THE WITNESS CONCERNING CHRIST
‘The testimony of Christ was confirmed in you.’
1 Corinthians 1:6
Christianity means, first of all, the testimony of Christ; that is to say, the witness concerning Christ. Now this is what the great Apostle urges over and over again. He is always urging it. He presents himself everywhere to men as a witness for the Person of Christ.
I. The message which he brings is first and foremost a testimony concerning Him.—And this was something wholly new in the history of religious teaching. There had been religious teachers; there had been philosophers by the score before St. Paul came. They had their doctrines; they had their systems; they had their theories, which they presented to men’s minds, and which they offered to men’s acceptance. St. Paul, too, had his system and his doctrines to propose to men, which he did hold up and propose to men; but they lay in the background of all that he taught. What he put prominently forward first, and what was the one thing which he gave his life in order that he might press upon the minds and souls of men, was the Person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, as he over and over again says, lived, died, was buried, rose, ascended, is ever at the right hand of God, and ever living with His Church and people upon earth. It was this testimony of Christ which he is everywhere delivering; it is the same testimony of Christ which is the prime element of our Christianity too. It is true there are great doctrines presented to our minds—doctrines that are most magnificent in their sweep, and most glorious in their truth, most mighty in their power, most precious in their meaning, but they all of them hang upon the Person of Christ. It is the testimony of Christ which makes them all what they are.
II. And yet Christianity in its true essence means something more than this testimony of Christ.—It means this first, but it means much more besides. And St. Paul expresses the further meaning of the religion which he taught in the brief, terse sentence of the text. He says to his converts in the city of Corinth, ‘The testimony of Christ was confirmed in you.’ And what he means to say is that that testimony of Christ, which he delivered to them, took deep root in the hearts of those who became followers of Christ, and laid hold of the springs of their being. It is quite clear that this was so. St. Paul came to the great city of Corinth, and there he delivered the testimony of Christ to such as would listen to him. Most men, of course, refused to listen. They laughed at what seemed such folly to them. They scoffed at the humbler tent-maker who ventured to teach them. They were angry, some of them, with him, and the anger of some went on until the days of persecution. Nevertheless, there were some who did listen, and when they listened, the testimony of Christ, which Paul delivered, laid strange hold upon them which they could not explain. The Person of Christ, of which he talked to them a great deal, rose up before their spirits and minds as a great reality, and then it was to them the very refuge that they wanted from their sins and the sorrows of their life. It was the very rock on which they wanted to plant their feet for safety; it was the very light that they wanted to guide them; it was the very hope which they wanted as they thought of death and whatever it might be that comes after death. The testimony of Christ was confirmed in them.
III. And here is the further meaning of the essence of true Christianity. It is not only the revelation of Christ to men; it is that first and foremost, but besides that it is the drawing of men to Christ. St. Paul’s first object was to bring Christ to men, but the reason why that was his first object was that he might eventually bring men to Christ. The testimony of Christ has been delivered to us, not simply to add to the stock of our human knowledge, or to move our wonder and admiration. Christ is held up to us, not simply as a beautiful statue, attracting our wonder and admiration and homage by its beauty and its glory, while all the time it is only like cold and lifeless marble. No! He is held up as a living Person, stretching His hands to us, moving Himself towards us, calling us by His loving voice, and Whom we find to be warm and living. Christ is held up to us in the New Testament that we may be drawn to His feet in humble penitence and faith and love, and then, what always follows, that we may be gradually renewed after His image.
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‘It would be a foolish thing to say, as men sometimes do say, in the newspapers and elsewhere, that all our modern controversies upon matters of doctrine are a mere waste of words and time, and that it matters really very little whether we accept, for instance, the Thirty-nine Articles of the English Church or the Decrees of the Council of Trent. Doctrine is of great importance, but it is of less importance than the testimony concerning Christ Himself. St. Paul wrote elaborate treatises to set forth and to enforce doctrines. There are treatises by the hundred written to-day to uphold some doctrines and to demolish others. But all these things do not touch the centre of our faith. They are all secondary to the great foundation truth that the Son of God came into the world in the Person of Christ, lived, died, rose, ascended, lives for ever, promising to us who have sinned—that means all of us—pardon and peace and life. It is the testimony of the Person of Christ which first meets the hunger of human souls.’

