Divine love cares for others and sacrifices self. The Apostle was a living example of the gospel he preached. There were rights, and grace does not forget them for others — does not avail itself of them. He is even warm in repudiating any such thought. He was living Christ so as to feel and act like Him who taught that it was more blessed to give than to receive. His own life and death were the fullness of its truth, but the Apostle was no mean witness of it, though a man of like passions with us. Nor has he been without his imitators in this, even as he also was of Christ. He would not afford a handle to those who sought it at Corinth. Others have had grounds equally grave for a similar course.
It is important to see also that to preach is not a thing to boast of. It is an obligation — a duty to Him who has called one and conferred a gift for this very purpose. It is thus a necessity laid on all such, not an office of honor to claim nor a right to plead. Christ has the right to send, and He does send, laborers into His vineyard. This makes it truly a necessity laid on him who is sent. According to Scripture, the church never sends any to preach the gospel. Relations are falsified by any such pretension. Again, He who sends directs the laborer. It is of capital importance that this should be maintained with immediate responsibility to the Lord. Therefore it is that the Apostle adds, “Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.” Undoubtedly he who does this voluntarily has a reward, and the heart goes with the blessed work, whatever the hardness and reproach which accompany it. But if not of one’s own will, an administration, or stewardship, is entrusted to one. Now of the steward it is sought that he be found faithful.
“What, then, is my reward? That in preaching the gospel I may make the gospel without charge; so that I use not for myself my title in the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:18 WK). It was meet that such a one as the Apostle, extraordinarily called, should act in extraordinary grace, and this he does. He made the gospel without cost to others and at all cost to himself. He did not use his right to a support for himself. It is no question here of “abuse,” any more than in 1 Corinthians 7:31. It is the giving up of one’s right for special reasons of grace, and it is the more beautiful in one who had as deep a sense of righteousness as any man, perhaps, who ever lived. The plea for the rights of others was therefore so much the more unimpeachable, because it was absolutely unmixed with any desire for himself.
“Being free from all, I made myself bondman to all, that I might gain the most. And I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; and to those under law, as under law, not being myself under law, that I might gain those under law; to those without law, as without law, not being without law to God, but under law to Christ, that I might gain those without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak; to all I have become all things, that by all means I might save some. And all things I do for the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow-partaker of it” (1 Cor. 9:19-28 WK). How bright a reflection of the spirit of the gospel! The Apostle was ready to yield at every side where Christ was not concerned. He was free, but free to be a bondman of any and everyone, in order that he might gain, not ends of his own, but the most possible for Christ.
Such is the elasticity of grace. “To those without law, as without law,” while he carefully adds, not being without law to God, but duly or legitimately subject to Christ, that he might gain those without law. It is in vain to speak of natural character or education. If there ever was a soul rigidly bound by Pharisaic tradition within the straitest limits, it was Saul of Tarsus. But if any man be in Christ, there is a new creation. The old things passed; behold, they are become new. Such was Paul the Apostle, and so he lived, labored, and speaks to us livingly. He would not wound the scruples of the feeblest; nay, to the weak he became weak, that he might gain the weak; in short, he could, and does, say, “To all I am become all things, that I may by all means save some.” It was not, as some basely misuse his words, to excuse tampering with the world and so spare one’s own flesh, which is really to become the prey of Satan. His was self-sacrifice in a faith which had only Christ for its object and the bringing of every soul within one’s reach into contact with His love.
W. Kelly