1 Corinthians 1:1-9

1Co 1:1-9

1. Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and Sosthenes our brother,

2. Unto the Church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:

3. Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

4. I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;

5. That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge:

6. Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:

7. So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:

8. Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

9. God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Apostle's Salutation

We could hardly understand the composition of the Church at Corinth from the opening of this letter. Judging indeed by the salutation, one would suppose that the Church at Corinth was a model church, rich in knowledge, eloquent in utterance, generous in charity, quite an example to all churches. Yet it was as rotten a constitution as can be found in all the annals of history, everything that was bad was in the Church at Corinth; probably there has been nothing like it since; it was indeed a mystery of iniquity; yet it was the Church of God, and it is described as composed of men who were "called to be saints," and the men were recognised as those who called upon the name of Jesus Christ the living Saviour of the world. And even the Apostle Paul, whose righteousness was neither to be threatened nor bribed, said, "I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ." There must be some explanation of these practical contradictions, of these perplexing mysteries. Let us approach the whole consideration calmly.

Corinth was a wonderful city. This was not the Corinth of olden time, the Corinth that flourished two centuries before Paul wrote; this was only a fifty-year old city, the Chicago of Greece, the city which Julius Cæsar had built upon the foundations of the old Corinth. It was in very deed a tumultuous city; the Greek was there, and the Roman, and the Jew; traders, from what would then be called under the whole heaven, were to be found at this seaport; various languages, various customs, ill-remembered traditions, dreams of the past, aspirations after the future, a consciousness that quite a colossus was bestriding the whole city of Greece, all these things blended and combined and interplayed upon the imagination, the memory, and the consciousness of the Corinthian population. Corinth was subdued; it was a Roman footstool: and in this place there was a Church of God, there were sanctified men, there were praying souls; there were religious persons for whose spirit and purpose and beneficence the Apostle Paul thanked God every day. This must always be so, now that we think of it more carefully. We are as bad as the people who were at Corinth. Human nature advances at a very slow rate. No microscope has yet been invented that can tell how much higher we are than the people who lived thousands of centuries ago. In some particulars the advance is patent, obvious, indisputable: but are we now talking about a mechanical advancement, or a spiritual progress? Are we talking about certificates, or about interior life? Are we speaking about a calculated civilisation, or about a civilisation that expresses an action of motive and an aspiration after God? The great doctrine which we need every day for our comfort is that character is deeper than conduct. This doctrine may be stated so as to be dangerous; hence the infinite delicacy that is required in guarding it, lest men should pervert it and turn it to their destruction. We are judges of conduct: we are not judges of character. We say a man's conduct is very proper, very guarded, very admirable, is in many respects worthy of applause; and in so speaking we are speaking honestly and according to information, but we know nothing as to what we are talking about. Only God can judge souls. A man of bad conduct may be a good man. This is hard to understand: it seems to be impossible, and in certain social senses it is not only impossible, it is monstrous, and is to be repudiated with indignation: in another sense, character is greater than action, habit, manifestation; the man as he really is has to show himself through conditions that distort his beauty, his proportions, and that turn his very prayers into a species of accusation against his honesty. The Apostle Paul understood all this: none better; hence what a pastor he was, what a shepherd! How he gathered us to his boundless heart after every bout of drunkenness, after every revel, after every far-away wandering, and would still count us among the jewels of God. No doctrine can be so easily perverted. If a man be disposed to accept this as a doctrine and to say, "Such being the case, I may do what I like"; that man is a dog who has no right to the bread which is now being ministered. But it any man should say, "That may be the explanation of my poor life; I knew I had something in me that was better than the things I did; this is putting into words a lifelong feeling of mine: I will take hope; this is the very Gospel of heaven; I will now say, though I can hardly say it for choking sobs, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." Peter's character was greater than Peter's conduct. Peter's heart had not fair play in that battle so suddenly sprung upon him. He was one of those men who having had time to recruit himself would have shown a better surface to society; but suddenly taken, suddenly tempted, suddenly sprung upon, how weak he was and foolish, and how he yielded himself an easy prey to the destroyer! Yet, though this doctrine may be perverted, we must not give it up on that account. Some men find poison in everything; some eaters could find poison in bread; we must not, therefore, throw the bread away, but use it, and derive health and strength from it. You have committed a thousand sins, and yet there is a possibility of your being a really good man at heart. Do not let the man who has only committed the sins steal this consolation, for he could but lay a felon's hand upon it. The reference must be to spirit, to self-testing, to earnest, critical, unsparing examination. No man will seize this consolation wantonly who has any right to it; he will put out his hand tremblingly and thankfully. No man can accept a gospel with riotousness and wantonness, for his acceptance of it would be its spoliation and rejection. May a man be a drunkard, and yet a Christian? What is a drunkard? Everything will depend upon the definition. We have not hesitated to lay down the doctrine that some men drink with the body, but not with the soul. When a man drinks with his soul he is a drunkard, and I know not that there is any salvation for him; but when his intemperance is a mystery of the flesh, I leave him to God, speaking many a word of hope to him. May a man be a thief, and yet a good man in his heart? What is a thief? Be critical in your definitions, be exact in your judgments, and do not deal out rough justice; penetrate into temptation and circumstance and surrounding, and understand the whole case, and if you cannot do so, then leave it to him who alone can comprehend the whole mystery of human desire and human temptation.

