FIRST CORINTHIANS

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PROLOGUE Paul having been miraculously convicted on the road and gloriously converted under the ministry of Ananias in Damascus; then wonderfully sanctified in Arabia when God “was pleased to reveal His Son in” him, having revealed His Son to him on his way to Damascus; now gloriously saved and sanctified, and thus harmonized experimentally with the apostles, goes up to Jerusalem, tells his experience, claims his apostleship, is fully recognized and preaches boldly in the Hellenistic synagogues, endeavoring to undo all of his bad work opposing Stephen the first martyr, until the brethren find it necessary to escort him away to save his life, leading him to Caesarea and sending him home to Tarsus up in Cilicia. There he remains an unknown period faithfully preaching, we doubt not, in Cilicia, Phrygia, Galatia and perhaps other countries, till Barnabas goes after him about A.D. 43-5 and brings him to Antioch to help them in their Syrian gospel field.

While preaching at Antioch the Holy Ghost tells the church to send away Barnabas and Paul on a great evangelistic tour, in which they travel through many Asiatic states, also taking Cyprus, the nativity of Barnabas, into their field of labor, God wonderfully owning and blessing this first great evangelistic tour into the Gentile world. Eventually Barnabas and Paul became too efficient judiciously to be fully utilized in the same preaching band, each one being abundantly competent to lead an expedition. Then the Lord providentially separates them; Barnabas taking his nephew Mark (and doubtless others soon after) goes away evangelizing, pursuant to the Divine leadership. Meanwhile Paul, taking Silas, Luke and Timothy, sets out on another evangelistic tour whithersoever the Lord may lead him. Having traversed many Asiatic states the Holy Ghost forbids him to preach in Asia from the simple fact that He wants him now to leave the continent of his nativity, where Adam and Eve were created and all the patriarchs and prophets had lived and died, and where our Savior was born, preached His gospel, died for a guilty world and ascended up to Heaven. This is a great new departure in the life of Paul and his comrades. Hence they hesitate to leave Asia, waiting for clear confirmations of the Divine guidance. Pursuant to the heavenly leadership, they travel westward to Troas on the sea-coast.

There all incertitude as to the Divine leadership is dissipated by the notable nightly vision of a Macedonian man standing on the heights of Europe far away beyond the dark deep sea, calling them to a land they had never seen and which their fathers had never known. Unhesitatingly they look out for a ship, embark for Europe, in due time landing at Neapolis, travel a dozen miles into the interior, reaching Philippi, the Roman capital of Macedonia, where they find their first open door to preach the European gospel to the children of Japheth, the ancestor of the white races, in a private Jewish synagogue conducted by Lydia and other Jewish women, thus founding the first Christian church in Europe, the alma mater of all the European and American churches. Having suffered terribly at the hands of the mob and witnessed the earthquake deliverance, they proceed southward one hundred miles to Thessalonica, the metropolis of Southern Macedonia. There Paul remains three weeks witnessing the mighty works of God, but forced to fly for his life, leaving Timothy to perpetuate the work. Traveling south fiftyseven miles he finds a synagogue of extraordinarily pious Jews at Berea, where instead of dividing over the new doctrine, i .e ., the Christhood of Jesus, they unanimously fall in line to the infinite joy of the apostle, who pretty soon finds it necessary again to retreat from his enemies, who had come from Thessalonica, leaving Silas and Timothy (who had followed on) to prosecute the work. Now the brethren escort Paul, accompanied by Luke, far down south to Athens, the celebrated capital of Greece, where poetry, philosophy, oratory, the fine arts and military genius shone with a brilliancy eclipsing all the world beside. No city on the globe was so adorned with the finest marble temples, shrines, altars and statues erected to the gods of all the earth, with whom the Greeks had become acquainted when they conquered the world under the leadership of their own Alexander. They wanted to appropriate all the gods in the universe, so they would certainly be on the safe side. Now Paul spends all the week in the Forum preaching to the thronging multitudes, and the Sabbath in the Jewish synagogue. As Athens stood at the head of the educational world, they had the most learned council in the whole earth, assembled on the lofty heights of the Areopagus overlooking the city. This grave assembly consisted of philosophers, orators, scholars, poets, artists, geniuses and heroes. As Athens aspired to be the world’s umpire, everything new and strange in literature, philosophy and religion was relegated to this magnanimous synod. Ere long the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, hearing Paul in the Forum, lead him up the heights of the Areopagus and place him in the midst of this cultured conclave, who now request him to deliver the new and strange doctrines which he had been preaching in the Forum. Very judiciously though conscientiously he courts their favor in his introductory: “I perceive that you are very religious” [not “too superstitious,” as E.V.], thus complimenting them, as they prided themselves in the worship of all the gods. “Passing through and seeing your devotions” [i .e ., temples, shrines, altars and statues of the different Grecian gods], “I observe also a temple erected to the ‘Unknown God’; whom you ignorantly worship Him, declare I unto you” — i .e ., I find you have thought enough of this God to build Him a temple, though you are not acquainted with Him. I am happy to say that I am acquainted with Him, and it is my good pleasure to tell you about Him.” All this delighted the Athenian philosophers; but when Paul goes on to tell them that this “Unknown God” is the only true God in all the world, and that he “does not dwell in temples made with hands, neither does he need anything,” and that all of these other great Grecian gods, in the erection of whose magnificent marble temples they have expended multiplied millions of dollars, are all fictions of the imagination, this sorely displeases them. Then when he tells them that all of the dead people from the beginning of the world are going to rise again and live forever — the good in infinite bliss and the bad in misery ineffable — they become totally disgusted, and reject his new doctrine as utterly false and untenable. This winds up his ministry at the world’s literary metropolis. There was too much learning for him to succeed at Athens. Knowledge is power, whether for good or evil. Hence the importance of saving people before you educate them, from the simple fact that their education is a citadel of power, whether for good or evil. With the wicked this strong fortress is occupied by Satan, who must be ousted before the soul can be saved. Hence it is easier to convert a hundred illiterate sinners than one learned infidel. From Athens Paul travels on southwest, arriving at Corinth, I know, in the fall of A.D., and remaining until the spring of 54 A.D., in these eighteen months building up the largest and most gifted church of his ministry; thus his greatest success following his most signal defeat at Athens. Corinth stood on a beautiful fertile plain lying immediately south of the Isthmus of Corinth connecting Achaia with the mainland of Greece, and separating the Ionian Sea on the west from the Aegean Sea on the east, thus through these two seas commanding the commerce of the known world. Besides, Corinth was the metropolis of all Southern Greece, nestling amid the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Ionian and Aegean seas, with the innumerable islands of the Grecian Archipelago lying near by. So the commerce of all this fertile and accessible region, blessed with a semitropical climate and abounding in a vast variety of luscious fruits, poured its commercial resources into Corinth, thus building it up into one of the first cities of the age, really the “Paris” of the ancient world, the exponent of style and fashion, the emporium of the fine arts, literature and commerce of all Southern Greece.

