A Test of True Inspiration.
It is not easy at first to understand St. Paul's object in this passage. He seems to be laying down, first of all, a truism about which there can be no discussion whatever, and next, a proposition as to the truth of which there is apparently very large room for question. St. Paul himself is conscious that he is saying something which might not at first sight approve itself to his readers, or which, at the least, requires their careful attention. The phrase "I give you to understand" is one of those turns of speech which he employs when he wishes to stir the minds of men to an unusual effort.
I. "No man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed." There were Corinthians who claimed to speak on the prompting of the Spirit, and who, when in a state of ecstasy, exclaimed, "Accursed be Jesus." These Corinthians were almost certainly Jews who had mixed a great deal with Christians, and who had caught something of the enthusiasm which was created within the Church by the presence of the extraordinary gifts vouchsafed to it. In this sentence we have a warning, first, against a false liberalism, and, secondly, we have a warning against thinking too much of religious passions. Just as the prophets in the synagogue said "Jesus is accursed," so the Christians meeting in the house of Justus cried "Jesus is the Lord."
II. "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." Why is this? Why cannot a man recognise the divinity of Jesus by the exercise of his natural faculties, and when he has recognised it say that he has done so? Why must the Holy Spirit intervene to teach this any more than other kinds of truth? The reason is twofold. It is found partly in the understanding of man and partly in his will. (1) The will has an intelligent instinct of its own. We believe, at least to a great extent, that which we wish to believe; and we wish to believe, most of us, that which will not cost us much in the way of effort or in the way of endurance. We wish this and no more, always supposing us to be left to ourselves with the average human nature and instinct which our first father has bequeathed to us. The Holy Spirit must intervene so far as to restore freedom to the human will, thereby preventing its mischievous action upon the understanding. The greater the practical demands of a given truth the more needed is the high impartiality of the will; and, therefore, in no case is it more necessary than in that of believing our Lord's divinity, which, when it is really believed, leads to so much and demands so much. (2) A second reason is found in the understanding. If a man was to rise above the prejudices of the time if he was to see what those words, those acts, that character really meant if he was to understand how the Cross was as much a revelation of Divine love as the Transfiguration was a revelation of Divine glory, he must have been guided by a more than human teacher; he must have been taught by the Spirit to say, "Jesus is the Lord."
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit,No. 1116.
I. The Jews resisted the light of the Holy Ghost and His grace soliciting them from without; Christians, if they reject that same truth, reject Him as teaching within also. The Jews had the condemnation that they rejected truth which they might have known; Christians have that much sorer condemnation that they reject truth already known and attested by those whom they once knew to have come from God. Light, against which the eyes have been often closed, will still not unseldom, in God's mercy, reach the eyes which shut themselves against it; very rare is it that the eyes will open to see the truth which they once saw and rejected.
II. Let us guard the truth, not as lords over it, to adapt it, as a Lesbian rule, to all the passing phases of human opinion or conjecture, but as itself the unerring eternal rule, to which all human opinion, when corrected by God-enlightened reason, the mirror of the wisdom of God must conform. Christianity being the offspring not of human, but of Divine wisdom, its life also is Divine, maintained, alike in the world and in each heart, by the Lord and Giver of life, God the Holy Ghost. This being so, then the most stupendous and central unwisdom of our day must be the ignorant ignoring of Him who is our light and life. Our generation is so busy with matter that it can afford no time for spirit. What is spiritual seems to it unreal, because "beyond the grasp of eye and hand." Men are so busy with their researches, so certain of the process, that it does not occur to them to think that their foregone conclusion may be wrong, that they may be following an earthly meteor hovering round morasses, instead of the clear light of truth, set by God to rule over day and night.
E. B. Pusey, University Sermons,p. 463.
References: 1 Corinthians 12:3. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 89; vol. vii., p. 84; F. W. Robertson, Sermons,3rd series, p. 29. 1 Corinthians 12:3-6. C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons,p. 290; G. Salmon, Sermons in Trinity College, Dublin,p. 107. 1 Corinthians 12:3-7. H. Scott Holland, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxiv., p. 155. 1 Corinthians 12:4. E. C. Wickham. Wellington College Sermons,p. 122. 1 Corinthians 12:4; 1 Corinthians 12:5. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 204. 1 Corinthians 12:4-6. Church of England, Pulpit,vol. xvii., p. 99; R. S. Candlish, The Sonship and Brotherhood of Believers,pp. 299, 312; J. H. Thom, Laws of Life after the Mind of Christ,2nd series, p. 225; E. Hatch, Church of England Pulpit,vol. xii., p. 1; T. Kelly, Pulpit Trees,p. 67. 1 Corinthians 12:4-7. A. W. Momerie, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxii., p. 348; A. Barry, Cheltenham College Sermons,p. 395. 1 Corinthians 12:9. W. G. Horder, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxiv., p. 61. 1 Corinthians 12:11. Preacher's Monthly,vol. vi., p. 45; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. vi., p. 109. 1 Corinthians 12:12. Homilist,3rd series, vol. vii., p. 87; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons and Addresses in Marlborough College,p. 308; J. B. Lightfoot, Church of England Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 117; E. M. Goulburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion,p. 312.