Waterland. The latter, in his very elaborate treatment of the
Eucharist, offers some remarks upon the point before us. "There can,"
he says, "be no just bar to frequency of communion but the want of
preparation, which is only such a bar as men may themselves remove if
they please; and therefore it concerns them highly to take off the
impediment as soon as possible, and not to trust to vain hopes of
alleviating one fault by another.... The danger of misperforming any
religious duty is an argument for fear and caution, but no excuse for
neglect; God insists upon the doing it, and the doing it well also....
It was no sufficient plea for the slothful servant under the Gospel
that he thought his master hard to please, and thereupon neglected his
bounden duty, for the use he ought to have made of that thought was
to have been so much the more wakeful and diligent in his master's
service. Therefore in the case of the Holy Communion it is to very
little purpose to plead the strictness of the self-examination or
preparation by way of excuse either for a total, or for a frequent, or
for a long neglect of it. A man may say that he comes not to the Table
because he is not prepared, and so far he assigns a good reason; but
if he should be further asked why he is not prepared when he may, then
he can only make some trifling, insufficient excuse or remain
speechless."[11]
[11] Waterland, _Works_, iv., p. 781.
The positive counsel Paul gives regarding suitable preparation for
participation in this Sacrament is very simple. He offers no elaborate
scheme of self-examination which might fill the mind with scruples and
induce introspective habits and spiritual hypochondria. He would have
every man answer the plain question, Do you discern the Lord's body in
the Sacrament? This is the one cardinal point on which all revolves,
admitting or excluding each applicant. He who clearly understands that
this is no common meal, but the outward symbol by means of which God
offers to us Jesus Christ, is not likely to desecrate the Sacrament.
"This is My body," says the Lord, meaning that this bread will ever
remind the communicant that his Lord freely gave His own body for the
life of the world. And whoever accepts the bread and the wine because
they remind him of this and bring him into a renewed attitude of faith
is a worthy communicant. The Corinthians were chastened by sickness
and apparently by death that they might see and repent of the
enormity of using these symbols as common food; and in order that
they might escape this chastening, they had but to recall the
institution of the Sacrament by our Lord Himself.
The brief narrative of this first institution which Paul here inserts
gives prominence to the truth that the Sacrament was intended
primarily as a memorial or remembrance of the Saviour. Nothing could
be simpler or more human than our Lord's appointment of this
Sacrament. Lifting the material of the Supper before Him, He bids His
disciples make the simple act of eating and drinking the occasion of
remembering Him. As the friend who is setting out on a long absence or
is passing for ever from earth puts into our hands his portrait or
something he has used, or worn, or prized, and is pleased to think
that we shall treasure it for his sake, so did Christ on the eve of
His death secure this one thing: that His disciples should have a
memento by which to remember Him. And as the dying gift of a friend
becomes sacred to us as his own person, and we cannot bear to see it
handed about by unsympathetic hands and remarked upon by those who
have not the same loving reverence as ourselves, and as when we gaze
at his portrait, or when we use the very pen or pencil worn smooth by
his fingers, we recall the many happy times we spent together and the
bright and inspiring words that fell from his lips, so does this
Sacrament seem sacred to us as Christ's own person, and by means of it
grateful memories of all He was and did throng into the mind.
Again, the form of this memorial is fitted to recall the actual life
and death of the Lord. It is His body and blood we are invited by the
symbols to remember. By them we are brought into the presence of an
actual living Person. Our religion is not a theory; it is not a
speculation, a system of philosophy putting us in possession of a true
scheme of the universe and guiding us to a sound code of morals; it
is, above all, a personal matter. We are saved by being brought into
right personal relations. And in this Sacrament we are reminded of
this and are helped to recognise Christ as an actual living Person,
who by His body and blood, by His actual humanity, saved us. The body
and blood of Christ remind us that His humanity was as substantial as
our own, and His life as real. He redeemed us by the actual human life
He led and by the death He died, by His use of the body and soul we
make other uses of. And we are saved by remembering Him and by
assimilating the spirit of His life and death.
But especially, when Christ said, "Do this in remembrance of Me," did
He mean that His people to all time should remember that He had given
Himself wholly to them and for them. The symbols of His body and blood
were intended to keep us in mind that all that gave Him a place among
men He devoted to us. By giving His flesh and blood He means that He
gives us His all, Himself wholly; and by inviting us to partake of His
flesh and blood He means that we must receive Him into the most real
connection possible, must admit His self-sacrificing love into our
heart as our most cherished possession. He bade His disciples remember
Him, knowing that the death He was about to die would "draw all men
unto Him," would fill the despairing with hopes of purity and
happiness, would cause countless sinners to say to themselves with
soul-subduing rapture, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me." He knew
that the love shown in His death and the hopes it creates would be
prized as the world's redemption, and that to all time men would be
found turning to Him and saying, "If I forget Thee, let my right hand
forget her cunning; if I do not remember Thee, let my tongue cleave to
the roof of my mouth, if I do not prefer Thee above my chief joy." And
therefore He presents Himself to us as He died: as One whose love for
us actually brought Him to the deepest abasement and sorest suffering,
and whose death opens for us a way to the Father.
But these symbols were appointed to be for a remembrance of Christ in
order that, remembering Him, we might renew our fellowship with Him.
In the Sacrament there is not a mere representation of Christ or a
bare commemoration of events in which we are interested; but there is
also an actual, present communion between Christ and the soul.
Encouraged and stimulated by the outward signs, we, in our own soul
and for ourselves, accept Christ and the blessings He brings. There is
in the bread and wine themselves nothing that can profit us, but we
are by their means to "discern the Lord's body." When Christ is said
to be present in the bread and the wine, nothing mysterious or magical
is meant. It is meant that He is spiritually present to those who
believe. He is present in the Sacrament as He is present to faith at
any time and in any place; only, these signs which God puts into our
hands to assure us of His gift of Christ to us help us to believe that
Christ is given, and make it easier for us to rest in Him.
_CONCERNING SPIRITUAL GIFTS._
"Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you
ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these
dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to
understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth
Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord,
but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but
the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations,
but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but
it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the
manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit
withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to
another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another
faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the
same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another
prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers
kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: but
all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to
every man severally as He will. For as the body is one, and hath
many members, and all the members of that one body, being many,
are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all
baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether
we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one
Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot
shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it
therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am
not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the
body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If
the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God
set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased
Him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But
now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot
say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to
the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those members of
the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary: and those
members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon
these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have
more abundant comeliness. For our comely parts have no need: but
God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant
honour to that part which lacked: that there should be no schism
in the body; but that the members should have the same care one
for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members
suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members
rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in
particular. And God hath set some in the Church, first apostles,
secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then
gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.
Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all
workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak
with tongues? do all interpret?"--1 COR. xii. 1-30.
XVIII.
_CONCERNING SPIRITUAL GIFTS._
This Epistle is well fitted to disabuse our minds of the idea that the
primitive Church was in all respects superior to the Church of our own
day. We turn page after page, and find little but contention,
jealousies, errors, immorality, fantastic ideas, immodesty,
irreverence, profanity. At this point in the Epistle we do come upon a
state of things which differentiates the primitive Church from our
own; but here too the superior advantages of those early Christians
were sadly abused by ignorance and envy. The members of the Corinthian
Church were possessed of "spiritual gifts." They were endowed at their
conversion or at baptism with certain powers which they had not
previously possessed, and which were due to the influence of the Holy
Spirit. It would have been surprising had so entire a revolution in
human feelings and prospects as Christianity introduced not been
accompanied by some extraordinary and abnormal manifestation. The new
Divine life which was suddenly poured into human nature stirred it to
unusual power. Men and women who yesterday could only sit and condole
with their sick friends found themselves to-day in so elevated a state
of mind that they could impart to the sick vital energy. Young men who
had been brought up in idolatry and ignorance suddenly found their
minds filled with new and stimulating ideas which they felt impelled
to impart to those who would listen. These and the like extraordinary
gifts, which were very helpful in calling attention to the young
Christian community, speedily passed away when the Christian Church
took its place as an established institution.
If we are disposed to question the genuineness of those manifestations
because in our own day the Spirit of Christ does not produce them,
there are two considerations which should weigh with us. First, that
which Browning urges: that miracles which were once needed are now no
longer required, because they served the purpose for which they were
given. As when you sow a plot in a garden you stick twigs round it,
that no careless person may tread down and destroy the young and yet
unseen plant, but when the plants have themselves become as tall and
visible as the twigs, then these are useless, so if the miracles
actually served to help the young Church's growth, she by their means
has now become sufficiently visible and sufficiently understood to
need them no more.[12]
[12]
"You stick a garden-plot with ordered twigs
To show inside lie germs of herbs unborn,
And check the careless step would spoil their birth;
But when herbs wave, the guardian twigs may go,
Since should ye doubt of virtues, question kinds.
It is no longer for old twigs ye look,
Which proved once underneath lay store of seed,
But to the herb's self, by what light ye boast,
For what fruit's signs are. This book's fruit is plain,
Nor miracles need prove it any more.
Doth the fruit show? Then miracles bade 'ware
At first of root and stem, saved both till now
From trampling ox, rough boar, and wanton goat."
