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.
The very word "savour," in connexion with the "knowledge" of God in
Christ, is full of meaning. It has its most direct application, of
course, to preaching. When we proclaim the Gospel, do we always succeed
in manifesting it as a savour? Or is not the savour--the sweetness, the
winsomeness, the charm and attractiveness of it--the very thing that is
most easily left out? Do we not catch it sometimes in the words of
others, and wonder that it eludes our own? We miss what is most
characteristic in the knowledge of God if we miss this. We leave out
that very element in the Evangel which makes it evangelic, and gives it
its power to subdue and enchain the souls of men. But it is not to
preachers only that the word "savour" speaks; it is of the widest
possible application. Whereever Christ is leading a single soul in
triumph, the fragrance of the Gospel should go forth; rather, it does go
forth, in proportion as His triumph is complete. There is sure to be
that in the life which will reveal the graciousness as well as the
omnipotence of the Saviour. And it is this virtue which God uses as His
main witness, as His chief instrument, to evangelise the world. In every
relation of life it should tell. Nothing is so insuppressible, nothing
so pervasive, as a fragrance. The lowliest life which Christ is really
leading in triumph will speak infallibly and persuasively for Him. In a
Christian brother or sister, brothers and sisters will find a new
strength and tenderness, something that goes deeper than natural
affection, and can stand severer shocks; they will catch the fragrance
which declares that the Lord in His triumphant grace is there. And so in
all situations, or, as the Apostle has it, "in every place." And if we
are conscious that we fall in this matter, and that the fragrance of the
knowledge of Christ is something to which our life gives no testimony,
let us be sure that the explanation of it is to be found in self-will.
There is something in us which has not yet made complete surrender to
Him, and not till He leads us unresistingly in triumph will the sweet
savour go forth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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