Beloved congregation, the theme this afternoon to which
I would call your attention is Paul's theme
for spiritual discernment.
It is based upon the passage of Paul
in 2 Corinthians 3 verse 18, where we
read, For we all, with open faith, beholding
as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, are chained into the same image from
glory to glory, even as by the Spirit
of the Lord.
If ever Paul the apostle was tempted to
compromise the gospel, it was when he first
came to Corinth.
The Corinthians were Greeks.
The Greeks boasted of the wise men of
their past, of Socrates, of Plato, and of
Aristotle.
Surely greater thinkers than these have never appeared.
These wise men have searched the universe out
for the bottom of reality.
Some of them said that man is related
to the God.
Others said he is not.
All of them were uncertain.
A general agnosticism prevailed.
This agnosticism produced what they thought was great
tolerance on religious matters.
After all, no one could know for certain
what was true about the God.
The opinion of one would be as good
as the opinion of another, but no better.
Would not Paul do well under these circumstances
to offer the gospel as a new hypothesis
for the explanation of his religious experience?
How else could he get a hearing for
these scientifically minded people?
Would they even listen to him if he
claimed to know the truth?
Would he not be ignored as a fanatic?
Would he gain any converts if he spake
in forthright fashion of the living God, manifest
in the world, and of Christ, the Redeemer
of men?
But Paul would not compromise his gospel.
For months he labored with the Corinthians.
The Jews blasphemed.
The Greeks turned aside.
Very few converts were made.
Paul, perhaps you are wrong after all.
Your gospel antagonizes men, sugar-coated, just a
little.
That will find you an entrance.
Thence Paul spake the Lord to Paul in
the night by a vision.
Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not
thy peace, for I am with thee, and
no man shall set on thee to hurt
thee, for I have much people in this
city.
Encouraged by this heavenly vision, Paul challenged the
wisdom of the Greeks.
In his first epistle to the Corinthians, he
writes, Where is the wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the disputer of this world?
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of
this world?
For after that, in the wisdom of God,
the world by wisdom knew not God, yet
pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to
save them that believe.
He determined to know nothing.
Among them saved Jesus and him crucified.
He did not request the place for his
God in the Greek Parthenon.
He demanded the destruction of the Parthenon itself.
His God had made the world.
Their gods were but idols made by the
hands of men.
He did not offer Jesus as a teacher
of equal rank with Socrates.
He required that they bow at the foot
of the cross.
He had used great plainness of speech in
thus challenging the wise men of the world.
And the secret of it all?
Paul believed in the God whose face confronted
him everywhere.
He believed in that God whose hands the
hearts of kings are as watercourses.
Paul believed in Christ.
He believed in that Christ who stopped him
on the way to Damascus to change him
from a persecutor into an apostle.
He believed in the Holy Spirit.
In my speech, he says, and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom,
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of
power.
The Holy Spirit has blessed his ministry.
There is a church at Corinth now.
There are those who have believed what I
have not seen, nor heard, nor have entered
into the heart of man.
There are those who have received not the
Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which
is of God, that they might know the
things that are freely given to us of
God.
That which was impossible with men has proved
to be possible with God.
But again the Jews blasphemed and the Greeks
ignored or ridiculed.
What did Paul think of himself?
Did he know more than all the wise
men of the past?
Again the temptation comes to Paul to compromise
his message.
Again he resists the temptation.
They ridiculed his claim to special knowledge from
God.
He does not condescend to justify himself by
appealing to their own standards.
Do we begin, he says, to command ourselves
when we say that we are unto God
a sweet saver of Christ in them that
are saved and in them that perish?
No, my fellow Christians, I plead with you
not to be led astray by these false
teachers.
You know that what I have spoken is
the truth.
You know that you yourself once thought this
truth was nothing but foolishness and fanaticism.
You yourself are manifestly declared to be an
epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not
with ink but with the Spirit of the
living God, not in tables of stone but
in fleshly tables of the heart.
Paul will continue to speak plainly.
He will continue to challenge the false assumptions
of men.
He knows the natural man receives not the
things of the Spirit of God, for they
are foolishness unto him.
Neither can he know them, because they are
spirit discerned.
But he also knows that the Holy Spirit
of the sovereign God freely gives that spiritual
discernment which they need.
