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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 Christ, felicitously realizing his happy soul caught and safe in the arms of Jesus. While all sinners are full of sin, it is equally true that all Christians are sinful (i .e ., having inward tendencies to sin) until they are sanctified wholly. This is admitted by all churches, Papist and Protestant, the only question of controversy being the time and condition of receiving this complete and final expurgation of sinful proclivities out of the heart, Popery locating it in purgatory, hyper- Calvinism in death, and the Word of God now, through faith. The copulative conjunction properly translated, and here intervening between righteousness, i .e ., justification and sanctification, is unanswerable proof that they are separate and distinct works of grace; e .g ., you say husband “and” wife, meaning two distinct persons; horse “and” buggy, meaning not the same but different things; water “and” fire produce steam, meaning two distinct elements, both indispensable in the manufacture of steam. Here the Holy Ghost says “righteousness and sanctification,” the copulative conjunction distinctly revealing two separate works of grace. How we grieve the Holy Ghost, who made this revelation, when we mix up conversion and sanctification in the same work of grace, which always ultimates in the eclipse of the latter. It is the testimony of Christendom that people having been truly born of God, and enjoying the true witness of the Spirit to their adoption, ever and anon realize an inward conflict, “the flesh warring against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh,” so that they may not do the things which they wish ( Galatians 6:17). It is a matter equally incontestably attested by myriads of witnesses, living and dead, that these sinward tendencies have been removed and perfect spiritual liberty enjoyed long before life’s end. About dinner time you speak to your chum, “Is it not time the bell would ring for dinner?” The tavern keeper overhearing you, responds, “Certainly; we always have dinner in this hotel, but do you not know that you ate your dinner along with your breakfast?” You settle with that tavern keeper and leave him at once, knowing that he has concocted a stratagem to cheat you out of your dinner. Equally inconsistent, thousands of preachers this day respond to the people, hungry for sanctification, sick of the inward conflict, and longing for full redemption, “Certainly, beloved; we believe and preach sanctification; that is all right, rest assured; but do you not know that you got sanctified when you were converted?” Good Lord, give you all a lot of the colored preacher’s “sanctifigumption” Then you will know that all this is a trick of the devil through the preacher (whom he has deceived) to cheat you out of your sanctification, which is to be convicted for, sought after, found, witnessed to, and enjoyed as a glorious work of grace, subsequent to and distinct from your conversion. This verse is really invaluable as a schedule of the different works of grace wrought by the Holy Ghost in the plan of salvation, severally and distinctly presented in their consecutive order, hence invaluable as a theological compendium. “Redemption” is also connected with the preceding link in this golden chain by the copulative conjunction “and.” Hence we see it is another separate and distinct work wrought by the Holy Ghost. This redemption means the glorification of humanity, soul, mind and body. There are two methods by which the body enters the glorified state, i .e ., translation, which was evidently the Edenic economy, and will be the prerogative of all the members of the Bridehood in the Rapture, and I know again become prominent during the Millennial ages. The body also will be glorified in the resurrection. The mind enters the glorified state when the soul leaves the body in the physical death, or goes with the body the nigh way of translation. Much Scripture on perfection, ordinarily applied to the perfection of grace in this life, really appertains to the perfection of glory in the “age to come” ( Hebrews 6:5). Justification saves us from guilt, sanctification from depravity, and glorification from infirmity. Multitudes of our unsanctified critics put sanctification where the Bible puts glorification, thus holding the professors of sanctification responsible for the standard of angelic or glorified perfection, which precludes all infirmities, and is not applicable to any person invested in mortal flesh, and which none of us will ever be competent to verify till this mortal puts on immortality. Wesley well says, “While in these bodies we can only think, speak and act through organs of clay.” Hence we are all full of infirmities, liable to a thousand mistakes, doing wrong, aiming to do right. We are constantly incident to mistakes through error of judgment, memory and failure of bodily organs generally. When our Savior was interviewed in reference to the woman who survived her seventh husband, “Whose wife shall she be in the resurrection?” He responded, “There will neither be marrying nor giving in marriage in that day, but all will be as the angels of God.” The Greek translated “as the angels,” is isoi aggelol . Isoi means “like,” or “equal.”

Hence our Savior said that we shall be like the angels and equal to the angels in the resurrection. Hence we see that the glorified state confers angelic perfection, which is entirely different from Christian perfection. In the latter, infirmities abound in the former, they disappear altogether.

Absolute perfection belongs to God only; angelic perfection to the angels and glorified humanity in Heaven, while Christian perfection, free from sin, with Christ crowned in the heart and life, still abounds in infirmities which are not sin, but simply the effects of sin. The small-pox is cured so that your health is perfect; yet you are very ugly, because the scars disfigure you all over your body. The sanctified soul is glorified by the Holy Ghost simultaneously with the evacuation of the body. The countenances of departed saints lying in their coffins frequently shine with supernatural radiance, and reflect an unearthly beauty. It is the splendor of the glorified soul reflected back in the vacated tenement simultaneously with its triumphant exit; like the setting sun anon bespangling the Oriental skies with myriad tints and hues, exhibiting the variegated beauties of the rainbow reflected back while retreating through the golden gates of Hesperus. 31. “In order as has been written: “Let him that glorieth, glory in the Lord .” We see from these Scriptures the absolute necessity of letting the Holy Ghost manage the church in every respect, select the preacher, pastor, elder, deacon, receive the members into the church, sanctify them, and conduct all the services. If the members will not freely volunteer in the testimony, prayer and all other work for the salvation of souls and the glory of God, their place is down at the altar, seeking the Divine blessing and equipage. The regime of humanized, formulated, starchy church services is really an insult to the Holy Ghost, grieving Him away and letting them fall into the hands of the devil. I always have to break it all up, when I begin work in a church, before we can have the Holy Ghost come on the people and start a revival.

CHAPTER - 1. “Indeed having come unto you, brethren, I came not unto you in the excellency of speech or wisdom, proclaiming unto you the testimony of God .” Paul was a double graduate, having graduated in the Greek colleges of Tarsus and the Hebrew universities of Jerusalem, a member of the Sanhedrin, standing at the front of the world, both literary and ecclesiastical. Yet he died to all the majesty and splendor of his former self, coming down to the level of the illiterate fishermen of Galilee. He appears before the people simply “proclaiming the testimony of God .” 2. “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him having been crucified .” The whole Bible is but the biography of Christ — the Old Testament, Christ Excarnate, and the New Testament, Christ Incarnate — while the crucifixion is the grand central culminating fact of the Christhood, for which He vacated His heavenly throne and came to earth that He might redeem her guilty millions from sin, death, and Hell by His expiatory death on the cross. While this is the tragical history of our wonderful Christ, it is really but the primary hemisphere in the gospel school. The globe of salvation’s wondrous scheme must be consummated by the addition of the hemisphere of the experimental to the historical. This can only be done by following Jesus to the rugged cross and permitting the Holy Ghost to nail you fast to it till you suffer, bleed and die, and bury Adam the first so deep into His death ( Romans 6:3) that all the powers of earth and Hell can never resurrect him. 3. “Indeed I was with you in weakness, in fear and in much trembling .”

Many years of hard toiling and terrible exposure had told on his bodily organs so that he was physically weak, and at the same time tremulous with solicitude in their behalf, lest they might reject his message, or, having received it, make shipwreck and be lost world without end. 4. “My speech and my preaching were not in enticing words of wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and dynamite .” Dynamite is the greatest explosive and the most potent mechanical power in the material world. Judiciously did its discoverers, failing to find an adequately significant cognomen in the boundless vocabulary of the English language, go to the New Testament, and in the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, through His servant Paul, find the very word they needed to signify to the world this inconceivable physical miracle. As dynamite blows out everything with which it comes in contact in the material world, so the dynamite of the Holy Ghost blows all sin and all devils out of the human spirit, consummating in entire sanctification and culminating in the resurrection of soul, mind and body world without end. Paul went for “the demonstration and dynamite of the Holy Ghost.” Well are these words coupled together, vividly signifying the Pauline ministry, as dynamite is the most demonstrative thing in the universe, roaring like a volcano, pealing like the most terrific thunder-claps, throwing stones in all directions, and clearing everything before it.

Whenever the gospel ceases to be demonstrative you may suspect a leakage in the vessel. 5. “In order that your faith may not be in the wisdom of men, but in the dynamite of God .” Popular evangelism, with its superficial artistic methods, is prominent amid the withering curses which blight the fallen churches at the present day, gathering in vast multitudes of unconverted people to hang a dead weight on the ecclesiastical wheel, not only stopping the machinery, but reversing the power and running it down to Hell. This arises from the fact that they are converted to the evangelist, and not to God. So when the preacher goes away their religion is gone, and their “last state worse than the first,” “because their faith stood not in the power of God,” but in the wisdom of the magnetic speaker who conducted the socalled revival. There is no danger of these unhappy results if, like Paul, we will give up all human machinery and machination, eloquence, claptrap and manipulation, look the people squarely in the face, take Mt. Sinai for our pulpit, ask God Almighty to furnish thunder-bolts and earthquakes, and be courageous to hurl and heave them fearlessly at men and devils, sparing sin neither in pulpit nor pew, among the churchly bon-tons nor social uppertens, thus fighting sin and devils like a dog in a yellow-jacket’s nest fighting for his life. In that case, you will render yourself so odious to fallen humanity, repellent to carnality, abominable to pseudo-Christianity, and antagonistical to the devil and all his coadjutors, that you may rest assured that nobody is going to put faith in you. If anybody, in that case, is converted under your ministry, it will be God that does it, for they will all feel like hanging you instead of becoming your disciple. Remember, the true gospel is irreconcilably obnoxious and intolerably repellent to carnality in all its forms and phases, slaying human pride, even though it be church pride (which is of the devil), without distinction or mercy. Hence a popular gospel is always diabolical. 6. “We speak wisdom among the perfect .” “Perfect” is from the Latin per , “complete,” and facio , “make.” Hence it simply means “made complete,” i .e ., Christ has done a complete work in you. What is the work of Christ? “He came to destroy the works of the devil” ( 1 John 3:8).

All sin is the work of the devil. Therefore He came to destroy all sin. Since He is omnipotent, He is certainly abundantly able to do it. When that work is done in your heart, then you are what the Bible calls a perfect Christian.

Perhaps you are but a babe in Christ, and have much to learn before you progress into spiritual adult age. “And not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are destined to come to naught .” This belongs to the Satanic ages of the world, which began with the Fall and will wind up with the Tribulation. “I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit” ( Daniel 7:9).

In this and many other prophecies in the Old and New Testaments we see a corroboration of the Pauline prediction in this verse, setting forth the fact that the dominion of the world’s rulers, both political and ecclesiastical, is simply conterminous with Satan’s reign upon the earth. He is the god of this world ( 2 Corinthians 4:4), ruling it through his human subordinates.

When he is cast out ( Revelation 20) all of his Myrmidons will go out simultaneously with the toppling and falling of all human thrones, amid the awful retributive judgments of the Ancient of days, who will come down in the great Tribulation, shaking every usurper from His throne ( Acts 2:35), and thus preparing all the world for the coronation of His Son, King of kings and Lord of lords. 7. “But we speak the wisdom of God which has been hidden in a mystery, which God before the ages predestined unto our glory .” Of course the knowledge of God is absolutely illimitable. “Whom he did foreknow he did also predestinate” ( Romans 9:28).

Hence we see the predestination is a corollary of the foreknowledge. Our choice is perfectly free and untrammeled. Yet God foreknows our decision, and appoints our destiny accordingly. It is our prerogative to receive the Bible as it is, and our glorious privilege to believe it all, whether we can satisfactorily comprehend the deep things of God or not. It is the very climax of rationalistic infidelity for us to reject the plain revelation of God simply because our poor little gourd-heads can not comprehend it. Let us remember when we pass beyond the veil we will learn more in a week than we have ever known in all this probationary life. It is very beautiful and inspiring to contemplate and recognize the fact that God, before the ages began their flight, saw me, commended my choice of the good way, and predestinated unto me the glory of this wonderful salvation which has been the delight of my heart for forty-nine years, and is daily accumulating new brilliancy along my shortening journey to the probationary goal. 8. “Which no one of the princes of this age knew: for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory .” I doubt not but Caiaphas, the high priest of Jerusalem, and the Sanhedrin over whom he presided, in the full approval of their consciences, assigned the death-warrant of Jesus Christ, believing it to be their duty and that God was pleased with their decision. The devil had so succeeded in blinding their eyes that they could not see the Christ of God in Jesus of Nazareth. They could only see in him a disturber of the Church, a blasphemer and a traitor. What was the solution? The devil had achieved a complete victory over them, so thoroughly deceiving them that they were actually worshipping him for the God of Israel, faithfully doing his diabolical will, believing that they were doing the will of Jehovah. Has not the world since the Fall, when Satan’s reign superseded the Eden theocracy, been uniformly characterized by that very state of things? Two hundred millions of martyrs have sealed their fate with their blood, every one being put to death under charges of heresy. The leading men of the popular church, as in the case of Christ, became their murderers, and of course killed them in all good conscience, as the preachers killed Jesus, all under the charge of heresy. It is true they were all heretics for a heretic is one who separates, and these martyrs had all separated themselves from the church authorities, whether Jewish, Paganistic, Moslem or Roman Catholic, and these authorities had them put to death. But we know the solution of the whole matter. These great preachers, standing at the head and claiming the right to rule the church, were actually dominated by the devil, deceiving them, passing himself on them for God, and getting them to worship him and do his cruel will, believing that they were doing the will of their loving heavenly Father.

When I was in St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, I saw the bronze statue of St.

Dominique, and an infuriated dog standing by him holding in his mouth a bundle of fagots. That angry dog represents the rage of this saint (really a devil), and the bundle of fagots was to burn the heretics, i .e ., the martyrs.

This saint was canonized for his authorship of the Inquisition. We must not think the world has changed, neither has the devil nor sin. The persecutors of God’s saints in all ages have been so blinded by Satan as to think that God’s people are the devil’s people, while they themselves are the very people whom they think they are persecuting. There is no remedy for this state of things. Spirituality can see carnality, but carnality can not see spirituality. 9. “But as has been written: Those things which eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, and it hath not entered into the heart of man ,” i .e ., “those things which God hath prepared for those who love him .” What are “those things”? Why, they are the deep things of God, the unutterable truths of the Almighty, the sweet, rich and unearthly things of the heavenly kingdom, the transcendent glories of the “coming age,” the supernal and unutterable realities of spiritual life, immortality and ineffable glory. A popular mistake has generally prevailed in reference to the allusions of this verse, i .e ., that we have to die to receive these revelations. This delusion is swept away by the next verse. 10. “But God hath revealed them unto us through the Spirit .” From this verse we see that the wonderful, invisible, inaudible and inconceivable glories of verse 9 are actually within our reach, not only in the world to come, but at the present time. The apostle now proceeds to a more ample revelation, touching these wonders which are unutterable and indescribable in human language, and can only be revealed to the human spirit by the Holy Spirit. While these Divine beauties, entities, profundities, altitudes, latitudes, longitudes and realities are revealed by the Holy Spirit to the human spirit, they are after all too heavenly to be uttered or communicated by mortal language, so I am now running into something better and easier experienced and felt than told, all language being utterly impoverished in the attempt to reveal these infinitesimal beauties, majesties, wonders, sweetness and glory. “For the Spirit searcheth all things, even the deep things of God .” These “deep things of God” in beauty, sweetness, spiritual fascination and delectation have captured and enraptured the saints of all ages. For them the martyr has gladly hugged the burning stake and sung his death song amid devouring flames. They made the dismal dungeon of Madame Guyon, which she occupied four years, so bright that she said the very stones shone like rubies. They inspired John Knox to pray bloody Mary off the throne of England till she dropped into eternity. 11. “For what one of men knoweth the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one knoweth the things of God except the Spirit of God .” That verse beautifully illustrates the example by a human being; e .g ., no one knows my affairs but my spirit which dwells in me Neither is it possible for any creature in all the universe to know my affairs, unless my spirit make the revelation. Hence you see the utter impossibility for an one to know the “things of God except the Spirit of God who dwells in him,” and those to whom He makes the revelation. Since God is the only source of wisdom, knowledge, life and happiness for time and eternity, hence we all participate in those things proportionately as they are revealed to us by the Holy Ghost. It is utterly impossible for you to receive them by your intellect, because the intellect can only cognize human resources, which are utterly alien and infinitely inferior to the Divine. 12-13. “But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, in order that we may perceive the things which have been graciously conferred upon us of God. Which things indeed we speak not in the instructing words of human wisdom, but in the instructing words of the Spirit, expounding spiritual things to spiritual people .” Verily, our expositions of spiritual things are available only to spiritual people; who are so few in proportion to the population that out of a whole city we do well if we find a band of a few dozen who are spiritual enough to receive the Word of God, appreciate and utilize it, and profit thereby. It is in vain to expound these deep spiritual truths to the wicked, from the simple fact that a dead man will not eat his dinner; meanwhile we have but little encouragement with unsanctified Christians, from the simple fact that toothless babes can not feast on the “fatted calf.” We observe a most deplorable phenomenon in the churches relative to this great truth. An ex-India missionary said in my Bible readings in Seattle, Washington, that the heathens of India know more about the Bible than the Christians of America, from the simple fact that the missionaries conduct a Bible school daily, which the natives attend and receive instructions from the precious Word expository of the redemptive scheme, while in America they have nothing but the poor little degospelized Sunday sermonettes, so diluted with everything except the gospel that the people who are dependent on them literally famish for the “bread of life.” Suppose a city pastor of five hundred members should announce on Sunday a daily Bible school. I trow he would find himself teaching to empty walls and naked seats. The only chance is to begin at the foundation, use his membership as a missionary population and get them saved, proceeding after the apostolic manner with the school of Christ, daily feeding them on the “bread of life,” and building them up in the “deep things of God.” In that case he must of necessity lop off that routine of unscriptural institutions, invented by a fallen church in the vain attempt to substitute the Holy Ghost, who has been grieved away because they disobeyed Him and took the meetings out of His hands. These carnal institutions, worshipping paltry pelf, as if our God were poor, have taken all the time which God has given the people to study and be taught His precious Word, and to dive down into the deep things of God. Why will we not all lop them off, since they are not only useless, but injurious, and return to New Testament simplicity, and all delight ourselves in the school of Christ, studying God’s precious and wonderful truth, and sinking deeper and deeper into the “deep things of God”? 14. “The intellectual man discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned .” The word psychicus I here translate “intellectual,” from psychee , “the soul,” or “the mind,” which consists of the intellect, the judgment, the memory and the sensibilities; of which the intellect is the most prominent, and I suppose the most important. The truth of the matter is, we have no English word competent to convey the idea of the Greek psychicus , unless we Anglicize it and use the word psychical, which would be about as obscure as the Greek. Man is a trinity, according to Paul and Wesley, consisting of the pneuma , “spirit”; psyche , “soul,” and the soma , “body.” Thus he is a three-story building. The devil is very fond of blowing off the third story, in which case he becomes a demonized brute, or, rather, a brutalized demon. This follows as a legitimate sequence from the fact that the human spirit is the element on which the Holy Spirit operates, and through it reaches the mind and body. Hence, in the case of the unpardonable sin, the third story is blown off by the devil. An animal has a mind and body, but no spirit. Hence you can not possibly teach a horse or an ox anything about God, however much you may teach him about temporal things. The human spirit consists of the conscience, with affections or heart. The conscience survived the Fall, the voice of God in the soul; yet, in the case of impenitent sinners and deluded professors of Christianity, usurped by Satan, who is so fond of speaking through God’s telephone, and deceiving the people, as in the case of Paul, who lived in all good conscience while a vile persecutor, but after his conversion his conscience bare him witness in the Holy Ghost ( Romans 9:1), which never occurred before the light broke on him on the Damascus road. The conscience of the sinner is on God’s side in conviction. 1 Timothy 4:2, “Having their conscience seared with a hot iron,” does not refer to men, as in E.V., but to those demons. This is a reason no evil spirit can be saved.