There is nothing that is bad that was not in the Church at Corinth. It was drunken, partisan, riotous, sensual, idolatrous, quite mad with an ungovernable excitement; and yet it was the Church of God. Sometimes God has to abide in poor lodgings; sometimes the blessed Saviour has to sit down where he can, for we cannot always find him a couch of gold with seat of velvet, on which he may recline as a pampered King; we can offer him nothing but a broken heart, a wild, tumultuous, self-contradictory spirit. I know we pray one half of the day, and curse the other half; I am aware that human life is a moral contradiction, a paradox not to be tolerated by scribe and disputer of this world: yet he who was born in the stable seems to live in it all the time. This is all we can do for him at present, but in the worst of us he sees the make of a better man. How long must an earnest preacher wait to drive off from the appropriation of this sweet doctrine men who have no right to it? Let it be understood as a fact in history, that there was a community at Corinth as bad as it could be to all human appearance, and yet the Apostolic eye saw in it what perhaps it did not see in itself, a grace abounding over a grievous sin. How shall a man be estimated? Who shall number the elements that constitute his composition? and say whether the Ayes have it, or the Noes, whether the affirmative or the negative, whether the majority of the man lies upwards towards light and progress, or downwards towards darkness and decay? The Lord knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are but dust: it is better to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of men. If there is any one little gleam of beauty about us, no larger than a dew-drop, God will see it, and it shall be to him as a jewel he will never part with. What is richer than wealth? and what is that higher wealth without which all money is worthless? It is confidence. Confidence is the true strength of the nation. All commerce, though it may bring in a thousand per cent, every day in the week, is worthless if it does not represent something better than itself a strong, deep, indestructible confidence. There is a morality which the bank cannot represent in equivalent financial figures. What is larger than experience? Philosophy. But we thought philosophy was a theory? It may be made a theory of, and nothing more: but true philosophy is the larger experience; true confidence is the larger wealth; true character is the larger conduct; the true soul is the true man: on these distinctions, which can only be drawn and worthily estimated in the sanctuary, we must build our hope of progress and victory. If there are preachers who would always hang your sins before you in black festoons, and would overbear you, and would distress you by critical enumeration of the wrong things you have done, they are not God's preachers. There is a time when that requires to be done, but never to be done alone. There is another and comforting side; no man can preach truly about sin who does not preach worthily about grace. It is possible so to preach about grace as to make men feel their sins without ever naming them; it is possible so to erect a standard as to make every man feel his stature without being publicly measured. Great Apostle, Saint Paul in very deed! None can smite as he will smite, but none will bless as he will bless; he will begin with blessing, and he will call up all our strength before he submits us to the surgical examination which is in view; he will build us up that he may take us down.

"Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God" literally, Paul, a called apostle. He will have need of this authority, so he lays it down in the first breath. It is his apostolicity that is questioned. He must be clear about it himself, or the questioners themselves will throw his mind into incertitude. Every man can write the same sentence if he will be just to the indications of Providence: "called" to be a merchant; "called" to be an artist; "called" to be an expositor of law; "called" to be a servant; "called to stoop and do the world's poor drudgery; but "called"! There are no loose stones in God's quarry; every one is marked for a place: why should the stone that is marked for the base complain that it was not marked for the pinnacle? Why should the stone marked fur the pinnacle complain that it always catches the high winds, and the first snow that falls coldly upon it? whereas it ought to have been hidden in the earth, where it would have been saved from many inconveniences and from all exposures. There is one Builder: let him put us where he pleases. We cannot all be in the pinnacle, we cannot all be in the foundation; it is the Lord's Temple, let him put the stones where he wants to put them. "And Sosthenes our brother" our equal, our colleague. So at once all Papacy is expelled from this opening salutation. There is no playing at infallibility. Nobody knows who Sosthenes was even; some think that he was a ringleader of evil persons, and that he is referred to in the Acts of the Apostles; that is doubted by other commentators: the beautiful thing is, nobody knows certainly who he was; and yet he was Paul's "brother." We need obscure men to shadow the brilliance of men who are conspicuous. If Paul can sign along with an utterly unknown man, Paul is no pope. "Our brother" your brother and my brother, said Paul to the Corinthians. Or, if we omit the word "our" as an interpolation, still the music will read thus, "and brother Sosthenes" brother nobody. This is how we must look upon God's Church; great men and little men and no men men without any actual name; a mere label about them to distinguish them from some other people yonder. This is the Pauline democracy; this is the fundamental line of sainthood. "Grace be unto you, and peace." When heathen writers sent a letter they always began with the same word "health": when the Apostle writes a letter he nearly always perhaps literally always begins with some form of "grace," "peace." It is a word worthy of the Gospel. Health represents paganism right well; it was a study more or less of economics, and outward conditions, and phases of civilisation; but the Apostle comprehends health, and enlarges all its best suggestions when he says, "grace, peace." What is health without grace but a great, staring pillar without a capital, without a touch of beauty? What is health without peace but a tree-trunk all trunk: but grace and peace, what is it? full of twigs and buds and hints of blossom and promises of crowned summer. The Lord Jesus Christ is not less than any philosopher that went before him. He takes up all philosophical or pagan salutations, assumes them, and in some larger salutation blesses all the world. What would this Apostle have us enjoy? "Grace and peace." He would then have us rich indeed. He is poor who is without this blessing, whatever else he has. Money can never make a man rich; it needs too much counting and looking after and bookkeeping; but grace and peace given these, in Paul's conception of their magnitude and operation, and a man knows not whether he is in prison or out of prison, in the body or out of the body; knows not whether he is eating luxuries or feeding on the barest necessaries of life, for all life is then a luxury to him; he eats and drinks all day, but not as the dog does. No man can be in any doubt as to whether he has grace and peace in his heart. These are singing birds; they are birds that sing in the nighttime. Some poor little songsters seem almost obliged to sing because the sun is so bright and warm; they seem to be selfish birds; they are made, compelled, to sing. Others seem to wait for the darkness, and to have a great festival when they cannot be seen. Grace and peace will sing to a man at midnight, in every bereavement, sorrow, anxiety, and that kind of wonder which agonises to the point of distress. Have ye these singing-birds in your heart-cage? If not, yours is a dull house, though there be a fire in every room and servants be spreading banquets on your tables all day long. The banquet is nothing when the appetite is wanting.

How noble the recognition!

"I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that in everything ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" ( 1Co 1:4-7 ).

Here is a lesson in tactics. Sometimes we have to make a long carriage-drive to the house; sometimes we have all the road-making to do; it is well to make it broad and smooth. Sometimes we would do better with the people if we went with flowers in our hand, and with the sweet presentation dropped the word of hard instruction. There is a genius in the use of compliments. The wrestler lifts up his opponent that he may thrown him down. How rude some people are, and rough and senseless altogether: how wild in violence, how unfamiliar with human nature, how gifted with the insane genius of always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and of always saying what ought not to have been said at all! This is marvellous. When was human nature other than very marvellous?

Prayer

Father of our spirits, and God of all grace, we come with our morning hymn. We come to sing of thy goodness and thy mercy, which have followed us all the days of our life. Behold thou hast not left us alone; we have not known the meaning and the sorrow of desolation. Thou hast been a God nigh at hand, and not afar off; all the light of heaven has been thy smile, all the winds that blow over the earth have brought with them the fragrance of heaven. We will not therefore be dumb: we will praise the Lord with a loud voice; yea, we will rejoice exceedingly in the God of our salvation. Thou hast done great things for us whereof we are glad; when we have undertaken for ourselves we have failed: when we have rested in the Lord, and waited patiently for him and made a space in our life for the ministry of heaven, behold we have reaped in the seedtime, and in the harvest we have had the joy of summer, and even amid the snows of winter we have plucked a thousand flowers. Thou hast led us through the wilderness, and thy presence has made a garden of it; we will, therefore not be silent, we will lift up our voice gladly and praise the Lord for his manifold riches and goodness, for his wondrous patience, for his ineffable care. Thy grace has been greater than our sin, the black pebble of our guilt has sunk in the infinite ocean of thy love; we have learned concerning God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, that he is love, that he is righteousness, that he is merciful and kind to the unthankful and to the evil, not withholding his rain from the gardens of those who deny him, and from the fields of those who blaspheme his name. Jesus Christ thy Son has taught us to call thee our Father, and to find in thee all the best meaning of that term. Truly we know thou hast been near us; when our father and our mother forsake us, we will feel thine arms stealing round about us in the tenderness of omnipotence; when our way is dark and held up, yea bound round with rocks, then thou dost find a way for our feet and bring us into a wealthy place. We will no more be our own light and guide: there is no light in us, it is not in man that liveth to direct his way; we will abide in God, we will not disquiet ourselves by self-care, we will rest in the infinite love Guide us, O thou great Jehovah! Amen.