Thus when he tells the Corinthians that he
has used great plainness of speech, he suddenly
turns aside to a glorification of the dispensation
of the Spirit.
In the midst of a discourse that speaks
of his own ministry as an apostle of
Christ, he turns to a panegyric on the
dispensation of the Spirit in general.
Of this panegyric on the Spirit and his
work, our text forms the climax.
In it, Paul glories in the spiritual discernment
of the New Testament believers.
One, Paul glories in the nature of their
spiritual discernment, for it is the New Testament
as over against Old Testament believers.
The nature of the spiritual discernment of which
Paul's speech appears first and foremost in the
fact that it is the direct fruit of
the liberating work of the Holy Spirit.
But we all, says our English translation, that
brings out at once the contrast with the
Jews of the old dispensation.
This contrast there is, is there no doubt.
It is even the burden of our text.
Still there is a more immediate connection of
our verse with that which is preceded.
It is because the Holy Spirit has made
us free that we now see with open
faith.
Those who have not the Spirit are still
in darkness.
They retain the veil upon their faces.
The Spirit has lifted this veil from the
face of those that believe, and that has
made them free.
The liberty here intended, says Hodge, is the
glorious liberty of the children of God.
It is the liberty wherewith Christ has made
us free.
It includes freedom from the obligation to fulfill
the law as a condition of salvation.
Therefore it includes also freedom from a legal
slavish spirit.
We have not received the spirit of bondage,
he says, again to fear, but the spirit
of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
This includes freedom from the dominion of sin
and from the powers of the devil.
It includes freedom from the bondage of corruption,
not only as to the soul, but also
as to the body.
Incidental to this liberty is freedom from all
ignorance and all subjection to the authority of
men, except so far as it represents the
authority of Christ himself.
The Old Testament saints did not enjoy the
fullness of this liberty.
We must distinguish here very carefully.
There were true believers in the Old Testament
times, and there were those who could not
enter because of unbelief.
The contrast of our text is primarily concerned
between believers in the Old and believers in
the new dispensation.
The believers in the old dispensation did have
a portion of the spirit.
If they had not had this, they would
not be believers at all.
They did all eat the same spiritual meat
and did all drink the same spiritual drink,
for they drank of that spiritual rock that
followed them, and that rock was Christ.
Yet it was not till Pentecost that the
Holy Spirit came to dwell with his people
in the fullness of his power.
Then the sons and daughters began to prophesy,
the young men to see visions, and the
old men dream dreams.
But Paul also contrasts the New Testament believers
with those who do not have the spirit
at all.
Even after Christ had come, there were Jews
who refused to see in him the fulfillment
of the law and the prophets.
In Corinth, the Jews blasphemed.
They were therefore in principle no different from
the Greeks.
Plato spoke deeper than he knew when he
gave us his analogy of men in the
cave.
Men are prisoners, he said.
They sit in a cave where their faces
store darkness.
Their heads are chained.
They cannot behold a single ray of the
sun.
At best, they see shadows of things upon
the wall of the cave.
To these Jews and Greeks alike and chained
in prison's dark, Paul preaches Christ as the
power of God and the wisdom of God.
Those who were called, both Jews and Greeks,
had been set free.
These were the ones who now could see.
No longer did they sit in the cave.
They saw the light of the sun.
Paul rejoices greatly in the fact they do.
So he emphasizes the fact that we all
see with open faith.
It seems that he thinks of Moses as
he went up to the mount.
He thinks of the words of Jehovah, which
Moses had to speak to the people.
Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice
indeed and keep my covenant, then ye shall
be mine own possession from among all people.
For all the earth is mine, and ye
shall be unto me a kingdom of peace
and a holy nation.
All the people had answered together, all that
Jehovah hath spoken we will do.
But the Lord knew how little they understood
what they had said and how hard were
the hearts of many of them.
He did not allow them to come up
to the top of the mountain with Moses,
said the Lord, and thou shalt set bounds
unto the people round about, saying, Take heed
to yourselves that ye go not up into
the mount, or touch the border of it.
Whosoever touches the mount shall be surely put
to death.
No hand shall touch it, but he shall
surely be stoned and shot through, whether it
be beast or man.
Even after Moses had come to the top
of the mountain, he was charged to go
down again to warn the people, lest they
break through to Jehovah today, and many of
them perish.
Then said Moses, The people cannot come up
to Mount Sinai, for thou didst charge us,
saying, Set bounds upon the mount, and sanctify
it.
