Reading: 1 Cor. 2:1-16; 3:1-4, 18-23.
The
real trouble at Corinth was that the habit of looking at
everything as a philosophy, which had reached such a
height of development amongst the Greeks, had been
carried into the realm of Christianity, and Christianity
was being considered by them in the light of philosophy,
was in fact being reduced to a new philosophy. In
practice, therefore, at Corinth, Christianity was set
forth as a philosophical teaching, as opposed to a
spiritual state.
There
is always that peril lurking amongst God’s people.
It is not a thing peculiar to the Greeks, nor to the
Corinthians, nor to a bygone age. Somewhere not far off
from any assembly of God’s people there lurks the
same danger of Christianity becoming a matter of
teaching, wisdom of words. From the reverse side the
danger is seen as something which merely gratifies the
mind. The natural man loves to be in the know. Knowledge
to the natural man gives a sense of strength, of power,
of importance, and that peril of the natural man creeps
into the realm of Christian teaching. Thus to have good
teaching, clear teaching, systematic teaching, the
presentation of Christian truth in a manner in which the
mind can grasp it, become informed and enriched, has
always this peril associated with it.
That
is why a great many people do not like reiteration. They
like something fresh. To such the novel preacher is the
attractive preacher, the one who is “original”,
that is, who is not saying things well known, but
something quite fresh, something unique, something that
is not so familiar. There is an attractiveness about them
which makes its appeal to this appetite. But should
anyone get up and emphasize, and re-emphasize, and
constantly hammer home one point people get upset. They
get tired of it. They want something fresh for the mind.
Very often they have not recognized the importance of
that truth to the heart. All this belongs to the same
dangerous realm of Christian truth and teaching becoming
something for the mind. The peril is never far away from
the place where much truth is given, or a teaching
ministry fulfilled.
The
Greeks were experts in that realm. That was their
make-up, and they had brought that over into
Christianity, and were reducing Christianity to a human
philosophy, a system of worldly wisdom. The consequences
were very very serious indeed.
Wisdom’s Fruits
The
point we want to emphasize is that you can always tell
whether truth possessed is possessed as a teaching, a
doctrine, a philosophy, or possessed as a living thing in
relation to Christ, by the results that issue from it, by
its effects. In Corinth they had the Christian truth in a
very great fullness and richness, but they had it in the
natural mind as teaching, as truth, as doctrine, as a
philosophy, and the terrible consequences were that there
was that which was sensual, earthly, and even devilish;
so much so that the apostle had in one case to hand over
a certain individual to Satan for the destruction of the
flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of
Christ, so devilish was that thing in the assembly.
It is
terrible to contemplate that such could be the case in a
Christian assembly, where the Holy Ghost is, where Christ
is, and yet here is not only the awful possibility but
the actuality. The apostle puts his finger upon the cause
when he says: “And I, brethren, could not speak unto
you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes
in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:1). What is carnality? It is
the bringing over of the natural tendencies, the
dispositions of mind and heart, into the things of the
Lord, and that is a very dangerous thing to do, and has
very pernicious consequences.
When
the apostle introduces the heavenly wisdom he shows that
it is pre-eminently marked, not by words, but by a state.
Of his own visit to them he declares: “I... when I
came unto you, came not with excellency of speech or of
wisdom... that your faith should not stand in the wisdom
of men, but in the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:1-5). It
is a spiritual state. The wisdom which is from above
produces a state which is altogether the opposite of that
produced by the wisdom of this world, even though the
wisdom of this world operate in the realm of Christian
truth.
Paul
wrote, “I hear that divisions exist among
you...” (1 Cor. 11:18). Whence do they come? They
come from the intrusion of human wisdom into the realm of
Christian truth. Let us put that in another way. We find
believers divided because they get teaching apart from a
living state: yes, Christian teaching, the doctrine of
Christ, resulting in schism amongst believers, because
they only have it as a teaching and not as a living
state.
What
is true of divisions is true of all these other unhappy
things at Corinth. Why such things? How do sensuality and
the very mark of the devil come to be found in a
Christian assembly? This has been the sad history of the
Church again and again, that right in the midst of a
Christian assembly something perfectly devilish has
sprung up, as well as these other things — which
are, of course, from no other source than the devil
— divisions, rivalries, jealousies, factions. This,
I repeat, has been an unhappy history in the Church at
large. Why? Because of Christian teaching being handled
merely as a philosophy instead of both proceeding from,
and producing, a spiritual state.
We
cannot be too emphatic about this matter. We do not want
to run the danger of anything so horrible and so gross,
and if not, we must face it. We do not want to get into a
position like that. We want everything in our
relationship with the Lord to become a living and
outworking reality.