They have no foundation, as man has with his guilty conscience, condemning him when he sins. The fearfully rapid multiplication of infidels is a prominent fulfillment of latter-day prophecies, ripening this wicked world for destruction. The effect of infidelity is to take off that third story, and put people where they are brutish with reference to God. In conversion, the will passes out of the hands of Satan to God; yet native evil abides (though subjugated) in the deep interior of the affections, i .e ., the heart, until utterly expurgated by the cleansing blood and the refining fires of sanctification. The psychee , the “soul” or “mind,” includes the intellect — judgment, memory and the sensibility. Hence this word psychicus . In E.V. “natural” is the adjective corresponding with the noun psyche , “the soul,” which has so many faculties that we cannot find any single word adequate to a full translation. In Jude 19 the same word is translated “sensual” in the E.V., which evidently is too low a meaning. In the Fall, death only supervened to the human spirit. If it had reached the mind, men would have become idiots; if the body, they would have dropped dead in their tracks.

The great majority of theologians have always been dichotomists, i .e ., dualists, believing in the two natures of man. Hence they have girdled the world with materialistic and intellectual religions; e .g ., Paganism, Mohammedanism, Judaism, Mormonism, the Greek Church, and fallen Protestantism without spirituality, which is the essential element of God’s religion. Paul, Wesley, and all true exegetes, have always been trichotomists, i .e ., Trinitarians, believing in the three natures of man, i .e ., spirit, soul (or mind), and body. Since the spirit was deprived of Divine life in the Fall, the true salvation must begin with the resurrection, i .e ., the regeneration of the Holy Ghost. Whereas all of these systems built on dichotomy leave out spirituality, and are independent of the Holy Spirit, as they build their ecclesiastical superstructures on the residuum of mentality and materiality, which survived the Fall. Hence, in their experiences, they dispense with the supernatural, or, rather, they have no experiences. With all their towering intellects and theological lore, they never can know the things of God, from the simple fact that they are not intellectual, but spiritual, and can only be spiritually discerned. These men are spiritually dead. A dead man does not discern anything, hence it is as impossible for the unspiritual, however intellectual and educated, to discern the things of God as it is for the horse to fly like the eagle. He has members well adapted to walking, but utterly incapable of flying. Hence none but the spiritual, i .e ., those who have been quickened into Divine life by the Holy Spirit, can possibly discern “the things of God.” Thus we have the human trinity — the pneuma , “spirit”; psychee , “soul” (or “mind”), and soma , “body.” The spirit is the man himself, the mind (or soul) and body being his appurtenances. The spirit is so called because homogeneous to the Holy Spirit, and constituting the doorway into the complicated labyrinth of humanity, the Holy Spirit entering the human spirit and then passing on into the mind and body, primarily assimilating the spirit to Himself and then lifting up the mind, with all its complicated machinery of intellect, judgment, memory and sensibilities, assimilating and subsidizing them to His heavenly administration; finally reaching the body and elevating it to the lofty plane of sanctified intelligence, thus triumphantly delivering it from every trend toward sensuality, debauchery and brutal selfishness, and making it truly the temple of the Holy Ghost. Every human spirit is either dominated by the Holy Ghost or one or more demons. In the case of grieving away the Holy Spirit, ultimating in His final departure, the demons come in and take possession of their victim, doing their utmost primarily to effectually lock the door against the future ingress Of the Holy Spirit, thus obliterating all apprehensions of God and susceptibilities of conviction.

Then the demon fortifies himself in that human spirit which he has dragged down to the devil’s dirty level, by subsidizing the mind, darkening the intellect, warping the judgment, polluting the memory and debauching the sensibilities, so that all the mental faculties, with their educational enduements, become but the filthy implements of the indwelling demon.

Finally, through the foul spirit and debauched mind, he literally captures the body, taking complete possession of all its members and degrading it below the dignity of the irrational brute, using its members as filthy sewers through which to imbibe the very dregs of the bottomless pit. Thus this miserable, God-forsaken victim of sin has his spirit demonized, his mind stygianized, his body brutalized, so that he is really a loathsome, demonized brute. As his bodily members constitute the only avenues of enjoyment, of course, when these are paralyzed in death, the last possibility of fruition, even in the lowest sensual sense, is forever swept away, and the hopeless victim, wrapped eternally in the fiery retributions of disappointed lusts, passions and appetites, is filled with his own Hell, and nothing left but to drop into the burning lake. 15. “The spiritual man discerneth all things, but he himself is discerned by no one .” This corroborates verse 8, which certifies that the murderers of our Savior committed the foul and atrocious deed under a Satanic delusion.

Why? Because those great and learned pastors of the church which God had instituted could not see in Jesus the meek and lowly suffering Savior, dying for a guilty world, though they had read it in the prophecies all their lives.

They could only see in Him a blasphemous disturber of the church, and an enemy to their religion. So it was with the two hundred millions who have followed Him in bloody martyrdom. The church rulers, clergy and laymen, who took their lives, saw in them nothing but fanaticism, heresy and insubordination. If they could have seen the beautiful and lovely grace of God in them they would have been far from hurting them. John Fletcher well says that “perfect love is an angel so beautiful and charming that the devil has to cover it with a bear skin before he can get his Hell hounds to chase it. During all the ages of blood and fire, the martyrs could look right through their carnal persecutors and see the very venom of Hell in them, yet they thought they were right and doing God’s service. This fallen world is irreconcilably opposed to purity, because it is a constant and withering rebuke to the impure. For this reason, when God sent his own pure and spotless Son into the world, they would not even let him live on the earth.

His presence was a constant withering and scathing rebuke to the corrupt people of this fallen world. The true saints of all ages have had the spirit Christ manifest and predominant in their lives. For this reason the counterfeit saints, who are ignorant of purity, and rebuked and insulted by its profession, have made it a rule, so far as they could, to destroy all the people on the earth who had the spirit of God’s pure and holy Son. They do not persecute them with the understanding that they are good people, but believing that they are bad, because out of harmony with themselves, whom Satan has deluded with the idea that they are the people of God. There is no possible remedy for this irreconcilable antagonism. Jesus could not help it, but submitted to it while they nailed Him to the cross. If Omnipotence should interfere with the human will, He would dehumanize us, and defeat the very end of creation. This irreconcilable disharmony and irrepressible conflict between spirituality and carnality is bound to continue so long as Satan is in the world. This verse unlocks the whole mystery. Spiritual people see and read the carnal like we read books; yet the carnal can not see the spiritual, from the simple fact that their spiritual eyes are not opened.

There never was an age in which ecclesiastical ostracism was more rife than at present, and doubtless will increase to the end of the “Gentile times,” which is certainly very nigh. This ostracism and clerical autocracy is the same spirit and in the same place which killed Jesus and all the martyrs. It is only now held in check by the civil law. 16. “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, who shall give him counsel? But we have the mind of Christ .” This verse tells the deep secret.

As no one but the spirit which dwells in a man can know the affairs of that man, unless his spirit reveals them, even so no one but the Spirit of God knows the things of God (verse 11); hence the people who have not the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, which is peculiar only to the wholly sanctified, can not possibly know the mind of the Lord. You are surrounded by a grave council of men, pre-eminent for intelligence, learning and official position, yet they are as ignorant of the Lord’s mind in reference to the matter under consideration as the illiterate Hottentot, if the things of God have not been revealed to them by the Holy Spirit. Truly spiritual people have the mind of Christ only. The wicked have but one mind, and that is a bad one. The wholly sanctified have but one mind, and that is the mind of Christ; while unsanctified Christians have the carnal mind in a subjugated state, and the mind of Christ in its incipient manifestation. Hence they are the “double minded” people ( James 1:4 and 4:8); while wholly sanctified people, having been completely delivered from the last and least remains of the carnal mind, have the mind of Christ constantly abiding in them; yet it is their privilege to receive the especial intent of the Lord in every emergency of probationary life, revealed to them by the Holy Spirit. It is nonsense to depend on human wisdom, as the mind of the Lord can not be reached in that way. No one can go up to the court of Heaven, and there ascertain the mind of the Lord with reference to any special matter. For this reason human counsel, independent of the Divine mind, is an utter failure, from the simple fact that the combined wisdom and learning of the world can never ascertain the mind of the Lord in a solitary instance. Then what shall we do? Why, the Holy Ghost is right here with us. He is none other than the Spirit of the Lord. Just as my spirit knows all about my mind and my affairs, and is the only being in all the world that does know, so the Holy Spirit alone knows the mind of the Lord, the “things of God.” Hence He alone can reveal them. If you do not have the mind of the Lord in all of your enterprises, aspirations and labors, you are moving at random. Here we have it positively revealed in these Scriptures that none but the truly spiritual can know the mind of the Lord.

Here you see the reason why churches cease to be the light, life and power of God. They are usurped and conducted by carnal people, who can not know the mind of the Lord. The result is, the church is turned over to the devil, and becomes a persecutor of the Lord’s true people. The New Testament clearly specifies that all the church officers, even the deacons, who have charge, not only of the spiritual interests, but also the temporal, e .g ., feeding the preachers and the poor, are to be filled with the Holy Ghost and wisdom, i .e ., not only sanctified wholly, but endued with that spiritual gift (Ch. 12:8) called “wisdom,” and indispensable to qualify them for the duties of their office; while the episcopos , “bishop,” i .e ., pastor, leader of the band, having charge of the spiritual interests, is not only to be filled with the Holy Ghost, i .e ., sanctified wholly, but endued with such spiritual gifts as qualify him for his work, especially that of “prophecy” (Ch. 12:10). While the Holy Ghost is sole arbiter and ruler of God’s Church, He prosecutes His administration through His Spiritfilled officers, i .e ., the bishop or pastor having charge of the spiritual interest, the deacons in charge of the temporal interest, and elders in charge of the general interest; all of these truly “spiritual,” i .e ., filled with the Spirit, and thus qualified to receive from the Holy Ghost the mind of the Lord in every case, which is always in perfect harmony with His Word and Providence. Thus God has provided a perfect organization for His Church, so that it shall never go out of the hands of the Holy Ghost. If you want to see the glory of God and a Heaven on earth, just try this New Testament economy of running the church in the clear and unequivocal leadership of the Holy Ghost, through the Spirit-filled people to whom He incessantly reveals the mind of Christ, honoring and utilizing His infallible revealed Word, and harmonizing with current providential environments.

CHAPTER - SPIRITUAL BABYHOOD 1. “And, brethren, I was not able to speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even babes in Christ .” The class of the Corinthian church here addressed are most assuredly regenerated people, because they are here recognized as the children of God, i .e ., “babes in Christ”; yet they did not rank as spiritual, but were yet carnal. 2. “I have fed you with milk, and not meat; for ye were not yet able. But neither are ye yet now able : 3. “For ye are yet carnal .” No human sophistry can possibly evade the truth here revealed. The Holy Ghost repeatedly affirms that these Christians are carnal and have never been otherwise, several times using the adverb “yet,” denoting positively that they had been carnal from the beginning. Oh! we have need to go into the churches today and shout aloud, like Paul: “Ye are yet carnal.” It is superfluous here to state to the intelligent reader that there were a diversity of people in that great Corinthian church consisting of many Jews and Gentiles. While many of them were not only sanctified wholly, and addressed as “elect saints,” here is another class, and doubtless not a few, who had never progressed out of spiritual babyhood. As they had not cut their teeth, they could not eat solid food, but, like millions nowadays, were dependent on sucking bottles. “For where there is envy and strife among you, are you not carnal and walking about like men? 4. “For when one may say, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not men ? 5. “And what is Paul, what is Apollos, but ministers through whom ye believed as the Lord gave to each one ?” Of course Paul had his admirers as their spiritual father and founder of their church, while Apollos had won them by his wonderful eloquence as well as argumentative power; while still others rallied around Peter, the senior apostle, having sojourned with our Lord during His entire earthly ministry, and having been the honored instrument in the inauguration of the Holy Ghost dispensation on the day of Pentecost.

These parties had not crystallized into sects, neither did they in the apostolic age, because all of the apostles, like Paul, turned the battering-rams of inspired truth against every manifestation of that sort. But, oh! what wonderful development this party spirit has received! confusing the world with six thousand religious denominations. Babylon means confusion.

Surely we have it in paradoxical superfluity. It is a shame for a Christian to say: “I am a Methodist,” “I am a Baptist,” “I am a Presbyterian.” If you are and were so born, it is not worth telling, and thus displaying the foibles of your spiritual infancy. Who was John Wesley? Who was John Bunyan?

Who was John Knox? While these noble Johns are the reputed founders of the three great denominations above mentioned, yet it is true these paragon saints had something else to do besides building sectarian temples. They lived heroes, and left the world in triumph. Their unsanctified spiritual children have built up these mammoth ecclesiasticisms. Spiritual adults talk about Jesus instead of sectarian parties. Babyhood is all right in its time.

The tallest saints have all been babies. But babyhood perpetuated means dwarfhood and death. If a baby does not progress into manhood, it either dies or becomes a pitiful stinted dwarf. That is the trouble with the church at the present day. Christendom is not simply in babyhood, but in dwarfhood.

Oh! how I pity the pastors! Instead of commanding an army of giants clothed with shining panoply, roaring the battle shout, and burning for the conflict with the powers of darkness, ready to run the devil out of the country, the poor pastor has on his hands five hundred babies, all wanting the sucking bottle at the same time, bawling and squalling because he can’t wait on them all at once. Quite a lot of them are sick and need constant attention, not a few of them are dead and need coffins and interment; no wonder the devil is everywhere triumphant. He doesn’t care for an army of babies. The New Testament constantly speaks of the two classes, neepioi , i .e ., babes, and the telioi , the perfect or adults. Neither of these states denotes the beginning of existence, but only certain notable and salient epochs thereof. Regeneration makes you a neepios , i .e ., an infant, and sanctification makes you a telios , i .e ., an adult; i .e ., it takes you out of spiritual infancy, removing your depravity which locks you tight in spiritual babyhood. Instead of being the ultimatum of all progress, it is the beginning of grand, glorious and rapid progress. Children must be born before they can be treated for hereditary diseases. These diseases must be removed before they can make rapid growth and become stalwart men. Depravity in the Bible is illustrated by leprosy, a hereditary blood trouble which God alone can heal. It takes the blood of Jesus to remove out of the human spirit that hereditary alient and extricate the taint of inbred sin. Infants born of leprous people so know disease in the beginning; but soon the awful destroyer begins to tell its own sad story. Until inbred sin is removed we are held fast in the disabilities of spiritual infancy. The moment this native evil is extirpated we rank as spiritual adults, and enter at once the stadium of illimitable progress, not only in this life, being unencumbered racers for glory, but to sweep on through all eternity. We see here in these plain statements of Paul that spiritual infancy is characterized by envy and strife and party spirit. That is the trouble with Christendom today. Little rival churches are wasting ammunition fighting each other, while the devil is running at large and gobbling up all. That the experience of sanctification destroys party spirit, envy and strife, and unifies the people of God, is everywhere observable. In our great holiness camps people and preachers of all denominations, races and nationalities are heterogeneously mixed up, and it is impossible to discriminate one from another. In the same pulpit we hear the preachers from the babbling sects of Christendom, and it is impossible to discriminate their theological shibboleths. They are all one in Jesus and lost in God! 6. “I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase : 7. “So neither is he that planteth or he that watereth anything, but God who giveth the increase .” Paul was the first gospel preacher ever at Corinth, and signally honored of God in planting there the largest and most spiritual church of the apostolic age. By the statement “most spiritual,” I mean especially their wonderful and extraordinary enduements with spiritual gifts. Paul having labored there constantly eighteen months, and seen there the mighty works of God, feeling constrained by the calls of duty to his spiritual children in his native land to return to Asia and visit all the multitude of churches founded through his instrumentality, is very soon succeeded at Corinth by Apollos ( Acts 18:27), whom God made a wonderful blessing, not only in the confirmation of the Pauline converts, but in the conversion of many more, especially among the Jews. So Apollos, having arrived after Paul had planted the crop, was signally honored of God in its irrigation. 8. “And he that planteth and he that watereth are one, but each one shall receive his own reward according to his own labor .” What a disposition do we find to honor the revivalist who has been instrumental in the conversion of many, and lose sight of his faithful successors who came on and irrigated the crop, without which it certainly would have died. Lord, save us from worshipping men! We must remember that God Himself is the only efficient worker, and that He uses an infinite diversity of human instrumentality. 9. “For we are God’s fellow laborers .” Oh! what a privilege to be participants with God in the glorious work of saving the world. “Ye are God’s farm .” Do not forget this. Nineteen years after I was converted to God I was all the time under the misapprehension that I was the farmer.

