Paul at Corinth
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that murmuring and rebellion was the grievous crime that had brought
God’s displeasure upon the people of his choice.
He brought his hearers down through the types and shadows of the
ceremonial law to Christ,—to his crucifixion, his priesthood, and the
sanctuary of his ministry,—the great object that had cast its shadow
backward into the Jewish age. He, as the Messiah, was the Antitype
of all the sacrificial offerings. The apostle showed that according to
the prophecies and the universal expectation of the Jews, the Messiah
would be of the lineage of Abraham and David. He then traced his
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descent from the great patriarch Abraham, through the royal psalmist.
He proved from Scripture what were to have been the character and
works of the promised Messiah, and also his reception and treatment
on earth, as testified by the holy prophets. He then showed that these
predictions also had been fulfilled in the life, ministry, and death of
Jesus, and hence that he was indeed the world’s Redeemer.
The most convincing proof was given that the gospel was but
the development of the Hebrew faith. Christ was to come for the
special benefit of the nation that was looking for his coming as the
consummation and glory of the Jewish system. The apostle then
endeavored to bring home to their consciences the fact that repentance
for their rejection of Christ could alone save the nation from impending
ruin. He rebuked their ignorance concerning the meaning of those
Scriptures which it was their chief boast and glory that they fully
understood. He exposed their worldliness, their love of station, titles,
and display, and their inordinate selfishness.
But the Jews of Corinth closed their eyes to all the evidence so
clearly presented by the apostle, and refused to listen to his appeals.
The same spirit which had led them to reject Christ, filled them with
wrath and fury against Paul. They would have put an end to his life,
had not God guarded his servant, that he might do his work, and bear
the gospel message to the Gentiles.
“And when they opposed themselves, and blasphemed, he shook
his raiment, and said unto them, Your blood be upon your own heads; I
am clean; from henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. And he departed
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thence, and entered into a certain man’s house, named Justus, one that
worshiped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue.” Silas
and Timothy had joined Paul, and together they now labored for the
Gentiles.