UNTO THE END
‘Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.’
1 Corinthians 1:8
Weak faith, weak love, weak resolves, weak prayer, a weak watch, these are the roots of almost all which we have most to regret in life. Therefore, the great question is, What are the strengtheners of this great scheme of religion?
It might be expected that there would be a resemblance between what strengthens the natural and physical life, and what strengthens the moral and spiritual life, for God generally places these things in an analogy. Let us look at it in that light.
I. Does the natural life need continually and regularly its appointed and properly supplied nourishment, without which it cannot sustain life? so the soul, it too has its bread, the Bread of Life.
II. And does the health of the body require its own proper medicine?—So does the soul, without which it cannot always be well and strong. And what is the medicine? ‘Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? Why, then, is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?’ Go there, and you will find it.
III. And fresh air?—Without which, all that is vital fails and wanes. And what is the fresh air of the soul? What is it? Let me give you Christ’s answer. ‘The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.’
IV. And what in nature can ever be well and fulfil its function without light and sunshine!—And by a law, as universal and as binding, the higher life of the soul must have brightness, it must have the radiance of an inward joy, the smile of heaven, the beams of love which flow from the heart of Jesus. It must have that light.
V. The strength, the very life of our body, depends on its union with the head, and according as the communication from the head to the body goes down, and according as the communication from the body to the head goes up direct and constant, so is every one’s life and every one’s power. Just so it is between us and Christ.
Rev. James Vaughan.
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‘At your confirmation you did, of your own free will, in the presence of God and His Church, make the most express dedication of yourself to God for life. It was both a promise and a vow—a promise to man and a vow to God deliberately made and sealed by the laying on of the hands of the chief pastor of the Church. You vowed that you would renounce every sin, and everything however pleasant, which might lead you to sin; and all wrong thoughts and wicked desires. You vowed that you would believe, as God calls you to believe, believe with your heart every part of His holy Word, and specially in the grace of salvation. Thirdly, that you would keep, in your memory, keep in your heart, keep in your daily walk of life, all that God hath commanded us both to be and do. And even, even if it was not commanded, whatever God can wish you to do—His commandment and His will. Have you kept that promise? Are you keeping it now? Are you keeping it in the letter? Are you keeping it in the spirit?’

THE RELIGION OF REDEMPTION
‘The preaching of the Cross.’
1 Corinthians 1:18
Christianity is the religion of redemption; it is for that reason that the Apostle gives as the motto and the summary of the Gospel this little sentence in the text, ‘The preaching of the Cross.’ For the Cross is the symbol, as it once was the instrument, of our redemption. Whether it were to Galatia or to Corinth, to rude and barbarous rustics in their impetuosity and changefulness, or whether it were to the cultivated children of Greek wisdom, St. Paul had one message, and that message was ‘The preaching of the Cross.’ What did he mean?
I. An historical reality.—The Apostle rejoiced in an historical redemption. Not in ideas, but in facts; not in a code, but a Person; not in impulses and sentiments, but in the flesh and blood reality of the dire struggle of our Lord with human guilt, wretchedness, and wrong. He rejoiced in an historical redemption when he preached the Gospel of the Cross; and if ever there was a doleful and desperate reality in this world, it was the Cross of Jesus Christ. Paul spoke of this reality as a great thing effected here in this world and on its dusty surface. He spoke upon events that transpired in a known place, under a known government, in known circumstances, on which eyes had been riveted, over which hearts had been broken. He spoke of Christ in Jerusalem nailed to the Cross, placed in the tomb, and risen from the dead. Never forget that Christianity rests upon the great obdurate facts of human history.
II. An inward experience.—He said, ‘I am crucified with Christ.’ ‘The life I live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.’ ‘God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Very personal, very inward, even mystical is the language, and it is the preaching of the Cross that carries that message home into the living experiences of men and women.
III. A vivid and graphic description of Christ in His unseen power working among men. Do you recall those words from the letter to the Galatians? So powerful was the portraiture which Paul drew before the spiritual eyes of the Galatian hearers, that for a moment they seem to have seen the extended arms, the bleeding brow, and pierced side of the crucified Jesus.
