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AD we read through this Epistle in the form in which it was first written, without any divisions into chapters and verses, we could not fail to have been struck with the change of tone and style that marks the introduction of that great theme with which this fifteenth chapter is throughout occupied. It is not merely that a new and quite different topic comes to be handled by the writer, but the formality, the solemnity, the emphasis with which the transition is made, all show us how strongly the writer felt that he was passing on to the consideration of a far more sacred subject, one touching far more deeply the vital truths of Christianity than any which he had previously been discussing.

And even so it was. The Apostle had learned that there were some among the Corinthian converts to Christianity who affirmed that there was to be no resurrection of the dead. A belief in that resurrection has so long, so universally, and so strongly been established in the breasts of all calling themselves by the Christian name, it is so thoroughly recognised as an integral part of the Christian faith, that we find some difficulty in conceiving that at any time any who professed themselves to be believers in Christ should have doubted or denied it. Let us remember, however, that even among the Jews, up to the time of the resurrection of our Lord himself, the doctrine of the future and general resurrection of the dead had not been revealed with such plainness as to prevent the whole sect of Sadducees from openly denying it. They accepted the Mosaic revelation; their title to be regarded as holders of the Jewish faith was not questioned; and yet they repudiated the belief that the dead were to rise again. Outside Judea the notion of a future resurrection of all the dead was so novel and so startling, that we are not to wonder that a difficulty should have been felt in admitting, or a disposition displayed, even by those who otherwise lent a favourable car to the first teachers of Christianity, to reject it. In that broad Gentile world which those first evangelists of the cross invaded and sought to win over to Christianity, there were two elements that rose up in strong antagonism to the idea of the resurrection of the dead. There was the materialistic Epicurean form of infidelity, twin-sister

of the Sadducean spirit among the Jews, which refused to believe in anything beyond what sense or consciousness made known. That spirit was rife at Athens. Paul had already found it there. The men of Athens listened to him patiently enough for a time, till he spake of the resurrection of the dead, when they turned mockingly and impatiently away: the very notion of a future embodiment of the spirit, which at death passed they knew not whither or into what, being far too gross and too tangible for them to receive. Then there was another and very opposite spirit, begotten in the school of oriental speculation, with which the doctrine of the resurrection came into the sharpest and most direct collision,-the spirit of those teachers of the Gnostic philosophy, who asserted that the source of all evil lay in matter; the source of all sin in the soul's connection with the body. Liberation from the body with them was emancipation from all evil; reunion with the body would be a reduction of the soul once more into the bondage of corruption. Many who cherished this deep abhorrence of matter joined the Christian ranks, and struggled hard to retain as much as they could of their old impressions and beliefs, in conjunction with their new faith in Jesus Christ. Of such, in all likelihood, were Hymeneus and Philetus, referred to by Paul some years afterwards in his Second Epistle to Timothy as having erred concerning the faith, saying that the resurrection was past already. Seeking to spiritualise everything, they said that the only resurrection was the regeneration of the soul, the moral renewal of the inner man of the heart, which was already over with all who were made new men in Jesus Christ.

It is impossible now to tell which of the three leavens-the Jewish Sadducean, the Greek Epicurean, or the oriental Gnostic

first infected at so early a period the church of Corinth. We only have the fact before us that there were some within that church who said that there was to be no resurrection of the dead; otherwise they had received, in all its simplicity and in all its fulness, the Gospel that Paul taught. He had not to complain of them as having ever felt or expressed any doubt as to that eternal life held out to them in Christ, neither had they questioned the fact of Christ's own

resurrection as an incident in his history that had often been recounted to them. But animated by one or other of the tendencies that already have been alluded to, they had put away from them a belief in the general resurrection of the dead. They saw and felt no inconsistency in doing so. They thought that they could be as good Christians as ever, and yet give up that one belief. They did not see how unbelief on that one topic would, if admitted and cherished, spread itself around-how it went to sap and undermine the entire fabric of Christianity, to overturn the very trust and hope that they themselves were clinging to. To convince them of all this, and by working such conviction to eradicate the rising error, is the main object of the Apostle in the fifteenth chapter of this Epistle.

