Jesus Christ and him crucified.

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

A Supreme Purpose In Life

1Corinthians 2:2

What does this mean? Perhaps you will reply that a child can answer that inquiry. Let us try first whether a man can. Say, then, what does it mean? You may answer, It means that the Apostle Paul in going to Corinth had made up his mind not to listen to anything, but to preach or teach or converse regarding Jesus Christ and him crucified. He would not speak about weather, or health, or commerce, or nature; he would close his ears against all minor topics and all meaner appeals, and would listen to nothing from sunrise to sundown but Jesus Christ and him crucified. You wonder that any one should ask what words so obvious in their significance could mean.

First then, they do not mean that. It is an awkward criticism for you. They mean largely the contrary of that. Where is the child, then, that you set in the midst of us at the first to answer the inquiry, What does this mean? Let us try to get the real meaning into our minds and hearts. It will revolutionise life; it will centralise, and dignify, and sacredly utilise all the elements, emotions, tumults, and conflicts of life. Let the paraphrase stand thus: In coming to Corinth, the only one thing I had made up my mind about was that, whatever else there might be to see and to do, and to arrange, I would fix my mind and heart on Jesus Christ and him crucified. This determination was the only determination the Apostle had formed in his mind; other objects he had left to be considered within the lines of the occasion. If there was weather to be talked about, he would refer to it; if there was health to be inquired about, he would inquire about it; if nature revealed some apocalypse of beauty which challenged the attention of the eyes, he would turn his vision upon the revelation of God. The only thing I have made up my mind about, says the Apostle, is to know Jesus Christ and him crucified; upon that my mind is fixed; that is certain, that is unchangeable; whatever else may happen, this is the only thing I have at present made up my mind about. So other objects are not excluded; the Apostle is not a mere fanatic; Paul does not say that he will do nothing whilst at Corinth but talk about Jesus Christ and him crucified; as a matter of fact, he did a great many things at Corinth, and yet everything he did is perfectly consistent with this determination. The picture is that of a man who has made up his mind to one thing; he may do fifty other things, he does not know what he will do with the other subjects; he is certain and fixed upon this one thing, and all else shall be ruled by it as gravitation rules the motions of the worlds. We perish for want of a dominating thought. We cannot get the arch together because we have no keystone. The two parts would gladly approach one another, but they cannot, because the keystone, that wondrous wedge that binds the distant and the separate, is wanting. Many a life is ruined for want of a keystone. Many a man is wandering about the world doing nothing because he is destitute of a sovereign purpose. If he could make up his mind about any one thing, that one thing being worthy of life, his whole course would be elevated, and sublimated. That is the Apostle's position.

Take the matter from a lower point of view. Say a man shall make up his mind to go to London, or to Paris to make money. He says, in effect, On that point I am certain; what I may do about other matters I cannot tell: I am going to London or to Paris to make money, and everything has got to bend to that. Will you not look at some of the museums? I may. Will you not run into the galleries of art? Possibly; all depends. Depends upon what? Upon how such things affect my main object, which is to make money. That, in the religious sense, is just the meaning of the Apostle. Will you not look at the beautiful sculpture to be found in the famous city? Possibly; all depends. Depends upon what? Depends upon the success of my mission, which is Jesus Christ and him crucified. I will certainly look on the rocks that man has not chiselled, I may look on the stone he has partially spoiled. May you not hear some of the famed orators of Greece? I may; it all depends. Depends upon what? Upon the opportunities which are offered to me, or created by me, of proclaiming Jesus Christ and him crucified. Will you not call upon your friends, and speak with them on the subjects of the day? I may; it all depends. Depends upon what? Upon how I get along with this subject; that must rule everything; the one thing I have made up my mind about is to know nothing, save Jesus Christ and him crucified; everything else must wait.

