The Sum of saving Knowledge

For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.—1 Corinthians 2:2.

There is another way of translating the text. Some have translated it thus: “For I did not determine to know anything among you.…” According to Godet, “the Apostle does not say ‘I determined (judged good) not to know …’ but ‘I did not judge good to know …’ He intentionally set aside the different elements of human knowledge by which he might have been tempted to prop up the preaching of salvation. He deemed that he ought not to go in quest of such means.”

I

The Apostle’s Determination

1. I determined. There is no doubt or hesitation in this statement. These are the words of one who had weighed the matter well, and knew whereof he spoke. Here is one who blows the trumpet of truth with no uncertain sound, who speaks with no tremor in his voice; who has a decided conviction of what he knows and believes, and who thinks, and speaks, and acts in accordance with that knowledge and belief. St. Paul has decided for himself what is true; and is determined to declare it and to stand by it.

St. Paul was no hired teacher—not an official expounder of a system. He preached what he believed. He felt that his words were Eternal Truth; and hence came their power. He preached ever as if God Almighty were at his side; hence arises the possibility of discarding elegance of diction and rules of oratory. For it is half-way towards making us believe, when a man believes himself. Faith produces faith. If you want to convince men, and ask how you shall do it, we reply, Believe with all your heart and soul, and some souls will be surely kindled by your flame.1 [Note: F. W. Robertson.]

2. Not improbably this determination of St. Paul’s represents a temptation conquered, a soul-conflict won. To such a one as he, it would be a trial of spirit to contemplate service in such a city as Corinth. Corinth was a centre of fashion. Shall he essay to appeal to the fashionable crowd with “Christ crucified” as the central theme? Will he not repel them thus? May he not emphasize other aspects of Christ which will be attractive and not repellent? Thus the evil one would ply him. But the God of peace crushed Satan under his feet, and his splendid “I determined” rings out. Corinth was an æsthetic city. Its architecture is a proverb still, and its brasses are still famous. Corinth was an intellectual city. Its typical Greek love of philosophy all men know. It was an opulent commercial city too. Shall he not soften the truth and smooth his message? Will not taste, and culture, and materialism, and wealth resent the preaching of “Christ crucified”? It may be, but, “I determined,” cries this hero of the Cross. He will cry out and shout in the delicate ears of Corinth nothing but the crucified Lord.

3. What is the ground of this intense and all-absorbing faith? St. Paul believes that he has in his hand something that will explain man to himself, a man’s life to himself. He is so firmly convinced of this that, although his mind is large and capacious and he can view with a sympathetic admiration many of the magnificent manifestations of world-power, still, in his own estimate, the sacred message which he has to give to the world is worth all else besides. He is quite alive, as his letter shows, to the variety of powers, the nimbleness of intellect, the ambitious skill which the Corinthians possess; he knows that they are a people eager to express themselves in many ways, that they rejoice in the powers of rhetoric, in the gifts of tongue, in skilful elucidation of philosophical mysteries. But still he comes to these, and he says: “I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” He has made up his mind that this particular formula, “Jesus Christ, and him crucified,” expresses for the world a great, a central, an extensive truth. This is the knowledge for which St. Paul counts all else but loss—“to know Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” This is the simple gospel: its simplicity is its offence in the eyes of many. Nevertheless there are infinite depths in it. It is as when we look into the clear depths of some swift-flowing river. Its very clearness had deceived us. We thought it but a shallow stream, and are astonished at its undreamed-of depths. So with this message of St. Paul, we notice its simplicity first, its apparent narrowness, its exclusiveness; and then we see something of its depth, its boundlessness, its comprehensiveness.

