Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 3.17 → restored 4.68
Shall we read now from the first epistle to the Corinthians in chapter one. The first epistle to the Corinthians in chapter one. Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ to the will of God and Sosthenes our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in him, in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come behind in no gift, waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the end, that you be unreprovable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Now I beseech you, brethren, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been signified unto me concerning you, my brethren, by them which are of the household of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I mean, that each one of you saith, I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you?
It was exceedingly gracious of you, my dear brethren and sisters, to invite me to address you, and that out of your generosity, not once, but six times in a row. It was also suggested to me that I might consider leading your thoughts in matters to do with the doctrine of the church, and that I gladly consent to do. I propose, God willing, in these coming weeks to talk about some of the basic principles of the church. Today, the church's name. And then perhaps the church's discipline, the church's fellowship, and the church's traditions.
Perhaps you may say to yourself when you hear that, but good as that may be, whatever has that got to do with the Lord's Supper? And will it not disrupt our thoughts suddenly to move from considering the sacred emblems before us that tell us of our Lord's sacrifice to such mechanical things as the principles of the church? Well, the short answer is, of course, that the topic of the church is germane to this very thing that we have just celebrated. There is no safer place on earth to consider the doctrine of the church than the foot of our Savior's cross.
And indeed, if we could meet here week by week to celebrate our Lord's death, and it didn't have an impact on the way we run our church, then it would be questionable whether we had been attending as we should to the significance of this feast. As we consider the doctrine of the church, we shall each week, in fact, be considering an aspect of our blessed Lord's sacrifice. Today it will be his cross. As we hear Paul solve the problem that pre- was presented to him by indignantly asking the Corinthians, was Paul crucified for you?
We preach Christ and him crucified. We are to think of the cross of Christ. When we turn to consider church discipline, we shall be thinking not so much of the cross of Christ, but of the great Passover sacrifice of Christ. Christ, our Passover, sacrificed for us. When we come to think of the fellowship of the church, we shall think not so much of our Savior's cross, nor of his Passover.
We shall think of that wonderful altar that filled with his sacrifice and all its benefits becomes for us the very table of the Lord. And then, as we think of the traditions of the church, we shall think not so much of our Lord's cross, nor of his Passover, nor of the altar. We shall think rather of his covenant sacrifice and his death for our sins.
So this morning we begin with the church's name and the cross of Jesus Christ, our Lord. What shall we call our church? The Corinthians were making a mistake, so we gather from this chapter. Some of them were beginning to call themselves after the name of prominent Christian preachers and teachers, and some said, I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas. And we may find it in our hearts to forgive our ancient brethren. They were first generation Christians, and they easily fell into the mistake.
We couldn't find it in our hearts to forgive ourselves, could we? If we fell into the same mistake of calling ourselves or allowing ourselves to be called by any other name than the blessed name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. But the curious thing is, we do, don't we? While recognizing it is also stupid and worse, Christians at large allow themselves to call themselves after all sorts of names. It is foolish even at the human level, isn't it?
Let me try to illustrate to you its absurdity. Here is a man, what should we call him? Uh, Churchill perhaps, Mr. Churchill. And Mr. Churchill falls in love with a lady, and he marries the good lady, and she becomes, at least in our system of names, Mrs. Churchill. Thus far, all is simple. Ah, but I tell you something about Mrs. Churchill and other ladies. Ladies, you know, have different theories about cooking. Some use pressure cookers, some use grills, and some use these X-ray affairs I don't quite understand. But Mrs.
Churchill is one of the pressure cooker variety. Ooh, she swear by pressure cooker. Well, all right, all right, all right. Pressure cookers are good things, as far as I know. But what would you say of the good woman if presently she gave herself out not as being Mrs. Churchill, but as Mrs. Pressure Cooker. I think it ludicrous. I know. But you'll find Christians doing it. One lot of Christians believes the church should be ruled by monarchical bishops. And another lot of Christians believes that each congregation should be separate.