Now this, in brief, is what he meant by ‘the preaching of the Cross’; he meant the historical redemption, he meant the inward experience, he meant the vivid portraiture and living presentation of an exalted but still potent Saviour, so as to reach the inward vision of the soul; and such should be the preaching of the Gospel to-day.
—Rev. H. J. R. Marston.
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‘I would warn you against being tired of the religion of Redemption, and going after what is called the religion of the Incarnation. The religion of the Incarnation is a glorious and a true one when it is truly taught, but it very often means nothing else but the religion of Incarnation, and that is just glorying in the flesh, glorying in man’s power, glorying in human faculties, human destinies, human efforts, human aspirations. It is that glorying in the flesh which St. Paul repudiated when he said, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Humanity is wonderful, wonderful are its powers, its achievements, and its aspirations; but every poet and every philosopher that has written of its power has sunk down at last with a sigh of despondency. We know neither despondency nor despair, for we sum up all hopes in one word, and that “the Cross.” ’

THE ‘FOOLISHNESS’ OF PREACHING
‘Unto the Greeks foolishness.’
1 Corinthians 1:23
It is a good many years since St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, spoke of the foolishness of preaching, and then he did not mean by that expression what the words in their modern sense would imply. All through the centuries this has been a popular theme and will always remain so. St. Paul did not mean what later critics usually mean: that the preacher’s precepts are foolish, his knowledge insufficient, his logic weak, his choice of language feeble, his exhortations insincere. What he meant was that to the cultivated Greeks the actual message which Christianity brought into the world was foolish. It was the story of the crucified Redeemer that was foolishness. Now, I think, it is rather the general teaching of the ordained ministers of Christ which is counted foolish. Is that just? Let us see.
I. Preaching is still the ordinary and recognised way by which the knowledge of the Gospel message is brought home to men.—Faith cometh by hearing, not by reading, and how can they hear without a preacher? Viewed in this aspect, then, preaching would seem to be not at all foolishness, but a matter of first-class importance. Yet so it is that nowadays sermons are for the most part accounted a bore, and though men will occasionally crowd to hear a few distinguished preachers, they are less disposed to listen to sermons habitually than their fathers were. But preaching is an indispensable factor in any living religion, and if it be true that preachers are dull and hearers bored, that humiliating state of things can be escaped if we will both shake ourselves out of the groove into which we have fallen.
II. Men may think too little or too much of preaching, and in either way they may lose all the benefit they might otherwise have derived from it.
(a) To think too little is naturally the fault of the average conventional attendant at church, who is there because he is expected to be there, who comes there patiently enough but with little or no interest. Such a hearer as that expects nothing, and as a consequence receives nothing. His languid acquiescence results in a sort of moral dullness, perhaps also in the unexpressed cynicism ‘Who shall show us any good?’ and to him preaching is, almost of necessity, foolishness.
(b) To think too much. The other fault of asking too much of the preacher seems to lie in this, that many church congregations are apt to attribute to what they hear from the pulpit a kind of authority which the preacher really has no right whatever to claim, and with this impression in their minds, they are further apt to resent what they hear as if they were being forced into agreement while the circumstances under which sermons are preached preclude them from making any reply to what is said. The distinction which St. Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 7. suffices to explain this error.
—Rev. A. W. Hutton.
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‘While the preacher must speak, and ought to speak, with authority, when as a minister of Christ he proclaims the message of salvation, and it is his first duty to deliver it, this authority does not cover the thousand cognate topics, questions of morals, questions of interpretation, questions of order, questions of expediency, on which also from time to time he must speak if he is to fulfil his mission usefully. In these things he has no final message to deliver, he can only contribute, as it were, to the common stock. You are not bound to accept as gospel, as the phrase is, what he thus sets before you. You would rightly resent and dislike all preaching if you thought you were thus bound, but if you listen to a man fairly and considerately you will find yourselves able to learn something from him.’

POWER AND WISDOM
‘Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.’
