(4) I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; (5) That in everything ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; (6) Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: (7) So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: (8) Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. (9) God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
What is here said is so plain; as to need no comment; and so very blessed, as when opened to the soul of the regenerate by the Holy Ghost, as to need no other endearment. Let the Reader look at it again and again, for it will bear reading every day. Observe how the very heart of Paul is going forth in love to the Church, while blessing God on their account. His very soul seems to be moved in him, as well it might, that in such a place as Corinth, Christ had a Church. And, observe, how the Apostle expresseth himself on the occasion. I thank my God, said he, always on your behalf. And, observe, how he dwells upon the cause of his thanksgiving. It was not for their numbers, among those that professed a belief in Christ, in Corinth. There might be many there, as it is to be feared is, and hath been in all ages of the Church elsewhere, who professed to love Christ, on whom no change by grace had been wrought. It is not the largeness of a congregation which implies soul prosperity. Great leanness is sometimes found amidst fat pastures of ordinances. Paul did not thank his God and Savior because they were many, but for the grace of God which was given them, and for their being enriched by the Lord, and for the testimony of Christ being confirmed in them. Reader! look into your own soul for these things, for it is by these, (and not by outward things), men live, and in these is the life of the soul. And I pray the Reader not to overlook in this sweet and precious paragraph, how blessedly Paul speaks of God's faithfulness, and the Church's everlasting safety in him. Oh! what a soul ravishing thought it is, that He who hath called the whole body the Church to an union, and oneness, and fellowship with Christ in grace here, gives an earnest and pledge thereby, of the everlasting continuance of that interest, in all Christ's communicable glory hereafter. Reader! take it for your daily motto, and wear it in your heart from day to day; God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. The Reader will pardon me; I hope, if I call upon hint before he dismisseth this part of the Chapter we have gone over, to take notice with me, how sweetly Paul dwells upon the name of his adorable Lord. No less than ten times, in the first ten verses of this chapter, hath he written his lovely name? He seems to hang upon it, as the bee upon some sweet flower, where the little creature finds so much food for honey, that though he is so laden with what he hath, that he can scarcely fly, yet so much remains, he cannot go away, So Paul dwelt upon the very name of the Lord Jesus. And, Reader! allow me to add, that such would be the love of every child of God, had we the same knowledge as Paul had. Let you and I, above all things, seek from the Lord a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him! See Paul's prayer for the Church, Ephesians 1:15 to the end.