Berry told some of his Bolton friends, at the time, how startled and disappointed he had been at finding himself powerless for a while to give help and comfort to a woman who was dying, amid tragic and squalid surroundings, in one of the lowest parts of the town. He had been called upon to minister to her, but as he unfolded the Christian message, as he was wont to preach it then—the doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood and the Eternal Love—as he told the story of the Prodigal and the Magdalene, her heart gave no response, and she looked up with eyes which seemed to him to ask if that was all he had to say to a lost and dying woman. Under a new afflatus, that came he knew not whence, he began with trembling voice to speak on evangelical simplicities, to tell of Christ’s death for a world’s sin, and to point her to the Cross for pardon. To his joy and wonder he found that in response to words as simple as those he heard at his mother’s knee, the sinful one found rest and peace.1 [Note: J. S. Drummond, Charles A. Berry, 35.]

Who speaketh now of peace?

Who seeketh for release?

The Cross is strength, the solemn Cross is gain.

The Cross is Jesus’ breast,

Here giveth He the rest

That to His best belov’d doth still remain.

How sweet an ended strife!

How sweet a dawning life!

Here will I lie as one who draws his breath

With ease, and hearken what my Saviour saith

Concerning me; the solemn Cross is gain;

Who willeth now to choose?

Who strives to bind or loose?

Sweet life, sweet death, sweet triumph and sweet pain.2 [Note: Dora Greenwell.]

II

The Concentration of his Message

Every act of self-determination involves a corresponding self-repression. Every selection includes at least one alternative. No man commits himself to a really practical resolution without first putting away and rejecting. Many pursuits invited St. Paul. They were attractive, pleasant, honourable, useful to the world. He had all the instincts of a student. He was a scholar with splendid capacity. He might have been, we feel persuaded, a greater than Philo, than Seneca—a greater than Plato himself. “To know Jesus Christ, and him crucified” is the end for which everything else is sacrificed. By “Jesus Christ,” the Apostle understands His manifestation in general—His life, death, and Messianic dignity. Yet, while confining himself to this elementary theme of preaching, he might still have found means to commend Jesus to the attention and admiration of the wise. But he determined “not to know anything, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” He will not know even Jesus Christ except in one aspect. That is the idea. One of our best exegetes thus renders the words: “And even Him as having been crucified.” It is the crucified Christ alone that he will know. Observe the far-reaching word “know.” Not merely does he refuse to speak on any other theme, but he will “know” none other. The crucified Saviour shall fill the whole horizon of his mind and heart. He will, so to say, severely limit his Christology to this phase: “Even Him as having been crucified.”

1. St. Paul disdained systems of philosophy or the teaching of morality merely. The Gospel has been presented as a philosophy. The development of the Church, the innumerable attacks of scepticism, the rise of problems within Christianity itself have rendered imperative the presentation of the Christian system as a well-ordered scheme of philosophical thought. Profound thinkers have arisen from time to time in the Christian Church who have demonstrated the reasonableness of Christianity as a philosophical system, and the work of these thinkers is of great value. But where one man is converted by reading books of apologetics or theology, a thousand are drawn and held captive by the pathos of Calvary—the moving, subduing story of the Cross. Men of all orders and degrees, of all climes and tongues, have owned the wondrous contagion of the Cross, and have yielded to its strange compulsion.

We are philosophers who have found the truth, chemists who have discovered (or rather been told of) the elixir of life; as we read again our Plato and Aristotle, and even the modern searchers after truth, we are the children

On whom those truths do rest

That they are toiling all their lives to find.

To be at the centre of all things; to have disclosed in our undeserving ears the secret of the ages; to know for certain how the world came into being; to have in the Cross the long sought after key to the suffering of the world; to be told what all this curious world is tending towards—that is our real position in the realm of thought.1 [Note: A. F. Winnington Ingram, Messengers, Watchmen, and Stewards, 16.]

