THE TESTIMONY OF CHRIST CONFIRMED
‘I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that in every thing ye are enriched by Him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall also confirm you unto the end.’
The testimony of Christ, the evidence, that is, that the Corinthian Christians were in deed and in truth disciples of Christ, is confirmed by the proof given in their lives and conversation, that they had received the gifts of grace, were enriched in all utterance and in all knowledge, and in everything else in which the working of grace is to be traced.
The Apostle is able to thank God on account of them, and to argue to the certainty of their greater advance in grace until the coming of the Lord Jesus, Who shall also confirm them unto the end. They come behind in no gifts; whatever signs there are of the living action of Christ in His people, are to be found among them. They have the grace that is promised to them that believe; they have the power to declare the goodness of God towards them; they have knowledge of the work and experience of the reality of the redeeming, life-giving love, and the Apostle doubts not that He Who has so far blessed them will confirm them unto the end.
Yet these words are the preface to an Epistle which, however full of instruction and sympathy, is by no means without rebukes, and those very severe ones. The very next verses show that, notwithstanding the confirmation of the testimony of Christ, there were grievous faults among them. A spirit of division had come in. There were lessons of purity of life and of peacefulness amongst themselves, and of charity also, which needed to be impressed. It does not follow from this that we are to undervalue the importance of the gifts or graces that are the matter of the Apostle’s thankfulness. We are allowed, perhaps, to infer, from the enrichment in utterance and knowledge which he especially mentions, the prominence of those gifts which are the subject of the twelfth chapter of the Epistle, and which in the closing verse of that chapter he distinctly sets below the most excellent gift of charity, so that whilst he regards them as evidence of their true relation to Jesus, he yet has it in his mind to acquaint them that they are not all the evidence required. But the language, further, is far too extensive to apply to these gifts only. ‘In everything ye are enriched by Him.’ The testimony of Christ is not merely suggested, but affirmed: ‘Ye shall come behind in no gifts’; no, not in that most excellent gift in comparison of which the others are small, and without which they are but vanity. And it is as ‘blameless,’—not merely enlightened or eloquent or full of knowledge, or having the tongue of men and angels, but as blameless that they are to be confirmed unto the end, even in the day of Christ.
I. Is the testimony of Christ confirmed in you?—What does it need to come up to the ideal the Apostle draws for you, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ? Suppose him to rise up in the midst of us to-day and look around him for a testimony in our lives and conversation that we were the sort of Christians that he wrote to. What think you would he see and say? He would see much, very much, in which he would never think of asking for the testimony of Christ. But he would see many, very many, calling on the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. He would see a great many Christian churches, and schools, and hospitals, and a vast number of organisations set at work to do good in ways in which, until he, after Christ, had taught the lesson of charity, it never entered into the heart of man to seek the good of his neighbour. He would say, ‘The testimony of Christ has been here,’ for these things tell of the working of His Spirit as certainly as any gifts of utterance or of knowledge that were given to saints and churches in the first century. He would see the faults also, the divisions, and the contentiousness, and the unsatisfactory morality which he saw among the Corinthian converts, to whom, in spite of all, he could write thus hopefully. Yet we ourselves should look deeper, should try to see what the testimony of Christ should be in us. He might come into churches and see and join in our service, hear us read out his own words, and try to explain them as it seems to us that they were written for our learning. He would recognise in all the changes of garb and attitude and language, such of the testimony of Christ as is to be found amongst those who still believe in the one body and one spirit, one hope and calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. ‘Christ is here,’ he would say; ‘Christ has been here long; Christ will perfect the work that He has begun until the day of the manifestation of the blameless.’ God forbid that we should doubt it for a moment! but we want a deeper search. What shall I do to be saved? Where, what is my testimony? Where, what is my hope? It matters but little what evidence of Christ can be seen around me. Until I know what there is in me, all that is around me but increases my responsibility, my mistrust, my dread and shame. What I want is not what St. Paul would see, but what my God, looking in my heart, ought to see—true testimony that I am Christ’s and He is mine.
II. How is it confirmed in you?—If we are justified in arguing from the analogy of St. Paul’s words, the test of the true evidence that should be sought for is this: it is growth, development, strengthening, confirmation, progress. ‘Covet earnestly the best gifts; cultivate most earnestly the more excellent way.’ ‘Ye are enriched in all knowledge and utterance, ye come behind in no gift.’ The key-note of the strain is the idea of growth from the simpler to the greater gifts, from the elementary knowledge to astonishing and exhaustive knowledge, from the utterance of stammering lips and a lisping tongue, to being able to set forth Him Who is the source of power to men and angels, and from the best growths, from the most precious experiences, to the more excellent way of love; that is to be the sign of confirmation unto the end, and of being found blameless; progress from knowledge to knowledge, from love to love, from glory to glory. Growth is the sign of life; growth in grace is the testimony of Jesus Christ.
