Remarkable blessing followed the decision of the apostle, not among Gentiles only, but among the Jews themselves.
“And Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized. And the Lord said, by night, through a vision to Paul, Fear not, but speak and be not silent; because I am with thee, and no one shall set on thee to harm thee; because I have much people in this city. And he settled down a year and six months, teaching among them the word of God” (ver. 8-11).
It is not a small thing that the Holy Spirit singles out the name of any man for everlasting record in scripture. Thus “Crispus” is mentioned as believing the Lord; and the rather, as he had been “the ruler of the synagogue;” nor this only, for “the whole of his household” believed also, though nothing is said of their baptism. Their faith, the great matter, was no slight cheer to the laborers and a powerful appeal to the Jews generally. The phraseology is peculiar: not here behooving “on” the Lord as object of faith, though this was true also, but believing what He says. 1 Cor. 1 states that the apostle baptized him, but not a word about his house; yet assuredly they too, accepting His testimony, were baptized, though not by the apostle, who did but little in it, as he tells the Corinthians. Under the Lord's keeping he had been preserved from any appearance of prominence personally.
“And many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized.” The work now went on vigorously under the blessing of the Lord. It was a time of rich ingathering. These were clearly not Jews but Greeks; but none the less did many of them hear and believe the gospel; and, as became them, they submitted to the outward mark which severs the confessor of Christ from the careless or hostile world. They were buried with Christ through baptism unto death. In that act, had they been dumb, they said they died with Christ to sin; not only that He had died for their sins, now remitted on their faith, but that they were to reckon themselves to be dead to sin and alive in Him to God. Sin, therefore, was not to reign in their mortal body. What a change and deliverance for men once bond-men of sin unto death, now made free from sin, and become bondmen of righteousness, bondmen to God, having their fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life! For in Corinth abounded fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with men, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners. “And such were some of you,” said the apostle, to the Corinthians who believed. In no way had they been exempt from those vile corruptions.
Grace does not find, but makes, the saints after a new and heavenly pattern, as will be manifest when they are manifested with Christ in glory. It levels all in an utter condemnation, but it freely and fully sets in Christ all who believe according to the good pleasure of God's will, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved, in Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our offenses, according to the riches of His grace. This men hate, because it makes nothing of human distinctions in which the pride of man exalts and loses itself. It forbids all glorying in flesh, that the sole glorying may be in the Lord. For there is but one man who is of all weight in the eyes of God, not the first, but the Second, even the Man Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself a ransom for all, the testimony in its own times, which becomes the turning-point of every soul: if heard, he lives; if rejected, he perishes in his sins, whatever the appearances or pretensions.
For in believing, man best owns his guilt and God's grace, reversing the world's sentence and endorsing heaven's estimate of the Crucified One. Baptized in His name he becomes His to serve, where he was once Satan's slave, in not a few cases shamelessly.) henceforth by virtue of Christ's death and resurrection, he is, whatever the condition, to please Him in all things; if a slave, he is Christ's freedman; if free, noble, royal, none the less is he Christ's bondman. You can not have the heavenly and everlasting privileges, without the responsibility meanwhile here below. Of this, for the individual, baptism is the sign; as the Lord's supper is the sign of communion corporately. And none had the significance of the latter so fully laid open to them, as the Corinthians in 1 Cor. 10; 11. They needed the instruction and the warning peculiarly; and therefore grace gave them both.
But the Lord was pleased also to vouchsafe extraordinary encouragement to His servant. Paul had a vision, in which he heard as well as saw. At his conversion he had seen and heard the Lord by day (Acts 9); as afterward in a trance or ecstasy, when he returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, he saw Him who bade him to get out of Jerusalem for his mission to the Gentiles (Acts 22:17-2117And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance; 18And saw him saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me. 19And I said, Lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee: 20And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him. 21And he said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. (Acts 22:17‑21)). 2 Cor. 12 records his translation (whether in the body or out of the body, he did not know) to the third heaven. Thus visions and revelations were comparatively frequent with the apostle. At this time the design was practical. The Lord said to him, “Fear not, but speak and be not silent” (ver. 9). The structure of the phrase implies that he was anxious. He needed a spring of courage beyond what His fellow-laborers could supply; and the Lord gave accordingly. Natural boldness is a force wholly unsuited to spiritual warfare, where the rule is, “When I am weak, then am I strong.” All to be safe and of God must be in dependence on the grace of Christ. Then, as He Himself said to the apostle, “My grace is sufficient for thee; for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly therefore, the apostle could say, will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the strength of Christ may spread a tabernacle over me. So it was now: instead of fearing more, he was to persevere in speaking and not to hold his peace, of which he was in danger, though he had net begun to yield to it (as the form implies).