And, secondly, it was to be expected that the first impact of
these new Christian forces on the spirit of man should produce
disturbance and violent emotions, such as could not be expected
to continue as the normal condition of things. New political or
social ideas suddenly possessing a people, as at the French
Revolution, carry them to many actions and inspire them with an
energy which cannot be normal. And gentle and without observation
as were the Spirit and the kingdom of Christ, yet it was impossible
but that, under the pressure of the most influential and inspiring
ideas which ever possessed our race, there should be some
extraordinary manifestations.
Nothing could be more natural than that these gifts should be
overrated and should almost be considered as the most substantial
and advantageous blessings Christianity had to offer. First being
accepted as evidence of the real indwelling of the Holy Spirit, they
came to be prized for their own sake. Originally designed as signs of
the reality of the communication between the risen Lord and His
Church, and therefore as assurances that the holiness and blessedness
promised by Christ were not unattainable, they came to be regarded as
themselves more precious than the holiness they promised. Given to
this individual and to that in order that each might have some gift by
which he could profit the community, they came to be looked upon as
distinctions of which the individual was proud, and therefore
introduced vanity, envy, and separation, instead of mutual esteem and
helpfulness. One gift was measured with another and rated above or
below it; and, as usual, what was useful could not compete with what
was surprising. The gift of speaking for the spiritual profit of the
hearers was little thought of in comparison with the gift of speaking
in unknown tongues. Throughout this and the two following chapters
Paul explains the object of these gifts and the principle of their
distribution and employment; he enounces the supremacy of love, and
lays down certain rules for the guidance of meetings in which these
gifts were displayed.
Paul introduces his remarks by reminding them that their previous
history sufficiently explained their need of instruction. "In your
former heathen state you had no experience whatever similar to that
which you now have in the Church. The dumb idols to the worship of
which you let yourselves be carried did not communicate powers similar
to those which the Spirit now communicates to you. Consequently,
novices as you are in this domain, you need a guiding thread to
prevent you from going astray. This is why I instruct you."[13] And
the first thing you need to guide you is a criterion by which you can
judge whether so-called manifestations of the Spirit are genuine or
spurious. The test is a simple one. Every one whose words or actions
disparage Jesus proclaims himself to be under some other influence
than that of the Spirit; every one who owns Jesus as Lord, serving Him
and promoting His cause, is animated by the Spirit.
[13] Godet.
"No man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed." But was
there any possibility of such an utterance being heard in a Christian
Church? It seems there was. It seems that very early in the history of
Christianity men were found in the Church who could not reconcile
themselves to the accursed death of Christ. They believed in the
Gospel He proclaimed, the miracles He wrought, the kingdom He founded;
but the Crucifixion was still a stumbling-block to them. And so they
framed a theory to suit their own prejudices, and held that the Divine
Logos descended upon Jesus at His baptism and spoke and acted through
Him, but abandoned Him before the Crucifixion. It was Jesus, a mere
man, who died on the Cross the accursed death. This degradation of
Jesus was not to be tolerated in the Christian Church, and was
decisive as to a man's possession of true spiritual gifts. To own the
lordship of Jesus was the test of a man's Christianity. Did he
acknowledge as supreme that Person who had lived and died under the
name of Jesus? Did he employ his spiritual gifts for the furtherance
of His kingdom and as one who was really endeavouring to serve this
unseen Master? Then no hesitation need be shown in admitting his claim
to be animated by the Spirit of God.
In other words, Paul wishes them to understand that, after all, the
only sure test of a man's Christianity is his actual submission to
Christ. No wonderful works he may accomplish in the Church or in the
world prove his possession of Christ's Spirit. "Many will say to Me in
that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy
name have cast out devils, and in Thy name done many wonderful works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me,
ye that work iniquity." A man may gather and edify a large
congregation, he may write ably in defence of Christianity, he may be
recognised as a benefactor of his age, or he may be considered the
most successful of missionaries, but the only test of a man's claim to
be listened to by the Church is his actual submission to Christ. He
will seek not his own glory, but the good of men. And as to the gifts
themselves, they should be no cause of discord, for they have
everything in common: they have their source in God; they are for
Christ's service; they are forms of the same Spirit. "There are
diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences
of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of
operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all."
The new life then introduced by Christ into the individual and society
was found to assume various forms and to suffice for all the needs of
human nature in this world. Paul delighted to survey the variety of
endowment and faculty which appeared in the Church. Wisdom, knowledge,
faith, power to work miracles, extraordinary gifts of exhortation or
prophecy and also of speaking in unknown tongues, capacity for
managing affairs and general helpfulness--these and other gifts were
the efflorescence of the new life. As the sun in spring develops each
seed according to its own special kind and character, so this new
spiritual force develops in each man his most intimate and special
character. Christian influence is not an external appliance that clips
all men after one pattern as trees in an avenue are clipped into one
shape; but it is an inward and vital power which causes each to grow
according to his own individuality, one with the rugged irregularity
of the oak, another with the orderly richness of the plane. Variety in
harmony is said to be the principle of all beauty, and it is this
which the Divine Spirit in man produces. Individual distinctions are
not obliterated, but developed and directed for the service of the
community. At one in their allegiance to Christ, bound into one body
by common affections, beliefs, and hopes, and aiming at the
advancement of one cause, Christians are yet as different as other men
in faculty, in temperament, in attainment.
There is no truth coming more determinedly to the front in our own day
than this: that society is an organism similar to the human body. This
indeed is no new idea, nor is it an exclusively Christian idea. That
man was made for society and that it was each man's business to labour
for the good of the whole was common Stoic doctrine. It was taught
that every man should believe himself to be born, not for himself, but
for the whole world. Take one out of many expressions of this truth:
"You have seen a hand cut off, or a foot, or a head, lying apart from
the rest of the body; that is what a man makes himself when he
separates himself from others or does anything unsocial. You were made
by nature a part; and it is due to the benevolence of God that, if you
have become detached from the whole, you can be reunited to it." And
in the very earliest days, when the populace of Rome became
disaffected and seditious and retired outside the city walls to a camp
of their own, Menenius Agrippa went out to them and uttered his fable
which Shakespeare has helped to make famous. He related how the
various members of the body--the hand, the eye, the ear--mutinied and
refused to work any longer because it seemed to them that all the food
and enjoyment for which they toiled went to another member, and not to
them. It was of course easy for the accused member to clear itself of
the charge of inactivity and show that the food it received was not
retained for its own exclusive use, but was distributed through the
rivers of the blood, and how "the strongest nerves and small inferior
veins" from it received the natural competency whereby they lived.
But although this comparison of society to the body is not new, it is
now being more seriously and scientifically examined and pushed to
its legitimate conclusions and applications. The "real meaning of the
doctrine that society is an organism is that an individual has no life
except that which is social, and that he cannot realize his own
purposes except in realizing the larger purposes of society." All the
organs of the body by which we do our work in the world and earn our
bread are themselves maintained in life and fulfil the end of their
own existence by working for and maintaining the whole body; and
except in the common life of the body they cannot be maintained at
all. It is the same with the other organs of the body. The heart, the
lungs, the digestive organs, have hard and constant work to do; but
only by doing it can they fulfil the very purpose of their existence
and maintain themselves in life by contributing to the life of the
body in which alone they can live at all. The same principle holds
good in society. It is obvious in trade and commerce; a man can only
maintain himself in life by helping to maintain other people. And the
ideal society is one in which each man should not only yield
reluctantly to the compulsion of this natural law, but should clearly
see the great ends for which mankind exists and labour zealously to
promote these ends, should as eagerly seek what contributes to the
good of the whole as the hand is stretched out for food or as the
palate relishes what stays the appetite and nourishes the whole body.
Illustrating the relation of Christians to one another by the figure
of the members of a body, Paul suggests several ideas.
1. The unity of Christians is a vital unity. The members of the body
of Christ form one whole because they partake of one common life. "By
one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or
Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink
into one Spirit." The unity of those who together form the body of
Christ is not a mechanical unity, as of a pound of shot in a bag; nor
is it a unity imposed by external force, as of caged wild beasts in a
menagerie; nor is it a unity of mere accidental juxtaposition, as of
passengers in a train or of the inhabitants of a town. But as the life
of the human body maintains all the various members and nourishes them
to a well-proportioned and harmonious growth, so is it in the body of
Christ. Remove from the human body the life that supports it, and all
the members fall away from connection with one another; but so long as
the life is retained it assimilates in the most surprising way all
nutriment to its own precise type and form. The lion and the tiger may
eat precisely the same food, but that food nourishes in each a
different form. The life that animates the human body assimilates
nutriment to its own uses, imparting to each member its due proportion
and maintaining all the members in their relation to one another.