As every ancient city was located in view of military security, Corinth was built on that beautiful fertile plain lying between two seas and at the base of the Acro-Corinthus, a huge precipitous mountain five miles in compass, rearing its lofty height and looking down upon the magnificent city.

Many of the fortifications on this mountain are still standing, conspicuous afar. When the Roman Empire was conquered by the Goths, Huns and Vandals in the fifth century, Corinth, like Athens and other magnificent cities in the sunny south, was captured and spoilated by the barbarians, many of the more valuable specimens of the fine arts having ere this been transported to Rome. During the Dark Ages the spoilations continued until the former magnificence almost utterly disappeared. Since the independence of Greece over the Turks (1832), Athens has progressed from seven thousand to a hundred and fourteen thousand, and been beautifully and substantially rebuilt after the style of an American city. Unfortunately, the railroad missed the site of old Corinth three miles, running along over the isthmus and on the bank of the Ionian Sea, where new Corinth is now a rapidly growing city, the old site being utterly abandoned, except a dirty village of about fifty houses hugging the base of the Acro-Corinthus and occupied by the peasantry. When I was there in 1895 the great plain on which the magnificent city stood in Paul’s day was all a wheat field, the golden grain everywhere waving and ready for the harvest. When Paul arrived in Corinth, evidently discouraged by his signal defeat at Athens, he resumes his old trade, a very valuable one in time east, where millions of people spend their lives in tents, never living in a house, i .e ., that of manufacturing tents out of goat’s hair, which was both abundant and cheap, as Greece, like Palestine, swarms with goats; Aquila and Priscilla, faithful Jews, having been driven from Rome by the imperial edict, and being tentmakers also, falling in with Paul and Luke, prosecuting their mechanical arts in partnership, which fortunately resulted in their glorious conversion in the Christhood of Jesus, their happy sanctification and call of God to preach the everlasting gospel. Meanwhile Timothy and Silas are prosecuting the work up in Macedonia, and traveling on over Paul’s track to join him in the south, where going through the week making tents and preaching every Sabbath in the Jewish synagogue, God greatly encourages him in a nightly vision, in which he stands over him and exhorts him to be courageous and preach the Word, that He will protect him from all his enemies, as he has much people in that great city. Those people had not yet been converted, but God knew they would be. Hence anticipatively he speaks of them as His own. When Silas and Timothy arrive, the conflict in the synagogue has well nigh culminated, and very soon the outbreak supervenes, the synagogue dividing, Crispus, the chief ruler, and many others going with Paul, and doubtless the majority rejecting him and driving him out of the synagogue.

The reader must learn to give no attention to the postscripts in E.V., as they are all spurious, e .g ., the one appended to this epistle saying that it was written at Philippi, whereas we learn from the eighth verse of the sixteenth chapter that it was written in Ephesus over in Asia along about Easter, being finished and sent away before Pentecost, which was early in June. Hence, Ephesus was the place and the spring of A. D 57 the time, and Stephanus, Fortunatus and Achaicus the bearers. Paul had been absent from Europe three years, having left Corinth in the spring of 54, after eighteen months constant labor, building up that great and powerful church. Of course, his departure was a matter of necessity in order to look after the work in Asia, which at that time was very extensive and scattered over many different countries. You must remember that Paul had no steam engine to carry him forty miles an hour. By sea he was dependent on the wind and the waves.