Now
the wisdom from above, of which the apostle speaks,
produces a state just the opposite of that state produced
by this wisdom which is from below. James 3:17 gives the
definition of the wisdom which is from above: — “But
the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then
peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy
and good fruits, without doubtfulness, without
hypocrisy.” (R.V.M.)
There
we have seven things marking the wisdom which is from
above. And do you see how closely this passage in James
runs parallel, though in striking contrast, to things at
Corinth. We will not at this time dwell on these seven
features, but only in the briefest manner touch on one or
two.
“The
wisdom that is from above is first pure...” At
Corinth there was a state the very reverse of this,
because worldly wisdom had come in. There was sensuality,
uncleanness, and oh, strong word, “It is actually
reported that there is fornication among you...” (1
Cor. 5:1).
“...Then
peaceable...” The wisdom which is from above is
peaceable. But of the Corinthians the apostle has to
write: “...I hear that divisions exist among
you...” (1 Cor. 11:18).
So we
might follow the comparison and the contrast right
through, but what we are seeking to say is this, that it
is a state which is produced by heavenly wisdom, a
spiritual state. That is the ground of the apostle’s
use of the words in the second chapter, “he that is
spiritual” (verse 15). This state is here said to be
Christ.
Wisdom Solving the
Supreme Problem
We
want to get closer to this wisdom which is from above.
What is the object of wisdom? For what is wisdom
required? It is to solve problems, to see your way
through, to get through your difficulties. Sin has set up
the greatest problems that this universe has ever known,
and sin in man set God His greatest problem. If we may
speak, and I think we can rightly speak, of God having a
problem, then sin in man confronted God with the greatest
problem He has ever met with. What was the problem with
which God Himself became confronted when sin entered into
the very nature of man, and man became, not only a being
with sin in him, but himself sin? God’s problem was
as to how He could overcome Himself. The position is that
sin must be destroyed if God is uncompromisingly holy. If
God cannot recognize, let alone condone, sin; if God in
His very being, is in absolute antagonism to sin, and it
is war to the death if God has made man and man has
become sinful in his nature, God, by reason of what He
is, is compelled to destroy man utterly as a sinful
thing. God has either to do that, and destroy man
completely, destroy His creation, or He has to find a way
of overcoming Himself, of overcoming His own nature, and
the demands of His own nature and being. To destroy man
utterly, and to wipe out the whole sinful creation, would
spell defeat for God, and give occasion for Satan to rise
up and say: I have won. I have destroyed the work of God
beyond repair.
That
is one side of the problem for God. For God to spare
sinful man is to violate His own nature. How is a problem
like that going to be solved? There is wisdom wanted: on
the one hand, wisdom to know how to do it, and, on the
other hand, power to accomplish it.
This
is where glorying in the Lord comes in. You can see the
answer. You are living in the enjoyment of it. Christ is
the wisdom of God, and the power of God, Christ
crucified. God has solved His problem by Himself becoming
Man, and in a great representative and all inclusive
Manhood taking the full and final consequences of sin so
that the very nature of God is satisfied in an inclusive
Representative. What mighty power there was in destroying
the dominion of sin. There was wisdom in finding the way,
and there was the power in executing the work, and it was
all in Christ crucified. “He that glorieth, let him
glory in the Lord.”
How
can God save sinful man and be true to Himself? CHRIST
IS THE ANSWER. This is a heavenly wisdom, and Christ
is made unto us of God wisdom. What is that wisdom?
Righteousness, sanctification, redemption. How is there
righteousness from God to us in Christ? Because Christ
has fulfilled all righteousness; because in His death He
has carried the judgment upon all unrighteousness, and
therefore satisfied the highest standard of divine
righteousness. Sanctification is something more.
Redemption is something more still.
Let us
think for a moment of each of these. The three are an
exegesis of the one. That is to say, wisdom is defined in
the other three. Heavenly wisdom is righteousness,
sanctification, redemption.
Righteousness
What
is righteousness here? God’s laws are judgments.
They carry with them the absolute demands of God, which
if violated result in the judgment of God. There is no
escape. Every man and woman entering into this creation
comes by birth under the rule of God’s judgments
through God’s laws, and becomes responsible for the
laws of God. But every man and every woman coming into
this creation is totally incapable of meeting those
demands, answering to those laws, and escaping those
judgments. There has come one Man into this world, Who
also was made under the law, Who came under the laws and
judgments of the infinitely holy God, but who was ABLE
to stand up to them, to fulfil them, to satisfy God. Not
only did He do that as for Himself, but there was a point
in His career here on this earth where He stepped right
into the place of other men, accepting all the weakness
of all the race of men, and was then made sin, and tasted
death in the behalf of every man. But because of that
sinlessness which was inherent in Him, He could survive
and not be engulfed in the condition which He had
voluntarily accepted for other men, and through the
eternal Spirit, the indestructible Spirit, the timeless
Spirit, and therefore the deathless Spirit of God, He
overcame that condition which He accepted in a voluntary
way, swallowed it up in all its power, its awfulness, its
blackness, and its consequences of judgment, and
overcame, not only in an isolated way for Himself in what
He was, but in a related way for all men. God having
taken that One into His presence, and made Him the Head,
faith in the Lord Jesus, we are taught, means that the
righteousness which is true of that Man is put to the
account of those who believe, and thus He is made from
God righteousness to us. That is a state in Christ for
us.
