Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 2:2

For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

2. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified ] He had come to deliver a testimony concerning God, and as we have seen, that testimony must needs result in the humiliation of man. Accordingly, its matter is very simple. All he knows is Jesus Christ, and even Him as having been reduced, in His humanity, to a condition which to the purely human apprehension appears one of the deepest disgrace. The words and Him crucified may be rendered thus, and even Him as having been crucified. See 1Co 1:23.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

For I determined – I made a resolution. This was my fixed, deliberate purpose when I came there. It was not a matter of accident, or chance, that I made Christ my great and constant theme, but it was my deliberate purpose. It is to be recollected that Paul made this resolution, knowing the special fondness of the Greeks for subtle disquisitions, and for graceful and finished elocution; that he formed it when his own mind, as we may judge from his writings, was strongly inclined by nature to an abstruse and metaphysical kind of discussion, which could not have failed to attract the attention of the acute and subtle reasoners of Greece; and that he made it when he must have been fully aware that the theme which he had chosen to dwell upon would be certain to excite derision and contempt. Yet he formed, and adhered to this resolution, though it might expose him to contempt; and though they might reject and despise his message.

Not to know – The word know here eidenai is used probably in the sense of attend to, be engaged in, or regard. I resolved not to give my time and attention while among you to the laws and traditions of the Jews; to your orators, philosophers, and poets; to the beauty of your architecture or statuary; to a contemplation of your customs and laws, but to attend to this only – making known the cross of Christ. The word eido to know, is sometimes thus used. Paul says that he designed that this should be the only thing on which his mind should be fixed; the only object of his attention; the only object there upon which he sought that knowledge should be diffused. Doddridge renders it appear to know.

Anything among you – Anything while I was with you. Or, anything that may exist; among you, and that may be objects of interest to you. I resolved to know nothing of it, whatever it might be. The former is probably the correct interpretation.

Save Jesus Christ – Except Jesus Christ. This is the only thing of which I purposed to have any knowledge among you.

And him crucified – Or, even kai him that was crucified. He resolved not only to make the Messiah the grand object of his knowledge and attention there, but even a crucified Messiah; to maintain the doctrine that the Messiah was to be crucified for the sins of the world; and that he who had been crucified was in fact the Messiah. See the note at 1Co 1:23. We may remark here:

(1) That this should be the resolution of every minister of the gospel. This is his business. It is not to be a politician; not to engage in the strifes and controversies of people; it is not to be a good farmer, or scholar merely; not to mingle with his people in festive circles and enjoyments; not to be a man of taste and philosophy, and distinguished mainly for refinement of manners; not to be a profound philosopher or metaphysician, but to make Christ crucified the grand object of his attention, and seek always and everywhere to make him known.

(2) He is not to be ashamed anywhere of the humbling doctrine that Christ was crucified. In this he is to glory. Though the world may ridicule; though philosophers may sneer; though the rich and the frivilous may deride it, yet this is to be the grand object of interest to him, and at no time, and in no society is he to be ashamed of it!

(3) It matters not what are the amusements of society around him; that fields of science, of gain, or ambition, are open before him, the minister of Christ is to know Christ and him crucified alone. If he cultivates science, it is to be that he may the more successfully explain and vindicate the gospel. If he becomes in any manner familiar with the works of art, and of taste, it is that he may more successfully show to those who cultivate them, the superior beauty and excellency of the cross. If he studies the plans and the employments of people, it is that he may more successfully meet them in those plans, and more successfully speak to them of the great plan of redemption.

(4) The preaching of the cross is the only kind of preaching that will be attended with success. That which has in it much respecting the divine mission, the dignity, the works, the doctrines, the person, and the atonement of Christ, will be successful. So it was in the time of the apostles; so it was in the Reformation; so it was in the Moravian missions; so it has been in all revivals of religion. There is a power about that kind of preaching which philosophy and human reason have not. Christ is Gods great ordinance for the salvation of the world; and we meet the crimes and alleviate the woes of the world, just in proportion as we hold the cross up as appointed to overcome the one, and to pour the balm of consolation into the other.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

1Co 2:2

I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

Pauls theme

I. Pauls theme.

1. Christ.

2. Him crucified.

II. His determination.

1. To know nothing else.

2. Spite of ridicule and reproach.

III. His motive. This was–

1. His duty.

2. His delight.

3. His glory. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Pauls one theme

Paul was emphatically a man of one idea. He went forth not to baptize (1Co 1:17); not to preach self (2Co 4:5); not to teach philosophy (1Co 1:23); not to practise tricks of rhetoric (1Co 2:4); but everywhere in synagogues, market-places, judgment halls, prison, crowded cities, his one theme was Christ and Him crucified. In the synagogues at Antioch and Thessalonica, what does he preach?– Act 13:38; Act 17:3. On Mars Hill, what?– Act 17:31. Before Felix and Agrippa, what? Act 24:25; Act 26:23. In the prison at Rome, what?– Act 28:31. And now in writing to the Corinthian Church, what? Why does Paul give such prominence to this theme? Because–

I. It is the most important theme. Philosophy would have reached only the cultured. A plea for the oppressed would have reached only the patriotic, but the Cross commands universal attention, for it touches a universal want. It means–

1. Remission of sins. Sin is the source of all ills. Christ is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.

2. An immortality of glory.

II. It is the grandest theme.

1. Grand is the starry world above, but grander is the Cross.

2. It gives grandeur to the life. If it be grand to die for ones country, grander is it to die for the salvation of men. If it be grand to minister to a mind diseased, grander is it to minister to a soul diseased. The Cross made Pauls life grand, and Luthers, Whitfields, and Wesleys.

III. Of the central position of the theme in the gospel. (J. C. Williamson.)

The great subject of evangelical preaching

I. The determination of the apostle.

1. Jesus signifies a Saviour. The kind errand upon which He comes is included in this name–to save from the guilt of sin, by imputing the merit of His sacrifice, and from the dominion of sin, by imparting His Spirit.

2. Christ signifies the Anointed One (Psa 45:7). As kings and priests and prophets were anointed, so He was especially anointed of God as the King, the Priest, and the Prophet of His Church.

3. A special emphasis must be laid upon the words, Him crucified. Jesus Christ they, know in heaven; Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, sinners are to be acquainted with upon the earth.

4. Paul determines to know this. To know sometimes meant–

(1) Respect and love. I beseech you to know them which labour among you in the Lord.

(2) To make it known to others. And this the apostle did.

(3) The word here signifies especially that he so resolved to preach among them Christ crucified, as if he knew nothing so much as–nothing in comparison with–Christ, and Him crucified. And read his sermons and epistles, and see how he carried out this blessed determination.

II. Some reasons for this determination.

1. It was a subject which God approved. He calls it the testimony of God, because to His crucified Son God has given wonderful testimony in the Scriptures.

2. It was the subject calculated to convert sinners. And why? Because the Spirit, as the glorifier of Christ, will not apply any other subject but this.

3. It was fitted to comfort the sorrowful. We have in it everything adequate to our present and eternal necessities.

4. It was adapted to promote holiness. If I wish you to manifest His obedience in all your conduct, how is it to be obtained? The love of Christ constraineth us. If I want to press upon your attention holy love to Christ, it proceeds from the same source. If I want to excite you to holy liberality, where can I point you but here? Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, &c.

5. It agrees with the theme of heaven. (J. Sherman.)

The man of one subject

Paul was a very determined man, and whatever he undertook he carried out with all his heart. This one thing I do was always his motto. He had once been a great opposer of Christ; it was not therefore to be wondered at that he should now bring all his faculties to bear upon the preaching of Christ crucified.

I. What was this subject to which Paul determined to shut himself up while preaching to the Church at Corinth?

1. He first preached–

(1) His great Masters person–Jesus Christ.

(a) He held Him up as a real man, no phantom, but one who was crucified, &c.

(b) He had no hesitation about His Godhead. He preached Jesus as the wisdom and power of God.

(2) His work, especially His death. Horrible! said the Jew; Folly! said the Greek. But Paul did not, therefore, put these things into the background and begin with the life of Christ and the excellency of His example, and thus tempt them onward to His divinity and atonement.

2. Very impolitic this must have seemed.

(1) Wise men would have remarked upon the hopefulness of the Israelites, if handled with discretion, and their advice would have been, We do not say, renounce your sentiments, Paul, but disguise them for a little while. The apostle yielded to no such policy, he would not win either Jew or Gentile by keeping back the truth, for he knew that such converts are worthless.

(2) Another would say, But if you do this you will arouse opposition. Do not provoke the contempt of all thinking men. Argue with them, and show them that you too are a philosopher. Be all things to all men. By these means you will make many friends, and by degrees bring them to accept the gospel. But the apostle puts down his foot with, I have determined.

3. He resolved that his subject should so engross attention that he would not even speak it with excellency of speech or mans wisdom. He would hide the Cross neither with flowers of rhetoric nor with clouds of philosophy. Some preach Christ as the painter who, in depicting a sea fight, showed nothing but smoke.

II. Although Paul thus concentrated his energies upon one point, it was quite sufficient for his purpose. If the apostle had aimed at pleasing an intelligent audience, or had designed to set himself up as a profound teacher, he would naturally have looked out for something a little more new and dazzling. A select Church of culture would have assured him that such preaching would only attract the servants and the old women; but Paul would not have been disconcerted by such observations, for he loved the souls of the poorest and feeblest: and, besides, he knew that what had exercised power over his own educated mind was likely to have power over other intelligent people.

1. Paul desired to arouse sinners to a sense of sin, and what has ever accomplished this so perfectly as the doctrine that sin was laid upon Christ and caused His death?

2. But he wanted also to awaken the hope that forgiveness might be given consistently with justice. Need a sinner ever doubt when he has once seen Jesus crucified?

3. He longed to lead men to actual faith in Christ. Now, faith cometh by hearing, bus the hearing must be upon the subject concerning which the faith is to deal.

4. He wanted men to forsake their sins, and what should lead them to hate evil so much as seeing the sufferings of Jesus on account of it?

5. He longed to train up a Church of consecrated men, zealous for good works; and what more is necessary to promote sanctification than Christ, who hath redeemed us and so made us for ever His servants? I say that Paul had in Christ crucified a subject equal to his object; a subject that would meet the case of every man; a subject for to-day, to-morrow, and for ever.

III. The apostles confining himself to this subject could not possibly do harm. A man of one thought only is generally described as riding a hobby: well this was Pauls hobby, but it was a sort of hobby which a man may ride without any injury to himself or his neighbour.

1. But Christ crucified is the only subject of which this can be said.

(1) A class of ministers preach doctrine only, the effect of which is generally to breed narrowness, exclusiveness, and bigotry.

(2) Others preach experience only.

(a) Some of them take the lower scale of experience, and say that nobody can be a child of God except he groans daily, being burdened. This teaching brings up a race of men who show their humility by sitting in judgment upon all who cannot groan as deeply as themselves.

(b) Another class preach experience always upon the high key. For them there are no nights; they sing through perpetual summer days. They have conquered sin, and they have ignored themselves. So they say, or we might have fancied that they had a very vivid idea of themselves and their attainments. Certainly their conventions and preachings largely consist of very wonderful declarations of their own admirable condition.

(3) Another class preach the precepts and little else, and the teaching becomes very legal; and after a while the true gospel which has the power to make us keep the precept gets flung into the background, and the precept is not kept after all. Do, do, do, generally ends in nothing being done.

(4) Others make the second advent the end-all and be-all of their ministry, and in many cases sheer fanaticism has been the result.

2. But keeping to this doctrine cannot do hurt, because–

(1) It contains all that is vital within itself. Within its limit, you have all the essentials for this life and for the life to come; you have the root out of which may grow branch, flower, and fruit of holy thought, word, and deed. This is a subject which does not arouse one part of the man and send the other part to sleep; it does not kindle his imagination and leave his judgment uninstructed, nor feed his intellect and starve his heart. As in milk there are all the ingredients necessary for sustaining life, so in Christ crucified there is everything that is wanted to nurture the soul.

(2) It will never produce animosities, as those nice points do which some are so fond of dealing with. I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Christ, comes from not keeping to Jesus crucified; but was there ever yet a sect created by the preaching of Christ crucified?

IV. Because of all this we should all of us make this the main subject of our thoughts, preaching, and efforts. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Pauls determination

Nothing but Christ–

1. Could satisfy the preacher.

2. Save the hearer.

3. Please God. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Method of preaching

Paul had been trained up in all the learning that was common among the Jews, and it would seem from some casual expressions in his writings, in much also that was common among the Greeks; he might, therefore, have taken his hearers upon their own favourite grounds; he might have treated them in a way suited to the prevailing taste, he might have touched lightly upon those parts of the Christian system against which their prejudices were most powerfully directed, and thus have escaped not only the contempt of his auditors, but secured their admiration.

I. This determination was plainly founded on a deep and heartfelt conviction that Christ Jesus, in that which He has done and suffered, is the only ground of the sinners hope. The apostle knew that, though the case of the sinner was dreadful, it was not hopeless, and bearing in mind that the eternal safety of the soul is a matter compared with which everything else must Sink into insignificance, we cannot understand how he could form any other resolution than that which he here expresses, when he says, I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

II. But the apostles determination to know nothing but Christ, and Him crucified, rested not merely on the fact that, by the atoning death of Christ, it was rendered possible for God to extend His pardoning mercy to rebellious man, but upon the other fact, that by the same means, the sinner is rendered a fit subject for pardon, and endowed with capacity for enjoying the blessings which pardon supposes imparted. Man is not only guilty, but polluted; he is not only subjected to the wrath of God, here and hereafter, because he has broken His law and incurred its penalty, but he is excluded from His fellowship here, and from the enjoyment of Him hereafter, because, by the depravity of his tastes, his feelings, his desires, his affections, he is incapable of holding that fellowship, and enjoying that felicity. It is the tendency of the preaching of Christ crucified to remedy this evil, to reduce the rebellious sinner to throw aside the weapons of his rebellion, to enkindle within his bosom the flame of love, and to adorn his soul with all the virtues which adorn the Saviour, and to change him into the same image from glory to glory. And in illustration of this tendency of the preaching of Christ crucified to produce these effects, we remark, that the strongest possible assurance is thereby afforded to men of Gods willingness to be reconciled to them. Nothing surely can tend more to dispel the fears and strengthen the confidence of his creatures, to soften their hearts, and to win them over to His service, than the view in which the gospel represents God as willing to be reconciled; as not only willing, but earnest that such a reconciliation should be effected, as even sending His Son to suffer and die, that this end might be effected, and delegating men as heralds to offer terms to the guiltiest and most unworthy. But, again, by the preaching of Christ crucified, there is such a demonstration of love afforded, as tends most directly to ensure a return of the same affection. Do we think of a departed parents tenderness, her days of toil and nights of watching, that she might bring us (under the blessing of God), through the weakness and dangers of infancy, without wishing her alive, that we might afford her, during her declining years, a practical proof of our gratitude? Can the helpless orphan think of the beneficence of the philanthropist, whose hand has rescued him from want and ignominy and death, and raised him to affluence, without bedewing his grave as he stoops over it with the tears of sensibility and tender recollection? Can we think of the love of God, not only in saving us, but in giving up His Son to the death for us all, in order to save not His friends but His enemies, without having our hearts warmed with a kindred love, and constrained by an irresistible influence, to live no longer to ourselves, but to Him who hath died for us and risen again? And does not the contemplation of the character of Christ, as exhibited in His life of suffering and death and agony, tend to beget in us a conformity to His image? You behold the Son of God leaving a palace, and becoming the tenant of a prison; and who can indulge in pride that contemplates such an overpowering exhibition of humility? You behold the Lord of all worlds wandering to and fro upon this earth without a house to afford Him shelter, yet not repining; and who, having food and raiment, should not therewith be content? You behold Him rejected by the nation He was sent to save, yet lamenting its infatuation, and weeping in the foresight of its doom; and who would not pity the miserable man who does not forgive the injurious? You see the crucified Jesus laid in the grave; and who would not repose in the bed He has hallowed? You see Him rising in glory; and who would not exult in the hope of immortality? Had Christ not been crucified, this Spirit had never been sent to earth, to move, to arrange the disordered elements of our moral nature, to convert the desert into the fruitful field, and the bleak and barren wilderness into the paradise of God. What, then, we ask, should the apostle have determined to know, in comparison with the great subject upon which he dwelt? What is more suited to the hungry than bread–what more consonant to the state of the weary traveller than rest–what more cheering to the guilty than pardon; and what could the apostle, in his regard to the honour of his Master, and to the interests of his fellows of the city of Corinth, guilty and polluted sinners, preach more adapted to their situation, than that Jesus, by whose blood they might be forgiven, by whose Cross and Spirit they might be sanctified, and thus be prepared, both by title and qualification of nature, for a place in that heavenly family, in reference to which they were now foreigners and strangers. (J. Clason.)

Christ crucified: the theme of St. Pauls preaching

I. What it is to make known Jesus Christ. By separating the idea of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ crucified, the apostle means by the first to specify the person of Christ. To make known the person of Christ is to proclaim Him–

1. The incarnate God. Such he declares Him to be in many passages, Who, being in the form of God, &c. He is God over all, blessed for ever. He is the true God and eternal life.

2. The great Prophet of man. As such He was spoken of by the prophets (Isa 61:1). Hence they, by predicting His advent, applied to Him the epithet, the Messiah, or the Anointed.

3. Jesus Christ the example. Leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps. Men are prone to imitation, it is one of the principles that come earliest into action, by it the child acquires the art of speech. Of this great principle Jesus Christ availed Himself in effecting His benevolent purposes on the moral condition of men; He commanded them to be perfect, as their Father in heaven is perfect; and, lest their hearts sink within them, and they should turn away from the effort in despair, He hath Himself obeyed His own commandments. In the example He has set they may confide: it is perfect in the embodying and personifying His law.

II. What it is to make known Jesus Christ crucified.

1. For pardon–Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood.

2. Christ crucified for purification–for if He died a propitiation for men, to save them from their sins, His work must be either complete or completely ineffectual: ineffectual it would be to save them from the punishment of sin if they were still left under its ruling power. By that death Christ having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, sheds Him abroad on the hearts of His people, destroying the tyranny of passion, weakening the power of habit, correcting the taste, implanting new principles, regenerating the affections.