The unity of Christians is a unity of this kind, a vital unity. The
same spiritual life exists in all Christians, derived from the same
source, supplying them with similar energy, and prompting them to the
same habits and aims. They accept the Spirit of Christ, and so are
formed into one body, being no more isolated, self-seeking, and each
man fighting for his own hand, but banded together for the promotion
of one common cause. There is no clashing between the interests of the
individual and the interests of the society or kingdom to which he
belongs. The member finds its only life and function in the body. It
is by the freest and most deliberate exercise of his reason and his
will that a man attaches himself to Christ, seeing that by so doing he
enters the only path to real happiness and attainment. The individual
can only utter and fulfil his best self by doing his possible for
society. His devotement to public interests is no self-destroying
generosity, but the dictate of duty and of reason. To quote a writer
who deals with this matter from the philosophical point of view, "he
who has made the welfare of the race his aim has done so, not from a
generous choice, but because he regards the pursuit of this welfare as
his imperative duty. The welfare of the race is his own ideal, what he
must realize in order to be what he _ought_ to be. The welfare of the
race is his own welfare, which he must seek because he must be
_himself_. Cromwell, Luther, Mahomet, were heroes, not because they
did something over and above what they _ought_ to have done, but
because their _ideal self_ was coextensive with the larger life of
their world. 'I can no other' was the voice of each.... Their large
purposes were what they owed to themselves just as much as to their
world."[14]
[14] Professor Jones in _Essays in Philosophical Criticism_.
Those who cannot philosophically reconcile the claims of society and
the claims of the individual are yet enabled by their attachment to
Christ and by their acceptance of His Spirit to merge self in the
larger whole of Christ's body and find their truest life in seeking
the good of others. It is by their acceptance of Christ's Spirit as
the source and Guide of their own life that they enter into fellowship
with the community of men.
2. Paul is careful to show that the very efficiency of the body
depends upon the multiplicity and variety of the members of which it
is composed: "If they were all one member, where were the body?" "If
the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were
hearing, where were the smelling?" The lowest forms of life have
either no distinct organs or very few; but the higher we ascend in the
scale of life the more numerous and more distinctly differentiated are
the organs. In the lower forms one member discharges several
functions, and the animal uses the same organ for locomotion as it
uses for eating and digesting; in the higher forms each department of
life and activity is presided over by its own sense or organ. The same
law holds good of society. Among tribes low down in the scale of
civilisation each man is his own farmer, or shepherd, or huntsman, and
his own priest, and butcher, and cook, and clothier. Each man does
everything for himself. But as men become civilised the various wants
of society are supplied by different individuals, and every function
is specialized. The same law necessarily holds true of the body of
Christ. It is highly organized, and no one organ can do the whole work
of the body. Therefore one has this gift, another that. And the more
nearly this body approaches perfection, the more various and distinct
will these gifts be.
One important function of the Church therefore is to elicit and
utilize every faculty for good which its members possess. In a society
in which Christianity is but beginning to take root, it may fall to
one man to do the work of the whole Christian body--to be eye, tongue,
foot, hand, and heart. He must evangelise, he must teach, he must
legislate, he must enforce law; he must preach, he must pray, he must
lead the singing; he must plan the church and help to build it;
translate the Scriptures and help to print them; teach the savages to
wear a little clothing and help to make it; dissuade them from war and
instruct them in the arts of peace, instilling a taste for agriculture
and commerce. But when the Christian society has left this rudimentary
stage behind, those various functions are discharged by different
individuals; and as it advances towards a perfect condition its
functions and organs become as multifarious and as distinctly
differentiated as the organs of the human body. Every member of the
Church is different from every other, and has a gift of his own. Some
are fitted to nourish the Church herself and maintain the body of
Christ in health and efficiency; some are fitted to act on the world
outside: they are eyes to perceive, feet to pursue, hands to lay hold
of those who are straying from the light.
Every one therefore who is drawn into the fellowship of the body of
Christ has something to contribute to its good and to the work it
does. He is in connection with that body because the Spirit of Christ
has possessed and assimilated him to it; and that Spirit energizes in
him. He may not see that anything the Church is presently engaged in
is work he can undertake. He may feel out of place and awkward when he
attempts to do what others are doing. He feels himself like a
greyhound, compelled to run by scent and not by sight, and expected to
do the work of a pointer, and not seize his quarry, or as if set to do
the work of an eye with the hand. He can do it only in a groping,
fumbling, imperfect manner. But this is only a hint that he is meant
for other work, not for none. And it is for him to discover what his
Christian instincts lead him to. The eye does not need to be told it
is for seeing, or the hand that it is for grasping. The eye and the
hand of the child instinctively do their office. And where there is
true Christian life, it matters not what the member of Christ's body
be, it will find its function, even though that function is new in the
Church's experience.
The fact then that you are very different from the ordinary members of
the Church is no reason for supposing you do not belong to Christ's
body. The ear is very different from the eye; it can detect neither
form nor colour; it cannot enjoy a landscape or welcome a friend: but
"if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body;
is it therefore not of the body?" Is it not, on the contrary, its very
diversity from the eye that makes it a welcome addition to the body,
enriching its capabilities and enlarging its usefulness? It is not by
comparison with other people that we can tell whether we belong to the
body of Christ, nor is our function in that body determined by
anything which some other member is doing. The very difficulty we find
in adjusting ourselves to others and in finding any already existing
Christian work to which we can give ourselves is a hint that we have
the opportunity of adding to the Church's efficiency. The Church can
claim to be perfect only when she embraces the most diversely gifted
individuals and allows the tastes, instincts, and aptitudes of all to
be used in her work.
3. As there is to be no slothful self-disparagement in the body of
Christ, so must there be no depreciation of other people. "The eye
cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head
to the feet, I have no need of you." When zealous people discover new
methods, they forthwith despise the normal ecclesiastical system that
has stood the test and is stamped with the approval of centuries. One
method cannot regenerate and Christianize the world, any more than one
member can do the whole work of the body. Paul goes even further, and
reminds us that the "feeble" parts of the body are "the more
necessary;" the heart, the brain, the lungs, and all those delicate
members of the body that do its essential work entirely hidden from
view are more necessary than the hand or the foot, the loss of which
no doubt cripples, but does not kill. So in the Church of Christ it is
the hidden souls who by their prayers and domestic godliness maintain
the whole body in health and enable more conspicuously gifted members
to do their part. Contempt for any member of the body of Christ is
most unseemly and sinful. Yet men seem unable ever to learn how many
members, and how various, it takes to complete a body, and how needful
are those functions they themselves are wholly unable to discharge.
4. Lastly, Paul is careful to teach that "the manifestation of the
Spirit is given to every man _to profit withal_." It is not for the
glorification of the individual that the new spiritual life manifests
itself in this or that remarkable form, but for the edification of the
body of Christ. However beautiful any feature of a face may be, it is
hideous apart from its position among the rest and lying by itself.
Morally hideous and no longer admirable is the Christian who attracts
attention to himself and does not subordinate his gift to the
advantage of the whole body of Christ. If in the human body any member
asserts itself and is not subservient to the one central will, that is
recognised as disease: St. Vitus' dance. If any member ceases to obey
the central will, paralysis is indicated. And equally so is disease
indicated wherever a Christian seeks his own ends or his own
glorification, and not the advantage of the whole body. Simon Magus
sought to make a reputation and a competence for himself by spiritual
gifts. What in his case was mainly stupidity is in ours sin if we use
such powers and opportunities as we have for our own purposes, and not
with a view to the profit of others.
Let us then endeavour to recognise our position as members of Christ's
body. Let us with seriousness accept Him as appointed by God to be our
true spiritual Life and Head; let us consider what we have it in our
power to do for the good of the whole body; and let us put aside all
jealousy, envy, and selfishness, and with meekness honour the work
done by others while humbly and hopefully doing our own.
_NO GIFT LIKE LOVE_
"But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet show I unto you a
more excellent way. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of
angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a
tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and
understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have
all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not
charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed
the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not
charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is
kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not
puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own,
is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in
iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they
shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether
there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part,
and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come,
then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a
child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as
a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For
now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I
know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And
now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest
of these is charity."--1 COR. xii. 31-xiii. 13.
XIX.
_NO GIFT LIKE LOVE._
This is one of the passages of Scripture which an expositor scruples
to touch. Some of the bloom and delicacy of surface passes from the
flower in the very handling which is meant to exhibit its fineness of
texture. But although this eulogium of love is its own best
interpreter, there are points in it which require both explanation and
enforcement.
In the preceding chapter (xii.) Paul has striven to suppress the envy,
vanity, and discord which had resulted from the abuse of the spiritual
gifts with which the Corinthian Church was endowed. He has explained
that these gifts were bestowed for the edification of the Church, and
not for the glorification of the individual; and that therefore the
individual should covet, not the most surprising, but the most
profitable, of these manifestations of the Spirit. "Covet the best
gifts," he says: Desire the gifts which edify, the gift of
exhortation, or, as it was then called, prophecy. And yet there is a
more excellent way to edify the Church than even to exercise apostolic
gifts; this is the way of love, which he proceeds to celebrate.
1. Love is the ligament which binds together the several members of
the body of Christ, the cement which keeps the stones of the temple
together. Without love there can be no body, no temple, only isolated
stones or disconnected, and therefore useless, members. The
extraordinary gifts of which the Corinthians were so proud cannot
compete with love. They may profit the Church, but without love they
are no evidence of the ripe Christian manhood of their possessor.