III. How can we put the test to ourselves?—Let us take two or three points and put them to our conscience.
(a) Do I take more pleasure in increasing my knowledge of God? It is a hard question, perhaps, because unfortunately it is not easy to answer it in a way that will leave the conscience tolerably content. We are very prone to rest content with a very slight knowledge of Him. The little that we have learned in childhood or at school is all that we keep up, with occasionally reading the Bible and listening to sermons once a week. I do not suppose that there is one person among us who can look comfortably at that question so put to him; a very sure sign, that, of the way in which we begin to excuse ourselves. It is true that the learning of which I speak is not confined to books, not confined even to the Book of books. It is not confined to experience, or learned merely by sorrow or thankfulness, by temptation or victory. Those of whom we first read of it were probably men who probably had no books, and were little accustomed to dogmatic teaching, and perhaps had little self-knowledge or little self-introspection to begin their investigation; but if it were so it does not account for our careless attitude of mind or heart. We cannot say that the knowledge of God is so spread around us as the waters cover the sea, that we live in such an atmosphere of it that we are all like to have enough of it. Even if it were so, and you know it is not, darkness in the midst of our minds while light is all around us, still it is not the true account. Do we care to know more about God, to study the mind of Christ, to dwell in thought upon the story of His life and the infinite effects of His death, to work out the manifold manifestation of His works, to see Him everywhere? Do we care for it, or do we put it from us? I will not supply an answer. If your heart condemn you, go to Him Who is greater than your heart, and knoweth all things.
(b) Do I take more pleasure in communion with Him by prayer and sacrament, prayer, in which I make my requests known to Him, and communion, in which He strengthens my power of living close to Him and doing His will? Now, prayer is a very crucial test of the relation of the soul to God. If your desires are set upon things that you can openly and without self-deceit ask God to give you, you will find prayer become the very natural, spontaneous, constant utterance of your soul. On the other hand, if you feel that you cannot lay half your heart before God, that you have no desire for anything that you care to ask God for, it is no wonder that you do not care to pray. So also if you see no difficulties in the way that you are not likely to overcome by the mere effort of your will, no temptation coming to you which requires more than an act of simple self-command to drive away or escape from, no doubt you do not feel the necessity of gaining strength and refreshing from the source of your life. Prayer and communion thus become the custom rather than the living habit to you. You are uncomfortable when you do not go through the forms that you are used to, but it is very like the discomfort of wearing a dress that does not fit you; it is not the discomfort of a soul hungering and thirsting for its necessary sustenance. How many are there with whom this is the case! God’s offers, ever ready, of an ever-abundant supply of strength, are ill responded to by one who will scarce lift up his hand to take the mercies that are so freely bestowed. You must answer the question yourselves if you want the answer. I do not say it needs a very searching inquiry. I fear that with very many of us the answer is too obvious. God help to put into our hearts more and more the good desires that He loves to hear of, and prayer that He longs to grant!
(c) Do I take more and more pleasure in doing good for the love that I bear to His people? Answer yourself, What good do I do in my daily life that I find pleasure in doing for God? What effort am I making to do more and more without reference to any secondary motive, even to the quieting voice of my own conscience? Am I growing less selfish, more willing to surrender my own will, my own plan, my own comfort? Am I growing more active in the effort to help the work of God, more sympathetic with sorrow, more in accord with His spirit Who offered Himself a sacrifice for sin; more patient, more hopeful, more happy in the work that I like, or less and less prone to measure everything by its relation to myself, putting self out of the way without feeling it to be self-denial, setting love first of all by the unconscious and habitual practice of looking at self last of all?
We want to see the testimony of Christ. Will you look for it in the answer of the heart brought to these questions? We set the ideal high because we know the effort must be an incessant one if it is to be the test of true growth and of true life.
Bishop W. Stubbs.
Illustration
‘Is the Christianity which we profess to-day the same thing as the Christianity of which St. Paul was the heroic champion? The religion of Jesus Christ is in point of fact exactly the same to-day as it was then, only now it occupies a different position and advances to greater power. It has to confront and apply itself and to deal with all the circumstances of modern life and civilisation. And it is one great glory of our religion, and surely one great element of its extraordinary power, that it is able to adapt itself to all conditions of human life everywhere and in all ages. A modern English bishop would have been wholly unfitted to be an apostle of the early Church, and the humble tent-maker would be quite unfitted to-day to be a ruler of our modern Church of England. But the religion of Jesus Christ, adapting itself to the days of its infancy, had a tent-maker for an apostle, and adapting itself to our modern life, so different to-day, has men in high position for rulers of the Church. Under all circumstances, and in all ages, the thing itself remains unchanged. Our Christianity and that of the first days are really one and the same, though differing so widely in outward appearance, just as a man remains the same whether clothed in the rags of a beggar or dressed in the apparel of a king.’