DAMILIS HIC SIC - V - D—’Here lies Damalis, for so God wills.’”—Pp. 429, 430.The following epitaphs given by Mr. Withrow show that the image of sleep was limited to the body. While the eyes are closed in sleep, the soul is awake, and living in “The Celestial realms:” “Of similar character are also the following: TVVS IN BONIS—’Salonice, thy spirit is among the good;’ TVVS IN BONIS—’Thou refreshest thy spirit among the good;’ ΠΡΩΤΟC ΕΝΑΓΙΩΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙΘΕΟΥΕΝΘΑΔΕΚΕΙΤΑΙ—’Here in the Holy Spirit of God lieth Protus;’ CORPVS HABET TELLVS ANIMAM REGNA—’The earth has the body, celestial realms the soul;’ ΓΛΥΚΕΡΟΝΦΑΟC ΟΥΚΑΤΕΛΕΦΑΣ (sic) ΕΣΧΕΣΓΑΡΜΕΤΑ CΟΥΠΑΝΑΘΑΝΑΤΟΝ—’Thou didst not leave the sweet light, for thou hadst with thee Him who knows not death,’ literally, ‘the all-deathless One;’ AGAPE VIBIS IN ETERNVM—’Agape, thou livest forever;’ DORMIT ET VIVIT IN PACE XO, (sic)—’He sleeps and lives in the peace of Christ;’ MENS NESCIA MORTIS VIVIT ET ASPECTV FRVITVR BENE CONSCIA CHRISTI—’The soul lives unknowing of death, and consciously rejoices in the vision of Christ;’ PRIMA VIVIS IN GLORIA DEI ET IN PACE DOMINI NOSTRI XR.—’Prima, thou livest in the glory of God, and in the peace of Christ, our Lord.’”—Pp. 430, 431. These epitaphs show the primitive Christian doctrines to have been: 1. That the self-same body that sleeps in death shall awake to the resurrection. 2. That between death and the resurrection the soul is in an intermediate state of blessed consciousness, awaiting the resurrection of its sleeping body. 7. James—Half brother of the Lord, bishop of Jerusalem, author of the Epistle of James. See notes on Matthew 10:3; and Acts 12:2. All the apostles—Probably the same as mentioned in Acts 1:4. 8. One born out of due time—Born, not after, but before, the time; and consequently immature and unshapely. 9. For—While the other apostles were following Jesus and hearing his divine wisdom, Paul was sitting at the feet of the rabbins and hearing their traditions. While the other apostles were preaching the crucified and arisen Saviour, he persecuted the Church of God. He was, therefore, a crude material to make into an apostle. And he still feels the terrible dwarfing and deforming effect of that crime of persecuting the Church resting upon his being. It was from this distorted history that he was the last of all to see the risen Saviour. Had he been in timely and regular manner chosen by Jesus with the twelve he would have seen him with them at his resurrection. Not meet—Viewing himself in that light, he felt as fully as his assailants could wish that he was unfit to be an apostle. Of this fact they fully availed themselves to the last. But there was another side to the matter which he will next give. 10. Whatever I was as a persecutor, yet by the grace of God I am what I am—An apostle! Not in vain—He was, he says, (Acts 26:19,) “not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.” More abundantly than they all— Than any one of them all. Not I—Spoken comparatively. Yet while he would claim much in comparison with other apostles, he has no claim to make in competition with God’s grace. 11. Therefore—In view of this profession of faith. Or they—The other apostles. So we preach—Ours is a common and unanimous apostolic doctrine; including the resurrection of the dead. This is a very positive declaration of Paul that he and the other apostles preached one faith and dogma. So ye believed—As I have preached, so have ye believed, the one common catholic apostolic faith. The concealed object of this covered approach is revealed in the next paragraph. 2. A denial of the resurrection is a denial of the resurrection of Christ, and so a repudiation of the Christian faith, 12-19.12. If… how say—This draws out the issue. Some—Who or what were these some? Though with the Sadducees they denied the resurrection of the dead, and probably also the existence of spirit, the opposition between Sadducees and Christians renders it improbable that these deniers belonged to that sect. They may have been converts from among the followers of the Athenian philosophers, especially the Epicureans, who dismissed Paul so promptly for preaching Jesus and the resurrection. Indeed, the summit of the Acrocorinthus was almost in sight of Athens; and this epistle, addressed not only to Corinth but to the Churches of Achaia, doubtless included Athens. Nevertheless the some appear, from the objections of theirs answered by St. Paul, to have rejected the resurrection on account of their holding the oriental Gnostic doctrine of the essential impurity of matter. See note on Acts 8:9. Resurrection—The resurrection is, in the New Testament, designated by two words, each designating precisely the same event, but from a different standpoint; 1. ‘Εγειρω, to raise, transitively; where the divine power is the agent; 2. Ανιστημι, (noun αναστασις,) to rise up; where the person rising is the agent. In this chapter the former word is used at 1 Corinthians 15:4; 1 Corinthians 15:12-15; 1 Corinthians 15:15; 1 Corinthians 15:15-16; 1 Corinthians 15:16-17; 1 Corinthians 15:20; 1 Corinthians 15:29; 1 Corinthians 15:32; 1 Corinthians 15:35; 1 Corinthians 15:42-43; 1 Corinthians 15:43-44; the latter at 1 Corinthians 15:12-13; 1 Corinthians 15:20; 1 Corinthians 15:42; 1 Corinthians 15:52. Both words are applied to the resurrection of Christ, and to the resurrection of the general dead indiscriminately. The former is uniformly held as the essential model of the other. He rose from the dead—Literally, that he has been raised from deads. See our note on Luke 20:35, where the difference between a resurrection of the dead, a resurrection from the dead, and a resurrection from deads, (dead being Greek plural and without the article,) is shown. This is a very important distinction, which no commentator has clearly noticed. Here it is a resurrection from deads or dead ones, Christ himself being included in the dead ones from whom he is raised; the being raised from one’s own dead self being included in the word. 13. If… no resurrection—If resurrection of deads there is not. If (such is the supposition) no resurrection of any dead persons takes place: if a resurrection is excluded from nature and thought. So thought the Epicureans and Stoics at Athens, (Acts 17:32,) flouting or politely dismissing the idea of a resurrection from consideration. Christ not risen—Literally, Christ has not been raised. He is still dead. The reasoning is decisive as a syllogism, from the universal to the particular. So the Athenians reasoned, from universal to individual. 14. Our preaching… your faith—Our preaching and your faith are alike a vanity. St. Paul does not suppose that any one will reply. But even without a resurrection, is not the soul immortal, and may not its immortality be blissful through Christ? He does not anticipate this reply, because those deniers did not admit any such immortality. Nor, to all appearance, does Paul himself base our Christian hopes upon an immortality of soul that is not based on Christ, that is, of which our resurrection is not the base, and that based on his resurrection. He preached not Jesus and the immortality of the soul, but Jesus and the resurrection. That he believed in the separate existence and immortality of the soul appears from Philippians 1:23-24. But man is an immortal being, not because he is a thinking substance, for brutes think; but because he is by God placed in the conditions for immortality. A lamp will burn forever if the conditions of carbon and oxygen are properly supplied. An animal would be immortal if placed by God in the conditions for its immortality. Now man is an immortal being because he is placed by God in a probationary system, the basis of which is the resurrection, the accompaniment of which resurrection is the perpetuation of the existence of the soul through the intermediate state until its reunion with the body. Of this destiny for immortality, the proofs drawn from the high intuitive character of the spirit of man are valid and powerful. Animals fear death, and avoid localities of danger. But animals are below the conception of immortality, which is a form of the idea of the Infinite.From this view it is clear that no argument can be drawn against the immortality of man from the high intellective character of some animals. We are not, indeed, obliged by Christianity to deny the immortality of brutes, or insects. We are perfectly free to believe even that every case of individualized perceptive life, (that is, every intellective entity individualized by being once united to a material organism,) remains a thinking individual forever. But the Pauline ground for man’s immortality is the assumed fact of man’s probationary condition under the headship of Christ, as heir of the resurrection. 15. False witnesses—The supposition not only empties our faith of all value, but it makes all of us apostles perjurers. Paul admits no excuse on grounds of the apostles being mistaken, deceived by false perceptions or excited imaginations. It is an issue of personal veracity. Of God—False reporters of, or in regard to, God. Of God—The Greek (in spite of Alford) can hardly be otherwise rendered than against God. The charge is, that we have testified against God what he never did; and what either the laws of nature or the corruptness of matter forbids him to do. And, says Grotius ingeniously: “If any one adulterates the coin of the king, he is most severely punished. Miracles are the coin of God.” 16-19. Paul now commences a new series of ifs, supposing Christ not risen, and ending with the perdition of the dead saints, and utter misery of the living. 