Righteousness
goes beyond justification. Justification brings us into a
standing, but righteousness in Christ means that that
standing could be eternally maintained. Justification
means that we stand acquitted. But what is our hope that
we shall not again go back onto the old ground and lose
that position? It is the righteousness of Christ which is
eternal, indestructible, deathless, incorruptible. The
case, then, is not one of faith only for a standing, but
faith in a righteousness which abides, abiding
righteousness to keep us there in that position with God.
It is one thing to be brought to a position. It is
another thing to have put to our account that which can
keep us there eternally. Righteousness is that which
establishes justification as an eternal thing. It is ours
through faith. He is made unto us righteousness from God.
Sanctification
He is
made unto us sanctification from God. Notice the
direction of this. Where does sanctification originate?
From whence does it come? Does it come from our effort,
from our struggle, from our endeavour? Does it come from
our consecration? No, it does not! Sanctification comes
from God: in this sense, that before ever we could be for
God, God Himself singled us out for Himself. God singled
Israel out from the nations for Himself. That was their
sanctification. It came from God — “Ye did not
choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16).
Sanctification originates with the initiative of God, and
all that we shall ever be or do in a sanctified life will
be because God started it, God initiated it, God singled
us out, chose us to be His own.
The
foundations of sanctification are not in our efforts to
be holy, nor in our decision to be holy. The foundation
of sanctification is in God’s laying hold of us to
be all for Himself. All our efforts would be in vain if
God had never made us His own. But to be the Lord’s
carries with it the fact that we are wholly separated.
Separation is not unto sanctification; it is because of
sanctification.
Let
your reason for not having anything to do with what is
not of the Lord be that you are the Lord’s. Do not
break off this and that so as to be the Lord’s, but
recognize that you are His, that He has chosen you, and
you have then the basis and the dynamic for a holy life.
It is in Christ. To be in Christ means that we are the
Lord’s, and carries with it the truth that we are
wholly the Lord’s. There must be no violation of
that: and this implies the recognition of a position
which carries with it a state. The recognition of that,
and the acceptance of it by faith, is the power of a holy
life. We are sanctified by faith, even as we are
justified by faith. How are we sanctified by faith? By
believing that in Christ we are holy, that God has
purposed we should be holy through our being in Him.
Anything unholy is a contradiction, and God is against
it. God is for holiness, and would have us recognize the
fact, and receive that holiness in His Son Whom He has
given.
Redemption
Redemption
is more than justification, more than righteousness, more
than sanctification. Why does it come last? Surely, we
might say, Paul has made a slip! He ought to have said,
Now Christ is made unto us redemption, righteousness,
sanctification! Surely that is the order of doctrine! No!
there is no mistake. The order is correct, and the
statement accurate as it stands. We so often think of
redemption in the limited sense of the ransom paid at the
beginning by which we are set free. But that is a mere
fragment of redemption. Look at 1 Corinthians 15 and see
to what point redemption leads. It leads right out of
this body of humiliation, right out of the last remnant
and vestige of corruptibility, into a spirit glorified in
a glorified body. Go back to Romans 8:23, where you have
that stated emphatically — “...waiting for our
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”
Redemption is the full and final consummation of the
whole work of new creation in spirit, soul and body, and
in the whole creation outside: for “...the creation
itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of
corruption...” (verse 21). That is redemption.
Redemption carries you right on to the end, and that is
why it comes last here.
Redemption
is an immense thing. And Christ is made redemption unto
us. In Christ that is secured to us. It is beautiful to
know that we are justified and stand before God. It is
good to know that that righteousness, unimpeachable,
incorruptible, is put to our credit. It is good to know
that in Christ we are sanctified. But, oh, see to what
that is leading. It is leading to glorification in every
part of our being, and in every part of this creation,
this universe. That is redemption in Christ Jesus.
“He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”
The
Lord brings all this and gathers it up into one word
“grace.” While the word itself is not used, you
can never have a more beautiful exposition of grace than
you have here. “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who was made unto us wisdom...” God has chosen the
foolish, the weak, the despised, and the things which are
not, and brought them through to that. God chose! That is
repeatedly stated. It is of Him that we are in Christ. Is
that not grace? Foolish, weak, despised nothings in this
world brought through to that in Christ: and it is all of
God — “Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was
made unto us wisdom from God (out from God unto us), and
righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.”