2. Theology cannot take the place of the Cross. Nothing has been more fatal in the history of Christianity than that marvellous intellectual curiosity which has been earnest to invent doctrine after doctrine, experience upon experience, till there appears a complete scheme of dogmatic ideas which is called systematic theology. But theological ideas, however systematic, lead only to barrenness and dryness if theologians ignore the fundamental principle which the Apostle has laid down—that the key is not to be found in a theology apart from a person, nor in a person apart from a theology. Whatever the Apostles teach, they always teach Christ. They never turn their teaching into dry intellectual formulae; they abhor the exaggerated rationalism—for it is nothing more—of the extreme dogmatist, just as they have no sympathy with the incoherent gush which satisfies indolent devotion.

A man may be a great theologian and at the same time a great sinner. If theology could save anybody the devil himself would have been converted long ago. He is one of the most expert theologians alive; he can quote Scripture for his purpose with marvellous propriety; but he is the devil yet for all that. On the other hand, there are many whose theological knowledge is hardly worth the name, but whose devout and godly lives are a pattern and an inspiration to all who see them.1 [Note: H. W. Horwill.]

3. Science cannot take the place of the Cross. Some are constantly asserting the claim of science to supersede Christianity. Many well-meaning Christians are spending the time which might be devoted to evangelistic work in endeavouring to reconcile the book of Genesis with the latest scientific theory, or in attempting, from a very superficial knowledge of the subject, to reply to men who not only possess an enormously larger stock of facts on scientific matters, but who also—and this is far more important—have had the advantage of a scientific training. Let us leave to experts investigation into the condition of the early inhabitants of the world. The most serious question in the world is not, What think ye of Darwin? or even, What think ye of Moses? It is, What think ye of Christ?

O world invisible, we view thee,

O world intangible, we touch thee,

O world unknowable, we know thee,

Inapprehensible, we clutch thee.

Does the fish soar to find the ocean,

The eagle plunge to find the air—

That we ask of the stars in motion

If they have rumour of thee there!

Not where the wheeling systems darken,

And our benumbed conceiving soars!—

The drift of pinions, would we hearken,

Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places;—

Turn but a stone, and start a wing!

’Tis ye, ’tis your estrangèd faces,

That miss the many-splendoured thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)

Cry;—and upon thy so sore loss

Shall shine the traffic of Jacop’s ladder

Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,

Cry,—clinging Heaven by the hems,

And lo, Christ walking on the water

Not of Genesareth, but Thames!1 [Note: Francis Thompson.]

4. St. Paul disdained human eloquence. It is certain that St. Paul was not unversed in the wisdom, or unskilled in the rhetoric, which was all the vogue in his day. The Apostle could have presented his message in a beautiful dress, and might have recommended himself to his hearers by polished periods; but he knew very well that the power of the Gospel did not consist in these things.

5. St. Paul was careful to efface self. He did not mar his message by any reference to himself. His eye was fixed on Christ. His desire was to exalt Christ. His zeal expended itself in proclaiming Christ the Saviour of sinners. There were no side glances at his own prospects, his own reputation, his own success. He was content to hide behind the person of Christ, so that He might be seen and loved, and honoured and exalted. Like John the Baptist, whose business it was to cry “Behold the Lamb,” and to point his hearers away from himself, saying, “He must increase, but I must decrease,” so it was St. Paul’s business to declare Christ crucified and to keep himself in the background.

In any work which is to live, or be really beautiful, there must be the spirit of the Cross. That which is to be a temple of God must never have the marble polluted with the name of the architect or builder. There can be no real success, except when a man has ceased to think of his own success.2 [Note: F. W. Robertson.]

As Michael Angelo wore a lamp on his cap to prevent his own shadow from being thrown upon the picture which he was painting, so the Christian minister and servant needs to have the candle of the Spirit always burning in his heart, lest the reflection of self and self-glorying may fall upon his work to darken and defile it.3 [Note: A. J. Gordon.]