17. In your sins—If Christ is still dead, and Christianity is nothing, we are in a pagan or Jewish condition. We have no deliverance from sin; neither by Christ, nor from the expiations that Judaism or paganism professes to offer. Both these systems had their sense of sin, and their sacrifices and lustrations for it. But if Christ rose not, ye Christians, wholly without expiation, are yet in your sins. 18. Fallen asleep—Ruckert quotes an elegant sentence from Photius: “In regard to Christ, Paul uses the term death in order that his dying should be clearly affirmed; when he speaks of us, he uses the cheerful word sleep, that he may yield us consolation. When resurrection is the subject he frankly says death; but when he dwells upon our hopes he calls it sleep.” Are perished—Literally, They that fell asleep in Christ perished; that is, aoristically, they perished in the act of falling asleep. They fell asleep in Christ, according to the Christian and Pauline view; they perished upon the non-resurrection and non-Christian view. What, then, is the meaning of perished? And it seems not pertinent here to say, with Kling: “Perdition, according to Scripture, is not annihilation, but the state of damnation— remaining in gehenna;” for Paul is writing for, and probably arguing with, those who ignore Gehenna, and even the future existence of the soul. Nor does it seem pertinent to say, with Alford, that perished means “passed into misery in hades.” Both these views Paul seems carefully to avoid expressing, and uses the generic term perished, which was in use among Gentiles on this very point, and which does not define the nature of the ruin. Besides, his statement that the falling asleep and the perishing is one and the same thing, forbids this applying the word perishing to an after state. Those with whom he argues confine the hope in Christ to this life, 1 Corinthians 15:19; and their view yields the Epicurean maxim of 1 Corinthians 15:32, both of which passages suggest that these heretics denied the future of the soul.The philosophers who mocked Paul at Athens denied alike the resurrection, and the immortality of the soul. A short time before Christ, Cesar, in the Roman senate, argued against executing the followers of Cataline under the assumption, fully expressed, that death is the last of man; and of the entire senate not one dissented from that belief. This was the settled view of the civilized paganism of the age. Even the poets, who playfully prattled of manes, hades, and shadowy Plutonian domes, did, as prosaic thinkers, reject and laugh at such myths. And these Corinthian deniers of the resurrection clearly held the view that Christianity only presented a resurrection of the soul from sin, and was, therefore, a good thing for this life, but nothing for the life to come. 19. In this life—The Sadducees, Stoics, and Epicureans held to rewards of virtue in this life. Paul could concede that; but when they proceeded to add in this life only, he objected. Most miserable—Rather, most pitiable. They were more pitiable than either of the above three sects, because they underwent persecution, privation, and martyrdom; but still more because, on the supposition stated, they did all this inflated with false visions of eternal glory hereafter. And so pagan authors held the Christian readiness for suffering and death an infatuation. Said the philosopher Epictetus, “Is it possible that a man may arrive at this temper and become indifferent to those things, from madness or from habit, like the Galileans?” And the Emperor Marcus Aurelius said, “Let this preparedness of mind (for death) arise from its own judgment, and not from obstinacy, like the Christians.” 20. But now—After all these denials. Is Christ risen—Reaffirmed with sublime emphasis. Firstfruits—According to the Mosaic ritual the first product of the year from field, vineyard, etc., was sacred, and offered unto God. So Christ, as the first raised from the dead to die no more, was the firstfruits of the universal resurrection. Others, like Lazarus and the son of the widow of Nain, were raised from death; and that raising is called, in verb form, a resurrection; but they were raised in mortal body to die again. Their raising was no part of the organic universal resurrection. Christ was the first who went from the tomb to heaven. 21. For—Just as the afterfruits are of the same nature with the firstfruits, so the human race is after the nature of its heads. By man—It pleased God that in some way humanity should within itself, however aided by divinity, work out its own destiny, both for death and life; within itself, in Adam and in Christ. 22. In Adam… in Christ—Literally in the Adam, in the Christ. That all the race was done up in Adam and drawn out from him, (just as the successive lengths of a spyglass are done up in and drawn out from the first length,) is not a literal fact. It is an imaginative conception, which, properly guarded, gives a powerful impression of the truth. St. Augustine, by perverting the conception, did almost as much to corrupt Christian theology as he did, in other respects, to defend it. See note on Romans 5:12. The being made alive here, is simply the same as the resurrection in the previous verse, and affirms, merely, a universal bodily resurrection. The being in Christ refers not to the incorporation into Christ’s mystical body of believers by faith, but to their being taken in under his headship of the race, as they were previously in under the headship of Adam by descent. 23. Every man—Shall be made alive, in his own order. Order is in the Greek a military term, signifying a band or battalion. The three battalions are Christ, his own, and the wicked. As the apostle, however, is writing for Christians, and for Christian consolation, he here skips the wicked and pictures the resurrection of the righteous solely. He paints the glorious resurrection, or, in other words, the glorious side of the resurrection, alone. That he believed in the resurrection of the wicked is shown by his words, Acts 24:15, where see note. At his coming—His ; a Greek word which, in reference to Christ, always denotes his personal presence at the second advent to judge the world. Of this event the Apostles’ Creed says: “He ascended into heaven,… from thence he shall come to judge the quick,” (living) “and the dead.” The passages containing the word parousia, in application to Christ, and always translated coming, are the following: Matthew 24:3; Matthew 24:37; Matthew 24:39; 1 Corinthians 15:23; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 1 Thessalonians 3:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:15; 2 Thessalonians 2:1; 2 Thessalonians 2:8-9; James 5:7-8; 2 Peter 1:16; 2 Peter 3:4; 2 Peter 3:12; 1 John 2:28. Other comings of God or Christ are mentioned in the Old Testament and New, both in verb and noun forms, which may designate any of the providential interpositions of God in great events, and which are not to be identified with this . 24. Then cometh the end—The end of the mediatorial and probationary kingdom of the Messiah; that is, its restoring by Christ to the Father. This is the result of the completed judgment of both the righteous and the unrighteous. The words afterward and then, which mark the second and third of the points of succession, are in Greek επειτα and ειτα, which furnish no indication of the length of interval between the points. As the apostle was not given to know the length of time between Christ’s resurrection and second advent, nor between that advent and the end, he gives no measurement. Personally, he may have believed it possible that the three events were with little or no interval; and the revelation vouchsafed here to him, affirms nothing as to time. But many commentators hold that there are two bodily resurrections; one of the righteous and the other of the wicked, a thousand years apart; so that the end, the third point, is at least that length of period from the parousia. The only authority for this opinion is Revelation 20:5, which, however, describes a resurrection of “souls,” not of bodies. The same two resurrections are shadowed by John in his gospel, John 5:25-29. There is nothing here to show any length of interval between the advent and the end, or to show that there is more than a one twofold resurrection at that advent. And such is the doctrine of Matthew 24, 25, and of Joh 5:28-29, as well as of the Apostles’ Creed just quoted, and, we may add, of all the confessions of faith of the great Churches of Christendom. The parousia or advent of this verse is identical with the “great white throne” of Revelation 20:11. The kingdom—The rule of the Son, as bringing to order the rebellion of the world, is well compared by Grotius to the vice-royalty of a king’s son, sent forth to subdue an insurgent province. When every enemy is subdued, he returns to the capital, gives up his commission, resigns his foreign viceroyalty, and resumes his royal place at the royal right hand; and the king is all-ruling in all things, owing to the harmony restored. To God, even the Father—Literally, to the God and Father. Put down—A bad rendering for καταργηση, which means nullify, abolish, or put out of existence, not the persons of his enemies, but their organic rule, authority, and power. 