The Expositor's Bible: The Second Epistle to the CorinthiansDenney, James
Religion
The Expositor's Bible: The Second Epistle to the Corinthians
Denney, James
Bible. Corinthians, 2nd -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Now, as long as this is kept in an abstract form people do not quarrel
with it. They have no objection to admit that good and evil are the only
spiritual forces in the world, and that they are mutually exclusive. But
many will not admit that there are only two kinds of persons in the
world, answering to these two forces. They would rather say there is
only _one_ kind of persons, in whom these forces are with infinite
varieties and modifications combined. This seems more tolerant, more
humane, more capable of explaining the amazing mixtures and
inconsistencies we see in human lives. But it is not more true. It is a
more penetrating insight which judges that every man--despite his range
of neutrality--would in the last resort choose his side; would, in
short, in a crisis of the proper kind, prove finally that he was not
good _and_ bad, but good _or_ bad. We cannot pretend to judge others,
but sometimes men judge themselves, and always God can judge. And there
is an instinct in those who are perfecting holiness in the fear of God
which tells them, without in the least making them Pharisaical, not only
what things, but what persons--not only what ideas and practices, but
what individual characters--are not to be made friends of. It is no
pride, or scorn, or censoriousness, which speaks thus, but the voice of
all Christian experience. It is recognised at once where the young are
concerned: people are careful of the friends their children make, and a
schoolmaster will dismiss inexorably, not only a bad habit, but a bad
boy, from the school. It ought to be recognised just as easily in
maturity as in childhood: there are men and women, as well as boys and
girls, who distinctly represent evil, and whose society is to be
declined. To protest against them, to repel them, to resent their life
and conduct as morally offensive, is a Christian duty; it is the first
step towards evangelising them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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