3. Christ crucified for protection–for the protection of those whom He died to save (Php 2:8-10; Eph 1:22.) He is the ruler of providence, and subordinates all its events to promote the object for which He was crucified, even the salvation of men. They are exposed to danger from temptation, the sin that remains within them would precipitate them into guilt, His grace restrains; the world would seduce, He discloses the vanity of its fascinations; in the hour of death, when trial assails every weakness of humanity, He illumines and supports.

4. For resurrection (1Co 15:3-4; 1Co 15:12-13).

5. For eternal glory–this is the consummation of it (Joh 17:24). Of His glory, it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive; but elsewhere it is said, that His followers shall be like Him, and that as they have borne the image of the earthly, so also shall they bear the image of the heavenly, and that image shall never be defaced.

III. What is the import of the phrase not to make known anything?

1. Anything at variance with, or opposed to, these doctrines. These doctrines were novel; novelty of opinion implies opinions previously existing, which are for the most part not only distinct, but opposite; for truth is one, and opinions respecting it are either consistent with it or are inconsistent. Novelty of opinion, therefore, implies opposition. The opposition in the present ease was extensive; the doctrines of Christianity contrasted themselves with every department, throughout the whole sphere of religious thinking, at Corinth. The sufficiency of reason to instruct and to regulate was tacitly assumed by them; of the necessity of Divine instruction they had no general idea. Naturally allied to this was the sufficiency of human merit to command acceptance. The moral character of their gods was so low that few men, however bad, could despair of reconciling themselves to one or other deity: the thief, the murderer, the adulterer, could all find examples of their own vice in the superior beings they feared. A degradation of the standard of virtue necessarily followed, accompanied with callousness of moral disapprobation. Even in those religious rights where human inability appeared more unambiguously acknowledged in the sacrifices by which they deprecated the wrath of offended Deity, it is easy to descry the spirit striving by such means to establish a claim on the Divine equity for protection and blessing, rather than the mere mercy of God. And again, allied to this, and forming but a new aspect, was the assumption of the sufficiency of human effort to originate and carry on to perfection excellences of character. I mention further their notions of the relative value of the virtues: pride was with them elevation of spirit; brute courage, designated by way of eminence, virtue; a spirit of revenge was esteemed honour, and the constituted favourite topic of their most lauded poets. Throughout the whole sphere there was a lamentable destitution of spirituality in their modes of thinking and feeling. Now, as these were the opinions that obtained at Corinth, and as all these are directly at variance with Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, with the Christianity which the apostle had to make known, it is obvious that in the text he referred specifically to these opinions, and that he considered them as what was not to be made known by one to whom was committed the ministration of the gospel; and condemning them thus specifically, he condemned them by their principles, and so he condemned all the consequences of such principles whenever they should in after years, under any other forms, appear.

2. Not anything exclusive of these doctrines. At first sight it appears impossible that any one, pretending to make known Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, should be able to do it in a way exclusive of the doctrines we have explained: they seem so essential to Christianity. Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, and Christianity, are convertible terms, they signify the same thing. But as what appears to man to be impossible is often possible with God, so what appears to man to be impossible is often possible with the great enemy of God and His Son: the arch enemy of the doctrines of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, has devised the means of doing what is apparently impossible: these means vary with circumstances; but one of the most common is to originate controversy respecting the minor matters of the law and the subordinate or less essential parts of religion. By giving to these a temporary and unmerited importance, the attention of those appointed to make known Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, is concentrated and engrossed, weightier matters are in proportion neglected, and the duty of promulgating Christianity is performed in a way more or less exclusive of its characteristic doctrines. S. Not anything so habitually as those doctrines. There is no virtue, no excellence, that in practice may not be carried to an extreme; and every extreme is bad. On this subject, of making known Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, men having indulged in the utmost extravagances; have, under the best and most pious feelings, conceived that in the words of the apostle they are enjoined so to make known the distinguishing doctrines of the gospel, as to exclude everything else; have tacitly denied any importance to the minor parts of the system, and have deemed the explication of them unworthy their attention. By thus failing to accommodate themselves to the demands of the system, and the mixed character of those who hear the gospel, they have given offence to the sensible, disgusted the almost Christian, and by limiting their range of topics, have introduced into their illustrations and enforcements a monotony of thinking, destructive, in no small degree, of ministerial usefulness. Such persons seem to act under the mistake that they have to make Jesus Christ known only to the unconverted.

IV. What is expressed by the resolution, I determined not to know anything, &c.

1. His conviction of the truth of these doctrines.

2. His sense of their importance. Why am I invested, he would naturally ask himself, by the Creator, the Ruler of men, with extraordinary and supernatural power to propagate among them these tenets, unless they are of more than worldly importance to them?

3. His determination to act worthily of his convictions. How peculiar and how sublime was the attitude in which he now stood! He saw the mightiest purposes of benevolence identified with his efforts, he saw the cause of truth dependent on his success, he heard the voice of gratitude for his own preservation summoning him to the sacred enterprise. (W. Moodie, D. D.)

Preaching Christ

Dont you know, young man, said an aged minister, in giving advice to a younger brother, that from every town, and every village, and every hamlet in England, there is a road to London? Yes, was the reply. So, continued the venerable man, from every text in Scripture there is a road to the metropolis of Scripture–that is, Christ. And your business, when you get a text, is to say, now what is the road to Christ, and then preach a sermon, running along the road towards the great metropolis, Christ. In considering what is implied in preaching Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, we remark–

I. That it implies the preaching of Christs Divinity.

II. To preach Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, implies the preaching of the attractiveness of Christs character. The Lord Jesus, it has been remarked, is the subject of all prophecy, the substance of all types, the end of the law, the jewel that lies in the casket of every promise, the sun in whom all the rays of heavenly truth centre, and from whom they radiate, filling the minds of all redeemed men, and of all holy angels, with their light and glory.

III. Preaching Christ implies preaching Him in all His offices as Prophet, Priest and King.

IV. Preaching Christ, and Him crucified, implies the setting forth in all its fulness and freeness Christs atoning sacrifice, and commending Him and it for the acceptance of all hearers, Now, whilst the substitutionary work of Christ must ever be the theme of true gospel preaching, preachers should be careful to be fervent in spirit whilst commending Christ and His salvation to men. No doubt God may bless clear anal cold preaching. For illustration, when Dr. Kane was in the Arctic regions he cut a piece of ice clear as crystal, in the form of a convex lens, held it up to the suns rays, and to the surprise of the natives set in a blaze some dry wood which had been gathered. So an unconverted preacher may be the medium by which the truth may be brought to other hearts and kindle them with the holy flame of Divine love. Still, that is not usual, and it is well it is not. True preaching should be earnest; and, indeed, all the most eminent soul-winners may be said to have had their hearts in their mouths, so fervent were they in spirit. Thus, Richard Sheridan used to say, I often go to hear Rowland Hill because his ideas come red-hot from the heart. Dr. Mason, when asked what he thought was the strong point of Dr. Chalmers, replied, His blood-earnestness. And a Chinese convert once remarked in conversation with a missionary, We want men with hot hearts to tell us of the love of Christ. Such is the manner in which Christ, and Him crucified, should be preached. (D. Scott, D. D.)

St. Pauls determination

And was the apostle wrong in his determination? He speaks as if the doctrine of the Cross were ample enough, comprehensive enough, for all his powers. Does this at all indicate that he was of a narrow and contracted mind, which could apply itself to only one topic, whilst a hundred others, perhaps nobler and loftier, lay beyond its grasp? Nay, not so; the tone of the apostle is not that of a man who is apologising for the limited character of his preaching, or its humiliating tendency; it is rather that of one who felt that the Corinthians had nothing to complain of, seeing that he had taught them the most precious, the most diffusive, the most ennobling of truths. Here, then, is our subject of discourse–the apostle determined to know nothing save the Cross; but the Cross is the noblest study for the intellectual man, as it is the only refuge for the immortal. How different was the plan of the apostle from that pursued by many who have undertaken the propagation of Christianity. The missionary might keep back all mention of the Cross, because fearful of exciting dislike and contempt. But, all the while, he would be withholding that which gives its majesty to the system, and striving to apologise for its noblest distinction. Now, we need hardly observe to you that, so far as Christ Jesus Himself was concerned, it is not possible to compute what may be called the humiliation or shame of the Cross. It is altogether beyond our power to form any adequate conception of the degree in which the Mediator humbled Himself when born of a woman, and taking part of flesh and blood. But when the Redeemer, though He had done no sin, consented to place Himself in the position of sinners, then was it that He marvellously and mysteriously descended. He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. Here it is that the word shame may justly be used; for in this it was that Christ Jesus became a curse for us. We read nothing of the shame of His becoming a man, but we do read of the shame of His dying as a malefactor. And it we allow that it was a shameful thing, that it involved a humiliation which no thought can measure, with what other emotions, you may ask, but those of sorrow and self-reproach, should we contemplate the Cross? Shall we exult in the Cross? The awful transactions of which Calvary was the scene should never be contemplated by us without a deep sense of the magnitude of the guilt which required such an expiation, and great self-abhorrence at having added to the burden which weighed down the innocent sufferer. But though of all men, perhaps, St. Paul was the least likely to underrate the causes of sorrow presented by the Cross, this great apostle, in determining to know nothing but the Cross, could adopt a tone which implied that he gloried in the Cross. And why, think you, was this? Or why, if there be so much of shame about the Cross, was the apostle wise, when addressing himself to a refined people, in determining to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified? Indeed, there is no difficulty in finding answers to these questions; the only difficulty is in the selecting those which are the more pertinent and striking.

1. We may first observe that the great truth which the apostle had to impress on the Corinthians was that, in spite of their sinfulness and alienation, they were still beloved by the one true God. And how could he better do this than by displaying the Cross? The greater the humiliation to which the Son of God submitted, the greater was the amount of the Divine love towards man. We know not whether it be lawful to speak of the possibility of our having been saved through any other arrangement. We may not be able to prove, and perhaps it hardly becomes us to investigate, what may be called the necessity for Christs death, so that, unless Jesus had consented to die, it would not have been in Gods -power to open to us the kingdom of heaven. But we cannot be passing the bounds of legitimate supposition if we imagine for a moment that some less costly process had sufficed, and that justice had been satisfied, without exacting from our Surety penalties so tremendous as were actually paid. And is it not too evident to ask any proof, that in the very proportion in which you diminish the sufferings of the Mediator, you diminish also the exhibition of His love, and leave it a thing to be questioned? It is, then, to Christ Jesus, and Him crucified that we make our appeal when we would furnish such evidence of Divine love as must overbear all unbelief. We do not rest our proof on the fact that we have been redeemed, but on the fact that we have been redeemed ,through the bitter passion and the ignominious death of Gods only and well beloved Son. It is here that the proof is absolutely irrefragable. Notwithstanding all which man hath done to provoke Divine wrath and make condemnation inevitable, he is regarded with unspeakable tenderness by the Almighty. Teach me this, and you teach me everything. And this I learn from Christ crucified. I learn it, indeed, in a measure from the sun, as he walks the firmament and warms the earth into fertility. I learn it from the moon, as she gathers the stars into her train and throws over creation her robe of soft light. But if I am taught by these, the teaching after all is but imperfect and partial. But when I behold Christ crucified, I cannot doubt the Divine love. I cannot doubt of this love, that it may justly be called inexhaustible, and that, if I will only allow myself to be its object, there is no amount of guiltiness which can exclude me from its embrace.

2. We proceed to observe that, although to the eye of sense there be nothing but shame about the Cross, yet a spiritual discernment perceives it to be hung with the very richest of trophies. It is necessarily to be admitted that, in one point of view, there was shame, degradation, ignominy, in Christs dying on the Cross; but it is equally certain that in another there was honour, victory, triumph. There are impaled those principalities and powers, the originators and propagators of evil; there is fastened Death itself, that great tyrant and destroyer of human kind; there our sins are transfixed, having been condemned in the flesh, because borne in Christs body on the tree. And am I, then, to be ashamed of the Cross? It is to be ashamed of the battle-field on which has been won the noblest of victories, of the engine by which has been vanquished the fiercest of enemies. It is to be ashamed of conquest, ashamed of triumph, ashamed of deliverance. And therefore was His death glorious, aye, unspeakably more glorious than life, array it how you will with circumstances of honour. This turns the crown of thorns into a diadem of splendour. This converts the sepulchre of Jesus into the avenue of immortality.

3. But we have hitherto scarcely carried our argument to the full extent of the apostles assertion. Not only was he determined to know amongst the Corinthians Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, but he was determined to know nothing else. And if you consider for a moment what reason we have to believe that every blessing which we enjoy may be traced to the Cross, you will readily acknowledge that St. Paul went no further than he was bound to go as a faithful messenger of Christ. I can say to the man of science, thine intellect was saved for thee by the Cross. I can say to the father of a family, the endearments of home were rescued by the cross. I can say to the admirer of nature, the glorious things in the mighty panorama retained their places through the erection of the Cross. I can say to the ruler of an empire, the subordination of different classes, the working of society, the energies of government, are all owing to the Cross. And when the mind passes to the consideration of spiritual benefits, where can you find one not connected with Jesus Christ, and Him crucified? But we have yet another remark to offer. St. Paul must have desired to teach that doctrine which was best adapted to the bringing the Corinthians to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world. If, therefore, he confined himself to any one doctrine, we may be sure that he considered it the most likely to be influential on the practice, on the turning sinners from the error of their ways, and making them obedient to Gods law. And what doctrine is this if not that of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified? (H. Melvill, B.D.)

The knowledge of Jesus Christ the best knowledge

I. I am to explain what is meant by not knowing anything, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. By Jesus Christ we are to understand the eternal Son of God. By this word know, we are not to understand a bare historical knowledge. It implies an experimental knowledge of His crucifixion so as to feel the power of it.

II. I pass on to give some reasons why every Christian should, with the apostle, determine not to know anything save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

1. Without this our persons will not be accepted in the sight of God. Some may please themselves in knowing the world, others boast themselves in the knowledge of a multitude of languages. The meanest Christian, if he know but this, though he know nothing else, will be accepted; so the greatest master in Israel, the most letter-learned teacher, without this, will be rejected.

2. Without this knowledge, our performances, as well as persons, will not be acceptable in the sight of God. Two persons may go up to the temple and pray; but he only will return home justified, who, in the language of our Collects, sincerely offers up his prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord. Farther: As our devotions to God will not, so neither, without this knowledge of Jesus Christ, will our acts of charity to men be accepted by Him. As neither our acts of piety nor charity, so neither will our civil nor moral actions be acceptable to God, without this experimental knowledge of Jesus Christ. The death of Jesus Christ has turned our whole lives into one continued sacrifice.

III. Exhort you to put the apostles resolution in practice, and beseech you, with him, to determine not to know anything save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.(G. Whitfield, M. A.)

The knowledge of Christ crucified

1. Let us be thankful to God for a crucified Redeemer. There is nothing in heaven and earth such an amazing wonder as this, nothing can vie with it for excellence.

2. Let us delight in the knowledge of Christ crucified, and be often in the thoughts and study of Him. Study Christ, not only as living, but dying.

(1) This will keep up life in our repentance. We cannot look upon Christ crucified for us for our guilt, but the meditation of this must melt us into sorrow.

(2) It will spirit our faith, when we shall see His blood confirming an everlasting covenant wherein God promises to be gracious.

(3) This will animate us in our approaches to God. Not only a bare coming, but a boldness and confidence in coming to God was purchased by a crucified Christ (Heb 10:19).

(4) This will be a means to further us in a progress in holiness. An affection to sin, which cost the Redeemer of the world so dear, would be inconsistent with a sound knowledge and serious study of a crucified Saviours

(5) This will be the foundation of all comfort. What comfort can be wanting when we can look upon Christ crucified as our Surety, and look upon ourselves as crucified in Him; when we consider our sins as punished in Him, and ourselves accepted by virtue of His Cross. (Bp. Hacket.)

The demonstration of the Spirit

If the wisdom of men had been to advise about the most effectual means to promote Christianity in the world, they would presently have considered what those things are which are most likely to prevail on mankind, and, according to their several inclinations, would have made choice of one or the other of them. Some would have been for the way of external greatness and power as most apt to oversway the generality of mankind. Others would have thought this an improper way of promoting religion by the power of the sword, because that is more apt to affright than convince men, and the embracing religion supposes the satisfaction of mens minds about it, and all power doth not carry demonstration along with it; therefore such would have proposed the choosing out of men of the finest parts and best accomplishments, who, dispersing themselves into several countries, should, by their eloquence and reason, prevail on the more ingenious and capable sort of men, who by degrees would draw all the rest after them. Thus the wisdom of men would have judged; but the wisdom of God made choice of ways directly contrary to these. He would not suffer His truth to be so much beholden for its reception either to the power or the wit of men.

I. Why St. Paul doth so utterly renounce the enticing words of mans wisdom? For we are not to imagine it was any natural incapacity or want of education which made him forbear them. The apostle implies an unsuitableness in these enticing ways of mans wisdom to the design of promoting the Christian religion; what that was I shall now more particularly search into.

1. As to the enticing words of persuasion.

2. As to the way and method of reasoning, or mans wisdom.

1. As to the way of eloquence then in so much vogue and esteem, called by St. Paul (verse 1) the excellency of speech. And what harm was there in float that it could not be permitted to serve the design of the gospel? Is not the excellency of speech a gift of God as well as knowledge and memory? What are all the instructions of orators intended for but to enable men to speak clearly and fitly and with all those graces and ornaments of speech which are most apt to move and persuade the hearers? And what is there in all this disagreeable to the design of the doctrine of Christ? Are not the greatest and most weighty concernments of mankind fit to be represented in the most proper and clear expressions, and in the most moving and affectionate manner? Why, then, should St. Paul be so scrupulous about using the enticing words of mans wisdom? To clear this matter we are to consider a twofold eloquence.

(1) A gaudy, sophistical eloquence is wholly renounced by him, of which the apostle seems particularly to speak, mentioning if under the name of mans wisdom, which was in mighty esteem among the Greeks, but suspected and cried down by wiser men as that which did only beguile injudicious people. And the great orator himself confesses the chief end of their popular eloquence was so to move their auditors as to make them judge rather according to passion than to reason. This being the common design of the enticing words of mans wisdom in the apostles age, had they not the greatest reason to renounce the methods of those whose great end was to deceive their hearers by fair speeches and plausible insinuations?

