a I came not with a famo a ch. i. 17. b ch. i. 6. 2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him cruci- Gal. vi. 14. fied. Phil. iii. 8. 1. "The testimony of God." So B., D., E., F., G., L., P., most Cursives, d, e, f, g, Vulg., Sah., Eth., Arm.; but N, A., C., Syr., Copt., read, "the mystery of God." 1. "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech," &c. As was the Gospel, so was its delivery. He did not wrap up that which was extremely simple in highflown words and phrases, which would have destroyed the power of its simplicity. "Declaring unto you the testimony [or mystery] of God." The authorities for the two words are very evenly balanced, but the meaning and force are the same in either case, for the testimony of God-that which He testified by the Resurrection, viz., the true Sonship of the Only Begotten, and His Atoning Death-was mystery and must ever be and the mystery of God was not wrapped up in a philosophy, but was a testimony, a testimony to the gift of His Son for the salvation of the world. 2. "For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ," &c. This does not mean that he determined to preach only the Crucifixion, because from all the first part of 1 Cor. xv. we gather that the principal fact of his Gospel, on which he laid most stress, was the Lord's Resurrection: but it means that in all his preaching of Jesus Incarnate, Dying and Rising again, he never kept back, but put in the foreground Jesus as Crucified. He never allowed any human motives or prudential considerations to make him keep back the offence of the Cross. Whatever temptations he might have to speak with reserve of the shame and indignity which the Lord suffered, he never yielded to 28 d Acts xviii. 1, 6, 12. NOT WITH ENTICING WORDS. [I. COR. 3 And I was with you in weakness, and in 2 Cor. iv. 7. fear, and in much trembling. & x. 1, 10. & xi. 30. & xii. 5, 4 And my speech and my preaching1 was not 9. Gal. iv. 13. with || enticing words of man's wisdom, but in f ver. 1. ch. i. 17. 2 Pet. i. 16. Or, persunsible. g Rom. xv. 19. 1 Thess. i. 5. demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 4. "Of man's wisdom." So A., C., L., P., most Cursives; but N, B., D., E., F., G., d, e, f, q, r, Vulg. (Cod. Amiat.), Syr., Sah., Arm., Eth., omit "man's." them for a moment, but held up the Cross as the power of God for remission of sin and attraction of hearts to God. 3. "And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." No doubt this took place because of those personal infirmities to which he so often alludes: thus in 2 Cor. x. 10 he makes his adversaries say of him (and no doubt they did say it) "that his bodily presence was weak, and his speech contemptible." And also in xi. 30: “If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities." Again, "I will not glory but in mine infirmities." He seems to have had a painful consciousness of these infirmities, whatever they were, and dreaded exceedingly lest they should hinder the reception of the truths which he preached. Perhaps this dread also, for some wise reason, was permitted to have especial hold on him when he commenced his ministry in Corinth, for the Lord Himself appeared to him in a vision, supporting him with the words, "Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace, for I am with thee" (Acts xviii. 9). Someone has remarked that a peculiar undefined dread hanging over a preacher is very frequently the prelude to a particular blessing attending his ministry. 4. "And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words," &c. The Corinthians seem especially to have expected these honied, enticing words from those who would move them, and so Corinthian words was a popular expression for exquisite phrases. (Stanley.) 66 "My speech" (Móyos), the form and words of speech; "my preaching," the thing preached, the substance of what he proclaimed. In demonstration of the Spirit and of power." "In demonstra CHAP. II.] NOT IN THE WISDOM OF MEN. 29 5 That your faith should not † stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. + Gr. be. tion" means in clear proof, recognizable by all, that the Spirit of God accompanied his preaching. Commentators are divided as to what this "demonstration of the Spirit" is. Some say that we must exclude from our view the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, and confine it to the internal working of the Spirit of God upon the soul, according to the words of the Lord, "He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you." And no doubt conversion, especially that of one brought up in heathenism, is as manifest a work of the Holy Ghost as any miracle of bodily healing. Godet, a commentator who generally takes a believing view of Scripture, and so cannot be credited with a rationalistic dislike of miracles, goes so far as to write, "Chrysostom, and in our day Beet, apply these expressions to the outward miracles which St. Paul sometimes (?) wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. xii. 12; Rom. xv. 19). Such an interpretation, allowable in the infancy of exegesis, should now no longer be possible." But did not the Spirit of God actually accompany the preaching of St. Paul with outward mighty signs and wonders? The Apostle, in the two places cited by Godet, expressly declares that He did. Take 2 Cor. xii. 12: "Truly the signs of an Apostle were wrought among you in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds." These signs and wonders were wrought in Corinth before their eyes. They were the means, not perhaps by which they believed, but by which their attention was directed to the preaching of an obscure foreign Jew, as St. Paul was. Freely allowing that the miracle of miracles was the resurrection of a dead soul to the life of Christ, still this was a miracle in the compass of the heart only, and could, for a time at least, be known only to a few, whilst the outward miracles brought directly to the notice of thousands the working among them of the unseen Ruler of the universe. Considering the very great stress which the Apostle laid upon his miracles as the signs of his Apostleship, it is impossible to doubt but that he had them principally in his mind when he wrote this passage. 