CRITICAL NOTES
2 Corinthians 1:12. Rejoicing.—stronger and more correct. Cognate word in Romans 5:2-3; Romans 5:11, where notice the varying translation; an exultant, sometimes defiantly exultant, joy. The “rejoicing” looks not backward to 2 Corinthians 1:17, but forward to the “testimony” etc., which occasions it. For.—Q.d. “You will thus pray, and give thanks, for us; we are not yet estranged; I have done, so far as I know, nothing on my part to estrange us.” Notice “holiness,” by a better reading; and “sincerity of God,” by a more literal translation; i.e. no sincerity of any innate goodness of character, but such sincerity as is the gift and work “of God.” “Unfolded, open, patent motive; pure and holy simplicity of motive; transparent sincerity of motive,” the three illustrations. Fleshly.—See 1 Corinthians 3:1, where, however, the reading is discredited. In … in.—For “with” and “by”; by a more exact translation and exposition of Paul’s thought of the contrasted life elements in which conduct might be rooted, and from which it might derive its inspirations and strength. Conversation.—In the wide sense of “conduct”; “If we so bore ourselves to any Church, much more did we to you at Corinth, although we be so misunderstood and misrepresented amongst you.”
2 Corinthians 1:13.—“There is no double sense, no under-thought, no arrière pensée, in either what I write, or what you read in the words. What you yourselves know or by my letters and speech may know, of the writer;—that is all.”
2 Corinthians 1:14. Glorying.—I.e. the matter of “glorying”; in 2 Corinthians 1:12, the act. “You were once proud of us, as you knew us; at least, ‘part’ of you were; you will have as good reason to be proud of us, to the end, I hope [cf. 1 Corinthians 13:12]; we were your boast, as you are ours.” No insincerity in such words of praise. They were true, and there was good reason that they should be true.
2 Corinthians 1:15-16. In this confidence.—“I had no reason to fear to come, as some fancy and allege, when I changed my plan.” The change of plan referred to in 1 Corinthians 16:6-7. “Before” going to Macedonia, instead of to Corinth viâ Macedonia. In his original plan he had intended to return to Corinth from Macedonia, thus giving them a “second” visit, a “second grace” (“benefit”). As a fact, therefore, they had what was to have been the “second,” without having had the “first.” The “journey to Judæa” was in Paul’s mind in Acts 19:21, and, in spite of the passing uncertainty mentioned in 1 Corinthians 16:6, it was accomplished, Acts 21:15.
2 Corinthians 1:17. Flesh.—Cf. “fleshly wisdom,” 2 Corinthians 1:12. “Was I a ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ man? Not knowing my own mind, or not keeping to my decisions, when I thought I did know it.”
2 Corinthians 1:18.—The personal matter is of importance, because the character of the messenger may involve that of the message. “It was not a ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ Gospel.”
2 Corinthians 1:19.—Observe the accumulated names of Christ. No “Yes” and “No” Christ either! (Cf. 2 Corinthians 11:10.) Silvanus.—The “Silas” of the Acts. Trace him in Acts 15:22; Acts 15:27; Acts 15:32; Acts 15:34; Acts 15:40; Acts 16:19; Acts 16:25, etc., Acts 17:4; Acts 17:10; Acts 17:14; Acts 18:5. (Cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1.) Then he suddenly disappears from the Acts and Epistles, unless he be intended in 1 Peter 5:12.
2 Corinthians 1:20.—See Separate Homily. gives well the corrected readings here and exact translation. Through us.—By whose instrumentality all this is proclaimed to men.
2 Corinthians 1:21.—Notice the margin “into” for “in Christ.” The process of uniting which ends in union with, and life “in, Christ” is made prominent and, so to speak, visible. Cf. Ephesians 1:13-14. Prefer the text of A.V. and to the margin of the These are not, even in the order of thinking, respectively antecedent and consequent blessings, but one blessing, one gift of the Spirit, under two aspects.
2 Corinthians 1:23.—Chap. 2 should begin here; no break after 2 Corinthians 1:24. Notice that the principle of a judicial oath is here, as in Matthew 26:63-64; as bearing upon Matthew 5:34. Notice “witness” for “record” in To spare you.—Q.d. the penalties he must have inflicted if he had come and been witness of their flagrant offences against Church order and even morality. What an implied power lies behind this restraint! (1 Corinthians 4:21). So he felt, and hastens to guard this claim to authority and to power to punish, against misconception and misrepresentation.
2 Corinthians 1:24. Dominion.—For the (original) word, cf. 1 Peter 5:2, and for the thought Mark 10:42. Faith.—Q.d. the personal life of which faith is the characteristic (they are believers if they are Christians at all), and the great foundation secret. No question of their “creed” here. Not “lords” over, but “helpers” with, that their life might be made bright with “joy” (an object worth aiming at in itself). By faith ye stand.—Not, as used here, a general maxim, one of the axioms of the Gospel, but a statement of fact in regard to the Corinthians. I.e. the emphasis is not upon “faith” but upon “stand”; not, “It is by faith that you win and keep your status” but, “Imperfect as you are, yet you are still so far believers that you do keep your standing in Christ.” Q.d. (also) “We cannot overthrow you; you overthrow yourselves, if ye be overthrown at all.”
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.— 2 Corinthians 1:12-22
I. Observe how Paul meets criticism.—
1. Every public man gets it; invites it. We are perpetually, whether public persons or private, running the gauntlet of somebody’s scrutiny and “judgment.” If criticism be that of those who presumably are competent critics, a wise man will pocket his resentment at any unfair animus which may be associated with it, and, with the aid of the objective estimate of him, not too graciously furnished, will endeavour to see how much of truth there is in it.
2. Paul shows no bitterness against his Corinthian critics, nor does he “ride off on the high horse” and disdain reply altogether. There is a silence in the presence of criticism which is really obstinacy and pride. “If I cannot be trusted, I will say nothing.” To play at “despising criticism” is a game at which two parties can play, so far as the “despising” goes. Paul explains. It was not an unreasonable demand that he should explain his change of plan. The Christian minister, above all, must not “cut” or “drop” hastily, or in personal pique, even his unfairest critic. This may prove to be the necessity of the case in the end. But it should be the last step, reluctantly taken. If, moreover, he is the man’s pastor, he is under obligation to the man’s soul, even that man’s. Better to answer him temperately, and offer all reasonable explanation. Anybody can cut men off from friendship or from a Church. It is a greater thing to conquer, or keep, by winning the opponent’s judgment or respect and perhaps his esteem or affection. Sometimes—not always—patience, transparent sincerity, holiness, and explanation will do this.
3. Not resentfully, but solemnly, Paul offers his conduct to God’s examination. “I call God for a witness” etc. He can look himself in the face; he has “the testimony of his conscience,” etc. Under the penalty of God’s judgment “upon his soul,” he can challenge God to look into his heart and to examine his motives. We are reminded of the frequent protestations of innocence made by David in the Psalms [early in his life], made as before God. No real difficulty in them, to any man with any practical experience of life. It is one thing to lay bare before God that inmost life, which is for the most part only known to God, and to confess its sinfulness, not daring or desiring to do anything else; it is quite another thing, in regard to the official life, or even the private life so far as it is known (“acknowledged,” 2 Corinthians 1:14) to men by ordinary observation, and in regard to particular charges, to lay it before God for His verdict, appealing from man’s unfair, or prejudiced, or malicious, judgment of it to His perfect knowledge of the inmost motive and heart. In doing this there is no Pharisaism, no spiritual pride, no self-righteousness. God is on the side of right; the man who has walked in “holiness and sincerity of God” before Him may claim His judgment, and will not claim it in vain.