Now we understand the text. Paul's method was consistent; he always worked upon this plan. Once he said, "This one thing I do." How often is that passage misunderstood. The Apostle was not doing this one thing as the only thing he was doing, but he was doing this as the supreme motive and purpose and object of his life, and that supreme purpose ruled all minor things. Often we are exhorted by the apostolic motto to concentration of mind, saying, This one thing I do, and nothing else. The Apostle never said so. He said, Whatever else I may be doing, I am certain about doing this particular thing, namely, pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus; I may be doing innumerable other things, all partaking of the quality of this supreme purpose, but this—this—this I am certain about. Where did Paul learn this great and gracious doctrine? Where he learned everything of the nature of Christian doctrine and Christian philosophy. He learned it in the school of Jesus Christ. Does Jesus Christ lay down this rule of supremacy of purpose? Yes, he does. Where? In these words:—"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things"—trifles, baubles for children to play with—"shall be added unto you." Have a supreme purpose. Every man should have a supreme purpose in life; it will give definiteness to all his processes of thought and action. How many aimless people there are in the world! They awake in the morning without a plan, they make no programme, they draw up no scheme; they may be east or west, and it is just possible they may be north or south; they are driving without reins, without whip, and without aim. They think the horses, which they call their impulses, know the road. What does all this come to? To ruin, to disappointment, to chagrin, to despair. Whenever the Apostle Paul awoke he knew that what he had to do that day was to proclaim Jesus Christ and him crucified, to make these great histories and doctrines clearer and clearer to human comprehension. Whatever else the day might ask at his hands that tribute must be paid.

Such a purpose determines the tone of a man's life. Life is not a question of separate actions. Life, in its higher interpretation, means tone, atmosphere, unexpressed but mighty music; a quality not to be named or traced etymologically. A man cannot get rid of his supreme purpose. The avaricious man has avarice painted upon his face. He cannot cover it with a smile, he cannot hide it with a frown; by many a trickster's grimace he seeks to rub out the signature, but there it is, and that projecting truth-telling chin. All his questions have avarice at the base, avarice at the top, and avarice in the middle line. He is asking about affairs, possibilities, markets; he fingers everything with the hands of a bargain-maker: what he can get out of it, is his purpose. The dreamer cannot hide his supreme purpose. He wants to create new heavens and a new earth; he longs to take the stars to pieces to see where the light comes from; he knows he saw an angel on that white-thorn hedge; he is sure that the spirit of some seer or singer was in that bird's note—"Did you not hear it?" he says, "I did." Dear soul! the world is the sweeter for his dreaming and singing: go on! The Apostle could not hide the supreme purpose of his life, nor did he ever seek to do so. "God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.... I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth:... I count not my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus:... I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." Heroic soul! almost the Son of God!

A supreme purpose of this kind always ennobles character. The whole range of thought is elevated. Some minds have no mountain chains running through them. They are flat; they are of the nature of table-land; they are by no means either useless or despicable, they have their own utility. Other minds are Alpine; they reach and stretch, they uplift themselves as if to find their right place in the very noonday of the sun. He who has Christ living in him lives an uplifted or elevated life all his contemplations are high, wide, radiant, noble, beneficent; all things are new. He may never preach a sermon in any formal sense, yet he never ceases to preach in a vita significance.

In this subject chosen by the Apostle Paul there is neither poverty nor monotony. This subject never runs out; it is a perennial fountain. All the little cataracts take a summer holiday: we do not know where they have gone, they are never there when we want them, they take their holiday when we take ours; we are welcome to look at the stones which they run over after snow and rain; if it will do us the least good in the world to see where they do gambol, we may spend all day in the torrent-bed, but the torrent itself is gone. Niagara never takes a holiday. Great Niagara! Who that has stood behind it has not said, Surely in a few hours that cataract must have run itself out; surely we shall not find it here in the morning. Yet it gallops with the centuries; it foams and plunges as if God had set upon it the seal of eternity. Poor is that symbol, though one of the best we can at the moment find, by which to represent the eternal rush of the redeeming, ennobling, sanctifying influence poured upon the world by the Son of God. Wherever there is anything beautiful, Christ and Christ crucified is there; wherever you find anything that is really progressive, you find Christ and him crucified; wherever you hear true singing, the joy, the gladness of the heart ruled by reason, inspired by hope you find Jesus Christ and him crucified. You find that great subject in the museum, in the art gallery, on the death-bed, in the cradle, everywhere. Without the crucified Christ the world could not live; its foundations are laid upon him, and those foundations are but the beginnings of pinnacles, for until the topstone is brought on God's creation is not finished.

Mark what distinctiveness this gave to Paul's personality and ministry. He found his subject in his character. You knew him to be a man of prayer, a man of God; you could not be long with him before he took off the key from his girdle and opened some new world of vision, some larger sphere of hope and service and rest. If you let him alone one moment he was at the Cross. You might detain him on minor subjects if you solicitously urged him to give his opinion about them, as about life upon the earth, and marriage, and service, and duty, as we define those terms; but the moment your solicitousness took its finger from him he was at Calvary. You could not keep him back from, the altar; having been there he would abide there. He might accept a tent for a night, but his abiding sanctuary was built on a Golgotha.