(2) The apostle is not to be understood as if he utterly renounced all sober and manly eloquence; for that were to renounce the best use of speech as to the convincing and persuading mankind. And what is true eloquence but speaking to the best advantage, with the most lively expressions, the most convincing arguments, and the most moving figures? What is there now in this which is disagreeable to the most Divine truths? Is it not fit they should be represented to our minds in a way most apt to affect them?

2. As to the way and method of reasoning. So some think these words are chiefly to be understood of the subtilty of disputing because the apostle brings in demonstration as a thing above it. But this again seems very hard that the use of reasoning should be excluded from the way of propagating Christian religion.

But that which St. Paul rejects as to this was–

1. The way of wrangling and perpetual disputing, by the help of some terms and rules of logic, so that they stuck out at nothing, but had something to say for or against anything. No man that understands the laws of reasoning can find fault with the methodising our conception of things by bringing them under their due ranks and heads; nor with understanding the difference of causes, the truth and falsehood of propositions, and the way of discerning true and false reasonings from each other. But men were fallen into such a humour of disputing that nothing would pass for truth among them. And therefore it was not fitting for the apostles of Christ to make use of these baffled methods of reasoning to confirm the truth of what they delivered upon the credit of Divine revelation.

2. The way of mere human reasoning as it excludes Divine revelation. The apostle proves the necessity of God revealing these things by His Spirit (verses 10-12).

II. To inquire into the force of that demonstration of the Spirit and of power which the apostle mentions as sufficient to satisfy the minds of men without the additional help of human wisdom; wherein are two things to be spoken of.

I. What is meant by the demonstration of the Spirit and of power?

1. It must be something by way of proof of another thing, otherwise it could not bear the name of demonstration. If the apostles words were understood of the conviction of mens consciences by the power of preaching, his argument could reach no farther than to those who were actually convinced, but others might say, We feel nothing of this powerful demonstration upon us. Since, therefore, St. Paul speaks for the conviction of others, and of such a ground whereon their faith was to stand (verse 5), it is most reasonable to understand these words of some external evidence which they gave of the truth of what they delivered.

2. That evidence is described by a double character–it was of a Spiritual nature and very powerful. And such a demonstration was then seen among them in the miraculous gifts and works of the Holy Ghost.

3. Why this was not as liable to suspicion as the way of eloquence and logic, since those had been only corrupted and abused by men, but the power of miracles had been pretended to by evil spirits.

Why, then, did God reject the most reasonable ways of dealing with men in the way of eloquence and demonstration, which were more natural and accommodate to the capacities and education of the most ingenious minds, and make choice of a way which the world had been so much abused in by the imposture of evil spirits?

1. Because the method God ,chose did prove it was not the invention of men, which would have been always suspected if mere human arts had been used to promote it. Whereas if the way of promoting this religion had been ordinary with the usual methods of persuasion, men would have imputed all the efficacy of it only to the wisdom of men. For God knows very well the vanity and folly of mankind, how apt they are to magnify the effects of their own wit and reason.

2. God gave sufficient evidence that these extraordinary gifts could never be the effects of any evil spirits.

(1) The publicness of the trial of it, when it first fell upon them on the day of Pentecost.

(2) The usefulness of this gift to the apostles, for considering the manner of their education and the extent of their commission to preach to all nations; no gift could be supposed more necessary.

(3) The manner of conferring these miraculous gifts upon others show that there was somewhat in them above all the power of imagination or the effects of evil spirits.

II. The power of miracles, or of doing extraordinary things, as well as of speaking after an extraordinary manner. This seems the hardest to give an account of, why God should make choice of this way of miracles above all others to convince the world of the truth of the Christian doctrine, upon these considerations:

(1) The great delusions that had been in the world so long before under the pretence of miracles.

(2) The great difficulty there is in putting a difference between true and false miracles.

1. How we may know when anything doth exceed the power of mere nature as that is opposed to any spiritual beings; for some have looked on all things of this kind as impostures of men.

2. We must therefore inquire further, whether such things be the effects of magic or Divine power.

For which end these two things are considerable.

1. That Christ and His apostles did declare the greatest enmity to all evil spirits, professing in their design to destroy the devils kingdom and power in the world.

2. The devil was not wanting in fit instruments and means to support his kingdom; and God was pleased, in His infinite wisdom, to permit him to show his skill and power, by which means there was a more eminent and conspicuous trial on which side the greatest strength did lie. Thus the matter is brought to a plain contest of two opposite powers, which is greater than the other, and which shows itself to be the Divine power.

To which purpose we may consider these two things. That the pretended miracles of the opposers of Christianity did differ from the miracles wrought by the apostles in several weighty circumstances.

1. In the design and tendency of them. Most of the wonderful things whereof the enemies of Christianity did boast were wrought either–

(1) To raise astonishment and admiration in the beholders.

(2) To gratify the curiosity of mankind.

(3) To encourage idolatry.

(4) To take men off from the necessity of a holy life.

2. In the variety, openness, usefulness, and frequency of them. The greatest magical powers were limited and confined; and the spirits which ruled in the children of disobedience were sensible of their own chains. I shall only add one circumstance more, wherein the miracles wrought to confirm the Christian religion exceed all others, and that is–

3. In the satisfaction they have given to the most inquisitive part of mankind, i.e., either to convince them of the truth of the doctrine confirmed by them, or, at least, to bring them to this acknowledgement that, if the matters of fact were true, they are a sufficient proof of a Divine power. (Bp. Stillingfleet.)

The determination of Paul

I. Its import.

1. What are we to understand by Christ, and Him crucified? This theme is distinguished by–

(1) Great simplicity. Other teachers engaged the mind with speculations on subjects of various degrees of interest, but this teacher had for his theme a Person and a fact. Leaving the philosophers to their wisdom he held up a Man, and that Man hanging on a Cross. Other instructors spoke with great respect of eminent men, whose opinions they were anxious to advance; but it was never known before that a person and his sufferings were to be the foundation and the superstructure of every discourse.

(2) Vast comprehensiveness. It was not Pauls practice to indulge in an endless repetition of the name of Christ, or in a mere detail of His history, but to exhibit His life and death as the basis of a grand system of truth. He preached Christ, and Him crucified, as the brightest and best revelation of the Divine character, and the grand announcement of mercy to man. In His incarnation and death we see the Divine love, for God so loved the world, &c.; the Divine wisdom, for Christ is the wisdom of God; the Divine power, for the gospel is the power of God unto salvation; the Divine justice, for the Saviour lived and suffered that the righteousness of God might be revealed; the Divine truth, for Christ came to confirm the promises made of God unto the fathers.

2. In what sense we are to understand the apostles determination. He determined–

(1) To exclude every subject that would deprive the gospel of its power. The gospel is a sharp, two-edged sword, but if we lower its ethereal temper by forging it anew on our own anvil, it will wound no conscience and slay no sin. It is a fire able to melt the hardest heart, but if we damp its flame by earthly additions, the heart of stone defies its power. It is the sincere milk of the Word; but the admixture of human fancies and dogmas will destroy its power to sustain. It is a mirror, in which the sinner is to see the correct reflection of his own image; but beclouded by the mists of error, the natural man cannot be expected to behold his face in this glass. And therefore would we humbly cherish the apostles holy jealousy for the unadulterated gospel, and know nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

(2) To exclude everything that might tend to deprive the gospel of its glory. His anxiety on this subject is clearly expressed in verses 1, 4, 5. He knew the effects assigned by the Greeks to human wisdom, the power ascribed to persuasive words, and how ready they would be, supposing great moral changes to follow, to give to his reasoning and eloquence the glory of bringing those changes about, and therefore was he most careful to prevent this evil.

II. Its reasons.

1. His anxiety to be found faithful. A sacred trust had been reposed in him. How, then, could he most effectually shield himself from the woe threatened against unfaithfulness, and give up his account with joy and not with grief? It was simply by having his mind so engrossed with the grand theme of the gospel as to shut out every other.

2. His desire to promote the highest interests of man. He was eminently a philanthropist, and it is easy to see how such a true lover of mankind would seize with avidity this remedy for universal suffering, and be ready to employ the rent means for promoting the greatest good of the greatest number. In the great announcements of mercy connected with Christ, and Him crucified, he had the panacea for the spiritual woes under which men were suffering.

3. His grand aim to give the greatest glory to God. When the Redeemer was within a few days of His crucifixion He said in His prayer, Father, save Me, &c. (Joh 12:27-28). From this prayer, and its supernatural answer, we learn, first, that the prevailing desire of every holy mind is the glory of God; and, secondly, that that glory was displayed in the death of Christ and its great results. The prayer of Christ is that of every child of God, Father, glorify Thy name. It was so in a remarkable degree in Paul. And it was by the faithful exhibition of Christ, and Him crucified, that he could most effectually secure the high end he had thus constantly in view. All the Divine perfections are displayed in the sacrifice of Christ. And the effects of this great theme on the minds that receive it are of such a nature as to bring the highest honour to the Divine name. The case of the apostle is a striking illustration. When he became a preacher of the faith he had once attempted to destroy, men glorified God in him. The character of the Divine artist could be seen in the work of His hands. What power, in turning the stubborn will, and causing it to move in the true way! What love, in receiving into the Divine friendship a bitter enemy! What wisdom, which when it was revealed caused the disciple of Gamaliel to count all his learned notions as dross, for the excellent knowledge to which it was now supplanted! And all who believe the gospel, become in like manner the living epistles of God, known and read by all men, and furnishing to the whole intelligent universe the best and the brightest displays of the character of God. (W. Owen.)

The determination of Paul

Let us–

I. Explain it. He determined–

1. To preach Christ crucified, as the ground of hope, and the motive to obedience.

2. To exclude everything else.

II. Vindicate it. This was–

(1) All he was commissioned to preach.

(2) All it was necessary to preach.

(3) Everything else but weakens the efficacy of the truth. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

The preaching of Christ crucified

I. The apostle preached Christ, and Him crucified.

1. Preaching Christ means making known the truth respecting Him, i.e., the great facts concerning His birth, His life, His death, His resurrection; the ends for which He did and suffered all this, and the benefits procured by it.

2. Preaching Christ and Him crucified is stating the fact of His ignominious death, and making known all the blessings connected with it.

II. He preached nothing but Christ, and Him crucified, i.e.

1. He made Christ known on every occasion on which he addressed them.

2. He rejected from his preaching whatever was not intimately connected with this all-important theme.

3. He made known no doctrine, precept, promise, but in connection with Christ and Him crucified.

III. He determined to preach nothing else. It was not a hasty resolution, but his deliberate settled purpose. Let us consider what were the reasons which induced him, and which should induce every minister of Christ to adopt the same determination.

1. He saw the glory and excellency of this subject. Others might consider it foolishness, but the light of its glory had shone into his mind. When a man has his mind taken up with a subject in which he is delighted, he is quite out of his element if you lead him from it, and whatever subject he is engaged upon he will make it turn on his favourite theme.

2. The suitableness of this subject to answer the great ends of the Christian ministry. It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Paul knew that this was the only doctrine which could reach the hardened heart, bring peace to the conscience, inspire a hope of pardon, make men love God, and cultivate all the beauties of holiness.

3. His Lords command. The question with him was, not what message will be agreeable, but what have I been commanded to deliver. He was commanded to preach the gospel, therefore necessity was laid upon him, and the Saviour has made the discharge of this duty a test of love to Him. Lovest thou Me? Feed My sheep. (W. R. Taylor, A. M.)

Pauls resolve

I. The meaning of the phrase. Those who believe in the atonement interpret it as a sacrifice for sin, and consider faith in it necessary to salvation. Others understand it as a bare fact, or as martyrdom for truth. The apostle, however, gives his own explanation (1Co 1:23-24).

II. The proposition that this is the only doctrine which is saving!

1. What is our condition?

(1) We are corrupted!

(2) Guilty–actually criminal, and this is the cause of eternal death.

2. This very condition it is which adapts the gospel to us. Try every other doctrine and see if it will do.

(1) True, it reveals the glory of God, but what avails all our knowledge of God if no sacrifice? The gospel discovers His goodness in glowing characters, but while this rises on the scene it is shaded by His justice.

(2) But you say, the gospel is a beautiful moral law for our guide. True; but what comfort is this to guilty man? Take the statute-book to the victim condemned to die; expatiate on the law he has violated; alas! he wants pardon, not law.

3. You say, there is the example of Jesus. Granted. We cannot study it too much; yet example is only law in action, and the former answer applies to it; if the law is unwelcome, so is its exhibition. And what is the fact? See the Jews. Was it not the excellence of the example which made them hate it?

4. You say, there are many promises in the gospel without that of Christ, or salvation by Christ. True; but hope cannot rest on them. The promise of a common providence, food, raiment, &c., is made; but we are guilty–and what are these if hell is to be our portion? And again, the promises are all to His people.

5. There is nothing, then, in the gospel on which to rest but the sacrificial death of Christ. Here, what the law could not do, &c.

Application:

1. The Cross is of no use to us if we do not confess our corruptions, inability, and danger.

2. We see the certainty of pardon–all is hope in the gospel, and all certainty too. Say not that you are unworthy–all your unworthiness is assumed in the gospel–it justifies in the character of ungodly.

3. We see what is meant by living a life of faith in the Son of God, all flows from Him, all your petitions are presented by Him, the blood of Christ and faith in that blood are all that stand between you and God.

4. Pray that a ministry may ever be among you to preserve this doctrine. (J. Summerfield, A.M.)

The knowledge of Christ crucified

I. The knowledge here mentioned.

1. Its subject.

(1) Christs person. Jesus points out divinity: the signification being Jehovah, the Saviour. It was given Him in fulfilment of the prophecy which declared that He should be called Immanuel, or God with us.

(2) His offices. Christ or Messiah means anointed, as were prophets, priests, and kings–all types of Christ.

(a) He is the prophet of His Church (Deu 18:18-19). He reveals to us the will of God, and accompanies it with the illuminating influences of the Spirit.

(b) He is High Priest who, having offered sacrifice for sin, arose to make intercession.

(c) He is King; He restrains, and finally destroys His enemies; He makes His people willing in the day of His power, governs them by His holy laws, and defends them.

2. His work. Him crucified. The atonement thus made is explicitly inculcated in every part of the scriptures. In the prophets (Isa 53:5; Dan 9:24; Dan 9:26, &c.). By our Lord (Mat 20:28; Joh 6:51); Mat 26:28). By the apostle (Rom 5:6; Rom 5:10; Col 1:14). It was pointed out by all the sacrifices, and in heaven the Redeemer appears as a Lamb as it had been slain(Rev 5:6; Rev 5:9; Rev 5:11-12).

3. The kind of knowledge which we should have of this subject. There are two kinds of knowledge of Christ–speculative and practical. The former remains in the head, the latter in the heart. The former is obtained by exercise of our own faculties; the latter only by the Holy Spirit. The latter is intended in the text. This knowledge leads us to receive Jesus as our Divine Saviour; which prompts us to rely on Christ in reference to every one of His offices. Intellectual knowledge, however, is not to be neglected, because we cannot be affected by truths of which we are ignorant.

II. Its supreme importance.

1. Absolutely it gives important benefits.

(1) Acquaintance with the real character of God. The Cross of Christ impresses us with a sense of–

(a) His holiness and justice.

(b) His mercy and love.

(c) His wisdom.

(2) Peace to the wounded conscience.

(3) The foundation of all Christian graces, tempers, and obedience. It is the view of Him whom our sins pierced which leads us to mourn for them. It strengthens faith–He that spared not His own Son, shall He not freely give us all things? It furthers progress in holiness. We abhor that sin which heaped such suffering on the Redeemer.

2. Relatively–

(1) It is more useful than any other kind of knowledge. Human learning has its important use, but the interests of eternity are preferable to those of time.

(2) It is more easily acquired. It is true, indeed, that where a right disposition be wanting, you shall find things hid from the wise and prudent. It is true that persevering diligence is requisite. It is true that there are depths attending this knowledge which the utmost powers of intellect cannot fathom. (J. J. S. Bird, B.A.)

Preaching Christ and Him crucified

1. The great men of the world are those who discover or apply great truths to the times in which they live, in such a manner as to work effectual reformations of society. A man is great, not by the measure of his faculty, but by the results which he produces in life. Paul was, then, one of the greatest.

2. It is more than a matter of curiosity, when a man has been raised up of God to do great things, to have him give a view of his own life, its aims and methods. Paul here sounds the keynote of his life and course. You will take notice, in all the preceding chapter and in this, that it is not Christ, but Christ crucified, Christ with His Cross, that was the essential qualifying particular. Paul did not mean, then, to be a skirmisher, nor an elegant trifler. He did not propose to be a routinist, either through ceremonies or dialectics. For it was his business to work a thorough change of character in the men that came under his influence, and so to lay the foundation for the renovation of society itself. What could be greater than this work?

3. Many things were going on for the renovation, or rather the restraint, of mens passions? But it was a work imperfectly understood, and not done. Paul declared what was the power by which it might be achieved. He did not declare that he meant to exclude everything else. The declaration is only a comprehensive renunciation of secular interests and influences as working powers. When a man goes into a community to work, he instinctively says, How shall I reach these men? What things shall I employ for their renovation? The apostle says, After looking over the whole field, I made up my mind not to rely on my power to discourse eloquently, nor upon my intellectual forces. This had been done by many a man with great cogency. But Paul, looking at such men as Socrates and Plato, said, I determined that I would rely upon the presentation of Gods nature and government as manifested particularly through the Christ as a sacrifice for sinners. By these I meant to get a hold upon mens conscience, affections, and life. A warrior preparing for battle walking through his magazine passes by bows and arrows, and old-fashioned armour, and says, They were good in their time and way, but I do not intend to rely upon them. But when he comes to the best instruments of modern warfare, he says, Here are the things that I mean to depend upon. Therefore, when the apostle said, I determined not to know, &c., he avowed his faith that in that there is more moral power upon the heart and the conscience than in any other thing, and his determination to draw influences from that source in all his work. In view of this I remark–

I. The personal influence of Christ upon the heart is the first requisite for a Christian preacher. We may preach much about Christ, but no man will preach Christ except so far as Christ is in him. There are many men that by natural gifts are qualified to stand pre-eminent above their fellows, who exert but little religious influence; and, on the other hand, there are many of small endowment whose life is like a rushing, mighty wind in the influence which it exerts. The presence of Christ in them is the secret of their power.

