Fathers and Brethren! I would begin by reminding myself along with you that it is to the Synod that I am now called upon to preach. A congregation is present as well in this public meeting, and I trust that it may benefit in its role as observer. That is, however, something incidental to the work in which we now engage.
As this sermon is preached year by year, occasion has been taken, as is proper and right, to refer to both the past history of the Church and its future prospects. What I determine now is, rather, that the present situation of the Church be taken up; and I seek to evaluate what is, at once its privilege and responsibility, as declared to us in this verse of Paul’s First Epistle to the Church of Christ at Corinth.
As enabled, I seek to consider:
The Church’s duty to speak to the natural world.
Verse 12 in the context preceeding tells how the believers in Corinth had knowledge of the things of God, even as they had been blessed with the coming to them and the dwelling with them of the Spirit of God. As a consequence of this coming the nature of their knowledge was full, substantial and certain. Also, as corresponding to the conviction present in this knowledge was its preciousness and amazing worth as that which comprehended the things of God. And further, these were the things of God in the specific of the salvation of man and of the order of what eye had not seen nor what the wisdom of the world could conjure up. Still another feature of these things, of which the Corinthians possessed this sure understanding, was their freeness. These things were “without money and without price”, and this was certified to these believers in terms of the free gift to them of the Divine Spirit by whose agency this information became theirs.
Verse 13, as my present text, tells us, then, of the Church’s duty, both collectively and as single members, to set forth by speaking these great things. Because it knows it is in the position of being able so to speak; but the possession of this knowledge must also entail the obligation of so speaking and sharing with others what is intrinsically precious. A special obligation is present in the fact that the donation to the Church is so sovereign and free. It has received what was not its own in any sense and, therefore, believers cannot be selfish with such possessions but must distribute and share them out to the fullest extent of their ability. Seeing it is by the Spirit’s teaching that they have received the knowledge, there is this factor on the practical side that they cannot excuse themselves as being dumb and unable to speak. For the very Spirit who has taught them is now to be to them a mouth and wisdom in declaring abroad these same things of the grace of God.
Verse 14, our succeeding context, informs us concerning the natural man as not discerning nor receiving the things of God which become, in fact, foolishness to him. It is to these natural citizens of the world, nevertheless, that the Church is called upon to witness concerning the things of God. The task is plainly a daunting one, and which at the level of the appearance of things must appear as impossible of success. Possible or not, the undertaking of the work is most necessary, both because it is the natural men and women of the world who are in such desperate need of the things of God’s grace, and because God’s purpose of saving grace had as its object such people precisely who are by nature the inhabitants of this world who are living in the blindness of a sinful state and alienated from the life of godliness.
The duty devolving upon the Church as to the mode of speaking these things of God.
Secondly, I desire to consider the duty devolving upon the Church as to the mode of speaking these things of God. Speaking involves one in the use of language and the contrast instituted in the text is that between the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, or has taught, and which the Holy Ghost teacheth, or continues to teach. It may be agreed that by the words of man’s wisdom the Corinthian Greeks would understand, the propositions of their own philosophies and the logic and the rhetoric by which men were accustomed to propound these theories. In these we have a system of thought relating to the intellectual powers of man in terms of which a certain chain of argument is constructed. The methods of the Higher Criticism of the Scriptures as adopted by liberal theologians down to the present day, doubtless, provide us with a fair example of what is here. These words are, in general, reasoning that is constructed by human device and in terms of the powers of the mind of man. It is, at heart, the reasoning of the natural man and the unbeliever and, although it is a system as old as man himself, yet it knows no genuine development or success in the task of discovering God and the things of His glory.
When the Church speaks it is with human language and words that it does so — that is to say, the same signs or word-symbols that earthly wisdom uses — and yet the mould or fashion of these words differs in a radical sense. The explanation is to be found in the fact that, whereas human wisdom and theology endeavours to climb up from a human foundation and by creature device unto God, the wisdom possessed by the Church and enunciated in the text begins with God and comes down to us by way of revelation in the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth. Instead of being dependant for the quality of its end-product upon the strength of the human intellect, the latter is perfect as the disclosure to the creature of the mind of the all-wise God whose will the Divine Spirit searches out even to the depths. Such, then, is the voice of authority and certainty with which the Church speaks by the Spirit of God. The distinction is one of large dimension as between man’s words which have the appearance of wisdom and learning and the words of the Holy Ghost where is found the right wisdom of what accords exactly with the facts of the situation, and is truth.
Already it has been observed that the Church’s duty of setting forth in speech the things of God demands a use of words. Now, it might be noted as to what is the quality of these words down to the jot and tittle of their form. And Paul, speaking as the inspired Apostle, could certify to the Corinthians that his letter to them was word-perfect and letter-perfect as given under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It could claim perfection, alike as to the content of its teaching and as to its outward form, and both were essential. There need be no question, then, about Paul under the influence of the Spirit of inspiration, but I believe, also, that the Church can continue to use this form of expression as, in dependance upon that same Spirit of God, it seeks to expound to the world the message and doctrines of these unchanging Scriptures which God by His Spirit has given to it. This is to say, that we endeavour to use words to set forth with the utmost precision the mind of God for the world.
How there may be carried into practice the ideal of spiritual words.
Under the last heading we may examine the question as to how there may be carried into practice the ideal of spiritual words. Our Scripture answers — “comparing spiritual things with spiritual”! It must be fairly self-evident that the Church, in endeavouring to set forth in speech the things of God, does so in an intelligent, rather than a mechanical, way so that it would follow that the speaker must needs be a spiritual person as distinct from natural. That is to say that he has been regenerated by the Spirit of God, and that the Eternal Spirit indwells his soul. It is, further, necessary that this person keeps his spirit with care so that the graces of the Holy Ghost may be in lively exercise, and that there may follow life, speech and behaviour that accords with the mind of God. In short, we are to expect to find among the personnel of the Church that conduct that is agreeable to the mind of the Holy One.
When one comes more directly to the question of words that are spiritual this, as the text suggests, may be attained to by cultivation, through the labour of comparing spiritual words and statements of truth with other such words. Notably in this field, there is to be undertaken the work of collating the teachings of the Old Testament Scriptures with the New. Although the Old is spoken of as having possessed “carnal ordinances” yet they are spiritual in the sense of being the product of the Spirit’s revelation, and it is in the light of their fulfilment under the New Economy that their fuller spirituality may become clear. In the reverse direction, the words of the Spirit of God in the New Testament may be usefully examined in the light of Moses and the Prophets to yield fresh insights into their true sense. Thus, mutually as between Old and New there is a comparing of the spiritual with the like.
Without doubt, there are very many ways in which this work of comparison may be engaged in such as, say, between the claims of Law and the answer of the Gospel, between the exercises of repentance and faith in the exercisings of the heart. Further, Divine Providence is to be interpreted in the light of Scripture while the Scriptures themselves are exposited by Providence. Once more, while spiritual experience is to be examined and directed by what the Spirit dictates in Scripture, it is through this same medium of the Word of Truth that one may assay to further and deeper experience. It is by the checks on the one hand and the promptings on the other of comparing spiritual things with spiritual that the onward course on the narrow way to life may be maintained.
In conclusion, it remains for the Church to sift out what is carnal from the spiritual. It is no benefit to the world, and generation which we serve, to give to it carnal ideas and practices — it has more than enough of these already! What it needs is the spiritual, or what derives from the Spirit of God. This is what it is the Church’s privilege to minister and, without innovation or display, to hold on to the old ways in the confidence that these will overcome and renew the natural.