III

The Comprehensiveness of his Message

When the Apostle tells us that he is determined to know nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified, he impresses upon our minds that this is “the hidden wisdom which God hath ordained before the world.” He means that to know Christ crucified is the maximum of knowledge, not the minimum. He means that in Jesus Christ and Him crucified all doctrines culminate, and from Jesus Christ and Him crucified all duties emanate and evolve. We live in a world which may well be illustrated as a labyrinth, and as we pursue our way, there are many deviating paths down which we may be tempted to wander. But for us who desire practical wisdom for the conduct of life, we do not want a map of the whole labyrinth; what we do want is a silver thread which may pass through our hands and guide us to the secret part of all things. That guiding thread St. Paul claims to give us in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

“You are going down to the assize, my lord?” “Yes.” “What do you think you will do with that remarkable series of frauds committed some time ago?” “I do not know.” “What do you think you will do with that case of forgery, the most elaborate and intricate piece of business I ever heard of in all our criminal jurisprudence—what do you think you will do with it?” “I do not know.” “Why, are you going down to the city in a loose mind?” “No.” “What have you resolved to do?” “One thing. I have determined nothing except one thing.” “What is that, my lord?” “That the law shall be administered and justice shall be done.” That is what St. Paul said.1 [Note: J. Parker.]

Mr. Guyse did not condemn, but both approved and practised, the preaching of Christian morals, while he denied that such preaching is all that is meant by the phrase and commission, “to preach Christ.” His statements on this department were the following:—

Preaching Christ (in a latitude of the expression) takes in the whole compass of Christian religion considered in its reference to Christ. It extends to all its noble improvements of natural light and principles, and to all its glorious peculiarities of the supernatural and incomprehensible kind, as each of these may, one way or other, be referred to Him. In this sense there is no doctrine, institution, precept, or promise—no grace, privilege, or duty toward God and man—no instance of faith, love, repentance, worship, or obedience, suited to the Gospel state and to the design and obligations of the Christian religion—that don’t belong to preaching Christ. But to bring all these with any propriety under this denomination, they must be considered, according to their respective natures or kinds, in their reference to Christ, that He may be interwoven with them and appear to be concerned in them. They must be preached, not with the air of a heathen moralist or Platonic philosopher, but with the spirit of a minister of Christ, referring them up to Him, as revealed, or enjoined, or purchased by Him—as shining in their brightest lustres and triumphing in all their glories through Him—as built upon Him and animated by Him—as lodged in His hands who is head over all things to the church—as standing in the connections, uses, and designs in which He hath placed them—as known, enjoyed, or practised by light and grace derived from Him—as to be accounted for to Him—as acceptable to God, and advantageous to our salvation, alone through Him, by faith in Him—as enforced upon us by motives and obligations taken from Him—and as tending to His glory and the glory of God in Him.1 [Note: John Guyse.]

A company of young men were once met at supper in the old days of Athens, and Socrates, the great teacher of morality, was present. The conversation turned on their guest. “Socrates,” said Alcibiades, “is like the figure of the Wood-god which you see in the workshops of sculptors: if you open it, you shall find it filled with images of all the gods.” That was the highest praise which in those days of heathen worship it was possible to give to a human being. It was as much as to say that all the forms of Divine life imagined and worshipped at that time were to be found in the one life of Socrates. And, far off, it may be taken as an outshadowing of the reality presented to us in this word of St. Paul concerning Christ.2 [Note: A. Macleod.]

In Tennyson’s “Palace of Art” we have the story of how a soul tried to satisfy herself with an environment completely beautiful. Art and Literature were drawn upon lavishly to make her a meet dwelling-place. But into this paradise of all beauty despair crept, and made havoc. Fear fell like a blight, and the question of questions came to be

What is it that will take away my sin,

And save me lest I die?

At last, come to her true self, and awake to her need of God,

“Make me a cottage in a vale,” she said,

“Where I may mourn and pray”.