25. For—Assigns Scripture proof of this abolition. He, Christ, must reign from his accession to the end above mentioned. The quotation is from Psalms 110:1, in which “Jehovah says to my Jehovah, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” With this compare our notes on Matthew 28:18, and Acts 1:1, showing Christ’s investiture with this kingdom at his ascension in accordance with Daniel 7:13. Put all enemies under his feet—As their organisms in the last verse were to be abolished, so their persons it is that are put down. The figure is taken from the custom of ancient conquerors placing their feet upon the head of the conquered. See note on Acts 2:35. It indicates not the conversion, but the powerful subjection, of incorrigible enemies. 26. The last enemy—Literally, the last enemy shall be abolished, death. The word for abolished is the same as we have so rendered in 1 Corinthians 15:24. This is annihilation of death by the universal resurrection. So Revelation 20:14, “Death and hades were cast into the lake of fire;”Revelation 21:4, “and there shall be no more death.” Death is an enemy to man, brought in by sin; an enemy to Christ, to whom Christ had first to submit, in order last to conquer and destroy. 27. He (God) hath put all things under his (Christ’s) feet—This is a quotation from Psalms 8:6; words which are spoken by the psalmist of man as in the earthly image of God; and are applied here, as in Hebrews 2:8, to Jesus as the representative man in his highest state. But—These words may be thus paraphrased: When, at the consummation, God shall have pronounced that all things have actually become subjected to Christ, (in accordance with Psalms 8:6,) it is clear that he (God) who so put all things under Christ is excepted; so that he puts not himself under Christ. As Grotius says, this is that figure of exception mentioned by Greek rhetoricians as necessary in some instances, and is exemplified by the sentence, the sky covers all things, of course excepting the sky itself. This exception, Wordsworth thinks, Paul expressly makes in order to guard his Greek readers against the error of their own mythology, which makes Jupiter subject his own father, Saturn, to himself. Let the reader mark, that at the completion of this verse all things are under Christ, and Christ under the Father. The restoration of the mediatorial kingdom takes not all things from under Christ, as the coming home of the king’s eldest son, and the surrendry of his special temporal viceroyalty, does not diminish his perpetual rank and supremacy over all others, his father excepted. Rather is he higher, in the peaceful order and harmony of the home kingdom, for his temporary absence and victorious expedition. Christ’s kingdom is, therefore, “without end.” 28. God… all in all—The first all of the two here, which God may be, is an all of absolute power, pervading the second all things, immediate and without a mediator. For it is power, kingdom, authority, abolition, and subjection, which are the subject of the whole passage; not one word being spoken of reconciliation, communion, or love. This we think entirely decisive against all theories of Restorationism founded on this passage.God is finally all things—in supremacy over and in all things. As the light perfectly pervades the perfectly transparent diamond, so that the diamond itself becomes invisible, being visually dissolved in light, so God, the omnipotent all, is omnipresent in all things. From the very nature of things, that omnipresence is perfectly blissful to every conscious nature accordant with it; but perfectly woful to every conscious nature discordant with it, though perfectly subjected by it. And between the idea of this subjection under power, and this discordance of nature, there is no contradiction. 29. Else—If this apocalypse of the resurrection be not true. What shall they do—Or say for themselves. Baptized for the dead—Over this passage an interminable battle of commentary is waged. It is admitted by all that the Greek υπερ, for, signifies either, (1) over, in local position; or, (2) instead of, as a substitute, but rarely; or, (3) in behalf of, as favourer, sponsor, advocate, or other benefactor. Of the many interpretations fully given by Stanley but two are worth a discussion. 1. The supposed custom of substitutive baptism, by which a living person was baptized in place of a dead person, one or more. 2. The baptism in behalf of the resurrection of the dead.By the substitutive interpretation (as Tertullian, Grotius, Alford, Hodge) it is maintained that when a catechumen died before baptism, a friend was baptized in his stead, and so was substitutively baptized for the dead.But, 1. There is no reason to believe, outside of the passage itself, that any such practice existed in the apostolic Church. It seems illegitimate to create, for an exegetical purpose, a class of heretics practising a particular superstitious rite, when any other natural meaning exists. There is not the slightest reason to doubt that the practisers of substitutive baptism mentioned by Tertullian and ridiculed by Chrysostom were later than Paul’s day, and based their practice on their interpretation of this verse, as do the modern Mormons. 2. It could hardly be said that such substitutes were baptized universally for the dead; dead being a Greek plural with the article, and so signifying all the dead. Note, 1 Corinthians 15:12. The phrase to express this substitutive meaning should be υπερνεκρου, for a dead person, or νεκρων, without the article, for dead persons. 3. Quoting the condemnable practice of heretics is out of the analogy and line of the argument. Paul has argued that a denial of the resurrection impugns Christ, Christians, and sufferers of persecution, like himself; and then a sudden and transient interpolation of heretical performers of a superstitious rite is incredible. 4. The argument would be without value. It would subject Paul to the reply, What authority for us is an example of a set of heretics practising a false superstition? And this worthlessness would be aggravated if it were true that Paul’s words intimate a disapproval of the practice.Such disapproval, however, does not appear from the proofs Alford furnishes. His first proof is, that baptized is in the present, βαπτιζονται, are being baptized, instead of βαπτισθεντες, were baptized. The present is used, we think, as in the case of stand we in jeopardy, as a matter of vividness. The third person is used because, for the sake of that vividness, Paul speaks of converts being baptized now, rather than of persons, like himself, baptized twenty years ago. In fact, the they of this verse refers to the catechumens, and the we of the next verse to the apostles. 5. For substitution the proper Greek preposition is not υπερ, but αντι. The ordinary sense of in behalf of is the true intrinsic meaning, and should not be surrendered for any reasons that have ever here been produced.The true interpretation is, we believe, that of Chrysostom. The apostolic Christians were baptized into the faith of the resurrection of the dead, and thereby they were sponsors in behalf of the dead, that the dead should rise. Baptism was itself an affirmation in behalf of the dead, who were assailed and condemned to final death by these deniers of their resurrection. In favour of this view, 1. Is Paul’s use of υπερ, as in behalf of, with an intermediate idea. So above, (1 Corinthians 15:3,) in behalf of our sins, that is, of their forgiveness. So also 2 Thessalonians 2:1, in behalf of the parousia, which was involved in error by mistaken believers. So also in behalf of the dead, whose resurrection baptism asserts. 2. It lies in the direct line of the argument. Paul has quoted in favour of the resurrection the Christian preaching, (1 Corinthians 15:14,) faith, (1 Corinthians 15:17,) the salvation of dead Christians, (1 Corinthians 15:18,) the jeopardy of the living, (1 Corinthians 15:30); why should he not quote Christian baptism as a pledge in behalf of the dead? These deniers were against the dead; Christian baptism was for the dead. 3. The Church early recognised the connexion between baptism and the resurrection. It has its basis in the words of St. Paul: “Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him.” Colossians 2:12. And so Chrysostom says: “When we have instructed the catechumen in the divine mysteries of the Gospel, and are about to baptize him, we command him to say, ‘I believe in the resurrection of the body.’… This is what St. Paul recalls to their memory. If there is no resurrection of the body why are you baptized for the dead?” 4. This accords with the phrase the dead; the baptism being, not for a dead person, or some dead persons, but for the universal dead.30. We—The apostles, as the I of the next verse specifies the apostle himself. From their sponsorship for the dead in baptism he passes to the baptism of suffering and blood which the apostles underwent in behalf of the same cause. 