In the next ver. 10, the Lord condescends to give two reasons: the first, “because I am with thee, and no one shall set on thee to harm thee;” the second, “because I have much people in this city.” What could be more consolatory to the tried servant? The Lord bound Himself, on the one hand, to give His gracious and mighty presence against all adversaries, and, on the other, to open to him a great door and effectual in His work. Rage as Satan's emissaries might, the Lord had many to bring to Himself as His own in that depraved and godless city. It is lamentable to hear such remarks as those of Lim-borch, who will have the Lord to mean, not so much objects of, more and sovereign grace to magnify. His own mercy in redemption, as virtuous and well-disposed brethren, for this reason called His people here, and His sheep in John 10:1616And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. (John 10:16). To mistakes we are all liable, and not least those who flatter themselves most secure; but an error of this kind undermines the gospel, as it indicates the feeblest sense of man's utter ruin, and of our need of grace to the last degree. No one doubts God's wisdom in bringing such an one as a Cornelius under the gospel, when He first sent it out publicly to the Gentiles by Peter; but the great apostle of the Gentiles tells a very different tale of the characters (1 Cor. 6:9-119Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9‑11)) whom grace deigned to bless at Corinth. Again, the Lord, in the parable of the marriage-feast for the King's Son, directs His bondman to go into the thoroughfares of the highways and as many as they could find, to invite to the feast. Accordingly they went out into the highways, and, gathered together all, as many as they found, both bad and good; and the wedding-feast was filled with guests. They are men met and, in believing the gospel, saved indiscriminately to the raise of the riches of God's grace; for the “good” discover through the truth of Christ that they too sinned and come wholly short of the glory of God, while the “bad” find in His plenteous redemption that His grace justifies freely, the same One being Lord of all, and rich toward all that call upon Him. There is no difference, as at bottom in the ruin, so in result in the salvation; that as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
At Corinth, in the face of all difficulties, the apostle abode longer than we have yet heard of elsewhere. “And he settled down a year and six months, teaching among them the word of God” (ver. 11). The result was, not only the salvation of many souls, but the church of God there: holy, catholic, apostolic, if ever there was such an assembly anywhere. It was planted by one inferior to none; it was watered by others who were not surpassed by any; and God gave the increase beyond controversy. Yet how soon the fair scene is blighted, not merely by the presence in their midst of such sin as was Unheard of ordinarily among the Gentiles, but by the low, fleshly, and worldly-minded condition of the saints generally! So much so, that the apostle had to vindicate his own office before the self-assumed bar of his own children in the faith, and put off a visit in their dire need of his help, because he must have come then with the rod, and he wished rather to see them in love and in a spirit of meekness; and this could only be on their self-judgment which in fact his first Epistle wrought in them. It is not so that men picture the apostles going about, as if their words were received implicitly, and their presence had but to be known in order to unhesitating deference among the saints. Miracles, inspiration, and the highest place in the church, produced no more submission then and there, than fin analogous plebe had given Moses and Aaron in the congregation of Jehovah of old. But their failure in so brief an interval was turned of God to the double end; first, of refuting the folly that a true assembly may not err and become corrupt, even in a few short years, in both doctrine and practice; and, secondly, of drawing from God the suited correction at any time, for all saints who are enabled by faith to gather on the footing of God's church according to His word and by His Spirit. No doubt, recovery was the fruit of the apostles writing, as the Second Epistle bears witness; but how long this lasted, who can say? Certain it is that the second century, if not the first, &c., saw the assembly everywhere departed from the very aim our gracious God and Father had in gathering the saints—the glory of Christ therein by the Spirit. His coming was no longer an object of hope, but rather of fear; His word became more and more overlaid by human authority and tradition; and the world began to seem a prize to possess and enjoy increasingly, instead of a scene of suffering and testimony, till He come Whose right it is, when we shall reign with Him in glory.