II. A mans success in preaching will depend upon his power of presenting Christ. There is a great deal of useful didactic matter that every minister must give to his congregation. There is a great deal of doctrine, fact, history, and of description that belongs to the ministerial desk. The Bible is full of material for these things, and ethics should occupy an important place. But high above all these is the fountain of influence, Christ who gave Himself a ransom for sinners, and now ever lives to make intercession for them. Though one preaches every other truth, if he leaves this one out, or abbreviates it, he will come short of the essential work of the gospel. Put this in, and you have all, as it were, in brief.

III. There can be no sound and effective method of preaching ethics, even, which does not derive its authority from the Lord Christ. The motives derivable from the secular and human side of ethics are relatively feeble. Whatever method is pursued, the indispensable connection between the spiritual element and the practical development should be maintained. Morality without spirituality is a plant without root, and spirituality without morality is a root without stem and leaves. I have a right to introduce into my sermons all secular topics as far as they are connected with mans moral character and his hopes of immortality. If I discuss them in a merely secular way, I desecrate the pulpit; but if I discuss them in the spirit of Christ, and for Christs sake, that I may draw men out of their peculiar dangers, and lead them into a course of right living, then I give dignity to the pulpit.

IV. All reformations of evil in society should spring from this vital centre. It is a very dangerous thing to preach Christ so that your preaching shall not be a constant rebuke to all the evil in the community. That man who so preaches Christ, doctrinally or historically, that no one trembles, is not a faithful preacher of Christ. On the other hand, it is a dangerous thing for a man to attack evil in the spirit of only hatred. The sublime wisdom of the New Testament is this: Overcome evil with good. Was Christ not a reformer? Did He not come to save the world? And did He not hate evil? And yet with what sweetness of love did He dwell in the midst of these things, so that the publicans and the sinners took heart, became inspired with hope, and drew near to Him. Christ reformed men by inspiring the love of goodness as well as by hatred of evil, and He drew men from their sin as well as drove them from it.

V. Hence all philanthropies are partial and imperfect that do not grow out of this same root. When philanthropy springs from this centre, and is inspired by this influence, it becomes, not a mere sentimentalism, but a vivid and veritable power in human society. Philanthropy without religion becomes meagre. It is the love of man uninspired by the love of God!

VI. All public questions of justice, of liberty, of equity, of purity, of intelligence, should be vitalised by the power which is in Christ Jesus. There are other motives that may press men forward in a little way, but there is nothing that has such controlling power as the personal influence of Christ. (H. W. Beecher.)

Preaching Christ and Him crucified

I. This is the great doctrine suitable for man, viewed as a being guilty in the sight of God. This state of guilt we bring into the world with us; we augment it by actual transgression, and we cannot remove it by any service or obedience of our own. In these circumstances the duty of the ambassadors of Christ is not to gain the applause of their perishing fellow-creatures, by displaying from week to week the depth of their own learning; but to offer simply this one remedy for mens guilt.

II. This is the only doctrine suitable for man, viewed as a being who has to be raised to holiness. Describe holiness as you will; speak of its beauty and its dignity; invest it with all the charms which fancy can devise or language utter–and to the human heart alienated from Christ, your efforts will be as unavailing as if you were to exhibit the finest combination of colours to the blind, for the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. Or point to God, as the highest type of holiness–you only plunge the sinner into utter wretchedness. But the preaching of Christ crucified exhibits a new aspect of the Divine character, which he can look upon without fear; he now strives to keep Gods holiness constantly before him; and his language is not Depart from me, but My soul thirsteth for God.

III. This is the only subject suitable for making an impression upon man in the way of leading him to the discharge of active duty. The growth of holiness in the heart is indicated by the fruits of righteousness in the life. Now, when the sinner is once convinced that God loves him, and when fear, and doubt, and suspicion have thus given place to hope, and joy, and confidence–then does he begin to ask what he can do to manifest his gratitude to his merciful Redeemer. (A. D. Davidson.)

The centre of the gospel

1. The teaching of Paul is remarkable for comprehensiveness. In Romans he traverses the whole range of doctrines bearing on sin and salvation; in Ephesians, from another standpoint, he goes still further into thoughts of grace, love, glory; in Corinthians, Timothy, Titus, he discourses of human life, the world, congregational and individual difficulties; in Thessalonians, of prophecy and the future. Moreover, he impresses on all Christians to go on unto perfection, and not rest content with the elements of truth. Therefore, to know Jesus Christ and Him crucified is not to him the minimum, but the maximum of knowledge–the culmination of all doctrines, the starting-point of all duties.

2. Paul knew not Jesus in His earthly life; he saw Him only in His glory; yet the deepest impression left on the heart of Paul was the sweet name Jesus; the indelible image burnt into his soul was Jesus Christ crucified.

3. Paul, more than any other, knew the fellowship of Christs sufferings. His own weakness made him take hold of the inexhaustible power of God, as the crucifixion leads to resurrection-life and victory. As when he is weak then is he strong, so the Cross of Christ is the power of God. (A. Saphir, D. D.)

Nothing but Christ

I. Christ the subject.

II. Christ the motive–we believe, therefore speak.

III. Christ the end–to Him be all the glory. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

The Christian ministry

I. Is a ministry of one text only. Save Jesus Christ. As such

1. It is most adapted to the intellectual condition of the world.

2. It is most adequate to reveal God. In Him dwells the fulness of the God-head bodily, &c.

3. It is most complete. Christ is the Alpha and Omega of its tidings. Everything in Him and through Him.

II. As a ministry of one text is a ministry cf the one best text. Save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It is the best because–

1. Jesus is its sum and substance. Save Jesus Christ.

2. It reveals the Saviour in the most pleasing aspects of His love. Him crucified.

3. It brings the Saviour within the reach of all. Among you.(W. Maurice.)

Are Christians narrow?

1. Paul preached to the Corinthians all that had done him any good, and all he knew that would do them good: that was, the crucified Jesus Christ.

2. At the first this seems a narrow basis on which to erect a private character and a public life. But Paul deliberately adopted it. In his case it succeeded, and he believed it must succeed in every case. To a Greek, occupied with his philosophies, to a Roman, taken up with his politics, this must have seemed absurd. Even now superficial scientists and engrossed materialists regard the whole system of Christianity as a narrow theory, standing in contrast with the liberal arts.

3. Does the history of the mental development and practical life of Paul, or any other Christian, confirm that view? Let us remind ourselves of certain things taught by the history of mind. Men have attempted to liberalise themselves by dipping into all the arts and sciences, and have thereby become most pleasant society men, and have made some figure while they lasted. But how long did they last? Compare them with the men who have each taken some great field of intellectual labour and devoted their lives to it, and how small they seem. Compare, e.g., the Admirable Crichton with Copernicus! What has Crichton done for the world? His life perished like a splendid rainbow, while that of the one-ideaed Copernicus fell on all fields like fructifying showers. Then Paul may have been right in selecting one single topic for study and preaching. And he was; for the knowledge of Christ crucified–

I. Raised Paul to be at the head of all the philosophers. The study of Jesus led Paul–and will lead us–into the perception that the material is only an expression of the ideal, that there is a soul to the universe. It is in seeking to explain the existence of such a being as Jesus of Nazareth, and such a life as His, that we come to the underlying basis of the spiritual world. Matter could not do it at all. Now it is so that all questions of bodily and mental health and disease, of the moral forces of the universe, of the social questions of human life, of development and progress, are concerned with Jesus more than with any other one person or subject known to men. For what was all this universe of worlds and men created? For Him, said Paul, speaking of Jesus. We have not yet found the centre of the physical universe; but we have demonstrated that there is a centre to every system, and that, there is one last, supreme, unmovable point, around which all worlds revolve. The man who shall determine that exact spot shall wear the grandest starry crown among the princes in the Court of Astronomy. But to know Christ, in all He was and did, would be to know the whole material universe. Science has no other basis so broad, philosophy has no other element so simplifying and unifying all the works of God. The heavens declare the glory of God, but that glory shines in the face of Jesus. For all that work which found its consummation on the Cross of Christ all the other works of God were wrought. Believing this, Paul became the philosopher who lifted a light which is now the central splendour of all human intellectual efforts and results.

II. Enlarged Paul into a broad, intelligent humanitarian. Recollect the age in which he lived, and the nation from whom he sprung. It was not an age of humanity; indeed our race had no right views of the value of humanity till Christ came. Now there is no view of humanity which so makes every man precious to every other man, as the doctrine that the God became flesh, and that love found its greatest expression in a sacrifice, in which every man had an interest, and which should bring good to every man. It takes in all there is of God and all there is of man. It is to the heart of man what the doctrine of universal gravitation is to his intellect. All the atoms of the whole material world rush toward one another, because they rush towards the centre. All the individual hearts of our whole humanity rush toward one another, just as all feel the attraction of the loving crucified One. Paul was lifted to his broad love for man, by refusing to know among his brethren anything except their relation to Him who had loved them and given Himself for them, the just for the unjust, to bring them to God. The more he knew of that love the more humanitarian he became, until the distinction between Jew and Gentile, &c., lost itself in the great fact that man was the object of the love of the Heavenly Father, as taught by the dying Redeemer.

III. Made Paul a most practical business man. A good practical business man is one who in the beginning sets before himself distinctly an end worth the devotion of his life; who uses the methods reasonably adapted to the gaining of that end; who pushes his work by sustained efforts to its legitimate conclusion, and who promotes the general weal in gaining his own ends. Now such a man was Paul, and he learned to become such at the Cross of Christ. Full of business, never idle, never hurried, the care of all the Churches on him, study and trouble and work always pressing, he succeeded in organising Christian societies whose influence will go on for ever. So those men who make a business of their religion and a religion of their business, these men, by the knowledge of the crucified Jesus, become the greatest, the best, the most practical business men. This text is as good a motto for the merchants as for the preachers.

IV. Made Paul a tender, happy man, loving and beloved in his generation. Paul does not seem to have been an amiable man naturally. But from being the hard, ambitious student of Gamaliel and instrument of the Sanhedrin, how tender he became! The Cross had softened him and his love begat love. Read the salutations in his letters. See what friends he made. Conclusion: Now, consider this case. Here was a man born in a province, taught in a sectarian school, reared under every political and ecclesiastical influence calculated to cramp and embitter him, driven from his own people at last, and killed by their conquerors after years of persecution. This man became a profound philosopher, a wide and consistent philanthropist, a man of great practical business capabilities, and a tender, noble gentleman, through Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. No other culture ever made such results. Will you now dare tell me that Christianity is not liberal, that Christians are narrow, that the religion we preach to you is in the way of human progress or individual advancement? (C. F. Deems, D. D.)

The right subject in preaching

Preach Christ Jesus the Lord, said Bishop Reynolds two hundred years ago. Determine to know nothing among your people but Christ crucified. Let His name and grace, His spirit and love, triumph in the midst of your sermons. Let your great end be to glorify Him in the heart, to render Him amiable and precious in the eyes of His people, to lead them to Him as a sanctuary to protect them, a propitiation to reconcile them, a treasure to enrich them, a physician to heal them, an advocate to present them and their services to God, as wisdom to counsel them, as righteousness to justify, as sanctification to renew, as redemption to save. Let Christ be the diamond to shine in the bosom of all your sermons. Those who most closely follow such advice are most likely to stay the plague of modern superstition and infidelity, as well as build up the waste places of our Church and restore the foundations of many generations.

One great idea

It is said that Luther was a man of one idea, and that idea–Jesus. But it does not mean, I suppose, that he had no other ideas in his mind. This would be false to fact. It means, I conceive, that Jesus was the one idea of his mind from which all others emanated; the same as the trunk of a tree is one, but gives life and growth to scores of branches, hundreds and thousands of buds and leaves; just as great tradesman has one idea, his trade, but that divides and works out into a thousand ideas of ways and means of promoting his trade. In this sense Paul, Wesley, Howard, Whitefield, Wellington, &c., were men of one idea. He who wishes to fulfil his mission in this world must be a man of one idea. (John Bate.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 2. I determined not to know any thing among you] Satisfied that the Gospel of God could alone make you wise unto salvation, I determined to cultivate no other knowledge, and to teach nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified, as the foundation of all true wisdom, piety, and happiness. No other doctrine shall I proclaim among you.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

I did not value myself upon any piece of knowledge I had attained, saving only that of

Christ, and him crucified; or, I determined with myself to carry myself amongst you, as if I knew nothing of arts, or sciences, or languages, but only Christ, and him crucified; not to make any thing else the subject of my public discourses. I was acquainted with the Jewish law, rites, and traditions, with the heathen poets and philosophers; I troubled you with none of these in my pulpit discourses; my whole business was to open to you the mysteries of the gospel, and to bring you to a knowledge of and an acquaintance with Jesus Christ; this was my end, and the means I used were proportionable to it.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

2. The Greek implies,”The only definite thing that I made it my business to knowamong you, was to know Jesus Christ (His person) and Him crucified(His office)” [ALFORD],not exalted on the earthly throne of David, but executed as thevilest malefactor. The historical fact of Christ’s crucifixion hadprobably been put less prominently forward by the seekers after humanwisdom in the Corinthian church, to avoid offending learned heathensand Jews. Christ’s person and Christ’s officeconstitute the sum of the Gospel.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

For I determined not to know anything among you,…. This was a resolution the apostle entered into before he came among them, that though he was well versed in human literature, and had a large compass of knowledge in the things of nature, yet would make known nothing else unto them, or make anything else the subject of his ministry,

save Christ, and him crucified: he had a spiritual and experimental knowledge of Christ himself, and which he valued above all things else; and this qualified him to make him known to others; and which knowledge he was very willing and ready to communicate by preaching the Gospel, which is the means of making known Christ as God’s salvation to the souls of men; and on this subject he chiefly insisted, and in which he took great delight and pleasure; he made known the things respecting the person of Christ, as that he was God, the Son of God, and truly man. God and man in one person; the things respecting his office, as that he was the Messiah, the mediator, prophet, priest, and King, the head, husband, Saviour, and Redeemer of his church and people; and the things respecting his work as such, and the blessings of grace procured by him; as that justification is by his righteousness, pardon by his blood, peace, reconciliation, and atonement by his sacrifice, and salvation alone and entirely by him. His determination was to preach none but Christ; not himself, nor man; nor the power and purity of human nature, the free will and works of the creature, but to exclude all and everything from being partners with Christ in the business of salvation. This was the doctrine he chose in the first place, and principally, to insist upon, even salvation by Christ, and him, as

crucified: that which was the greatest offence to others was the most delightful to him, because salvation comes through and by the cross of Christ; and he dwelt upon this, and determined to do so; it being most for the glory of Christ, and what was owned for the conversion of sinners, the comfort of distressed minds, and is suitable food for faith, as he knew by his own experience.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

For I determined not to know anything among you ( ). Literally, “For I did not decide to know anything among you.” The negative goes with , not with . Paul means that he did not think it fit or his business to know anything for his message beyond this “mystery of God.”

Save Jesus Christ ( ). Both the person and the office (Lightfoot). I had no intent to go beyond him and in particular,

and him crucified ( ). Literally,

and this one as crucified (perfect passive participle). This phase in particular (1:18) was selected by Paul from the start as the centre of his gospel message. He decided to stick to it even after Athens where he was practically laughed out of court. The Cross added to the of the Incarnation, but Paul kept to the main track on coming to Corinth.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Crucified. Emphatic. That which would be the main stumbling – block to the Corinthians he would emphasize.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “For I determined.” (Greek gar ekrina) “For I made a decision, judgment, or determined”. Men’s actions, as Christians and ministers of Christ, are of their own will, volition, choice or decision, not by compulsion.

2) “Not to know anything among you.” (Greek ou ti eidenai) “Not to know or perceive anything.” (Greek en humin) “Among you” . . . Paul determined not to present himself, his Greek, Hebrew, or Latin or philosophy as a basis of being known among the brethren. Act 20:18-27.

3) “Save Jesus Christ.” (Greek ei me iesoun Christon) “If not or except Jesus Christ.” This indicates Paul’s sincere desire to present Jesus Christ, not himself or his own wisdom and person (Gal 6:14; 1Co 10:24).

4) “And him crucified.” (Greek kai touton estauromenon) “And this one having been crucified.” Gal 2:20; Tit 3:5; 1Co 1:17; 1Co 1:31.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

2. For I did not reckon it desirable. As κρίνειν, in Greek, has often the same meaning as εκλεγειν, that is to choose out anything as precious, (104) there is, I think, no person of sound judgment but will allow that the rendering that I have given is a probable one, provided only the construction admits of it. At the same time, if we render it thus — “No kind of knowledge did I hold in esteem,” there will be nothing harsh in this rendering. If you understand something to be supplied, the sentence will run smoothly enough in this way — “Nothing did I value myself upon, as worth my knowing, or on the ground of knowledge.” At the same time I do not altogether reject a different interpretation — viewing Paul as declaring that he esteemed nothing as knowledge, or as entitled to be called knowledge, except Christ alone. Thus the Greek preposition ανδ, would, as often happens, require to be supplied. But whether the former interpretation is not disapproved of, or whether this latter pleases better, the substance of the passage amounts to this: “As to my wanting the ornaments of speech, and wanting, too, the more elegant refinements of discourse, the reason of this was, that I did not aspire at them, nay rather, I despised them, because there was one thing only that my heart was set upon — that I might preach Christ with simplicity.”

In adding the word crucified, he does not mean that he preached nothing respecting Christ except the cross; but that, with all the abasement of the cross, he nevertheless preached Christ. It is as though he had said: “The ignominy of the cross will not prevent me from looking up to him (105) from whom salvation comes, or make me ashamed to regard all my wisdom as comprehended in him — in him, I say, whom proud men despise and reject on account of the reproach of the cross.” Hence the statement must be explained in this way: “No kind of knowledge was in my view of so much importance as to lead me to desire anything but Christ, crucified though he was. ” This little clause is added by way of enlargement ( αὔξησιν,) with the view of galling so much the more those arrogant masters, by whom Christ was next to despised, as they were eager to gain applause by being renowned for a higher kind of wisdom. Here we have a beautiful passage, from which we learn what it is that faithful ministers ought to teach, what it is that we must, during our whole life, be learning, and in comparison with which everything else must be “counted as dung.” (Phi 3:8.)