Suppose I speak all possible languages--languages of angels, if you
please, as well as languages of men--and have not love, I am but a
mere instrument played upon by another, no better than a bit of
sounding brass, a trumpet or a cymbal, not enjoying, nor moved by, nor
swayed by the music I make, but insensible. As Bunyan says, "Is it so
much to be a fiddle?" If no man understands the language I am impelled
to use, then I am but as a clanging cymbal, making a noise without
significance. And even though I speak a tongue which some stranger
recognises as his own, it is not I who am coming into contact with his
soul through a living influence; I am but used as an instrument of
brass is used by the player.
Or take even the higher gift of prophecy. Suppose I am enlightened by
the Spirit so that I can explain things hitherto misunderstood;
suppose I can make revelations of important truths which have been
accessible to none besides; suppose even that I have all faith, faith,
as the rabbis say, to remove mountains; suppose I can work miracles,
heal the sick, raise the dead, set the whole world agape with
astonishment, all this without love, however it may profit others,
profits myself not at all, and neither brings me into closer
connection with Christ nor gives assurance of my sound spiritual
condition, I may be among the number of those who, after doing
wonderful works in Christ's name, are repudiated by Him. For as among
ourselves there are many gifts, such as learning, eloquence, sagacity,
musical, and poetical, and artistic genius, which may greatly
contribute to the edification of the Church, and yet reside in persons
who can make little claim to sanctity, so in the early Church these
extraordinary spiritual gifts seem to have carried with them no
evidence of their possessors' personal religion. They had certainly
begun a Christian career, but they might be deteriorating in character
instead of developing and maturing.
There were, however, two Christian actions which might seem to be
beyond question as evidence of a sound spiritual condition: almsgiving
and martyrdom. The young man who sought guidance from Christ lacked
but one thing: to sell his property and give to the poor. But, says
Paul, "though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and have not
love, it profiteth me nothing." It is only too possible to do great
acts of charity from a love of display, or from an uneasy sense of
duty which parts reluctantly and grudgingly with what it bestows. That
is understood. Common-sense tells every one but the abjectly
superstitious man himself that it is as impossible to buy spiritual
health on a bed of death as it is to buy the cure of his mortal
disease.
But martyrdom? Can a man give any stronger proof of his faith than to
give his body to be burned? Certainly one would with great reluctance
disparage the integrity of those courageous persons who in many ages
of the Church's history have gone without flinching to the stake. But,
in point of fact, a willingness to suffer for one's opinion or one's
faith is not in every case a guarantee of the existence of a heart
transformed from selfishness to love. At one period martyrdom became
fashionable, and Christian teachers were compelled to remonstrate with
those who fanatically rushed to the stake and the arena, just as
suicide once became fashionable at Rome and evoked prohibitory
legislation.
Not without reason then does Paul so emphatically warn men against
looking upon such exceptional actions or such extraordinary endowments
as undoubted evidence of a healthy spiritual state. Gifts and conduct
which bring men prominently before the eye of the Church or the world
are often no index to the character; and if they be not rooted in and
guided by love, their possessor has little reason to congratulate
himself. Too often it is a man's snare to judge himself by what he
does rather than by what he is. It is so easy comparatively to do
great things supposing certain gifts be present; it is at least always
possible to human nature to make sacrifices and engage in arduous
duties. The impossible thing is love. No eye to advantageous
consequences or to public opinion can enable a man to love; no desire
to maintain a character for piety can produce that grace. Love must be
spontaneous, from the soul's self, not produced by considerations of
the requirements of a position we wish to reach or to maintain. It
must be the unconstrained, natural outcome of the real man. Not even
the consideration of Christ's love will produce love in us if there be
not a real sympathy with Christ. A sense of benefit received will not
produce love where there is no similarity of sentiment. Love cannot be
got up. It is the result of God entering and possessing the soul. "He
that loveth is born of God." That is the only account to be given of
the matter. And therefore it is that where love is absent all is
absent.
And yet how the mistake of the Corinthians is perpetuated from age to
age. The Church is smitten with a genuine admiration of talent, of the
faculties which make the body of Christ bulk larger in the eye of the
world, while too often love is neglected. After all that the Church
has learned of the dangers which accompany theological controversy,
and of the hollowness of much that passes for growth, intellectual
gifts are frequently prized more highly than love. Do we not ourselves
often become aware that the absence of this one thing needful is
writing vanity and failure on all we do and on all we are? If we are
not yet in the real fellowship of the body of Christ, possessed by a
love that prompts us to serve the whole, with what complacency can we
look on other acquirements? Do parents sufficiently impress on their
children that all successes at school and in early life are as nothing
compared to the more obscure but much more substantial acquisition of
a thoroughly unselfish, generous, catholic spirit of service?
2. Paul having illustrated the supremacy of love by showing that
without it all other gifts are profitless, proceeds (vers. 4-7) to
celebrate its own positive excellence. It is possible, though
unlikely, that Paul may have read the eulogium pronounced on love by
the greatest of Greek writers five hundred years before: "Love is our
lord, supplying kindness and banishing unkindness, giving friendship
and forgiving enmity, the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the
amazement of the gods; desired by those who have no part in him, and
precious to those who have the better part in him; parent of delicacy,
luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace; careful of the good,
uncareful of the evil. In every word, work, wish, fear--pilot,
helper, defender, saviour; glory of gods and men, leader best and
brightest; in whose footsteps let every man follow, chanting a hymn
and joining in that fair strain with which love charms the souls of
gods and men." Five hundred years after Paul another eulogium was
pronounced on love by Mohammed: "Every good act is charity: your
smiling in your brother's face; your putting a wanderer in the right
road; your giving water to the thirsty, or exhortations to others to
do right. A man's true wealth hereafter is the good he has done in
this world to his fellow-man. When he dies, people will ask, What
property has he left behind him? but the angels will ask what good
deeds he has sent before him."
Paul's eulogium is the more effective because it exhibits in detail
the various ramifications of this exuberant and fruitful grace, how it
runs out into all our intercourse with our fellow-men and carries with
it a healing and sweetening virtue. It imbues the entire character,
and contains in itself the motive of all Christian conduct. It is "the
fulfilling of the Law." Its claims are paramount because it embraces
all other virtues. If a man has love, there is no grace impossible to
him or into which love will not on occasion develop. Love becomes
courage of the most absolute kind where danger threatens its object.
It begets a wisdom and a skill which put to shame technical training
and experience. It brings forth self-restraint and temperance as its
natural fruit; it is patient, forgiving, modest, humble, sympathizing.
It is quite true that
"As every lovely hue is light,
So every grace is love."
Thomas a Kempis dwells with evident relish on the varied capacity of
this all-comprehending grace. "Love," he says, "feels no burden,
regards not labours, would willingly do more than it is able, pleads
not impossibilities, because it feels sure that it can and may do all
things. Love is swift, sincere, pious, pleasant, and delightful;
strong, patient, faithful, prudent, longsuffering, manly, and never
seeking itself: it is circumspect, humble, and upright; sober, chaste,
steadfast, quiet, and guarded in all its senses."
Paul's description of the behaviour of love is drawn in view of the
discords and vanities of the Corinthians and as a contrast to their
unseemly and unbrotherly conduct. "Love suffereth long, and is kind;"
it reveals itself in a magnanimous bearing of injuries and in a
considerate and tender imparting of benefits. It returns good for
evil; not readily provoked by slights and wrongs, it ever seeks to
spend itself in kindnesses. Then there is nothing envious, vain, or
selfish in love. "Love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself." It
neither grudges others their gifts, nor is eager to show off its own.
The pallor and bitter sneer of envy and the ridiculous swagger of the
boastful are equally remote from love. "It is not puffed up, and doth
not behave itself unseemly." Love saves a man from making a fool of
himself by consequential conduct, and by thrusting himself into
positions which betray his incompetence, and by immodest, irreverent,
and eccentric actions. It balances a man and gives him sense by
bringing him into right relations with his fellows and prompting him
to esteem their gifts more highly than his own. Neither is love ever
on the watch for its own rights, scrupulously exacting the
remuneration, the recognition, the applause, the precedence, the
deference, that may be due: "it seeketh not its own." "It is not
easily provoked, nor does it take account of evil;" it is not fired
with resentment at every little slight, and does not make a mental
note and lay up in its memory the contempt shown by one, the
indifference shown by another, the intention to wound betrayed by a
third. Love is too little occupied with itself to feel these
exhibitions of malice very keenly. It is bent on winning the battle
for others, and the wounds received in the cause are made light of.
Its eye is still on the advantage to be gained by the needy, and not
on itself.
Another manifestation of love, and one the mention of which pricks the
conscience, is that it "rejoiceth not in unrighteousness." It has no
malignant pleasure in seeing reputations exploded, in discovering the
sin, the hypocrisy, the mistakes, of other men. "It rejoiceth with the
truth." Where truth scatters calumny and shows that suspicions were
ill-founded, love rejoices. Successful wickedness, whether for or
against its own interests, love has no pleasure in; but where goodness
triumphs love is thrilled with a sympathetic joy. In place of
rejoicing in discovered wickedness because it lowers a rival or seems
to leave a more prominent position to itself, love hastens to cover
the fault. "It covereth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all
things." It has untiring charity, making every allowance, proposing
every excuse, believing that explanations can be made, accepting
greedily such as are made, slow to be persuaded that things are as bad
as rumour paints, hoping against hope for the acquittal, or at any
rate for the reformation, of every culprit.