Hence I toiled hard and incessantly, wielding the ax, mattock, spade, shovel, rake, pitchfork and plow, toiling and sweating. Terrible was my conflict with the briars, brambles, black-jack, dwarfed pine, sedge grass, dogfennel, pennyroyal, cockle-burs, Spanish needles and Canada thistles.

Anon I congratulated myself upon victory, and again to my sorrow I found they had the run on me worse than ever. Nineteen years had rolled away.

My eye caught this wonderful statement in the Greek Testament, “Ye are God’s farm.” I soliloquized, “Why! I thought I was the farmer. Oh! how I have been mistaken! If I am the farm, then God is the farmer. Is He not a model in agriculture? Does He want any filth in His farm? Nay, verily, is He not omnipotent? Has He not all power in Heaven and in earth? Does He not speak of the raging sea and rolling worlds? Do not planets, comets, suns, systems, oceans and storms fear and obey His sovereign mandate?

What a little thing for Him to breathe on all this crop of filth that gives me toil, sorrow, aches and pains, and bid it evanesce forever!” About that time I tossed my mattock one way, my spade another, my pitchfork another, and began to leap and shout; my eyes turned heavenward, while a Niagara from the upper ocean inundated my soul, oblivion possessing me as to the enemies which all these years had infested my farm. Ere long I dropped my vision earthward. Behold I the briars, brambles, cockle-burs, Spanish needles and Canada thistles are all withered and dead, black-jack, hazel bushes and dwarfed pines, salt briars all out by the roots and sinking down in a grand bonfire. Behold! my farm was clean. Thirty years have rolled away. The devil has not failed to come back ever and anon with his bag of cockle-burs, Spanish needles and thistle seed swinging round his neck, while he goes on sowing the obnoxious filth broadcast, but the fires of the Holy Ghost, kindled when Jesus baptized my soul with the Holy Ghost and fire, still continue rolling their billows of heavenly flame on all sides. They consume all the obnoxious seeds of inbred sin the devil can possibly sow, transforming them into ashes, which fall upon my soil, adding valuable fertilization; so the devil is in fact running a manure cart much conducively to the enrichment of my soil. Is not this in harmony with God’s Word? “All things work together for good to them that love God” ( Romans 8:28).

Could you have all things and leave the devil out? I know not, for the devil is not only a “thing,” but quite a big “thing.” Do you not know that these terrible conflicts which we have with the strong intellect of Satan rank among the greatest means of grace this side of Heaven? Such is the wonderful redemption of Christ that everything becomes a blessing to God’s true people. “Ye are God’s building .” The foundation is by far the most important part of the house; yet it is not the house. You receive the foundation when you are born from above, but the superstructure of a holy experience was built on it when you were sanctified. I was converted fortynine years ago. Then I received the foundation of the glorious Christian experience I enjoy today. Though I never actually lost my foundation, yet ever and anon it suffered great damage from pelting rains and winter freezes; meanwhile during the summer it became the rendezvous of doleful creatures. Why did I not build the house at once? My money gave out (faith failed) and the mechanics went away. During my boyhood it was a death struggle for me to hold my religion until our campmeeting came on, when I was satisfied I would get a new supply. So I made a raise of money, resumed the work, the foundation being so dilapidated that it had to be taken up and laid over. We get the walls up, it is now weather-boarded; money fails, the mechanics leave, dilapidations ensue, rain pours in, the snow accumulates. After decay has wrought sad havoc, I get into another revival, get some more money, the mechanics come back, the work is resumed, every passer-by waves his hat and say’ Hurrah! we will soon have a house built.” Money again fails and the work is abandoned, and dilapidation ensues. As in former years passers-by groan and say, “What a pity; this house is never going to be finished! It is all a failure, labor lost.”

Ere long I strike a bonanza, get plenty of money, rally all the mechanics; much of the work is so dilapidated that it has to be renewed. This is done, and the whole job in every ramification with life and energy is pushed right on to completion amid the joyous congratulations of the whole town shouting on all sides, “Why! don’t you see that house which has been on hand nineteen years is at last finished in elegant and beautiful style?” You know people don’t live in unfinished houses, incompetent to protect them from the storms of winter and the heat of summer. Now that the house is finished, of course it is to be inhabited. King Jesus is the Proprietor. Now He beautifies it and furnishes it ad libitum and moves in, accompanied by a joyous group of angels. Glory to God! He has come to stay! All was cheer in former years during those periods when the work was going on, i .e ., those revivals when the Holy Ghost came back and resumed His work.

What a pity I ever let the mechanics abandon the work and go away after they first laid the foundation! If I had furnished the money, i .e ., had the faith, they would have pushed it right through to completion soon after the foundation was laid. Then King Jesus would have moved in at once and have given me a Heaven in my soul from that early day. But He will not settle down and abide in an unfinished house. He will stay so long as you use Him as a builder, pushing the work right along to completion. Are you a finished house? If so, Jesus abides in your heart and fills every chamber of your soul. If you have not the clear witness of the Spirit that Jesus is abiding within, rest assured the house is not finished. So turn it over to the Holy Ghost; let Him have the job to execute the work in His own way. Do not meddle with Him. See that your faith does not fail. He is certain to do the work according to your faith. So have faith in Him this moment and incessantly to finish the house and turn the key over to King Jesus, that He may come in and abide forever.

DIVERSITY OF REWARDS 10. “According to the grace of God which was given unto me as a wise master builder I laid the foundation; and another buildeth thereon .” Paul had been instrumental in founding the Corinthian church. Apollos and other God-sent laborers had followed on, lending a helping hand to rear up this stupendous superstructure on the foundation laid by the great apostle to the Gentiles. 11. “For other foundation is no one able to lay except that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ .” He is the impregnable rock on which every soul must build his heavenly superstructure, there being no other alternative except the drifting, sinking sand. 12. “But if any one build on the foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble , 13. “The work of each one shall be made manifest, for the day will reveal it .” The great judgment day, for which all other days were made, will reveal the work of every human being. There are many other days constituting salient and notable epochs in Christian experience, and significantly adumbratory of the final Judgment, “because it is revealed in fire, and the same fire shall prove the work of each one what sort it is.” These are prominent allusions to the fires of the final judgment. This whole earth is to be sanctified by fire ( 2 Peter 3:10), consuming out of it all the effects of sin, utterly cremating it preparatory to its transformation into a new heavenly sphere ( Revelation 21), to be occupied by redeemed saints and unfallen angels forever. This combustion of the earth will be going on during the Judgment, which will be no twenty-four-hours day, but a period adequate to the magnitude of the occasion. Fire throughout the Bible symbolizes purity, and consequently typifies all the castigatory judgments of the Almighty conducively to the purification of humanity and the earth, and the vindication of Divine government. Hence fire is prominently characteristic of the final judgment. 14. “If the work of any one which he has built upon it abides, he shall receive a reward .” You see here that regeneration is the foundation; neither of these representative characters becomes an apostate, because in that case the foundation would be destroyed, which is not true in the transaction here described. On the contrary, the foundation of each one abides, the difference being in the superstructure built on it. The one builds a superstructure consisting of gold, silver and precious stones, which are fire-proof and competent to endure all the seventies of God’s castigatory and scrutinizing judgments, not only in this life, but at the last day. While the other having the same foundation and hence just as good substratum on which to build as his neighbor, instead of using fire-proof materials, builds a house consisting of wood, hay and stubble, all of which are not only very evanescent, but exceedingly combustible. Therefore, in times of fiery trial, he finds his superstructure utterly incompetent to resist the flames. Hence it must go down in ashes, utterly incompetent to endure the seventies of the Divine judgments. 15. “If the work of any one shall be burnt up, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, but truly as through fire .” Here you see the case is clear and lucid: this man whose foundation is all right, for the Holy Ghost laid it, has been truly regenerated, and has as good a foundation as his neighbor who builds on his foundation a fire-proof superstructure. But, unfortunately, this man builds on his foundation a house out of wood, hay and stubble, which he is bound to lose when fiery trials come. Now, it says he shall lose his house — “it shall be utterly consumed,” which is the meaning of the Greek, much stronger than E.V. “But he himself shall be saved through the fire;” i .e ., he shall go to Heaven, but go through the fire, which will burn his house and everything he possesses, so that he will barely escape by the skin of his teeth, leaping out of a second-story window and running away for his life. So we find both of these vividly contrasted characters get to Heaven, the one rich in gold, silver and precious stones, and the other utterly impoverished, but merely squeezing in through the pearly gates, entering Heaven in spiritual infancy, where he must begin de novo to build his heavenly superstructure, which shall continue, tower and brighten through all eternity. Now, who is this man? He is no apostate, for in that case he would have lost his foundation, i .e ., his regeneration. Rest assured, he is the man who, having been truly converted, blessedly born from above, has failed to go on to perfection. He has not been idle: he has built a great mansion, but, unfortunately, made it out of wood, hay and stubble; i .e ., instead of going for holiness to the Lord, bottom-rock sanctification, the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire, Christ crowned within, the fullness of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit, he said, like a noted religious editor recently: “The conversion God gave me in an old log school-house out in the country, when a boy, is good enough for me; I am satisfied with it.” This man is none of your deadheads, as you see he builds a great house. I know he becomes very active in the church, builds fine edifices, is a successful financier, looking after all the (human) institutions of the church. They make him a doctor of divinity, and send him to the general conference. Truly he is no ordinary man. He is beloved and honored by thousands, a popular and acceptable pastor, his Christian and ministerial character is irreproachable. He is Heaven-bound. Justification is a title-deed to Heaven, and holiness before we get there as a necessary qualification. So this good man comes to life’s end. He has not fought holiness, and backslidden in that way, but simply neglected it, holding fast his justification and thinking that it is enough. Here he has a title-deed to Heaven; but he can not go without entire sanctification. Therefore, like all genuine Christians who reach life’s end, and like all infants, he must receive it as the old theologians all tell us, in articulo mortis , i .e ., in the article of death. The fires of the Holy Ghost coming on him, to sanctify him for Heaven, burn up his life-work, which was simply ecclesiastical, socialistic and philanthropic, in its very nature only appertaining to this world, and utterly heterogeneous to the heavenly state. Consequently he loses his life-work, because it will not do for Heaven, but himself, through the fires of the Holy Ghost in a death-bed sanctification, makes his way into Heaven, entering glory in spiritual infancy much as if he had died when a boy, soon after he was converted. Hence you see he has lost the opportunities of this life in the grand curriculum of heavenly holiness and perennial glory which shall constitute the employment and fruition of the saints through all eternity. Quite different was the case of his comrade who got converted at the same altar, but went for radical holiness and entire sanctification with all his might, the theme of his ministry and the battle-cry of his life being “Holiness to the Lord.” Consequently he built upon his foundation a holy experience, and spent his life in the straight line of holiness, making the salvation of sinners and the sanctification of believers his constant theme and lifework. Therefore he actually entered the heavenly state when he got sanctified wholly, and spent his whole life building a heavenly superstructure made out of heavenly materials, fire-proof, waterproof and time-proof. Consequently, when he rises from the battlefield to the mount of victory, the work of his whole life goes with him; is fully recognized in Heaven, valid and satisfactory, and becomes the glorious substratum of the heavenly superstructure which all the saints in glory build on through all eternity, ever towering and brightening, the admiration of angels and archangels, and the song of cherubim and seraphim, while the cycles of eternity speed their flight. “Ye are God’s Temple. ” 16. “Do you not know that ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ?” The Holy Spirit dwells in every sanctified human spirit.

As He is holy, He is unwilling to dwell in anything which is unholy. Hence He will never make you His temple until you let Him sanctify you wholly.

Solomon’s temple beautifully symbolizes the sanctified heart. While they were felling the trees in Mount Lebanon and hewing out the cedar timbers, there was heard a great noise, roar of axes, clangor of saws and crash of the falling trees. All that symbolized the stir and commotion produced by the conviction of the Holy Ghost in the unregenerate heart. Then the temple was built without the sound of a hammer or the clangor of a saw, thus symbolizing the silent lightning of the Holy Ghost in regeneration. After the temple was built, King Solomon, who emblematizes Christ, slaughtered twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep, thus quantity for quality typifying the blood of Jesus, which sanctifies the heart.

After the dedication, i .e ., the sanctification of the temple, by this enormous effusion of blood, God came down and filled it with His presence, manifesting His glory. So your heart, convicted amid the thunders and earthquakes of the Sinai gospel, regenerated by the silent interior work of the Holy Ghost, and sanctified by the precious blood of Jesus, then becomes the temple of the Holy Ghost. He comes in to abide. As your spirit, now the temple of the Holy Ghost, fills your whole body, therefore your body also becomes the temple of the Holy Ghost. If you would have the Holy Ghost take your body for His temple, move in and abide forever, you must “cleanse yourself from all the filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” ( 1 Corinthians 7:1).

Your tobacco, opium, beer, whisky, gluttony, and slovenliness must all go, and go forever. Oh! what a glory to be the temple of the Holy Ghost. 17. “If any one destroy the temple of God, him will God destroy, for the temple of God is holy, which ye are .” There are many ways to destroy soul and body, not only in case of yourself, but others. God claims every human being as his temple. His Son has redeemed every son and daughter of Adam’s race by His precious blood. Hence every word and act, having a sinward tendency, conduces to the destruction of soul and body in Hell.

God’s eye is on everyone. He never forgets anything. Millions of people make their living by destroying others, like whales and sharks devouring the finny tribes of the deep. What awful reckonings in the Judgment Day! 18-19. “Let no one deceive himself: if any one among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may be wise .” This is the age of Satan’s dominion and folly, occupying the dark night between Eden and the Millennium. There is no true wisdom in the present age. The so-called wisdom of this age is nothing but another name for Satan’s folly.

Sanctification is the Millennial experience bringing you faithfully and spiritually into the “age to come” ( Hebrews 6:5), i .e ., the reign of Christ in the heart, a Millennial prelibation. We see from this verse that the first lesson we learned in the school of Christ is that we are fools. Millions stumble over that lesson and never learn it. When that lesson is properly received and understood the future curriculum in the New Jerusalem college becomes easy and delightful. “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness along with God .” Truly this world has been captured by the devil, the great counterfeiter. Consequently everything in it means the opposite of what it says. For it has been written: “He taketh the wise in their own craftiness;” e .g ., Pharaoh pouring out his money to pay Moses’ mother to nurse him, while he had his army out killing all the boy babies, fearing lest some great leader might arise and take Israel out of bondage. 20. “And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are empty .” The wise people of this world wear out their eyes, craze their brains and paralyze their nerves to accumulate the wisdom of the world, which is all empty bosh when they get it, wearing them out, making them prematurely old, bringing down their gray hairs with sorrow to the grave for naught. 21. “So let no one boast among men .” Vainly do the millionaires, scholars and aristocrats of this world boast over the Lord’s poor ignoramuses. They know not what they are doing. We have all things and they are our slaves. “For all things are yours .” 22. “Whether of Paul or Apollos or Peter .” Instead of being silly enough to follow these leaders, as party leaders, thus grieving the Holy Spirit and driving away the light, we should recognize each one of these preachers, with his peculiar gifts and graces, as a valuable spiritual treasure. God has made no two things alike. If Paul, Apollos and Peter were all just alike, the three would only be the equivalent of one. What a glorious blessing they had in Paul, their spiritual father; and so have we, because we are Europeans, and participants of the Pauline gospel established at that time with our ancestors. What an invaluable treasure we have in the masterly intellectual power and tremendous depth of Pauline wisdom, as well as the fire and dynamite flashing from his terrifically rough, plain style! What an invaluable blessing we have in Apollos: his glorious eloquence, iron logic and profound theology which we have in the epistle he wrote to the Hebrews (Volume II). What an unutterable benediction and inspiring uplift we get when we read those red-hot thunderbolts which flash and flame from the Alpha to the Omega of Peter’s epistles! How silly for those unsanctified Corinthians to divide up into parties, some following Paul, some Apollos, and still others Peter, instead of each one taking all of them!

While it is equally silly for the people in our day to be forming parties around Martin Luther, John Calvin, Wesley, and Knox, instead of all following Jesus on a bee-line and praising God for all of these good men whom He has made a blessing to millions. If you are only true to God, He will make everybody and everything a blessing to you. “Whether the world.” Why, certainly this world, bad as it is, is a great blessing to us, furnishing us a glorious and inexhaustible field of labor in which to exemplify Christ, win souls and lay up treasures in Heaven. It is doubtful whether in all the flight of eternal ages we will ever enjoy such a chance to win a crown of glory as this poor, wicked world affords us. “Or life .” Oh, what a blessing is this life! — the embarkation into an eternal existence encompassed with millions of opportunities for achievement and the glorification of God, replete with invaluable probationary privileges, flying from us with the velocity of a weaver’s shuttle, never to return, but destined to meet us with an awful account at the Judgment Bar! “Or death .” Why, certainly physical death, sure and inevitable, is a great blessing to us, a constant terror to all evil-doing and an incessant inspiration to every noble, laudable, philanthropic and holy enterprise. “Or things present .” Everything around us is a constant inspiration to industry, enterprise, holiness, truth, and heroism for God and souls. If we are true to the Holy Ghost, we actually get good out of everything transpiring around us; ministering to us, warning, opportunity, edification, correction and inspiration. “Or things to come .” What wonderful blessings does the future constantly shed down on us! Damnation inspiring us with every incentive to flee the wrath to come, and glorification reaching from the skies blooming festoons of fadeless flowers, revealing fields of splendor and worlds of bliss. “All things are yours ;” 23. “Ye are Christ’s and Christ is God’s .” Everything in the universe is a golden chain binding us to Christ, if duly appreciated and utilized; while Christ is our only way to God, leading suffering humanity back to the loving Heavenly Father they lost in the Fall. Christ has thrown His omnipotent arms around the world, utilizing and sanctifying everything in all the earth to those who will be true to Him. Like all the roads in England leading to London, everything in all the world, viewed in the light of God’s Word, Providence and grace, points to Christ, and He brings all back to the God they lost in the Fall.