Overland he habitually traveled a pedestrian. Hence these three years were occupied in his constant peregrinations “confirming the churches,” i .e ., getting them sanctified and established. The end for which he wrote this and the second epistle was to correct many serious abuses and some obnoxious heresies which had crept. in since he left. You must remember that the larger per cent of the Corinthian membership were Gentiles, having been so recently converted out of heathenism, that the material was somewhat gross and crude. There were also very many Jews in the Corinthian church. It was really a mammoth mongrel of all nationalities, who as well as the Jews had concentrated at this great Grecian metropolis. They were with few exceptions, very poor, belonging to the lower class of society and converted out of the slums, Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, Gains, “the host of Paul and the whole church,” and Erastus, the chamberlain of the city, being about the only exceptions. This great metropolis was a magnetic center of population, the most accessible by sea in the known world, and hence a rendezvous of all nationalities. When Paul went away, A.D. 54, very soon the great and eloquent Apollos arrived, God wonderfully blessing his labors while he sojourned with them, doubtless a considerable time. Peter, the senior of the original twelve, had also been there preaching, much to their edification. Doubtless many other true gospel preachers had been there. Yet you must remember that Satan is the great counterfeiter. In that day as in all ages his counterfeits superabound. There had even been false apostles there ( 2 Corinthians 11:13). Some of these preachers had ventured to inveigh against Paul, calling in question his apostolical authority, pronouncing him an innovator and an interloper, because he was not one of the original twelve, but came in afterward; the same holding up Peter as a true apostle, invested with the legitimate apostolical authority. So had they infringed upon Paul’s influence, even impeaching his apostolical authority and denouncing him as a counterfeit, that he found it necessary to condescend to the very unpleasant duty of defending his apostolical rights, privileges and authority. Besides, some of them had fallen into gross sin, and were tolerated by the church, and others were inflated with spiritual pride seriously detrimental. Having heard of these troubles while in Asia, Paul avails himself of these epistolary communications to correct them, much preferring to do this unpleasant work while absent, hoping that they would repent and get right before his arrival, when, of course, he would be compelled to excommunicate a lot of them. Hence he wrote this letter at Ephesus, not only sending it to them, but sending Timothy, his favorite preacher, Titus and others to preach to them, and do their utmost to correct the heresies, reform the vices and restore the irregularities before his arrival. Passing over the Aegean Sea to Macedonia early in the summer, where he received the report of the brethren returning from Corinth, he also wrote the second epistle, very probably at Berea, going down in person late in the fall. The effect of these epistles was really charming, producing such reformations and reclamations among them, of course augmented by the preaching of Timothy and Titus, whom Paul had sent, that when he arrived he was felicitously relieved of all the unpleasant disciplinary duties which he had sorrowfully anticipated when he wrote the letters. We must remember that this first epistle is really not the first, number one having been lost (chapter 5:9). When we consider the literary, as well as the ministerial, character of Paul, we doubt not but he wrote innumerable personal letters like that to Philemon, nearly all of which have perished. In Colossians he refers to the epistle he wrote to the Laodiceans, which has never been found. Doubtless this first lost letter to the Corinthians was a small communication like that to Philemon.

CHAPTER - 1. “Paul an elect apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God .” “Called” in E.V. impresses the reader that it means “annunciated,” which is really not the meaning. It is a participle from kaleo , “to call,” from which ecclesia , “church,” is derived. Hence it means the call of the Holy Ghost responsive to which we become the elect of God, “nominated” in conversion, “elected” in sanctification ( 1 Peter 1:2), and “crowned” in heaven if faithful to the end. “And Sosthenes our brother.” Here we see that Paul honors Sosthenes even with a place in the authorship of this letter, showing that he was a preacher of the gospel associated with Paul in labor, and evidently standing at the very front. Sosthenes was he who received a flogging in Corinth when chief ruler of the synagogue in the succession of Crispus. Having become a most virulent persecutor of Paul, he with his Jewish comrades had brought him before Gallio, the Roman proconsul of Achaia, for prosecution, and the latter dismissing the case out of court, thus refusing to try Paul, much less punish him, the Gentile multitude, concluding that Sosthenes as prosecutor deserved a thrashing, set on him and gave him a good one ( Acts 18:12-17). As in case of Peter Cartwright beating religion into the big blacksmith, who had flogged and run all of his predecessors out of the circuit, and then he got gloriously converted, became a roaring class leader, and Peter’s right-hand man on the battlefield; it seems that we have a parallel case in the history of Sosthenes, as he is only mentioned in these two passages. In Acts we find him there in Corinth, the chief ruler in the synagogue, doing his utmost to get the governor to kill Paul or run him off, but making a failure and getting a whipping himself. Then the next time we hear of him he is gone away with Paul to Asia on evangelistic work, and associated with him in writing this letter back to his friends and acquaintances who knew him so well in Corinth. Thus wonderful things transpire in the Lord’s battlefield. 2. “To the church of God being in Corinth .” This word ecclesia, from ek , “out,” and kaleo , “to call,” simply means the people who have heard the call of the Holy Ghost, come out of the world and identified themselves with God. This is done only in the supernatural birth of the Holy Spirit. Modern church-joining has done much to deceive and debauch the popular mind, thus alienating the people from the correct apprehension of the essential character of God’s Church. You can not get into it by joining. God’s children are all born into His family, which is His Church. You would as well call a sable Ethiopian a blonde Caucasian as to pronounce a person a member of God’s Church who has not been born from above. It is simply an abuse of language, flatly contradictory of facts and calculated only to deceive and send people to hell. “To those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and have it yet better than ever” this translation is necessary to bring out the force of the Greek perfect tense which here occurs, and unlike the English, which means an action complete in past time and developing a state which continues down to the present, but laying the emphasis on the past. The Greek, having the same definition, lays the emphasis on the present, hence it means that these persons have not only been sanctified in time past, but have it yet better than ever. “To the elect saints,” — E.V., “called to be saints ,” “to be” not in the original. As above explained, we are nominated in conversion and elected in sanctification. We find these two prominent classes addressed in this epistle, i .e ., “the elect saints who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and have it yet better than ever.” Paul first addresses this class as above. Then follows another class, i .e .., “with all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus in every place, theirs and ours.” This class includes all the people who are in a state of grace; not only the converted who are not sanctified, but all truly convicted people, because such call upon the name of the Lord. Hence we find this epistle not only addressed to “the elect saints who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and have it yet better than ever,” but to all of the praying people at Corinth. If you will remember these facts, you will have no trouble in the application of this letter to all of the diversified spiritual grades and classes which follow. 3. This is a very common salutatory benediction peculiar to the Pauline Epistles. 4. Here he gives thanks to God in their behalf in view of His grace conferred on the Corinthian saints. 5. “Because you are enriched in him in all word and knowledge .” The E.V. gives this an active, whereas it has a passive, signification, meaning the simple fact that those Corinthians had the rich and invaluable treasure of God’s complete word and that priceless gift of the Holy Ghost ( Corinthians 12:8) denominated “knowledge.” This spiritual gift means insight into divine truth, the omniscient Revelator revealing to the reader the spiritual meaning of His precious word, which He alone understands.