But the Lord insisted that Moses, though he
was now aged, should go down to charge
the people anew, not to gaze upon him.
Then came the terrible lightnings and thunderings on
the mountaintop, and Mount Sinai, the whole of
it, smoked, because Jehovah descended upon it in
fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as the
smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount
quaked greatly.
Is it wonder that the people trembled?
Is it wonder that they quaked with fear?
And they said to Moses, Speak thou with
us, and we will hear, but let not
God speak with us, lest we die.
In contrast to all this now, Saul takes
his people straight to the top of the
mountain.
Pentecost has come.
There was also the sound of the mighty
rushing winds, but it brought no fear.
And there appeared unto them tongues parting as
thunder, like as a fire, and it sat
upon each of them, but they did not
tremble.
They were filled with the Holy Ghost.
These Parthians and Medes and Elamites and dwellers
in Mesopotamia.
Moses kept warning the people not to come
near unto Jehovah.
Paul keeps inviting the people to come right
into his presence.
That is the contrast Paul has in mind.
But does not Paul fear for his own
authority and standing with the people?
Did not the people stand in awe before
Moses, the man of God, just because it
was he alone that went to the top
of the mountain to speak with the Lord?
Yes, that is true.
But how gladly Moses and the prophets would
have seen it otherwise.
The true prophets of God, even in the
Old Testament, dispensation, did not rejoice in the
spiritual ignorance of the people.
They lamented it.
They were as lonely giants walking in the
Valley of Dwarfs.
Oh, that all God's people were prophets was
the burden of their prayer.
And now all the people are the prophets.
That prayer of Moses has now been heard.
It is Pentecost.
And now all God's people have preached.
The veil has been rent.
From the top downwards, God's people, may all
of them come into the presence of God.
What joy this for the true servants of
God.
Is their office now jeopardized?
Is there no need of ministers of the
gospel?
Does Pentecostalism follow from Pentecost?
Does Quakerism and Bookmanism and Testimonialism replace the
sacred ministry of the word?
Not in the least.
Paul presupposes the permanence of the ministry.
He rejoices in its greater fruitfulness because of
the spiritual visions of the people.
As a great artist would rejoice in an
increase of artistic appreciation on the part of
those who abuse the portrait.
So this great artist of the gospel, who
has so often openly set forth a crucified
risen and savior, rejoices that now there are
those who really understand, who have real genuine
spiritual discernment.
Did Paul mean that in Corinth things were
now actually ideal?
Not at all.
There was in Corinth much lack of true
spiritual discernment.
The Corinthians were yet carnal.
Paul spoke to them as unto babes.
There was factionalism.
They doubted the resurrection.
There was lack of discipline.
There was discipline that was too severe.
Things were not by any means what they
ought to be.
The church of the Lord Jesus Christ was
for Paul first and all of an object
of faith.
But it was gradually being realized in this
world.
Paul therefore did all he could to have
the Corinthians live up to what they have
in Christ.
He would have us ministers of the gospel
do all we can to bring the people
up to that level of spiritual discernment which
is theirs in Christ.
Our special gifts are to be at the
service of the church as a whole.
We shall not covet a sort of refined
Roman Catholicism in the guise of Protestantism.
We shall not be higher up in the
scale of being than are the simplest of
men.
And then Paul stresses that it is we
all with open faith that we see.
Paul rejoices not only the fact that in
the new day all believers see.
He rejoices to note that how they see.
They see with open faith.
What good would it have done if Moses
could have taken all the people to the
top of the mountain if they had poor
eyesight?
The bright light of the glory of the
Lord would have blighted their vision.
Paul gives a striking example of this.
What happens to those who saw something of
the glory of the Lord while not prepared
for it?
He sees the Jews of his own day.
They insist on reading the Old Testament without
recognizing Christ in it.
They were fools and slow of heart not
to see that the Christ had to suffer
and to be raised again on the third
day.
Yet they seem to see something of it.
Paul preached to them the gospel of the
resurrection of the Lord.
What happened when he did?
They blasphemed.
The more light they had, the more blind
they became.
They were exposed to the light of the
Son of Righteousness.
Just that it was that made them blaspheme
and to express their faith in the darkest
of darkness that was given unto the sons
of perdition.
Are we not then distorting the figure which
Paul employs?
