1 Corinthians 1:19-21 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.… 1. The wisdom of the world and the foolishness of the Cross are represented as rivals engaged in the regeneration of the race. By the "wisdom of this world" is meant all speculations begotten of antipathy to the conception of God, and intended to supersede its authority, including the labours and the spirit of those who do not like to retain God in their knowledge. Now, in this account of the wisdom of the world we cannot include science, or its discoveries, or literature. The most exalted work of God with which we are acquainted is the human mind. Even in partial eclipse, it is about the brightest of the known creations — and when the Scriptures refer to it it is always in language of respect. It is not intellectual labour honestly pursued, nor the discoveries and conduct which are the prizes of its success, that provoke the denunciations of Scripture. It is the mind that insists upon teaching everybody, but will not condescend to be taught by anybody. It is the mind that pursues as its chief end the distinctions, the worship of inferior minds, and allows itself to be flattered into delusions of greatness and authority until it acknowledges no other God but its own conceit. Now, the Bible has no mercy on men of this class; and for the very plain reason: in every age these men are the enemies of faith; and, whether they allow it or not, they are equally the enemies of morality. They are exposed in every book of the Scriptures. 2. And now let me ask, What is the pre-eminent virtue according to our adversaries, of learning and speculation? The votaries of these powers profess, while they have their accomplishments in refining taste and furnishing elegant occupation for leisure hours, that their chief mission is to raise the standard of life — to encourage its struggles against vice, and indolence, and want; to refine and multiply its fiery motions; to increase personal worth, and fit the entire community for great things. I agree with that. But here I differ from them. The wisdom which would make the human mind, thus cultivated, the ultimate authority on all moral questions, and make the training of the human faculties the source of moral power — has been stultified by God because it has universally failed. In endeavouring to cure the sickness of humanity the wisdom of man has not touched the roots of the disease. It has salved the surface, but never probed the wound. 3. If man were a mere animal we might look for a type of the family which has been formed under the most favourable conditions, and try to spread those conditions abroad. But man is not an animal. I grant that where climate is kind, and territorial selection happy, the tribe becomes a people, and the people a mighty nation. But I deny that this progress necessarily means the distinctive greatness of man. If I look at the Pyramids of Egypt, or the Colosseum at Rome, I see an impressive image of greatness. But, then, greatness itself is really the ascendency of moral intelligence — intelligence that grows righteousness. The wisdom of the world in its higher moods confesses this. But where is the people amongst whom the wisdom of the world has grown to righteousness? I confess that anything more sickly than the history of civilisation — as it is called — I cannot imagine. I visited Italy not long ago and I studied in its noble and pathetic remains the wisdom of Rome. In that city the man who wrote my text spent two years of his life. He was a man of taste, and he saw its beautiful palaces, its exquisite provision for the artificial productions of luxury, its triumphal arches, its amphitheatres, and he read its literature and saw its great men; and this was his opinion of its philosophy, and his analysis of it. "Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit," &c., and the deeds that philosophy dared not rebuke, and was utterly helpless to arrest, are darkly shadowed forth in another verse, "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, for it is a shame to speak of those things that are done of them in secret." He writes with a large and grateful appreciation of good wherever he may find it. He says, "Whatsoever things are true," &c. Oh! ponder the moral condition of Rome when Paul was there — there, where the accomplishments of men — where the wisdom of the world in every department in which that wisdom is concerned — had exhausted its resources, morality was not to be found (see Romans 1.). 4. At all costs the folly, the wickedness of the atheistic spirit must be made flagrant. And they were made flagrant. The atheistic spirit in the interests of humanity has been from the beginning a universal and an unqualified failure. It has done nothing for humanity; it has left behind it nothing but disaster. It has befooled the worshipper, betrayed the legislator, ruined the people, and but for the fact that God has put a testimony into your very mind to controvert this atheism — a testimony which sceptical habits long continued cannot subdue, which the most violent lusts cannot intimidate, a testimony confirmed by nature around us, and by the striking providence of God — but for that, I believe that the race would have perished outright. The man who impugns my verdict is bound to point out, if he can, in the vast wilderness upon which atheism has been working all these ages past — to point out one single acre reclaimed from the desert and made to blossom like the rose. 5. The apostle cries out with pardonable triumph, "Where is the wise?" And we may take up the parable, and ask where are they? Where are the problems which they say they have made their own? I will tell you. (1) The problem of the degeneracy of the race and how to arrest it. I wish them well over that. (2) The problem of bringing back the departed manhood of the savage tribes. Let them do their best with that. (3) The problem of invigorating and cleansing the nations of the earth — the stagnant nations of China and India — the problem of providing an adequate supply of knowledge, sympathy, and heart to meet the necessities of the race. These are their problems. They are a long time sitting down before them. Where are the wise to-day? They ought to be in the field if they are sincere. But they do not like the field. They are at home, writing, disputing, criticising! They were doing it in Paul's day: they are doing it to-day. It is their vocation! 6. What is the doctrine of the Cross doing to-day? Changing the world. I was thinking the other day whether I could find out one single force acting for the benefit of the human race that had not its origin from the Cross. I cannot find one. Who discovered the interior world of Africa? Missionaries. Who solved the problem of preaching liberty to the women of India? Missionaries and their wives. Who first brought into modern geography the hidden ]ands and rivers of China — unsealed for inspection the scholarship and opened for the enrichment of commerce the greatest empire of the East? Missionaries. Who first dared the cannibal regions, and converted wolves into a nation? Missionaries. To come nearer home. Who are those in Europe who are now lifting up their voices against war, that horrible perversion of the intellect and of the soul of man? Who are devoting their means and influence against vice in the high places and low, and against the infliction of wrong upon the defenceless? Who are those whose example of righteousness and purity and gentleness conforms with their own spirit the legislation of governments and the sentiments of society? The followers of the Nazarene. (E. E. Jenkins, LL. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. |
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