Hence those Corinthians were wonderfully rich to have all the word and the spiritual knowledge of the same, i .e ., insight into it, illuminated by the Holy Ghost, so they could understand it. 6 , 7 . “As the testimony of Christ is confirmed in you, so that you are deficient in no gift .” The Greek word charisma here occurring is the very identical word used to denote those nine extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost (Ch. 12:8-11). Hence we see that some of them actually possessed all of these spiritual gifts which you find in that catalogue of nine, and which Paul expounds in chapters 12 and 14. “Expecting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,” i .e ., the same personal Jesus whom they had seen with their eyes, and whose voice they had heard with their ears, and whose body they had taken by the hand, having flown up from Mt. Olivet into heaven, is going to come back where we can recognize Him with our physical senses as before His ascension. Paul lived in constant expectancy of His glorious appearing, and made this great fact of the Lord’s return to the earth exceedingly prominent in all of his ministry, as we see unmistakably in every epistle. As we are eighteen hundred years nearer this glorious revelation of Jesus again on the earth, we should be on the constant lookout. 8. “Who will also establish you unto the end unrebukable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ .” What a glorious promise that if we are only true to the grace given, our wonderful Savior will see to the fact that we are washed in the blood, filled with the Spirit, robed and ready to meet our glorious King in the eventful day of His coming. 9. Here we are assured of God’s faithfulness who has called us “into the fellowship of his Son.” This word “fellowship” (koinoonia ) really means the co-partnership of husband and wife in their matrimonial alliance. Hence it involves at once the beautiful and profound problem of the Bridehood. 10. “But I exhort you, brethren, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you may all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you, but that you may be perfected in the same mind and in the same disposition ;” not “judgment,” as E.V., which is a mentality and variant as the diversities of human intellect. We are not to be alike intellectually, but spiritually, in the fact that the Holy Spirit in regeneration has given us the mind of Christ, subduing the carnal mind and utterly destroying it ( Romans 6:6), so that all truly sanctified people have only the mind of Christ, and consequently they all have the same mind and the same disposition, i .e ., they are “meek and lowly in heart” and go about doing good like their Master, yet they are all liable to differ in judgment. In this verse we see that Christian perfection is God’s preventive of ecclesiastical schisms. Perfection is from the Latin facio , “make,” and per , “complete.”

Hence it means “made complete.” Christ came to destroy the works of the devil ( 1 John 3:8). Hence when sin is destroyed we are made perfect, becoming what the New Testament denominates a perfect Christian. Where Christian perfection becomes the normal experience, religious schisms all collapse and evanesce. Hence all the divisions in the kingdom of God were born of depravity and die with it. 11-16. Here he alludes to manifestations of party spirit among them, and a disposition to focalize around a human leader such as Paul, Apollos or Peter. As Paul was their spiritual father, though plain, blunt and rough in his speech and manner, endeavoring to sink away into God so they would see Jesus only, many were disposed to adhere to him because of his spiritual paternity and say, “I am of Paul .” Others, charmed and electrified by the powerful eloquence and irresistible arguments of Apollos, who evidently contrasted with Paul much to the depreciation of the latter, were very strongly disposed to choose him for their leader, while still another class cried out, “I am of Peter,” because he came with the flattering reputation of the senior apostle of our Lord’s own choosing, who had walked by His side three years, and been honored to preach the first gospel sermon on the day of Pentecost; and still others cried out, “I am for Christ .”

