---

The power of preachers is very various. Some depend on the rhetorical form in which they present their message. Their appeal is rather to feeling than to intellect, and they are stronger in the persuasive than in the instructive faculties. Very important spheres open to such men, though their work always needs careful and wise following up and supplementing. Others depend almost wholly upon the value of their subject matter, and even fail to win the acceptance they might in consequence of their so entirely neglecting to culture rhetorical and persuasive forms of speech. In over civilized people, such as were found at Corinth, there usually grows up a great passion for the merely rhetorical, as pleasing to the ear and to the artistic feeling. The Apostle Paul, in his zeal and intensity, despises all mere arts of rhetoric, and relies wholly on the grandeur of his theme, and the spiritual power with which its announcement is to be accompanied. His subject was -

I. A PERSON. "Jesus Christ." The first work of the apostles was to declare the Christian facts, which are the basis of the Christian system. Those facts concern the life, teaching, miracles, sufferings, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Of all these things the apostles had precise and accurate knowledge, and concerning them they could render personal testimony. Of all these things they took care that adequate and satisfactory records should be preserved (2 Peter 1:15, 16). But their interest did not lie in the mere facts, but in those facts as throwing light upon the person, the mission, and the Divine saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation, they declared, comes by personal trust in Christ; and that he may be trusted he must be known, fully known. Therefore the apostle went everywhere preaching Christ, setting forth Christ, glorifying Christ, bidding men bow to him, confess to him, and receive forgiveness and eternal life from him. It is still true for us that the preaching of the Christian facts must set forth before men Christ, the person, and the unfolding of the Christian doctrines must glorify the "living Christ," who has all power to save.

II. THAT PERSON'S HISTORY. In view of the tendency to form myths and legends in those days, and to explain everything by theories of myth and legend in our days, it is important that we press the historical value of the records we have concerning Christ. It may be effectively urged that, apart from the question of the miracles, which demand a separate treatment, there is no feature of our Lord's life that is in any way unnatural, or likely to offend the historical faculty. No hero of the historic page can be received as real if a like acceptance be not given to the story of Christ; for the records we have of him will stand as welt as any others the severest historical tests. In our day it is necessary to lay firmly again the old foundations of a real human life and human relations. We must begin with the "Man Christ Jesus." It may further be urged that, apart from higher considerations, the human history of the Lord Jesus Christ presents features of supreme and fascinating interest, as the records of a child, a man, a teacher, a physician, and a sufferer.

III. THAT PERSON'S WHOLE HISTORY. "And him crucified." The apostle might have been tempted to withhold portions of our Lord's story. His town intense Jewish feeling would make him revolt from having to preach salvation by One crucified. "We can scarcely realize now the stumbling block which the preaching of a crucified Christ must have been to Jews and Greeks, the enormous temptation to keep the cross in the background, which the early teachers would naturally have felt, and the sublime and confident faith which must have nerved St. Paul to make it the central fact of all his teaching." He must have had a revelation of the glory of the mystery of the Crucifixion. He must have seen how it "behoved Christ thus to suffer." He knew that this was the necessary completion of his earthly mission, the last earthly step, to be followed by a footfall in the "heavenly places" where he should receive authority and power to save. The "history" would be incomplete without the Crucifixion. The "mission" would have been altogether a failure without the Crucifixion. The Christian doctrine would be a moral scheme, and not a Divine salvation, without the Crucifixion.

IV. THAT IN WHICH CHRIST'S WHOLE HISTORY CULMINATED. St. Paul could not stay and rest in a human Christ, however attractive the records of his life and doings, or however quickening to human sympathy the story of his suffering death. He says, "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him [thus] no more." The earth story culminated in this, viz. that he is exalted, a Prince and a Saviour. He is endowed with a present saving power. Crucified in weakness, he liveth by the power of God. From the cross he went to the throne, and St. Paul himself saw him at the right hand of God. St. Paul's subject was - The once crucified Christ, who can save to the uttermost now. Impress that men find shame in the Crucified until they can read the mystery of the cross; then they glory in the shame, glory even in the cross. There will always, for true Christian hearts, be darkness and sadness hanging all about the cross, and yet the darkness is dispelled with streams of holy, loving light, and the sadness of our sympathy passes, giving place to songs of joyous triumph.

"We sing the praise of him who died,
Of him who died upon the cross." R.T.

---

---

Parallel Verses

KJV: For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

WEB: For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.