4. Happy then the man who has the “testimony of his conscience,” and can appeal even to his very critics in their honest mood (2 Corinthians 1:14). If a man will keep conscience and character right before God, he may leave God to take care for his reputation amongst men. If he can confront God, he may carry his head, not “high,” but with calm assurance, in the face of men.
II. Observe for what reason Paul is sensitive to criticism.—
1. For one thing only. It is not necessary to suppose that he cared nothing for the goodwill, or even the good opinion, of his Corinthian people. “I don’t care for anybody’s judgment” need not necessarily be a Christian indifference (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:3). But there is a sensitiveness as to “what people think,” which is vanity and pride, hungry for praise.
2. To Paul his character is here a matter of concern chiefly because of his responsibility in connection with the Gospel he had in trust for God. “I don’t care about the character of the preacher, if I get a good sermon!” “The seed will grow, if it be real and have the life in it, whoever sows it!” “Cannot God save—has He not before now saved—by the word of wicked men?” All these are heard, and have enough truth in them to make them serviceable. But, as usual, they need a complementary truth to balance and guard them, and to give the whole round of what is true in the matter. Paul at any rate felt that if he were a man whose promises could not be relied upon—lightly made, lightly kept, lightly broken—there might be a question whether his view of the Gospel had been lightly come by, and accepted; whether it were a thing lightly held. A man who says and unsays in a breath, or in quick succession, who is shallow and fickle in the simple matters of everyday life, is he the man to whom God will really have revealed His Son and His Gospel? [For it is to be remembered that Paul, like every apostle, was not simply an expositor of a fixed and complete body of teaching, a record quite independent of him; as the modern preacher is. He was an original source, through which God was giving new truth to the world; through Paul, in part, was being given the growing Gospel of God in Christ. His character therefore stood in closer relation to his preaching than a modern preacher’s can. Still, it is true that] a minister may, must, be specially jealous of his good name, inasmuch as, justly or unjustly, any imputation upon him will be reflected upon the Gospel he preaches. Equivocation, falsehood, acted deception, no dependence to be placed upon principles, or character, or promises, are serious blots on the ministerial character. The mere suspicion of such things were serious.
3. And this goes higher. As the Gospel, so the Giver of the Gospel. If it were not Truth, absolute, reliable (1 Timothy 1:15), infallible, it might either compel us to modify our idea of the Christ Himself, or at best might be discredited or dismissed, as not from Him at all. Christ’s character cannot, as Paul’s conceivably might, be dissociated from that of the Gospel. As He is, it is. He repeatedly—it is one of the marked characteristics of His teaching—identifies Himself with the Gospel. He is the Gospel.
4. And yet again, as is the Gospel, as is the Christ of the Gospel, so is the God who gives the Christ. God is faithful, Christ is faithful, every promise is faithful, the Gospel which contains them all is faithful, and the very preachers are not unworthy of the Gospel they represent and proclaim.
SEPARATE HOMILIES
2 Corinthians 1:12. [May be made the occasion of a sermon upon] Conscience.
I.
1. Man, alone of God’s earthly creation, can know himself.—Paul can be the subject and object of an act of cognition and reflection. Paul can talk to himself about himself. One of the marks of his personality; one thing which marks in him the “image of God.” Also Godlike in this: can know and judge between “right” and “wrong,” in the moral sense, and according to God’s standard. [The creatures find out what brings pleasure, or what brings their master’s punishment. Men quickly find what is advantageous, or what means pain, trouble, loss. But moral “wrong” and “right” are more than this.] By self-consciousness man can know himself; by conscience can judge of himself, his thoughts, words, acts. Conscience can even judge conscience! [
2. The “cor—” is a real personification. A man can, if he will, keep his inner self a secret, locked up from those who know and love him best; an inner shrine of privacy whose door he can close against all comers (1 Corinthians 2:11). “All,” except another Self who shares this knowledge along with him; from whom no secret can be hid; who knows everything, and will “have its say,” and pronounce its judgment, upon everything.]
3. Very little use in discussing whether this be a distinct faculty, or only the judgment exercising itself upon moral questions, as it might upon the wisdom or unwisdom of actions or motives. “Words, to no profit” (2 Timothy 2:14). Surest basis of any attainable knowledge is found in the Scriptural distinction between “soul” and “spirit.” [Primary text on this topic, 1 Thessalonians 5:23; the only complete enumeration of the elements of the (so-called) trichotomy of man’s nature. All three are mentioned elsewhere. Scripture consistent throughout in the distinctive use of “soul” and “spirit,” in both Old and New Testament. All Paul’s vocabulary of the religious life is built up upon the distinction. Notably in 1 Corinthians 2).] No animal is more than body + “soul.” The life of “body + soul,” with all their powers and faculties, in varying degrees of development and training, is the “natural” life. The “natural man’s” life finds there its range and limit. What is (often only in very rudimentary, but germinal, form) found in the activities of the material and immaterial part of the animal, “from the oyster to the eagle” (Alford), but developed, cultured, to largest range and highest pitch of perfection,—these are the life of the “natural man,” except that in him also there remains personality, with its self-knowledge and its self-determining will,—part of the “image of God” not lost. [But some would include this within the life of the “spirit” also. The line of demarcation is not easy, perhaps not possible, to draw. Certainly] the conscience belongs to the “spirit,” the Godlike, God-capable, side of human nature. It is its “eye” (Matthew 6:22; Ephesians 1:18 [N.B. var. reading]). It is the organ of all knowledge of “spiritual” things; its possession puts man into communication with that “spiritual” world, in which God, sin, redemption, guilt, holiness, are ruling facts. The judgment of the intellect is per se, neutral, non-moral; the judgment of the conscience is moral, concerned with the ethics whose basis is the law of God.
II. In any case a distinction must, very helpfully, be drawn between the faculty for knowing moral differences and the actual and correct knowledge of them.—
1. Conscience is the Judge seated on the bench, ready to administer, and apply to any cases and questions proposed, any law supplied to It. It makes no law; It may administer a bad, or imperfect, or mistaken law; It may judge by an imperfect standard. It is the Eye, made for the purpose of distinguishing Light from Darkness; possessing the power to distinguish, even while there is no Light actually given. It can of itself supply no Light; of itself it can enact no code, can establish no tests of Beauty or Deformity. It is a moral sense, analogous, say, to the æsthetic sense (Philippians 1:9, Greek). The Law and all knowledge of it, what actually is Beautiful or Evil, Light or Darkness,—these must come, must be given, to Conscience from without. It recognises, but cannot by itself originate or discover, truth. Truth is a revelation; Conscience is only organon. [Said Rabbi Duncan, similarly, of Reason: “It is certainly more of an instrument of discovery than a discoverer. At least, I don’t think it has discovered much. It is of use to show its own impotence, and of use to welcome revelation” (Colloquia Peripat., 62).]