31. By your rejoicing—Rather, by the boasting of you which I have. He not only affirms his daily death, but he protests it by that which was both its cause and its compensation, his triumph in the conversion of the Corinthians. Die daily—In the purpose of my enemies, and in the just apprehension of my own mind. But God gave him as many lives as his persecutors gave him deaths. 32. I have fought with beasts—In a single word, I beast-fought. Happily our present Christian civilization needs no such word. The Christians during the pagan persecutions were exposed to lions, but it is not probable that so early as Paul’s writing of this epistle any such exposure had taken place. The best commentators take the words as metaphorical. The words after the manner of men, (literally, according to man,) we doubt not implies this figurative meaning. The word speaking is not, indeed, supplied, for the reason that speaking is implied in the very fact that speaking is what he is doing. According to man may as well mean, according to man in language, as in any other respect. Eat… die—Stoical moralists in Paul’s day, and materialistic moralists of the present day, declare that earthly motives are sufficient for the maintenance of a true virtue. This cannot be. Unless man’s virtue be fastened by some cord to the supernal it has nothing in it of divine. Culture and self-respect may keep a few philosophers at an elevated level, but the mass of men, if cut off from THE ABOVE, and deprived of its hopes and fears for the great future, will sink into animalism, and the apostle has here given voice and utterance to the mere instincts of the animal man in his despair. In ancient poetry, the saddest and most beautiful, and often most disgusting, strains, are the varied expression either of this despair, or this union of licentiousness with despair. 33. Paul now flings out some words of warning against the demoralizing influence of the men who are among them insinuating the non-existence of any human future. Deceived—Beware of error, for evil intercourses, intimacies, corrupt good morals, rather than manners. Bad principles produce bad characters and conduct. The belief that we live but for this world will seduce us into sin. 34. Awake, from the influence of these seductions to living righteously, and sin not; for some, whose doctrines I have indicated, though their names I will not utter, have not the knowledge of God; literally, have an ignorance of God. They are really holding fast a part of their old paganism—the evil of matter and the impossibility of a renovation of man’s body. They “err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God” touching the resurrection. Matthew 22:29-30. Your shame—That these semi-pagan errorists, denying the power of God for a resurrection, and demoralizing the Church, should be still influential among them. 35. Some man—One of the some of 1 Corinthians 15:34; 1 Corinthians 15:12. Both questions deny the possibility of the resurrection (of our present body, note Acts 8:9) by asking the how and the what kind. They fully believe that it is no how and of no kind; for matter is immutably corrupt, and they have no conception that body can be made, even by divine power, any otherwise than corrupt—just because it is matter. 36. Thou fool—The italic thou is furnished by the translators. Similar was Solomon’s fool, who said in his heart, There is no God. Thou—Yet here, as in Romans 9, the apostle has a conceptual opponent face to face. This thou would be more emphatic in Paul’s Greek than in our English, for the Greek can omit the pronoun, and inserts it only for the keen point. As Dr. Poor (in Lange) pertinently says, “It is the pointed finger aiming at the objector present to the author’s mind—thou.” And fool belongs to this thou, just because his own planting a seed refutes him. When you yourself put a seed in the ground, you know what follows. Quickened—Made alive in the future plant.Paul here, be it noted, is not dealing in the secrecies of science, but with the bare facts presented to the eye of the seed planter. The three patent ocular facts are, a burial, a death, and a reappearance. The seed goes into the ground, dies, and is “resurrected” in a plant above ground. To Paul’s conception the plant is the same seed reappearing; the same matter in a new form. Yet this sameness is not what he is now illustrating; he is now only showing the Gnostic that as matter is not necessarily inglorious, so the materiality of our present body is no reason for objecting to its future remodelling in glory. Paul’s view is, that the same materiality rises re-organized, and endowed with new properties. It is idem et alter; the same in substance, but different in phenomena; just as the same carbon may be first a charcoal and then a diamond. Except it die—Is it strange to you that corruption, decay, and death should be the antecedent of immortal life? Lo, the seed you plant cannot live until it die. Death is the necessary condition to future life. 37. Not… body that shall be—The planter does not sow it a plant and then have it come up a plant. But a seed is sown and a plant is grown. Just so you bury a putrid corpse, and it comes forth an angel-like body. But to the apostle’s legitimate conception the new plant is but a transfiguration of the old seed, and the new body is but a molecular rearrangement of the old corpse. The old corpse is the primitive material out of which the new body is made; just as in the change of 1 Corinthians 15:52, the old is the material for the new. Bare grain—Naked kernel, not a living stalk, with fresh branches, foliage, and flower; as it is in its upspringing. 38. But God giveth it—And it was just because the Gnostical objector had a semi-pagan ignorance of God, (note on 1 Corinthians 15:34,) that he could not realize that God can reorganize old matter in new glory. Pleased him— For the laws of the resurrection, like the laws of nature, are a mode of the divine volition. The new body is produced by God’s power, and just as he wills. To every (kind of) seed his own body—And so God may modify the resurrection body so as to destroy the objector’s supposition that the same body means a corrupt body. 39. All… not… same flesh—All are alike matter and flesh; but God’s power is competent to clothe the same matter with varied properties. 40. Celestial… terrestrial—Celestial bodies might be understood of the stars, or, as they are called, “the heavenly bodies,” but there hardly appear to be any earthly bodies to correspond with them. Hence, very plausibly, they are interpreted by the best modern commentators as angelic bodies and human bodies. This would assume that an angel possesses, or at least assumes whenever he appears to human vision, a spiritual body, 1 Corinthians 15:44, yet none the less a subtilely material one. The glory of our earthly bodies is indeed a very inferior one at present, yet still possessing traits of the image of God. 41. Glory—Visible splendour. The splendours of the luminaries differ in intensity, magnitude, and colour. Against the doctrine of a resurrection it is argued that our bodies are now in a continual process of change; so that, even here, our very material sameness is not a literal, but a successional and historical one. Yet, we reply, this molecular succession is, in fact, now most carefully maintained unbroken; so that the historical continuity and sameness can be traced and sworn to. The murderer of twenty years ago, in spite of all organic changes, is hung to-day. This man at seventy is husband of the wife he married at twenty-five, and heir of the patrimony he inherited in infancy. But we never in life drop our whole body to-day, pass a bodiless period, and then take a whole new body. Nor then would the new body be the same as the old. In order to be the same body next year, the reconstructor must go back and take up the material of the old body into the new. And so in the resurrection, the reorganizer must go back and take up the body that died; otherwise, the successional historical identity which exists in our present life, and which is quoted as a precedent, is wholly abolished.Dr. Poor theorizes that the “plastic principle” may, at the resurrection, “assimilate new materials of a wholly different kind” from those in our present bodies. What demand for such a supposition? For, 1. There is not known to science, or demanded by reason, any other “plastic principle” than an omnipresent divine power, working under forms of law and finite causations. As Paul says, God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, yet in accordance with the laws of resurrection. 