Yet Tennyson had too wide a vision of the truth to make an end there. He honours the “first needs” in his poem, but he is careful to leave room for all that enriches life. And so he makes his penitent soul ask as a last request,

Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are

So lightly, beautifully built:

Perchance I may return with others there

When I have purged my guilt.1 [Note: Arch. Alexander.]

i. To know Jesus Christ

It is perfectly possible to know the things that are said about Christ, and not to know Him about whom these things are said. Theological cobwebs have been wrapped round the gracious figure of Christ with disastrous results. He must be known—by personal, persistent, private communion; by long, intense contemplation—known as He was known to Loyola, on whose upturned face and uplifted hands the very stigmata of the Cross started out.

1. To know Jesus Christ is to know man in ideal development. In Him we behold our human nature fully inspired and possessed by God. He is at once a revelation of God and a manifestation of human perfection. As much of God as could be held in a human mind and heart, and shown in human virtues, was found in Christ Jesus. He is the Son of Man, the only perfect specimen of humanity that has lived upon the earth, the ideal of what we ought to be, and the type of the new creation.

The Cross had become the unchanging centre of my thoughts, but these, as they revolved around it, had gradually, yet surely, formed for themselves an orbit widely diverging from the circle in which Christian consciousness is wont to move. The Cross, as I looked at it more and more intently, became to me the revelation of a loving and a suffering God. I learnt to look upon the sacrifice of the death of Christ, not only as being the all-sufficient satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, but also as the everlasting witness to God’s sympathy with man. The mystery of the Cross did not, it is true, explain any one of the enigmas connected with our mortal existence and destiny, but it linked itself in my spirit with them all. It was itself an enigma flung down by God alongside the sorrowful problem of human life, the confession of Omnipotence itself to some stern reality of misery and wrong.2 [Note: Dora Greenwell.]

2. To know Christ is to know God. Christ, reveals God to us. The life of Christ shows us the holiness of God; the patience of Christ shows us the longsuffering of God; the compassion of Christ shows us the mercy of God; the tenderness of Christ shows us the gentleness of God; the sympathy of Christ opens to us the very heart of God: while the death of Christ reveals to us the justice of God.

Here hast thou found me, oh mine enemy!

And yet rejoice not thou, by strength shall none prevail.

By noon thine arrows fly,

None faileth of its mark; thou dost not tire;

And yet rejoice not thou! Each shaft of fire

That finds me here becomes a living nail.

What strength of thine, what skill can now avail

To tear me from the Cross? My soul and heart

Are fastened here! I feel the cloven dart

Pierce keenly through. What hands have power to wring

Me hence? What voice can now so sweetly sing

To lure my spirit from its rest? Oh now

Rejoice my soul, for thou

Hast trodden down thy foeman’s strength through pain.1 [Note: Dora Greenwell.]

ii. To know Jesus Christ crucified

Education, Plato tells us, is the turning away of the soul from the images, shadows, simulacra of things, to the facts and verities of real existence. Education is not increase of knowledge, nor is it the quickening and strengthening of one faculty, such as the intellect. Education is the awakening and unfolding of the whole nature, due regard being had to those capacities which belong to the higher range. Nothing contributes more to man’s education than the discovery of a great fact, the recognition and contemplation of a great thought. It uplifts, expands, and augments the entire being. Now “Christ crucified” is the greatest, the most transcendent fact in the whole universe. It is the master-thought of the Eternal. To know Christ crucified is to know the meaning of life. The death of Christ is the solving power of the mystery of the universe. It is also to know how to live and how to die. The Cross is the moral lever for the world. It lifts men above the power of sin.

