2 Corinthians 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety… This is one of the many cases in which a slight alteration makes a great difference. The Authorised Version by its reading suggests erroneously that the "simplicity" is something belonging to Christ; and we have all heard the use of the phrase as expressive of what is supposed to be a plain, simple gospel, as contrasted with man's refinements. But if we read as we ought to do, "the simplicity that is towards Christ," we see that what the apostle is thinking about is not a quality belonging to the gospel or to its Lord, but to the believer, and that it expresses no characteristic of the Redeemer or of His revelation, but something about the way in which we ought to receive and to cleave to Him. I. THEN NOTE THE ATTITUDE REQUIRED. The English words simple and simplicity, like their Greek equivalents, embody a striking figure. Simple literally means without a fold, and the noun here formed from it means consequently, if we may coin a word after the analogy of manifoldness, singlefoldness. Hence it is used to express the two kindred ideas of perfect genuineness or, as we say, straightforwardness, and of thoroughness and out-and-outness. So that the two ideas that are conveyed here are those of genuine and out-and-out simpleminded devotion. He would have them to be, as a bride ought to be, wholly filled with the love and confidence of Him to whom he presents them. The phrase, then, as interpreted by the emblem that stands by the side of it, suggests these three things. 1. We must have simple-hearted love. A bride's love that is halved is destroyed. And the Christian man's heart that is divided is empty of all genuine love to the Master. He requires that we shall love Him all in all, or not at all; and interprets that as treason which is not out-and-out surrender and consecration to Him. The heart need not be emptied of other affections. The central diamond may have round about it a cluster of brilliants, but they must be kept in subordination, small and encompassing. And so our lives are then pure and blessed, not when the love of Christ chills our hearts to other dear ones, but warms and purifies our loves to them into some effluence and likeness of itself. 2. A single-minded submission to Him as fountain of truth, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, is another part of the simplicity that is towards Christ. Just as, in regard to single-hearted love, there is no impoverishing of the affections because He claims the first-fruits of them all, so, in regard of this single-minded discipleship, there is no limiting of the faculties, excluding of Christians from any field of thought, because He claims to be "first and last and midst and without end," the only teacher whose word is absolute truth. All our other thinking ought to be held in subordination to the truths that He reveals. 3. Single-eyed consecration of the practical life to Him is another part of this "simplicity that is towards Christ." Where the heart is single, and the mind filled with His thoughts and commandments and promises and revelations, the life will, of course, yield itself to be directed by Him. II. THIS SINGLENESS AND THOROUGHNESS IS THE ONLY ATTITUDE THAT AT ALL CORRESPONDS TO WHAT CHRIST IS TO US, AND WHAT WE SAY WE ARE TO HIM. We are to cleave to Christ only because Christ is enough. God, the Jehovah of the Old Testament, had the right to demand all the devotion of heart, soul, mind, strength, because He had the power to satisfy and to bless all the faculties that were consecrated to Him. Jesus Christ has no right to ask me to give my whole self to Him unless He has given His whole self to me; and unless, in that gift, I can find nourishment and strength, and the supply of every craving and every need. If our mind is bowed before the incarnate truth of God we shall know neither the unrest of resultless search nor the gloom of continual doubt, but shall have the light of life to shine upon our road. III. NOTE THE BLESSEDNESS THAT WILL ATTEND SUCH OUT-AND-OUT AND GENUINE CHRISTIAN LIFE. The true misery of men comes because they do not know their own minds nor consistently and persistently keep to one course. Distraction is misery. Unity is peace, and peace is strength, and unity and peace and strength, in the utter devotion of myself to the worthy Christ, are the blessedness of earth, the predictions and foretastes of the transports of eternity. "The simplicity that is towards Christ" is the beginning of the "rest that remaineth for the people of God." (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. |
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