Of course these were right; hence we see they had not all fallen into these schisms. You must remember that these divisions were only germinal and never developed into organized parties, as about six thousand have since that day. When we see how Paul put his withering rebuke in the very incipiency of these schismatic tendencies, which have since filled the world with religious denominations — and here he recognizes Christian perfection as the only remedy for the trouble — what an inspiration should this Pauline treatment of the matter give to all Christians to seek perfection, and thus escape from the carnal entanglements of sectarian schisms. 17. “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel .” Here we see clearly and demonstratively that while water baptism in some way or other with reference to quantity, quality, subject, manner, or administrator has been the bone of contention among the religious denominations through all ages, and really the hot-bed of schisms, here you see plainly that, instead of deserving such prominence in the gospel economy, it is in fact no part of the gospel, and never was, but merely incidental to it — right in its place, but no part of the thing itself; hence, utterly unessential to salvation. This is clearly tenorable from Paul’s discrimination between baptism and the gospel. If it had been a part of the gospel, Paul never could have said, “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel,” “not in wisdom of word, in order that the cross of Christ may not be made empty.” Why is the cross the great salient fact in the plan of salvation? Because on it Jesus made the atonement and redeemed the world from sin, death and hell. Such is the historic truth of the cross. Again, because all of His followers must go with Him to the cross, be nailed to it and die; i .e ., just as the humanity in Him, though sinless, died on the cross for sin, so must the sinful humanity in us i .e ., Adam the first, die on the cross; otherwise we never can follow our risen Savior up to heaven. This is the experimental truth of the cross. Hence we find that even Romanism does not make the cross too prominent. It is all right to show it up externally in order that our senses may assist our faith.

But the trouble with them is they stop with the externalities, retaining only the historic doctrine of the cross, having lost sight of the experimental, which is the essence, and is indispensable to salvation. Many Protestants clamor constantly about water baptism, which you see plainly here from this irrefutable truth is no part of the gospel, but merely incidental to it, and hence not necessary to salvation; whereas they make nothing of the cross, which is really everything. 18. “For the word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God .” So long as the wicked are in this world they are in a land of grace, and have a chance to be saved. Hence they have not utterly perished, but are only in a perishing condition. So long as the righteous are in this world they are not finally saved, but are exposed to temptation, still on probation, liable to forfeit all and make eternal shipwreck. Hence they are only in the process of salvation, i .e ., being saved by the blessed Holy Spirit. Regeneration is primary salvation; sanctification, full salvation and glorification, final salvation. 19. “For it has been written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to naught the understanding of the intelligent .” The implication here is directly to worldly wisdom and understanding, which is vain and futile, and destined to come to an end. It belongs to this old ruined creation, which is under the ban of condemnation, it being only a question of time as to when it shall go down. The only hope is in the new creation. The soul is created anew in regeneration, the wreck and ruin of the Fall being fully and finally eliminated in entire sanctification. This old body must go down in mortal dissolution and rise again in the bright glories of the new creation. Even this old world is to go down amid the consuming fires and rise again in the transcendent beauties and fadeless glories of the new creation. 20. “Where is the wise man ?” i .e ., wise man in a general sense. He is simply nowhere; i .e ., his wisdom is all empty vanity. “Where is the scribe ?” i .e ., the wise man among the Jews, as he wrote the Scriptures and they were dependent on him for Bibles. “There were also the teachers in synagogues,” i .e ., the pastors of the churches. But he is nothing in the things of God who is everything, and others only available through him. “Where is the disputer of this age?” i .e , the Greek philosopher. At that time the Greeks stood at the head of the world’s learning. But it is all empty vanity, destitute of substantial and available truth. “Hath not God rendered foolish the wisdom of the world?” This He has done by revealing the true wisdom in the Bible, which exposes the futility of the Greek philosophy and all the wisdom of the world. 21. “For since in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God .” All the mighty researches of deep-thoughted Greece, the magical lore of Egypt, and the contemplative philosophy of the Orient never succeeded in sending a solitary scintillation into the dark realm of man’s true character, origin and destiny. They had the world at their disposal four thousand years before Christ came, and had never reached a syllable of primary truth nor sent a single ray into the problem of salvation. “God was pleased by the foolishness of preaching to save such as believe .” From the standing-point of worldly philosophy, preaching is sheer folly. Truly it is literal foolishness to all the worldly wise, and is bound so to remain. God’s salvation is a Masonic secret to all the uninitiated, and never can be otherwise. You can not explain the Mammoth Cave without going into it; so you can never know anything about the kingdom of God unless you enter it. This you can only do by faith, which is not knowledge, but believing.