CHAPTER - THE APOSTLES BUT THE MINISTERS OF CHRIST 1 , 2 . Here he certifies that they are but the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Therefore it is exceedingly out of place to follow them. If it was glaringly inconsistent for them to follow the apostles, how infinitely more so it is for the people in our day to be following the uninspired denominational leaders! It is a shame. 3-5. He is now striking at those who had impeached his apostolical authority, pronouncing him an innovator or an interloper, because he was not one of the original twelve. Well does he assure them that God, the Judge of all, will settle all of those controversies. 6-8. Here for a matter of mere convenience he applies the controversy to himself and Apollos, shaming those partisans who had been disposed to focalize around a favorite apostle, instead of receiving all possible good from each one of them, and giving God the glory. “In order that you may not be puffed up one in behalf of one against another .” Well does he impute the party spirit manifested to pride, that old mother sin down in the deep interior of the heart, which nothing but the sanctifying fire of the Holy Ghost can exterminate, substituting for it perfect humility. Paul knew that if they were perfectly humble they would simply love all their preachers with perfect love, and praise God for all the good they saw in each one, and go ahead, following Jesus only. He now indulges in some withering irony, castigating them severely for their party spirit. While the Aegean Sea rolled between them, he does his best to correct their errors, follies and apostasies before he meets them face to face. 9. “For I think that God has manifested forth us apostles, lashed, as it were, exposed to death, because we became a theater to the world, to angels and to men .” Having above scathingly withered their spiritual pride by his cutting irony, referring to them as enjoying regal splendor, he swings to the opposite pole of the battery, intensifying the contrast between pride and humility by describing the extremely low and humble estate of the apostles, the representatives of perfect humility. They are daily exposed to martyrdom. The word translated “gazing-stock” in the E.V. is theatron , i .e ., theater, the same Greek word used in the English language. This is quite significant. The true, real, free spiritual gospel effects Satan’s rabble just like a theater, as they are utterly blind to the spiritual side of it, and only see the curious, the ludicrous, tragical and comical. When I was preaching in Cincinnati fifteen years ago, a German youth, a born infidel, with a very hard infidel father, one of those bright young fellows born to rule, was reveling in a life of frolic and fun, the recognized leader of a great rowdy band both male and female. Having never been inside of a church, as his father had taught him that it was all hypocrisy and humbuggery, accidentally entering Grace Methodist Church, where Dr. Watson was conducting a wonderful revival, he is literally electrified with the novelty and curiosity. He at once writes a card to each member of his rowdy band, “Come at once, for there is a thing running here that beats the theater out of sight, and does not cost you one cent.” Immediately they pour in. Their champion, a little Dutchman, is eclipsed by the crowd, so he can not see the fun about the altar to his satisfaction. So next night he leaves his rowdy band and comes near the front. Dr. Watson preaches and opens the altar.

Many pour in, and red-hot workers run throughout the house. One, putting his hand on the shoulder of the infidel, asks him to come to the altar. The first thought is horrific, repelling. Instantaneously an electric shock passes out of the man of God and runs through the infidel from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. He rushes to the altar and cries aloud. In a halfhour he is up shouting and back preaching to his rowdy band with all his might; and he is preaching yet, God wonderfully blessing his labors. All this resulted from the theatrical phase of that gospel meeting. When a church is alive and all on fire, it affects the unsaved rabble just like a free theater. I have seen this a thousand times. When I had the physical vigor to run evangelistic meetings God made them so magnetic that everything round about was drawn in. They came to see the monkey show, got convicted and stayed to pray. Lord, give us back the apostolic theater. We see this theater is not simply for the entertainment of men, but of “angels.”

They are all around us, sympathizing with heroic labor for souls. 10. This verse continues the bold irony by which he castigates their spiritual pride by contrast with apostolical humility. 11. “Unto this hour we hunger and thirst .” When they had nothing to eat, they rejoiced in a fast and profited by it spiritually. If I ate like other people, I could not do the work God has given me. I am editor in the morning, teacher in the afternoon, and preacher at night. Hence one meal and a lunch are all I can manage. “We are naked .” This is literal. Of course, it is to be understood in a modified sense. The Orientals do not clothe the entire body like the Occidentals. At that time there were no factories, therefore clothing was scarce and costly. We can not evade the conclusion that the apostles suffered much from insufficient clothing. Their overland traveling was all on foot, which was decidedly in their favor. They were great walkers. “We are buffeted;” i .e ., they were often cruelly flogged ( 2 Corinthians 11:25). “We tramp.” When you turn with disgust from tramps, remember the apostles were tramps. If Jesus were now on earth, He would everywhere be so considered. If Christ and His apostles were now on earth, walking from place to place — their clothing meager, cheap, poor and insufficient, peculiar to the poorest people, soiled and untidy, preaching on the streets and in the hovels of the peasantry, denouncing sin in the clergy as well as the laity — they would be shunned by the influential, shut out of the churches, ostracized from society, and very probably arrested, punished and imprisoned, as when they were on the earth; going into a popular church and speaking, as was their custom, the officers would lead them out, and the service go right on as if nothing had happened. 12. “We toil, working with our own hands .” Like tramps in our day, they were ready to perform manual labor for temporal support. “Being reviled, we bless .” Lord, help us to bless people when they abuse us. “Being persecuted, we bear it with no retaliatory spirit whatever.” Lord, help us to do likewise. 13. “Being scandalized, we entreat ;” i .e ., when they tell the most infamous lies on us, covering us with the blackest disgrace, we simply plead with them to turn to our Savior, the sinner’s Friend. “Who became as the offscouring of the world, the refuse of all things to this day .” We see here Paul and his comrades ranked in popular estimation at the very bottom of society, without money, reputation, social standing, influence or friends.

Jesus came down to the bottom that He might put His shoulder under the lowest and lift them up. The apostles were like Him. This was necessary to effect an eternal divorce from the world, with its power. “That the excellency may be of God and not of man.” How hard it is to get there and stay! Where is the church that would succumb to it? “Moreover, the Son of man having come, shall he find faith on the earth” ( Luke 18:8.)

Lord, help us to accept the situation and be like Thee and Paul. 14. “I do not speak these things shaming you, but admonishing you as beloved children .” Truly they needed that plain admonition to save them from the pride which was discovered cropping. God help us all to profit by these admonitions and remember our place is down on the Lord’s bottom; while there we never can fall, as there is no place to fall. Humility is the primary and most important Christian attribute, the antithesis of pride, the most dangerous enemy. 15. “For if you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, but you have not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I begat you through the gospel ;” i .e ., the gospel was one instrument in their conversion and Paul was another, and both used by the Omnipotent Spirit in their regeneration. Some have very erroneously tried to construe this passage in favor of regeneration without the Spirit, which is utterly untrue. Paul was simply speaking of the instrumentality, and not of the Omnipotent Agency. 16. During Paul’s absence of three years in Asia, much error had crept in.

Many preachers had been with them, some all right, others not so. He prefers to correct the heresies and reform the apostasies at a distance, lest if he waited until his arrival he would have to enforce severe discipline.

Meanwhile he sent to them Timothy, his favorite preacher, who in point of humility, orthodoxy and plainness was almost a facsimile of Paul, whose wholesome teaching was just what they needed. 18. “Certain ones were inflated, as if I would not come unto you .” During Paul’s long absence in Asia, some of the preachers from Judea (doubtless sincerely, who were eye-witnesses to the fact that he was not with Christ during His ministry), unfortunately had impeached his apostolical authority.

How natural for those who had been with Jesus from the baptism of John to say, “Well, Brother Paul is a good preacher, but no apostle, for I was with Jesus when He called the twelve, and Paul was not in the country, and never came into Judea till after Pentecost. So of course he is no apostle.”

The same preachers pointed them to Peter, who also had been there, and commended him as a genuine apostle; not only one of the original twelve, but the senior, honored with the first gospel sermon on the day of Pentecost. This had damaged Paul’s influence among them for good. Some who had imbibed party spirit to their spiritual detriment, and fallen in line with the Apollosican and the Petrine party (though Apollos and Peter gave those parties no encouragement), were crying, “He will not come back here any more.” 19. “I will come unto you quickly, if the Lord will, and I will not know the word of those who are puffed up, but the dynamite : 20. “For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in dynamite ” (power).

Dynamite is the word here used by Paul, and inspired by the Holy Ghost. It is very significant as the most potent agent in the material world. Some may object to its destructive signification. That is the great salient truth.

Humanity is right if the devil and his works were out. God never made anything bad. He made humanity. Hence it is good, if devil-nature were only out. The dynamite of God’s kingdom is fully competent to blow all sin and all devils out of the human organism, spiritual, mental, and physical.

When that is done, we are all right. Hence the kingdom of God consists not in word, but in power (Greek, dunamis ). It is all right to preach the Word.

Through faith in the Word preached, the Holy Ghost imparts the heavenly dynamite for just what we believe, whether conviction, regeneration or sanctification, and we get what we believe for, which is a blowing up into a genuine conviction when the Sinai gospel is believed, a sky-blue conversion when the Calvary gospel is believed, and a glorious sanctification when the Pentecostal gospel is believed. Such is the prerogative of God’s kingdom. 21. The apostle here refers to the castigatory rod of church discipline, which he may find it necessary to wield with great severity; however, he hopes to be able to come to them in “Divine love and the spirit of meekness.”

CHAPTER - TURNING OVER TO SATAN FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF CARNALITY THAT THE SPIRIT MAY BE SAVED 1. You must remember that while the Corinthian church consisted of both Jews and Gentiles, the latter element decidedly predominated numerically.

At Corinth there were several great and terrible sources of temptation to the infant church: (a) The Greek philosophy, literature culture and refinement was full of idolatry and infidelity, and especially conducive to spiritual pride and contempt of the unassuming simplicity and humility peculiar to the Christian religion. (b) The awful and predominant trend, especially of the lower classes, to gross debauchery and brutal sensuality; all this being augmented and encouraged by their Paganistic religion, in which they had been born and reared; e .g ., Venus, the goddess of love, i .e ., lust, was worshipped there more extravagantly than anywhere else in all the world, more than a thousand priestesses (i .e ., lewd women) serving at her altars, proclaiming her divinity and vindicating her majesty, thus presenting the greatest possible encouragement to licentiousness. (c) Corinth was the scene of the Isthmian games, celebrated there every quadrennium, commanding notoriety and patronage throughout the known world, and concentrating countless multitudes of people from all nationalities, which proved a great source of vicious influx. For the above reasons, you find much more warning and denunciation against sensuality and debauchery in the Corinthian epistles than elsewhere throughout the New Testament. It is pertinent to observe that this great multitude, having been recently converted largely out of the slums of the city, were exceedingly crude and rough material out of which to constitute a Christian church. “Where sin did abound, there did grace much more abound” ( Romans 5:20).

This Scripture was signally verified in the Corinthian church, where we find the most appalling profligacy on the one side and the brightest and even hyperbolical spiritual gifts on the other. “Truly fornication is heard of among you, and such fornication which is not among the heathens, that one should have his father’s wife. 2. “And you have been puffed up, and did not rather mourn, in order that the one having done this deed may be taken from your midst . 3. “For indeed I, being absent in body but present in spirit, have already as being present judged the one having thus done this . 4. “In the name of the Lord Jesus your and my spirit being assembled with the power of the Lord Jesus . 5. “To deliver such an one to Satan unto the destruction of carnality, in order that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus .” This was really an awful case of incestuous fornication, as the father was still living ( 2 Corinthians 7:12), the woman, of course, a second wife of the old man, and perhaps younger than the son. You see he terribly castigates and anathematizes the whole church for tolerating this irregularity, who instead of putting on mourning over it, were even inflated with spiritual pride.

What is meant by delivering this man, or any other person, “unto Satan for the destruction of carnality ”? God recognizes the devil as the god of this age ( 2 Corinthians 4:4), having captured the world in the Fall, and ruling it during this age of darkness and sin. The word translated church, ecclesia , means the called out, i .e ., not including any person in the world during the gospel ages while Satan has them, but only those who, responsive to the call of the Holy Ghost, have come out of the world and identified themselves with the Word of God. Since the Church of God contains all the human race who have come out of the world, and hence are no longer in it, you see very clearly the import of the proposition to turn one over to Satan; it is simply to turn him out of the church, back into the world, over which Satan is not only king, but god. How would this excommunication from the gospel church be conducive to the destruction of carnality and the salvation of the human spirit (which is none other than the man himself)? Do you not know that excommunication is one of the greatest means of grace this side of Heaven? I have witnessed many a glorious conversion at the altar, and heard the convert testify to the fact that for years he had been a wicked church member, but eventually fortunate to suffer a disgraceful excommunication, which, at first making him awfully mad, ultimated in a Sinai conviction rendering life intolerably miserable, evoking an importunate cry to God for mercy, all sinful practices abandoned in disgust, in agony of soul having sought the Lord day and night, victory had come at last. All such cases are parallel to the one under consideration. The names of persons in this way gloriously saved are now rife in my memory, some of whom are now in bright glory, who rejoiced to the day of their triumphant death that they were expelled from the church in disgrace, as they ever afterward believed that terrible discipline was God’s means of grace alone competent to awaken them from their carnal slumber in the cradle of dead church membership, and bring them to repentance, that they might get saved. “The day of the Lord Jesus ” of course means the day of His coming for His saints, which shines out a beacon light throughout the New Testament. The saddest phenomena of the present age, and fearfully ominous of the awful tribulation coming on a wicked world and fallen church at race-horse speed, is the everywhere ostensible and indisputable fact that the general apostasy of the churches has already passed the excommunication station. Suppose a popular church in this city (Keene, N.

H.) proceeded to expel her wicked members, a dozen others would be looking on with delight, hoping to take them in; hence you see the impracticability of disciplinary enforcement. When I was presiding elder in the Kentucky Conference, twenty-five years ago, a democratic church undertook to turn the drunkards out. Upon counting noses, behold, the drunkards had the majority, and of course a right to rule the church. While preaching in a Western city, a pastor gave us a cordial invitation to come and hold a revival in his church, at the same time notifying us to be sure that we say not a word against whisky, as the big end of his money came that way. If all the wicked members in the churches of this city, or any other, were excommunicated, it would actually bring a Judgment Day conviction on the people. A hush and a trepidation, a tremor and a solemn awe, as if the archangel of doom had come down and the mountains were crumbling beneath his mighty tread, and valleys leaping to his stentorian voice, would actually bring a nightmare and a paralysis on the wicked, and superinduce cries of mercy which would move Heaven, earth and Hell, and bring on the world such a revival of religion as has not been seen since the apostolic age. 6. “Your boasting is not beautiful .” Oh! What a rebuke is this on the proud boasting of the popular churches over their numbers! Could they only see the eliminations of the Judgment Day, when their mighty host will be cut down to a corporal’s guard, their feathers would fall. “Do you not know that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump ?” Leaven in the Bible always means corruption, i .e ., sin; the woman and the meal in the parable of the kingdom is no exception, as the woman there is Mother Eve after the Fall, and the meal humanity in its three divisions, Ethiopian, Mongolian and Caucasian, including the whole human race, and all becoming so interpenetrated with the leaven of sin as in the awful finale to expedite destruction and doom in the great tribulation; the kingdom of God simultaneously existing in the world in mystery. 7. “Purify out the old leaven in order that you may be a new lump, as you are free from leaven: for Christ indeed was made our Passover .” The summary of this verse is a most explicit commandment to get sanctified wholly, since in this way alone can we be thoroughly expurgated and made free from the old leaven of sin; Christ Himself, who is and always was perfectly free from sin, being our paragon. You know how explicit the law of Moses was in reference to the bread used in the Passover festival? It had to be perfectly free from leaven in order to represent Christ, who is perfectly free from sin. Hence you see we are to have the very purity of Christ Himself, which is original in Him, but exotic in us, having been relegated to us and conferred on us by the Holy Ghost. 8. “Therefore let us not feast on the old leaven, nor the leaven of sin and iniquity, but on the unleavened bread of purity and truth .” The word here which I translate “purity” — the E.V. having “sincerity,” which is from the Latin sine , “without,” and cera , “wax,” meaning strained honey, which is a current Old Testament definition of sanctification, as you find a bee-hive in conversion, but in sanctification get all the wax, comb, trash and dead bees strained out, so that you feast on the pure, strained honey in the sanctified experience — is eilikrinia , from eile , “a sunbeam,” and krino , “to judge.”