(104) Xenophon uses κρινω in the sense of choosing out, or preferring: in Mem. 4. 4, sec. 16, ουχ ὁπως τους αυτους χορους κρινωσιν οἱ πολιται — not that the citizens should prefer the dances.” See also Menander, prefer the same line 245, edit. Cleric. In the New Testament we find κρινω used in the sense of esteeming, in Rom 14:5. — Ed

(105) “ Ne fera point que ie n’aye en reuerence et admiration;” — “Will not prevent me from holding in reverence and admiration.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(2) I determined not to know.Better, I did not determine to know. The only subject of teaching concerning which the Apostle had formed a determined resolve in his mind when coming to Corinth was the preaching Christ and Him as being crucified. We have here a statement of what was ever the subject-matter of apostolic teaching. St. Paul did not dwell on the miraculous in the life of Christ, which would have pandered to the Jewish longing for a sign; nor did he put forward elaborate theories of the gospel, which would have been a concession to the Greeks longing after wisdom: but he preached a personal Christ, and especially dwelt on the fact that He had been crucified (1Co. 1:17; 1Co. 1:23; Gal. 6:14; Php. 2:8). We can scarcely realise now the stumbling-block which the preaching of a crucified Christ must have been to Jews and Greeks, the enormous temptation to keep the cross in the background which the early teachers would naturally have felt, and the sublime and confident faith which must have nerved St. Paul to make it the central fact of all his teaching. For us the cross is illumined with the glories of eighteen centuries of civilisation, and consecrated with the memory of all that is best and noblest in the history of Christendom. To every Jew and to every Gentile it conveyed but one idea, that of the most revolting and most degrading punishment. The remembrance of this fact will enable us to realise how uncompromising was the Apostles teachinghow it never accommodated itself to any existing desire or prejudice. This surely is no small evidence of the divine origin of the religion of which the Apostles were the heralds!

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

2. I determined not to know Rather, I did not determine to know. He had no purpose of holding forth any philosophical substitute for the Gospel. By this is not meant that a minister must preach on no other topic than the crucifixion of Christ. It is not meant that he may not in preaching denounce particular sins, or instruct in particular virtues. Nor is it meant that he may not preach the law, or draw lessons from Scripture characters or events even in the Old Testament. Nor is it meant that he may not devote entire sermons to particular doctrines not in immediate connexion with the crucifixion. What Paul meant was, that he knew nothing but Christ’s atonement no substitute for it in the systems and philosophies of mere men as a ground of salvation. His meaning was, as in 1Co 3:11, that there can be no other foundation than Christ.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

1Co 2:2. For I determined not to know any thing, &c. The word rendered to know, is used according to the Hebrew idiom, to cause to know, or to teach. St. Paul, who was himself a learned man, especially in the Jewish knowledge, having told them in the foregoing chapter, that neither the Jewish learning nor Grecian sciences give a man any advantage, as an inspired teacher and minister of the Gospel, he here reminds them that he made no shew or use of either of them, when he planted the Gospel among them; intimating thereby that those were not the things for which their teachers were to be valued or followed. There seems to be a peculiar emphasis in the expression among you, as if the Apostle had said, “I did not change my usual method at Corinth; and you know with what glorious success it was attended.” The Greek of the last clause is, , even that crucified person. The Jews and heathens evidently gave our Lord this name by way of contempt; but St. Paul declares, that instead of concealing this as an infamy and scandal, it was the main thing he insisted upon; as indeed all the most important doctrines of the Gospel stand in a close and natural connection with it: and no doubt but he took them in that connection; for he refers, in the course of these Epistles, to several doctrines relating to the Father and the Holy Spirit, as what he had taught them, though not expressly included in the doctrine of the crucifixion. See Locke, Doddridge, and Mackni

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

1Co 2:2 . For I did not resolve (did not set it before me as part of my undertaking) to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and that the crucified, i.e. to mix up other kinds of knowledge with the proclamation of Jesus Christ, etc. [325] Had Paul not disdained this and not put aside all other knowledge, his would not have remained free from . The ordinary reference of the negation to : I resolved to know nothing , etc., is in arbitrary opposition to the words (so, however, Pott, Flatt, Rckert, Osiander, Ewald). In Calvin and Grotius find too much, since the text does not give it: magnum duxi ; Hofmann again, too little, with Luther and others: I judged, was of opinion ; for Paul could indeed discard and negative in his own case the undertaking to know something, but not the judgment that he did know something. His self-determination was, not to be directed to know, etc. Comp 1Co 7:37 ; 2Co 2:1 ; Rom 14:13 ; , Polyb. iii. 6. 7; Wis 8:9 ; 1Ma 11:33 ; 2Ma 6:14 , al [327] He might have acted otherwise, had he proposed to himself to do so.

] , , , , Chrysostom. But the giving up of everything else is far more powerfully expressed by (comp Arrian, Epict. ii. 1) than if Paul had said or . He was not disposed, when among the Corinthians, to be conscious of anything else but Christ. The notion of permission (Rckert), which might be conveyed in the relation of the infinitive to the verb (see Lobeck, a [329] Phryn. p. 753; Khner, a [330] Xen. Mem. ii. 2. 1; Anab. v. 7. 34), would here only weaken the force of the statement. Were the correct reading (but see the critical remarks), the right rendering of the genitive would not be: so that (Billroth), but: I made no resolution, in order to know anything . Comp on Act 27:1 .

. . .] notwithstanding the offence therein implied for Jew and Gentile, 1Co 1:18 ; 1Co 1:23 . Comp Gal 6:14 .

[325] Causaubon remarks well, that . x. refers to the person , and . . . to the officium , and “in his duobus totum versatur evangelium.” But the strong emphasis on the latter point arises from looking back to 1Co 1:17-24 .

[327] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.

[329] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

[330] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 1933
CHRIST CRUCIFIED, OR EVANGELICAL RELIGION DESCRIBED

1Co 2:2. I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

IN different ages of the world it has pleased God to reveal himself to men in different ways; sometimes by visions, sometimes by voices, sometimes by suggestions of his Spirit to their minds: but since the completion of the sacred canon, he has principally made use of his written word, explained and enforced by men, whom he has called and qualified to preach his Gospel; and though he has not precluded himself from conveying again the knowledge of his will in any of the former ways, it is through the written word only that we are now authorized to expect his gracious instructions. This, whether read by ourselves or published by his servants, he applies to the heart, and makes effectual for the illumination and salvation of men. It must be confessed, however, that he chiefly uses the ministry of his servants, whom he has sent as ambassadors to a guilty world. It was thus that he conveyed the knowledge of salvation to the Ethiopian Eunuch, who was reading an interesting portion of Isaiahs prophecies. He might have opened the understanding of this man at once by the agency of his Spirit; but he chose rather to send his servant Philip, to join the chariot, and to explain the Scripture to him. When the Centurion also had sought with much diligence and prayer to know the way of salvation, God did not instruct him by his Word or Spirit, but informed him where to send for instruction; and by a vision removed the scruples of Peter about going to him; that so the established ministry might be honoured, and the Church might look to their authorized instructors, as the instruments whom God would make use of for their edification and salvation. Thus it is at this time: God is not confined to means; but he condescends to employ the stated ministry of his word for the diffusion of Divine knowledge: The priests lips keep knowledge; and by their diligent discharge of their ministry is knowledge transmitted and increased.
But this circumstance, so favourable to all classes of the community, imposes on them a duty of the utmost importance. If there be a well from which we are to receive our daily supplies, it becomes us to ascertain that its waters are salubrious: and, in like manner, if we are to receive instruction from men, who are weak and fallible as ourselves, it becomes us to try their doctrines by the touchstone of the written word; and to receive from them those sentiments only which agree with that unerring standard; or, to use the words of an inspired Apostle, we must prove all things, and hold fast that which is good. To preachers also there arises an awful responsibility; for, as the people are to receive the word at their mouth, and their word is to be a savour of life or of death to all that hear it, it concerns them to be well assured, that they set before their people the sincere unadulterated milk of the word; that in no respect they corrupt the word of God, or handle it deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commend themselves to every mans conscience in the sight of God [Note: See 2Co 2:15-17; 2Co 4:2.].

Hence it appears that we all are deeply interested in this one question, What is truth? what is that truth, which ministers are bound to preach, and which their people should be anxious to hear? There will however be no difficulty in answering this question, if only we consult the passage before us; wherein St. Paul explicitly declares what was the great scope of his ministry, and the one subject which he laboured to unfold. He regarded not the subtleties which had occupied the attention of philosophers; nor did he affect that species of knowledge which was in high repute among men: on the contrary, he studiously avoided all that gratified the pride of human wisdom, and determined to adhere simply to one subject, the crucifixion of Christ for the sins of men: I came not unto you, says he, with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God: for I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified.

To explain and vindicate this determination of the Apostle is our intention in this discourse.

I.

To explain it

By preaching Christ crucified, we are not to understand that he dwelt continually on the fact or history of the crucifixion; for though he speaks of having set forth Christ as it were crucified before the eyes of the Galatians, and may therefore be supposed occasionally to have enlarged upon the sufferings of Christ as the means of exciting gratitude towards him in their hearts, yet we have no reason to think that he contented himself with exhibiting to their view a tragical scene, as though he hoped by that to convert their souls: it was the doctrine of the crucifixion that he insisted on; and he opened it to them in all its bearings and connexions. This he calls the preaching of the cross: and it consisted of such a representation of Christ crucified, as was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; but to the true believer, the power of God and the wisdom of God [Note: 1Co 1:23-24.]. There were two particular views in which he invariably spoke of the death of Christ; namely, as the ground of our hopes, and as the motive to our obedience.

In the former of these views, the Apostle not only asserts, that the death of Christ was the appointed means of effecting our reconciliation with God, but that it was the only means by which our reconciliation could be effected. He represents all, both Jews and Gentiles, as under sin, and in a state of guilt and condemnation: he states, that, inasmuch as we are all condemned by the law, we can never be justified by the law, but are shut up unto that way of justification which God has provided for us in the Gospel [Note: Gal 3:22-23.]. He asserts, that God hath set forth his Son to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness in the remission of sins, that he may be just, and the justifier of them that believe in Jesus [Note: Rom 3:25-26.]. He requires all, Jews as well as Gentiles, to believe in Jesus, in order to the obtaining of justification by faith in him [Note: Gal 2:15-16.]: and so jealous is he of every thing that may interfere with this doctrine, or be supposed to serve as a joint ground of our acceptance with God, that he represents the smallest measure of affiance in any thing else as actually making void the faith of Christ, and rendering his death of no avail [Note: Gal 5:2-4.]. Nay, more, if he himself, or even an angel from heaven, should ever be found to propose any other ground of hope to sinful man, he denounces a curse against him; and, lest his denunciation should be overlooked, he repeats it with augmented energy; As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other Gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed [Note: Gal 1:8-9.].

To the death of Christ he ascribes every blessing we possess. We are reconciled to God by the blood of his cross; we are brought nigh to him, have boldness and access with confidence even to his throne; we are cleansed by it from all sin; yea, by his one offering of himself he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. But there is one passage in particular wherein a multitude of spiritual blessings are comprised, and all are referred to him as the true source from whom they flow. The passage we speak of, is in the first chapter to the Ephesians, where, within the space of eleven verses, the same truth is repeated at least eight or nine times. In order to enter fully into the force of that passage, we may conceive of St. Paul as maintaining the truth in opposition to all its most determined adversaries, and as labouring to the uttermost to exalt Christ in the eyes of those who trusted in him: we may conceive of him, I say, as contending thus: Have we been chosen before the foundation of the world? it is in Christ. Have we been predestinated unto the adoption of children? it is in and by Him. Are we accepted? it is in the Beloved. Have we redemption, even the forgiveness of sins? it is in Him, through his blood. Are all, both in heaven and earth, gathered together under one Head? it is in Christ, even in Him. Have we obtained an inheritance? it is in Him. Are we sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise? it is in Him. Are we blessed with all spiritual blessings? it is in Christ Jesus. When the Apostle has laboured thus to impress our minds with the idea that our whole salvation is in, and by, the Lord Jesus Christ, is it not surprising that any one should be ignorant of it? Yet we apprehend that many persons, who have even studied the Holy Scriptures, and read over this passage a multitude of times, have yet never seen the force of it, or been led by it to just views of Christ as the Fountain in whom all fulness dwells, and from whose fulness we must all receive, even grace for grace.

But we have observed, that there is another view in which the Apostle speaks of the death of Christ, namely, as a motive to our obedience. Strongly as he enforced the necessity of relying on Christ, and founding our hopes of salvation solely on his obedience unto death, he was no less earnest in promoting the interests of holiness. Whilst he represented the believers as dead to the law and without law, he still insisted that they were under the law to Christ, and as much bound to obey every tittle of it as ever [Note: 1Co 9:21. Gal 2:19.]: and he enforced obedience to it, in all its branches, and to the utmost possible extent. Moreover, when the doctrines which he had inculcated were in danger of being abused to licentious purposes, he expressed his utter abhorrence of such a procedure [Note: Rom 6:1; Rom 6:15.]; and declared, that the grace of God, which brought salvation, taught them, that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, they should live righteously, soberly, and godly in this present world [Note: Tit 2:11-12.]. A life of holy obedience is represented by him as the great object which Christ aimed to produce in all his people: indeed the very name, Jesus, proclaimed, that the object of his coming was To save his people from their sins. The same was the scope and end of his death, even to redeem them from all iniquity, and to purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works. His resurrection and ascension to heaven had also the same end in view; for therefore he both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be the Lord both of the dead and living. Impressed with a sense of these things himself, St. Paul laboured more abundantly than any of the Apostles in his holy vocation: he proceeded with a zeal which nothing could quench, and an ardour which nothing could damp: privations, labours, imprisonments, deaths, were of no account in his eyes; none of these things moved him, neither counted he his life dear unto him, so that he might but finish his course with joy, and fulfil the ministry that was committed to him. But what was the principle by which he was actuated? He himself tells us, that he was impelled by a sense of obligation to Christ, for all that He had done and suffered for him: the love of Christ constraineth us, says he; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again [Note: 2Co 5:14-15.]. This is that principle which he desired to be universally embraced, and endeavoured to impress on the minds of all: We beseech you, brethren, says he, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service [Note: Rom 12:1.]. What mercies he refers to, we are at no loss to determine; they are the great mercies vouchsafed to us in the work of redemption: for so he says in another place; Ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are his [Note: 1Co 6:19-20.].

Now this is the subject which the Apostle comprehends under the term Christ crucified: it consists of two parts; first, of affiance in Christ for salvation, and, next, of obedience to the law for his sake: had either part of it been taken alone, his views had been imperfect, and his ministry without success. Had he neglected to set forth Christ as the only Saviour of the world, he would have betrayed his trust, and led his hearers to build their hopes on a foundation of sand. On the other hand, if he had neglected to inculcate holiness, and to set forth redeeming love as the great incentive to obedience, he would have been justly chargeable with that which has been often falsely imputed to him,an antinomian spirit; and his doctrines would have merited the odium which has most unjustly been cast upon them. But on neither side did he err: he forgot neither the foundation nor the superstructure: he distinguished properly between them, and kept each in its place: and hence with great propriety adopted the determination in our text.

Having explained his determination, we shall now proceed,

II.

To vindicate it

It was not from an enthusiastic fondness for one particular point, but from the fullest conviction of his mind, that the Apostle adopted this resolution: and so the word in the original imports; I determined, as the result of my deliberate judgment, to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified: I have made it, and will ever make it, my theme, my boast, and my song. The reasons why he insisted on this subject so exclusively, and with such delight, shall now be stated:he did so,

1.

Because it contained all that he was commissioned to declare.

It pleased God to reveal his Son in the Apostle, that he might preach him among the heathen: and accordingly St. Paul tells us, that this grace was given to him to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. This, I say, was his office; and this too is the ministry of reconciliation which is committed to ministers in every age; to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them [Note: 2Co 5:18-19.]. To the Apostles, indeed, the commission was to go forth into all the world, and to preach the Gospel to every creature; whereas to us is assigned, as it were, a more limited sphere: but the subject of our ministry is the same with theirs: we have the same dispensation committed unto us; and woe will be unto us, if we preach not the Gospel.

But, as though men needed not to be evangelized now, the term evangelical is used as a term of reproach. We mean not to justify any persons whatsoever in using unnecessary terms of distinction, more especially if it be with a view to depreciate others, and to aggrandize themselves: but still the distinctions which are made in Scripture must be made by us; else for what end has God himself made them? Now it cannot be denied, that the Apostle characterizes the great subject of his ministry as the Gospel; nor can it be denied that he complains of some teachers in the Galatian Church as introducing another Gospel, which was not the true Gospel, but a perversion of it [Note: Gal 1:6-7.]. Here then he lays down the distinction between doctrines which are truly evangelical, and others which have no just title to that name. Of course, wherever the same difference exists between the doctrines maintained, the same terms must be proper to distinguish them; and a just view of those distinctions is necessary, in order to our being guarded against error, and established in the truth.

But we beg to be clearly understood in reference to this matter. It is not our design to enter into any dispute about the use of a term, or to vindicate any particular party; but merely to state, with all the clearness we can, a subject, about which every one ought to have the most accurate and precise ideas.