2. When the undressed soul appears before God on the morning of the resurrection, it is by divine power that from somewhere in the wide universe, the particles should gather in accretion upon the soul, to form its body. Now why is it not quite as easy for divine power to order the coming of that set of particles which formed the old body as any other? What demand from science, reason, or Scripture for any new materials? Nay, that divine power may establish such affinity between the soul and the particles of the old organism that it may attract them to itself by a process as truly natural as that by which a magnet draws a mass of iron filings to itself.Otherwise there is no resurrection, but a new creation and a substitution. The real debate is not between “two theories of the resurrection,” but between the resurrection and something else that is not a resurrection. An anastasis (resurrection) of the dead is an uprising of the body from its fallen position in death, and, normally, the grave. That is the very meaning of the word. And it is that which down-fell which must uprise, and not something else. Or, if it is called in the New Testament an egersis, it is an upraising. What is it that is upraised unless the previous body, the body that fell, and that now lies a prostrate corpse? There must be no legerdemain about it; no slipping in a supposititious body; no substitution; no new creation “out of new materials of a wholly different kind.” If either of those things takes place, it is no resurrection at all, and the doctrine of the resurrection is wholly denied.This realistic identity is absolutely required by Scripture. Daniel tells us (Daniel 12:2) that they “that sleep in the dust of the earth,” which can be no other than the buried corpses, “shall awake.” Our Lord, almost quoting Daniel’s words, says that it is “they that are in the graves,” which can again mean only the entombed corpses, that “shall come forth.” John 5:28-29. Wherever death is called a sleep it is the body (certainly not the soul) that is conceived to sleep, and the resurrection is the awakening of that same body. Our Lord’s resurrection—the pattern and model for all—was of his same body from the tomb. In his transfiguration, by which he was assimilated to the resurrection body of Moses and Elijah, that self-same body rose into the resurrection state, and then subsided into its ordinary conditions; unchanged in material throughout. In the change of 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 it is this same mortal body; and the change is simply its putting on immortality.If by divine law there may be a fixed affinity between the soul and its last investiture, that law can secure that the same material shall never be organic in two bodies at death; just as a secret law secures the equality in number of the two sexes.This modern unscriptural pseudo-resurrection is a Gnostical one. It has “an ignorance of God,” doubting his power to raise the same body. It has the Gnostic abhorrence of matter, demanding “new materials of a wholly different kind,” known as matter now. But it does not deny a future life, like the errorists whom Paul corrects; and so does not shake the foundations of Christianity.Meyer quotes from Tertullian the following notes as a caution to over-brilliant commentators, 1 Corinthians 15:40 : One flesh of men, that is, servants of God; another of beasts, that is, the heathen; another of birds, that is, the martyrs; another of fish, to whom belongs the water of baptism! Also, 1 Corinthians 15:41. There is one glory of the sun—Christ; of the moon—The Church; of the stars—The seed of Abraham. 6. With these differences in various bodies, the differences between the buried and risen bodies correspond, 1 Corinthians 15:42-50.42. So also—Similar to the difference in these contrasted classes of objects in nature is the difference between the buried and the resurrection body.The words thrice produced—sown, sown, sown—can mean nothing but buried, buried, buried in the grave. And raised, raised, raised, can mean nothing but raised from the grave. And what is or can be raised but the material corpse there buried? And what can be “resurrected,” or immortalized, but that same material which is raised from the grave? And if the corpse is raised from the grave by the resurrection, what need of any other material? Obviously, indeed, both Jesus and Paul select the case of the buried only as the ordinary fact. But that ordinary fact is selected to declare the resurrection of the actually dead body. For what has any substituted body to do with the grave at all?It… it—The it is not expressed in the Greek, but necessarily implied. For as the subject of both verbs, sown and raised, is the same, so the same subject is buried and “resurrected.” But what is the grammatical antecedent of it? What is it that is sown? None is here expressed, but 1 Corinthians 15:44 shows that body is implied.If Jesus, instead of reanimating the putrid corpse of Lazarus by restoring to it its soul, had enshrined his soul in a new body, it would have been, so far as the soul was concerned, a transmigration, and not a resurrection. And so far as the body is concerned, a substitution and not a resurrection. The resurrection, to be a resurrection, must be of the same body; and it must be the same body by being the same substance, particle for particle. But it destroys not the resurrection to endow the body with new properties, and arrange its molecules to a new model.There are three qualities assigned to the present body—corruption, dishonour, and weakness; and three to the resurrection body— incorruption, honour, and power. Corruption is the quality that arises from the instability of the material particles, by which displacement, decay, and disintegration take place. Incorruption implies that the body, however flexible to every volition, suffers no displacement, disarrangement, or dissolution. Every part and particle retains its place with perfect indissolubleness, health, and durability. Flexible as gossamer, it is unyielding as adamant. 43. Dishonour—Both in life and in death the mortal body has parts, conditions, operations, and failures that render it a disgust to the contemplation. In death, decay and putrefaction render it unendurable to its fellows. “When the soul departs,” says Xenophon, “men carry out the body of the dearest friend in the quickest way, and put it out of sight.” Glory— Phenomenal properties that attract the wonder and admiration of the beholder. Weakness—With strength of body to effect little; liable to sickness and debility, requiring to be carried by machinery for rapid locomotion. Power—Vigour of body to accomplish the boldest determinations of the will, exemption from fatigue, and ability to pass through space with the rapidity of thought. Grotius adds, “Endowed with a variety of new senses;” which, however true, is not so clearly said. 44. Natural body… spiritual body—The word natural, to the English reader, entirely breaks the thread of the apostle’s thought. If we assume a difference between soul and spirit, and coin the word soulical as the antithesis of spiritual, we present his exact idea, and the connexion with the word soul, 1 Corinthians 15:45, will be immediately made. The Greek word ψυχη, psyche—soul or life—when used as antithetical to πνευμα, pneuma— spirit—signifies that animating, formative, and thinking soul or anima which belongs to the animal, and which man, as animal, shares as his lower nature, with the animals. Its range is within the limits of the five senses, within which limits it is able to think and to reason. Such is the power of the highest animals. Overlying this, is the spirit which man shares with higher natures, by which thought transcends the range of the senses, and man thinks of immensity, eternity, infinity, immortality, the beautiful, the holy, and God. Whether soul and spirit exist in man as two entities distinct from each other, we need not here discuss; yet it is certain that man’s mind possesses both these two classes or sets of thoughts. The lower faculties may exist without the higher; for they do so exist in brutes. The brute has also a higher set of faculties overlying those of the oyster. But it is all-important to note that it is by man’s spiritual faculties that he rises into a supernal region, and shows affinities with celestial natures.When St. Paul says it is sown a soulical body, as in the two preceding cases (1 Corinthians 15:42-43) of the sown, he does not refer to the dead or dying body, but to the body as mortal in life, and sown in death. It is a soulical body while living, and is buried as the vacated frame of a soulical body.The body dies because the animal soul either fuses into surrounding nature, or is borne by the spirit into the spirit region. There is—The anti-resurrectionists of the Corinthian Church seem never to have understood this striking assertion. A soulical body… a spiritual body— But as the soulical body is not all pure soul, so the spiritual body is not pure spirit. For a pure spirit is not a body at all. As the soulical body is soul-pervaded body, so the spiritual body is spirit-pervaded body. But while the soul pervades and gives sensitive life to body alone, the spirit pervades both soul and body, and gives supernal life to both; forming the unit of body, soul, and spirit.Scholars agree that the true reading here is, If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. By the body’s becoming a “spiritual body” we understand that it will be so subtilized, so adjusted to the pure spirit, and so subjected in every part and particle to the volition and power of the spirit, that while the spirit becomes, so to speak, more substantiated, the personal unit of the two natures possesses all the capabilities that our thought usually attributes to the pure spirit. By volition it passes with lightning rapidity through measureless distances. It clairvoyantly sees, at volition, through a finite immensity. By volition it transforms itself to any shape, and invests itself with a countless variety of properties and phenomenal presentations. It can become as the dark, rolling cloud, the flashing lightning, the solid rock. And yet it will have a normal figure and face which will at once be the true expression of its essential nature, (far more truly than human physiognomy now manifests the character,) and will reveal to the intuition of the fellow-celestials the particular personality, and perhaps the entire past history, of the individual. When asked, Will the glorified bodies have teeth? we reply, If they please; and eat with them, too, as the angels did who visited Abraham. If asked, Will they have hair? we reply, Yes, if they please. And when asked, Where will they get their clothes? we answer, Just where the “two angels” who stood before the apostles at Christ’s ascension, procured their “shining raiment.” it is perfectly clear, we think, that varying phenomenal form and properties are more or less at the command both of the pure spirit and of the unit of spirit and spiritual body. See note on Luke 24:39. 