Hence it derived its signification from the custom of the ancients to expose a thing to the bright sunbeams shining through it, and see whether there was any impurity in it; e .g ., when a little boy I have often been interested in looking at the bright beams of the morning sun shining in through the chinks of our log cottage, and revealing vast clouds of dust in the room, which were only visible where the solar rays interpenetrated. The application in the gracious economy of the symbol is transcendently forcible; i .e ., that God proposes to make my heart so clean that when illuminated by the great Sun of Righteousness, the Omniscient Eye will see no impurity in it. You can spread yourself preaching Christian purity, and have no fear of putting it too strong, since Paul, inspired by the Holy Ghost, has already gone ahead of anything you can think or say. 9. We see from this verse that this is not the first epistle to the Corinthians, but the second, the first doubtless, with many others, having been lost. 10. “Not ” (to associate) “with fornicators of this world, for the covetous are extortioners or idolaters.” Since, moreover, you ought to come out from the world; as the very word “church” (ecclesia ) means the called out, of course, responsive to the call, we all come out from the world. 11-13. “But now I have written unto you not to associate with him; any one denominated a brother may be a covetous person, or a fornicator, or an idolater, or a scold, or a drunkard or an extortioner; with such an one not to eat — Take away the wicked person from you yourselves .” Here is a positive commandment for them not to associate or to eat with their old companions who are still living in sin in the dark vices here specified; at the same time commanding them to excommunicate the above mentioned incestuous man, and of course all others indulging in known sins. Suffice it to say neither that man nor any others were expelled on this occasion. Why, such was the effect of this letter, and Timothy’s preaching, and the ministry of Titus who followed, that, as we see in the second epistle, they all repented in sackcloth and ashes, good and bad down on their faces, for days and weeks mourning and crying to God for His mercy, turning the church into a Bochim of weeping; the incestuous man himself not only radically reforming and making things right as far as possible, but about to kill himself grieving, until Paul actually writes to them to stir up their Divine love in his behalf, and comfort him, “lest he may be swallowed up by excessive sorrow” ( 2 Corinthians 2:7).

Observe that Paul here tells them they are not to adjudicate the world, but to turn them all over to God and the Judgment Day; meanwhile they are to adjudge the church, expurgating everything which is out of harmony with the Word of God.

CHAPTER - THE SAINTS ARE TO RULE THE WORLD, AND EVEN ANGELS 1. “Which one of you, having a matter against another, dares to go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints ?” During his three years Asiatic peregrinations, many things transpired in the great infantile church in Corinth; e .g ., many new preachers had come and gone, Apollos, Peter and others all right, and of course many who were at least doubtful; not only heresies, but serious apostasies, were making inroads on them.

Among other troubles, some of them were involved in law-suits among themselves, which the apostle utterly condemns, castigates severely and anathematizes witheringly, shaming them by his bold irony and ridicule. 2. “Do you not know that the saints shall rule the world? And if the world is ruled among you, are you unworthy of the least judgments ?” It is clearly revealed in many Scriptures that the saints will rule the world during the Millennial theocracy, subordinate to the King of kings. “And I beheld thrones and those who sat on them and the government was given unto them” ( Revelation 24).

In these Scriptures “judgment” occurs in the E.V., which is not a bad translation; but as the meaning of the word is government and rulership, we prefer to use it, e .g ., Israel was ruled by judges, i .e ., presiding officers, temporary autocrats, four hundred and fifty years (see book of Judges). 3. “Know ye not that we shall rule angels? And not simply things of this life ?” In this verse the apostolic eye of Paul sweeps away down the coming ages, overlooking the Millennium, in which the saints will rule the world, peering beyond the general resurrection and final judgment ( Revelation 20:11-20), and the simultaneous cremation of the earth ( 2 Peter 3:10), and its fiery expurgation from all the pollutions of Satan’s reign, the glorious Creative intervention renewing and transforming it into a bright and beautiful, pure and holy celestial sphere ( Revelation 21:1) to be reinhabited by the glorified saints ( Matthew 5:4), who will receive it as an everlasting inheritance to enjoy with other celestial worlds through the flight of eternal ages, the glorified earth ever recognized as our peculiar inheritance, having been created for humanity in the beginning, and also conferred on us as a soldier’s bounty, eternally commemorative of our heroic fidelity during the Lord’s war against sin and Satan. Of course, when this world shall have been sanctified by the purgatorial fires, recreated, beautified, glorified and added back to Heaven, where it belonged before the devil broke it loose in view of adding it to Hell, it will become an angelic resort of universal notoriety, to which multiplied millions of unfallen angels will come that they may visit and enjoy the society of restored and glorified humanity, and especially that they may see the old battle-field of God’s Empire, where His expatriated Son met the hosts of Hell on bloody Calvary, heroically bleeding and dying, but sealing His conquest of this world with His blood. While we will all be delighted with the angelic millions, who will compliment us by their visits and sojourn among us, of course the government of this world will be the peculiar prerogative of humanity, the angels, like the European nobility now visiting the United States, appreciated and honored by all the people, but having no disposition to take part in the government. 4. “Therefore if you indeed have judgments appertaining to this life, set those down as judges who are of no estimation in the church .” This is simply scathing irony; as much as to say the most consummate gump among you is competent to decide your little, insignificant controversies over paltry pelf, if you will only look at the utter worthlessness of all your temporal interests, when contrasted with the infinitesimal glory of the eternal. 5. “I speak to your shame. Is there not some wise man among you who shall be able to judge between brother and his brother ?” The answer is in the affirmative. The Lord will raise up some Moses among you if you will give Him a chance, who will be fully competent to adjudicate and finally settle all your little controversies involving temporal interests. 6. He again withers them with sarcasm. 7. “Indeed it is truly a detriment to you that you have lawsuits among yourselves. Wherefore do you not rather suffer wrong? Wherefore are you not rather defrauded ? 8. “But you do wrong and defraud, and that your brethren .” Primary truth lies at the bottom of this castigatory decision of Paul, i .e ., that lawsuits are not even a financial success. They are like Aesop’s fable of the two cats finding a cheese, jumping into a fight and making the fur fly terrifically, till the monkey comes in, and pleading with them to desist from their mutual cruelty, proposes to make an equitable division of the cheese equally between them. To this they give their mutual consent. Sitting down and watching the proposed settlement of all difficulties by their neighbor monkey, who, taking a knife and cutting the cheese in two in the middle, putting one-half in either end of the scale, and observing that one piece is too heavy, pulling up the other, goes to it, eating off the excess till it tilts up. Then he goes to the other end, and with his sharp teeth gratifies his appreciative appetite till that piece flies up and the other comes down. So he proceeds with his contract to effect an equal division, constantly eating the heavier piece, till the cats see he is going to eat it all, and interpose, begging him to desist, and proposing to settle the matter themselves. The monkey now gravely observes, “But the balance is due me for my service.”

JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION 9. “Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminates ” (i .e ., masculine harlots), “nor Sodomites” (i .e ., the paramours of the preceding). In this verse we have four nouns, significant of different phases of that awful prevailing vice, adultery. What a wonderful emphasis laid on that peculiar scene evidently because it was so prevalent and destructive at Corinth, the “Paris” of the ancient world, where, instead of receiving the antagonism of the popular religion, it was especially encouraged; e .g ., a thousand priestesses of Venus serving in her temples and wielding so potent an influence to corrupt society. 10. “Neither shall thieves, nor covetous people, nor drunkards, nor scolds, nor extortioners inherit the kingdom of God .” Oh, how would these Scriptures depopulate the registers of modern churches! Doubtful whether a tithe would be left. Sad to say that scolding women, lecherous men and extortioners in business transactions, and covetous people generally, scarcely receive a rebuke from the modern pulpit. Yet the Word of God is true, and not one of these shall ever inherit the kingdom. 11. “And such were some of you .” We see that the grace of God, under Paul’s ministry at that time, those memorable eighteen months, had reached down to the bottom of slumdom and saved all sorts of the most terrible criminals, debauches, libertines and thieves. Neither was it any bogus salvation. While some of them had never reached rock-bottom, and others had fallen, yet the church abounded in noble examples beautifully illustrative of the sovereign mercy and transcendent grace of God. How exceedingly consolatory these Scriptures! Thrillingly inspiring to all soulsavers, and Heaven bells of mercy ringing in the ears of the vilest of the vile. “But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God .” Some have been perplexed over this arrangement, as we see sanctification preceding justification. Such perplexity disappears upon a literal exegesis of the sentence. Here we have three statements: (a) “Ye are washed ,” i .e ., regenerated, which includes justification as a necessary and invariable antecedent. (b) “Ye are sanctified ,” here standing as a second work of grace, which is in harmony with the uniform teaching of God’s Word. (c) “Ye are justified .” This is not primary justification, which is involved in regeneration as a logical antecedent, but it is justification in that ultimate sense in which we all receive it after we have been sanctified not the reversal of the condemnatory sentence which took place when you fell beneath the cross and cried for mercy, recognizing your meekness only for damnation and casting your soul on the commiseration of God in Christ; but there is a broad and final sense in which you are justified from all iniquity, intrinsical and extrinsical, which prepares you to stand before the great white throne. It is in this ultimate and legal sense that all saved people are justified after they get sanctified; primary justification having an expiatory attitude, and, with the sanctification which follows, extirpating inbred sin and thus preparing the way for that legal justification which we ultimately have in Christ, qualifying us to meet the open books of final judgment. 12. “All things are lawful, but all things are not profitable; all things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of any one .” Here he makes an allusion to his privileges as an apostle, to exercise authority on lines purely optionary and where it is his privilege to decline; e .g ., temporal support was his right and privilege, yet he did not claim it lest the enemies of the cause should make capital of it. And in availing himself of that, as well as other privileges, he might embargo his glorious and perfect spiritual liberty. If the preachers were as independent as Paul, they would soon bring in the Millennium. How few can say, “I will not be brought under the power of any person or thing. I am God’s redeemed child, free as Gabriel!”

God help the preachers! They are afraid of one another, afraid of their members, afraid of the members of other churches, afraid of the world, afraid of their reputation, afraid of the Holiness people, afraid of the evangelists, afraid of poverty, et cetera .

NO PHYSICAL ORGANS IN THE GLORIFIED BODY 13. “Meats for the stomach, and the stomach for the meats: but God will destroy both this and them .” All the quibbles and controversies over meats and drinks, except from a merely hygienical standpoint, are utterly nugatory. We must abstain from tobacco, opium and intoxicating drinks, from the simple fact that they are narcotic poisons. We are to avoid gluttony, swine, and use the intelligence God has given us, living hygienically for the sake of health, mentality and spirituality. If I did not observe the laws of hygiene, I would be incompetent to perform the mental and spiritual work God has given me. I know not the taste of coffee, never use tea, from the simple fact that they, when participated in, in due time subjugate their patron and get him in such a fix that he can’t do without them. Like Paul, I will not be brought under the power of anything nor any person. I have no master but God. I do so much enjoy this wonderful freedom, in which I am dependent on nothing but God, and consequently always happy. “God will destroy both this,” i .e ., the stomach, “and them,” i .e ., the mortal food. We are hastening into a state of glory and immortality.

There are two methods by which God glorifies the human body: (a) Translation, which is really the primary, peculiar to the Edenic state, and will doubtless much prevail in the coming Millennium. (b) The resurrection is the other method by which the body is glorified.

I am on the daily outlook for my Lord to come and translate the living members of His Bridehood. Here we learn explicitly that the glorified body will have no digestive organs, neither will it partake of material nutriment, but subsist on celestial ambrosia and drink the sweet nectar among the angels, as finite beings will never cease to partake of nutriment in some way or other. 14-17. Here the apostle runs on with his illustrative argument, showing the inconsistency of fornication, as the soul is wedded to Christ, her Divine Spouse, eternally absorbed from all other lovers. 18. “Every sin which a man may do is without the body: and he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body .” Here the apostle forever sweeps away that Gnostic heresy, recognizing sin resident in the body after the soul is made pure; involving that awful and fatal heresy that your body must commit sin so long as it lives. Of course it is the very doctrine of the bottomless pit, concocted by Satan for the damnation of souls, because every one acquiescent in this transparent sophistry is actually committing sin and hastening to his own damnation, vainly gulled by the silly delusion that he will leave his sins in his body when he dies. Here we have the case settled forever that the sin is not in the body, except in the sense that the soul lives in the body, but all sin is really spiritual and immaterial, the work of the devil, who has no body, and homogenous with his nature. Consequently it is utterly impossible for sin to be materialistic, however it may involve material entities. While the body is as incapable of committing sin as the tree by the roadside, it is frequently instrumental in the commission of sin; and, as a rule, instead of committing the sin, it only suffers thereby, as Paul here specifies, “He that committeth fornication, sinneth against his own body.” So here you see even in case of fornication the body does not commit the sin, but on the contrary is sinned against. 19. “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own ?” How grand and glorious the conception, how inspiring the thought, that not only our spirits, but our bodies in which our spirits dwell, are the temples of the Holy Ghost! 20. “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body ;” E.V. adds, “and in your spirit which is the Lord’s,” this clause not appearing in the original; doubtless some transcriber interpolated it, thinking to augment the beauty of the text. Paul is not speaking of the human spirit, but simply of the body.

CHAPTER - CO-HABITATION SANCTIFIED BY MATRIMONY 1. “But concerning those things about which you wrote to me, that it is good for a man not to receive a wife .” They had written to Paul during his absence on the subject of matrimony and celibacy, which Paul encouraged, at least by his own example, spending his life unwedded for Christ’s sake.

While he appreciates his own celibacy as a gift from God, he gives his verdict in favor of matrimony as a rule. 2. “But on account of fornication let each man have his own wife and each woman her own husband . 3. “Let the husband give to the wife that which is due, and also likewise the wife to her husband . 4. “The wife hath not authority over her own body, but the husband: likewise also the husband hath not authority over his own body, but the wife .” While this verse evidently refers directly to the peculiar rights of matrimony, it has still a broader signification. In this transitory and perilous life, we all need some person on whom we can depend for personal attention, especially in case of sickness, disappointment and sorrow. If my dear companion should get sick, I would feel it my duty to go home and do my utmost for her convalescence and comfort, as my body is her property under the law of matrimony, to serve her after the manner of a slave. The same is true with reference to her body, as the servitor of my necessity and comfort. Body here in both cases is antithetical to spirit, which belongs to God. My wife has no control over my immortal spirit, my never dying soul, which belongs to God alone, exclusively devoted to His service for time and eternity, while this fleeting body, pursuant to the law of matrimony, belongs to my companion, to labor, make a living for her, and administer to her temporal comfort. The same is true in her case with reference to soul and body, the latter belonging to her husband and the former to God. It is very wicked in either party to interfere with the religious privileges of the other. A staunch member of a Methodist church who had no salvation, forbade his wife to attend the Holiness revival services, though in the church where he held his membership. She asked the evangelist what to do in the case. He said, “Go home, take down your Bible and read to him the first commandment, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods beside me’; and say to him, ‘Sir, I married you for a husband and not for a god, as that place was supplied before I became acquainted with you.

Now if you are content to be my husband, all right, but if you are going to be my god you can just trot out.’” He was a man of intelligence, and at once saw his mistake, changed his apparel and went with her to the next meeting, taking his seat in the rear of the audience, she going down to the front and taking an active part in the meeting. In the introductory testimonies, standing before the audience she said, “My dear husband is in the congregation; I request you all to remember him in your prayers.” The evangelist preached and invited seekers to the altar. Among others this man came, got his soul converted, and soon after swept into Beulah land. 5-6. “Defraud not one another except with consent for a time, in order that you may give attention to prayer and come together again in order that Satan may not tempt you on account of your incontinence .” “Fasting” does not in this verse occur in the original. You see plainly that the Divine economy recognizes cohabitation in the bonds of holy wedlock. Parties united in matrimony are here advised to live together, unless they separate for the glory of God, that they may do gospel work. In that case the separation is not permanent, but temporary. “I speak this by way of allowance, and not according to a commandment .” Of course there is no intimation here that Paul was impeaching his own inspiration, but merely referring to the fact that our Lord had delivered no precept directly covering that ground. 7-9. “I wish you that all men were as I am: but each one has his own gift from God, one has one and another, another .” “Men” here in Greek is common gender, aneer always meaning a man, gunee always meaning a woman, while anthroopos , the word here occurring, is common gender, including both men and women. Here Paul expresses a wish that all the people had his peculiar gift from God, touching the subject of matrimony.

That gift was the grace from God imparting complete victory along that line of things, which is not peculiar to all people, the sexual appetite not being sinful in its nature, but of Divine constitution and only sinful when indulged outside of matrimony or unhygienically. “I speak to the unmarried and widows, that it is good for them that they may remain even as I: but if they do not abstain, let them get married; for it is better to marry than to burn ,” i .e ., either in the fires of incorrigible lust or in the flames of Hell. 10-13. They had written to him a diversity of questions which to them, so recently converted out of heathenism, were exceedingly complicated. Some took up the idea, somewhat looking at the example of their spiritual father, then more than fifty years old and unwedded, that it was better to forego matrimony altogether. Others had an idea that, if one of the matrimonial twain became a Christian, and the other persisted in heathenism, the former should leave the latter. This question Paul settles in the negative. “If the unsaved party abandon you because you become a Christian, let such go in peace. But when the party is willing to live with a converted husband or wife, so much the better. 14. “For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife by the brother: otherwise are your children unclean, but now they are holy .” The children of Christians are born in the covenant, not heathens, but Christians in a conventional sense, and holy to the Lord, antithetical to the polluted idolaters. The children of heathens are considered heathens in a conventional sense because they will be raised up that way.

Hence they are polluted with idolatry, and unholy antithetically to the Christians. Now, in case that one is a Christian, and the other a heathen, if the latter is willing to abide, all right; but in that case the children are not heathens, because the Christian parent will rear them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Grace is stronger than sin ( Romans 5:20), therefore the insanctity of the one is overborne by the sanctity of the other, and the children do not rank as heathens, but Christians, enjoying the benefit of the covenant through the holy parent. 15-16. “If the unbeliever depart, let him depart: a brother or sister has not been enslaved in such things, but God has called you in peace .” From this verse we see that you are to be true to God, in every case and regardless of consequences, even though your companion may abandon you forever. “For how do you know, O wife, if you shall save your husband, and how do you know, O husband, if you shall save your wife ?” There is certainly a strong probability that by the grace of God you will save your companion.

This, however, you can only do by a life of unswerving devotion to God.