We have seen what was the great subject of the Apostles preaching, and which he emphatically and exclusively called the Gospel: and if only we attend to what he has spoken in the text, we shall see what really constitutes evangelical preaching. The subject of it must be Christ crucified; that is, Christ must be set forth as the only foundation of a sinners hope: and holiness in all its branches must be enforced; but a sense of Christs love in dying for us must be inculcated, as the main-spring and motive of all our obedience. The manner of setting forth this doctrine must also accord with that of the Apostle in the text: the importance of the doctrine must be so felt, as to make us determine never to know any thing else, either for the salvation of our own souls, or for the subject of our public ministrations. Viewing its transcendent excellency, we must rejoice and glory in it ourselves, and shew forth its fruits in a life of entire devotedness to God: we must call upon our hearers also to rejoice and glory in it, and to display its sanctifying effects in the whole of their life and conversation. Thus to preach, and thus to live, would characterize a person, and his ministry, as evangelical, in the eyes of the Apostle: whereas indifference to this doctrine, or a corruption of it, either by a self-righteous or antinomian mixture, would render both the person and his ministry obnoxious to his censure, according to the degree in which such indifference, or such a mixture, prevailed. We do not mean to say, that there are not different degrees of clearness in the views and ministry of different persons, or that none are accepted of God, or useful in the Church, unless they come up to such a precise standard;nor do we confine the term evangelical to those who lean to this or that particular system, as some are apt to imagine:but this we say, that, in proportion as any persons, in their spirit and in their preaching, accord with the example in the text, they are properly denominated evangelical; and that, in proportion as they recede from this pattern, their claim to this title is dubious or void.

Now when we ask, What is there in this which every minister ought not to preach, and every Christian to feel? Is there any thing in this enthusiastic? any thing sectarian? any thing uncharitable? any thing worthy of reproach? Is the Apostles example in the text so absurd, as to make an imitation of him blame-worthy, and a conformity to him contemptible? Or, if a scoffing and ungodly world will make the glorying in the cross of Christ a subject of reproach, ought any who are reproached by them to abandon the Gospel for fear of being called evangelical? Ought they not rather, like the Apostles, to rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer shame, if shame it be, for Christs sake? The fact is indisputable, that the Apostles commission was to preach Christ crucified;to preach, I say, that chiefly, that constantly, that exclusively: and therefore he was justified in his determination to know nothing else: consequently, to adopt that same resolution is our wisdom also, whether it be in reference to our own salvation, or to the subject of our ministrations in the Church of God.

We now proceed to a second reason for the Apostles determination. He determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified,because it contained all that could conduce to the happiness of man. There are other things which may amuse; but there is nothing else that can contribute to mans real happiness. Place him in a situation of great distress; let him be bowed down under a sense of sin; let him be oppressed with any great calamity; or let him be brought by sickness to the borders of the grave;there is nothing that will satisfy his mind, but a view of this glorious subject. Tell him of his good works; and he feels a doubt, (a doubt which no human being can resolve,) what is that precise measure of good works which will ensure eternal happiness: tell him of repentance, and of Christ supplying his deficiencies; and he will still be at a loss to ascertain whether he has attained that measure of penitence or of goodness, which is necessary to answer the demands of God. But speak to him of Christ as dying for the sins of men, as casting out none that come unto him, as purging us by his blood from all sin, and as clothing us with his own unspotted righteousness; yea, as making his own grace to abound, not only where sin has abounded, but infinitely beyond our most abounding iniquities [Note: Rom 5:20-21.]; set forth to him thus the freeness and sufficiency of the Gospel salvation, and he wants nothing else: he feels that Christ is a Rock, a sure Foundation; and on that he builds without fear, assured that whosoever believeth in Christ shall not be confounded. He hears the Saviour saying, This is life eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent; and having attained that knowledge, he trusts that the word of Christ shall be fulfilled to him: he already exults in the language of the Apostle, Who is he that condemneth? it is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us [Note: Rom 8:34.].

But if a sense of guilt afflict some, a want of victory over their in-dwelling corruptions distresses others: and to them also the doctrine of Christ crucified administers the only effectual relief. The consideration of eternal rewards and punishments affords indeed a powerful incentive to exertion; but efforts springing from those motives only, will always savour of constraint; they will never be ingenuous, hearty, affectionate, unreserved. But let a sense of redeeming love occupy the soul, and the heart becomes enlarged, and the feet are set at liberty to run the way of Gods commandments We say not that every person who professes to have experienced the love of Christ, will always walk consistently with that profession; for there were falls and offences not only in the apostolic age, but even among the Apostles themselves: but this we say, that there is no other principle in the universe so powerful as the love of Christ; that whilst that principle is in action, no commandment will ever be considered as grievous; the yoke of Christ in every thing will be easy, and his burden light; yea, the service of God will be perfect freedom; and the labour of our souls will be to stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. This the Apostle found in his own experience; and this he found to be the effect of his ministry on the hearts of thousands. What then could he wish for in addition to this? Where this principle was inefficacious, nothing was effectual; and where this was effectual, nothing else was wanted: no wonder then that he determined to insist on this subject, and nothing else; since, whether in the removing of guilt from the conscience, or of corruption from the soul, nothing could bear any comparison with this.

Further, He determined to know nothing but this subject,because nothing could be added to it without weakening or destroying its efficacy. The subject of Christ crucified may, as we have before observed, be considered as consisting of two parts,a foundation, and a superstructure. Now St. Paul declares, that if any thing whatever be added to that foundation, it will make void the whole Gospel. If any thing could have been found which might safely have been added to it, we might suppose that the rite of circumcision might have claimed that honour, because it was of Gods special appointment, and had had so great a stress laid upon it by God himself: but St. Paul says in reference to that rite, that if any person should submit to it with a view to confirm his interest in the Gospel, Christ should profit him nothing: such a person would have fallen from grace, as much as if he had renounced the Gospel altogether. Again, if any person, who had the foundation rightly laid within him, should build upon it any thing but the pure, the simple, the essential duties of religion, his work should be burnt up as wood or stubble; and though he should not entirely lose heaven, he should lose much of his happiness there, and be saved only like one snatched out of the devouring flames. With such a view of the subject, what inducement could the Apostle have to add any thing to it?

But the Apostle speaks yet more strongly respecting this. He tells us, not only that the adulterating of the subject by any base mixture will destroy its efficacy, but that even an artificial statement of the truth will make it of none effect. God is exceedingly jealous of the honour of his Gospel: if it be plainly and simply stated he will work by it, and make it effectual to the salvation of men; but if it be set forth with all the ornaments of human eloquence, and stated in the words which mans wisdom teacheth, he will not work by it; because he would have our faith to stand, not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Hence St. Paul, though eminently qualified to set it forth with all the charms of oratory, purposely laid aside all excellency of speech or of wisdom in declaring the testimony of God, and used all plainness of speech, lest by dressing up the truth in the enticing words of mans wisdom, he should make the cross of Christ of none effect [Note: 1Co 1:17; 1Co 2:1; 1Co 2:4-5.].

Further vindication than this is unnecessary: for, if this subject contained all that he was commissioned to declare; if it contained all that could conduce to the happiness of man; and if nothing could be added to it without weakening or destroying its efficacy; he must have consented to defeat the ends of his ministry altogether, if he had not adopted and maintained the resolution in the text.

If then these things be so, we may venture to found upon them the following advice

First, Let us take care that we know Christ crucified

Many, because they are born and educated in a Christian land, are ready to take for granted that they are instructed in this glorious subject: but there is almost as much ignorance of it prevailing amongst Christians as amongst the heathen themselves. The name of Christ indeed is known, and he is complimented by us with the name of Saviour; but the nature of his office, the extent of his work, and the excellency of his salvation, are known to few. Let not this be considered as a rash assertion: for we will appeal to the consciences of all; Do we find that the Apostles views of Christ are common? Do we find many so filled with admiring and adoring thoughts of this mystery, as to count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of it; and to say, like him, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ? On the contrary, do we not find that there is an almost universal jealousy on the subject of the Gospel, that those who most labour to tread in the Apostles steps, are often most branded with opprobrious names? Do we not find that his views of the Gospel are calumniated now, precisely as they were in the days of the Apostle himself? Verily, we should be glad to be found false witnesses in relation to these things; and would most joyfully retract our assertions, if it could be shewn that they are not founded in truth. We do hope however that there is an increasing love to the Gospel pervading the whole land; and I pray God it may prevail more and more, and be embraced by every one of us, not superficially, partially, theoretically, but clearly, fully, practically.
Secondly, Let us adopt the Apostles determination for ourselves

Doubtless, as men and members of society, there are many other things which we are concerned to know. Whatever be our office in life, we ought to be well acquainted with it, in order that we may perform its duties to the advantage of ourselves and others; and we would most particularly be understood to say, that the time that is destined for the acquisition of useful knowledge, ought to be diligently and conscientiously employed. But, as Christians, we have one object of pursuit, which deserves all our care and all our labour: yes, we may all with great propriety determine to know nothing but Christ and him crucified. This is the subject which even the angels in heaven are ever desiring to look into, and which we may investigate for our whole lives, and yet leave depths and heights unfathomed and unknown. St. Paul, after preaching Christ for twenty years, did not conceive himself yet awhile to have attained all that he might, and therefore still desired to know Christ more and more, in the power of his resurrection, and in the fellowship of his sufferings. This therefore we may well desire, and count all things but loss in comparison of it.

Lastly, Let us make manifest the wisdom of our determination by the holiness of our lives.

The doctrine of Christ crucified ever did, and ever will appear foolishness in the eyes of ungodly men; so that, if it be preached by an Apostle himself, he shall be accounted by them a babbler and deceiver. But there is one way of displaying its excellency open to us, a way in which we may effectually put to silence the ignorance of foolish men; namely, by well-doing; that is, by shewing the sanctifying and transforming efficacy of this doctrine. St. Paul tells us, that by the cross of Christ the world was crucified unto him, and he unto the world [Note: Gal 6:14.]: and such is the effect that it should produce on us: we should shew that we are men of another world, and men too of a more excellent spirit: we should shew the fruits of our faith in every relation of life: and, in so doing, we may hope to win by our good conversation many, who would never have submitted to the preached word.

But we must never forget where our strength is, or on whose aid we must entirely rely. The Prophet Isaiah reminds us of this; Surely shall one say, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength: and our Lord himself plainly tells us, that without him we can do nothing. Since then we have no sufficiency in ourselves to help ourselves, and God has laid help for us upon One that is mighty, let us live by faith on the Son of God, receiving daily out of his fulness that grace that shall be sufficient for us. Let us bear in mind, that this is a very principal part of the knowledge of Christ crucified: for, as all our fresh springs are in Christ, so must we look continually to him for the supplies of his Spirit, and have him for our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, and redemption.

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

A Supreme Purpose In Life

1Co 2:2

What does this mean? Perhaps you will reply that a child can answer that inquiry. Let us try first whether a man can. Say, then, what does it mean? You may answer, It means that the Apostle Paul in going to Corinth had made up his mind not to listen to anything, but to preach or teach or converse regarding Jesus Christ and him crucified. He would not speak about weather, or health, or commerce, or nature; he would close his ears against all minor topics and all meaner appeals, and would listen to nothing from sunrise to sundown but Jesus Christ and him crucified. You wonder that any one should ask what words so obvious in their significance could mean.

First then, they do not mean that. It is an awkward criticism for you. They mean largely the contrary of that. Where is the child, then, that you set in the midst of us at the first to answer the inquiry, What does this mean? Let us try to get the real meaning into our minds and hearts. It will revolutionise life; it will centralise, and dignify, and sacredly utilise all the elements, emotions, tumults, and conflicts of life. Let the paraphrase stand thus: In coming to Corinth, the only one thing I had made up my mind about was that, whatever else there might be to see and to do, and to arrange, I would fix my mind and heart on Jesus Christ and him crucified. This determination was the only determination the Apostle had formed in his mind; other objects he had left to be considered within the lines of the occasion. If there was weather to be talked about, he would refer to it; if there was health to be inquired about, he would inquire about it; if nature revealed some apocalypse of beauty which challenged the attention of the eyes, he would turn his vision upon the revelation of God. The only thing I have made up my mind about, says the Apostle, is to know Jesus Christ and him crucified; upon that my mind is fixed; that is certain, that is unchangeable; whatever else may happen, this is the only thing I have at present made up my mind about. So other objects are not excluded; the Apostle is not a mere fanatic; Paul does not say that he will do nothing whilst at Corinth but talk about Jesus Christ and him crucified; as a matter of fact, he did a great many things at Corinth, and yet everything he did is perfectly consistent with this determination. The picture is that of a man who has made up his mind to one thing; he may do fifty other things, he does not know what he will do with the other subjects; he is certain and fixed upon this one thing, and all else shall be ruled by it as gravitation rules the motions of the worlds. We perish for want of a dominating thought. We cannot get the arch together because we have no keystone. The two parts would gladly approach one another, but they cannot, because the keystone, that wondrous wedge that binds the distant and the separate, is wanting. Many a life is ruined for want of a keystone. Many a man is wandering about the world doing nothing because he is destitute of a sovereign purpose. If he could make up his mind about any one thing, that one thing being worthy of life, his whole course would be elevated, and sublimated. That is the Apostle’s position.

Take the matter from a lower point of view. Say a man shall make up his mind to go to London, or to Paris to make money. He says, in effect, On that point I am certain; what I may do about other matters I cannot tell: I am going to London or to Paris to make money, and everything has got to bend to that. Will you not look at some of the museums? I may. Will you not run into the galleries of art? Possibly; all depends. Depends upon what? Upon how such things affect my main object, which is to make money. That, in the religious sense, is just the meaning of the Apostle. Will you not look at the beautiful sculpture to be found in the famous city? Possibly; all depends. Depends upon what? Depends upon the success of my mission, which is Jesus Christ and him crucified. I will certainly look on the rocks that man has not chiselled, I may look on the stone he has partially spoiled. May you not hear some of the famed orators of Greece? I may; it all depends. Depends upon what? Upon the opportunities which are offered to me, or created by me, of proclaiming Jesus Christ and him crucified. Will you not call upon your friends, and speak with them on the subjects of the day? I may; it all depends. Depends upon what? Upon how I get along with this subject; that must rule everything; the one thing I have made up my mind about is to know nothing, save Jesus Christ and him crucified; everything else must wait.

Now we understand the text. Paul’s method was consistent; he always worked upon this plan. Once he said, “This one thing I do.” How often is that passage misunderstood. The Apostle was not doing this one thing as the only thing he was doing, but he was doing this as the supreme motive and purpose and object of his life, and that supreme purpose ruled all minor things. Often we are exhorted by the apostolic motto to concentration of mind, saying, This one thing I do, and nothing else. The Apostle never said so. He said, Whatever else I may be doing, I am certain about doing this particular thing, namely, pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus; I may be doing innumerable other things, all partaking of the quality of this supreme purpose, but this this this I am certain about. Where did Paul learn this great and gracious doctrine? Where he learned everything of the nature of Christian doctrine and Christian philosophy. He learned it in the school of Jesus Christ. Does Jesus Christ lay down this rule of supremacy of purpose? Yes, he does. Where? In these words: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things” trifles, baubles for children to play with “shall be added unto you.” Have a supreme purpose. Every man should have a supreme purpose in life; it will give definiteness to all his processes of thought and action. How many aimless people there are in the world! They awake in the morning without a plan, they make no programme, they draw up no scheme; they may be east or west, and it is just possible they may be north or south; they are driving without reins, without whip, and without aim. They think the horses, which they call their impulses, know the road. What does all this come to? To ruin, to disappointment, to chagrin, to despair. Whenever the Apostle Paul awoke he knew that what he had to do that day was to proclaim Jesus Christ and him crucified, to make these great histories and doctrines clearer and clearer to human comprehension. Whatever else the day might ask at his hands that tribute must be paid.

Such a purpose determines the tone of a man’s life. Life is not a question of separate actions. Life, in its higher interpretation, means tone, atmosphere, unexpressed but mighty music; a quality not to be named or traced etymologically. A man cannot get rid of his supreme purpose. The avaricious man has avarice painted upon his face. He cannot cover it with a smile, he cannot hide it with a frown; by many a trickster’s grimace he seeks to rub out the signature, but there it is, and that projecting truth-telling chin. All his questions have avarice at the base, avarice at the top, and avarice in the middle line. He is asking about affairs, possibilities, markets; he fingers everything with the hands of a bargain-maker: what he can get out of it, is his purpose. The dreamer cannot hide his supreme purpose. He wants to create new heavens and a new earth; he longs to take the stars to pieces to see where the light comes from; he knows he saw an angel on that white-thorn hedge; he is sure that the spirit of some seer or singer was in that bird’s note “Did you not hear it?” he says, ” I did.” Dear soul! the world is the sweeter for his dreaming and singing: go on! The Apostle could not hide the supreme purpose of his life, nor did he ever seek to do so. “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth:… I count not my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus:… I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” Heroic soul! almost the Son of God!

A supreme purpose of this kind always ennobles character. The whole range of thought is elevated. Some minds have no mountain chains running through them. They are flat; they are of the nature of table-land; they are by no means either useless or despicable, they have their own utility. Other minds are Alpine; they reach and stretch, they uplift themselves as if to find their right place in the very noonday of the sun. He who has Christ living in him lives an uplifted or elevated life all his contemplations are high, wide, radiant, noble, beneficent; all things are new. He may never preach a sermon in any formal sense, yet he never ceases to preach in a vita significance.

In this subject chosen by the Apostle Paul there is neither poverty nor monotony. This subject never runs out; it is a perennial fountain. All the little cataracts take a summer holiday: we do not know where they have gone, they are never there when we want them, they take their holiday when we take ours; we are welcome to look at the stones which they run over after snow and rain; if it will do us the least good in the world to see where they do gambol, we may spend all day in the torrent-bed, but the torrent itself is gone. Niagara never takes a holiday. Great Niagara! Who that has stood behind it has not said, Surely in a few hours that cataract must have run itself out; surely we shall not find it here in the morning. Yet it gallops with the centuries; it foams and plunges as if God had set upon it the seal of eternity. Poor is that symbol, though one of the best we can at the moment find, by which to represent the eternal rush of the redeeming, ennobling, sanctifying influence poured upon the world by the Son of God. Wherever there is anything beautiful, Christ and Christ crucified is there; wherever you find anything that is really progressive, you find Christ and him crucified; wherever you hear true singing, the joy, the gladness of the heart ruled by reason, inspired by hope you find Jesus Christ and him crucified. You find that great subject in the museum, in the art gallery, on the death-bed, in the cradle, everywhere. Without the crucified Christ the world could not live; its foundations are laid upon him, and those foundations are but the beginnings of pinnacles, for until the topstone is brought on God’s creation is not finished.