2. No race, no man, is ever actually found with nothing but the bare faculty; the Judge is never left without some knowledge of the law and will of God; the eye is always visited with some light with which to deal. But this is grace, not conscience. It is something added to, an endowment of, the bare faculty. “Innate” ideas of morals are really implanted ideas. The most elementary knowledge of “right” and “wrong” according to the mind of God; the response which the heart and conscience sooner or later always make—approving, accepting, applauding—to the “right” as God estimates it, whenever it is proposed to their judgment,—these are the fruits of the Redemption of the Race by Christ; part of the “free gift which has come upon all men,” designed to issue in, and lead “unto, justification of life” (Romans 5:18); they are rays, dim and scanty perhaps, of “the light that lighteth every man” (John 1:9). The heathen have some (Romans 2:14-15); it needs supplementing, guiding, training, by the use of the written Word. The inner light needs the check, the direction, the interpretation of the objective Standard. And if, of the two selves and their utterances and judgments, there can be no doubt to a man in any degree of spiritual health which is the worthy and true; if the Judge knows God’s law at all, and responds to it, and gives right judgment as before God; if the Eye has any light, and recognises it, and loves it,—this is all grace, the working and gift of the Holy Spirit, Whom the death of Christ has made in some measure the birthright privilege and possession of every human soul.
III. How far are the judgments of conscience authoritative and final?—
1. As the æsthetic sense, the sense for beauty, may, by being accustomed to bad models, be perverted or depraved, until it may even come to prefer the poor, and mean, and unworthy, and ugly; or as it may be developed, and its sensitiveness may be cultivated, to a very high pitch of delicacy, till it judges rightly, by a swift, infallible instinct which does not stop to reason, nor could always give its “reasons”; so may the moral sense, the Conscience. As the judge from the bench may grow accustomed to a bad, defective, or iniquitous law, or may even come to rejoice in injustice, whilst knowing it unjust; or, as he may get continually a wider knowledge of a perfect Code, and may develop a growing readiness and delicacy of just perception of its applicableness to particular cases; so may the inward judge, the Conscience. The eye may grow diseased until the very light is painful, and it seeks darkness; so may the moral eye, the Conscience. [Hence Paul’s perfectly conscientious persecution was sin. Its conscientiousness did not make it right. “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,”—but they needed “forgiving.” Ignorance in their case, conscientiousness in Paul’s, left the door open for mercy. In him the judge wanted a better law; though how much of pride, self-will, hatred of Jesus of Nazareth, mingled with his conscientious, zealous activity in persecution, perhaps only his Lord could tell.] Hence the need for the objective, absolute, Divine Standard. The “light within” may “become darkness.” The eye may cease to be “single.” [“Right by my clock.” But what of the “clock”? “Correct by my scales,” “true by my yard measure.” But what of the “scales” and “measure”? They need bringing constantly before the (Divine) Office of Weights and Measures for examination, and perhaps adjustment. Tell me the moral company you make your Judge keep—both in reading and in actual social intercourse; he may have become corrupted, and be giving, not the judgments of God, but the foolish or wicked decisions of an evil age or set, and may even have come to judge as your own wicked heart desires. (In some handicrafts the workers always, day and night, wear gloves, so as to keep the delicate sensitiveness of touch unimpaired).]
IV. Hence conscience may be trained.—Like any other faculty. We learn not only to walk, but to see with eyes which, as organs for sight, -were perfect at birth. Give more and more of knowledge; keep the best standard before conscience; live in the company of holy people, and of the Holy One Himself; conscience will thus learn to think and judge after the standard of God.
V. The only morally hopeless man is the man who has so grieved the Spirit of God that He has withdrawn not the capacity, indeed, but the modicum of knowledge—which was His original gift, and was only maintained, like all “good,” by His ceaseless grace. The eye may die with ill-usage, or with disuse. The judge who is never appealed to, or is disregarded, may slumber on the bench more and more deeply, until he seems past awakening, or sits practically dead upon the very judgment seat; representative of the King though he is, he may cease to speak, or may be past speech. Yet note, these are figures which may be pushed until they become falsehoods. The eye may seem dead from disease or disuse, yet we should never assume that it is past awakening to its old activity. If the light return, it may, except in the rarest instances, still be opened, and may resume its old function of seeing and distinguishing. Perhaps the judge seldom or never really vacates his seat; he may be roused, and indeed will rouse himself, at the sound of the judgment trumpet, if not before. He will resume his office, if it be only eternally to condemn. [Manhood came into the world in its complete equipment, personal, capable of God, and will go complete into eternity. Children had a conscience before they knew it. The lost have not lost it. The saved in heaven have it still, though there it has only occasion to approve.]
VI. Conscience may approve, as well as condemn; may be a real comfort, a very effective strength.—So here. Through misconceptions and misrepresentations and opposition Paul holds on his way. Men at Corinth or elsewhere may say and do what they please in regard to him, he can look them, and still more can look himself, in the face and say, “In simplicity” etc. [In a qualified sense: “Which of you convicteth me of sin?”] Majorities do not settle morals for the Christian man; he may have to be solitary, singular, with nobody on his side, or agreeing with his judgment, except his Master above him, and his Judge within him. “Our rejoicing is this,” etc. [May illustrate the topic by the barometer on board the vessel sailing between the Tropics. It is the soul’s aneroid, giving early, decisive warning of danger otherwise perhaps unseen. Or by the little dog which lies carved in marble at the feet of his master, on the tomb of William the Silent at Delft. By barking, and scratching his face, he had awoke his master and so saved his life, on the occasion of a night attack on the tent of William by the Spaniards in the camp before Mons. William had only just time to escape. Good to have such a friend. Men have, in Conscience.] [Some men have this “candle of the Lord” only to put it out, that they may better sleep sin’s sleep in undisturbed darkness.] [“A stony, benumbed, bribed, deluded, muzzled conscience” (Bunyan).]
2 Corinthians 1:20. Christ the “Yea” and the “Amen.”
I. The promises of God.—
1. “How many soever be,” etc. What a suggestion of their number. No stint in His measure in this, as there is in nothing else which He provides for man. He gives promises “with both hands earnestly” (Micah 7:3). “Good measure, pressed down, running over, into our bosom” (Luke 6:38). It is God’s style of dealing with us. He promises worthily of Himself.
2. What a suggestion of their variety. Such old-fashioned books as Clarke’s Faithful Promiser may have been too mechanical in their tabulation of the promises, and their apportionment to the different needs and occasions, so that the reader might look for a promise, as it were, docketed and put away in a labelled “pigeon-hole,” ready for reference and production at a moment’s notice. But such a book was at least the product of a familiar and thorough knowledge of the Word of God, which had led up to the conviction that no need could arise, or had ever arisen, in the life of a child of God, but it had been anticipated by the Father, and that for it the Father had said the exactly right and sufficient thing. The style of book may go out of fashion—and may come into fashion again—but the fact remains. St. Paul’s Bible—the Old Testament Scriptures—is a mine of wealth for the heart of the child of God. He hardly had in his thought here any cento of promissory “texts” from the Old Testament, though the fulness and appropriateness of these is a fact which every year’s fuller knowledge of the Word of God will confirm, with more abundant reason for strong conviction. In every direction in which need may lead or drive us, we find words which “might have been”—is that all we should say?—“written for the occasion.” [An old missionary in Fiji (known to H. J. F.), crossing over the island where he resided, to his Sunday morning’s work, found, at the crest of a long and toilsome hill which he had to climb in the sun’s full heat, and in the enervating, relaxing atmosphere, a stick planted in the ground, and to it were attached two or three fresh-gathered cocoa-nuts, whose sweet, cool “milk” might refresh him on his journey to preach. A paper tied to the stick explained that a native, knowing that the preacher must needs pass that way that morning, had so provided beforehand refreshment for his wearied teacher.] [Or the illustration may be the cache of preserved meats or vegetables, put away beneath a cairn of stones by Arctic explorers, as a provision for any lost or starving party who may pass that way.] Turn we in any direction, in the day of any distress, a promise confronts us, made for the occasion. The promise is at any rate the paper tied to the stick, the flag left flying over the cache, to call attention to the substantial help which is “laid up for those that fear God” (Psalms 31:19). The promise is there, the help is there. [Often difficult to defend in cool reason such a use of a mere “scrap” of Scripture, torn away from all context and history, as Bunyan once made, when greatly distressed as to what might become of his family if he were taken from them. He found comfort in Jeremiah 49:11, “Leave thy fatherless children, and let thy widows trust in Me”; words spoken to Edom, the enemy of the people of God. Yet such a use of a fragment of Scripture is but one of innumerable examples in the life and practice of some of the wisest, holiest, most spiritual people in every age and Church, and is not lightly to be despised or set aside as unwarranted. Does not the Spirit of God in such cases guide the instincts of God’s people, and give intuitions of truth which reason afterwards justifies? In this particular instance there is at any rate in the words a revelation of the heart of God which, if thus disposed even to Edomite enemies, surely warranted the faith and hope of the Bunyans of all time.] No need without its promise of supply, in infinite variety.