If you are not true, heroic and steadfast, your companion will destroy you instead of getting saved. Many foolish women have pandered to the wicked caprices of their worldly husbands, till they have grieved the Holy Spirit away, forfeited all their power to save their husbands, and gone with them into sin and perdition. 17-24. In these verses Paul exhorts every one to remain in the attitude in which grace finds you: if a Jew, having circumcision, so remain; if a Gentile, without circumcision, so abide. If a Methodist, with Armenian theology, so remain; if a Presbyterian, with a Calvinistic creed, so abide; if a Tunker, with trine immersion, so remain; if a Quaker, seeing no especial validity in carnal ordinances, so remain. The unity of all Christians is in the baptism of the Holy Ghost (Ch. 12:13). So let every one follow Jesus only, get saved to the uttermost and filled with the Holy Ghost, and never bother yourselves any more in reference to creeds, rites and ceremonies.

Satisfy your conscience ( 1 Peter 3:21), “keep a conscience void of offense toward God and man,” and go on your way rejoicing, free as a bird of paradise, like Origen, whose maxim was, “Love the Lord with all your heart, and do as you please,” resting assured that if you really have perfect love you will only please to do the will of God. Grace sinks down all the mountains and lifts up the valleys, putting the whole world on a grand level. Paul here beautifully alludes to the master and slave, as at that time the world was full of human slavery. They are both called into the kingdom of God, and stand on the same level, the master being God’s slave, and the slave being the Lord’s freeman. 25-31. Paul’s prophetic eye sees rivers of blood rolling right before him in the great outbreak of the imperial persecution in which he lost his head, and his amanuensis was hung on an olive-tree in Greece, and a general slaughter of all the Christians in the Roman Empire, which then belted the globe, broke out, under the edict of Nero, only ten years from this writing.

Hence, responsive to their questions on matrimony, he advises them to turn their attention away to things more important, each one in his or her respective situation, content for the present, and all energies concentrated in the preparation and outlook for their returning Lord. 29. “And I say this, brethren, that the time is at hand: moreover, indeed, those having wives may be as those not having, and those weeping as those not weeping, and those rejoicing as those not rejoicing, and those merchandising as those possessing nothing , 31. “And those using the world as those not using it fully: for the fashion of this world passeth away .” All this vivid prophecy was literally verified in the terrible persecutions which Paul saw in the near future rolling in rivers of blood to meet them. In connection with this prophecy, he vividly emphasizes his favorite and constant theme of the Lord’s speedy return to the earth to take away His saints, using this incentive as the most potent of all inspirations to keep His people, well under the blood, filled with the Spirit and constantly looking out for the Lord’s return.

VIRGIN CELIBACY 32. The question extensively prevailed at that time, should not a Christian man, instead of giving his virgin daughter in wedlock to her lover, keep her for the Lord, so that unencumbered she might be a more efficient soulsaver, becoming a vestal virgin, as they had known in the heathen religions for ages, and was perpetuated in Christianity in subsequent ages, developing into the Roman Catholic nunship. Paul here meets all of those complicated questions. 33. “I wish you to be free from care .” He now proposed to give them so plain and unmistakable a precept on this vexed question as to enable them to dismiss every care. “The unmarried man cares for the things of the Lord, in order that he may please the Lord: the married man cares for the things of the world, that he may please his wife. 34. “The wife and the virgin differ widely: the unmarried woman cares for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy, both in body and spirit: but the married woman cares for the things of this world, that she may please her husband .” In these verses you can see that Paul leans to the celibacy for Christ’s sake, which he himself practiced, here setting forth the plausible argument that unwedded saints, utterly disencumbered to devote all their time to the service of the Lord, enjoy a decidedly more capacious opportunity to glorify God and lay up a rich treasure in Heaven than wedded people, thus encumbered with families. 35. He here certifies that he is going to lay no restriction on their liberties in the light of God’s Word, Spirit and Providence to pursue the course which is “profitable and well pleasing to the Lord” without disharmony. 36. “If any one thinks that he is deporting himself injudiciously toward his virgin, if she may be old enough to marry, and it ought so to be, let him do what he willeth: he does not sin, let them get married .” Here is a case of a Christian father whose daughter has arrived at marriageable age, and has a good opportunity to marry a worthy Christian man; her father, feeling that she will be more efficient for the Lord in celibacy, like Paul, their spiritual father, has refused to give her in matrimony till the matter has assumed the attitude of rather a serious domestic controversy, the daughter and her Christian lover anxious to get married, and her father hitherto having withheld his consent. Now Paul says in that case let the man walk in the light which God gives, following the leading of the Spirit and Providence. “Let him do what he will,” i .e ., give his daughter in matrimony or withhold her that she may be a more efficient soul-saver. In either case, he sins not.

If he decides in favor of matrimony, “let them marry,” i .e ., this Christian man’s daughter and her Christian lover. It is all right. 37. “But he who standeth firm in his own heart, not having necessity, but has choice according to his will, and hath determined this in his heart to keep his virgin, will do well .” This is a simple illustration on the other side.

The presumption is that in this case the daughter doesn’t want to marry, and probably has no good opportunity. Hence the case is decidedly favorable to celibacy. 38. “So both he that marries his virgin does well, and he that marries her not will do better .” This verse covers the ground of the two contrastive cases in the two preceding verses. The father in verse 36 gives his daughter in wedlock, while the father in verse 37 retains his in celibacy for the Lord’s work. Paul decides that the former, marrying his daughter to a good man, “does well,” but the latter not marrying his daughter to a man “will do better.” Why? Because the single woman will be the more efficient preacher of the two, and win more souls for God. 39. “A wife has been given for so long a time as her husband may live: but if the husband may die, she is free to be married to whom she will, only in the Lord .” This verse clears away all the fog on second marriages. Death in every case satisfies the matrimonial covenant, and liberates the surviving party to marry ad libitum , but “only in the Lord.” Hence you see that Christians have no right to marry sinners. I know the cause of God has suffered more at that point than any other. So long as the children of Seth, i .e ., the holy antediluvians, kept separate from the children of Cain, the proud members of the carnal church, founded by their great ancestor, whose worship, though grand and demonstrative, had no blood and hence no salvation, they were cheered with such preachers as Enoch and Noah.

No sooner did they enter into matrimonial alliances, i .e ., when the sons of God and the children of Seth saw the daughters of men, i .e ., the race of Cain, that they were fair and took to themselves wives, the world became filled with violence, the wicked seducing the righteous into sin, and thus blotting out the lights of the antediluvian dispensation, and thus expediting the great flood which swept them all into eternity. I will not solemnize the matrimony of a Christian and an infidel or a debauchee. It is the safe thing to wait until the genuineness of his seeking is demonstrated by a sky-blue conversion. 40. “But she is the happier if she may so remain, according to my opinion: and I realize truly that I have the Spirit of God .” After Paul has cleared up all the fogs gathering about the matrimonial problem, and turning everybody loose to walk in the clear light of God’s Word, Spirit and Providence, marrying as often as they wish, but only in the Lord, we see here that he winds up the subject with a decided leaning toward celibacy; doubtless deflecting in the line of his own personal preference, certainly with the glorious apology of better conserving the cause of God. “Think” in E.V., occurring in this verse, is too weak, as it implies doubt, which is not in the original. Hence Paul here simply testifies that he has the Spirit of God.

CHAPTER - EATING MEATS OFFERED TO IDOLS 1. “But concerning things offered to idols we know that we all have knowledge . 2. “Knowledge puffeth up, but Divine love buildeth up .” Knowledge is a gift of the Spirit, though of infinite value, not necessary to salvation, while this Divine agapee is the nature of God ( 1 John 4), the Divine essence imparted to the human spirit in regeneration, the veritable saving element in the gracious economy. This verse shows the necessary precedence of the graces before the gifts. Knowledge is a most invaluable gift if preceded and accompanied by Divine love; but without it not only unprofitable to the recipient, but very dangerous, inducing spiritual pride, which normally comes before a fall. A man with knowledge without love (and there are many such) is inflated like a bladder, and without substance; while Divine love builds you up like a solid and impregnable wall. “If any one seems to know anything, he does not yet know it as it behooveth him to know .” It is a constantly humiliating fact, which should ever keep us low down in the dust, that, let us know ever so much, the full amount of what we know, as compared to what we do not know, is but a drop contrastively with the ocean. 4. “Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that the idol is nothing in the world; and that there is no God but one .” It is a matter of fact that the great and mighty gods of Greece, Rome, Egypt and India, so celebrated in history, immortalized in poetry and worshipped by countless millions, after all never existed. They were mere creatures of human imagination. 5. “For if indeed there are those denominated gods, whether in Heaven or upon earth ,” i .e ., all these idols are denominated gods, many fabled to live in Heaven and myriads dwelling on the earth. “As there are gods many and lords many .” These fabulous unreal divinities are the many gods, and the men on the earth in the different nations, honored with the epithet “lord,” are the “lords many” here mentioned. 6. “But there is unto us one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we in Him .” Here Paul clears up the problem and simplifies the whole matter, though so many idols are called gods, yet it is but a freak of human fancy, Jehovah being the only God in the universe; and though men in all ages and nations have been called “lords,” yet Jesus Christ the God-man is the only Lord in all the boundless universe. 7. “But there is not knowledge in all: but some with a conscience of the idol even unto this day eat as if it were offered to the idol, and their conscience being weak is polluted .” We are bound to keep a clear conscience under all circumstances, though an enlightened conscience may many a time subject us to great inconvenience and expense. Whenever you violate your conscience you fall under condemnation at the tribunal of your own heart. 8 , 9 . Here Paul certifies that it makes no difference whatever whether they eat the meat offered to idols or not. As there is no Jupiter, it does not hurt the beef because the ox was sacrificed to Jupiter; neither does it hurt the mutton because the sheep was sacrificed to Apollo, from the simple fact that there is no Apollo; neither is the turkey the worse because offered as a sacrifice to Diana, as there is no Diana. Hence the meat question, which was much agitated in the Corinthian church, many of whom were too poor to have their own animals, is reduced to a very simple solution. It does not affect the meat an iota to offer it to the idol. “See that this liberty of yours be not a stumbling block to the weak . 10. “For if any one may see thee having knowledge, sitting in the idol’s temple, will not the conscience of him being weak be encouraged to eat the things offered to idols ? 11. “For he who is weak is destroyed by thy knowledge, the brother for whom Christ died. 12. “You thus sinning against the brethren, and wounding their weak conscience, sin against Christ . 13. “Therefore, if meat stumbleth my brother, I never eat any more meat, in order that I may not stumble my brother .” This develops an entirely different phase of the matter. While there is no sin whatever in eating the meat offered to idols, yet if you think it sinful, you must abstain, because in that case your conscience will condemn you, and you will be guilty before God, as we must keep a “conscience void of offense toward God and man.” Again, if your conscience is clear, and others see you eating in the idol temple and think you are in a sense worshipping the idols by eating the meat offered to them, their faith will be weakened by your example, so they will probably lose their souls. In that case you must not eat it. Paul says positively that in “sinning against the brethren and wounding their weak consciences, you sin against Christ.” The great preacher who said, “If Paul were now living on the earth, he would use tobacco,” made a great mistake.

Here he says he would positively give up the privilege of eating meat forever, if it caused anyone to stumble. Why would they stumble? Because they thought he did wrong. I dare not do anything condemned by the saints of God. Good Lord, help us to keep clear of the blood of souls. If your conscience condemns you for working on Saturday, go ahead and keep it holy to the Lord. But do not forget that you must keep Sunday also, responsive to the conscience of Christendom. When you, claiming to be a Christian, do that which the consciences of millions of God’s sincere people believe to be a violation of God’s commandment, look out! You will have a terrible ordeal in the Judgment Day. These deliverances are invaluable to the Christian world. We will find plenty to do with those things which are clear and indubitable. God help us to take the safe side in all doubtful cases, i .e ., the self-denial side, as a rule regarding the doubt as imperative as a positive negation. This Scripture forever knocks out all church frolics, festivals and fandangoes of every kind, as thousands of God’s most humble, sincere and Christ-like people veritably believe them to be out of harmony with the Word and spirit of the Master.

CHAPTER - PAUL’S APOSTOLICAL AUTHORITY IMPEACHED That sounds strange to us nineteen hundred years down the ages; but it was by no means paradoxical at that time. Dr. Dowie does not believe Paul became an apostle until he was consecrated along with Barnabas to the evangelistic work at Antioch, about fourteen years after he was converted.

How natural for those Jewish preachers, who had been with Jesus from John’s baptism, and knew Paul was not one of the original twelve, to call in question his apostleship. All this did not in the least impeach his right to preach the gospel. 1-10. Though he had never seen Jesus during His earthly ministry, having completed his education at Jerusalem and returned to Cilicia before our Lord began His public ministry, and coming into Judea soon after Pentecost, yet he had seen Him on the Damascus road and in the temple at Jerusalem.

Hence here he boldly claims to have seen Him. The literal meaning of apostle is “one sent forth”; i .e ., the pioneer into any field. Hence as Paul well says, he was an apostle to them if not to others, as he was the pioneer who came first of all and preached eighteen months in the Providence of God, becoming their spiritual father. He proceeds to vindicate his rights, though he had not availed himself of them all, e .g ., to lead about with him a sister (in the Lord, not a sinner) or a wife, like Peter, who had been there and preached to them, all recognizing him as an apostle, because of the original twelve, and “the brothers of the Lord,” i .e ., James, the Jerusalem pastor, and the author of the epistle, and Jude his brother. Though Paul lived and died in celibacy, he here boldly claims his right to holy wedlock.

He now proceeds to boldly advocate his right to temporal support, though he did not avail himself of it, but made tents at Corinth. Good reason for this; where he began there was no church to support him till God raised it up through his instrumentality. He shows plainly that God’s command “not to muzzle the ox that treadeth out the wheat” means ministerial support.

When I was in Palestine it was harvest time, and I everywhere saw the oxen treading out the wheat, barley and other cereal grains. Why do they continue thus since the steam engine has come to that country? It is a verification of the Scriptures. 11. “If we have shown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things ?” This is clear on temporal support. 12. Yet he proceeds to say that he has not availed himself of his rights and privileges in this regard and that now, as his enemies are disposed to impute to him sinister motives for his arduous toil, he is glad that he has preached the gospel gratuitously, because they cannot now charge him with seeking temporal emolument. 13. “Do you not know that those who work in sacrifices eat of the temple ?” The very fact that the Levitical priests serving in the temple subsisted on the sacrifices brought thither, is an irrefutable argument in favor of temporal support. “Do not those ministering at the altar partake of the altar ?” These arguments are clear, explicit and unanswerable in favor of ministerial support. 14. “Thus truly the Lord has commanded that those preaching the gospel shall live from the gospel .” While these Scriptures are so clear and unmistakable in favor of the temporal support of the gospel ministry, we must remember that our Savior scathingly condemns “the hireling shepherd,” certifying that he can not be relied on, but will play the coward in time of danger. Great mistakes are made by little financial institutions in the churches, bringing the people into bondage, abstracting their faith from God and centralizing it upon their own efforts. We would do well to commit the temporal support to God, as we do the spiritual interest, feeling assured that He will verify His promise and see that those who preach the gospel “do live on the gospel .” God feeds his preachers like He feeds the birds, in a mysterious way to them and to others. This great salvation breaks every yoke from the neck of God’s people, and gives perfect spiritual liberty on all lines, emancipating us not only from burdens, but even from solicitude, commanding us to “be careful for nothing. “ 15. Here the apostle certifies that he has not availed himself of his rights and privileges to receive temporal support; of course the non-existence and the infancy of the church at Corinth at the time of his ministry constituted an apology for their delinquency in temporal support. 16. In this verse he certifies that he deserves no credit simply for preaching the gospel, because he does it under a woe, involving the forfeiture of his salvation in case of delinquency; but he does deserve especial credit for supporting himself by tent-making while preaching the gospel, in consideration of the fact that he has a right to his material support, as he has so clearly above shown from the Word of God. 17. “For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if involuntarily, I am entrusted with a dispensation .” This verse settles the problem of gospel preaching. It is no human enterprise, to be taken up as a desirable and lucrative employment. It is not a profession, it is a calling. We have no right to enter upon it, pursuant to our own choice or volition. If God does not call us, and put us in the work, we have no right to embark in evangelistic enterprises. The present condition of a hireling ministry presents a wideopen door of temptation to young men, to enterprise the pulpit precisely as they would the bar, or the medical profession. This is all out of harmony with the Divine economy. God distinctly calls the true preacher of the gospel, causing him to realize, “Woe is unto me if I preach not.” 18. “Then what is my reward ?” It is not simply for preaching the gospel, for no one deserves a reward for doing his duty, the reward being in the duty itself. “In order that preaching the gospel, I shall render it free from charge, so as not to use my privilege in the gospel .” You see here that there is a great premium in Heaven for those who preach the gospel without temporal support, on the Pauline plan of self-support. We are gratified to see hundreds and thousands in the present Holiness movement, preaching on the streets, in the missions and slums in the evening after their regular day’s work in their respective temporal employments, where God gives them their necessary material support and enables them to preach the gospel gratuitously, as Paul here certifies that he did. This is one of the most encouraging phenomena at the present day. 19. “Being free from all, I rendered myself a slave unto all that I may gain the more .” This glorious spiritual freedom, which we enjoy in the Omnipotent Sanctifier, delights to condescend for Jesus’ sake, become servant to all, that we may win the more to shine in our crown of rejoicing in the coming eternity.