If these Jews had a veil on their
faces, were they not protected from the light?
Oh no, they were not.
They were not protected though they did not
see.
The light irritated their eyeballs underneath this veil.
There is no veil sufficiently heavy to keep
men from being irritated by the gospel.
They will antagonize it if they will not
believe it.
They can never be neutral with respect to
it.
And Paul, bold as he is, rejoices in
the fact that he is a part in
working out the mysterious plan of God.
He is a sweet saver of Christ unto
God in them that are saved and in
them that perish, to the one from death
unto death, to the other a saver of
life unto life.
He, Paul, an apostle of the Lord Jesus
Christ, an able minister of the New Testament,
was working for God and under God and
with God for the consummation of the ages.
But most of all he rejoices in the
vision of the redeemed.
He may take his people to the top
of mountains.
He need not fear that they will be
blinded by excessive light.
Moses and the prophets saw their panoramic vision
alone.
Now all may see.
Now all may see with telescopes that bring
near things that are far away, close up
to them.
Things that seemed at a distance and vague
are now brought nigh and made clear to
all.
Thus the apostle contrasts the people of the
new day on the one hand with those
Jews who had no vision at all and
on the other with those who had the
power of sight but who had no telescopes
with which to see the distant panoramic scenes.
Does Paul not fear that his offices, his
influence, will be jeopardized?
Would he not rather be the lonely mountain
climber that has seen something that no one
else has seen in order to boast of
visions and of revelations that he has had?
No, he would not.
He would take them all to see what
he has seen.
There remains enough for him to do.
As the minister of Christ to them, he
will point out the beauties of the scene.
Having therefore such hope, we whose great plain
is of speech and are not as Moses
who put a veil on his face, that
the children of Israel should look steadfastly on
the end of that which was passing away.
Moses had put a veil on his face
because there was a veil on the faces
of hearts of those to whom he was
speaking.
As the minister of the old covenant, he
could not speak plainly.
He could not proclaim the whole counsel of
God to them.
They would have been further confused by it.
The brilliance of the objective redemption had to
be dimmed because of poor eyesight, the spiritual
obtuseness of those to whom it came.
But Paul speaks plainly and fully, and need
not be anxious that such speaking is now
in vain.
He has fed them with milk, but now
he will also feed them with solid meat.
Nor is it as though he can sometimes
do this, and then again he cannot.
He is not speaking of moments of high
spiritual attainment to be followed by a descent
into the valley of the mist below.
The veil he intimates in the form of
his expression is not lifted so that it
may at any time drop again.
The veil has been entirely and permanently removed.
If you approach a distant mountain peak gradually,
your vision may from time to time be
obscured.
There are the foothills and smaller mountains that
obstruct the view of the highest mountain toward
which you are climbing.
But Paul thinks of the whole party as
having arrived at the top of the mountain,
and each of the party has a telescope
of his own.
They see, and they see constantly, and they
see clearly, and they see all of them
together in unison.
No, tell me not if this is untrue
to Pauline thought and to Christian experience.
We speak of ups and downs in our
Christian life.
Paul does not teach perfectionism, yet as we
are holy in Christ, as we are without
sin in Christ, so we also see constantly
in Christ.
The Church of Jesus Christ is an object
of faith, but what is an object of
faith is gradually being realized.
Therefore, Paul's labors are not in vain in
the Lord.
No, they are most abundantly fruitful.
He can speak unto them, not as unto
carnal, but as unto spiritual men.
Such is the nature of the spiritual discernment
of the New Testament believers.
Through the power of the Spirit, the congregation
of Jesus Christ, old and young alike, equipped
with a telescope of faith, are led by
the servants of the Lord to see, to
see without interruption, and to see unitedly as
one body the glory of the Lord.
And then Paul glories in the object of
this spiritual discernment.
What is it now that they see?
They see there a glorious vision.
Would Paul have rejoiced so greatly in the
fact that all could see, and that all
could see constantly if there was nothing very
great to see?
What is then the vision that they do
see?
They see the glory of the Lord, which
is the glorified Lord.
Here, too, we deal in a contrast, and
here, too, we deal with a twofold contrast.
In contrast with what the New Testament believers
see, Paul thinks of those who see nothing
at all, who are outside of Jesus Christ,
whether in those days or of any other
day.
He thinks of those who see nothing at
all.