So the preaching of the gospel is utterly foolish to the unsaved; yet if they will believe it, they will surely get saved. 22. “Since the Jews ask for miracles .” No wonder, for they were born and cradled amid the supernatural — the Mosaic history of creation, the flood, the plagues of Egypt, the cleaving of the Red Sea, the burning bush, the brazen serpent, the dividing Jordan, and the shouting down of Jericho, the sun and moon standing still until Joshua ended his battle. So the Jews always demanded miracles. “And the Greeks seek wisdom.” The Greeks had no patience with miracles, but discarded them all as superstition, while they boasted of their intellectual power, and inflated themselves with the chimera of studying out everything, vainly believing they were so wonderfully smart that they could reach everything by the power of their intellect and education 23. “But we preach Christ having been crucified .” This constituted the entire curriculum of the Pauline gospel message, i .e ., the Christhood of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, the Shiloh of prophecy, the Redeemer of Israel, and the Savior of the world. The crucifixion, followed by the resurrection and ascension, constituted the grand salient confirmation of His Christhood, exemplifying and illustrating not only the great fact of the vicarious atonement by which a lost world is redeemed, but the ostensible and momentous experimental reality, confirmatory of the irrefutable conclusion that all who would avail themselves of this wonderful expiatory mercy must follow Jesus in the great salient facts of His experimental Christhood, i .e ., to the cross, there to have the sinful Adamic nature in us crucified and destroyed ( Romans 6:6), after the similitude of the sinless Adamic nature in our great Prototype. “To the Jews indeed a stumbling block .” It is a matter of fact that the Jewish church stumbled over the crucifixion of Christ, then and there ejected by Jehovah from the election of grace, and plunging headlong into that awful apostasy which has culminated in infidelity, and even atheism. In a similar manner in all subsequent ages whenever the gospel church has rejected the experimental crucifixion of Adam the first in entire sanctification, which is the work of the Holy Ghost to prepare us for Heaven, in so doing she has grieved Him away ( 1 Thessalonians 4:8), following Judaism in the awful apostasy, plunging headlong into spiritual darkness, worldliness, rationalism and infidelity. “And to the Gentiles foolishness .” The great Gentile world at that time was dominated by the Greek philosophy and Roman power.

Crucifixion on a cross, being the normal capital punishment throughout the universal Roman Empire, standing precisely in lieu of hanging in America, was the shibboleth of popular odium and disgust. Consequently, the very idea that they were to be saved by an obscure man who had been crucified at Jerusalem, under charges of high treason, impressed them as climacteric folly. 24. “But to the elect themselves ” [or the very elect], “both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God .” This is conclusive, from the fact that God’s truly elect, i .e ., those who not only hear the call of the silver trumpet, but gladly and appreciatively respond, nominated as heavenly candidates in regeneration, elected in sanctification ( 1 Peter 1:2), and crowned in glorification — if they do not forfeit spiritual life before they get there — are the only people who truly receive and appreciate Christ. To them He becomes “the power of God and the wisdom of God ,” i .e ., everything we need in this world and the world to come. “Power” in this passage is dynamite, which blows all sin and devils out of the heart, mind and life, giving us complete and eternal triumph in Christ. 25. “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men .” It is a solid matter of fact that this gospel of God, which is an object of universal ridicule among the worldly wise as contemptuous folly, silly and ridiculous burlesque, after all, in point of true wisdom, infinitesimally transcends all the boasted achievements of worldly wisdom from the days of Cain, the inventor of counterfeit religion and atheistic philosophy, down through the sweep of intervening ages, beclouding in total eclipse the magical lore of Egypt, the boasted wisdom of Oriental Magi, the metaphysical lore of Greece and the lofty dictations of didactic Rome. “And the weakness of God is stronger than men .” The Christian religion in all ages has been denominated mental weakness. The worldly churches with their boasted college culture, and the mighty eloquence of the modern pulpit, join in with a besotted world in the relegation of true Holy Ghost religion to the uncultured rabble and the illiterate lay preachers, thus turning away from the true life and power of vital Christianity, as manifested in the present Holiness Movement, with contempt and disgust, since they are too intellectual, refined and cultured to condescend to seek and appreciate a shouting experience down in the straw or the sawdust of a holiness camp meeting. Amid all their ridicule and contumely it is a demonstrated fact that the illiterate sanctified people, in contrast of true wisdom, i .e ., a knowledge of God, the Bible and experimental salvation, have in all ages thrown a cloud of total eclipse over all the lofty pretensions of proud churchism and cultured clergy, as well as the boasted assumptions of infidelity and atheism. 26. “For behold your calling, brethren, because not many wise after the flesh .” Jesus said, “The poor have the gospel preached unto them.” When the prophets and teachers at Antioch, responsive to the call of the Holy Ghost, sent out Barnabas and Paul to evangelize the heathen world, they laid but one embargo on them, and that was “to remember the poor,” which Paul certifies that “they were always diligent to perform.” The Lord’s people have always been among the lowly of this world, and doubtless always will be. During this dark age of Satan’s reign ( 2 Corinthians 4:4), the rich possess this world, and are so well satisfied with it that it is a miracle of grace for one of them to seek the world to come. As the poor have neither possessions nor emoluments to wed them to this world, they are the people who hail the gospel as a feast, rally under the banner of King Jesus, shout the battle cry, and aspire to a home in Heaven, which they never were able to possess on earth. “Not many influential.” It is a significant fact that the influential people in State and Church, as a rule, are not the custodians of the Heavenly treasury, but the contemners of perfect humility, radical unworldliness, intrinsic holiness, and a meek and unpretentious life, such as Jesus lived. When the Holiness Movement becomes “influential,” like Samson, she has left her locks of spiritual power in the lap of the world’s Delilah, and taken the fatal plunge into spiritual darkness, hopelessly gone in the track of fallen Protestantism, Romanism and Judaism. “Not many well born.” To find a European nobleman, an Asiatic nabob, or an American millionaire truly devout, humble, holy, meek and lowly, like the Man of Galilee, would create a sensation in popular journalism like the discovery of a planet. 27. “But God elected out the foolish things of the world that he may confound the wise .” We see this Scripture verified in our Savior’s apostles, “unlearned and ignorant men” ( Acts 4:13). He could equally conveniently have put His hand on the champions of Rabbinical and Grecian lore. Why did He select the heralds of salvation from the illiterate and uninfluential rabble? He wanted blank paper on which to write the message of salvation.