3. What a suggestion of the “exceeding great and precious promises” (2 Peter 1:4). Stars of first magnitude in the expanse of revealed mercy, which overarches all the need and weakness of man’s life. [There are many of smaller magnitude. With the trained eye, the closer scrutiny, the more help, the more of such “stars” are brought into view. Heaven would be poorer without any one smallest “star.” Not the magnitude, but the steadiness, of the pole-star makes it valuable to steer by.] Extraordinary promises of extraordinary help for extraordinary needs, needs perhaps occurring but once in a lifetime, but not forgotten or left unprovided against. [In a banker’s private room may now and again be seen a £10,000 bank-note; a rare thing, a curiosity—cancelled, of course. “I promise to pay,” etc. “An exceeding great and precious promise.” There are £5 promises, £10, £100, in the Word—and still more truly in the heart—of God; and there are £10,000 promises, and these never “cancelled”!] Their number, variety, fulness, and sufficiency are all worthy of, and quite “natural” to expect from.
II. The God of the promises.—
1. They are worth nothing, they are nothing, but for their connection with Him. The cheque or the bank-note is in itself a nearly valueless piece of a rather special make of paper, but it passes from hand to hand, as full of value, not only because “there is money at the back of it,” but because there is a person at the back of it somewhere. It is part of that “transfer of credit” which forms so much of the money-settlements of modern business; the credit is that of the credible and solvent person somewhere. So the heart does not so much rely upon a promise as upon a Promiser. Behind the word of promise there is indeed the store of provision for its redemption; but the real guarantee and ground of its helpfulness is that it is His promise, who is the “faithful God” (2 Corinthians 1:18). There is no ultimate rest in propositions, or in promises, but in a Person.
2. What a view of God’s character. May dwell with adoring, grateful wonder upon the reputation He has earned in the story of the Church, or in our personal life as a “promise-keeping God.” Filled with astonishment as we see how perfectly, and in face of what “difficulties” (as we humanly speak), He has fulfilled His promises; so that, with accumulating wealth of proof, the testimony always is, “There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken, … all came to pass” (Joshua 21:45). “There hath not failed one word of all His good promise” (1 Kings 8:56). But there is an earlier, perhaps a greater wonder, that He is a “promise-making God.” Moreover, not waiting to be asked to promise to help or to save, but promising [“answering,” Isaiah 65:24] before men ask; providing for our fears and our needs before they have arisen, and in that fact binding Himself to help, or bless, or make holy. His are the promises of a God Who has volunteered them; Who in His loving forwardness towards us, proffers His help. And since the words are from His lips, promises are prophecies. He promises that things shall be; then they shall be. There is no doubt, so far as the fulfilment depends upon Him. And in cases where man’s own act or his moral attitude is the necessary condition of the fulfilment, then the very moment the condition is fulfilled on man’s side, there is no delay, no reluctance, on God’s side to finish the matter—He does not need a moment’s persuasion to induce Him to follow up the fulfilment of the condition by doing his own part; He fulfils His part on the instant. He is a God Whose willingness to give is indicated by His unsolicited readiness to promise. A promise-making God!
3. It may almost be said that He is a God of more promises than there are in the Bible. Let the old-fashioned bookmaker compile laboriously, and classify, and codify, every scrap of Scripture language which can be made to exhibit the shape of a promise, yet the book would not meet all needs of man’s life. So far as finding an explicit and applicable “text” goes, many an emergency may arise which does not readily range itself under any of the categories for which corresponding promises have been selected. There is something—if not exactly “a text”—in the many-sided, perfect Word of God for every heart in every demand which its life makes. But if it should not be at once, or readily to be found, at least there is something in God. His very nature and character are a fruitful ground of new promises. If it were so, that an absolutely unique and novel need had arisen, not provided with its discoverable written promise in the storehouse of the Bible, the heart might turn with its need to God. The certain, prompt, sufficient response of the heart of God would be, as it were, a new promise coined at the instant. A promise is His will expressing itself toward the cry of man’s need. The up-leaping of His ready heart and will towards the soul that seeks Him with its appeal for help, is an offer of help, a promise of it. The heart of the promise-making God bears within itself, and brings forth on the occasion, an infinite wealth of new “promises.” In all this He is the God the highest expression, and the most complete, of Whose will and heart toward mankind is Christ. Which leads to
III. Christ the great Promise and the Ratification of all other promises besides.—
1. “How many … be the promises” they are all in Him. All approach of God to man has always, and only, been in Christ. He is the Condition sine quâ non of all intercourse between God and man, in both directions. In Him God has approached man, has offered to man, has promised to man, not so much this or that gift or grace or mercy or help, as in effect all gifts, all grace, all mercy and help. The whole attitude of God toward redeemed Humanity is “bodily-wise” (Colossians 2:9) expressed and exhibited in Him Whose significant name is “Immanuel.” A God in His holiness arrayed against a sinful Race in necessary antagonism, is a thing more than conceivable. A God holding aloof in supreme indifference would not be an impossibility. In point of happy fact, the God with whom our Race has had to do has been a “God with us.” The whole attitude of God towards man, as we know Him in Christ, is a proffer and a promise, containing within it implicitly a promise for every need of man’s soul. Each single promise with its fulfilment is but a particular expression of all that whole approach, that volunteered offer of Himself—with all the infinite “contents” of that thought—which is made in the very fact of the gift of Christ. Each single promise and its fulfilment is a detail of the one first, summarising gift and grace—Christ. [Romans 8:32 approaches this, but translating the ineffable fact into human thought with a difference, rather argues: “If He began with the greatest He had to give, He has so set the fashion and precedent of His bounty that, after that Gift, man may well expect anything. He who has given the thousands of pounds, will not hesitate to add the odd shillings and make them into guineas. After the first Gift, every smaller bounty man may need or ask, is a trifle.” Here we go beyond this.] Every new promise, and every new gift or mercy or deliverance by which it is redeemed and fulfilled, is not here conceived of as an additional act of God’s bounty. It was already given in Christ. To speak in human language, it would be inconsequent, illogical, for the God Who gave “His Son Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 1:19), to refuse to fulfil any word of promise which may be pleaded by a soul in need of help. It would be to “go back upon” what was said and done, upon “the Word” which God uttered, when He sent His Son, “His unspeakable Gift,” into the world. The One Gift was in effect a Promise; it anticipated, summarised, pledged, all subsidiary detailed promises besides; it also pledged their fulfilment.