45. So—In accordance with this distinction between the soulical and the spiritual, it is written in Genesis 2:7. Was made a living soul—Paul quotes the words of the Septuagint, which, like those of the Hebrew, are literally rendered became unto, or into, a living soul. From these words, as Dr. Poor truly says, no argument for immortality could be drawn, for our English translation wrongly conceals that in Genesis 1:20-21; Genesis 1:24, the words severally rendered creature that hath life, living creature, living creature, are in the Hebrew precisely the same as here for living soul, which last is the true translation in every case. Yet a most remarkable difference between the case of the animals who, in the above three verses, become a living soul, and man, who becomes a living soul, is this: that whereas the animals become such in accordance with God’s fiat to nature to bring them forth, man becomes so by the direct breath of the Almighty.Of the antitheses of this verse the clause, the first… soul is Moses’ scripture; the last clause, the last… quickening spirit, is Paul’s; and, as equally inspired, is equally good. Yet it may be Paul’s equivalent for Genesis 2:7, “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” expressed in form to balance the antithesis. Christ is a quickening, that is, an alive-making, spirit, by the resurrection of men wrought by him. 46. Howbeit—Notwithstanding that it might be supposed that the greatest would be first, the reverse is the case. Afterward… spiritual—God works by progresses and climaxes, bringing out the greatest last. See note on Romans 8:39. 47. Of—Rather, from the earth, as the second man is from heaven. In Genesis 2:7, the same Greek words occur, from the earth. The Lord— This phrase is rejected as spurious by the best scholars; the true reading is the second man is the Lord from heaven. By this antithesis, as by the former, (1 Corinthians 15:45; 1 Corinthians 15:49,) Adam is viewed at his creation, and Christ at his second advent, producing our resurrection. 48. As… earthy, such… earthy—By the universal law of descent, earthly beings inherit the nature of their progenitors. See note, Romans 5:12, on the phrase all have sinned. Heavenly—But the nature of the heavenly is stamped at the resurrection upon the earthy by a direct act of divine power. 49. We shall also bear—Instead of the future the subjunctive of the verb has the best authority from MSS. But Alford rejects it, properly, (as well as the subjunctive in Romans 6:1,) as having been introduced from doctrinal reasons. It would then follow, from Alford’s own conclusion, that St. Paul here gives us a we in which it was not fully certain that himself would be included. See note, 1 Corinthians 15:52. 50. Now—Rather, but. We shall attain the heavenly resurrection image, but not as unchanged flesh and blood. This I say—As the thought really running through all the antitheses, (42-49,) furnishing the full and final answer to the question what body? and negativing the error on which that question was based, that the resurrection implies our corrupt mortal bodies in a future state. Flesh and blood—The perishable amalgam of soul and matter which furnished the basis of the objection against the resurrection. Cannot—Literally, are not able, as vile and putrifying, to inhabit the eternal mansions. They must be as immortal as the heavenly abodes themselves. 7. Apocalyptic picture of the glorious resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15:51-53; triumphal pean, 1 Corinthians 15:54-57; and admonitory inference, 1 Corinthians 15:58.51. Behold—Lift up your eyes upon the glorious picture I present. Show—Utter. The showing was in language. A mystery—A truth hitherto concealed in the eternal counsels, now revealed to men by me. We—Who are this we? Alford, and other commentators who are earnest to make out that Paul firmly expected the resurrection to occur in his own generation, say that it means Paul and his Corinthian brethren. We think it as comprehensive, at least, as the we of 1 Corinthians 15:49, including all the candidates for the glorious resurrection—all who have borne the image of the earthy. And this seems to be a complete reply to all argument drawn from both this we and that in 1 Thessalonians 4:15. For it shows that St. Paul’s we may cover a whole class—a class in which he may eventually fail to be one. All—And this all we consider as comprehensive as the all of 1 Corinthians 15:22. St. Paul is here meeting the question, How will it be with those alive when Christ descends in judgment? Be changed—On this change we may note, 1. That it is a change that comes upon and is of the very body then being; the very same matter and substance: 2. That a change does not mean the bringing in any new material: 3. That 1 Corinthians 15:53 shows that it consists in the assuming of immortality, with the modifications included therein, upon that very mortal body and no other. We may add that this change illustrates the transition through which man, without sin, would have entered on his full immortality. Death, hades, and the intermediate state, would for him have had no existence. Nay, the “everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels,” would have been suffered by devils alone. Man’s great mistake of falling into Satan’s proper inheritance would have been avoided. 52. In a moment—Ενατομω. In an atom of time; in an indivisible instant. In the twinkling (literally, stroke) of the eye. Quick as a jerk of the eyelash. The last trump—See note, 1 Thessalonians 4:6. We… changed—St. Paul’s present we conceptually includes not quite the same as the first we of 1 Corinthians 15:51, but all the living in the body at the parousia. 53. This corruptible—The very mortal body that lives at the time of the change. Put on—Literally, shall clothe on; the Greek being the word signifying to put on a garment. On the very self-same mortal body, immortality shall be taken as an investiture, making the mortal immortal. 2 Corinthians 5:2. 54. Brought to pass—In a more specific fact, yet justly to be included in the general saying of Isa 25:8. The words are the same as the Hebrew, with the active verb made passive. Yet Stanley maintains that the apostle probably still used some Greek translation; other, however, than the Septuagint. Death… victory—The prophet is depicting a blessed future to be brought about by the Messiah; but his pencil does not distinguish in its strokes the hues that belong to the periods before, at, and after, the resurrection. Touches belonging to each separately are blended in the then blessed Messianic future. Isaiah says, that in the great coming time, death shall be swallowed up in victory; Paul says it will be completely done by the resurrection at the parousia. Isaiah says, in the same verse, that “God will wipe away tears from off all faces;” John (Revelation 21:4) says, this shall be beyond the judgment and the casting the wicked into hell, even in the new heavens and earth of eternity. 55. In this verse, no doubt, Hosea 13:14 was running through St. Paul’s mind, but he does not seem so much to quote as to parallel the prophet. Modern editors, such as Stanley and Alford, find death not only in the first clause, but in the second, instead of hades, rendered, unfortunately, grave. They think that hades has been inserted to conform it to the Septuagint. Wordsworth retains hades, assuming that the copyists substituted death to avoid the pagan-like personification of hades. On esthetic ground we can hardly believe that St. Paul could do so flat a thing as to substitute death repeated, in the place of the Septuagint hades. Sting—Not a goad-point, (see notes, Acts 9:5,) as Stanley insipidly prefers; but a sting as of a scorpion, (Revelation 9:10,) or a serpent, as in Genesis ii, and Numbers 21. Grave—Hades, the abode of the disembodied spirit in the intermediate state. See notes, Luke 16:23; Luke 23:43. Death detains the body in the grave; hades detains the spirit in the intermediate state; the resurrection delivers and unites them both. Over this deliverance St. Paul now peals his pean, as healing the wound made by death’s sting, and spoiling the victory of hades, the detainer from heaven. This adverse view of hades fully shows that it does not signify the glorified heaven, and so demonstrates the reality of an intermediate state. 