In a letter to a friend, Elmslie describes his experience among the children in an Edinburgh east-end Sabbath School: “When I was ending I spoke of how Jesus deserved to be loved, and that they should ask to be made to love Him. One little girlie whispered, ‘I will ask Him, for, oh, I do want to love Him!’ and when I said it was time to go away they cried, ‘Oh, dinna send’s away yet, tell’s mair about Jesus’; and then they came round me, and made me promise to tell them ‘bonnie stories about Jesus’ next Sabbath. I have found that nothing interests them more than what is directly about Jesus. I could not help telling you all these little things, but I never had the same sort of feeling in teaching a class before, and I would like you to remember sometimes my poor little children down in the Canongate. I wish I could take them all into a better atmosphere, for it is sad to think of their chances of ever becoming good in such an evil, wretched place. Harper and I have been having many nice talks. I mean to preach often in the summer—I want to.”1 [Note: W. Robertson Nicoll, W. G. Elmslie, 41.]

1. To know Christ crucified is to know the meaning of life.

(1) In the Cross of Christ we come to understand the mystery of human suffering. Sorrow and pain pass no man by; and no reasoning can argue them out of existence, or reduce our fight with disease and suffering to a phantom battle. Living in a world where the blows of misfortune are constantly falling; where the ravages of suffering are nowhere long absent; where every joy is every moment exposed to blight; where development yields new pain; where increasing knowledge, increasing refinement, increasing goodness and sympathy mean increasing sorrow, and men and women suffer, not for being worse, but for being better than their fellows, it is no wonder that the Cross appeals to human hearts everywhere as a symbol of human life, and holds us under the spell of a solemn fascination. Rejoice as we may,—and we ought to rejoice—in all that brightens and sweetens life, yet the fellowship of suffering is wider and deeper than the fellowship of happiness. A German poet has said that the image of humanity, broken in all its limbs, transfixed in hands and feet and sorrowful unto death, has become distasteful to men; but that can be true of men only in their light, careless, self-indulgent hours. In all our deeper experiences our feet tread the path that leads to Calvary, and we seek the Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief. Christ has not diminished the suffering of the world, but He has given it a new and nobler meaning, made it appear to be no longer God’s wrath and curse, but God’s love and blessing.

The Cross is the supreme instance of the law that no moral or spiritual victory is won, no glorious thing can be done, without suffering, and here suffering was borne to its farthest verge in death.1 [Note: P. A. Ellis.]

(2) In the Cross of Christ we learn the meaning and power of self-sacrifice. The Cross, as the revelation and symbol of redemption through sacrifice, needs to be brought back to our common life. So far as the principle is concerned, it is right to apply, and we do instinctively apply, all the New Testament phraseology of redemption to parents sacrificing themselves for the good of their children, to patriots suffering and dying for the sacred causes of justice and freedom, to the vast army of labourers who procure for us our necessities and luxuries at the cost of their nobler growth and comfort. Without shedding of blood—blood of body, blood of brain, blood of heart—there has been no remission of sins, no redemption from evil conditions, no progress from a lower to a higher state of society. Figuratively, if not literally, men have been crucified, their hands torn, their hearts pierced through with many sorrows, in the interest of every onward step and movement of mankind. The work which really helps the world—work of statesman and philanthropist, work of poet and painter and doctor, work of teacher and preacher—is work into which men put their life, their heart’s blood. It is this power to give without counting the cost to one’s self, this power of suffering and sacrifice, that is the secret of all redeeming work.

There are elements of suffering for sin which are not only possible to the guiltless, but which only they are capable of. Not only can a good man suffer for another’s sin, but it is just in proportion to his goodness that he will suffer. The sin of a dearly loved child will give pain to a saintly mother far more keen than the child himself will feel. The child’s sin blunts his sensitiveness to holiness and to the evil of sin. The mother’s holiness and love will be the measure of her suffering. No suffering for sin can be so deep as that which is endured for the bad by the good who love them and do not partake of their guilt.1 [Note: P. A. Ellis.]

(3) In the Cross of Christ we realize the meaning of sin. Before that, the world treated sin lightly; after that it could not. The world will always treat sin lightly until it understands the meaning of God condemning sin in the flesh where Christ died. Belief in Christ means, and must mean, a sense of the guilt of sin, a hatred of sin, a personal sense of sin and penitence for it. Apart from this there could be no coming to the Saviour, or trust in Him, since there would be no felt necessity for salvation.