3. Finally, Paul shows the superiority of love by comparing it in
point of permanence, first, with the gifts of which the Corinthians
were so proud, and, second, with the universal Christian graces.
"Love never faileth;" it is imperishable: it grows from less to more;
there never comes a time when it gives place to some higher quality of
soul, or when it is unimportant whether a man has it or no, or when it
is no longer the criterion of the whole moral state. The most
surprising spiritual gifts can make no such claim. "Whether there be
prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they
shall cease." These gifts were for the temporary benefit of the
Church. However some might misapprehend their significance and fancy
that these extraordinary manifestations were destined to characterise
the Christian Church throughout its history, Paul was not so deceived.
He was prepared for their disappearance. They were the scaffolding
which no one thinks of or inquires after when the building is
finished, the schoolbooks which become the merest rubbish when the boy
is educated, the prop which the forester removes when the sapling has
become a tree.
But knowledge? The knowledge of God and of Divine things in which good
men delight, and which is esteemed the stamina of character--is not
this permanent? No, says Paul. "Knowledge also shall be done away."
And to illustrate his meaning Paul uses two figures: the figure of a
child's knowledge, which is gradually lost in the knowledge of the
man, and the figure of an object dimly seen through a semi-transparent
medium. We shall understand the significance and the bearing of these
figures if we consider that when we speak of imperfect knowledge we
may mean either of two things: we may either mean that it is imperfect
in amount or that it is imperfect in quality, in accuracy. When a boy
begins the study of Euclid, the first proposition he learns is
absolutely accurate and true; he may add to it, but he can never
improve upon it. His knowledge is imperfect in amount, but so far as
it goes it is absolutely reliable; he may build upon it and deduce
other truths from it. But when we are walking on a misty morning and
see an object at a distance, our knowledge is imperfect, but in quite
another sense. It is imperfect in the sense of being dim, uncertain,
inaccurate. We see that there is something before us, but whether a
human being or a gatepost we cannot say. A little nearer we see it is
a human being, but whether old or young, friend or no friend, we
cannot say. Here the growth of our knowledge is from dimness to
accuracy.
Both the figures used by Paul imply that our knowledge of Divine
things is of this latter kind. They loom, as it were, through a mist.
Many of their details are invisible. We have not got them under our
hand to examine at leisure. Our present knowledge is as the light of a
lantern by which we can pick our way, or as the starlight, for which
we are thankful in the meantime; but when the sun of a wider, deeper,
truer knowledge rises, what we now call knowledge shall be quite
eclipsed. "When I was a child," says Paul, "I spake as a child, I
understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man,
I put away childish things." That is to say, Paul was distinctly aware
that much of our present knowledge is provisional. We do not know the
very truth, but only such approximations to the truth and such symbols
of it as we are able to understand. We are at present in the state of
childhood, which cherishes many notions destined to be exploded by
maturer knowledge. We think of God as a Being very similar to
ourselves, only very much greater; and in our present state we must be
content with this imperfect knowledge, but prepared to put it away as
"childish" when fuller knowledge comes. The atoning death of Christ
may be spoken of as the substitutionary sacrifice of a Victim on whom
our guilt is laid; but to speak thus of the death of Christ is to make
large use of the language of symbol, and we must hold our minds open
for the fuller knowledge which will make such language seem quite
inadequate. Paul's language warns us against speaking, or thinking, or
acting as if our knowledge of Divine things were perfectly accurate,
and as if therefore we might freely and unhesitatingly condemn all who
differ from us.
The other figure is still more precise, although there is great
difference of opinion as to what Paul means by seeing now "through a
glass, darkly." The word here rendered "glass" is used either for the
dim metallic mirror used by the ancients, or for the semi-translucent
talc which was their substitute for glass in windows. Of these two
meanings it is the latter which in this passage gives the best sense.
It was a common figure among the rabbis to illustrate dimness of
vision. If they wished to denote direct and clear vision, they spoke
of seeing a thing face to face; if they wished to denote uncertain and
hazy vision, they spoke of seeing through a glass--that is, through a
substance only a little more transparent than our own dimmed glass,
through which you can see objects, but cannot tell exactly what they
are or who the persons are who are moving. Thus they had a common
saying, "All other prophets saw as through nine glasses, Moses as
through one." The rabbis, too, had another saying which illustrates
the second part of this twelfth verse: "Even as a king, who with
common people talks through a veil, so that he sees them, but they do
not see him, but when his friend comes to speak to him, he removes
this veil, so that he might see him face to face, even so did God
speak to Moses apparently, and not darkly."[15]
[15] See the passages in Wets ein and Schöttgen.
Interpreting Paul's language then by the language of his own kith and
kin and of the schools in which he had been educated, his meaning is
that in this life we can see Divine things only dimly and as through a
veil, but hereafter we shall see them without the intervention of any
obscuring medium. Here and now we can make out only the general
outline of the unseen realities; but hereafter we shall know even as
we are known, shall see God as directly as He now sees us. We shall
not have even then the same perfect knowledge of Him that He has of
us, but shall see Him as immediately and directly as He sees us. Now
He wears a veil through which He can see, but through which we cannot
see; hereafter He will lay aside this. Our present knowledge of God
and of all things unseen is necessarily vague, not susceptible of
exact definition. There are some things of which we may be quite sure,
others of which we must be content to remain in uncertainty. We may be
quite sure that God exists, that He loves us, that He has sent His Son
to save us; but if we attempt to run a sharp and clear outline round
the truths thus dimly seen, we shall inevitably err.
It may be added that while Paul warns us against supposing that our
knowledge is perfect, he does not mean to brand it as useless or
delusive. On the contrary, his figures imply that it is necessary for
our growth, and that unless we honestly use such knowledge as we have,
we cannot win our way to knowledge that is perfect. It is the
imperfect knowledge of the child which leads it on to further
attainment. The fundamental doctrine of the Christian creed that there
are three Persons in one God is certainly a very rough and childish
expression of a truth far deeper than we can understand, but to reject
this doctrine because it is evidently only an approximation to a truth
which cannot be defined and stated in final terms is to refuse to
submit to the conditions under which we now live and to ape a manhood
which in point of fact we do not possess.
Paul's crowning testimony to the worth of love is given in the
thirteenth verse: "But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and
the greatest of these is love." He does not mean that love abides
while faith becomes sight and hope fruition. Rather he indicates that
faith and hope are also imperishable, and hereby distinguished from
the spiritual gifts of which he has been speaking. Both in this life
and in that which is to come faith, hope, and love abide. For faith
and hope pass away only in one aspect of their exercise. If by faith
be meant belief in things unseen, this passes away when the unseen is
seen. If hope be taken as referring only to the future state in
general, then when that state is reached hope passes away. But faith
and hope are really permanent elements of human life, faith being the
confidence we have in God, and hope the ever-renewed expectancy of
future good. But while faith maintains us in connection with God, love
is the enjoyment of God and the partaking of His nature; and while
hope renews our energy and guides our aims, it can bring us to no
better thing than love.
To see the beauty, fruitfulness, and sufficiency of love is easy, but
to have it as the mainspring of our own life most difficult, indeed
the greatest of all attainments. This we instinctively recognise as
the true test of our condition. Have we that in us which really knits
us to God and our fellow-men and prompts us to do our utmost for them?
Have we in us this new affection which destroys selfishness and brings
us into true and lasting relations with all we have to do with? This
is the root of all good, the beginning of all blessedness, because the
germ of all likeness to God, who Himself is love.
_SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND PUBLIC WORSHIP._
"Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather
that ye may prophesy. For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue
speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth
him; howbeit in the Spirit he speaketh mysteries. But he that
prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation,
and comfort. He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth
himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the Church. I would
that ye all spake with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied:
for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with
tongues, except he interpret, that the Church may receive
edifying. Now, brethren, if I come unto you speaking with
tongues, what shall I profit you, except I shall speak to you
either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by
doctrine? And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe
or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall
it be known what is piped or harped? For if the trumpet give an
uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? So
likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be
understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall
speak into the air. There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices
in the world, and none of them is without signification.
Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto
him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a
barbarian unto me. Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of
spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the
Church. Wherefore let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray
that he may interpret. For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my
spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it
then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the
understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing
with the understanding also. Else when thou shalt bless with the
spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say
Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what
thou sayest? For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other is
not edified. I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye
all: yet in the Church I had rather speak five words with my
understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than
ten thousand words in an unknown tongue. Brethren, be not
children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but
in understanding be men. In the Law it is written, With men of
other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and
yet for all that will they not hear Me, saith the Lord. Wherefore
tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them
that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that
believe not, but for them which believe. If therefore the whole
Church be come together into one place, and all speak with
tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or
unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad? But if all
prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one
unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: and thus
are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down
on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of
a truth. How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every
one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a
revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto
edifying. If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by
two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one
interpret. But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence
in the Church; and let him speak to himself, and to God. Let the
prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge. If anything
be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his
peace. For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn,
and all may be comforted. And the spirits of the prophets are
subject to the prophets. For God is not the Author of confusion,
but of peace, as in all Churches of the saints. Let your women
keep silence in the Churches: for it is not permitted unto them
to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also
saith the Law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask
their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in
the Church. What? came the word of God out from you? or came it
unto you only? If any man think himself to be a prophet, or
spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto
you are the commandments of the Lord. But if any man be ignorant,
let him be ignorant. Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and
forbid not to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently
and in order."--1 COR. xiv. 1-40.