He thinks of those who have the Spirit
of the world and of what they see.
What did they see?
They saw only the wisdom of the world
conceived.
The world by its wisdom knew not God.
They changed the glory of the incorruptible God
for the likeness of an image of corruptible
man and of birds and four-footed beasts
and creeping things.
Therefore they crucified the Lord of glory afresh.
They understood not his suffering and the glory
that should follow.
They knew not that wisdom which had been
hidden, which God ordained before the world unto
our glory.
What did many of the Christians do when
Paul told them of Christ and the firstfruits
of them that slept?
What did they do when Paul told them
that Christ, whom they had crucified, must reign
till he hath put all his enemies under
his feet?
Even the last enemy, which is death itself,
they sneered, they scoffed.
They saw no empirical evidence, they said, for
the resurrection of the body, and so there
could be no such thing.
They did not wish to be so dogmatic
about things that are beyond human experience as
was Paul.
How different, then, the case of Moses and
the prophets.
Moses knew God as the creator.
He knew God as the one who doeth
all things according to his will.
He knew that man had sinned against God
and was driven from the place of glory,
even from paradise.
He knew the holy God and he spake
of the commandments requiring absolute obedience of man.
He saw the awful majesty of God, Jehovah,
on Mount Sinai.
He knew the promises of God to his
chosen people, a promise of a glorious future.
He saw far off the vision of him,
that prophet like unto himself, that should come
through whom the promises should at last be
fulfilled.
In comparison with the wise men of the
Greeks, Moses saw a glorious vision.
The Greeks and all sinful men could see
nothing but darkness.
They could see no glorious future.
They knew no God who controls all things.
They knew no prophet that could tell them
of such things.
They knew no priest who sacrificed for sin.
They saw no king who will be victorious
over evil.
So then Paul stands with Moses over against
those of the world who do not see
it all.
Yet he and all the New Testament believers
with him see far more than even Moses
saw.
How the true Old Testament saints long to
see that further day, yea, they went to
glory at their death, but it was the
glory by anticipation.
Moses who saw what he saw on the
Mount Sinai came back on another mount, this
time the Mount of Transfiguration.
He and Elijah spoke with Christ of his
decease that he should accomplish at Jerusalem.
Enter not now into the land of glory,
they said to Jesus on this mount.
As it were to Jesus, enter now, not
now into glory, lest we be cast out
of glory.
We are in glory because thou art to
suffer for us.
Walk then, we beseech thee, with the Via
Dolorosa to the cross, the way of sorrows.
You must go alone.
Then Jesus set his face steadfastly toward Jerusalem
where he should suffer.
Yes, even while in his humiliation he was
glorious.
His disciples beheld his glory, the glory as
of the only begotten of the Father, full
of grace and of truth.
But Paul thinks here of that glory which
you'd follow, that glory which you'd follow all
his suffering.
Behoved it not the Christ to suffer these
things and to enter in his glory?
He that said, but I seek not mine
own glory, was raised up in glory by
him whose glory he sought.
Christ was raised from the dead through the
glory of the Father.
To him was given a name which is
above every name.
To him was given the kingdom of the
earth which Satan promised him if he only
refused to suffer.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and
be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and
the King of glory will come in.
Who is this King of glory?
Jehovah strong and mighty, Jehovah mighty in battle.
Who is this King of glory?
He who was declared to be the Son
of God with power according to the spirit
of holiness by the resurrection from the dead,
even Jesus Christ our Lord.
He is the King of glory.
It is Christ now risen, now ascended, now
seated at the right hand of the Father
whom the Apostle saw and whom he was
anxious that all the whole Church of Jesus
Christ should see with him.
It was him that he rejoiced to see
together with all his fellow believers.
Together they see him.
Together they see him constantly.
Together they see him clearly.
They see him in a glass.
But does not Paul then speak of seeing
in a glass darkly?
To be sure he does.
But in that passage of 1 Corinthians 13
he compares what we see now with what
we shall see hereafter.
Now are we the sons of God, he
says, and it doth not yet appear what
we shall be.
But in our text Paul compares what we
see now with what the Old Testament believers
saw.
The mirror is here used as a symbol,
not a glass through which we see darkly.
That glass is no doubt the gospel in
which Paul says he has spoken plainly.
That gospel now laid down in the scriptures
is the mirror in which we may see
the glory of the Lord.
