Infinite Possessions.
"Therefore let no man glory in men: for all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." I. Corinthians iii. 21-23.
Sure enough infinite possessions are here enumerated, in which God and Christ and all the elect are equally interested. The relationship of all things here mentioned to the elect, of the elect to Christ, and of Christ ot God, is such as to bind all the parties mutually in one common possession, the title to which can never be abrogated in a single instance. The very least of the chosen and redeemed family can no more cease to be Christ's than he can cease to be God's. Satan can no more tear one of them from Christ than he can tear Christ from God. Then all things are as certainly theirs as they are Christ's and Christ is God's. What a well connected and inseparable bond! What comfort is found in this forcible and comprehensive text for the poor and afflicted people who often seek water and there is none, who are led by a way they knew not, and who sit in darkness and have no light! We wish to begin with the last clause of this text and consider the facts stated by it in a reverse order.1. Christ is God's. How remarkable are these words! The fullness of their mystery none can ever comprehend, but we may consider them in faith, realizing that we now see only as through a glass darkly. Christ is God's elect. The admiration of men and angels is solicited by Jehovah in this sublime declaration: "Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine Elect, in whom my soul delighteth." Isa. xlii. 1. He is the first Elect of God, chosen by him to be his servant, to do his will, and to finish the work he assigned him to do. A ransom had to be paid, a sacrifice had to be offered, in order that sinners might be saved. The sacrifice had to be such as would satisfy fully the claims of the law, such as God who made the law would accept as a full equivalent for the sins of his people. This sacrifice God himself provided in the person of his Son. As this was God's provision he could not fail to be pleased with it. When a babe in the manger, when a youth at Nazareth, when receiving baptism at John's hands, when in the wilderness of temptation, when preaching his own glorious gospel, when going about doing good, when bowing in the garden, when before Pilate's bar, when sinking under his cross, when bleeding and dying, when in the tomb -- from the manger to the sepulchre, he was God's. He is God's own Son as he stands continually before him interceding for his people. He is the chief corner stone, chosen of God and precious. He is God's as Head of the church, as Mediator, High Priest, Husband, Friend.
If it had been possible to make salvation conditional on the part of sinners, God would not have selected and appointed his own Son to suffer, bleed and die to redeem sinners from the curse of the law. The very fact that he spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for his people, shows the impossibility of salvation being any other way. This is God's arrangement, hence Christ is God's.
2. Ye are Christ's. His people are all his by gift, the Father having given them to him. "My Father which gave them me," he says, "is greater than all." John x. 29. In his prayer, recorded in the 17th chapter of John, he says, "As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." He declares that he came to do his Father's will, which was that of all he gave him he should lose nothing. John vi. 39. At the end, when his own are all brought in, he will say triumphantly, "Behold I and the children which God hath given me." Heb. ii. 13. These are all that will be his at his coming. I. Cor. xv. 23. As there will be some who will be his at his coming, the others will not be his at his coming. Those who are not his at his coming were never his. If any were ever his that are not his at his coming, then he will have lost some that had been his. But he declares that he came to do his Father's will, which is that he should lose nothing of all he had given him, and further declares that none are able to pluck them out of his hand or out of the hand of the Father who had given them to him. This proves that those who are his at his coming are all that ever were his.
They are his by purchase. Paul's exhortation to the Elders of Ephesus was, "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." Acts xx. 28. Jesus says, "For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." I. Cor. vi. 20. They thus become his "purchased possession," to whom is given the "Spirit of promise," the "earnest of their inheritance." Eph. i. 14.
They all become Christ's by possession. All that the Father gave him, and that he purchased with his blood, he takes possession of by regeneration. A house may be purchased, and still the walls and floor may be covered with filth, the spider's web may be hanging from every corner, and the whole place a scene of rubbish and disorder. But the buyer has fixed his mind upon it, has purchased it by paying down the money required to make it his own, and nothing can not prevent his taking possession of it and making such changes as will render it a suitable dwelling for himself. By nature we are like this old, dirty house, bearing the marks and stains of sin, and fit only for the dwelling place of the evil spirit. But he who purchased us holds the key by legal right, and no sooner does he put it into the lock than the heart melts and moves at the sound. With the opening of the door light springs in, bringing to view the filthy room before obscured by darkness. Like the leprous house spoken of in Leviticus, the plague is in the walls, the greenish or reddish streaks manifesting how deep-seated is the dreadful malady of sin. But grace, which has already begun its work, is able, fully able to produce such a change that the building is rendered fit for an habitation of God through the Spirit. "When the strong man armed keepeth his palace his goods are in peace," but a stronger comes upon him and takes his armor from him. The enmity of his carnal mind is taken away, and he who was an enemy becomes a trusting, loving, obedient friend. The hard and stony heart is melted into humble contrition, the evil spirit is cast out and the conquering Saviour enters the citadel, never to be dispossessed of what is his by loving gift, by legal purchase and by indisputable possession. Paul, by inspiration, records a standing challenge which can never be met: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Ye are Christ's and Christ is God's.
3. All things are yours. Notice the things enumerated. "Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas." The Corinthian brethren had been glorying in men. They were saying, "I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ." This was a grievous error. "I of Paul" signifies that they were attributing their regeneration to Paul as an efficient and essential means, whereas they were born of God and not of Paul. Paul's object in writing this letter was to correct this Arminian error. The Corinthians were not of Paul or of Apollos or of Cephas. These able gifts were not their fathers. They were forbidden to call any man on earth their father, because one in heaven was their Father. Matt. xxiii. 9. Instead of Paul and Apollos and Cephas being their fathers, they were simply their servants. After the Lord had opened their hearts to receive the gospel and rejoice in it, these able servants of the Lord became their servants, given to them by the Lord to instruct and comfort them. They were not to glory in men, then, but in the Lord who had bestowed these precious gifts upon them. "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." I. Cor. i. 30, 31. What a blessing to the church is a sound, able ministry! They should take the oversight of the flock, not for the sake of filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, and should be very highly esteemed for their work's sake. How lovely it is to see undershepherd and flock laboring together in love for the upbuilding of the cause of Christ, the former doing all in his power to comfort and instruct and encourage the members, and the latter helping him to give all his time to this noble work by contributing to his necessities, and encouraging him by their kind words and helpful prayers! Ministers and laity, look around you. Are not the fields already white, ready to harvest? The Lord of this harvest has made and matured every stalk and grain. Why stand ye here idle? Throw in the sickle and gather in the grain!
J. R. D.
Copyright c. 2005. All rights reserved. The Primitive Baptist Library.