56. Sting of death is sin—Before Adam’s sin the destroyer slew the lower orders of creation, but had no sting for man; man would attain the resurrection state without death or hades. Note, 1 Corinthians 15:51. Strength… the law—The law over Adam, with its “Thou shalt not,” made the act (otherwise irresponsible like those of animals) to be sin, and worthy of death. Thence death, which in the lower orders is simply natural, in man is also judicial and penal. 57. But—There is one who has satisfied the law; has thence taken out the strength of sin; thence destroyed the sting of death; and so wrought the resurrection. This exposition shows that the reference to the law is logically in the straight line of Paul’s argument. It shows, we think, the infelicity of Stanley’s remark: “It seems as if he could not mention sin, without adding that the strength of sin is the law.” As if the apostle’s pen, like a garrulous man’s tongue, ran on its own account in the grooves of habit, loose from brain or thought. Yet it is a pertinent remark of Stanley’s, that this apparently “is the germ of what is afterwards fully developed in Romans 5:12-21; Romans 7:7-24.” And Romans 7:25 is an echo of this verse. The victory—That over hades, in 1 Corinthians 15:55, by the resurrection, through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58. Therefore—The Christian doctrine is a great motive force for the Christian life. All the terrors and glories of death, resurrection, judgment, and eternity, are startling admonitions to steadfast, solemn duty-doing. My beloved brethren—St. Paul’s heart hovers in full affection, in passing from those fearful scenes, over his brethren, as if he would provide for their safety. Steadfast, unmovable—In your faith in the resurrection which the some of 1 Corinthians 15:12 are endeavouring to overthrow. Steadfast, unmovable, and abounding, form a climax. Steadfast means positive, intrinsic firmness; unmovable implies resistance to the mightiest outward pressures and fiercest onsets; abounding means energetic action. Some Christians appear to do nothing; some to do a little; others abound in every good word and work. Work of the Lord—The conversion of sinners, the upbuilding of the Church, and all the countless forms of Christian activity. Not in vain—As it would be (1 Corinthians 15:29-34) were there no resurrection. But there being a resurrection, every deed in faith shall brighten the lustre of the resurrection body. “One star differeth from another star in glory.” This maxim is not, indeed, uttered by the apostle of the differences of personal glory in heaven; but it is, no doubt, applicable. The brighter our earthly Christian character, the more transcendent our heavenly glory. In the Lord—Our labours shall attain their highest reward in Christ, who is all riches. St. Paul having now closed the serial argument of the epistle, proceeds to make his closing points. He presents, 1. The collection for the Jerusalem poor, 1 Corinthians 16:1-4.2. His purposes of visiting Corinth, 1 Corinthians 16:5-9.3. The visits of Timothy and Apollos, 1 Corinthians 16:10-12.4. A final interjected admonition, 1 Corinthians 16:13-14.5. Intercession for mutual friends, 1 Corinthians 16:15-18.6. Salutations, closing anathema, and benedictions, 1 Corinthians 16:19-24. 1. The collection—Bloomfield shows that the Greek word is rather a diminutive of the classic term for collection; and it might be well rendered pickings, savings, that is, from the small income of the contributor. Saints—Simply the term for Christians. The saintship of the second Jerusalem Church at this time was not very high. Note Acts 8:1. Order—Direction. Churches of Galatia—The Epistle to the Galatians was not yet written, and Paul had probably given this direction at his last visit. He mentions it here to indicate that it is to be a general movement of the Pauline Churches. 2. The first day of the week—Greek, μιανσαββατων, where the numerical one is for an ordinal first, agreeing with ημερα, day, understood. The other word, in either singular or plural, had come to signify week. This direction, which would for the same reason be extended to all the Pauline Churches, indicates the early adoption by Gentile Christians of a seven-day division of time, peculiar heretofore to the Jews. It was the earliest establishment of the Christian week, with “the Lord’s day” at its head. St. Paul’s objection in his Epistle to the Galatians, that they “observe days,” stands not in the way of his enjoining upon these very Galatians to “observe” this day. St. John (Revelation 1:10) inspiredly recognises this day as a Christian institution, and the question, Dominicum servasti?—Hast thou kept the Lord’s day?—was a test of Christian profession and a qualification for martyrdom. Justin Martyr, whose life covers the forty years of the formation of the New Testament canon, says, “Upon the so-called sun’s day there are meetings of all dwelling in both cities and country.” See note on Acts 20:7. The decalogue requires the keeping one day in seven publicly, organically, religiously; but it does not prescribe which day shall be the observed “seventh.” The Jewish Church held that to be its seventh and sabbath which its sacred tradition was in possession of; the Christian Church, by clear apostolic sanction, first elevated the Lord’s resurrection day to the head of its week, and then gradually disused the Jewish sabbath. If, as may be clearly proved, the decalogue is of perpetual obligation, then Sunday is the Christian decalogue sabbath. Every one—Do not expect the rich or the liberal alone to contribute. A mite from each is a mass from the whole. It is wonderful how much may be done by a Church where every one gives his something. Lay by him—So keeping a little savings bank at home, and bringing the whole to the church when the apostle arrives. Prospered him—The poor giving a little, the richer more in proportion. No gatherings—If the whole are made at once they will be scanty, and the apostle’s time will be occupied with moneys which he would rather expend on souls. 3. By your letters—The italic your is supplied by the translators, and, probably, incorrectly; for while the selection of the delegates was to be made by the Churches, the letters authenticating them to the Jerusalem Church were to be by Paul. Bloomfield says, this is the construction given by “all the ancient translators and commentators,” and by, perhaps, the best modern ones. The selection was properly to be made by the Churches, and Paul, with due delicacy, proposes this in advance as a guarantee against any selfishness on his own part. The names of the persons who really went are given in Acts 20:4. Paul also went with them, as suggested in next verse. From these epistles commentators correctly infer that letter-writing was frequent, and that it is not at all probable that every letter of St. Paul is in the New Testament. He may have written a letter a week. 4. Meet—Worth the while; of sufficient importance to require my so doing. The journey, their reception at Jerusalem, and the sad results to Paul, are narrated by Luke, Acts 20:3; Acts 21:30. Touching Luke’s saying nothing about the money part of that mission to Jerusalem, see note, Acts 24:17. MATTERS—, 1 Corinthians 16:5-24.a. Paul’s purpose to visit Corinth, 1 Corinthians 16:5-9.5. Will come… when… through Macedonia—St. Paul’s first purpose (probably announced in a lost epistle sent before this) was to cross the sea strait from Ephesus to Corinth. For changing this purpose, he had to defend himself earnestly in 2 Corinthians 1:23, where see note, against a charge of levity. I do pass—As he afterwards did, and wrote his second epistle from there. Some early transcriber of this epistle read this phrase: for I am passing through Macedonia, and recorded his blunder in the note at the end, assigning Philippi (in Macedonia) as the place whence it was written. 6. Winter with you—It was now approaching spring; he left Ephesus, went and spent the summer and fall in Macedonia and thereabouts, and really wintered at Corinth, whence he wrote his epistles to Galatia and Rome. Note, Acts 20:1-3. That ye—The ye is emphatic and honouring. You and no other Church. Bring me on my journey—Aid in furnishing equipments, and honourably escorting him a part of the way.Whithersoever—His plan beyond Corinth being unfixed. 7. I will—I purpose; not the auxiliary verb will, but the verb to will. Now by the way—He intends no flying, passing visit. Lord permit—See James 4:15. 8. Until Pentecost—Erasmus and other commentators were sorely puzzled with this honourable mention of a Jewish feast to Gentile Christian readers. Of course, however, Gentile Christians were sufficiently associated with Jews in the Church to know the two principal feasts of passover and pentecost. Both had acquired a powerful Christian character from the crucifixion at the former and the gift of tongues at the latter. But in fact Paul mentions pentecost here as a date rather than an institution. So we speak of Christmas and holidays. The present verse conclusively shows that the epistle was written from Ephesus. 