All right, we understand, and there's a bit of truth in them all, isn't there? But what an absurdity. If they're after, instead of continuing to call themselves just Christians, they start calling themselves after their methods of church government, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Congregationalists. Come, come, that is as stupid as Mrs. Churchill calling herself Mrs. Pressure Cooker. Ah, but I must tell you something else about Mrs. Churchill. She's a very clever woman, like most of them are. But she has this, well, some people would say it's an oddity.
She loves geometry. And she knows, if you were to ask her, all about Pythagoras's theorem. Now, Pythagoras's theorem is very true, very necessary sometimes to be applied. What would you think if the dear woman forgot now to call herself Mrs. Churchill and called herself Mrs. Pythagoras's theorem? No woman would be so stupid as to do it. Of course not. What about Christians? We get hold of some doctrine.
Is it salvation? Or baptism? Important, exceedingly important. What would we be thought guilty of if instead of calling ourselves still just Christians, we were to call ourselves, after our doctrine, salvationists or Baptists or what you like. Now I'll tell you something else about Mrs. Churchill, then I've done. She's learned some sense. Well, she had a lot before, but now she's learned a bit more, and she's come to see that all these other names except, uh, Churchill are wrong, you see.
She says to herself, you know what I really am? As Mr. Churchill's wife, and that's what I'm going to be. From now on, I'm going to call myself Mrs. Wife. That's ridiculous too. And I've met some Christians who've said to themselves, you know, all these other titles are wrong. What we are are brethren. We're all brothers in Christ, and from now on we're going to call ourselves... brethren. That's like Mrs. Churchill calling herself Mrs. Wife. We wouldn't do it in ordinary affairs, would we? Why should we do it in the sacred matter of the public name of the church?
What shall we call ourselves? Is there any doubt? When Paul comes to answer the question wisely, he adopts various tactics, doesn't he? And the first verses of our chapter, uh, up to verse ten, if we've traced them carefully, are a marvelous cavalcade of the glorious and official name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Before he would even mention the problem, he has given us the cure.
Think it not undue repetition. Did you notice how many times he rolled it off his pen? Our Lord Jesus Christ. Not merely Jesus, not merely Christ, but our Lord Jesus Christ. You'll see, it's interesting about names, isn't it? If you know Prince Charles well enough, you may call him Chaz, like his brothers are supposed to do, according to some programs. But if he comes to do a tour of your works and open the new bridge or something, please don't call him Chairs.
Because in public, then he is Prince Charles, and he is this and that and other. All his official titles. And when it comes to the church, of course, the church is known after the name of his official title, the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, let's dwell a moment on his name, and let the glory of it and the splendor of it so fill our hearts that all other names go by the board. Says Paul in verse uh two, with all that call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and thus it is, you'll find it is the fact.
Let Christians call themselves what they will. Ah, they'll come back to this. In our days as sinners, when we found ourselves lost and perishing and going down like Peter under the waves, we called on who? Oh, Luther, save us. No, indeed not. We call on the name of the Lord. And in the trials of life, when in our extremities, we call. It's not on Paul that we call, is it?
Oh Paul, hear us. Oh Peter, hear us. Oh Wesley, hear us. Oh Darby, hear us. There is salvation in another, and we call on the name of the Lord, and praise God, so does every believer, their Lord and ours. Let them call themselves what they will. The true believer, in the hour of his need, we all call on that one same name, their Lord and ours. Oh, look what he says about this lovely name in, uh, verse three.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. What an astonishing statement. Not fifty years before this, this Jesus Christ had worked in a carpenter's shop. Now says the apostle, grace to you from God and from the Lord Jesus, putting the Lord Jesus on the same level as God. Just let's try it with some other name, shall we? Grace to you from God and from Luther. Grace to you from God and from Billy Graham. What do you say? That would be blasphemous.