XX.
_SPIRITUAL GIFTS AND PUBLIC WORSHIP._
In the first twenty-five verses of this chapter Paul gives his
estimate of the comparative value of the two chief spiritual gifts:
speaking with tongues and prophesying; in the latter half of the
chapter he lays down certain rules which were to guide the exercise of
these gifts and certain principles on which all the worship and public
services of the Church should proceed.
A difficulty, however, meets us at the outset. We have no opportunity
of observing these gifts in exercise, and cannot readily understand
them. With prophecy indeed there need be no great difficulty.
Prophesying is speaking for God, whether the utterance regards present
or future matters. When Moses complained that he had no gift of
utterance, God said, "Aaron shall be thy prophet;" that is, shall
speak for thee, or be thy spokesman. Prediction is not necessarily any
part of the prophet's function. It may be so, and often it was so, but
a man might be a prophet who had no revelation of the future. In the
sense in which Paul uses the word, a prophet was "an inspired teacher
and exhorter who revealed to men the secrets of God's will and word
and the secrets of their own hearts for the purpose of conversion and
edification." The function of the prophet is indicated in the third
verse: "He that prophesieth speaketh for edification, and
exhortation, and comfort;" and still further in the twenty-fourth and
twenty-fifth verses, where the results of prophesying are described in
terms precisely such as we should use to describe the results of
efficacious preaching. The hearer is "convinced," is conscious in
himself that the words spoken are shedding light and carrying
conviction into the recesses of his heart. The gift of prophecy, then,
was the endowment which enabled a Christian to speak so as to bring
the mind and spirit of the hearer into touch with God.
But the gift of tongues is involved in greater obscurity. On its first
occurrence, as recorded in the book of Acts, it would seem to have
been the gift of speaking in foreign languages. We are told that the
strangers from Asia Minor, Parthia, the shores of the Black Sea,
Africa, and Italy, when they heard the disciples speaking, recognised
that they were speaking intelligible languages. One man was attracted
by the sound of his native Arabic; another heard the familiar Latin; a
third for the first time in Jerusalem heard a Jew speaking the
language he was accustomed to hear on the banks of the Nile. Naturally
they were confounded by the circumstance, "every man hearing," as it
is said, "his own language, the tongue wherein he was born." It would
certainly seem probable, therefore, that, whether the gift afterwards
changed its character or not, it was originally the power of speaking
in a foreign language so as to be intelligible to any one who
understood that language.
This gift was of course communicated, not as a permanent acquisition,
to fit men to preach the Gospel in foreign countries, but merely as a
temporary impulse to utter words which to themselves had no meaning.
All spiritual gifts seem to have been inconstant in their influence.
Paul had the gift of healing, and yet he "left Trophimus at Miletum
sick;" his dear friend Epaphroditus was sick nigh unto death without
Paul being able to help him; and when Timothy was unwell, he did not
cure him by miracle, but by a very commonplace prescription. So, too,
when a man by study and practice acquires the use of a foreign tongue,
he has command of that language so long as memory lives and for all
purposes; but this "gift of tongues" was only available "as the Spirit
gave utterance" to each, and failed to communicate a constant and
complete command of the language. It is not to be supposed therefore
that this gift was bestowed in order to enable men more easily to
proclaim the Gospel to all races. And at no period of the world's
history was such a gift less needed, Greek and Latin being very
generally understood throughout the Roman world. Perhaps more persons
grew up bilingual in that day than at any other time.
If then this gift was intermittent and did not qualify its possessor
to use a foreign language for the ordinary purposes of life or for
preaching the Gospel, what was its use? It served the same purpose as
other miracles; it made visible and called attention to the entrance
of new powers into human nature. As Paul says, it was "for them that
believe not, not for them that believe." It was meant to excite
inquiry, not to instruct the mind of the Christian. It produced
conviction that among the followers of Christ new powers were at work.
The evidence of this took a shape which seemed to intimate that the
religion of Christ was suitable for every race of mankind. This gift
of tongues seemed to claim all nations as the object of Christ's work.
The most remote and insignificant tribe was accessible to Him. He
knew their language, suited Himself to their peculiarities, and
claimed kindred with them.
It must, however, be said that the common opinion of scholars is that
the gift of tongues did not consist in ability to speak a foreign
language even temporarily, but in an exalted frame of mind which found
expression in sounds or words belonging to no human language. What was
thus uttered has been compared to the "merry, unmeaning shouts of
boyhood, getting rid of exuberant life, uttering in sounds a joy for
which manhood has no words." These ecstatic cries or exclamations were
not always understood either by the person uttering them, or by any
one else, so that there was always a risk of such utterances being
considered either as the ravings of lunatics, or, as in the first
instance, the thick and inarticulate mutterings of drunkards. But
sometimes there was present a person in the same key of feeling whose
spirit vibrated to the note struck by the speaker, and who was able to
render his inarticulate sounds into intelligible speech. For as music
can only be interpreted by one who has a feeling for music, and as the
inarticulate language of tears, or sighs, or groans can be
comprehended by a sympathetic soul, so the tongues could be
interpreted by those whose spiritual state corresponded to that of the
gifted person.
At various periods of the Church's history these manifestations have
been reproduced. The Montanists of the early Church, the Camisards of
France at the close of the seventeenth century, and the Irvingites of
our own country claimed that they possessed similar gifts. Probably
all such manifestations are due to violent nervous agitation. The
early Quakers showed their wisdom in treating all physical
manifestations as physical.
Comparing these two gifts, prophecy and speaking with tongues, Paul
very decidedly gives the preference to the former, and this mainly on
the score of its greater utility. It often happened that when one of
the Christians spoke in tongues there was no one present who could
interpret. However exalted the man's own spirit might be, the
congregation could derive no benefit from his utterances. And if a
number of persons spoke at once, as they seemed to do in Corinth, on
the pretext that they could not control themselves, any unbeliever who
came in and heard this Babel of sound would naturally conclude, as
Paul says, that he had stumbled into a ward of lunatics. Such disorder
must not be. If there were no one present who could interpret what the
speakers with tongues were saying, they must be silent. Apart from
interpretation speaking with tongues was mere noise, the blare of a
trumpet sounded by one who did not know one call from another, and
which was mere unintelligible sound. Prophesying was not liable to
these abuses. All understood it, and could learn something from it.
From this preference shown by Paul for the less showy but more useful
gift, we may gather that to make public worship the occasion of
self-display or sensational exhibitions is to degrade it. This is a
hint for the pulpit rather than for the pew. Preachers must resist the
temptation to preach for effect, to make a sensation, to produce fine
sermons. The desire to be recognised as able to move men, to say
things smartly, to put the truth freshly, to be eloquent, or to be
sensible is always striving against the simple-minded purpose of
edifying Christ's people. Worshippers as well as preachers may,
however, be so tempted. They may sing with a gratified sense of
exhibiting a good voice. They may find greater pleasure in what is
sensational in worship than in what is simple and intelligible.
Again, we here see that worship in which the understanding bears no
part receives no countenance from Paul. "I will pray with the spirit;
I will pray with the understanding also." Where the prayers of the
Church are in an unknown tongue, such as Latin, the worshipper may
indeed pray with the spirit, and may be edified thereby, but his
worship would be better did he pray with the understanding also. Music
unaccompanied by words induces in some temperaments an impressible
condition which has an appearance of devoutness and probably something
of the reality; but such devoutness is apt to be either hazy or
sentimental or both, unless by the help of accompanying words the
understanding goes hand in hand with feeling.
No countenance can be found in this chapter to the idea that worship
should exclude preaching and become the sole purpose of the assembling
together of Christian people. Some temperaments incline towards
worship, but resent being preached to or instructed. The reverential
and serious feelings which are quickened into life by devotional forms
of prayer may be scattered by the buffoonery or ineptitudes of the
preacher. Exasperation, unbelief, contempt, in the mind of the hearer
may be the only results achieved by some sermons. It may occasionally
occur to us that the Christian world would be very much the better of
some years of silence, and that results which have not been reached by
floods of preaching might be attained if these floods were allowed to
ebb and a period of quiet and repose succeed. Unquestionably there is
a danger at present of leading men to suppose that religion is a thing
which must be ceaselessly talked about, and which perhaps chiefly
consists of talk, so that if one only hears enough, and has the right
opinions, he may accept himself as a religious person. But it is one
thing to say that there is at present too much preaching or too
careless and unequal a distribution of preaching, and quite another
thing to say there should be none.
