Reading: 1 Corinthians
2.
"We... are transformed into the same image"
(that is: 'We pass from one form to another')
2 Corinthians 3:18.
As I have moved about amongst Christians in many parts of
this world, and in many situations, one thing has been
growing upon me more and more strongly. In the presence
of a great deal of confusion amongst Christians and many
complications in Christianity, the feeling has become
stronger and stronger that the need is for Christians
really to know what Christianity is, and to know what it
is that they are in as Christians. That sounds, perhaps,
rather drastic, but I am quite sure that a very great
deal of the trouble - and I think all agree that there is
a good deal of trouble in Christianity generally - is due
to a failure really to understand what Christianity is.
It may seem strange that I should speak to you, mostly
experienced and mature Christians, about the true nature
of Christianity. Well, if you feel that it is
presumptuous and hardly called for, be patient, and I
think that before we get very far you will feel as I do:
that although we know a good deal about Christianity as
it is taught in the New Testament, we are very often in
difficulty ourselves for the very simple (or profound)
reason that we have not really grasped the meaning of
what we are in. So often, when distressed as to some
situation, and perplexed that it should have come about,
I have found that that is just what the Word has said
would happen.
May I say to you (and I am sure you will agree after a
moment's thought) that the major part of the New
Testament, by which I mean all these Letters which make
up the larger section of the New Testament, is all
bearing upon this one thing: to make Christians
understand what Christianity is. If that is true, and all
these Letters WERE to Christians, surely we have
to conclude that even New Testament Christians needed
Christianity explained to them, and even then there was
this necessity of just defining the real nature of that
into which they had come.
Begin with the Letter to the Romans. Was that necessary
for Christians? It was written to Christians, but what
was it written for? To put them right in the matter of
Christianity! Apparently those people were not quite
clear in their position, in their lives and in their
hearts as to the implications of that into which they had
come by faith in Jesus Christ.
Proceed, as we are going to do, into the Letters to the
Corinthians, and what are they? Set over against a
background of real confusion and contradiction in
Corinth, those Letters were written really to try to make
the Christians understand what Christianity really is.
And so on and on through the New Testament that is the
object; that we and all who believe in the Lord Jesus
should really have a clear understanding of what this is,
of the meaning of the name we bear, and the meaning of
that which we believe and into which we have come by the
grace of God. We can gather it all up in this simple
statement: that the whole Christian life is an education
as to what Christianity is. Is that true? Do you not
sometimes stand in the presence of some situation, some
difficulty, some trial, some complication, some
perplexity, some experience, and say: 'What does it all
mean? I am a Christian. I have put my faith and trust in
the Lord Jesus. I am His, but I don't understand what it
all means. Why this experience? Why am I going this way?
Why has this come my way? Why is my life such as it is?
These many things are so full of mystery and perplexity.
What is it that I have got into? Is this Christianity? Is
this really what I have to expect and accept? If so, I
need understanding, and enlightenment, and I need help as
a Christian, for this thing is often beyond me
altogether.'
Well, that is the setting - but is that true? If there is
anyone who has never been that way, who has never had a
moment like that, and whose path has been so nice and
smooth, with everything so right and well adjusted and
without any kind of trouble, I will excuse you if you
like to read no further, for I have nothing to say to
you.
Well now, what is the point on which these words in 2
Corinthians 3:18 are focused? "We are
transformed...", and it is the present active tense:
'We are being transformed'; 'We are in a process of
transformation, passing from one form to another.' There
is a sense in which that fragment, that condensed verse
put into those few words, touches the heart of the whole
New Testament and explains everything.
Having said that, we come back to this second chapter of
the first Letter to the Corinthians. This Letter (as
indeed are all the Letters, but this is a very good
example) is built around two contrasted words, and they
are in this second chapter. Those two contrasted words
describe two different types of humanity, two different
manhoods, and between the two, firmly and squarely the
Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is planted. Look at the
chapter again in the light of that last statement!
"When I came unto you... DETERMINED to know
nothing among YOU save Jesus Christ, and him
crucified", and everything after that rests upon
that distinction between these two types which the Cross
divides and says: 'That belongs to one category of human
beings and this belongs to another category of human
beings.' There is a cleavage cut by the Cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ between those two which separates them and
makes them two different species of mankind. That truth
follows right through this Letter. Read it through with
this in your mind. The Apostle here speaks about a
foundation and a building. He says: "Let each man
take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation
can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus
Christ", and then he drives the wedge of the Cross
right into the superstructure and speaks of one kind of
work or works, which are the product of one type of man,
or Christian, and another kind of work, or works, which
are the product of another kind. The first will go up in
flames and will never be found in eternity. It has gone
for ever. The second will abide. It will abide the fire
of judgment and the test of time, and be found in the
ultimate structure, or building of God.