2. So then Christ is God’s “Yes.” Men come asking large things. “Is it really of any use to ask or expect so much?” they say with honest misgiving. They come asking again and again; He never denies them, but their heart wonders whether “by their continual coming they may not weary Him.” They are filled with a sense of unworthiness, none more deeply than the holiest of His people: “I am not fit to come, not worthy to be heard.” They have ill-employed grace given in the past: “He might justly ‘upbraid’ (James 1:5) for our neglect or waste of past bounty.” And so on, through all the round of the varying and abundant reasons for doubt, for expecting nothing. Here is one abundant reason for expecting anything, everything. Like His own “in no wise” (John 6:37) which anticipates all difficulties, answers beforehand all disheartening “reasons,” takes in every variety of case and age and sin, among the guilty souls who “come” to Him, so this word by anticipation silences all questions, meets all fears, replies to all misgivings, makes all unfitness and past unfaithfulness to be of no practical bearing upon the matter in hand. Is there a real need? Is there an actual promise of supply and help? That is all. Or do men half hope that they may find the heart of God to be willing, and yet hardly dare to come with much definite hope? God has said “Yes” beforehand, in the gift, and the very person and work, of Christ. He gave the petitioner the answer, before the petitioner brought his prayer. “In Him is the Yea.”
3. “Through Him is the ‘Amen.’ ” Granted that a man wins his answer, has his need supplied, his promise fulfilled to him, what guarantee has he of secure enjoyment, of long possession of his blessing? The answer is once more, “Christ.” God’s mercy in Christ both anticipates the gift, and rounds it off, when given, with a holy ratification. The same Heart which desired to give, and actually gave, desires that the gift should be kept and added to; desires, moreover, to give further grace to keep the first grace. God clenches His gift with His own “Amen.” If such a distinction must be made, the Spirit Himself, the Author of all strength to follow up and keep any grace given in, and for the sake of, Christ, is a gift bestowed “through” the Mediator-work of the Son. God’s acceptance of the prayer is a very real “Amen” to it, but the following it up and sealing it by further grace, is a very real ratification of the fulfilled promise. And this is through Christ.
And as such glorious truth is preached, is it not “to the glory of God”?
2 Corinthians 1:21-22. A Fourfold Grace of the Spirit.—[Three homilies may be here suggested.]
1. The Spirit gives strength and stability to Christian character.—
1. The figure here implied in the word is different, but the thought is the same as in “rooted and grounded” (Ephesians 3:17), “rooted and built up” (Colossians 2:7). The Christian is no “chaff driven before the wind” (Psalms 1:4); he is the “tree planted.” He is no tent or frail tabernacle of boughs, easily set up, as easily struck or swept down by the violence of a storm; he is a solid and substantial building. He is no mere “house upon the sand,” but “founded upon a rock.”
2. Our word here says that the grafting “into Christ has made no temporary union, nor one easily destroyed. There is strength in it; it gives strength to the character, stability and fixedness of purpose and principle and course. Men can “count upon” such a Christian. They know what to expect from him. He is a fixed quantity in all their reckoning. They know that he will always act as “a man in Christ.”
3. The man is, to himself and to others, reliable. An old pastor returning to his former Church is not afraid to ask about him, lest he should have sadly to learn that he has fallen out of his place in the Church and “in Christ.” Rather the “tree planted” (Psalms 1), “rooted in” Christ, is like those age-old olives and terebinths of Palestinian landscape, which, amidst the ephemeral growths that clothe the hillsides for a few brief weeks after the spring rains have fallen, stand ever in the same place by “the rivers of water”; Christians once, Christians to the end.
4. In the jungle at the mouth of the Ganges are whole forests of luxuriantly growing trees whose roots spread widely, but barely take hold of the soil; the burst of the monsoon uproots them by the hundred: as the first rush of temptation or persecution sweeps down or roots up the men in Christ who are not “stablished.” Great havoc in some Churches is wrought by a time of sharp testing!
5. How the pyramids of Egypt sit age after age foursquare to every wind, bearing indeed the marks of years and violence, but unmoved by earthquake or time. That broad based, immovable stability is the very ideal of the steadfastness of the Christian life; not the unstable equilibrium of the “pyramid upon its apex” or even of the beautiful but slender column. There are characters in every Church which need buttress and prop and “under-pinning”; and, when pastor and Church have done all they can for such, they never arrive at any real steadiness or stability.
6. A false idea of “humility” has often misled sincere souls in this matter. The will and grace of God, Who by His Spirit “stablished us in Christ” have, without intention, been dishonoured. Men have expected to fall, at least “occasionally.” They have supposed that only spiritual pride or presumption could claim to have stood firm for a whole day, or still less for a whole week or year. It has been deemed “humble” to understate, when bearing testimony, the measure of strength and stability which the Spirit of God has actually wrought in them. But God’s Spirit deserves the credit of all He has wrought; other souls need the testimony to encourage and hearten them to expect larger possibilities, a keeping and a strength not unworthy of the grace of God. If only all the glory be given to “God Who stablisheth,” the man in Christ cannot expect, or get, and testify to, too much of stability.
7. Or conceive of it as the strength of full and healthy life; the strength of a branch in a healthy vine, of a vigorous limb in a healthy body; the stability of a strength-bringing, life-giving, lifelong union to Christ.
8. Also the connection between the steadiness of union with Christ, and steadiness of belief in the great doctrines which are of the foundation of the Faith, is of the closest. The settled experience does something to give or to keep a settled faith. The great doctrines of the Christian Gospel are by no means matters of correct knowledge only, even on such supremely important themes; they are translated into experience in every spiritual man. When he speaks of or engages in discussion or controversy about the Atonement or the Trinity, it is not chiefly his creed that is in question, but his very life. The articles of his Creed are the elements of his life; really “vital” points. The man who year after year is steadily “in Christ” is at this immense advantage in controversy, that with a growing, experimental knowledge he knows the great foundation truths of Christianity to be truths indeed. He is a witness, and his testimony cannot readily be shaken. He himself is not easily “shaken in mind, nor troubled neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:2). With “an experience,” he may, if need require, hear or read what would grievously unsettle many souls. He is “stablished.”
II. The Spirit gives an “anointing.”—
1. The foundation of this frequently asserted truth is laid deep in the community, the unity of Christ and His people. He is par excellence the Anointed of God. It is His Name as Messiah. All that anointing meant in history, and symbol, and ritual in Israel; all that it meant to king or priest to receive the outpouring of the sacred oil,—that it meant in pre-eminent fulness of meaning to Him. “He is anointed … above His fellows” (Hebrews 1:9; [Psalms 45:7]) indeed, but they are “His fellows,” in this as in all besides. The “thing is true in Him and in them” (1 John 2:8). It is one of the many instances where New Testament language, used of the Incarnate Son of God, may be applied to and used by the “adopted” (Romans 8:15) “sons of God.” In a very pregnant sense they too are “Christs”; anointed ones, like Him. “Ye have an unction from the Holy One” (1 John 2:27).
2. They have a very real “priesthood,” not in heaven only [Revelation 1:6, if this be not retrospective; but see again Revelation 1:10, and (? in the opposite direction) Revelation 20:6], but on earth. They fulfil better, though not perfectly, the ideal which was scarcely more than a beautiful ideal in ancient Israel; they are a “kingdom of priests” [Exodus 19:6; which Peter expounds correctly as “a royal priesthood” (1 Corinthians 3:9)], i.e. a royal dynasty, every one of whom is a priest. The gift of the Holy Ghost is the privilege and the endowment of their high character and function amongst men and toward God.
