SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 June 1921, Page 10

SUNDAY READING.

THE CROSS CRUCIAL. ‘•For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”—-1. Cor. 11. 2. (By Rev. A. H. Collins, New Plymouth.) Expositors are not yet agreed as to the exact rendering of this familiar passage. Some of them accept the words as they stand in the authorised and. the revised versions; but others of equal learning and piety hold that the text should read: “For 1 did not determine to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” The difference is im. portant, as a simple illustration will show. Suppose an overseas visitor to the Dominion should say, “1 determined not to know anything in New Zealand, save Socialism.” You would at once understand that other subjects were excluded, and. he was resolved to confine his attention to that one topic. But suppose he said, “I did not determine to know anything among you save Socialism.” Then you would know that whilst his mind was fully made up on that one question, he would keep an open mind on other matters. So is it here. If we adopt the authorised version and follow Stanley, and Edwards, and Lias, then whkt Saint Paul says is that he will confine his preaching to the one subject of

‘‘Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” to the exclusion of all beside. If, however, we take the passage as it is translated by Alford, Ellicott, and Godet, then the Apostle’s meaning is that, whilst his mind is fully made up on the doctrine of Christ’s death for the sins of the world, he reserved the right of free enquiry and free speech on other questions. He would make “Christ crucified” central, regulative, determinative. He would preach that with emphasis of deep conviction. He would find in that inspiration and joy, but he would preach other aspects of truth as well.

How are we to determine which of these views is the more correct? Clearly it is not a question of scholarship, or piety alone; for there are equally able and good men on both sides. The appeal must be to the Apostle himself as he stands revealed in his life and his letters. Did Saint Paul confine his ministry to this one aspect of truth? There is only one answer. He did not restrict his message so. He preached “Christ cruciled, dead and buried.” He returned to it again and yet again. It was one of the triumphant certainties of which he never tired; but he taught other truths as well. At Athens he preached Christ risen as well as Christ slain. At Thessolonica he preached Christ’s second advent, no less than His first. At liJphidus he preached the doctrine of the church as well as the doctrine of the cross. Each of his Epistles contains very much besides the doctrine of Christ’s death. Saint Paul’s ministry touched the whole life of man. It is from him we have received some of the most illuminative and convincing e: positions of fam'ily life, social obligations, civic duty, and national ethics; not to mention the Christian doctrine, marriage, trade, the church, and the ministry, and if to preach “Christ and Him crucified” is to follow the Apostle’s example, then it does not mean making the death of Christ the subject of every sermon, but rather to aoply Christ’s spirit to every branch of human life. It is to teach self-renunciation for another’s gain; it is to teach patience with other men’s dullness; it is to teach charity towards other men’s faults; it is to teach the august claims of strict truthfulness, and an austere regard for personal honor. When these aspects of truth are preached, we preach “Christ and Him crucified,” no less than when wp dwell on the. sorrows of His death and the moral significance of His so infinite sacrifice. For the purpose of Christ’s death is not simply to stir the heart’s tender emotions, but to compel us. to take His hard way, and live His brave and selfless life. In this connection the word “Christ” stands for His religion, His spirit, His rule of life. In Jewish circles it was common to give the name of a religious teacher to his system of doctrine. When Jesus said, "They have Moses and the prophets,” He did not mean that these men were still alive, but that their teaching was enshrined in the books which bore their names. In the same way, when Christ said, “I came not to destroy the law and the prophets,” His meaning plainly was that He had come to enlarge, enforce, and confirm their teaching. So on t'he lips of Saint Paul, to preach Christ was to preach Christ’s doctrine, on Christ’s authority, and to uphold His spirit and method. In some communities it is common to delineate the Saviour dying on the torturing cross, in the hope that men’s feelings will be softened. On the Continent of Europe the commonest object on the wayside, and in the churches, is a crucifix with ‘the Divine Redeemer hanging thereon, His head bent low under the weight of pain and exhaustion, His hands and feet torn, His lieart pierced, and His blood slowly dripping away. Yet in no part of Christendom ie tlie moral significance of the cross less truly understood, for these crude and garish representations of Christ’s mortal agony carry little influence in life and morals. The same is true in isome Protestant churches, where preachers gifted with dramatic power depict the physical suffering of the cross, and seek to stir the people’s imagination, and leave conscience and will unmoved. For these sensuous appeals to the blood of Christ leave the hearers in a state of mental torpor and spiritual benumbment, and their finest feelings dribble away in pleasant surges of religious feeling which never harden into definite and heroic surrender. Now, Saint Paul preached Christ, Christ crucified, but you will search his writings in vain to find materialistic representations of the physical agony of our Lord. The evangelists tell the story of Christ’s Passion; but they do it with wonderful restraint and reserve', for they reverenced the Lord too deeply to linger on His bodily pain. They realised that it was not the torturing flesh, but the surrender of His holy will, the perfect obedience of His sinless soul, that availed for the world’s salvation. To approach the cross for the purpose of weeping over a dying friend is to miss the chief influence of the crucifixion. We should visit Calvary not to indulge in natural softness of feeling, but to gain firmness of spirit, to fortify our hearts to hardness in the endurance of truth and duty. To live as Christ lived, to die as Christ died, to sacrifice self to God as Christ did, these are the lessons of the life laid down; and any singing, painting, or preaching of the cross which does not issue in such brave living and noble deeds is neither believing nor preaching “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

