---

For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. The allusion is not to errorists merely, but to the antinomian formalists in the visible communion of the Church.

I. MANY PERSONS ARE FOUND IN THE COMMUNION OF THE CHURCH WHO ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF Christ. They were there even in apostolic days, in spite of gifts of discernment and the power of discipline. It is an altogether chimerical idea to think of a perfectly pure Church. There was no such Church in the days of Christ or the apostles. The persons here described appear to be of the same class as those referred to elsewhere as "they who serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly" (Romans 16:18); persons who caused "divisions and offenses," whose life was a practical denial of the principle that they who are Christ's "have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts" (Galatians 5:24).

II. MORAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THESE FORMALISTS AND THE DOOM THAT AWAITS THEM.

1. The real object of their worship. "Whose god is their belly." Like those referred to at Rome, they "served not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly" (Romans 16:18). They were sensual and self-indulgent, forgetting that "the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking" (Romans 14:17).

2. The gross perversion of their moral judgments. "Whose glory is in their shame." They gloried, under the name of liberty, in what ought to have inspired feelings of shame, so as to bring upon them the retribution, "I will turn their glory into shame" (Hosea 4:7).

3. The earthly cast of their life. "Who mind earthly things."

(1) The apostle does not encourage the neglect of earthly things, much less cast any discredit on those natural feelings which link us to the realities of earthly life.

(2) But he censures the living for this present visible world to the neglect of the invisible kingdom by which we are surrounded. The earthly things may be pleasures, riches, honors, power, place. "Seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not" (Jeremiah 45:5). To mind them is

(a) to desire them (Colossians 2:2; Psalm 73:25);

(b) to admire them (Luke 21:5, 6);

(c) to labor after them (John 6:27; Matthew 6:33);

(d) to concentrate thought and interest upon them.

(3) Reasons for not minding earthly things.

(a) They are beneath the consideration of Christians;

(b) we have higher things to mind (Philippians 2:20);

(c) the minding of heaven and earth is an inconsistent service (Matthew 6:24);

(d) earthly things are essentially uncertain, unsatisfying, inconstant, and momentary (Ecclesiastes 1:8; Proverbs 23:5; Luke 12:20).

4. The doom of these formalists. "Whose end is destruction." Notwithstanding their high professions and their ecclesiastical privileges, their end is eternal death. There is but one cad of such a life: "The end of those things is death" (Romans 6:21); "Whose end is to be burned" (Hebrews 6:8); "Whose end shall be according to their works" (2 Corinthians 11:15).

III. THE EMOTION OF THE APOSTLE AT THE CONTEMPLATION OF SUCH A CLASS OF SINNERS. "I tell you even weeping." He wept at their wickedness as much as at the thought of their deserved doom.

IV. THE NECESSITY OF REPEATED WARNINGS AGAINST EVIL IN THE CHURCH. "Of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping." It was needful that the apostle should lift the voice of warning against a tendency as fatal in its ultimate results as the deadliest heresy. - T.C.

---

---

KJV: (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:

WEB: For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, as the enemies of the cross of Christ,