We must have 'power over our own will.' The dis tinctive more than a living soul,' even a quickening spirit.' This was what Corinth had more fully to learn. And if there be any principle more than another distinctive of S. Paul it is this, that man in Christ has 'power over his own will,' a power which Christ renewed to us from God, a power inaugurated with all the marvels of a new birth, and given in order to re-touch and form our whole inner being. Philosophy knew of no such power, neither in its dream of Epicurean wilfulness nor of fate-bound Stoicism; for, apart from the Divine, there could be no such force. There is no power but of God. But even thus, to turn to the true God, and possess this Power as His gift, is not enough. It must be used aright by men themselves, for both body and soul. We may better learn what this using of a true principle of power is, by reverting to the essential union of and its phi- Monotheism in conscience, and Righteousness in life, S. Paul: losophy. already pointed to, as asserted by the history of our racef for the Apostle to Corinth deals with what we may dare call the philosophy of this oneness ; or, as we have said (p. 80), the ‘principle.' The secret of all Goodness is in the Supreme, for by the necessity of the case there can be nothing higher or more perfect than He. In Him then, as Supreme, is Power as well as Good. And so, when the world departed in heart from the living God,' it departed from Good, and from the power of good. Well, then, might the Apostle speak as he does of the conversion of the world to God as the mystery of GOD,' the mystery hid from f Lect. II. p. 62; V. p. 168; VIII. p. 293. III.] AND THE RISING TO LIFE ETERNAL. previous generations of men corrupted in all their powers. To be brought to God' is to find Power. 83 ism a moral pro- power in must Goodness Christ: And thus the message of the Gospel, known and given by S. Paul to the Corinthians, becomes this: 'There is one God, the Father from Whom are all things; and we for Him and one Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things and we through Him.' The Supreme God, and the Supreme Saviour, Who Monothe gives power to come nigh to God, are alike claimed as known.' This knowledge of God never be powerless where it is really 'received.' power merely to know' is indeed a sacred gift, but it must go forth and become a power to do, or it is selfcondemned as useless. Here in the Gospel of S. Paul we thus have the middle term between Monotheism and Goodness, even the effectual Power that comes from the Spirit of Christ' which He bestows, i.e. a gift supernatural. is thus The ordered, 12. The Apostle, be it observed, never represents the Saviour Whom he preached as merely teaching abstract truths about the Divine nature or our own. To bring us to God,' as 'made anew' in the image of God, is no philosophic elevation only: it always implies a Power 8. Such power for us needs to reach also to a Life higher than the present, and unlimited by the grave. And so, since 'the new man is from Heaven,' it is life Eternal' to Know God, and Jesus S. John Whom He sent. This opens to us yet further considerations. For as it was necessary that our Gospel should g See Bishop Butler, Part II. c. 5. xvii. 3. 84 future life. OUR RELIGION MUST BE SUPERNATURAL; [LECT. deal effectually with that higher and eternal life which we crave, the knowledge to which it leads and asks a must be that which would not only sanctify our souls, but also deliver our bodies from the bondage of corruption for our bodies are part of us. In other words, if the knowledge of God and our future life were to be available, or indeed any better than an opinion, or a philosophy, it must have power for our hereafter; and the barrier of death must be found to be such as may really be passed by us. The Resurrection of the Body thus becomes a necessity. Knowledge of Christ means knowledge of the Resurrection. This therefore is that 'knowledge of Christ' which stands next to the pure knowledge of God,' in S. Paul's theology, as he elsewhere says: that I may know Him, and the power of His Resurrection,' 'if so be I may attain unto the Resurrection of the Dead.' Whatever we really think has a power—but there is 'a power of God' in such a Gospel as this. Herein, says the Apostle to Corinth, Christ is to us not only 'Wisdom from God,' but Righteousness, and Sanctification, and even Redemption' of the Body,—i.e. a Moral Power and a Divine. A Religion for man, without the supernatural, that is, without a Divine power pervading it for both soul and body, for the present and the hereafter, were a misnomer. Here is the principle. Nature alone can never rise above itself. As they only who have human life sympathize with things human; so also the spiritual alone discern the spiritual. We perceive, then, that it is only from 'heaven' we can have the new man. The discoursing of the mere 111.] AND SECURE OUR RESURRECTION. 85 What I Cor. ii. 11. natural man as to things unseen and eternal is a the Resur rection, a power. It disposes of a thousand questions of the hour, when once the spiritual nature within us wielding its marvellous might has risen to these two thoughts of the unearthly and the future: the thought of Faith in GOD; and the thought, that in my flesh I shall see God!' And hence, in these Epistles to Corinth, not only is the truth of God asserted, as at Thessalonica, against all idolatry, chapter after chapter, but the impugned doctrine of the Resurrection of Christ and His people holds, as a principle, a foremost place. What, henceforth, can the idol temples and sacrifices of this world concern the man who has, for his moral foundation, 'communion now and hereafter with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ,' in the Power of His Spirit?' Well might the highsouled Apostle bid every one who shared this knowledge shrink from all defilement here, and hold his Christianity as truly a talisman to disperse from his pathway every possible obstacle of earthly evil. Apostle's the Resur Utter it with the Apostle's reality of faith, I be- The lieve in the Resurrection of the Body, and the Life of realizing the world to come,' and it is a Power in full action. rection. It rings through human nature as with the sound of the Archangel's trumpet, rousing the new man to his the end. new life in God. No vain boastfulness was it when S. Paul once exclaimed, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.' Obliged, as he was in writing to Corinth, to the unexpected defence against objectors, both of his Lord's Resurrection and his own future rising, the magnificence of his vigorous faith suddenly bursts the bounds of restraint. It is no mere tradition, ‘Jesus and the Resurrection,' no sacred word that he has just clung to as true; he sees it all! 6 'Then cometh the end!'-and he is rapt to meet it. I Cor. xv. Before him, in marvellous array, sweeps onward the stately future of the elect, and the heavens and the earth are in conscious commotion-the 'mortal putting on its immortality,'' star differing from star' in Vision of manifold glories, moving upward to its rank in circles 'round the everlasting throne.' Then, lo, he descries in the midst HIM Whom he had once seen in light from Heaven,' 'Christ Jesus, the First fruits,' but 'afterwards they that are Christ's at His coming.' And-listen to his exulting words, we,' too, we rising for our lot, we shall be changed!'-Is it that, while so rejoicing, his faith is gifted to discern his own most special place near to his Saviour's side? Is it for himself that he already realizes the 'corruption putting on incorruption,' and the last victory won? No indeed, he speaks for us all, for the consummate Church in which we may be changed to His image, the image of the SON Himself, Who shall then give up the New Creation to the Father, that God may be all in all.' |