Having given expression to his preference for prophesying, Paul goes
on to indicate the manner in which the public services should be
conducted. The picture he draws is one which finds no counterpart in
the greater modern Churches. The chief distinction between the
services of the Corinthian Church and those we are now familiar with
is the much greater freedom with which in those days the membership of
the Church took part in the service. "When ye come together, every one
of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a
revelation, hath an interpretation." Each member of the congregation
had something to contribute for the edification of the Church. The
experience, the thought, the gifts, of the individual were made
available for the benefit of all. One with a natural aptitude for
poetry threw his devotional feeling into a metrical form, and
furnished the Church with her earliest hymns. Another with innate
exactness of thought set some important aspect of Christian truth so
clearly before the mind of the congregation that it at once took its
place as an article of faith. Another, fresh from contact with the
world and intercourse with unbelieving and dissolute men, who had felt
his own feet sliding and renewed his grasp on Christ, entered the
meeting with the glow of conflict on his face, and had eager words of
exhortation to utter. And so passed the hours of meeting, without any
fixed order, without any appointed ministry, without any uniformity of
service. And certainly the freshness, fulness, and variety of such
services were greatly to be desired if possibly they could be
attained. We lose much of what would interest and much that would
edify by enjoining silence upon the membership of the Church.
And yet, as Paul observes, there was much to be desired in those
Corinthian services. Had there been some authorized official presiding
over them, the abuses of which this letter speaks could not have
arisen. To appeal to this chapter or to any part of this letter in
proof that there should be no distinction between clergy and laity
would be very bad policy. It is indeed obvious that at this time there
were neither elders nor deacons, bishops nor rulers of any kind, in
the Church of Corinth; but then it is quite as obvious that there was
great need of them, and that the want of them had given rise to some
scandalous abuses and to much disorder. The ideal condition would be
one in which authority should be lodged in certain elected
office-bearers, while the faculty and gift of each member in some way
contributed to the good of the whole Church. In most Churches of our
own day, efforts are made to utilize the Christian energies of their
membership in those various charitable works which are so necessary
and so abundant. But probably we should all be the better of a much
freer ventilation of opinion within the Church and of listening to men
who have not been educated in any particular school of theology and
hold their minds closely to the realities of experience.
We cannot but ask in passing, What has become of all those inspired
utterances with which the Corinthian Church from week to week
resounded? Doubtless they entered into the life of that generation and
fostered the Christian character which so often shone out on the
heathen world with surprising purity. Doubtless, too, the unknown
teachers of those primitive Churches did much both in the way of
suggesting aspects of truth to Paul and of confirming, and expounding,
and illustrating his somewhat condensed and difficult teaching. Had
their utterances been recorded, many obscurities of Scripture might
have been removed, much light must have been reflected on the whole
circle of Christian truth, and we should have been able to define more
clearly the actual condition of the Christian Church. Shorthand was in
common use at that time in the Roman courts, and by its means we are
in possession of relics of that age of much less value than the report
of one or two of these Christian meetings might have been. No such
report, however, is forthcoming.
While Paul abstains from appointing office-bearers to preside at their
meetings, he is careful to lay down two principles which should
regulate their procedure. First, "let everything be done decently and
in order." This advice was greatly needed in a Church in which the
public services were sometimes turned into tumultuous exhibitions of
rival gifts, each man trying to make himself heard above the din of
voices, one speaking with tongues, another singing a hymn, a third
loudly addressing the congregation, so that any stranger who might be
attracted by the noise and step into the house could think this
Christian meeting nothing else than Bedlam broke loose. Above all
things, then, says Paul, conduct your meetings in a seemly fashion.
Observe the rules of common decency and order. I do not prescribe any
particular forms you must observe nor any special order you must
follow in your services. I do not pronounce what portion of time
should be devoted to prayer nor what to praise or exhortation; nor do
I require that you should in all cases begin your service in the same
stereotyped manner and carry it through in the same routine. Your
services must vary both in form and in substance from week to week
according to the equipment of the individual members of your Church;
sometimes there may be many who wish to exhort, sometimes there may be
none. But in all this freedom and variety, spontaneity must not run
into obtrusiveness, and variety must be saved from disorder.
The other general principle Paul lays down in the words, "Let all
things be done unto edifying." Let each use his gift for the good of
the congregation. Keep the great end of your meetings in view, and you
need no formal rubrics. If extempore prayer is found inspiring, use
it; if the old liturgy of the synagogue is preferred, retain its
service; if both have advantages, employ both. Judge your methods by
their bearing on the spiritual life of your members. Make no boast of
your æsthetic worship, your irreproachable liturgy, your melting
music, if these things do not result in a more loyal service of
Christ. Do not pique yourselves on your puritanic simplicity of
worship and the absence of all that is not spiritual if this bareness
and simplicity do not bring you more directly into the presence of
your Lord. It matters little what we eat or in what shape it is served
if we are the better for our food and are maintained in health and
vigour. It matters little whether the vehicle in which we travel be
highly decorated or plain so long as it brings us safely to our
destination. Are we the better for our services? Is it our chief aim
in them to receive and promote an earnest religious spirit and a
sincere service of Christ?
It might be difficult to say whether the somewhat selfish ambition of
those Corinthians to secure the surprising gifts of the Spirit or our
own torpid indifference and lack of expectation is less to be
commended. Certainly every one who attaches himself to Christ ought to
indulge in great expectations. Through Christ lies the way out from
the poverty and futility that oppress our spiritual history. From Him
we may, however falsely modest we are, expect at least His own Spirit.
And in this "least" there is promise of all. They who sincerely attach
themselves to Christ cannot fail to end by being like Him. But lack of
expectation is fatal to the Christian. If we expect nothing or very
little from Christ, we might as well not be Christians. If He does not
become to us a second conscience, ever present in us to warn against
sin and offer opposing inducements, we might as well call ourselves by
any other name. His power is exerted now not to excite to unwonted
exhibitions of abnormal faculties, but to promote in us all that is
most stable and substantial in character. And the fact is that they
who hunger after righteousness are filled. They who expect that Christ
will help them to become like Himself do become like Him. All grace is
attainable. Nothing but unbelief shuts us out from it. Do not be
content until you find in Christ more abundant life, until you have as
clear evidence as these Corinthians had that a new spirit of power
dwells within you. He Himself encourages you to expect this. It is to
receive this He calls us to Him; and if we are not expecting this
spirit of life, it is because we do not understand or do not believe
Him. He has come to give us the best God has to give, and the best is
likeness to Himself. He has come to save our life from being a folly
and a failure, and He saves it by filling it with His own Spirit. All
fulness resides in Him; in Him Divine resource is made available for
human needs: but the distribution is moral, not mechanical; that is to
say, it depends on your willingness to receive, on your expectation of
good, on your true personal attachment to Christ in spirit and in
will.
_THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST._
"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I
preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye
stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I
preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I
delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how
that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and
that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day
according to the Scriptures: and that He was seen of Cephas, then
of the twelve: after that, He was seen of above five hundred
brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this
present, but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen of
James; then of all the Apostles. And last of all He was seen of
me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of
the Apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I
persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I
am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but
I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the
grace of God which was with me. Therefore whether it were I or
they, so we preach, and so ye believed. Now if Christ be preached
that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is
no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of
the dead, then is Christ not risen: and if Christ be not risen,
then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and
we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of
God that He raised up Christ: whom He raised not up, if so be
that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not
Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain;
ye are yet in your sins."--1 COR. xv. 1-17.
XXI.
_THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST._
I. ITS PLACE IN THE CHRISTIAN CREED.
Paul having now settled the minor questions of order in public
worship, marriage, intercourse with the heathen, and the other various
difficulties which were distracting the Corinthian Church, turns at
last to a matter of prime importance and perennial interest: the
resurrection of the body. This great subject he handles not in the
abstract, but with a view to the particular attitude and beliefs of
the Corinthians. Some of them said broadly, "There is no resurrection
of the dead," although apparently they had no intention of denying
that Christ had risen. Accordingly Paul proceeds to show them that the
resurrection of Christ and that of His followers hang together, that
the resurrection of Christ is essential to the Christian creed, that
it is amply attested, and that although great difficulties surround
the subject, making it impossible to conceive what the risen body will
be, yet the resurrection of the body is to be looked forward to with
confident hope.
It will be most convenient to consider first the place which the
resurrection of Christ holds in the Christian creed; but that we may
follow Paul's argument and appreciate its force, it will be necessary
to make clear to our own mind what he meant by the resurrection of
Christ and what position the Corinthians sought to maintain.
First, by the resurrection of Christ Paul meant His rising from the
grave with a body glorified or made fit for the new and heavenly life
He had entered. Paul did not believe that the body he saw on the road
to Damascus was the very body which had hung upon the cross, made of
the same material, subject to the same conditions. He affirms in this
chapter that flesh and blood, a natural body, cannot enter upon the
heavenly life. It must pass through a process which entirely alters
its material. Paul had seen bodies consumed to ashes, and he knew that
the substance of these bodies could not be recovered. He was aware
that the material of the human body is dissolved, and is by the
processes of nature used for the constructing of the bodies of fishes,
wild beasts, birds; that as the body was sustained in life by the
produce of the earth, so in death it is mingled with the earth again,
giving back to earth what it had received. The arguments therefore
commonly urged against the Resurrection had no relevancy against that
in which Paul believed, for it was not that very thing which was
buried which he expected would rise again, but a body different in
kind, in material, and in capacity.