5. "That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." That your faith should not stand in the WE SPEAK WISDOM. [I. COR. 6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them 'that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, 'that come to nought: exhibition of the Gospel as a philosophical system expressed in the terms of human science and logic, but in the power of God, in the power of God within you, making you new creatures in Christ, with new views of God, and His Son, and His Spirit, and the eternal world, and confirming the truth and reality of this mighty change of all within you by signs and wonders which were in reality the effects of the Resurrection of Christ, and which took place in this visible state of things, so that you might be assured that your internal change was not a mental delusion, but a true work of Almighty God. 6. "Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect." The Apostle here corrects a misapprehension which might arise from what he had been saying. He had been speaking of God saving men "by the foolishness of preaching," of "the foolishness of God being wiser than men," of "God having chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise," of "not having come to them with excellency of speech and of wisdom." And from all this, they might think that there was no true wisdom, no deep philosophy, in the Cross: but here he assures them that if they thought so they would be wrong indeed, for amongst those fit to receive such instruction, whom he calls the perfect, i.e., the fullgrown, as opposed to the babes, they spoke wisdom, but not of this world, nor, he adds, of the princes of this world, that come to nought. Why does he mention the princes of this world? Because the rulers of this world, i.e., the heads of the Jewish Church and State, were directly instrumental in the crucifixion of the Lord, and he had just been speaking of knowing nothing among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The mention of the Crucified brings to his mind the earthly wisdom to which the Cross was opposed, and this in its turn makes him revert to the fact that the Lord's crucifiers-Chief Priests, Scribes, and Pharisees-were, so far as his own nation were concerned, the possessors of the world's wisdom. CHAP. II.] IN A MYSTERY. 31 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the "That come to nought." This probably means that they were doomed to disappear, and be destroyed in the swift approaching destruction of their city and temple. 7. "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom." "The wisdom of God in a mystery." What is this wisdom of God, and how is it in mystery (v uvoτnpių)? The wisdom of God is the knowledge of the greatest and highest matters which can be presented to the human intellect, such as the human and the Divine in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, as set forth in the Epistles to the Colossians and Hebrews; the calling of the Gentiles and the casting away of the Jews, in that to the Romans; the Headship of Christ in the Epistle to the Ephesians, as well as the Revelation of the Anomos in the Thessalonians. These are the leading mysteries or leading parts of the one great mystery of Christ which we learn from the Epistles. But how is this spoken in a mystery, or in mystery? There seems to be but one answer. This wisdom differs from human wisdom in that it is unsearchable by the human intellect. Men, in other respects apparently believers, tell us, or as good as tell us, that there is now no mystery in the usual sense of the word in the New Testament that a mystery is a thing which was once hidden in God's foreknowledge, but being now revealed becomes a mystery no longer, but is brought into the domain of the human intellect. But let us take the Incarnation of our blessed Lord; this was prophesied of in Isaiah, and so was in the Divine foreknowledge. It was in due time made known to men; to the Virgin, in the words of the angel (Luke i. 35); to the Church, in the words of St. Paul, in Coloss. i., Phil. ii., also in Hebrews i., and in the first chapters of St. John's Gospel and Epistle. But when thus revealed, was it robbed of its mysteriousness, and brought down to our comprehension? No, it was made tenfold more mysterious, for then the human intellect first became thoroughly aware of the unfathomable depth with which it was brought face to face the perfect union of the Divine and human in the Crucified.1 1 Godet writes thus respecting the absence of a mystery properly so called in the New Testament. "The word mystery has taken, in theological language, a meaning which it has not in the New Testament, to wit, a truth which human reason cannot fathom. In Paul's writings it simply signifies a truth or a fact which the human understanding |