PAUL, ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN 20. “To the Jews I became as a Jew that I may gain the Jews .” The Jews were exceedingly punctilious and stickleristic in their observance of the Mosaic law and the Levitical ritual, practicing circumcision, bloody sacrifices, watery catharisms and Nazaritic vows. See how Paul acquiesced in all these rites and ceremonies, though he knew that they were effete, having been verified in Christ. See him at Lystra circumcising Timothy to please the Jews, and at Cenchrea and Jerusalem observing Nazaritic vows and offering sacrifices, all to please the Jews that they might not break with him and reject his Christ. “To those who were under the law as under the law, not being under the law, in order that I may gain those who are under the law.” Among the Jews he acquiesced in the Mosaic legalisms to which they still adhered, lest he might alienate them from the Christ he preached, at the same time knowing well that there was no salvation in all these legal rites and ceremonies, even in the palmy days of the Mosaic dispensation; and in Paul’s day they were even bereft of symbolic value because they had all been verified in Christ. Though null and void, yet they were harmless and could be practiced with impunity. Consequently, while with the Jews, he showed himself loyal to their ritual, that nothing might get in the way of his constant efforts to get them to take his Christ. 21. “To those who were without law as without law, not being without the law of God, but with the law of Christ, that I might gain those without the law .” The Gentiles knew nothing about the law of Moses, cared nothing about it, and looked upon the Jewish rites and ceremonies as silly superstition. If Paul as a Jew had undertaken to prevail on the Gentiles to Judaize, he would simply have assumed the attitude of a mere Jewish proselyter, thus eclipsing the glory of Christ in what the Gentiles regarded as Jewish superstition. Now what a contrast. With the Jews he is a ritualized disciple of Moses, meek and lowly at the feet of the patriarchs and prophets, that he may win them to Christ. With the Gentiles he says not a word about all the vast routine of Jewish rites and ceremonies, but simply preaches Christ like a messenger from Heaven. 22. “Unto the weak I became weak, in order that I may gain the weak .”

When he was with illiterate, ignorant, superstitious people, he forbore the use of all his vast learning, coming down to the most consummate simplicity, adapting himself to all the limitations of their ignorance and superstition that he may achieve the one end in view, i .e ., win them for Christ. When I was presiding elder, twenty-five years ago, I preached nine hundred sermons a year, constantly in the saddle or the pulpit, the Lord rolling a Pentecostal flood over my whole district, wrapping every pastoral charge in a revival flame, and sweeping out into the missionary fields within our boundary like a Pentecostal avalanche during my quadrennium, doubling the entire membership of the district, and raising up platoons of preachers on all sides. Frequently between Sundays I have gone away into some poor destitute field amid the mountains and preached to the ignorant peasantry, laying aside my laundered shirt and black clothing, and dressing in rural costume, eating and sleeping in their cabins, and thus making myself socially and fraternally one of them, that I might win them for my Savior, God invariably coming in a cyclone of conviction and giving us a sweeping revival, so that at the close of my quadrennium I had twice as many members and preachers in my district as I began with. “I became all things to all men that I may indeed save some.” Lord, help us to walk in the footprints of sanctified Paul. Twenty years ago, while at home resting a little from evangelistic labor, a venerable and godly Baptist pastor sent a man to my house with conveyance and orders not to return without me. So I accompanied him ten miles to a country Baptist church with four hundred members. On arrival, good pastor B — met me with glad salutations and hearty welcome. “Oh! Brother Godbey, I am so glad you have come; Brother S — and myself have been preaching our best ten days and crying to God for a revival, but it seems without effect, and all hope has fled. I know you have revivals everywhere you go, therefore I sent for you; and praise the Lord you have come! Now take this meeting into hand, and be as free as the Lord can make you, and I will say’ amen’ to everything you say and do, and help you with all my might; anything, Brother Godbey, for a revival! My church is ruined if God don’t revive His work!” Leaving the two Baptist pastors in the pulpit, walking out in front I preached to the crowded house as best I could. I know there was already much conviction, though the brethren did not recognize it. During my first sermon the Holy Spirit “fell on all who heard,” turning the sanctuary into a Bochim of weeping. Responsive to the altar call about fifty rushed forward, apparently tumbling over one another. Soon the sacred walls around are reverberating the shouts of new-born souls, which have come like a swelling flood. I can remain but five days; meanwhile the mighty work sweeps on with accumulating momentum, forty grown up people having been gloriously converted and added to the Baptist church, the membership wonderfully revived, and not a few entering Beulah land. On my departure, some of the leading members, perhaps official, take me aside and beg me to accept the pastoral charge of their church, stating that they believe it will be for the glory of God, as their good and venerable pastor has been with them long enough. I respond, “Brethren, do you not know that I am a Methodist preacher, and if you were to give me the pastorate of your church you would be excommunicated from the Baptist denomination?” “Oh! we know you are a Methodist preacher, but we know another thing, you have preached the Baptist doctrine better than we ever heard it, and we want you to become our regular preacher.” Why was that? Because, while I preached the gospel as freely as if I had been in a Methodist church, I said nothing about Methodism nor John Wesley, but much about John the Baptist and the mighty men of their denomination as John the Baptist said, “I indeed baptize you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire.” So I preached to them the whole gospel, and they received it gladly, and mighty works were wrought. Since the Lord sanctified me thirty years ago, I have found it exceedingly refreshing to go away from my Methodist people and see the mighty works of God, enjoy glorious revivals with other denominations, spiritually recuperated by the variety I enjoyed in adapting myself to them in their religious and social peculiarities, at the same time preaching the whole gospel with the utmost freedom, and the people receiving it joyfully and appreciatively. Only two years ago I had a delightful and exceedingly profitable time preaching twenty-eight days with the Baptists in Tacoma, Washington, having been called thither by the pastor of the First Baptist Church in the city. There is no reason why trine immersion, foot-washing Tunkers and non-ritualistic Quakers should not hold membership together in the same church, worshipping and laboring in perfect harmony and Christian affection. God made religion, and it is the same regardless of race, sect, color or nationality. Hence all Christians, like Paul, should be all things to all men, with a single eye to their salvation.

The devil made sectarianism for a greased plank on which to slide people into Hell. Consequently he is perfectly willing that they shall all have their own way, Pagan, Moslem, Catholic or Protestant. All he asks of them is to slide on the plank, as he knows they will drop into the bottomless pit. All the religious denominations have been built on some non-essential human dogmatism. The union of God’s people is in Christ, there being no reason why all denominations should not worship together in perfect harmony in the same organizations throughout the whole earth, simultaneously and universally identifying in Christ, ever ready to waive their local, social, national and educational peculiarities in the interest of spirituality and salvation. Paul had but one theme, and that was Christ and Him crucified.

The Holy Ghost is the Revelator of Christ. We ought to preach Christ, the Holy Ghost, salvation, sanctification, and glorification so importunately and absorbingly that the people will lose sight of everything else. 23. “I do all things for the sake of the gospel, in order that I may be its fellow-partaker .” Paul defines the gospel ( Romans 1:16) “the dynamite of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.”

This is our only theme, Christ, the Holy Ghost, the dynamite which blows all sin and devils out of soul, mind, body, life, and influence. The reason why Christendom is divided up into six thousand sects is because they preach their sectarian differentia, which is really humanism, and as inappropriate and effete as the Jewish rites and ceremonies in Paul’s day.

While Paul winked at them for Christ’s sake, that he might win the Jews, he never preached them. If all the preachers, like Paul, would preach nothing but the gospel, and at the same time be all things to all men, eliminating in this way all the barriers which intervene between the sects of Christendom, these partition walls would soon dilapidate and tumble down.

THE OLYMPIC RACER AND THE ISTHMIAN GAMES When I was at Athens I visited the Olympic racecourse, which was a universal sensation a solid thousand years, beginning twenty-five hundred years ago, and discontinued fifteen hundred years ago. When I was there three years ago they were busy rebuilding the amphitheater, and reopened those games and races the following April, after an interregnum of fifteen hundred years. The Isthmian games were at Corinth, so named from the isthmus connecting the Achaia, i .e ., Southern Greece, with the mainland and separating the Aegean and Ionian Seas. These races and pugilistic games in their day became the absorbing interest, not only of Greece, but of all nations, who resorted to them from all parts of the earth that they might witness these grand quadrennial celebrations of Grecian heroism, genius, poetry, oratory, philosophy, and the fine arts. In the Pauline epistles we have frequent allusions to these races and games. 24. “Know you not that in the stadium those running indeed all run, but one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain .” While in those Grecian races only one could obtain the prize, and in our case there is a gracious possibility of every one receiving the boon, yet the sedulous warning of the apostle, “so run that you may obtain,” is demonstrative proof of our liability to fail. Such a failure does not here mean the forfeiture of Heaven, such a conclusion being out of harmony with the metaphor, from the simple fact that it was an especial privilege for Greeks only, and under the most rigid restrictions, to become runners in the stadium and contestants for the prizes in the amphitheater. Hebrews 12: “Laying aside every weight and the sin that does so easily beset us, let us run with patience the race that is set before us, ever looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.”

That race-course is not in the world, but in the kingdom of God, which is entered by regeneration. You see in this Scripture that after they have been received as bona fide contestants, having undergone years of preparatory discipline before the judges will receive them; then, laying aside every weight (which they had carried during their discipline to make them light when divested of it), and the besetting sin, i .e ., inbred sin, thus getting sanctified wholly, they enter upon the race to run for the prize awaiting for them at the end. Hence none but regenerated people are candidates for the races, and they must be sanctified wholly in order to run the race. Now you see that these runners do not all receive the prize, there being but one for all the group in any one race. In our case, however, there is a gracious possibility of every one winning the prize, yet you see a fearful liability that we may all fail; hence the admonition, “So run that you may obtain.” What is the obtainment? Only Christ, the author of our faith in conversion, the finisher of our faith in sanctification, and now returning to the earth for His Bride, and the question is, “Who shall have a place in the Bridehood?” — the climax of our achievement in Christ, and the voucher of our glorification, whether by translation or resurrection when He comes. Philippians 3:11: “In order that I may obtain unto the resurrection which is out from the dead,” i .e ., an especial and extraordinary resurrection, peculiar to the Bridehood of Christ, as in the Philippian letter we see, as in Corinthians and Hebrews and other epistles, running with all his might for the prize set before him. 25. “And every one striving is temperate as to all things, they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown, and we an incorruptible one .” All the contestants in the Olympic and Isthmian races and games spent the preceding four years in the most hygienic living and discipline, necessarily preparatory for the momentous responsibilities awaiting them. Oh, how Christendom needs light and reformation at this point! Millions are failing because they are not “temperate in all things,” which means total abstinence from everything pernicious, and moderate, judicious use of the edibles, potables, et cetera , which are appropriate. Americans, as a rule, are gormandizers, as well as drunkards in many cases. If you would be ready for translation when the Lord appears, which is really the goal in view, you must subordinate the physical to the spiritual, wearing the world as a loose garment and ready to drop it off at a moment’s warning. Abstinence and prayer are the two ropes dropped down from Heaven by which we pull up and get our feet on believing ground, for justification, sanctification and glorification when our Lord appears. 26. “Indeed I so run not as uncertainly, I so fight not as one beating the air .” Paul here testifies to his own successful running on the race-course, and fighting for the prize in the arena. The gladiator forfeited the prize if he did not conquer and slay his antagonist. 27. “But I keep my body under and subjugate it lest having preached the gospel to others I myself may be disapproved ,” i .e ., rejected. Many have misapprehended the conclusion here involved, thinking that Paul was contemplating his own forfeiture of salvation in case of failure. This is out of harmony with the facts in the case, as the question of salvation is not under consideration, but the obtainment of that prize set before them which is translation or glorification when the Lord comes. The race-course and the arena are only for the select few who have met the conditions and become contestants. Hence the justification of these contestants is not involved, that being settled as a matter of necessity before they are admitted into the stadium, or the arena. But the prize at the end of the race is involved in ambiguity and depending on the fleetness of the runner and the dexterity of the prize-fighter. Hence the great importance that you judiciously manage your body, “keeping it under and subjugating it” to the dominion of your illuminated spirit and sanctified intellect, making your body, which in itself is but an animal, the mere servitor of your spiritual and intellectual being, now filled and utilized by the Holy Ghost. This is necessary to prepare this mortal to put on immortality, and thus get this material body ready for spiritualization when the Lord comes and translates His saints, of which there is constant liability. If He does not soon appear, we must evacuate these bodies and go away to meet Him, leaving mortality in the dust, awaiting spiritualization. Now, conceive a summary of this grand truth.

Regeneration makes you a candidate for the Olympic race, admitting you into the kingdom where the stadium for the runner and the arena for the prize-fighter are located. Then, complete divestiture of every weight and besetting sin constitutes your sanctification for the race or the combat. Then the question still pends, “Shall I run the race successfully and fight the battle courageously so as to be ‘approved’ by my Lord when He comes for His Bride?” As Paul claims to be a perfect runner and heroic prize-fighter, we see him in constant and glowing anticipation of his Lord’s approval in the end. Yet he says that if he is not careful to keep his body under, and subordinate it to the spiritual and intellectual, there is a probability of his rejection at the end of the race, just like many of the Olympic racers failed to win the prize. In that case he does not forfeit a place in the kingdom of God, as that is not in the contest, but was settled before he became a bona fide contestant. But this final disapproval simply means the forfeiture of the prize, i .e ., a place in the Bridehood, corroborating innumerable other Scriptures warranting the conclusion that multiplied millions will be saved who are not identified with the Bridehood, but friends of the Bridegroom and children of the kingdom; e .g ., all infants, idiots, saved heathens, and innumerable Christians who are “scarcely saved” ( 1 Peter 4:18), whereas all the members of the Bridehood will have an “abundant entrance” ( Peter 1:11). Many a loyal citizen who voted for President McKinley has no qualification for an office in his Cabinet. So the Bridehood of Christ involves official qualification as subordinates in the Divine administration in this world, and doubtless many others.

CHAPTER - ISRAEL BAPTIZED INTO MOSES 1. “For I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, that all our fathers were under a cloud and all passed through the sea , 2. “And were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea .” The 77th Psalm says, “The clouds poured forth water” on that memorable occasion when the awful violence of the east wind seems to have been a potent agent in actually dividing the sea, and producing such a vast amount of spray as to accumulate in clouds over them, pouring out water as they passed through the sea. This baptism significantly consecrated them all to Moses, their deliverer out of Egyptian bondage, and their leader to the promised land. That very transaction forever absorbed their allegiance to Pharaoh, who emblematizes the devil. They had spent all their lives in his kingdom, abject slaves under his cruel lash. Now they go out leaving him, his kingdom and all of their hard bondage forever. Moses, the mediator of the old covenant, vividly emblematizes Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant of redemption, which is retrospective, taking in Abel and the antediluvians, and prospective, reaching down to the end of time. In a similar manner our water baptism signifies regeneration, i .e ., our departure out of the devil’s kingdom, our eternal absolution from his yoke of bondage, our reception of Christ as Prophet, Priest and King, and our identification with Him forever. 4. “And they all drank that spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock which followed them, and Christ was the Rock .” Moses was but a man representing Christ, who had not yet come incarnate, consequently types and symbols were necessary to represent Him and His kingdom. Yet we see He was there in their midst, as He preached the first gospel sermon to the fallen race in Eden, was with His people before the flood, and in all the patriarchal ages. So Christ is as real in the Old Testament as in the New; the Prophet, Priest, and King of His true people in all ages. 5. Awful retributions overtook Israel in the wilderness, because they sinned. 6. “And these things became our types, that we should not covet evil things as they also lusted after them .” The national life of Israel, from Egypt to Canaan, typifies the experience of individual Christians in our dispensation. 7. “Neither be ye idolaters as some of them, as has been written: The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play .” Idolatry is fearfully prevalent in the churches of the present day. The people worship water gods, day gods, sectarian gods, creed gods, money gods, and many others.

This verse sweeps away all church festivals at a single dash. As in olden time, they are invariably connected with idolatry. “They sat down to eat and rose up to play.” This is literally verified in the churches all around us.

They have their festivals, followed by plays of different sorts. All religion is spirituality, feeding the soul and not the body, physical festivity being inimical and impedimental to true spiritual life and prosperity. 8. “Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and fell in one day twenty-three thousand .” All deflection from God after the world is spiritual fornication, whose sweeping spiritual ruin is here vividly symbolized by twenty-three thousand in one day dropping dead. When churches reject sanctification, they always go after worldly gods, i .e ., side-track away into spiritual fornication, as sanctification is simple holy wedlock with Jesus, which the Holy Ghost wants to celebrate, every recusant of course deciding in favor of rival lovers inimical to Jesus.

The reason why we see the wholesale apostasy in all denominations is because God has brought on them the test of the Holiness gospel. Hence they are bound to receive it or backslide. Perhaps the Jews would have remained loyal to Jehovah many centuries if He had not sent to them His Son, who became to them an immediate stumbling block, because they rejected Him, then and there apostatizing and becoming a hiss and by-word in all the earth, rejected of God and reprobated.

SANCTIFICATION TAKES OUT THE MURMUR 10. “Murmur ye not as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer .” Unsanctified people are never satisfied. In the winter it is too cold, in the summer too hot, in the spring too wet, and in the fall too dry. Sanctified people are always perfectly pleased with the weather and everything else which God manages. They shout amid the snow storms of winter, so beautifully emblematic of the blood-washed robes they wear.

They praise the Lord for the sultry summer heat, so delectably relieved by the delicious cooling shade-trees which God planted with His own hands, that we might gather under them and press the Holiness camp-meetings through all the long sultry summer. They leap and shout amid the refreshing vernal showers, assured that their Heavenly Father is sending them down to awaken the sweet May flowers from their long winter sleep. They give glory to God amid all the clouds of dust which eclipse an autumnal sun, bringing on the delectable Indian summer, affording blessed opportunity to gather in the delicious fruits of the prolific summer and store them away for the oncoming winter, whose dreary icy tread will be cheered by an abundant supply of potatoes, nuts and apples. Lord, help us to get saved from all our fret and worry. 11. “These things happened unto them typically, and were written for the admonition of us unto whom the ends of the ages have come down .” The dealings of God with His ancient people are invaluable helps to us by way of incentives to holiness and admonition against sin. We are living in the last age preceding the glorious kingdom. The Eden age wound up with the sad calamity of the Fall; the Antediluvian with the Flood; the Patriarchal with Egyptian slavery, plagues and destruction in the Red Sea; the Mosaic with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies, a million perishing by sword, pestilence and famine, another million sold into slavery, and the scathed and peeled remnant expatriated to the ends of the earth. The Johanic and Messianic dispensation wound up in bloody martyrdom — John beheaded and Jesus crucified. So ours is the last, launched in its full-orbed glory on the day of Pentecost and hastening on to its culmination in the great Tribulation, which Jesus says will be more calamitous than any of the preceding judgments winding up the former dispensations. Hence we should all be on the lookout, assured the end is nigh.