3. Their “royalty” it one of dignity of character, rather than of function. “Royal” because their Father is King. So far as they may be said to rule mankind, it is by moral force and by the power of ideas. So far as each Christian man is so “filled with the Holy Ghost and power” that he moves in and out amongst his fellows, in the home, or the world, or the Church, a power to repress evil and banish it by his very presence, and a power to encourage good to declare itself and be bold in the assurance of his support; so far is he king. [The artisan in the workshop, the medical student in the dissecting-room, the clerk in the office, the very schoolboy in the playground, who so bear themselves that foul language or foul doing or selfishness are ashamed in their presence, and hide themselves or are silenced, are in their circle in virtue of the royalty of holiness true kings. “The meek shall inherit the earth.” What a real victory and supremacy does the quiet but thorough Christian girl enjoy in many a home!] Christian ideas rule the world, and, along with that active, progressive civilisation which owes so much to, and is found in so nearly exclusive association with, Christianity, surely, though too slowly, are taking possession. So far as in the senate, in the press, in the business, in the daily labour, in the family and personal life, each Christian man is exhibiting them, and so is propagating them, and helping forward their wider predominance and sway, so far is he sharing in His Master’s dominion and royal rule in the earth; in his little measure he is a king. God’s modern Israel, with their sacred deposit of Christian truth, are, like ancient Israel amongst the nations, and like Him who gathers up into Himself all the characteristics of the Ideal Israel, given for “leaders and commanders to the peoples” (Isaiah 55:4). There is a very real rule over evil in their own hearts, exercised in virtue of the Spirit poured out upon them. In the dim perspective of the future the “saints shall take the kingdom” (Daniel 7:18); and there are mysterious suggestions of a share with Christ in the royal rule of the consummated “kingdom of God” [e.g. Revelation 3:21; and, earlier, Matthew 19:28].
Two things are to be noted. First, if the character be lost, the royalty is lost. They are only kings thus, in so far as, and so long as, the “anointing” rests upon them. [Saul’s royalty lingered later in historical fact, but, theocratically, his royalty was gone when “the Spirit of God departed from him.”] There is no caste of men to-day by birth an indefeasibly royal Israel. Secondly, noblesse oblige. The Christian man should live up to his character. With all humility will he wear his honour, because it is all of grace; but he has an honour to wear, and in his friendships, his pleasures, his business, every occupation of his life, should remember that there are things this Divine “royalty” cannot do, places to which it cannot go, there is company which it cannot keep, there are friends which it may not choose to cultivate. If one of this royal race will persist in forgetting his high honour, he will grieve, and may grieve away, the Spirit Whose anointing is his patent of royal dignity.
4. Their priesthood is one of function.—For a special purpose the Law “came in beside,” came in episodically (Romans 5:20), in the course of the development of God’s ideas. Its specialised priesthood was a necessity, and relatively a good thing. Absolutely it was a retrogression from the more perfect ideal of a priesthood, which belonged to manhood, though in patriarchal days it was accidentally and prudentially localised in the father of the family or the head of the tribe. Still, the idea was not forgotten in Israel. Not to quote again Exodus 19:6, the slaying of the Passover lamb by the head of the family was contemplated as a permanent point of the Passover ritual, and the lamb was a true sacrifice, though not that alone; it had other meanings also. Prophets like Samuel or Elijah might offer their sacrifices, though in, e.g., Samuel’s days these were priests fully appointed. David once wore the ephod of the priesthood (2 Samuel 6:14); and there is no need to reconstruct the religious history of Israel in order to account for 2 Samuel 8:18, where David’s sons are called “priests” [so literally, Heb.]. The older, wider, patriarchal idea of priesthood, and the, true priesthood of every Israelite—perfectly valid, although, as a matter of convenient and didactically serviceable arrangement, it had been concentrated in a special, representative order of men chosen out of one tribe—made it possible for at least a titular honorary priesthood to be conferred upon the king’s sons. The analogy of all this to the priesthood of Christian men is exceedingly close. The ministerial and teaching office is seen, e.g., in 1 Corinthians 14, early to have begun to specialise and localise itself in particular men amongst the whole body of believers. But this means no “clerical” caste in the Church; it is but a prudential and, as things are, salutary, necessary concentration of a ministry belonging to every believer. And there is no “priestly” caste at all which has any office or prerogative that may not on occasion, at the call of God, be exercised by any member of a Church. It would be an ill day for any Church when the ministry was recruited only from the families of the ministry; when ministers’ sons should, in any degree as a matter of course, “take up their fathers’ profession.” So, too, every “lay preacher,” and in lower degree every Sunday-school teacher, every one who speaks to a soul for Christ, keeps up the needful protest that the teaching, saving function is no special right of any clerical order. (As to woman’s part in public worship, see under 1 Corinthians 14:34.) In the Christian Church manhood-priesthood is again the order; the original order, obscured by the episodic priesthood and ritual of Mosaic Law, is now once more brought into prominence and use. The priesthood is inherent in every “anointed,” every “spiritual,” man.
5. With one marked and emphatic reservation.—Christ does not share with His people the atoning work of His priesthood. He alone makes atonement for guilt. Needing to make none for Himself [unlike the old High Priest (Hebrews 9:7)], He reserves to Himself the offering of the one sacrifice “for sins for ever” [query, better connect “for ever” with “sat down” (Hebrews 10:12)]. The Christian year has become one long “Day of Atonement”; the yearly cycle of the old sacrificial order has gathered itself up into one, the Sin-offering of that Day, now made perpetual after the one first and final consummation upon the Cross. And, as of old, the sacrifice and its presentation in our Christian Day of Atonement are the unshared act and honour of our High Priest. A guilty conscience, or a heart full of fear, must look to, and rely on, Him and His good offices alone. Guilty souls have “their access unto the Father” only by Him (Ephesians 2:8; Ephesians 3:12; Hebrews 4:14; Hebrews 4:16).
6. But, with that exception, His people share His priesthood.—
(1) In a very true sense their intercession for the world around them is effectual for the world’s great blessing. If the Church ceased to pray for the world, or were removed from out of it altogether; if the world were left to its own evil, godless heart (Ephesians 2:8), the very world itself would account it no small calamity and curse. The Church says, as did Samuel of Saul, “God forbid that I should sin in ceasing to pray for you” (1 Samuel 12:23). One of the most precious prerogatives of the manhood priesthood of the “anointed” believer is “to make prayers and supplications, and to give thanks for all men,” etc. (1 Timothy 2:1-4). God would have all men saved; the Church of God should never cease to have a heart with a world-wide outlook and yearning. Priesthood should mean no aloofness or exalted separateness from the general mass; the truest priesthood means the closest brotherhood, the most intimate nearness. Christ in heaven, His people on earth, interceding for the world,—in that is the world’s hope. Every Christian priest may covet and cultivate, as part of his “anointing” for his office, the fulness of “the Spirit of grace and supplication” (Zechariah 12:10). A noble work, open to the simplest, poorest, humblest; and very mighty are some such in every Church in their pleading, interceding prevalence with God.