And first, as laying the firmest foundation for that close dealing which he purposes having with them, Paul reminds them of what that Gospel was which he had preached and which they had received. In doing so, he presents us, in the third and fourth verses, with the creed of the Early Church reduced to something like a formula-the first specimen of a confession of faith-short, simple, succinct, compendious. First of all, most prominent of all, as containing within itself the sum and substance of that Gospel which he was commissioned to announce, he had taught them how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. One is struck, in reading this statement, how much it deals with facts, how little comparatively with doctrines. It is not, indeed, a mere dry recital of the death and burial and resurrection of

Jesus Christ. Of itself such recital might form an interesting enough narrative, but could form no Gospel by which men might be saved. A motive, meaning, object, end, must be assigned to the death and resurrection before they can be regarded as constituting such a Gospel. But how simply yet effectively is that done by the declaration, Christ died for our sins! To explain all that lies comprehended in that saying, to exhaust all that the Scriptures have taught, or our great thinkers have conceived, of the relations between our sins and the sufferings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, would take us hours, and land us here and there in many an obscure and difficult inquiry. Instead of attempting any such laborious task, or offering any dogmatic deliverances on all the various questions that might be raised, let me

ask you rather to put yourself in the position of an intelligent, honest, earnest man, deeply convinced of his guilt before God, and as deeply sensible of his manifold moral and spiritual infirmities, when told for the first time that Christ, the Son of God, came down from heaven and died for his sins. What meaning could such a man attach to such an expression before he began to speculate upon it, or deal with it as anything else than a declaration intended to relieve the felt wants and the awakened anxieties of his soul? Should he not at once conclude that whatever obstacle his guilt had raised in the way of his being forgiven and accepted of the Most High had been done away by the death of Jesus Christ-that somehow through that death there was for him the free remission of his sins? Would he not think of the death of Jesus thus set forth to him as a death endured by Him, not for his own sins, but for the sins of others-endured for the sins of others in order that in the first instance they might be forgiven? And if his own faith in that death as so endured were instant, cordial, and entire, would he not rest upon it complacently and confidingly as the good and sufficient, because heaven-appointed and heaven-accepted, ground of his pardon and acceptance with God? Such, I take it, was the faith with which the first Christians met the first teachings of the Apostles as to the death of Christ. They rested on that death as having removed all difficulties, met all requirements, making it as honourable and glorious to God as it was needful and blessed for them, the blotting out of all their transgressions. How exactly, in what way, and to what extent the death of Christ did this-how it vindicated the character of God as a God of holiness and justicehow it sustained the honour of a law whose precepts had been broken, and whose penalty had been righteously incurred-how it protected all the interests of that great spiritual dominion of the Most High which had been so seriously invaded-they may not have very clearly seen, or very carefully investigated. Enough for them that they had the assurance of the great Lawgiver Himself that an all-sufficient atonement had been made. Let that assurance be enough still for each of us. It may conduce to our growing comfort, our growing stability in the faith, that we reach to clearer and fuller notions of the manner in which the death of our Redeemer effected its great ends. first and above all things let us try to have a simple-minded, simple-hearted trust in the

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entire sufficiency of that death as the ground of forgiveness implanted in our breast.

"Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried and He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." In such a compendious account of the facts of the Gospel history, it is remarkable that twice over it should have been repeated thus-that all that took place, and all that was taught about it, took place and was taught in strict accordance with the prophecies of the Old Testament Scriptures. It shows how anxious Paul was that this accordance should steadily and continually be kept in view. Nor is this a solitary instance in which such anxiety on his part was manifested. It had characterised the whole currency of his apostolic ministry. "Having therefore obtained help of God"-such was the language he employed before Agrippa-"I continue unto this day, witnessing to both small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come That Christ should suffer, and that He should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles." In acting so -in keeping so continually before the mind of those he spoke to the concurrence between the facts that he had to tell and the predictions that had long before been uttered -Paul was but copying the great example of our Lord Himself, who on that first day after his own resurrection began, as it were, in his own person to execute the same office-when, in the journey out to Emmaus, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded to the two disciples "in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." What a voucher for the Messianic references of so many of those ancient types and ancient prophecies! Not in vain do we go back to these Old Testament Scriptures to find in the offerings and sacrifices of the Levitical economy the shadows of that offering up of Himself as the one great sacrifice for sin which Jesus made upon the cross. Not in vain do we go back to the pages of Moses and all the prophets, to read there of One who was to be cut off, but not for Himself—who was to finish transgression, make an end of sin, bring in an everlasting righteousness-who was to be wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities-upon whom the iniquities of all were to be laid-who was to bear the sin of many, and make intercession for the transgressors, -and see in Him of whom all this had been said none other than that Saviour of mankind whom God hath set forth to be a propitia

tion through faith in his blood-to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins. that are past-that He might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. In the Corinthian church there were both Jewish and Gentile converts. Let not those Jews, then, who had taken on this new faith in Jesus think that they were casting aside their ancient Scriptures, or asked to believe anything that was not in strict accordance with that earlier revelation of the Divine will. And let not those Gentiles think that this religion of Jesus Christ was a wholly new religion, as different from Judaism as was their first pagan faith. No; let Jew and Gentile alike take up into their hands these venerable records, in which are preserved the manner of God's dealings with that once favoured people whom He selected as the medium of his divine intercourse with mankind, and through whom the world was to be prepared for the advent of the Son of God.

