LORD’S DAY
The Cross is
the Concentrate
Man’s Glory outside it = ZERO
(MGOCC=0)
I Corinthians 1
1.
ENERGY WITH LIMITS 1:1-12
First we notice the universality of
Paul’s teaching – “all who in every place call on the
name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.” There is nothing
local about it. It is (I Cor. 14:37) the command of
Christ through His apostle. This is important in seeing the relevance of I
Cor.14 to the current all too frequent disobedience met in Pentecostalism.
Next we see the eager work in the Corinthian church, but it is becoming too
divisive about personalities, something not uncommon today, in this or that
person’s theological ‘system’. Despite
this lapse, Paul speaks to those who are willing to hear him, trusting the Lord
“will also confirm you to the end, that you may be
blameless in the day of our Lord.” God in His faithfulness, he says,
will do it!
In the process, Paul exhibits the folly
of following ‘names’ other than Christ’s, asking, “Was
Paul crucified for you …?” How much less is the pretension of the papacy
or the bread it serves as if it were Christ being sacrificed, to be heeded. That, it is not merely putting a ‘name’ other than
Christ’s, that of someone NOT crucified for you, where it cannot belong, but
bread in the name, where it would have meant Christ committing suicide at the
last supper!
2.
UNITY IN TRUTH 1:13-25
Thus sacramentalism
is dismantled in vv. 13-15, the very idea of baptism at the hands of this one
or that, being irrelevant BECAUSE “Christ did not send
me to baptise, but to preach the gospel.” It is not a matter of inventing new super-immersionist methods of
baptism (remember John 13:10 with Exodus 40:31 and Numbers 8:7). We need no
charm or innovation, incantation or desperation: it is the cross of Christ which
would merely be set aside by such preoccupations. It is reality, not symbol, that no charges the air, staring you in the face,
and HIS face was smashed up, requiring resurrection, the shape of sin and the
signal of sovereignty of the Lord God.
I Cor. 1:21ff. pursues the
theme. The message of the Cross is
v
madness to
philosophers, sunk in a mire of words, and
v
folly to Jews who like miracles like medicine (and many as
in Romans 10, go about, says Paul, to demonstrate their own righteousness,
being ignorant of the Lord’s precious gift of it). Power is relatively easy: love’s cost is far
more.
If, the point is, you have the prodigy of divine love
and power in the Cross and the resurrection inseparably annexed to it, what
more do you want ? (cf. Romans 8:34, 10:9). In it are
the wisdom and the power which others seek to extract from this world, without
the Lord. God’s ‘weakness’ (on the Cross), says Paul, is stronger than man, and
His “foolishness” (in being so generous and
gracious) is wiser than man (
3.
RICHES FOR THE POOR 1:26ff.
There is in fact in the plan of God, a relegation of
the flesh to virtual irrelevance, so that the grandeur of the realities of God
may be realised and life lived through them (cf.
Galatians
It is however through this same Jesus
Christ that there comes the whole array of vigorous virtues from the Lord, to
be revealed, accepted and sealed (Ephesians 1:6). Christ is our wisdom (in
incarnation and illustration), our righteousness (in redemption as in Romans 3
and 5), our sanctification (inhabiting what He buys in redemption, He brings
peace, purity, holiness and unspeakable joy, which is a strength).
Is there then something left out ?
is there a place for man’s glory ? Alas for man, it is
only when He ceases to imagine glorious things for himself (cf. Isaiah
Does a great oak bask in its own glory, or gleam in
green and hang its delicate tassels with unconscious kindness and delicacy with
strength mixed ? Imagine now that it ‘forgot’ itself
by remembering its gifts, and using them as a sort of eau-de-cologne spray for
vanity! He who loses his life for Christ, gains it, and he who gains it for
himself, loses it (Matthew
Here, at the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, are the
cross-roads to glory where, sin cancelled, the Lord as one’s resident
President, as a new road, theme and inspiration, draws the loving heart home
(John 14:1ff.). This path, it is well
prepared, so let us continually prepare our hearts for Him, whose saving plans
and actions were from eternity (Micah 5:1-3, Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:17,29-30),
whose life is eternal (I John 1:1-4), and for whose children, “Your joy no man takes from you” (John 16:22). It is
then that you realise, “The
joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah