Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1264
“For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” 1 Corinthians 2:2.
Paul was a very determined man and whatever he undertook he carried out with all his heart. Once let him say, “I determined,” and you might be sure of a vigorous course of action! “This one thing I do” was always his motto. The unity of his soul and its mighty resoluteness were the main features of his character. He had once been a great opposer of Christ and His Cross and had shown his opposition by furious persecutions. It was not so very much to be wondered at that when he became a disciple of this same Jesus, whom he had persecuted, he should become a very ardent one and bring all his faculties to bear upon the preaching of Christ crucified.
His conversion was so marked, so complete, so thorough, that you expect to see him as energetic for the Truth of God as once he had been violent against it. A man so whole-hearted as Paul, so thoroughly capable of concentrating all his forces as the Apostle was—and so entirely won over to the faith of Jesus—was likely to enter into his cause with all his heart and soul. And thus he was determined to know nothing else but his crucified Lord. Yet do not think that the Apostle was a man easily absorbed in one thought. He was, above the most of men, a reasoner, calm, judicious, candid and prudent.
He looked at things in their bearings and relations and was not a stickler for minor matters. Perhaps even more than might perfectly be justified, he made himself all things to all men that he might by all means win some and, therefore, any determination which he came to was only arrived at after taking counsel with wisdom. He was not a zealot of that class which may be likened to a bull which shuts its eyes and runs straight forward, seeing nothing which may lie to the right or to the left—he looked all round him, calmly, quietly and though he did, in the end, push forward in a direct line at his one objective, yet it was with his eyes wide open, knowing perfectly what he was doing and believing that he was doing the best and wisest thing for the cause which he desired to promote.
If, for instance, to have opened his ministry at Corinth by proclaiming the unity of the Godhead, or by philosophically working out the possibilities of God’s becoming Incarnate—if these had been the wisest plans for spreading the Redeemer’s kingdom—Paul would have adopted them. But he looked at them all and having examined them with all care, he could not see that anything was to be gained by indirect preaching, or by keeping back a part of the Truth. Therefore he determined to go straight forward and promote the Gospel by proclaiming the Gospel! Whether men would hear or whether they would forbear, he resolved to come to the point at once and preach the Cross in its naked simplicity.
Instead of knowing a great many things which might have led up to the main subject, he would not know anything in Corinth save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul might have said, “I had better beat about the bush and educate the people up to a certain point before I come to my main point. To lay bare my ultimate intent at the first might be to spread the net in the sight of the birds and frighten them away. I will be cautious and reticent and will take them with guile, enticing them on in pursuit of the Truths of God.” But Paul did not do that! Looking at the matter all round as a prudent man should, he comes to this resolve, that he will know nothing among them save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
I would to God that the “culture” we hear of in these days, and all this boasted “modern thought” would come to the same conclusion! This most renowned and scholarly Divine, after reading, marking, learning and inwardly digesting everything as few men could do, yet came to this as to the issue of it all—“I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” May God grant that the critical skill of our contemporaries and their laborious consideration may land them on the same shore by the blessing of the Holy Spirit!
I. Our first consideration, this morning, will be, WHAT WAS THIS SUBJECT TO WHICH PAUL DETERMINED TO SHUT HIMSELF UP WHILE PREACHING TO THE CHURCH AT CORINTH? That subject was one, though it may also be divided into two—it was the Person and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ—laying special stress upon that part of His work which is always the most objected to, namely, His substitutionary Sacrifice, His redeeming death. Paul preached Christ in all His positions, but he especially dwelt upon Him as the Crucified One.
The Apostle first preached his great Master’s Person—Jesus Christ. There was no equivocation about Paul when he spoke of Jesus of Nazareth. He held Him up as a real Man, no phantom, but one who was crucified, dead and buried— and rose again from the dead in actual bodily existence. There was no hesitation about His Godhead, either. Paul preached Jesus as the Son of the Highest, as the wisdom and the power of God, as One, “in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” You never doubted when you heard Paul, but that he believed in the Divinity and the Humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ—and worshipped and adored Him as very God of very God. He preached His Person with all clearness of language and warmth of love. The Christ of God was All in All to Paul.