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And that He rose again the third day, and that He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen of James, then of all the Apostles. And last of all He was seen of me also."

This statement is interesting as containing the earliest account extant of the resurrection of Christ; given between twenty and thirty years after that event. At the time when this Epistle to the Corinthians was written none of the four Gospels were yet in existence. An interesting inquiry is thus opened as to the evidence, direct and indirect, furnished by St. Paul to the facts of the Gospel history. The inquiry has an additional interest thrown around it from the separate and independent attitude that St. Paul assumed as compared with the other Apostles, as well as from the fact that he declared that he had himself seen the Lord, and derived his knowledge of his history by direct revelation from Himself. In the narrative of the institution of the Lord's Supper contained in the eleventh chapter of this Epistle, we have the earliest written account of that event. We notice there the exact and substantial, though not literal agreement of the Apostle's narrative with that of the Evangelists. In the instance now before us this correspondence, though not so precise, is perhaps, from its very diversity, still more instructive.

Nine different appearances of our Lord, after his resurrection, are mentioned in the Gospels. The first to Mary Magdalene; the

second to the women returning from the sepulchre; the third to Peter; the fourth to the two disciples going out to Emmaus; the fifth to the Apostles assembled in the evening in the upper chamber; these five all occurring on the day of the resurrection; the sixth to the Apostles, Thomas being now with the others, eight days after the resurrection; the seventh to the Apostles and disciples on the shores of the Sea of Galilee; the eighth to eleven disciples and others on the mountain side in Galilee, where Jesus had appointed to meet them; the ninth to the Apostles collectively, immediately before the ascension. Paul mentions here six appearances of our Lord, four of which we can identify with one or other of those recorded in the Gospels. As he appears to place them in the order of time, the first two-that to Cephas and that to the twelve-we may regard as the same with two of the four recorded by the Evangelists as occurring on the resurrection day. The other three-to Mary, to the women, and to the two disciples-he may not have known, or as happening to persons of comparatively little note, and as less available for the general object he has in view, they may have been intentionally omitted by him, even as he passes by one of the three appearances to the Apostles collectively, and that to the seven upon the lake side. Had not Paul told us that there was an appearance to above five hundred brethren at once, we should not have known that there ever had been brought together so many eye-witnesses of the fact of the resurrection. This may have happened in the interview on the Galilean mountain side, or it might have happened at Jerusalem before the dispersion of the people assembled at the Passover, where it is quite as likely that five hundred disciples could have been congregated as on a mountain side of Galilee. There are still two, however, of the appearances mentioned by Paul of which no trace is to be found in the Gospels-that to James and that to himself-the omission of the latter due obviously to the circumstance that with Paul's life and labours the evangelistic narrative had nothing to do; but the omission of the former sufficient to assure us that it was not the design of the Evangelists to record every incident in their Master's history, but such only as the Divine wisdom under which they acted should deem sufficient for the instruction of the Church.

But why did Paul recite so carefully these proofs of the resurrection of Christ? Why did he, at the opening of that pleading which he meant to have with the Corinthians on the

subject of the resurrection of the dead, show such anxiety to have that fact established upon evidence that they could not gainsay? Because it was the fact which authenticated that Gospel which he had preached, and because it was upon that fact, and upon that Gospel-as once received and still not denied by them-he meant to take his stand in the reasoning he was about to institute. The death of Christ of itself proved nothingthrew but little light upon the character or object of his mission. There was no need of adducing evidence to substantiate it. Very different was his resurrection. That, if true, was a supernatural event, the crowning miracle that gave credibility to all the other miracles of his life. That, if true, was the seal of Heaven's acceptance and approval put upon that sacrifice which in dying for our sins Jesus had offered up. Paul felt this so strongly, that you find him opening his Epistle to the Romans thus:-"Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an Apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God which He had promised afore by his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead." Paul felt this so strongly, that when, in the course of that same epistle he puts the question, "Who is He that condemneth?" his answer is, "It is Christ that died; yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.”

It is around the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that the battle of supernaturalism in Christianity has been so often fought. It is a fact (none can deny) as capable of historical proof as any event of the past. And it is a fact so thoroughly substantiated, upon such competent evidence, that if we are to give up our faith in it we must consistently give up our faith in all historic records, all the past must be blank to us. It is upon this fact, so securely established, that the entire fabric of our Christian faith reposes. Believing that Jesus rose again from the dead, and in the body He ascended up to heaven, we are prepared to receive all that the. Scriptures have taught us of the glories of his person, of the design of his ministry, of the efficacy of his death. Let us be devoutly grateful for it that our faith in Him who has redeemed our souls unto God, in union with whom standeth our eternal life, has such a solid historic foundation to rest upon-often as