It is all the divine work. All comes from God. All is
grace.
What
an argument that is against this wisdom of this world! It
argues in these two ways. In the first place all this
says that the wisdom of this world is intended to make
something of man. Man wants to be something in himself.
He wants to be wise, and by his wisdom he wants to have
power, to be able to do because he knows, and it is all
the bolstering up of man. Thus the Greeks came to worship
the most perfect man that they could find. The best
philosopher was worshipped. The best athlete was
worshipped. The man of wisdom and strength was the object
of worship amongst the Greeks. It was making something of
man, and wisdom was all to make man something.
That
rules Christ out, and it rules out everything being of
God, if it is all of man. Which will you have? Are you
going to have this inflation of humanity? Where will it
end? To what will it lead? Perhaps a few years of fame?
“Now they do it to receive a corruptible
crown...” How true that is, “a corruptible
crown”! So you come to the Pantheon, and you find
that one wise man, one philosopher, and one athlete,
succeeds another. Every year the one who was at the top
is superseded, and that is how it goes on. Fame and
influence may last for a year, but you will be very lucky
if you get beyond that. That is the value of this
world’s wisdom and power, a transient thing, no more
permanent than the laurel crown of its reward. But here
is a wisdom established upon the weakness, the
foolishness, the nothingness of the human element:
fadeless, immortal, eternal, heavenly. That is the
argument between the wisdom from above and the wisdom
from beneath. And when these are compared, which is
wisdom? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this
world, seeing what the heavenly wisdom is? What does your
heart say to that? When you see the heavenly wisdom, and
its possibilities, and its fruit, do you not say that the
wisdom of this world is foolishness compared with that?
God HAS MADE foolish the wisdom of this world, and
God HAS MADE weak the strength of this world, by a
revelation of the heavenly wisdom, the heavenly power in
Christ.
It all
resolves itself into a matter of whether we are prepared
to accept the working of the cross of Christ crucified.
Of course, facing it like this you agree, you assent, you
say: Yes, of course, there is no other choice to be made.
Are you prepared to be regarded by the world every day
that you live as utterly foolish, as nothing, as having
no existence? That is literally what the words mean. You
might say in an hour of enthusiasm, Oh, yes! Ah, but it
is not so easy. Many a battle has to be fought against
the proneness of this human nature to be something,
against its desire to be able to hold its own, to make an
equal show with others. How against this nature weakness
is! How we cry out against weakness. It is, then, a
question of whether we are prepared to have the working
of Christ crucified in the whole constitution of nature,
so that the result is the complete ruling out of
ourselves and the utter ruling in of Christ.
Paul
relates all this to the living person of Christ. As
Chrysostom said in his own quaint way, “Paul always
nails it with nails to Christ.” He meant that Paul
always brings it in in relation to the living Person: not
talking doctrine, not things, not sanctification,
redemption, righteousness as doctrines, but the living
Christ. It is, after all, the question of how far Christ
is to eclipse us, totally eclipse us.
In the
Greek world in these New Testament days a slave was
regarded as having no existence apart from his master. He
dare not have his own thoughts: he dare not have his own
mind, his own will, his own ways, his own plans, his own
workings. He was but the shadow of his master. He had
completely to sink his own personality into that of his
master. That is why Paul constantly calls himself the
bondslave of Jesus Christ. In effect he means, I have
sunk my own individuality, my own personality, into
Christ — “For me to live is Christ,” the
shadow of my Master! “We have the mind of
Christ,” His thoughts, His ways; and that implies
the transcendence of Christ over ourselves at every
point. Paul gloried in that He did not think it something
of great cost and sacrifice to let himself go to Christ.
He gloried in the fact that he was a bondslave of Jesus
Christ, because he gloried in Christ. It is, once again,
what Christ is from God to us, and this it is as much our
glory to accept as our necessity.
We may talk much about
the cross. It is necessary for us to speak about the
working of the cross, because it is necessary for us to
be reminded of the method. But what is far more than all
is the utter and absolute Lordship and dominion of Jesus
Christ. That carries with it the cross. You will never
know that relationship apart from the cross. The cross is
the way to that, but the object in view is not to be
crucified. Do not live as though the one thing in life is
to be constantly crucified, to have to die, die, die, and
to be shut up with this as the only subject to which your
thoughts are ever given. Let us be concerned with the
positive side, which will include the former, with Christ
all, and in all, the complete eclipsing of ourselves by
Him. The eclipsing work will be by the cross, but the end
will be Christ! And what a Christ! “Hallelujah, what
a Saviour!” “He that glorieth, let him glory in
the Lord.” The Lord put more glorying in Him into
our hearts.