(2) Several passages bring out other typical characteristics of the priesthood of “anointed” believers; e.g. 1 Peter 2:5, “To offer up spiritual sacrifices,” i.e. sacrifices which are not, as aforetime and now in heathenism, things fleshly or material at all. They present themselves before God with hearts full, e.g., of praise [“whoso offereth praise,” Psalms 50:23]. Any material gift is valueless unless it embody and express a “spiritual” sacrifice. No point more needful for the Christian priest to note and guard than this. The heart always gravitates towards the material; it is easier to bring the gift than the heart. [1 Samuel 15:22, where “better than” means that “sacrifice,” be it never so costly, abundant, slavish in its devotion, is of no value without “obedience.”] Hebrews 13:15 well comments on this: “By Him [i.e. Christ; our praises, as our prayers, can only come up to God in virtue of His mediation] let us offer the sacrifice of praise continually, that is, the fruit of our lips [cf. Hosea 14:2, which anticipates this thought, the “calves of our lips”], giving thanks to [“making confession to,” margin and R.V.] His name.” Every anointed priest has his temple, with its altar of this incense, within his own heart. Within him is a shrine in whose holy secrecy there may go on the perpetual offering of a man who “prays without ceasing, and in everything gives thanks.” Paul is a priest at an altar in Philippians 2:17, but with another kind of offering. His offering, his sacred service, is the body of Philippian believers, or, more exactly, their “faith,” which, by the blessing of his Master, he can bring and show as the fruit of his work in Philippi. He asks his Master’s gracious acceptance of their “believing” life and character. His life is in danger; any day may see him brought to trial; the issue may be death. If his Master ask his life as the crowning act of a career of self-devotion, well and good. Paul is more than content; he will “rejoice” to pour out—as (in heathen phrase) a libation, or (in Hebrew ritual order) a drink-offering—by the altar, or even as it were “over the sacrifice” which he brings and lays upon it, his very life. The type of a “priesthood” fulfilled by many a busy, fruitful toiler, whose life may not, indeed, have issued in a technical “martyrdom,” but which has not less really been “spent and spent out” over the work, accumulated results of which are the offering with which he appears at the altar before his Lord. Unhappy that “priest” whose “anointing” has been practically in vain, and who appears before God empty-handed, having no fruit to show, nothing to lay upon the altar for acceptance and reward. Romans 12:1 takes up the self-devotion which perhaps culminates in some day of martyrdom, but which in every case will have been the keynote of the whole life, the great foundation principle of it all: “Present yourselves a living sacrifice.” [So the text is naturally quoted, with a perfectly correct appreciation of its force. But there is terrible point and force in “present your bodies.” Paul’s readers were only too familiar with fact that (as in some Oriental cults of to-day) women—“sacred slaves”—and even men, literally “presented their bodies” to the divinity of a temple, and enriched its treasury with the proceeds of abominable and unnameable lusts. “Present your bodies … a sacrifice … holy.” Heathen sin often ran into sensual sin; the fact in part gives a colour and emphasis to Paul’s use of the phrase “the flesh” (see under 2 Corinthians 7:1); his exhortation here is but the summary of many an injunction such as Romans 6:12-13; Romans 13:14. Heathen sin had showed itself most obviously open to observation and censure, in fleshly sins; Christian holiness would most obviously begin and would be appreciable in a sanctification of the very body itself. “Present your bodies.”] The man who thus “presents his body” has first offered much more; he has devoted himself. The offering of the body is the act of a man who is himself an offering, and is himself the priest who presents it. And such a daily, detailed consecration (John 17:19) of self and activities and life—needs a perpetual “anointing.” It is the offering of a man “filled with the Spirit.” In the Old Testament, Samuel was an early and beautiful example of a life thus wholly given to do nothing and to be nothing except for the Lord, its Tabernacle, its service. His mother “presented his body,” presented her boy, as her offering to the Lord. Nor, we may believe, did he go back from the spirit and the terms of his mother’s gift [“I have returned him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent unto the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:28)], when he came out from “dwelling in the house of the Lord” (Psalms 23:6) into the busy life of practical government, and into the “secularities” of the life of a family and household. The happy days spent in ceaseless ministration in the tabernacle with Eli were days of a “living sacrifice.” Happy those on whom rests continually the Spirit’s “anointing” for this form of priestly function. John 17:19, above quoted, brings such a life into very close parallelism to that of “God’s Anointed One.” Is not He—are not His people—both Sacrifice and Priests?
III. The Spirit is a “seal” and an “earnest.”—Upon this word “sealed,” thus simply introduced and left for the pondering of the Corinthians, we may cast the illumination of Paul’s fuller explanation of his thought in Ephesians 4:30, itself lighted up, as Ephesian listeners on whose ears the word fell for the first time would instinctively light it up, by 2 Corinthians 1:13-14. Indeed, Ephesians 1:14 is only a little fuller statement of what is, evidently, from its occurrence here, a sample of Paul’s habitual thought about the work of the Holy Spirit.
1. The “seal” is a person, the same Divine Person Who is the “earnest.”— Ephesians 4:30 contributes to make that clear. We might not infer very much from the word “grieve,” if it were an isolated turn of phraseology; though, whilst one could speak, not unnaturally, of “resisting” or of “yielding to” an influence or a personified Force, it would not be as natural to speak of “grieving” it. Poetically one might speak of “obeying” a force; but men “grieve” a person. But the expression is not isolated. It is a sample case of a whole group of New Testament terms of expression, beginning with John 15:16, which assume, imply, and so indicate, a personal Holy Spirit. Men not infrequently can gather with utter certainty—very frequently in a court of justice will a shrewd counsel do so—from a passing phrase or a single word, spoken or written, what is in the mind of the speaker or writer, though he did not intend it to be discovered. Very often may be thus inferred a man’s habitual opinion upon a topic. When the disciples in the upper room heard Jesus speaking of “the other” Comforter, repeatedly say, “He,” “Himself,” “Whom,” they could only believe that to their Teacher the Comforter was not something, but somebody, another personal Friend for them comparable to Himself. [The geologist may find a deep lying and extensive stratum “crop up” at the surface, only in one very narrow area. He follows the indication of the one single narrow spot, and finds the vast beds beneath. The silver mines of Peru were discovered because, where a dislodged rock had rested, an Indian noticed the shining metal showing.] In Paul’s word “grieve” there is the cropping up of a great underlying and extensive and precious truth, the personality of the “sealing” Spirit.
2. The sealing has been done in view of a “day of redemption,” i.e. of “the redemption of the purchased possession.”—Thus is the matter viewed from the side of Him Who “seals.” Viewed from our side who are the “sealed” persons, that “day of redemption” is the day of coming into “our inheritance” (Eph., ubi supr.). The “purchased possession” is God’s or Christ’s (Acts 20:28). The “inheritance” is that of His people. When in “the Day” He enters into full possession, they enter into possession also.
(1) Man’s “day of redemption” was the Friday of Calvary; Christ’s “day of redemption” is in the future. (See the fuller, future sense of “redemption” in 1 Corinthians 1:30.) On the cross, for man’s sake, was Christ with His own blood “paying down the price” [an expression which has hardly more than this one point of contact and analogy with the fact] of man’s freedom from the results of the curse and penalty of sin. For His own sake He was also paying down the purchase money for a “peculiar people” [1 Peter 2:9, lit. “a people of possession”], an Israel which, in a world where all are “His own,” should be His “very own” acquired for Himself, specially precious to His heart. In the manward aspect of the “redemption,” it was complete at Calvary, when He said “It is finished.” Yet all that He intended “redemption” to include, will not be fulfilled until, in the resurrection morning, the very body itself stands, like the whole redeemed Manhood, freed from the latest trace and touch of the curse of sin. In the Godward, Christward aspect, “redemption” will not be complete till the whole company of those whose faith in His atoning death turned their “redemption” into “salvation,” stand thus gloriously complete by His side in their “inheritance,”—that “of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:12). [Roughly illustrate by the purchase in the factory of a vase of costly marble, which is as yet in the rough. Price paid, purchase complete, ownership absolute; but a sense in which the purchaser does not regard possession or ownership realised until the finished vessel is safely delivered at his home. Or the buyer in the cattle market chooses, pays for, becomes the owner of, sheep from the “pens” of several sellers. Ownership is “finished” before he leaves the market. But in a very real sense he looks forward to a completed and finished ownership, when at last the selected sheep have all been brought safely home. The purchase was “finished,” the sheep were “his own,” in the market; the purchase is not “finished,” the flock are not assuredly and in fulness of possession his own, until they are safe in the home-fold; the two “redemptions.”] The presence and work of the Spirit is a significant thing for the present of our religious life, but it is significant also—to Christ and to His people, both—for the future “day” and its hope. It is the buyer’s mark of ownership put upon the sheep he has purchased. It is “the broad-arrow,” the “seal” of the King, stamped upon, to identify and to claim, His own purchased “vessel.”