The true cross of the Redeemer was the sin and sorrow of this world—that was what lay heavy on His heart—and that is the cross we shall share with Him, that is the cup we must drink of with Him, if we would have any part in that Divine Love which is one with His sorrow.2 [Note: Dinah Morris in Adam Bede.]

(4) In the Cross we come to know the victory of failure. The Cross is the revelation and symbol of victory, but of victory in failure and because of failure. There never was such an apparent failure as the Crucifixion. But the Cross was not the end but the beginning—the beginning of victory—an endless victory to the cause of goodness in the world. There are successes that are sadder than any failures, and failures that are more glorious than any successes. And the history of all that is best on this earth is one continuous illustration of this law of the Cross. The lives of not a few of the great religious leaders of the last century seemed more or less a failure—Robertson’s, Maurice’s, Colenso’s; but they are having now a second and a better life—the victory which comes of the apparent defeat, and because of it.

He passed in the light of the sun,

In the path that the many tread,

And his work, like theirs, was done

For the sake of his daily bread;

But he carried a sword, and, one by one,

Out there in the common light of the sun,

The sins of his life fell dead.

His feet never found the way

That leads to the porch of fame,

But he strove to live each day

With a conscience void of blame;

And he carried a cross whose shadow lay

Over every step of his lowly way,

And he treasured its splendid shame.

So life was a long, hard fight—

For the wrong was ever there,

And the cross ne’er out of sight,

The cross of a grey world’s care;

But right through the day to the failing light

He carried the cross and fought the fight,

Great-hearted to do and bear.

Night fell—and the sword was sheathed,

And the cross of life laid down,

And into his ear was breathed

A whisper of fair renown;

And the nameless victor was glory-wreathed,

For the Voice that said, “Let thy sword be sheathed,”

Said also, “And take thy crown.”1 [Note: Percy C. Ainsworth Poems and Sonnets, 17.]

(5) To know Christ crucified is to know God as a loving Father. In St. Paul’s day this was an idea so new and so wonderful and so wonderfully helpful that it excluded in the Apostle’s mind all other knowledge. God was no longer a wrathful potentate, He was no longer the patron of the Jewish nation only, He was the Father of all men, who willed not that any should perish. In the knowledge of Jesus Christ there had burst upon the Apostle’s mind the all-transforming thought that God was not law, but love. The death of Christ—this is the great truth of truths in the gospel, the great wonder of wonders, the finishing and perfect proof of that love of God to us, beyond which we can conceive nothing higher. All in the gospel rests upon it; without it the gospel could not be understood. From the Cross of Christ streams all the light which makes the gospel the message of peace and comfort to sinful and dying men.

In one of the ancient churches of Central Italy there is a unique representation of the Crucifixion. Behind the Christ on the Cross we catch a dim vision of the Eternal Father; the hands of the Father behind the hands of the Son, and the nails which pierce the Son piercing the Father also. We shrink from it at first as coarse and rude, but as we think about it we feel that it is the old painter saying, in the only language which he could command, what has been so long and strangely forgotten, if not in form yet in reality, that God is in Christ, that the Father is in the Son, that His love had not to be won by sacrifice, that it is His love which is embodied in the sacrifice, that the Cross and Passion are the revelation in time and space, in visible and historical form, of the grief and pain of a God who suffers for. and with His creation and His children.1 [Note: J. Hunter.]

2. To know Christ crucified is to know how to live and how to die.

(1) St. Paul wanted to find a power that should be adequate to cope with men’s dispositions and reach down to the very centre of feeling, and that should take hold of men’s wills. And he found that power in Christ. They who long after better things find their ideal in Him; He lives on by the cords of love, He bids them live righteously and holily in this present world; and with the command comes the power. There is power in Christ to transform the nature and to renew the life; and because the Apostle knew this, he made Him the theme of his preaching, and uplifted Him before the longing eyes of Jew and Gentile.