In that mirror all may see.
In that mirror alone can we see the
glory of the Lord.
It is indispensable or absolutely necessary.
In that mirror we see the original and
only picture of the glory of the Lord.
The scripture is sufficient and authoritative, yet it
is the risen Christ in the scriptures that
we see.
How the apostle rejoices in the vision of
the glory of the Lord.
How he delights to show the congregation more
and more of that glory of the Lord.
That glory of the Lord is inexhaustible.
He turns the mirror then this way and
that way.
He wishes them to see every aspect of
it.
When through the lust of the eyes they
turn to look at the right or to
the left, he calls them back to look
to the glory of the Lord.
When through the weariness of the flesh they
grow faint, he stirs them up to look
at the glory of the Lord.
How he pleads with those who admire the
mirror and obscure the vision of the people
of God.
He pleads with them not to bring men
back into the darkness of Plato's cave.
He pleads with them to let Christ-freed
men to be free indeed, to be free
that they may see the glory of the
Lord.
But if they would obstruct or obscure the
vision of the glory of the Lord, he
withstands them to the face.
God's people, he is determined, shall see the
glory of the Lord.
Not even Satan can stop them from doing
so.
So Paul glories in the change that is
wrought by the spiritual discernment.
And when the people of God see the
glory of the Lord, they are changed.
Here is something wonderful indeed.
Paul paints the portrait of the glorified Lord
as he and all New Testament believers watch
this portrait being painted.
As they see in it the mirror, something
happens.
It is a lifelike portrait that they see.
More than that, it is a life-giving
portrait.
They look at it again and again.
They look at it constantly.
Then suddenly they look at themselves.
They see themselves by reflection.
What a contrast between themselves and that picture.
How ugly they are, how vile.
But they have watched the painting of the
portrait by Paul the Apostle.
They saw the glory of the Lord and
his suffering.
They saw what had happened to him in
a sense had happened also to them.
They saw that he satisfied the demands of
the law for them.
Hence there is no condemnation for them that
are in Christ Jesus.
Thus the ministration of condemnation is turned into
the ministration of the Spirit.
The Old Testament saints did not see clearly.
They saw no doubt the end of that
which was to be abolished.
They saw not clearly that the blood of
bulls and of goats and of an heifer
calf pointed only to the blood of the
promised one.
At best they wasted much effort in doubt
whether their good works were not meant to
satisfy the law as the condition of salvation.
Relieved of this enervating doubt, the New Testament
believer can make steady progress on his pathway
to sanctification.
They walk on solid ground.
They have seen Christ's portrait to them as
raised from the dead.
They know they have been raised with him
to newness of life.
What certainty, what assurance of faith is theirs?
The Spirit testifies with their spirits that they
are the children of God.
They know that they will proceed step by
step with Christ into his glory.
For we through the Spirit, says Paul, wait
for the hope of righteousness by faith.
They walk in the Spirit.
They shall not fulfill the lusts of the
flesh, and the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance.
They will stand fast in the liberty with
which Christ has made them free and be
not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
They will put off concerning the former conversation,
the old man which is corrupt according to
the deceitful lust, and be renewed in the
spirit of their minds, that we may put
on the new man which after God is
created in righteousness and true holiness.
They will put on the new man which
is renewed in knowledge after the image of
him that created him.
Finally they will be received into glory.
By the Spirit they now understand that hidden
wisdom which God ordained before the world unto
our glory.
They are not afraid of affliction and evil,
for our light affliction, they will say, which
is but for a moment, worketh for us
a far more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory, while we look not at the things
which are seen, for the things which are
seen are temporal, but the things which are
not seen are eternal.
They are heirs of God and joint heirs
with Jesus Christ.
If so be that they suffer with him,
they shall also be glorified together.
They do not even fear death.
Christ is to them the firstfruits of them
that sleep.
Christ has conquered the last enemy which is
death.
O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin, but sin
has been paid for by the Lord of
glory.
The strength of sin is the law, but
if you are led by the Spirit you
are not under the law.
Hence they say, but thanks be unto God
which giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ.
With this sense of victory they are steadfast,
immovable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord, knowing that their labor is not in
vain in the Lord.
All this the Apostle adds is just as
you would expect from the Lord, the Spirit,
that glorified Lord who has earned for his
people, who has given to his people the
earnest of the Spirit, as he went to
his home in glory to prepare a place
for his own.