The learned clergy would have been under great temptation to mix their human dogmata with the pure message of gospel grace, and thus adulterate it. Again, the popular mind would intuitively attribute the power to the gifted and cultured dispenser of the gospel benefactions, and fail to see the real Divinity in the plan of salvation. Hence Divine wisdom has in all ages utilized the elements regarded as “foolish” in worldly estimation to bear the message of redeeming grace and dying love to earth’s perishing millions. “And the weak things of the world God elected out that he may confound the strong .” When a church becomes strong numerically, financially and influentially, God lets her slide away. He has no more use for her. The Holy Ghost retreats away and leaves her to enjoy her worldly power and glory. You must remember that the Holy Ghost is God in the Church. What an awful evacuation of the Protestant churches by the Holy Ghost in the last twenty years. “He that rejecteth sanctification rejecteth not man but God, who giveth unto you his Holy Spirit.” God gives His Holy Spirit to all His people to sanctify them. When they reject the work, in so doing they reject the worker, and fall into the hands of Satan, who then delights to play off on them, robed as an angel of light, passing himself for God, inflating them with wonderful enthusiasm in church work, thus employing and comforting them in the absence of the Holy Ghost. The churches are apostatizing fearfully in the trend of human power and worldly influence, and equally rapidly forsaken by the Holy Ghost and given over to the delusions of the devil. Consequently God the Holy Ghost is everywhere raising up an army of blood-washed and fire-baptized evangelists, male and female, from hovels of poverty, retreats of ignorance, slums and jungles of iniquity, and sending them out to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ “with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven,” thus rapidly laying in the shade the cultured clergy, who depend on their intellect and education, instead of the omnipotent Galilean. 28. “And the base-born of the world, and those who are despised, God elected out .” This is signally verified this day in many of God’s most efficient soul savers. We are informed that the great George Whitfield belonged to this class, first appearing a little ragged shoeblack serving the students of Oxford University. Incidentally recognizing the wonderful brilliancy of his mental acumen and paradoxical susceptibility of learning, the students taught him his letters and gave him his first start in literature by way of sheer amusement, astounded at the wonderful quickness and perspicacity with which he would catch up and retain every little item they taught him. When preaching at Lowell, Mass., a few days ago I learned that the dust of this wonderful saint rests in the cemetery of a country church at the mouth of the Merrimac River. Oh, what a mighty man was George Whitfield in his day! — unparalleled since the apostolic age. It was nothing uncommon for fifty thousand people to gather, not in a building, as England had none sufficiently capacious, but in an open field, while this champion orator, standing on a scaffold in the center, held them spellbound two solid hours, penitential tears coursing down their cheeks like rivers. He crossed the Atlantic seventeen times, using the English-speaking world in both hemispheres as his field of labor. We cite him and could give others innumerable, literally illustrative of this Scripture. “Things which are not ” (i .e ., nobodies), “in order that he may confound the things which are” (i .e ., the somebodies). Therefore, if you are actually no account and nobody, look out, you are on shouting ground; you are the one whom God delights to use. You are in the most available and auspicious environments. Hence look out for the hand of the Almighty to rest on you, His mighty providence pick you up, and His grace transform you into a world’s wonder. I could write a volume giving brief notices of personal verifications of this Scripture. Revelation Stephen Merritt is accosted by a beggar in New York City asking him for a contribution. The man of God, flooded with the Holy Spirit, at once interviews him in the interest of his soul. The beggar responds: “I am the most unfortunate man you ever saw, just out of eleven years service in the Sing Sing Penitentiary; meanwhile all of my old chums and acquaintances have gotten away, so I am here alone without a friend on the face of the earth; have walked the city two days and nights hunting work in vain, and am starving.” “Oh,” says the man of God, “I am glad I met you. You are actually in the best fix of any man I ever saw. You are nobody, and nothing but a bundle of meanness and shame, having nothing on the face of the earth, no hope for time nor eternity; so you are in the best fix of any man I ever saw, for you are the very man God wants to bless, lift up and honor, thus verifying His glorious redeeming grace, magnifying His mercy and exalting His great name in the earth.” With this introduction the conversation continues, the beggar stating that he had never heard anything about religion or salvation in all his life, born at the bottom of slumdom, brought up in thievery, never having earned an honest dollar; and all the time in the penitentiary, when a Catholic priest came round, playing Protestant, and when the preachers called on him playing Catholic, so he had dodged between them and never in all his life been interviewed in the interest of his soul. Brother Merritt was then in his glory. Oh! how he preached Jesus to him — the sinner’s Friend and the sinners Savior. Down on his knees the preacher prays, the beggar prays, both forgetting the contribution solicited. Brother Merritt goes on his way leaving the beggar in awful agony, like wrestling Jacob, crying to God. As the night watchers tread on their still and dreary march, the bottom of Heaven drops out, flooding his soul with grace and glory. He leaps and runs over the city till day dawns, and, seeing a man coming out to his work, he is again reminded of hunting a job. Therefore, accosting the man: “Ho! ho! don’t you want to hire a hand?” “Where is your recommendation?” “I have none.” “Then I won’t take you.” “I was eleven years —” “Ho! ho! if you have followed any business eleven years, I will take you in.” So the beggar gets a good job, now full of religion and shouting happy; his new boss turning out to be a good Christian, they are mutually delighted. Weeks and months go by. They labor, talk and pray together, and fall much in love, like David and Jonathan. Ere long the beggar ventures to explain what he meant by the eleven years, — that he was going to say eleven years in the penitentiary. “Oh,” says the man, “the Holy Ghost moved me that moment to stop you so that you could get a job; for if I had known that you were just out of eleven years in the penitentiary, I would not have touched you with a fortyfoot pole; but now I want you to stay with me eleven years.” 29. “In order that no flesh may boast before God .” God is jealous of His power, grace and glory, and is certain never to let the devil have it. Men in all ages, manipulated by Satan through human learning, native genius, noble birth, respectability, and money power, have done their utmost to usurp and appropriate the Church of God. They have girdled the globe with their mighty ecclesiasticisms, and resorted to every conceivable stratagem to take the Church of God and run it their own way. They have succeeded to a charm in their own estimation; but in every instance, just about the time of their triumph, God the Holy Ghost retreats away and leaves them the poor old ecclesiastical corpse, now an awful dead expense on their hands, as they have to keep it alive by electricity, and pour out a bushel of money for aromatics to keep down the intolerable fetid effluvia, and expend a princely fortune on plug hats, pigeon-tail coats, silk dresses, flowers, feathers, toothpick shoes, donkey socials, grab-bags, broom drills, ice-cream suppers, strawberry festivals, and Satanic fandangos ad captandum vulgus .