How easy it is to see a perversion of this purpose, or an undue limitation of its range. How easy it would be to say, This kind of purpose would fit well apostles and preachers, evangelists and ministers, or Christians of leisure who had yielded themselves to the charms of a contemplative life. I will answer you—you are wrong; you are doing injustice to the genius of the history and the doctrine. This singleness or loftiness of purpose is just as possible to the humblest man of business as to the mightiest man of eloquence, or the most favoured child of contemplation and holy dream. Often we hear it said "Business must be looked after; business must be looked after in the spirit of the business; we wish we had more time for religious contemplation: far are we from ignoring the claims of the Cross, but we must leave its deeper study, and its fuller unfoldment of meaning to men who are consecrated to sacred leisure." You are fundamentally wrong, you are wrong at the core. Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ crucified, are not subjects for contemplation. They are the most active subjects in the world. They are the factors of civilisation, they are the sovereign thought of progress. Every man may do his business, whatever it be, in the spirit of Jesus Christ and him crucified. That is what the Apostle desires to have us all attain. He would have us show pity and do justice and obey the golden rule, and it is impossible to do these things apart from Jesus Christ and him crucified. Here is the doctrine that needs prominence, enforcement, and practical glorification. A man's wages ought to be earned and paid in the spirit of Jesus Christ and him crucified. This is not a sentiment to be set among the stars and telescopically surveyed; this is a rule of conduct, this is the inspiration of life, this is the meaning of all true things. We cannot get some people to understand this. We shall never get right by socialistic theories, anarchical programmes, and a certain vulgar power of befooling the trustful classes: we can only get right by Jesus Christ and him crucified. Of course, a proposition of this kind would be received with execration by socialists and anarchists of the baser sort. He who proclaimed this doctrine would be scoffed at with certain derisive epithets, and would be honoured by the brand of certain contemptuous criticism; yet the preacher, the teacher, the Christian, must never fold his flag as if in defeat; he must unfurl it and say still more sweetly and still more loudly, The world's only hope is in Jesus Christ and him crucified.

What have we seen amongst persons who would undertake to work the economics of the age on the basis of other theories? We have seen tyranny of the worst description, selfishness that had been saturated in the very pools of corruption, narrow-mindedness that could not take in the whole of any question, an obstinacy mistaken for firmness, and a recklessness which was characterised as splendid generalship. Let us have justice on all sides, let us hear every man's case, be he great or small; the beggar in the ditch shall have all the benefactions that justice can confer upon him, and the man who thinks for the world and guides its affairs shall not be denied justice because he has acquired eminence. Do not listen to the men that want to merely mechanise life, and rule it by schedule and stipulation: the only real security of life, joy, progress, and heaven you will find in Jesus Christ and him crucified, when properly interpreted. Christ will put all business right; Christ will pay every labourer his wages; Christ will sanctify the millions of the capitalist, and keep the richest man modest and humble within the environment of his life. The world can never be pacified, the classes can never be united or reconciled, the balance of society can never be properly established, except in connection with Jesus Christ and him crucified. This is not a mere doctrine, a section of metaphysical inquiry, a dreamy sentiment that only leisurely minds can contemplate; this is the real force and the real secret of life and action.

The subject was not only Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ crucified. Many persons would get rid of the last word if they could. Paul never sought to get rid of it; he magnified it, he glorified it. He did not preach Jesus Christ the socialist, Jesus Christ the theorist, Jesus Christ the wonder, Jesus Christ either a prospective or a retrospective Aristotle, or Plato, or Socrates. Paul preached morning, noon, and night, Christ on the Cross, Christ crucified, Christ shedding his blood that men might not die. We can make no gospel out of any other word than "crucified." There are theorists who show some other aspects of Christ's sacrifice; nor are they to be derided or undervalued; they have a right motive, and some would say a right conception, and they are to be honoured for their earnestness as students: but we cannot move the world without the Crucified in another, in a deeper, in a more tragic sense. Speaking of my own ministry in this place and elsewhere, I growingly feel that power can attach to it only in proportion as it is inspired by the pathos, not of a moral example only, but of a real personal sacrifice. What it means I cannot tell: love is not to be scheduled, the Spirit of God is not to be caged in by formal or theological bars: higher than heaven, who can reach it? wider than the horizon, who may lay his fingers upon it? We can only say concerning God's rule, His mercy endureth for ever:—

It is not a thing to be explained in words, or to be defended exhaustively in mere terms; it is a passion to be felt, it is an inspiration to be accepted, it is a mystery on which we may lay down our aching lives as a little child lays down its weariness on its mother's heart.