Does God have no heroes but those who lead on a great battlefield? Has He no saints but those in pictures, with a halo about their head? Heroism in the common life, that is what the world needs; men and women who in common places will do everyday duties without noise or glitter, just because the heart and conscience say, “This is the way, walk ye in it.”

(2) There is one study, the deepest, hardest of all; which is equally and supremely necessary for every one to make some progress in before the application of it comes. It is the study of how to die. We cannot think how ever it will be possible for us to go through that. One thing we hope. We hope that we may not die reluctant, as if under doom, but with life’s onward action and life’s hopefulness still present in us; looking tenderly back, but looking calmly, earnestly, before us. If that is our hope, on what can it rest? It is assured to us as soon as Christ crucified is assured to us. The saints of all time, in proportion to the measure of their faith and of their self-sacrifice, have found death robbed of its terrors.

Pausing a moment ere the day was done,

While yet the earth was scintillant with light,

I backward glanced. From valley, plain, and height,

At intervals, where my life-path had run,

Rose cross on cross; and nailed upon each one

Was my dead self. And yet that gruesome sight

Lent sudden splendour to the falling night,

Showing the conquests that my soul had won.

Up to the rising stars I looked and cried,

“There is no death! for year on year, re-born

I wake to larger life: to joy more great,

So many times have I been crucified,

So often seen the resurrection morn,

I go triumphant, though new Calvaries wait.”1 [Note: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Poems of Experience, 31.]

The Sum of Saving Knowledge

Literature

Alexander (S. A.), The Christianity of St. Paul, 13.

Benson (E. W.), Living Theology, 191.

Bigg (C.), The Spirit of Christ in Common Life, 267.

Brooks (P.), Seeking Life, 259.

Clayton (C.), Stanhope Sermons, 366.

Cooper (T. J.), Love’s Unveiling, 93.

Davidson (A. D.), Lectures and Sermons, 1.

Ellis (P. H.), Old Beliefs and Modern Believers, 69.

Goulburn (E. M.), Occasional Sermons, ii. 235.

Horton (R. F.), The Triumph of the Cross, 31.

Horwill (H. W.), The Old Gospel in the New Era, 1.

Hunter (J.), De Profundis Clamavi, 74.

Little (W. J. Knox), The Hopes of the Passion, 106.

Lucas (A.), At the Parting of the Ways, 1.

Mabie (H. C.), The Meaning and Message of the Cross, 47.

MacArthur (R. S.), The Calvary Pulpit, 1.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions: 1 and 2 Corinthians, 19; A Rosary of Christian Graces, 273.

Melvill (H.), Lothbury Lectures, 224.

Moore (A. L.), The Message of the Gospel, 16.

Neale (J. M.), Sermons in Sackville College Chapel, ii. 187.

Park (E. A.), Discourses, 45.

Parker (J.), Studies in Texts, i. 76.

Potts (A. W.), School Sermons, 201.

Shelford (L. E.), By Way of Remembrance, 13.

Vaughan (D. J.), The Days of the Son of Man, 337.

Wardell (R. J.), Studies in Homiletics, 32.

Wheeler (W. C.), Sermons and Addresses, 44.

Young (D. T.), The Crimson Book, 71.

Christian World Pulpit, ii. 385 (Saphir); xvii. 289 (Brown); xxv. 219 (Shalders); xxvii. 38 (Rogers); xxxviii. 420 (Whittaker); lii. 264 (Campbell); liii. 67 (Parker); lvii. 67 (Rogers); lxi. 193 (Boyd Carpenter); lxiv. 182 (Smith); lxx. 58 (Lee).

Church of England Pulpit, liii. 230 (Boyd Carpenter).

Church Family Newspaper, Aug. 26, 1910, p. 676 (Tetley).