Meanwhile they are thus sweeping along amid climacteric success in their own estimation; they are actually laughing-stocks for devils in Hell, who, as in the case of Dives, delight to lash them with firebrands while their carnal pastor is delivering over their coffins his eloquent and complimentary sermon, preaching them up to Heaven while devils in Hell are kicking them for footballs around the black walls of the pandemonium. While the devil thus girdles the globe with his fallen churches, passes himself for God and sweeps the proud, rich devotees into Hell in platoons, God the Holy Ghost, having quietly retreated away from the great, popular churches, is still carrying on His work among the meek and lowly, “the foolish,” “the weak,” “the base-born,” “the despised,” and the “nobodies.” Hallelujah! 30. “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God was made unto us wisdom and justification and sanctification and redemption .” This wonderful climacteric sentence would be condemned by an English critic as bad grammar. Why? Too many conjunctions. It is a figure of speech peculiar to the Greek language called polysyndeton, which means many conjunctions. Why does the Holy Ghost in this sentence use this polysyndeton? Rest assured He makes no mistakes. The Greek Testament abounds in what an English critic would call grammatical error, from the simple fact that the English language sacrifices precision for elegance, which is never done in the inspired Scriptures, where all other considerations succumb to the grand predominating interest of truth. In this beautiful, wonderful and comprehensive verse the Holy Ghost has effectually fortified His truth against some very fatal heresies, which are this day endeavoring to undermine it. This polysyndeton effectually and eternally annihilates the Zinzendorf heresy that you get it all in conversion, by separately and distinctly specifying the different works of grace, laying them down in their consecutive order. “Wisdom” is here used in its general sense, and means conviction, contrastively with the egregious folly exhibited by the wicked walking straight into Hell. The highest behest of true wisdom is to keep out of danger. We all commend George Washington for his long, frequent, and (in the estimation of his foolish critics) disgraceful retreats before the British army, till the arrival of General Lafayette, in command of the French army, when he fought heroically and achieved American independence, which in the finale was due more to his judicious retreats than chivalric courage. Conviction is superinduced by preaching the Sinai gospel till the wicked get their eyes open, see Hell coming to meet them, and the devil dragging them in, and actually feel a prelude of Hell torment ( <19B603> Psalm 116:3). The reason why the churches are filled up with unsaved people is because they have never had a genuine gospel conviction, which is the foundation of every true work of grace, and without which conversion is impossible. The fact that we have a copulative conjunction here coming between wisdom and righteousness is demonstrative proof that they represent separate and distinct works of grace, i .e ., conviction and justification, wrought by the Holy Ghost.

Righteousness here, which is the true justification, is none other than the righteousness of God in Christ, which is imputed to the sinner when in the profound realization of his utterly ruined condition and his meekness for Hell fire he casts himself in utter desperation on the mercy of God in Christ.

Then the loving Father, for Christ’s sake alone, counts him righteous, i .e ., imputing to him the righteousness of Christ. Oh! what a wonderful Christ we have! He has three righteousnesses one peculiar to His Divinity, and essential to it, which He will ever retain and never impart to you or to me; another peculiar to His humanity, and essential to it, which He will ever retain and never impart to you or to me. Besides, He has a third righteousness arising from His perfect obedience to the Divine law, actively keeping it unbroken forever, and passively dying for it, thus perfectly by His expiatory atonement forever satisfying the violated law in our behalf.

This third righteousness, which is neither essential to His Divinity nor humanity, He procured not for Himself, because He did not need it, but for us, who without it are eternally undone. This is the righteousness which the Father freely imputes to every truly penitent sinner who in utter desperation and self-abandonment, by simple faith, letting go every other hope, casts himself on the mercy of God in