9. A great door—Much of Ephesus heretofore closed is now opened to him. Many adversaries—Requiring his presence to defend and protect the Church. It is very probable that it was this great door now opened that had already awakened the hostile zeal of Demetrius the silversmith, and other adversaries, in behalf of Diana and their “craft.” b. The visits of Timothy and Apollos, 1 Corinthians 16:10-12.10. If Timotheus come—As Paul had informed them (1 Corinthians 4:16) that he had sent him, and of the object of his coming. As Luke informs us, (Acts 19:22,) just before writing this present epistle, St. Paul, intending to go to Macedonia and Corinth, sent forward Timothy and Erastus as his pioneers. As the epistle would take the cross route, and Timothy might progress slowly by reason of duties on the way, Paul anticipates his arrival in Corinth, and bespeaks a kindly reception. Yet such might be Timothy’s engagements that he might not go so far as Corinth, and hence the apostle’s if. Without fear—Literally, see that he may be fearlessly among you. As a young man sent to represent Paul in a great and factious Church, Timothy might have justly felt an intimidation. He may have possessed that personal diffidence which is often found compatible with much strength of character. As I—A repetition of his commendation in 1 Corinthians 14:17. 11. Despise him—Paul said to Timothy himself, “Let no man despise thy youth,” (1 Timothy 4:12,) as if his youth were the only thing that could be despised. In peace—As with a parting salaam. With the brethren— What brethren these were with whom he wished Timothy to come is uncertain. Stanley suggests that the bearers of this epistle were to be a sort of mission to Corinth, with Apollos at their head, but that he declined. “This mission was composed of Titus and two other brethren,” (2 Corinthians 8:18; 2 Corinthians 8:22-23,) whose names are not mentioned. With these brethren, probably, it was that Paul expected Timothy to come. 12. Apollos—This interesting personage was first found by Paul here at Ephesus, (Acts 18:24-28,) whence he went to Corinth. His success and popularity there could not induce him to stay, and he returned and is found here with Paul again at Ephesus. A faction at Corinth called itself by his name. Will… not… to come—How little these two noble men countenanced the assumption of their names, appears from this passage. Paul, so far from fearing his action or influence at Corinth, beseeches him to visit that city with Titus. Apollos, probably with the same disgust at the factions that drove him thence, for the present declines to go. Jerome says, that when peace was restored he returned to that city, and was made its bishop. c. Paul’s final interjected admonition, 1 Corinthians 16:13-14.Paul must utter a few more words of rousing admonition before he closes. His words are almost all of military force.13. Watch—Like a wakeful sentinel when the enemy is near. Stand fast in the faith—Whether foes assault or deceivers seduce you. Quit… men—A single word in the Greek—be men; exert your Christian manhood. Be strong—Strain up your nerve and sinew. With charity— Rather, in love; a caution against factions, and a reminder of chapter 13. d. Paul intercedes with Corinthians in behalf of mutual friends, 1 Corinthians 16:15-18.15. House of Stephanas—Mentioned in 1 Corinthians 1:16 as among the few baptized by Paul himself. Firstfruits—See note on 1 Corinthians 15:23. Ministry of the saints— Hospitalities and benefactions to poorer Christians, especially to the apostles and preachers. 16. Submit yourselves—Be servants to them as they are servants to Christians. 17. Coming of—The three who brought the letter from the Corinthians and reported to the apostle the true state of his Corinthian Church. Stanley thinks that this Stephanas was a slave in the household of Stephanas, bearing, according to custom, his master’s name. Lacking on your part— All the service I need which you could not render me they supplied. This seems the natural meaning; but we are unable to say in what the lack consisted. But it very probably means the enjoyment of presence and society. The want of you in my heart they by their presence supplied. They were you in miniature for the time. 18. My spirit and yours—For there is such a sympathy across the AEgean between you and me, that to refresh me refreshes you. You are the stronger for my strength. Acknowledge—Recognise them as such as I have described them. e. Salutations; closing autograph, anathema, and benedictions, 1 Corinthians 16:19-24.19. Churches of Asia—Proconsular Asia, of which Ephesus was the capital. In these were included the “seven Churches” addressed by John in the Apocalypse. It is here interesting to hear for an instant their united voice sent through Paul in greeting to the Church at Corinth. It was probably to this entire circle of Churches that Paul addressed the so-called “Epistle to the Ephesians,” as a common “cyclical letter,” or circular address. Aquila and Priscilla—See notes on Acts 18:2-3, and Romans 16:3. Church… in their house—This faithful pair had a house-church at Rome as well as at Ephesus. Romans 16:5. 20. All the brethren—The body of the Ephesian Church sends, from Asia to Europe, to the body of the Corinthian Church, its fraternal Christian greet. Holy kiss—Romans 16:16. Justin Martyr says: “At the close of our prayers we salute each other with a kiss.” The “Apostolic Constitutions,” 2:57, says: “Then let the men salute each other, and the women salute each other, with the kiss in the Lord—and after that let the deacon pray for the whole Church.” It was simply the adoption into the Christian ritual of an eastern and Old Testament custom. Stanley says: “On Good Friday it was omitted, in commemoration of the kiss of Judas. Down to the fifth century it was given after baptism, and was afterwards superseded by the (verbal) salutation, ‘Peace be with thee.’ It was technically called ηειρηνη, ‘the peace.’” Grotius says, “He rightly enjoins the kiss of peace on those who were in danger of being rent to pieces by schisms.” 21. Mine own hand—In 2 Thessalonians 3:17, Paul adds, “which is the token in every epistle: so I write.” His autograph was security against forgery. See Romans 16:22; Galatians 6:11; Philippians 19. Very probably the whole close (1 Corinthians 16:21-24) was autographic. 22. If—This awful woe, given by Paul’s own hand, closing with the solemn Aramaic watchword, formed an impressive and memorable sentence for the Corinthian Church. Anathema—Devoted to destruction; “sacred to perdition.” Note on Romans 9:3, and on Joshua 6:17; Joshua 6:21. This word describes the awful side of human guilt and destiny. It is the anticipation of, and solemn assent to, the dread “Depart, ye cursed,” of the final Judge, at which it becomes us to tremble rather than to cavil.Maran-atha—That is, the Lord is come. It is the Christian’s reminder as he waits the advent of the judge to execute that anathema. It is a brief motto, in the language spoken by the Incarnate when on earth, (like Abba, in Romans 8:15), a watchword by which Christians could avow themselves and recognise each other.Stanley says: “The word Maran is the longer form of Mar, the Chaldee (or later Hebrew) word for Lord, and used as such in Daniel 2:47; Daniel 4:19; Daniel 4:24; Daniel 5:23; familiar also as the title of ecclesiastical dignitaries in the Syrian Church. Atha is frequently used in the poetical books of the Old Testament for comes, and so also in the Chaldee.” He adds that the Maronite Jews of Spain were so called because, in expectation of a future Messiah, they were ever uttering the word Maran, Lord, to which the Christians retorted Maran-atha, The Lord is come. This, Paul’s anathema, has a dread sound: not much unlike a discord, in the flowing music of salutations and benedictions. Alas! it is a true representation of the tragic and mournful semi-tone that runs through the anthem of human history and human destiny, commenced by sin and closing in woe. 23. The grace—The reverse side from the anathema. Lord—The gracious New Testament title of Christ; as Maran is a sterner title from the language of the Old. The later an echo from Sinai; the former from Calvary. 24. My love—Notwithstanding my rebukes. With… all—Notwithstanding your schisms and partisanships against me. In Christ Jesus—Who is the unity of us all in spite of the factions that divide you, and the distance that separates us. Amen—A Hebrew word, now adopted through the New Testament Greek into all the languages of Christendom. Its original Hebrew meaning was firm; hence, faithful, true; and hence, as a responsive or closing formula, so is it, or so be it. Our Lord’s commencing formula, verily, verily, was in the Greek, amen, amen. Our Lord himself, in Revelation 3:14, is called the Amen, the faithful and true Witness. How important the response amen was held to be by the rabbins appears from our note to 1 Corinthians 14:16. The apostle doubtless himself affixed this word to the epistle, and we doubt not that when this epistle was read in the Corinthian Church, the people silenced the murmurs of the factious leaders by re-echoing to the amen of their beloved founder-apostle a response, (in the words of Jerome,) “like the voice of the falling waters or the rolling thunders.” Hence, when the gentle Timothy addressed them in Paul’s great name, so clear was the unanimity, in spite of some few recusants, that Titus was able to report to Paul at Philippi that the Corinthian Church was “Amen, faithful and true.”Dear reader, when the Lord cometh to the final analysis and judgment of the world, may our record on the page of the Divine Memory declare that we, too, have been “faithful and true.” Such, in closing this book, amid weakness and tears, is our humble prayer. Amen and Amen.