1 Corinthians ix
24 Know ye not that - In those famous games which are kept at the isthmus,
near your city. They who run in the foot race all run, though but one receiveth
the prize - How much greater encouragement have you to run; since ye may
all receive the prize of your high calling!
25 And every one that there contendeth is temperate in all things -
To an almost incredible degree; using the most rigorous self denial in
food, sleep, and every other sensual indulgence. A corruptible crown -
A garland of leaves, which must soon wither. The moderns only have discovered
that it is "legal" to do all this and more for an eternal crown than they
did for a corruptible!
26 I so run, not as uncertainly - I look straight to the goal; I run
straight toward it. I cast away every weight, regard not any that stand
by. I fight not as one that beateth the air - This is a proverbial expression
for a man's missing his blow, and spending his strength, not on his enemy,
but on empty air.
27 But I keep under my body - By all kinds of self denial. And bring
it into subjection - To my spirit and to God. The words are strongly figurative,
and signify the mortification of the body of sin, "by an allusion to the
natural bodies of those who were bruised or subdued in combat. Lest by
any means after having preached - The Greek word means, after having discharged
the office of an herald, (still carrying on the allusion,) whose office
it was to proclaim the conditions, and to display the prizes. I myself
should become a reprobate - Disapproved by the Judge, and so falling short
of the prize. This single text may give us a just notion of the scriptural
doctrine of election and reprobation; and clearly shows us, that particular
persons are not in holy writ represented as elected absolutely and unconditionally
to eternal life, or predestinated absolutely and unconditionally to eternal
death; but that believers in general are elected to enjoy the Christian
privileges on earth; which if they abuse, those very elect persons will
become reprobate. St. Paul was certainly an elect person, if ever there
was one; and yet he declares it was possible he himself might become a
reprobate. Nay, he actually would have become such, if he had not thus
kept his body under, even though he had been so long an elect person, a
Christian, and an apostle.