1 Corinthians 1:24
Be careful that you understand those words rightly. Not only that Christ is Divine ‘power’ and Divine ‘wisdom,’ but much more than that. Christ embodies, Christ performs, Christ is God’s ‘Power’ and God’s ‘Wisdom’; and by Christ He uses the world; by Christ he guides the world; and in Christ we are to seek and find God’s ‘Power’; and in Christ we are to seek and find God’s ‘Wisdom’; for ‘He is made’ and constituted ‘the Power of God and the Wisdom of God.’
I. If the ‘Power of God’ resides in Christ, then the Power of God’ is now in One Who is in such perfect sympathy with us, and Who has done such great things for us, in His true love, that we may be quite sure that all that ‘power’ is engaged, not against us, but for us. The thought is so high, and the comfort so great, that we scarcely dare to appropriate it. ‘The Power of God’ is in me, by the simple fact that I am a Christian.
II. Who am I, to hold such a tremendous force?—How can I wield it? Therefore, let us turn to ‘The Wisdom.’ ‘Christ, the Wisdom of God.’ By God’s ‘Wisdom’ He made the heavens. What was that ‘Wisdom’? We have the answer in the opening of St. John’s Gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ And Whom ‘the Word’ is, we are told immediately afterwards: ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.’ Therefore, ‘the Word’ is Christ.
III. But bring the thought a little more closely to yourselves.—The Bible is the Written Word—Christ is the Living Word. The Written Word would be as nothing without the Living Word. It would be as a casket without jewels. The Living Word is its life; it is dead without Christ. Therefore, what ‘Wisdom’ is in the Bible—is Christ! And it is just in proportion as you find and see Christ there, that the Bible will ‘make you wise unto salvation.’

CHRISTIAN SANCTITY
‘Christ … made unto us … sanctification.’
1 Corinthians 1:30
The special interest of this passage is to note the means of sanctification. How is Christ made sanctification to us?
I. Not merely by a presentation of motives.—No doubt motives are presented—motives of gratitude, motives of love, all have their appointed place, but who has not found that the motive power of these affections fails to produce the good fruit which was expected from them? We ought to be grateful, but our gratitude is sadly evanescent; we ought to love, but how dull and cold our love soon grows! No, the presentation of motives will not suffice; something more is needed.
II. Nor is He our sanctification merely by the exhibition of a pattern.—He is our accepted and perfect pattern, the absolutely faultless life was found in Him alone; but to present Christ as a pattern may rather depress than encourage me. If all that is given is a pattern I shall despair of imitating it, and despair is the death-knell of exertion. There must be something more than a pattern, or Christianity would be a failure. But Christ offers us far more than a pattern.
III. He is our sanctification first as to its source.—It is remarkable, indeed, that sanctification in Scripture should be ascribed to each person in the Holy Trinity. We read in Jude 1:1, ‘Sanctified by God the Father.’ In 2 Thessalonians 2:13 sanctification is declared to be through the Spirit, and it is certain that the Holy Ghost is the great agent in this work; yet both here and in Hebrews 2:11 we find sanctification ascribed to Christ. We may certainly, therefore, say that Christ, as head of His Church, is the source of its sanctity. What light does this fact throw upon the means of sanctification? It teaches us that, as we have already indicated, holy dispositions are received not by any efforts of our own, but by faith in our sanctifier.
IV. Christ is made our sanctification as to its sphere—i.e. He is made to us a sanctuary in which we may be safe. The word ‘sanctification’ is translated in the Septuagint ( Isaiah 8:14) as ‘sanctuary.’ This gives us the thought of a spiritual atmosphere into which we may plunge, a hiding-place into which we may flee and in which we may abide, and only as we do thus abide in Christ, in fellowship with Him, shall we be in a position to receive from Him and to be sanctified by Him.
V. Christ is made to us sanctification as to its secret.—If you would be holy you must not only have Christ for you, you must have Christ in you.
—Rev. E. W. Moore.
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‘It is a frequent though ill-founded objection to the doctrine of justication by faith only, that it overlooks the necessity of holy living, that the effect of teaching it will be to lead men to suppose that no radical change of life is needed in themselves, that they may believe in Christ and yet live as they please. How great a fallacy this is every true Christian is aware, for he knows that wherever Christ is really received a new nature is received with Him, and that the tendency of the new disposition is as truly to holiness as that of the former was to sin.’
ST.