You see, Paul is applying this principle of the divide
between two kinds of Christian people, and to the two
kinds of work, or fruits, from each respectively, and the
building, he says, as to its eternal value, will be
determined by who is producing it, by what kind of man,
or manhood, is producing it. Which of the two is
producing this building? Think about this! These are not
non-Christians. What an immense amount is being built
upon Christ that is going up in smoke! Every man's work
will be tried by fire, and its real value and its
endurance will be determined by and will depend upon
where it comes from, that is, from which of these two
types of manhood.
Now you are wondering what the two words are which define
the two types of manhood. Read the chapter: "the
natural man... he that is spiritual." There are the
two words: the natural and the spiritual CHRISTIANS.
They are not unconverted people, not non-Christians. Is
it necessary for me to put in all the detail to confirm
and ratify what I am saying? May I remind you that the
Apostle Paul had been in Corinth for two whole years with
these people! I do not know what you think, but if you
had the Apostle Paul going in and out for two whole
years, you would have plenty of ground for consideration!
He WAS there amongst them for two whole years,
going in and out, teaching them probably every day, and
then he went away for five years. Then he heard things
which were reported to him by the household of Chloe. I
wish everyone would do what the Apostle did! He did not
take the report without investigating it. He got the
report and then immediately despatched a reliable
messenger to investigate, either to find that the thing
was not true or to find that it was so. The messenger
sent and came back, saying: 'It is all true, and worse
than the report.' The deterioration in five years!
You are perhaps startled and shocked by that, and will
say: 'Can it be?' Well, remember the messages to the
seven churches in Asia in the Revelation, and how all
those churches began. There were wonderful things in
those churches at the beginning. Read the story of the
beginning of the church in Ephesus, and what a story it
is! Against such tremendous antagonism and hostility
those people came out clearly, and they brought all their
magic books, of which the price is given (and that
represented a tremendous amount in human values!), and
piled them up in the open street, or it may have been the
market square, or some open place, and set them all
aflame. That is a thoroughgoing division! But where is
that church in the Revelation? "Thou didst leave thy
First love. Remember therefore from whence thou art
fallen, and repent" (Revelation 2:4-5). What can
have happened? Well, I put that in by way of emphasising
this possibility, at least, of declension. Why in
Corinth, why in Ephesus, and why in the others that
decline? Come back to the two men, the two men instead of
one man, the two men instead of each individual. It is
not a dividing of a company into this category and that
category, but the two things in a person. You know, we
are all, if we are the Lord's, in some measure natural
and spiritual. Do you agree with that? The question is
not whether we are altogether perfect and there is no
more of the natural in us. That is not the point. The
point is: Who is dominating and governing? Which of the
two, the natural or the spiritual? Here in Corinth, as we
see by the Letter, the natural man was in control in the
men and in the women and had taken ascendancy over the
spiritual man.
The two words, then, are 'natural' - and you do not need
that I should tell you that the Greek word is 'soulical'
- and 'spiritual'; the man of soul and the man of spirit
always in conflict. Who is going to have the upper hand,
the mastery, in every one of us? The two are in each
person.
INTELLECTUALISM
Now what is this natural
category, this natural species? Look at the Letter again.
First of all, the dominance, ascendancy, control of
intellectualism, the wisdom of this world. That is the
thing that is being marked and underscored as a part of
the trouble in Corinth; the control of intellectualism,
the natural reason, the natural mind, the idea that you
are going to solve the problems of life along
intellectual lines. Will you tell me that that is not a
peril of Christianity today? Why, it is everywhere! It
shouts at you from the religious press. You may not read
so much of it, but it is my business to be familiar with
what is happening in the Christian theological world, and
I tell you, friends, that as I read certain theological
magazines I find DEATH. They are wearisome to the
spirit. All this terrific effort to solve the problems of
Christianity by the human intellect; the research,
argument, discussion and debate, theses, etc.;
philosophical Christianity trying to solve spiritual
problems; what a weariness it is! I have to put these
papers down sometimes! I cannot finish them, for they are
so dead, so utterly lifeless. And that sort of thing is
everywhere. It is thought that if you go to our seats and
seminaries of learning with a clever brain, able to put
out a convincing argument, you are going to save souls.