TEMPTATION 12. “So let him that thinketh he stands take heed lest he may fall .” This verse is clear and conclusive, settling the question beyond all controversy as to our constant liability to fall, and forfeit our probation. A dogma has prevailed flatly contradictory of this clear Pauline statement, i .e ., that all who have once enjoyed the salvation of the Lord will ere long reach the kingdom of glory, i .e ., that the backslider goes to Hell. Not only the opposite, but the very contradictory, of this dogma is true. Let us begin with Satan and take an invoice of Hell’s inmates. The devil himself was once the bright archangel Lucifer, enjoying ineffable bliss among the angels in Heaven. Pursuant to the perfect freedom and momentous responsibility appertaining to the created intelligences of all worlds, who were originally on probation, he kept not his first estate ( Jude 6), but fell ( Isaiah 14:12), many others following his sad example; “kept not their first estate,” but, leaving their own habitation, were cast out to suffer adamantine chains and penal fires forever. We must remember God never created a devil, could not, as it is impossible for evil to emanate from good. Therefore all the devils in Hell were at one time angels living in the kingdom of God; the wonderful redemption of Christ so effectually reaches the whole human race that all are born in the kingdom of God like the prodigal son and his older brother, and only get out by sinning out, and we see in the case of the elder brother that he never did get out. The conclusion from God’s Word is irresistible: the whole human race, through the redemption of Christ, is born in a justified state, not the children of the devil, as in that case dying infants would all go to Hell, but the children of God, heirs of the covenant.

Hence we see, as in the case of the prodigal son, that every sinner converted is simply a backslider reclaimed, having been a citizen of the kingdom in his infancy before he backslid out. Hence you see the utter falsity of the dogma that every backslider will be saved. Instead of there being no backslider in Hell, there are none in the bottomless pit but backsliders: Satan himself at the beginning an old backslider; all the devils following on, fallen angels, and then every human being, having enjoyed the salvation of the Lord in infancy, now backslidden, fallen and become the inmate of hopeless despair. Never forget the wholesome Pauline admonition, “Let him that thinketh he stand take heed lest he fall.” 13. “No temptation hath overtaken us except human .” If we should encounter superhuman temptations, we would certainly go down under them. But, since Christ Himself is a man, He is sure to give His victory over every human temptation. “But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but with the temptation will also make a way of escape by which you shall bear up under it .” It does not mean that He will take away the temptation, as in that case we would miss a blessing; because temptation is certainly one of the greatest sources of blessing this side of Heaven, as we always gain strength by the battle and courage by the victory. The soldier who fights no battles, wins no victories and will never wear the laurel crown. Hence you need not expect to get where you will have no temptations, as in that case you would have to go out of this world, which is thronged with evil spirits, Satanic and human, besetting you with temptations on every side. But as these temptations are only human, and none of them superhuman, and our Savior Himself is a man, He is certain to give us all the help we need to triumph over every foe and have victory in every temptation. He does not promise to take us out of temptation, “but to make a way of escape by which we shall be able to bear up under it.” Hence the soldier is not relieved of the battlefield, but he is not only immortal, but invulnerable. Therefore it is fun to fight and conquer and achieve. This Scripture certainly covers all the ground on the temptation problem, assuring you that victory is always at hand, and a glorious blessing for you in every temptation. You enter the battlefield with victory in sight, and the mount of triumph cheering you onward.

THE COMMUNION 19. As the blood in the human system is the vitalizer of the whole body, circulating into every member, so the blood of Christ circulates into every member of His mystical body, in Heaven and in earth, imparting to all His own vitality. Hence close communion is out of harmony with the life of Christ, common to all the members of His body and interpenetrating all, great and small. This blood, which is the life, is emblematized by the wine which should be participated in alike by all the members of our Lord’s body. The bread also emblematizes the body of Christ, and is consequently to be the common participation of all. Since bread is the staff of physical life on which every human body subsists, so it typifies Christ, the Creator and Nourisher of every human spirit. Hence the Eucharist is the visible bond of union, identifying the saints of all ages and nations with the one body of Christ.

DEMON WORSHIP 20. “But those things which they sacrifice, they really sacrifice to demons, and not to God: I do not wish you to be the communicants of demons . 21. “You are not able to drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons: you are not able to partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons .” 22. “Whether shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Whether are we stronger than He ?” Here he warns the Corinthians against the communion of demons, i .e ., devil worship. All the Grecian gods were but the personifications of the evil passions, tempers, lusts, and ambitions peculiar to fallen humanity; as the demons, resident in human hearts and flying through the air, make it their constant enterprise to stir up the evil tempers, passions, lusts predilections in fallen humanity, doing their utmost to lead people into conservatism and subordination to these demons. Hence the heathen world in all ages has been full of demon worship. The Greek philosophers, in their writings, actually used the word “demon.” The great Socrates stated that his guardian demon made revelations to him and held communion with him. Millions of heathens, Moslems and Romanists, as well as doubtless many Protestants, this day worship demons. The vast sectarian diversity in the Christian world is really another manifestation of the Pagan polytheism, in which the heathens worship many gods, variant in character and attributes, like the diversified and even warring sects of Christendom. Oh! how many today are groping in demon worship! The Greek has “demon” in this paragraph, where E.V. has “devil,” a word which properly applies to Satan himself, the innumerable subordinate evil spirits thronging earth and Hell being denominated demons. They are prone to dress up in the habiliments of angels (such as they once were, and hence know how to play the angel), and pass themselves for the Holy Ghost, thus deceiving the people by millions, leading them into demon worship, thinking they are worshipping God. Such is the case with the millions who profess and practice a sinning religion, which they get from the demons, because God has none such. Our sacramental boards are crowded by carnal, wicked people who actually, as Paul here says, “drink not the cup of the Lord, but the cup of demons, and sit not at the table of the Lord, but the table of demons.” 23-24. “All things are not lawful, but all things are not profitable: all things are lawful, but all things do not edify .” We must remember that the way to Heaven is much narrower than the law. Many things are lawful which the clear light of God’s Spirit, Word and Providence would have us deny. In Paul’s cloudless spiritual day he could see that offering meat to an idol did not hurt it; hence it was lawful for him to eat it, but not expedient if some one walking in a dimmer light should stumble over his example. “Let no one seek his own, but that of another .” It was Cain the fratricide who said to God: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Certainly you are your brother’s keeper. 25. “Eat everything sold in market, asking no questions for conscience’ sake .” Certainly we have broad liberties amid the clear light of the Pentecostal dispensation. We need not Judaize on swine nor anything else.

Yet we must live hygienically, pursuant to our constant duty to our own body, mind and spirit; and we must live prudently, not only on the questions of eating and drinking, but of all others, for the sake of our neighbors. 26. “For the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness of the same .” Hence you have a right to enjoy all the bounty of earth in harmony with hygiene and the diversified interests of God’s kingdom, of which you are a member for this world and all eternity. “If any one of the unbelievers call you, and you wish to go, eat everything set before you, asking no questions for conscience sake.” Hence we have broad liberties and we are not to bring our conscience in the matter as we are walking in the clear light of God.

Hence, so far as we personally are concerned, our liberties are unbounded. 28. “But if any one may say to you, ‘This is offered to an idol,’ eat not for the sake of him who delivered you the information and his conscience . 29. “I say not the conscience of yourself, but of the other one . Hence you see from this that you are bound in all the transactions of life to keep a constant outlook for the interest of others, watching, praying and asking God to keep you from becoming a stumbling-block to any, and make you a constant inspiration for good to all who come within your influence. 29-31. “Therefore, whether you eat, or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all things to the glory of God .” Obedience to this simple and beautiful commandment of God becomes easy and natural when we have Christ crowned within, because He keeps His arms about us, and His almighty hand beneath us and His heavenly wing over us, so that we rest like a tired child in its mother’s arms, free from all solicitude, knowing that it is perfectly safe. 32. “Be ye without offense both to Jews and Greeks and to the Church of God.” 33. “As I indeed please all in all things, seeking not my own profit, but that of the many in order that they may be saved .” God help us to live in the daily appreciation and application of this plain, beautiful apostolic precept.

The Jews and Gentiles differed more widely in their religious, socialistic and manneristic peculiarities than any denominations now in America. Yet they were united in all the gospel churches, enjoying ample provisions of grace to live together in perfect fraternity and Christian fellowship.

CHAPTER - 1. “Be ye imitators of me as I am of Christ .” Not even an apostle enjoyed a right to human leadership, only so far as he was in harmony with Christ.

Hence the utter futility and glaring preposterosity of all human leadership.

All we can do is to walk in the footprints of Jesus, and shout aloud: “Follow me as I follow the Lord.” The clergy men in the fallen churches have in all ages sought to lead the people, and demanded their obedience.

Entire sanctification saves us all from human leadership. Hence it has been antagonized by the ruling clergy, who have usurped the prerogative of the Holy Ghost and constituted themselves leaders in all ages. 2. “I praise you because you imitate me in all things, and hold fast the instructions as I delivered them to you .” The original word here is not “ordinances,” as in E.V., but “traditions,” which really means everything transmitted to the people by the Savior and apostles, both written and unwritten. I use the word “instructions” as the more comprehensive and the freer from ambiguity.

MAN’S LEADERSHIP IN THE DOMESTIC GOVERNMENT (VERSES 3-15.) 4. “Every man praying or prophesying having something on his head dishonors his head . 5. “Every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered dishonors her head — 7. “For the man indeed ought not to cover his head, being the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man — 10. “On this account the woman ought to have authority on her head on account of the angels .” 16. “If any one seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither do the churches of God .” During Paul’s absence of three years in Asia many changes had taken place among them. A multitude of preachers from Judea, and other countries, had been there preaching; Peter, Apollos and other godly heralds of truth and righteousness, and still others whose Christian character was probably to be discounted. Many had backslidden.

The church was racked with controversies on many different lines. Among other things, they wrote to Paul in reference to the women who were preaching among them bareheaded, like men, raising no controversy about their preaching and praying and taking an active part in the public worship, as Priscilla and others had done while Paul was with them. But there was quite a criticism against the habit of some of their women preaching and praying bareheaded, like men, the costume at that day being so identical among men and women that the veil of the latter and the shorn locks of the former became the ordinary designation of the sexes. While Paul is disposed to lay no emphasis on the latter, stating to them that it is unworthy of controversy, because the churches have no fixed custom requiring the woman to have something on her head when she exercises in public, yet, for the sake of harmony and to obviate unprofitable criticism, he advises all of the sisters to put something on their heads when they pray and preach in the meetings, setting forth a beautiful concatenation, beginning with God, then Christ, then the husband and then the wife. God is over Christ, and Christ over the husband, and the husband over the wife in the domestic government, which is the basis of all civil society and state government.

The man is to have nothing on his head, indicative of the fact that he is king in the home government, no earthly authority being over him; while the woman is to have something on her head, symbolic of her husband’s authority over her. The apostle reminds them that the angels are present in their meetings, which is a beautiful and consolatory truth. We should remember that a portion of our congregations is unseen by mortal eyes, and yet present, i .e ., “ministering angels hovering round.” As we fix up to go out in company, we ought to be decorous in the presence of the angels.

Hence he advises the women to extend courtesy not only to the human portion of the audience, but to the angels present, by putting something on their heads so they wouldn’t look odd nor uncouth. While he thus answers their questions, advising the women praying and preaching to wear something on their heads by way of decorum, relieving them of unnecessary criticism, at the same time he attaches no gravity to it, as there is no such principle settled in the churches.

THE LOVE FEAST AND THE EUCHARIST We must remember that the Lord’s Supper’ was instituted by our Savior immediately after the last meal He ate with His apostles. During the apostolic age they perpetuated that custom of having a social, religious meal, and eating together in commemoration of the last Supper of our Lord and His apostles and exhibitory of their love to one another. For this reason, John Wesley revived the love feast. In connection with this love feast, which preceded the Eucharist, they had run into some irregularities which the apostle here endeavors to correct, stating to them that their coming together is “not for the better, but for the worse.” 18-19. “For in the first place, indeed your coming together in the church, I hear there are schisms among you, and I partially believe it. For it behooveth that there be heresies among you in order that the approved among you may be made manifest .” Darkness prepares us to appreciate the light of day. Adversity qualifies us for prosperity, and the world is made up of antitheses. Everything has its antithetical counterpart. Hence “all things work together for good to them that love God” ( Romans 8:38); i .e ., everything in the universe, in the wonderful redemption of Christ, is made a blessing to His true people. Even the schisms and heresies with which He sees fit to inflict the church become a great source of blessing to the truly humble, meek and lowly by way of profitable illustration and admonition. The prevailing worldliness and wickedness in the churches today are ousting the true hearts from the incantations of Satan’s oblivious lullabies, and stirring them out to wake up and appreciate the glorious gospel of entire sanctification. 21. He here alludes to the fact that in this meal — which preceded the sacrament, and in its original institution was simple and frugal, demonstrative of their love to one another — some of them have gone to excess, actually eating to gluttony and drinking to drunkenness. This was not the sacrament, but the meal which preceded it, called the agapee , i .e ., the love feast. 22. “For have you not houses in which to eat and drink, or do you look down with contempt on the church of God, and shaming those not having?

What do I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I do not praise you .” This is a withering rebuke to the church festivals of our day, setting forth the fact that they are utterly inappropriate in the house of God, because they are even much more extravagant and luxuriant and hilarious than these Corinthian festivals. 23-25. Here proceeding on from his allusions to the love feast anticipating the sacrament, and which they had woefully perverted into a hilarious festival, like the church suppers of the present day, he now describes the holy Eucharist as instituted by our Savior, following the last supper in the upper room on Mt. Zion. 26. “As often as you may eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show forth the death of the Lord until He may come .” Hence we see the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is to be perpetuated until He returns to the earth, since it is a memento of our absent Lord. It is a valuable means of grace, perpetuatory of our membership in the visible church, as our baptism is initiatory. 27. “So whosoever may eat the bread or drink the cup unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord .” What an awful responsibility!

How consummate the delusions of the devil, which have long ago girdled the world with wicked carnal communicants, thus involving themselves in the guilt of the Lord’s innocent blood, shed by the diabolical rabble led on by the fallen clergy. 28. “Let a man examine himself and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup .” Here the close communionists make the sad mistake of examining the communicant themselves, which they have no right to do. Every tub stands on its own bottom. This is a matter which every soul is to settle with God alone. 29. “For he that eateth and drinketh not discerning the body, eateth and drinketh condemnation to himself .” We need the light and truth of the Holy Ghost to enable us spiritually to discern the Lord’s body broken in the bread and His blood flowing in the wine. “Damnation,” as in E.V., does not occur in this life. The Greek krima means “condemnation” here and “damnation” hereafter. Oh! What a wholesale damnation work Satan is doing! Deluding millions of poor unsaved, wicked, worldly, carnal people, to crowd the sacramental board, without the light of the Holy Ghost shining in their hearts, to discern the Lord’s body in the holy sacrament, and thus eating condemnation now and damnation in the world to come. Thus multitudes of proud, carnal church members, who in their hearts despise the humiliation of the cross, and could not be induced to come to the altar to consecrate themselves to God and get His blessing in their poor lost souls, are ready to crowd around the chancel and partake of the holy sacrament. 31. “On this account many among you are weak and sickly and some sleep ,” i .e ., sleep the sleep of spiritual death. In this age of apostasy and worldliness, this sad truth is simply appalling. 32-34. He here states the utter futility of human judgment, hence the vanity of all attempts to evade the voice of Divine truth, at the same time the wisdom of humble acquiescence in the verdict of the Holy Ghost, as “being judged by the Lord we are disciplined, so that we may not be condemned along with the world in the great day.” Oh! that the carnal millions in the popular churches would thus heed this warning; receive the needed discipline and be corrected thereby, repent and fly to God, and get ready for the Judgment Day! Writing all of these castigatory criticisms against them, he hopes for a great reform in his absence, assuring them that when he comes, he will not only correct all of these but others.

CHAPTER - SPIRITUAL GIFTS 1 , 2 . He now proceeds to expound to them elaborately the grand theme of spiritual gifts, marking a very decisive transition from the disciplinary to the educational phase of his magisterial office. 3. “Therefore I make known unto you that no one speaking in the Spirit of God can say Jesus is anathema, and no one is able to say Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost .” This is conclusive from the fact that the Holy Ghost is the Successor and Revelator of Christ. “Lord” is applied to a man that rules, hence means the humanity of Christ, the legitimate ruler of the world, as God originally gave it to man. Though the devil has usurped it from Adam the first, Adam the Second has conquered Satan and taken it back. Hence He is destined to be “Lord over all, blessed for evermore.” This lordship must begin in the human heart, in which the Holy Ghost enthrones Jesus in sanctification. Since He is sent into the world to reveal Jesus and enthrone Him in the heart, whenever He sanctifies a soul He reveals Jesus sitting on the throne of the heart. The regenerated man knows Jesus as Savior because He has saved him, but does not know Him as Lord, i .e ., Ruler, until He is enthroned in the heart in sanctification. Hence the fearful Unitarian trend of the popular churches. Without the baptism of the Holy Ghost, the churches not only become despiritualized into dead formality, but Unitarianized into deistic infidelity. This arises from the fact that Christ must be crowned within be fore you can say, “Jesus is Lord .” It is the prerogative of the Holy Ghost to reveal and crown Jesus on the throne of the heart, which he always does in sanctification. Jesus sends the Holy Ghost, and He reveals Jesus. When you receive the personal Holy Ghost in sanctification, he reveals Jesus sitting on the throne of your heart. Then can you say, “Jesus is Lord.” 4. “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit . 5. “There are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord .” The Holy Ghost bestows on appreciative sinners the gifts of illumination, conviction, justification, regeneration, adoption, and the witness of the Spirit. Without this beautiful group of