Mark what distinctiveness this gave to Paul’s personality and ministry. He found his subject in his character. You knew him to be a man of prayer, a man of God; you could not be long with him before he took off the key from his girdle and opened some new world of vision, some larger sphere of hope and service and rest. If you let him alone one moment he was at the Cross. You might detain him on minor subjects if you solicitously urged him to give his opinion about them, as about life upon the earth, and marriage, and service, and duty, as we define those terms; but the moment your solicitousness took its finger from him he was at Calvary. You could not keep him back from, the altar; having been there he would abide there. He might accept a tent for a night, but his abiding sanctuary was built on a Golgotha.

How easy it is to see a perversion of this purpose, or an undue limitation of its range. How easy it would be to say, This kind of purpose would fit well apostles and preachers, evangelists and ministers, or Christians of leisure who had yielded themselves to the charms of a contemplative life. I will answer you you are wrong; you are doing injustice to the genius of the history and the doctrine. This singleness or loftiness of purpose is just as possible to the humblest man of business as to the mightiest man of eloquence, or the most favoured child of contemplation and holy dream. Often we hear it said “Business must be looked after; business must be looked after in the spirit of the business; we wish we had more time for religious contemplation: far are we from ignoring the claims of the Cross, but we must leave its deeper study, and its fuller unfoldment of meaning to men who are consecrated to sacred leisure.” You are fundamentally wrong, you are wrong at the core. Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ crucified, are not subjects for contemplation. They are the most active subjects in the world. They are the factors of civilisation, they are the sovereign thought of progress. Every man may do his business, whatever it be, in the spirit of Jesus Christ and him crucified. That is what the Apostle desires to have us all attain. He would have us show pity and do justice and obey the golden rule, and it is impossible to do these things apart from Jesus Christ and him crucified. Here is the doctrine that needs prominence, enforcement, and practical glorification. A man’s wages ought to be earned and paid in the spirit of Jesus Christ and him crucified. This is not a sentiment to be set among the stars and telescopically surveyed; this is a rule of conduct, this is the inspiration of life, this is the meaning of all true things. We cannot get some people to understand this. We shall never get right by socialistic theories, anarchical programmes, and a certain vulgar power of befooling the trustful classes: we can only get right by Jesus Christ and him crucified. Of course, a proposition of this kind would be received with execration by socialists and anarchists of the baser sort. He who proclaimed this doctrine would be scoffed at with certain derisive epithets, and would be honoured by the brand of certain contemptuous criticism; yet the preacher, the teacher, the Christian, must never fold his flag as if in defeat; he must unfurl it and say still more sweetly and still more loudly, The world’s only hope is in Jesus Christ and him crucified.

What have we seen amongst persons who would undertake to work the economics of the age on the basis of other theories? We have seen tyranny of the worst description, selfishness that had been saturated in the very pools of corruption, narrow-mindedness that could not take in the whole of any question, an obstinacy mistaken for firmness, and a recklessness which was characterised as splendid generalship. Let us have justice on all sides, let us hear every man’s case, be he great or small; the beggar in the ditch shall have all the benefactions that justice can confer upon him, and the man who thinks for the world and guides its affairs shall not be denied justice because he has acquired eminence. Do not listen to the men that want to merely mechanise life, and rule it by schedule and stipulation: the only real security of life, joy, progress, and heaven you will find in Jesus Christ and him crucified, when properly interpreted. Christ will put all business right; Christ will pay every labourer his wages; Christ will sanctify the millions of the capitalist, and keep the richest man modest and humble within the environment of his life. The world can never be pacified, the classes can never be united or reconciled, the balance of society can never be properly established, except in connection with Jesus Christ and him crucified. This is not a mere doctrine, a section of metaphysical inquiry, a dreamy sentiment that only leisurely minds can contemplate; this is the real force and the real secret of life and action.

The subject was not only Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ crucified. Many persons would get rid of the last word if they could. Paul never sought to get rid of it; he magnified it, he glorified it. He did not preach Jesus Christ the socialist, Jesus Christ the theorist, Jesus Christ the wonder, Jesus Christ either a prospective or a retrospective Aristotle, or Plato, or Socrates. Paul preached morning, noon, and night, Christ on the Cross, Christ crucified, Christ shedding his blood that men might not die. We can make no gospel out of any other word than “crucified.” There are theorists who show some other aspects of Christ’s sacrifice; nor are they to be derided or undervalued; they have a right motive, and some would say a right conception, and they are to be honoured for their earnestness as students: but we cannot move the world without the Crucified in another, in a deeper, in a more tragic sense. Speaking of my own ministry in this place and elsewhere, I growingly feel that power can attach to it only in proportion as it is inspired by the pathos, not of a moral example only, but of a real personal sacrifice. What it means I cannot tell: love is not to be scheduled, the Spirit of God is not to be caged in by formal or theological bars: higher than heaven, who can reach it? wider than the horizon, who may lay his fingers upon it? We can only say concerning God’s rule, His mercy endureth for ever:

It is not a thing to be explained in words, or to be defended exhaustively in mere terms; it is a passion to be felt, it is an inspiration to be accepted, it is a mystery on which we may lay down our aching lives as a little child lays down its weariness on its mother’s heart.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Ver. 2. To know anything ] To profess or teach any other skill. All the wisdom of a man is in this one thing, saith Lactantius, Ut Christum cognoscat et colat, that he know and worship Christ. Hoc nostrum dogma, haec sententia est., &c.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

2. ] For I did not resolve to know any thing (hardly = , as E. V., but meaning, “ the only thing that I made it definitely my business to know, was ”) among you, except Jesus Christ (His Person) and Him (as) crucified (His Office). It would seem that the historical facts of redemption, and especially the crucifixion of Christ, as a matter of offence, had been kept in the background by these professors of human wisdom. “We must not overlook, that Paul does not say ‘to know any thing of or concerning Christ,’ but to know HIM HIMSELF, to preach HIM HIMSELF. The historical Christ is also the living Christ , who is with His own till the end of time : He works personally in every believer, and forms Himself in each one. Therefore it is universally CHRIST HIMSELF, the crucified and the risen One, who is the subject of preaching, and is also Wisdom itself: for His history evermore lives and repeats itself in the whole church and in every member of it: it never waxes old, any more than does God Himself; it retains at this day that fulness of power, in which it was revealed at the first foundation of the church.” Olshausen.

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

1Co 2:2 . (or ) . . .: “For I did not determine (judge it fit) to know anything ( or , know something) among you, except ( or , only) Jesus Christ, and Him crucified”. This explains Paul’s unadorned and matter-of-fact delivery. negatives , not (the rendering “I determined not to know” contravenes the order of words); nor is there any instance of coalescing with as in ( nego ) and the like these interpretations miss the point: had P. chosen another subject, he might have aimed at a higher style; he avoided the latter, “for” he did not entertain the former notion. His failure at Athens may have emphasised, but did not originate the Apostle’s resolution to know nothing but the cross: cf. Gal 3:1 , 1Th 4:14 ; 1Th 5:9 f., Act 13:38 f., relating to earlier preaching. For the use of ( statui , Bz [299] ) as denoting a practical moral judgment or resolution, cf. 1Co 7:37 , 2Co 2:1 . Ev [300] renders (thus accented), “to be a know-something” ( aliquid scire ) to play the philosopher according to the well-known Attic idiom of Plato’s Apol. , 6, and passim , where = ; cf. 1Co 8:2 , and the emphatic ( ); also 1Co 3:7 , Gal 2:6 ; Gal 6:3 , Act 5:36 . This rendering accounts well for , and gives additional point to the of 1Co 2:1 : P. brought with him to Cor [301] none of the prestige of the professional teachers, who claimed to “know something”; Christ and the cross this was all he knew. For in the corrective sense “only,” demanded by this interpretation, see 1Co 7:17 . is to possess knowledge , to be a master; (1Co 1:21 ), to acquire knowledge , to be a learner. On (pf. ptp [302] , of pregnant fact), cf. notes to 1Co 1:17 ; 1Co 1:23 .

[299] Beza’s Nov. Testamentum: Interpretatio et Annotationes (Cantab., 1642).

[300] T. S. Evans in Speaker’s Commentary .

[301] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[302] participle

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

1 Corinthians

THE APOSTLE’S THEME

1Co 2:2 .

Many of you are aware that to-day I close forty years of ministry in this city-I cannot say to this congregation, for there are very, very few that can go back with me in memory to the beginning of these years. You will bear me witness that I seldom intrude personal references into the pulpit, but perhaps it would be affectation not to do so now. Looking back over these long years, many thoughts arise which cannot be spoken in public. But one thing I may say, and that is, that I am grateful to God and to you, dear friends, for the unbroken harmony, confidence, affection, and forbearance which have brightened and lightened my work. Of its worth I cannot judge; its imperfections I know better than the most unfavourable critic; but I can humbly take the words of this text as expressive, not, indeed, of my attainments, but of my aims. One of my texts, on my first Sunday in Manchester, was ‘We preach Christ and Him crucified,’ and I look back, and venture to say that the noble words of this text have been, however imperfectly followed, my guiding star.

Now, I wish to say a word or two, less personal perhaps, and yet, as you can well suppose, not without a personal reference in my own consciousness.

I. Note here first, then, the Apostolic theme-Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Now, the Apostle, in this context, gives us a little autobiographical glimpse which is singularly and interestingly confirmed by some slight incidental notices in the Book of the Acts. He says, in the context, that he was with the Corinthians ‘in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,’ and, if we turn to the narrative, we find that a singular period of silence, apparent abandonment of his work and dejection, seems to have synchronised with his coming to the great city of Corinth. The reasons were very plain. He had recently come into Europe for the first time and had had to front a new condition of things, very different from what he had found in Palestine or in Asia Minor. His experience had not been encouraging. He had been imprisoned in Philippi; he had been smuggled away by night from Thessalonica; he had been hounded from Berea; he had all but wholly failed to make any impression in Athens, and in his solitude he came to Corinth, and lay quiet, and took stock of his adversaries. He came to the conclusion which he records in my text; he felt that it was not for him to argue with philosophers, or to attempt to vie with Sophists and professional orators, but that his only way to meet Greek civilisation, Greek philosophy, Greek eloquence, Greek self-conceit, was to preach ‘Christ and Him crucified.’ The determination was not come to in ignorance of the conditions that were fronting him. He knew Corinth, its wealth, its wickedness, its culture, and knowing these he said, ‘I have made up my mind that I will know nothing amongst you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.’

So, then, this Apostle’s conception of his theme was-the biography of a Man, with especial emphasis laid on one act in His history-His death. Christianity is Christ, and Christ is Christianity. His relation to the truth that He proclaimed, and to the truths that may be deducible from the story of His life and death, is altogether different from the relation of any other founder of a religion to the truths that he has proclaimed. For in these you can accept the teaching, and ignore the teacher. But you cannot do that with Christianity; ‘I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life’; and in that revealing biography, which is the preacher’s theme, the palpitating heart and centre is the death upon the Cross. So, whatever else Christianity comes to be-and it comes to be a great deal else-the principle of its growth, and the germ which must vitalise the whole, lie in the personality and the death of Jesus Christ.

That is not all. The history of the life and the death want something more to make them a gospel. The fact, I was going to say, is the least part of the fact; as in some vegetable growths, there is far more underground than above. For, unless along with, involved in, and deducible from, but capable of being stated separately from, the external facts, there is a certain commentary or explanation of them: the history is a history, the biography is a biography, the story of the Cross is a touching narrative, but it is no gospel.

And what was Paul’s commentary which lifted the bare facts up into the loftier region? This-as for the person, Jesus Christ ‘declared to be the son of God with power’-as for the fact of the death, ‘died for our sins according to the Scriptures.’ Let in these two conceptions into the facts-and they are the necessary explanation and presupposition of the facts-the Incarnation and the Sacrifice, and then you get what Paul calls ‘my gospel,’ not because it was his invention, but because it was the trust committed to him. That is the Gospel which alone answers to the facts which he deals with; and that is the Gospel which, God helping me, I have for forty years tried to preach.

We hear a great deal at present, or we did a few years ago, about this generation having recovered Jesus Christ, and about the necessity of going ‘back to the Christ of the Gospels.’ By all means, I say, if in the process you do not lose the Christ of the Epistles, who is the Christ of the Gospels, too. I am free to admit that a past generation has wrapped theological cobwebs round the gracious figure of Christ with disastrous results. For it is perfectly possible to know the things that are said about Him, and not to know Him about whom these things are said. But the mistake into which the present generation is far more likely to fall than that of substituting theology for Christ, is the converse one-that of substituting an undefined Christ for the Christ of the Gospels and the Epistles, the Incarnate Son of God, who died for our salvation. And that is a more disastrous mistake than the other, for you can know nothing about Him and He can be nothing to you, except as you grasp the Apostolic explanation of the bare facts-seeing in Him the Word who became flesh, the Son who died that we might receive the adoption of sons.

I would further point out that a clear conception of what the theme is, goes a long way to determine the method in which it shall be proclaimed. The Apostle says, in the passage which is parallel to the present one, in the previous chapter, ‘We preach Christ crucified’; with strong emphasis on the word ‘preach.’ ‘The Jew required a sign’; he wanted a man who would do something. The Greek sought after wisdom; he wanted a man who would perorate and argue and dissertate. Paul says, ‘No!’ ‘We have nothing to do . We do not come to philosophise and to argue. We come with a message of fact that has occurred, of a Person that has lived.’ And, as most of you know, the word which he uses means in its full signification, ‘to proclaim as a herald does.’

Of course, if my business were to establish a set of principles, theological or otherwise, then argumentation would be my weapon, proofs would be my means, and my success would be that I should win your credence, your intellectual consent, and conviction. If I were here to proclaim simply a morality, then the thing that I would aim to secure would be obedience, and the method of securing it would be to enforce the authority and reasonableness of the command. But, seeing that my task is to proclaim a living Person and a historical fact, then the way to do that is to do as the herald does when in the market-place he stands, trumpet in one hand and the King’s message in the other-proclaim it loudly, confidently, not ‘with bated breath and whispering humbleness,’ as if apologising, nor too much concerned to buttress it up with argumentation out of his own head, but to say, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ and to what the Lord saith conscience says, ‘Amen.’ Brethren, we need far more, in all our pulpits, of that unhesitating confidence in the plain, simple proclamation, stripped, as far as possible, of human additions and accretions, of the great fact and the great Person on whom all our salvation depends.

II. So let me ask you to notice the exclusiveness which this theme demands.

‘Nothing but,’ says Paul. I might venture to say-though perhaps the tone of the personal allusions in this sermon may seem to contradict it-that this exclusiveness is to be manifested in one very difficult direction, and that that is, the herald shall efface himself. We have to hold up the picture; and if I might take such a metaphor, like a man in a gallery who is displaying some masterpiece to the eyes of the beholders, we have to keep ourselves well behind it; and it will be wise if not even a finger-tip is allowed to steal in front and come into sight. One condition, I believe, of real power in the ministration of the Gospel, is that people shall be convinced that the preacher is thinking not at all about himself, but altogether about his message. You remember that wonderfully pathetic utterance from John the Baptist’s stern lips, which derives much additional pathos and tenderness from the character of the man from whom it came, when they asked him, ‘Who art thou?’ and his answer was, ‘I am a Voice.’ I am a Voice; that is all! Ah, that is the example! We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord. We must efface ourselves if we would proclaim Christ.

But I turn to another direction in which this theme demands exclusiveness, and I revert to the previous chapter where in the parallel portion to the words of my text, we find the Apostle very clearly conscious of the two great streams of expectation and wish which he deliberately thwarted and set at nought. ‘The Jews require a sign-but we preach Christ crucified. The Greeks seek after wisdom,’ but again, ‘we preach Christ crucified.’ Now, take these two. They are representations, in a very emphatic way, of two sets of desires and mental characteristics, which divide the world between them.

On the one hand, there is the sensuous tendency that wants something done for it, something to see, something that sense can grasp at; and so, as it fancies, work itself upwards into a higher region. ‘The Jew requires a sign’-that is, not merely a miracle, but something to look at. He wants a visible sacrifice; he wants a priest. He wants religion to consist largely in the doing of certain acts which may be supposed to bring, in some magical fashion, spiritual blessings. And Paul opposes to that, ‘We preach Christ crucified.’ Brethren, the tendency is strong to-day, not only in those parts of the Anglican communion where sacramentarian theories are in favour, but amongst all sections of the Christian Church, in which there is obvious a drift towards more ornate ritual, and aesthetic services, as means of attracting to church or chapel, and as more important than proclaiming Christ. I am free to confess that possibly some of us, with our Puritan upbringing and tendency, too much disregard that side of human nature. Possibly it is so. But for all that I profoundly believe that if religion is to be strong it must have a very, very small infusion of these external aids to spiritual worship, and that few things more weaken the power of the Gospel that Paul preached than the lowering of the flag in conformity with desires of men of sense, and substituting for the simple glory of the preached Word the meretricious, and in time impotent, and always corrupting, attractions of a sensuous worship.

Further, ‘The Greeks seek after wisdom.’ They wanted demonstration, abstract principles, systematised philosophies, and the like. Paul comes again with his ‘We preach Christ and Him crucified.’ The wisdom is there, as I shall have to say in a moment, but the form that it takes is directly antagonistic to the wishes of these wisdom-seeking Greeks. The same thing in modern guise besets us to-day. We are called upon, on all sides, to bring into the pulpit what they call an ethical gospel; putting it into plain English, to preach morality, and to leave out Christ. We are called upon, on all sides, to preach an applied Christianity, a social gospel-that is to say, largely to turn the pulpit into a Sunday supplement to the daily newspaper. We are asked to deal with the intellectual difficulties which spring from the collision of science, true or false, with religion, and the like. All that is right enough. But I believe from my heart that the thing to do is to copy Paul’s example, and to preach Christ and Him crucified. You may think me right or you may think me wrong, but here and now, at the end of forty years, I should like to say that I have for the most part ignored that class of subjects deliberately, and of set purpose, and with a profound conviction, be it erroneous or not, that a ministry which listens much to the cry for ‘wisdom’ in its modern forms, has departed from the true perspective of Christian teaching, and will weaken the churches which depend upon it. Let who will turn the pulpit into a professor’s chair, or a lecturer’s platform, or a concert-room stage or a politician’s rostrum, I for one determine to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

III. Lastly, observe the all-sufficient comprehensiveness which this theme secures.

Paul says ‘nothing but’; he might have said ‘everything in.’ For ‘Jesus Christ and Him crucified’ covers all the ground of men’s needs. No doubt many of you will have been saying to yourselves whilst you have been listening, if you have been listening, to what I have been saying, ‘Ah! old-fashioned narrowness; quite out of date in this generation.’ Brethren, there are two ways of adapting one’s ministry to the times. One is falling in with the requirements of the times, and the other is going dead against them, and both of these methods have to be pursued by us.

