1 Corinthians 10:1-13 Moreover, brothers, I would not that you should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud… 1. St. Paul is warning the Corinthians. He says, "You may come to the Communion and use the means of grace, and yet become castaways. I keep under my body lest I should be one. Look at the old Jews in the wilderness. They all partook of God's grace; but they were not all saved. Spiritual meat and spiritual drink could not keep them alive, if they sinned, and deserved death. And nothing will save you if you sin." 2. The spiritual rock which followed the Jews was Christ. It was to Him they owed their deliverance from Egypt, their knowledge of God, and His law, and whatever reason, righteousness, and good government there was among them. And to Christ we owe the same. The rock was a type of Him from whom flows living water. "Whosoever drinketh of the water which I shall give," etc. 3. Herein is a great mystery. Something of what it means, however, we may learn from Philo. The soul, he says, falls in with a scorpion in the wilderness; and then thirst, which is the thirst of the passions, seizes on it, till God sends forth on it the stream of His own perfect wisdom, and causes the changed soul to drink of unchangeable health. For the steep rock is the wisdom of God (by whom he means the Word of God, whom Philo knew not in the flesh, but whom we know as the Lord Jesus Christ), which, being both sublime and the first of all things, He quarried out of His own powers; and of it He gives drink to the souls which love God; and they, when they have drunk, are filled with the most universal manna. 4. Christ is rightly called the Rock, the Rock of Ages, the Eternal Rock, because on Him all things rest, and have rested since the foundation of the world. He is rightly called the Rock of living waters; for in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and from Him they flow forth freely to all who cry to Him in their thirst after truth and holiness. To be parted from Christ is death. To be joined to Christ and the body of Christ is life — the life of the soul. Holiness, righteousness, goodness. And why? Because it is the life of Christ. For who is Christ but the likeness and the glory of God? And what is that but goodness? From Christ, and not from any created being, comes all goodness in man or angel. 5. Let the good which a man does be much or be it little, he must say, "The good which I do, I do not, but Christ who dwelleth in me." It is Christ in the child which makes it speak the truth, and shrink from whatever it has been told is wrong; in the young man, which fills him with hopes of putting forth all his powers in the service of Christ; in the middle-aged man, which makes him strong in good works; so that having drunk of the living waters himself, they may flow out of him again to others in good deeds; in the old man, which makes him look on with calm content while his own body and mind decay, knowing that the kingdom of God cannot decay. Yes, such a man knows whom he has believed. He knows that the spiritual Rock has been following him through all his wanderings in this weary world, and that that rock is Christ. He can recollect how, again and again, at his Sabbath haltings in his life's journey, it was to him in the Holy Communion as to the Israelites of old in their haltings in the wilderness, when the priests of Jehovah cried to the mystic rock, "Flow forth, O fountain," and the waters flowed. 6. But if these things are so, will they not teach us much about Holy Communion, how we may receive it worthily, and how unworthily? If what we receive in the Communion be the good Christ who is to make us good, then how can we receive it worthily, if we do not hunger and thirst after goodness? If we do not, we are like those Corinthians who came to the Lord's supper to exalt their own spiritual self-conceit; and so only ate and drank their own damnation, not discerning the Lord's body — a body of righteousness and goodness. We need not stay away because we feel ourselves burdened with many sins; that will be our very reason for coming, that we may be cleansed from our sins. (C. Kingsley, M.A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; |
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