It is 'here we get on the track of the Apostle’s thought. Corinth was the home of the Jew and the Greek, and both were prejudiced against the doctrine of the cross. The Jew asked for a “sign,” some outward and visible proof that Jesus was Messiah. If He would head a revolt and shatter the legions of

Rome they would welcome Him. But the cross’ Was it not written in their law, “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree?” To the Greek it was different. He loved speculation and delighted in weaving verbal gossamer, and to him the preaching of the cross sounded like a defiant paradox. He would have none of it. Saint Paul would gratify neither. He would not soften “the offence of the Cross” in order to escape Jewish prejudice, neither would he smother the cross with flowers in order to flatter the intellectual vanity of the Greeks. He would confine himself to the truth which had revolutionised bis own life, and demonstrated its virility in the cities of Asia. The wisdom of his choice has been endowed all down the Christian centuries. The early triumphs of Christianity were triumphs of the cross. Wliorever, or whenever, the death of Jesus Christ has been obscured or denied it has resulted in the quenching of Christian zeal, aud the paralysis of Christian life. Whenever and. wherever ■the cross has been central in the ministry of the church, signs following have proved that it is “the wisdom of God and the power of God.” It is the missionary’s and the martyr’s creed. When every other appeal has failed, the appeal of the cross has been an appeal of undiminished authority over the mind, the conscience, and the heart of man.

You know' why I have spoken in thia strain. I have not spoken lightly. It •seems clear’ to me that “Jesus and Him crucified” must ever be the central theme of every warmly evangelical ministry. Hence through these past twelve months I have striven to commend Christ, with every atom of intellectual and spiritual power I possess, and I humbly hope I have not entirely failed. I have not used phrases or methods for which, it may be, some of you have a fondness I do not share. I have not interpreted preaching Christ in ways you have been accustomed to interpret it. But if I have failed to represent Jesus Christ as the sum of all doctrine, the example gf all virtue, the motive of all obedience, and one al] sufficient Saviour of sinful men, then I have failed indeed, and “Ichobod” is written on it all. It is a great, an impossible task. Many times and often I have left the pulpit humbled and ashamed. Great mountains dwarf the beholder, and even palaces look small in their shadows! Who can hope to shine in presence of the cross? Who would wish to shine there? ’Enough if we mightstand here from week to week, like a finger-post pointing to “the Lamb of (lod who taketh away the sin of the world.” It is now more than fifty years since, as a lad, I stood in the open air and preached to a company of sinful and degraded people in the lowest part of my native city. I have trudged thousands of miles on foot to preach, in villages and hamlets. People called me then “The boy preacher,” and I am still only “a ’prentice hand.” I wish I could preach! I would choose to be a preacher before all else in this wide world. The joy of it! The glory of it! The strain of it! Preaching has been my passion, as long as I can remember. There are some things I know I cannot do. No one ever suggested that I could sing, or paint, or play. I can’t even play golf! If I can do anything, let it be preach, for if that were not my vocation I would make it my voluntary service. I hope to preach so long as life remains, then, when the end shall come, lie down and sleep—- “ Happy if with my latest breath I may but gasp His Name, , Preach Him to all and cry in death Behold! behold! the Lamb.”