There never was a greater fallacy!
This Letter to the Corinthians says that. Read this
second chapter again and you will find that Paul is
saying that. Paul was an educated man, so much so that
for two thousand years the best scholars have found him
defeating them, and they have not mastered him yet! Come
to the religious bookshops and look at the shelves on the
exposition of the New Testament, and you will find that
Paul predominates. I got a book by one of our leading
professors of theology in the universities and it was
called A Portrait of Peter. This man, with all his
learning, set out to give us a portrait of Peter. I
opened the book and found that the first few pages were
wholly occupied with Paul! He could not get to Peter
because Paul was in the way, and the issue of his attempt
was: 'Well, Peter was a great man, but Paul was very much
greater!' Yes, this man Paul was an educated man, an
intellectual man, a learned man. You cannot discredit
Paul along that line at all, for he will beat you every
time in that realm - but listen! 'You Corinthians, when I
came to you I came not with excellency of speech or of
wisdom, but in fear and in much trembling. I had
determined that I would know nothing amongst you
intellectual Corinthians save Jesus Christ, and Him
crucified.' What was Paul's conclusion? 'It is no use,
however much I may have of the schools, whatever I may
know, however I might be able to argue with the
Corinthians or the Athenians on Mars Hill, I will get
nowhere along that line with a spiritual situation like
this. I have made up my mind about that.' It is part of
the natural man to think that you are going to be able to
build up something by intellectual, scholastic, academic
acumen. The fact is that what intellect can build up,
intellect can pull down!
POWERISM
Then look at this
prominent word: power. It is there in the chapter:
wisdom... power; and at Corinth there was a worshipping
of natural power, ability to conquer by natural strength.
You can call it 'powerism', for it was an 'ism' there.
Crush by your superior strength, impose something
forceful, mighty, upon people, and you will win. Only be
strong enough and you can solve all the problems and
change all the situations. 'Powerism' is the natural
man's idea of how it is going to be done.
EMOTIONALISM
Then emotionalism has a
large place with these Corinthians. Going to capture,
captivate and master, and gain your end by force of
emotion stirring up people's feelings, playing upon them,
working upon them until they make an almost hysterical
response. If you do that well and thoroughly you will get
some Christians! The Apostle says: 'Not at all!' It is
evident that these Corinthians were very emotional
people.
FOOLISHNESS
What does the Apostle
put over against these three aspects of the natural man?
Over against wisdom he puts 'foolishness'. In the first
chapter he speaks of "the foolishness of the
preaching". You find that 'foolishness' was a great
thing with the Apostle Paul! "We are fools for
Christ's sake" (1 Corinthians 4:10). What did he
mean? Well, he did not mean: 'Be simpletons!', which is
what we immediately take to be the meaning of being
foolish. What Paul meant by foolishness was the denial
that intellectualism could find out God. 'The princes of
this world, and the wisdom of this world did not find out
God', said Paul, 'and they could not find Him out. They
could not find out anything to do with God.' "The
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of
God: for they are foolishness unto him: and he cannot
know them." Foolishness is the denial that all the
wisdom and all the philosophy of the Greeks there in
Corinth, where they boasted of this thing so much, could
get through the barrier to find God; and that all this
power of mind and will projected and asserted in any way
whatever will come up against the barrier and not get
through, will not find God, nor the things of God. It is
all written off as foolishness when the quest for God is
pursued along that line. How foolish it is! And Paul
gives a wonderful, almost startling, example of this:
"God's wisdom... which none of the rulers of this
world knoweth: for had they known it, they would not have
crucified the Lord of glory." There is not much
sense in that wisdom, is there? Not much logic or
philosophy in that!
So Paul puts what he calls 'foolishness' over against
their wisdom, meaning a positive denial registered by the
Cross of the Lord Jesus that mere intellectualism can
find God and the things of God. It cannot, for the
natural man cannot!
WEAKNESS
Over against the
powerism of this mentality of the natural man, the
Apostle almost glories in using the word 'weakness'. He
says even that Christ was crucified through weakness, and
he is always speaking about, and glorying in, his own
weakness. What does he mean? The denial that this kind of
human force, assertiveness, can achieve anything in the
spiritual world. What a building we are tearing down!
You know, that has been the test of man right from the
beginning. Was it not the test of Abraham to let go even
of what God had given him in Isaac? The test of this
man's real spirituality was the ability to let go. Was it
true of Jacob? Was he not a man of tenacity, of
determination, a man who would get what he wanted at any
price, at the cost of anyone else's convenience and
wellbeing? Was that not the issue of Peniel, or Jabbok?
"I will not let thee go!" That is Jacob! He had
been like that all his life, holding on tenaciously to
what he wanted, what he had or what he wanted to have.
But the finger of God touched the hollow of his thigh,
and after that you can see that he is a cringing man! See
how he meets his brother Esau!
You are not, whether you are Abraham or Jacob or any of
the others whom we might mention, going to get through
with God fully and finally by your own natural
determination and tenacity. One of the great lessons of
the Christian life is to learn how to let go to God. Oh,
all the exhortation to be strong in the Lord, to endure,
to acquit you like men and be strong, does not mean with
this natural strength. It is another kind of strength,
and a very different kind, a strength which is only seen
by our ability to let other people sometimes have their
way, to get what they are after and set us at nought.
They hold, grip, maintain things in their hands to our
disadvantage, and our real strength is in our weakness.
The Apostle Paul put this into words. Read the second
chapter of the Letter to the Philippians: "Christ
Jesus, who, being in the form or God, counted it not a
prize to be on equality with God, but emptied himself,
taking the form of a bondservant... becoming obedient,
even unto death, yea, the death of the cross." Well,
has it proved to be the right thing? 'We are being
changed...' Do you see the point now?
BALANCE
So, over against
intellectualism - foolishness; over against powerism -
weakness; over against emotionalism - what? The denial
that the quest, the craving, the pursuit of
sensationalism will get you there. For I believe that was
the heart of these Corinthians' lust, their excessive
desire, their outreach of soul for spiritual gifts. It is
impressive that it is to the Corinthians, far more than
to any other church in the New Testament, that so much is
said about spiritual gifts. These demonstrations, this
display, these things that you can see and glory in
because you can see them, are all out of sensationalism.
I am quite sure, from what we read, that if you had gone
into those gatherings in Corinth you would have seen some
hysterical behaviour as they made these spiritual gifts,
as THEY thought, the ground and nature of their
spirituality - and they are the most unspiritual church
of all. So over against unbalance, lopsidedness in the
Christian Church, there is need of balance.
Do you notice one characteristic of these Christians, one
defect which is written so clearly and so largely here in
the Letter? There is a lack of the power of spiritual
discernment, the spiritual perception, the spiritual
intuition which warns us: 'Go steady! Don't be carried
away! Don't be thrown off your balance! This thing may be
all right in its right place and under proper control,
but be careful! There is a snare in every spiritual gift,
and if you make the GIFT the main thing and not
the spiritual meaning of the gift, that thing, which in
itself may be quite right, will lead you into trouble.' I
am covering a lot of history when I say that. Perhaps
some of the biggest problems with which some of us have
had to deal in people have been the result of this
unbalanced quest for the manifestation of the sensational
aspects of Christianity.
Well, perhaps some of you are not able to understand all
this, but this is the situation here in Corinth, and I am
only saying this to show that there are these two orders,
these two categories of what I have called species of
humanity which have their residence within one shell of
the human body: soul and spirit. They are there, and the
Apostle writes to these same people - for the second
Letter is only a continuation of the first - 'We are
being changed from one form to another.' What is going
on? What is the process of the Spirit of God in the
believer? What is the meaning of all this that the Lord
allows to come our way, this discipline, these
adversities, these trials, these sufferings, these
difficulties, these 'strange things' (to use Peter's
words, for they are strange to us as coming from God, or
being allowed by God)? What is the meaning of it all? To
bring about the change, the transformation from one
species to another, from one kind of humanity to another.
There is something in each trial, in each adversity in
the suffering, which, under the sovereignty of God, is
intended by Him to make a difference in us. 'We are being
transformed.'
It is certainly not wrong to have a soul! It is THAT
which has to be saved. In the course of that salvation,
the great lesson is how to keep the soul under the
control of the spirit. This is what is meant by being
'spiritual'. This is truly "He that is
spiritual".
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Jul-Aug 1969, Vol 47-4