(2) To His people themselves it is the “earnest,” i.e. a pledge, of some future good, which consists in a sample of that “good” (Romans 8:28). It is the shilling given to the recruit as the first money of his future pay. It is the deposit paid on account towards the fuller payment of a completed bargain. It is, more exactly in analogy with the fact illustrated, the maintenance paid to the minor under his father’s will, until he comes of age, and the whole estate is at his disposal and enjoyment. The life and grace and work of the Spirit now within the Christian man, are the sample, the first taste, the beginnings, of the fuller life of “the inheritance” when it comes. That life hereafter and this life here are not two, but one. This is the eternal life. The division line between the old and the new is not before the Christian, located at death or judgment; it is behind him, located at conversion. Then began one life which has become his true life, the natural life having become a subsidiary one, which soon drops off and leaves the eternal life to go on into eternity with unbroken continuity. Further, the fact of this life binds the Divine Giver of it to complete His gift hereafter. “Our hope” does not leave us by-and-by to wake up befooled, deceived, “ashamed,” “because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts [so here] by the Holy Ghost given unto us” [Romans 5:5; the whole argument of “an earnest”]. If on the Christian’s own part there be faithfulness, kept up in the grace which is itself part of the “earnest,” there will also be, there is pledged, a faithfulness on the part of God. Having given the Spirit, He cannot go back and withhold the “inheritance.” The sample binds Him. “Will He give me ‘glory’?” “Yes; He has given me ‘grace.’ ”
3. Similarly, the seal is in no arbitrary or accidental connection with the completed ownership and full possession by Christ towards which it points. A seal very commonly bears the initials, it may bear the image, of him whose seal it is. The presence and work of the Spirit of God “in our hearts” are restoring “the image of God”; they ought to bring out “a conformity to the image of God’s Son” (Romans 8:29). Christlikeness, inwrought, brought out, by the Spirit, is, to others and to the man himself, the seal. The argument of ownership thus lies upon the surface: “The man belongs to Christ, for he is like Christ, getting more like Him day by day.” When Christ comes to get His own together, the “Firstborn” (Rom., ubi supr.) will look for and claim the “many brethren” in whom there shows that family likeness of which He is the first and best exponent. Thus, then, the “seal” may be lost; the earnest may be forfeited. They—it, the complex, and yet one, blessing—are grace imparted, maintained, only by the ceaselessly renewed gift and indwelling of the Personal Spirit of God “in our hearts.”
HOMILETIC SUGGESTIONS
2 Corinthians 1:12. The Testimony of Our Conscience.—[A companion, complementary, “witness” to that of the Spirit of God (Romans 8:16).]
I. What is this conscience?—
1. We are made conscious beings, and can perceive things past and present relating to ourselves, both tempers and outward behaviour. But conscience implies somewhat more: its main business is to accuse or excuse, to approve or disapprove, to acquit or condemn. By some called “moral sense.” Scripturally it is: “A faculty or power, implanted by God in every soul which comes into the world, of perceiving what is right or wrong in his own heart or life, in his tempers, thoughts, words, and actions.”
2. The rule of conscience is
(1) for heathens, “the law written in their hearts” (Romans 2:14-15);
(2) for Christians, the Word of God, the writings of the Old and New Testament; the purpose of which is stated in 2 Timothy 3:16. “He esteems nothing good, but what is here enjoined, either directly or by plain consequence; nothing evil, but what is here forbidden, either in terms, or by undeniable inference. Whatever the Scripture neither forbids nor enjoins either directly or by plain consequence, he believes … indifferent, … in itself neither good nor evil; this being the whole and sole outward rule whereby his conscience is to be directed in all things.”
II.
1. The testimony of conscience,—If (as here) approving, depends upon
(1) a right understanding of the Rule, the Word of God;
(2) a knowledge of ourselves;
(3) an agreement of our life, inward and outward, with the rule; and
(4) an inward perception of this agreement. “This habitual perception, this inward consciousness itself, is properly a good conscience.”
2. This presumes a moral basis, “a spiritual condition,” a saving faith in Christ, which gives the “evidence” of Hebrews 11:1, accompanied by love “shed abroad in the heart,” and the fulfilment in us of Hebrews 8:10.
III. The matter of the testimony.—
1. Briefly, “our conversation”; this “in the world,” even that of the ungodly; “in simplicity,” all the actions and conversation full of the light of heaven, love, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost, the eye of the mind steadily, singly, fixed upon God; “simplicity” in intention, “godly sincerity” in the execution of it, much more than heathen sincerity; “not with fleshly wisdom,” not by the force of good sense, good nature, good breeding; this is only attained to “by the grace of God.”
2. This is the ground of “our rejoicing.” “Our” joy is no natural joy, or physical lightness of spirits; nor the joy of ignorance of the law which is broken; nor that of a dull or callous conscience. It is the joy of holy love and happy obedience.—Wesley, “Sermons,” xii.
2 Corinthians 1:15. Benefit (= “Grace”). To have the Gospel and its ministers is—
I. An unspeakable benefit.
II. One not easily exhausted. [“A second.”]
III. One to be diligently improved.—[J. L.]
For 2 Corinthians 1:23-24, see under chap. 2.
2 Corinthians 1:15-18. A Christian Man’s Promises are:—
I. Sincere.—Duly considered in the making; carefully worded (2 Corinthians 1:14, “ye read”); honestly intended.
II. Held binding.—In the sight of God; in spite of inconvenience and self-sacrifice.
III. May sometimes be superseded.—By higher obligations; by circum stances beyond his control.—[J. L.]
[Of God’s promises III. is never true! The “Amen” of completed fulfilment always crowns the “Yes” of the initial promise!]
2 Corinthians 1:17. A Christian Man’s Steadfastness of Purpose.
I. What it includes.—Due consideration; the purpose must not be lightly formed. Conscientious prosecution; it may not be lightly given up. This does not exclude the propriety of a change of mind under the force of new and imperative circumstances. [So the true immutability of God does not consist in His never altering His course of action, or what, speaking humanly, looks like changing his purpose toward the man; but in His never changing the principles of His dealing with men, with sin, with holiness. If the man changes, then God, remaining in Himself unchanged, must deal otherwise with him than before.]
II. Upon what it ought to rest.—Not on worldly considerations. [“Not with fleshly wisdom.”] “According to the flesh.” Not on the mere force of human will [this may be only pride or obstinacy], but on Christian principle.
III. Why it is necessary.—As an essential of Christian character. As a foundation of human confidence.—[J. L.]
2 Corinthians 1:23. An Apostle’s Word confirmed by an Oath.
I. Under what circumstances an oath admissible?
II. How reconcile with “swear not at all”?
III. What is “profane swearing,” therefore?—[J. L.]
[Be a Yea, Yea, Nay, Nay, man; but not a Yea, Nay, Yea, Nay, man.]