But the exclusiveness of which I have been speaking, is no narrow exclusiveness. Paul felt that, if he was to give the Corinthians what they needed, he must refuse to give them what they wanted, and that whilst he crossed their wishes he was consulting their necessities. That is true yet, for the preaching that bases itself upon the life and death of Jesus Christ, conceived as Paul had learned from Jesus Christ to conceive them, that Gospel, whilst it brushes aside men’s superficial wishes, goes straight to the heart of their deep-lying universal necessities, for what the Jew needs most is not a sign, and what the Greek needs most is not wisdom, but what they both need most is deliverance from the guilt and power of sin. And we all, scholars and fools, poets and common-place people, artists and ploughmen, all of us, in all conditions of life, in all varieties of culture, in all stages of intellectual development, in all diversities of occupation and of mental bias, what we all have in common is that human heart in which sin abides, and what we all need most to have is that evil drop squeezed out of it, and our souls delivered from the burden and the bondage. Therefore, any man that comes with a sign, and does not deal with the sin of the human heart, and any man that comes with a philosophical system of wisdom, and does not deal with sin, does not bring a Gospel that will meet the necessities even of the people to whose cravings he has been aiming to adapt his message.

But, beyond that, in this message of Christ and Him crucified, there lies in germ the satisfaction of all that is legitimate in these desires that at first sight it seems to thwart. ‘A sign?’ Yes, and where is there power like the power that dwells in Him who is the Incarnate might of omnipotence? ‘Wisdom?’ Yes, and where is there wisdom, except ‘in Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ ? Let the Jew come to the Cross, and in the weak Man hanging there, he will find a mightier revelation of the power of God than anywhere else. Let the Greek come to the Cross, and there he will find wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption. The bases of all social, economical, political reform and well-being, lie in the understanding and the application to social and national life, of the principles that are wrapped in, and are deduced from, the Incarnation and the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We have not learned them all yet. They have not all been applied to national and individual life yet. I plead for no narrow exclusiveness, but for one consistent with the widest application of Christian principles to all life. Paul determined to know nothing but Jesus, and to know everything in Jesus, and Jesus in everything. Do not begin your building at the second-floor windows. Put in your foundations first, and be sure that they are well laid. Let the Sacrifice of Christ, in its application to the individual and his sins, be ever the basis of all that you say. And then, when that foundation is laid, exhibit, to your heart’s content, the applications of Christianity and its social aspects. But be sure that the beginning of them all is the work of Christ for the individual sinful soul, and the acceptance of that work by personal faith.

Dear friends, ours has been a long and happy union but it is a very solemn one. My responsibilities are great; yours are not small. Let me beseech you to ask yourselves if, with all your kindness to the messenger, you have given heed to the message. Have you passed beyond the voice that speaks, to Him of whom it speaks? Have you taken the truth-veiled and weakened as I know it has been by my words, but yet in them-for what it is, the word of the living God? My occupancy of this pulpit must in the nature of things, before long, come to a close, but the message which I have brought to you will survive all changes in the voice that speaks here. ‘All flesh is grass . . . the Word of the Lord endureth for ever.’ And, closing these forty years, during a long part of which some of you have listened most lovingly and most forbearingly, I leave with you this, which I venture to quote, though it is my Master’s word about Himself, ‘I judge you not; the word which I have spoken unto you, the same shall judge you in the last day.’

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

determined. App-122.

know. App-132.

among App-104.

save = except. Greek. ei (App-118) me (App-105).

Jesus Christ. App-98.

Him = This One. Emphatic.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

2.] For I did not resolve to know any thing (hardly = , as E. V., but meaning, the only thing that I made it definitely my business to know, was) among you, except Jesus Christ (His Person) and Him (as) crucified (His Office). It would seem that the historical facts of redemption, and especially the crucifixion of Christ, as a matter of offence, had been kept in the background by these professors of human wisdom. We must not overlook, that Paul does not say to know any thing of or concerning Christ, but to know HIM HIMSELF, to preach HIM HIMSELF. The historical Christ is also the living Christ, who is with His own till the end of time: He works personally in every believer, and forms Himself in each one. Therefore it is universally CHRIST HIMSELF, the crucified and the risen One, who is the subject of preaching, and is also Wisdom itself: for His history evermore lives and repeats itself in the whole church and in every member of it: it never waxes old, any more than does God Himself;-it retains at this day that fulness of power, in which it was revealed at the first foundation of the church. Olshausen.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

1Co 2:2. , for I determined not) Although I knew many other things, yet I so acted, as if I did not know them. If a minister of the Gospel however abstains from the things, in which he excels, in order that he may simply preach Christ, he derives the highest benefit from them. The Christian doctrine ought not, for the sake of scoffers and sceptics, and those who admire them, to be sprinkled and seasoned with philosophical investigations, as if in sooth it were possible to convince them more easily by means of natural theology. They, who obstinately reject revelation, will not be gained by any reasonings from the light of nature, which only serves the purpose of instructing in the first rudiments of (theological) education.-) This word with its compounds is often used by Paul in this epistle to the Corinthians, 1Co 2:13, etc., 1Co 4:3, etc., 1Co 11:29; 1Co 11:31-32; 1Co 11:34.- , Jesus Christ) Paul well knew, how little the world esteemed this name.[16]

[16] , crucified) An antithesis to sublime wisdom, 1Co 2:1.-V. g.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

1Co 2:2

1Co 2:2

For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.-This embraced his mission to the world, his teaching, his sufferings, death, burial, and resurrection, with all the teaching he gave to the world and sealed with his blood. No appeals of eloquence, no working upon the sympathies by death scenes other than that of Jesus. No human philosophy, but simply love of God to lost men, and the provisions made through Christ Jesus for salvation from sin, would Paul make. Of certain characters the Lord has said, Their fear of me is a commandment of men which hath been taught them. (Isa 29:13). These he would not accept. The fear of Jehovah must rest upon the fear and love of God. The gospel is Gods wisdom for the salvation of the world. That is, the gospel according to Gods wisdom was the best thing to save man from his sins, and it was Gods power vested to save.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

The Sum of saving Knowledge

For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.1Co 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 Apostles 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 teachernot 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. Pauls 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 sthetic 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 mans 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 lossto 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 thenthe doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood and the Eternal Loveas 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 Christs death for a worlds 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 mothers 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 belovd 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 Senecaa 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 generalHis 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 Calvarythe 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 towardsthat 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 downthat 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 rationalismfor it is nothing moreof 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 alsoand this is far more importanthave 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 estrangd 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 Jacops 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. Pauls 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 jurisprudencewhat 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 promiseno grace, privilege, or duty toward God and manno instance of faith, love, repentance, worship, or obedience, suited to the Gospel state and to the design and obligations of the Christian religionthat dont 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 Himas shining in their brightest lustres and triumphing in all their glories through Himas built upon Him and animated by Himas lodged in His hands who is head over all things to the churchas standing in the connections, uses, and designs in which He hath placed themas known, enjoyed, or practised by light and grace derived from Himas to be accounted for to Himas acceptable to God, and advantageous to our salvation, alone through Him, by faith in Himas enforced upon us by motives and obligations taken from Himand 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 Tennysons 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 knownby personal, persistent, private communion; by long, intense contemplationknown 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 Gods 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 foemans 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 mans 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 sends away yet, tells 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 summerI 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 rejoicein 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 Gods wrath and curse, but Gods 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 bloodblood of body, blood of brain, blood of heartthere 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 worldwork of statesman and philanthropist, work of poet and painter and doctor, work of teacher and preacheris work into which men put their life, their hearts blood. It is this power to give without counting the cost to ones 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 anothers 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 childs sin blunts his sensitiveness to holiness and to the evil of sin. The mothers 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 worldthat was what lay heavy on His heartand 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 beginningthe beginning of victoryan 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 failureRobertsons, Maurices, Colensos; but they are having now a second and a better lifethe 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 neer out of sight,

The cross of a grey worlds 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 felland 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. Pauls day this was an idea so new and so wonderful and so wonderfully helpful that it excluded in the Apostles 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 Apostles mind the all-transforming thought that God was not law, but love. The death of Christthis 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 mens dispositions and reach down to the very centre of feeling, and that should take hold of mens 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 lifes onward action and lifes 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.), Loves 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).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

not: 1Co 1:22-25, Joh 17:3, Gal 3:1, Gal 6:14, Phi 3:8-10

Reciprocal: Exo 38:7 – to bear it withal Act 5:42 – preach Act 8:5 – preached Act 8:35 – preached Act 11:20 – preaching Act 18:24 – an Rom 1:16 – I am Rom 16:25 – and the 1Co 1:6 – the 1Co 1:18 – the preaching 1Co 1:23 – we 1Co 15:1 – I declare 1Co 15:11 – General 2Co 2:1 – I determined 2Co 4:5 – Christ 2Co 6:6 – knowledge Gal 2:2 – communicated 1Th 1:5 – what 1Pe 1:25 – this Rev 7:5 – tribe of Juda

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

PAULS RESOLUTION

For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

1Co 2:2

With St. Paul everything else but Jesus Christ and Him crucified was a matter of secondary importance, and in this resolution of his we see a striking proof of the influence of the sufferings of Christ upon His first disciples.

I. It was not that St. Paul despised learning, or thought there was nought else worth the knowing. He was an educated man, as education was understood in his age and country. A student of Gamaliel, versed in rabbinic lore; a soldier; a politician; a great traveller, familiar with the life and customs of the greater portion of the civilised world; a philosopher and a poet. In becoming a Christian he could not annihilate his manifold education or the world of fact with which he had become acquainted. Christianity, whatever it does, does not place a premium upon ignorance or stupidity. But it is a mark of mental greatness and earnestness to single out matters of chief consequence from others less noteworthy, and to concentrate attention upon them. It was this that he meant.

II. For him the central object of Divine revelation was the Cross, and no more splendid homage could he have rendered it than this, that he should behave as if nothing else were worth thinking or speaking about. The Corinthians were vain of their spiritual gifts and their theosophies; he sought to correct their aberrations and to humble them. It is thus the Cross has still to thrust everything else into the background. It is the joy of the Christians heart, the theme of his conversation, the glory of his life.

III. The Cross of Christ is of chief consequence in the reconciliation of sinners to God, and therefore it ought to receive the closest and most earnest attention.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

1Co 2:2. Know is from EIDO, and the definitions and explanations of Thayer occupy nearly two pages in his lexicon, which indicates the wide range of its meaning. In the present verse it has the sense of “to pay attention, observe; have regard for, cherish.” It means that Paul determined not to be concerned about anything but the story of the cross, with its offered mercies to the children of men.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

1Co 2:2. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. He would not only know but one theme, but would hold that forth in precisely the light which he knew would prove the most repulsive to their fastidious ears and corrupt taste. For this being that in which every fact of His life has its explanations, and from which the whole principle of His work takes its character, he felt he could neither keep it back, nor soften it down. Yet this was no bravado. He was tremblingly alive to the possible effect of making this the pivot of His ministry.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

That is, “I determined not to discover to you, or display before you, the eloquence and wisdom of the Greeks, or to give you any other knowledge but that of a crucified Saviour, which, alas! is to them foolishness.” Yet must not these words be understood absolutely, but comparatively; not as if the apostles did absolutely despise or contemn all other study and knowledge, much less vilify true philosophy, logic, or oratory; for all knowledge is useful to him that knows how to refer it to right ends, and God has made nothing knowable in vain; but that all other knowledge, without the knowledge of Jesus Christ, is insignificant and ineffectual.

Note here, 1. The subject-matter of St. Paul’s study and preaching, it was Jesus Christ: not Jewish traditions, not the Gentiles’ philosophy, but him in whom are hid all the treasures of knowledge.

Note, 2. The special relation in which our apostle chose to study and preach Jesus Christ: and that was as crucified; Christ above all other subjects, and Christ crucified above all other considerations, because Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness: human wisdom despised the sufferings of Jesus Christ, but the apostle made them the subject of hes study, and the scope of his study, and the scope if his preaching.

Learn hence, 1. That as all of Christ, so more especially his death in all the mysteries of it, ought to be the principal subject of a Christian’s study and knowledge.

Learn, 2. That as there is no doctrine more excellent in itself, so none more necessary to be preached, than the doctrine of Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Oh! let ministers then preach, and by preaching prepare their people to receive the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And let both ministers and people count all things but dross in comparison of that excellency which is in the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

1Co 2:2-5. For I determined not to know any thing, &c. To act as one who knew nothing, or to waive all my other knowledge, and not to preach any thing save Jesus Christ and him crucified That is, what he taught, did, and suffered. Or, not only to preach the gospel sincerely, without any mixture of human wisdom, but chiefly to insist upon that part of it which seems most contemptible, and which human wisdom does most abhor, namely, concerning the sufferings and crucifixion of Christ. And I was with you At my first entrance; in weakness Of body, 2Co 12:7; and in fear Lest I should offend any; and in much trembling The emotion of my mind affected my very body. For I knew that I had enemies about me on every side, Act 18:6; Act 18:9, and laboured under natural disadvantages, 2Co 10:10; and the force of the prejudice which I had to encounter was strong. And my speech In private; and my preaching In public; was not with enticing words Or persuasive discourses; of mans wisdom With eloquence or philosophy, or with that pomp and sophistry of argument, which the learned men of the world are so ready to affect; but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power With that powerful kind of demonstration which flows from the Holy Spirit; which works on the conscience with the most convincing light, and the most persuasive evidence. That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, &c. That your belief of the gospel, and the various important truths of it, might not be grounded on, or appear to be gained by, human wisdom or eloquence; but in the wisdom and power of God Teaching mens ignorance, guiding their foolishness, and giving efficacy to such weak means as he has seen fit to use.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Vv. 2. This verse confirms the preceding (), supporting it by the idea that this mode of acting was the result of a plan fixed beforehand. The term , I judged good, is well explained by Heinrici by means of Cicero’s phrase: Mihi judicatum est. Comp. 1Co 7:37; 2Co 2:1. 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. The word , for or to the end of, which the received text reads before the infinitive , to know, emphasizes, a little too much perhaps, the idea of a resolution taken after reflection.

Paul might have used the word say instead of know. But the latter implies a renunciation, not only outward but inward, of the use of those foreign elements.

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 recommend Jesus to the attention and admiration of the wise; in Jesus Himself he believed that he should exhibit only the side that was least attractive to human wisdom, but alone able to save,

Jesus Christ crucified,so much did he dread giving rise to cases of adherence which would have rested only on an intellectual or aesthetical, and consequently superficial, attraction. The , among you, however, leaves room for the idea that, where he has not to reckon with this danger, he will allow himself to go beyond this limit; comp. 1Co 2:6. But the true servant of Christ thinks of converting before giving himself up to the pleasure of instructing.

In 1Co 2:3, before finishing the development of this idea, the apostle reminds the Corinthians how his personal attitude at Corinth corresponded to this humble form which he determined to give to His teaching.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. [Paul here asserts that the subject-matter of his preaching was selected from choice, or fixed design. He does not mean to say that every sermon was a description of the crucifixion of our Lord, but that all his teaching and preaching related to the atonement wrought by Christ upon the cross. This atonement, through the sacrifice of our Lord, was recognized by Paul as the foundation of the Christian system, and he here means to say that he handled no doctrine or theme at Corinth without remembering and recognizing its relation to that foundation.]

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

2. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him having been crucified. The whole Bible is but the biography of Christ the Old Testament, Christ Excarnate, and the New Testament, Christ Incarnate while the crucifixion is the grand central culminating fact of the Christhood, for which He vacated His heavenly throne and came to earth that He might redeem her guilty millions from sin, death, and Hell by His expiatory death on the cross. While this is the tragical history of our wonderful Christ, it is really but the primary hemisphere in the gospel school. The globe of salvations wondrous scheme must be consummated by the addition of the hemisphere of the experimental to the historical. This can only be done by following Jesus to the rugged cross and permitting the Holy Ghost to nail you fast to it till you suffer, bleed and die, and bury Adam the first so deep into His death (Rom 6:3) that all the powers of earth and Hell can never resurrect him.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

2:2 For I {b} determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

(b) I did not profess any knowledge but the knowledge of Christ and him crucified.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

As far as his preaching went, Paul only spoke about Christ crucified. This was his regular practice (Gal 3:1). He left all other knowledge aside.

"According to Acts xviii. 1 Paul moved on to Corinth from Athens, and it is often supposed that after an attempt to marry the Gospel to Greek philosophy in his Areopagus speech (Acts xvii. 22-31), which was attended with indifferent success (Acts xvii. 32 ff.), he determined to change his tactics and preach nothing but the cross. [Note: E.g., Barclay, p. 26.] For this imaginative picture there is no evidence whatever." [Note: Barrett, p. 63.]

". . . 1 Corinthians is more than a practical letter aimed at telling the readers what to do and what not to do. The letter in fact primarily seeks to influence the minds, dispositions, intuitions of the audience in line with the message Paul had initially preached in the community (1Co 2:2), to confront readers with the critical nature of God’s saving action in the crucified Christ in such a fashion that it becomes the glasses to refocus their vision of God, their own community, and the future. The advancing of such an epistemology gives the letter a theological purpose that unifies its otherwise unconnected structure." [Note: Charles B. Cousar, "The Theological Task of 1 Corinthians," in Pauline Theology. Vol. II: 1 & 2 Corinthians, p. 102.]

Centering his preaching on Christ crucified was not a new tack Paul took in Corinth because of previous lack of response (cf. Act 17:22-31).

"What Paul avoided was artificial communication that won plaudits for the speaker but distracted from the message. Lazy preachers have no right to appeal to 1Co 2:1-5 to justify indolence in the study and careless delivery in the pulpit. These verses do not prohibit diligent preparation, passion, clear articulation, and persuasive presentation. Rather, they warn against any method that leads people to say, ’What a marvelous preacher!’ rather than, ’What a marvelous Savior!’" [Note: Carson, p. 35.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)