But yet Paul always speaks as if there were some connection between
the present and the future, the natural and the spiritual, body. He
speaks, too, of the body of Christ as the type or specimen into the
likeness of which the bodies of His people are to be transformed. Now
if we conceive, or try to conceive, what passed in that closed
sepulchre in the garden of Joseph, we can only suppose that the body
of flesh and blood which was taken down from the cross and laid there
was transformed into a spiritual body by a process which may be called
miraculous, but which differed from the process which is to operate in
ourselves only by its rapidity. We do not understand the process; but
is that the only thing we do not understand? All along the line which
marks off this world from the spiritual world mystery broods; and the
fact that we do not understand how the body Christ had worn on earth
passed into a body fit for another kind of life ought not to prevent
our believing that such a transmutation can take place. There are in
nature many forces of which we know nothing, and it may one day appear
to us most natural that the spirit should clothe itself with a
spiritual body. The connection between the two bodies is the
persistent and identical spirit which animates both. As the life that
is in the body now assimilates material and forms the body to its
particular mould, so may the spirit hereafter, when ejected from its
present dwelling, have power to clothe itself with a body suited to
its needs. Paul refuses to recognise any insuperable difficulty here.
The transmutation of the earthly body of Christ into a glorified body
will be repeated in the case of many of His followers, for, as he
says, "we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed _in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye_."
Secondly, we must understand the position occupied by those whom Paul
addressed in this chapter. They doubted the Resurrection; but in that
day, as in our own, the Resurrection was denied from two opposite
points of view. Materialists, such as the Sadducees, believing that
mental and spiritual life are only manifestations of physical life and
dependent upon it, necessarily concluded that with the death of the
body the whole life of the individual terminates. And it would rather
appear as if the Corinthians were tainted with materialism. "Let us
eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," can only be the suggestion of
the materialist, who believes in no future life of any kind.
But many who opposed materialism held that the resurrection of the
body, if not impossible, was at all events undesirable. It was the
fashion to speak contemptuously of the body. It was branded as the
source and seat of sin, as the untamed bullock which dragged its
yokefellow, the soul, out of the straight path. Philosophers gave
thanks to God that He had not tied their spirit to an immortal body,
and refused to allow their portrait to be taken, lest they should be
remembered and honoured by means of their material part. When Paul's
teaching was accepted by such persons, they laid great stress on his
inculcation of the mystical or spiritual dying with Christ and rising
again, until they persuaded themselves this was all he meant by
resurrection. They declared that the Resurrection was past already,
and that all believing men were already risen in Christ. To be free
from all connection with matter was an essential element in their idea
of salvation, and to promise them the resurrection of the body was to
offer them a very doubtful blessing indeed.
In our own day the resurrection of Christ is denied both from the
materialist and from the spiritualist or idealist point of view. It is
said that the resurrection of Christ is an undoubted fact if by the
resurrection it be meant that His spirit survived death and now lives
in us. But the bodily resurrection is a thing of no account. Not from
the risen body flows the power that has altered human history, but
from the teachings and life of Christ and from His devotement of
Himself even unto death to the interests of men. Christ lay in His
grave, and the elements of His body have passed into the bosom of
nature, as ours will before long; but His spirit was not imprisoned in
the grave: it lives, perhaps in us. Statements to this effect you may
hear or read frequently in our day. And either of two very different
beliefs may be expressed in such language. It may, on the one hand,
mean that the person Jesus is individually extinct, and that although
virtue still flows from His life, as from that of every good man, He
is Himself unconscious of this and of everything else, and can exert
no new and fresh influence, such as emanates from a person presently
alive and aware of the exigencies appealing to His interference. This
is plainly a form of belief entirely different from that of the
Apostles, who acted for a living Lord, to whom they appealed and by
whom they were guided. Belief in a dead Christ, who cannot hear prayer
and is unconscious of our service, may indeed help a man who has
nothing better to help him; but it is not the belief of the Apostles.
On the other hand, it may be meant that although the body of Christ
remained in the tomb, His spirit survived death, and lives a
disembodied but conscious and powerful life. One of the profoundest
German critics, Keim, has expressed himself to this effect. The
Apostles, he thinks, did not see the actual risen body of the Lord;
their visions of a glorified Jesus were not, however, delusive; the
appearances were not the creations of their own excitement, but were
intentionally produced by the Lord Himself. Jesus, it is believed, had
actually passed into a higher life, and was as full of consciousness
and of power as He had been on earth; and of this glorified life in
which He was He gave the Apostles assurance by these appearances. The
body of the Lord remained in the tomb; but these appearances were
intended, to use the critic's own words, as a kind of telegram, to
assure them He was alive. Had such a sign of His continued and
glorified life not been given, their belief in Him as the Messiah
could not have survived the death on the cross.
This view, although erroneous, can do little harm to experimental or
practical Christianity. The difference between a disembodied spirit
and a spiritual body is really unappreciable to our present knowledge.
And if any one finds it impossible to believe in the bodily
resurrection of Christ, but easy to believe in His present life and
power, it would only be mischievous to require of him a faith he
cannot give in addition to a faith which brings him into real
fellowship with Christ. The main purpose of Christ's appearances was
to give to His disciples assurance of His continued life and power. If
that assurance already exists, then belief in Christ as alive and
supreme supersedes the use of the usual stepping-stone towards that
belief.
At the same time, it must be maintained that not only did the Apostles
believe they saw the body of Christ, by which indeed they first of all
identified Him, but also they were distinctly assured that the body
they saw was not a ghost or a telegram, but a veritable body that
could stand handling, and whose lips and throat could utter sound.
Besides, it is not in reason to suppose that when they saw this
appearance, whatever it was, they should not at once go to the
sepulchre and see what was there. And if there they saw the body while
in various other places they saw what seemed to be the body, what a
world of incomprehensible and mystifying jugglery must they have felt
themselves to be involved in!
It is a fact then that those who knew most both about the body and
about the spirit of Jesus believed they saw the body and were
encouraged so to believe. Besides, if we accept the view that though
Christ is alive, His body remained in the grave, we are at once
confronted with the difficulty that Christ's glorification is not yet
complete. If Christ's body did not partake in His conquest over the
grave, then that conquest is partial and incomplete. Human nature both
in this life and in the life to come is composed of body and spirit;
and if Christ now sits at God's right hand in perfected human nature,
it is not as a disembodied spirit, but as a complete person in a
glorified body, we must conceive of Him. No doubt it is a spiritual
influence which Christ now exerts upon His followers, and their belief
in His risen life may be independent of any statements made by the
disciples concerning His body; at the same time, to suppose that
Christ is now without a body is to suppose that He is imperfect: and
it must also be remembered that the primitive faith and restored
confidence in Christ, to which the very existence of the Church is
due, were created by the sight of the empty tomb and the glorified
body.
In the face of such chapters as this and other passages equally
explicit, modern believers in a merely spiritual resurrection have
found some difficulty in reconciling their views with the statements
of Paul. Mr. Matthew Arnold undertakes to show us how this may be
done. "Not for a moment," he says, "do we deny that in Paul's earlier
theology, and notably in the Epistles to the Thessalonians and
Corinthians, the physical and miraculous aspect of the Resurrection,
both Christ's and the believer's, is primary and predominant. Not for
a moment do we deny that to the very end of his life, after the
Epistle to the Romans, after the Epistle to the Philippians, if he had
been asked whether he held the doctrine of the Resurrection in the
physical and miraculous sense as well as in his own spiritual and
mystical sense, he would have replied with entire conviction that he
did. Very likely it would have been impossible to him to imagine his
theology without it. But--
'Below the surface stream, shallow and light,
Of what we _say_ we feel--below the stream,
As light, of what we _think_ we feel, there flows
With noiseless current strong, obscure and deep,
The central stream of what we feel indeed;'
and by this alone are we truly characterised." This, however, is not
to interpret an author, but to make him a mere nose of wax that can be
worked into any convenient shape. Probably Paul understood his own
theology quite as well as Mr. Arnold; and, as his critic says, he
considered the physical resurrection of Christ and the believer an
essential part of it.
Considering the place which our Lord's risen body had in Paul's
conversion, it could not be otherwise. At the very moment when Paul's
whole system of thought was in a state of fusion the risen Lord was
pre-eminently impressed upon it. It was through his conviction of the
resurrection of Christ that both Paul's theology and his character
were once for all radically altered. The idea of a crucified Messiah
had been abhorrent to him, and his life was dedicated to the
extirpation of this vile heresy that sprang from the Cross. But from
the moment when with his own eyes he saw the risen Lord he understood,
with the rest of the disciples, that death was the Messiah's
appointed path to supreme spiritual headship. As truly in Paul's case
as in that of the other disciples faith sprang from the sight of the
glorified Christ; and to none could it be so inevitable as to him to
say, "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your
faith is also vain." From the first Paul had put the resurrection of
Christ forward as an essential and fundamental part of the Gospel he
had received, and which he was accustomed to deliver.