It would indeed, wouldn't it? Much as we admire and love the great servants of God of all times and all ages, never would you think of putting them on a level with God. And yet the blessed Lord is such, his name is equal to go along with the Father. Grace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, marvelous name this, is it not? Look what it says, do you see? Uh, in verse seven. not only does all our grace come to us through him, but he says that we come behind in no gift, waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That is the hope of the church. Oh, I know that when you get home to glory, you're wanting to see your dad or mum or some loved one. Yes. That the hope of the church. The revelation of the Lord Jesus. Which in his own time he shall show who is the only potentate, king of kings, and lord of lords. He shall stage the revelation, and he shall show this world, shall God the Father, who is the rightful king and heir. God shall strip the curtains aside, and calling the attention of every eye in the whole universe, he shall reveal Christ, our Lord Jesus.
We began with him as as sinners, we called on his name, we continue with him, for all grace comes to us through him, and we're looking forward to him, to the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Says Paul then in verse ten, I beseech you in this matter of what you call yourselves. I beseech you... by brethren doctrine, certainly not. I beseech you by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But let us, uh, bring to bear another consideration. What name shall we call our church? Well, first, call it by the highest name you know, the Lord Jesus Christ. Why would you take a lesser name than that? But secondly, what do you suppose a church is? For the name better correspond, surely, to what it really is. If it's a badminton club, call it a badminton club. If it's a rescue station, call it a rescue station.
If it's a theological circle, call it a theological circle. What is this church that you're supposing you're now going to call? What is it? What is its essential nature? That we might put the right name on it. Well, verse nine gives us what it is. God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. And now you observe the poignancy of the remark, don't you? Do you notice it's not into the fellowship of Jesus Christ our Lord, or our Lord Jesus Christ merely?
For here presented to us is the Father inviting us, men and women, into a fellowship. And with his Father's heart, he invites us into the fellowship of his son. Or let us think for a moment of what God thinks of the Lord Jesus. If Her Gracious Majesty the Queen invited you to become a friend of the heir to the throne, how would she call him?
Chaz? My son. And then the titles would come, wouldn't they? God invites us. Oh, how stupendous the invitation. God, the transcendent Lord, invites us into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Then let it settle it. That's what it will be. That's what it is.
Fellowship of God's Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Dare we put any other name on it? You say, ah, but you see, Mr. Preacher, I- I was brought to Christ by, by, by, by reading the, the, uh, some works by John Whitfield. Well, perhaps you were then. And somebody else, you see, but ah, yes, but what helped me most was Calvin, you see. I'm a Calvinist. You are. Well, that won't save you. Sorry. For I say to you what Paul said to the Corinthians, was Calvin crucified for you?
Was Whitfield crucified for you? Great servants of God, to whom we all without exception, owe incalculable debts, whether we realize it or not. But when it comes to Christ on the one hand, and Calvin, Paul, Peter, Luther, whoever you like to put on the other, the gulf is unbridgeable. They merely told us about the death of Christ. Christ... it was that died. They came and told us how the Lord Jesus was crucified.
But then they added that the Lord Jesus was crucified because they were sinners, like we are. And they stand with us on the one side, eminent servants of God, but sinners, undone, lost, and on their way to perish, like the rest of us. The one who died for us, in all his solitary worth, was Jesus Christ our Lord? Was Paul crucified for you?
Well, no. Then don't you call yourself by his name. But mark the term. Was he crucified? For when we think of this matter of the name we call ourselves, we think of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us, that he should be the name by which we are called, then the first thing we have to consider is the fact that he not only died, he not only gave a sacrifice, blessed as they are, but he was crucified for us, and for our sakes endured the cross.
There are many ways of dying. And we are called now to think why it was that when our blessed Lord died for us, it had to be the death, even the death of the cross. What's the difference in thought between the death of Christ and the cross of Christ. And that I submit we might care to think about in the days that of this week that are to come.
For when I have got it into my heart that not only did my Lord die for me, but he suffered the cross for me, I shall never again call myself by the name of any other person. I shall sing like the hymn writer when I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died. My richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride.