His work is now identified with the work
of the Spirit.
Thus the Lord whom they seek is also
the Spirit who works within them.
He takes the things of Christ and gives
them unto us.
Is it any wonder that the Apostle rejoices
in this change of those who look at
the glorified Christ?
As in the case of the Galatians, so
in the case of the Corinthians, Paul might
well say, my little children of whom I
travel in birth again until Christ be formed
in you.
He knows that Christ is being formed in
them.
True, this is of all the object of
faith.
We walk by faith, not by sight, that
the change is real.
Those who believe can see it in themselves.
The change may seem to be slow.
This will not discourage them, nor will that
discourage Paul.
He has fed them with milk, but now
he will feed them with meat.
He will boldly seek to elicit that which
they have in Christ.
He knows his appeals to them will not
be in vain.
When he appeals for the unity of the
Spirit, they will realize their heritage and lay
aside their factions.
When they doubt the fact of the resurrection,
they will respond with joyful faith.
They all see, they all see with open
face, constantly and clearly.
Paul's great plainness of speech will bear abundant
fruit in their lives.
If thus they have looked at the glory
of the Lord, they may even reflect that
same glory among other men.
They will let their light so shine before
men that others, seeing their good works, will
glorify the Father which is in heaven.
Those others are still in Plato's dark cave.
Their heads are chained in darkness.
They behold no glory.
Hence they make no progress as they look
at the shadows that take them for realities.
Hence they also think they are moving forward.
They may even with penance and glorify what
they call progress.
She desires no isle of the blessed, no
quiet seats of the just, to rest in
a golden grove or to bask in the
summer sky.
Give her the wages of going on and
not to die.
Alas, they will go on, on forever in
the treadmill of vain opposition to God, in
whom the God of this world has blinded
the minds of them that believe not, lest
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,
who is the image of God, should shine
unto them.
But God may be pleased to give unto
some of them that light which now they
spurn, and he will use for that purpose
the light of the gospel as spread about
by those who are changed from glory unto
glory into the image of Christ.
My friends, as men about you are still
in darkness of Plato's cave, they grow blindly
about them for light.
But when you let the light of the
glorious gospel of Christ shine upon them, they
turn from you.
They cannot bear to see that light.
It blinds them.
Will you then depend upon your eloquence, upon
your attractive personality to make them see?
Will you put a veil over your face
in order to adapt your message to the
spiritual blindness of those to whom you minister?
Will you dare to speak plainly to those
who are the contrary part?
Eloquence and pathos will not in themselves soften
the heart of Shylock, nor will argument and
debate in themselves cause Plato to see.
Men seek often to be wiser than God.
Ministers wish to have men to see the
full light of the gospel, and we all
as believers are anxious that they should.
But they have methods of their own with
which to do it.
They will first bring men a part of
the gospel, and then the other part.
They hope to make the gospel attractive by
sugarcoating it just a little.
To those who are without, they will offer
the gospel as an attractive hypothesis that men
might offer and consider, one among many points
of view.
But Christ abhors this.
It is not the man that judges him.
He is the judge, and those that have
not desired him to be their king.
He will turn to his left hand and
say to them, I have never known you.
Paul was beyond this stage when he first
preached in Corinth.
If you are still in doubt whether you
will always and everywhere preach nothing but the
full counsel of God, you have not even
seen what Paul is taking for granted in
our text.
He knows he can and will do nothing
but speak plainly the whole counsel of God.
That is absolutely settled in his mind, but
now he rejoices looking back at the result
of that determination.
He had at the beginning been fearful.
He had trembled when he first preached in
Corinth.
This was a city of the great wisdom,
of the greatest of all philosophers of all
the ages.
He had been tempted to let down on
both the matter and on the content of
his speaking, but he had not let down.
He had trusted God.
Now God has blessed his efforts.
Himself changed from one who blasphemed to one
who gloried in the Lord.
He had seen others change likewise.
He had honored God.
Therefore God had honored him.
He had spoken plainly.
Let us therefore as believers in the Lord
Jesus Christ in our day also speak plainly.
And now, beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Lord bless thee and keep thee.
The Lord cause his face to shine upon
thee and be gracious unto thee.
The Lord lift up his countenance and give
thee peace.
Amen.