PERISHING OR BEING SAVED

   ’For the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish
   foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power
   of God.’—­1 COR. i. 18.

The starting-point of my remarks is the observation that a slight variation of rendering, which will be found in the Revised Version, brings out the true meaning of these words.  Instead of reading ’them that perish’ and ‘us which are saved,’ we ought to read ’them that are perishing,’ and ‘us which are being saved.’  That is to say, the Apostle represents the two contrasted conditions, not so much as fixed states, either present or future, but rather as processes which are going on, and are manifestly, in the present, incomplete.  That opens some very solemn and intensely practical considerations.

Then I may further note that this antithesis includes the whole of the persons to whom the Gospel is preached.  In one or other of these two classes they all stand.  Further, we have to observe that the consideration which determines the class to which men belong, is the attitude which they respectively take to the preaching of the Cross.  If it be, and because it is, ‘foolishness’ to some, they belong to the catalogue of the perishing.  If it be, and because it is, ’the power of God’ to others, they belong to the class of those who are in process of being saved.

So, then, we have the ground cleared for two or three very simple, but, as it seems to me, very important thoughts.

I. I desire, first, to look at the two contrasted conditions, ‘perishing’ and ‘being saved.’

Now we shall best, I think, understand the force of the darker of these two terms if we first ask what is the force of the brighter and more radiant.  If we understand what the Apostle means by ‘saving’ and ‘salvation’ we shall understand also what he means by ‘perishing.’

If, then, we turn for a moment to Scripture analogy and teaching, we find that that threadbare word ‘salvation,’ which we all take it for granted that we understand, and which, like a well-worn coin, has been so passed from hand to hand that it scarcely remains legible—­that well-worn word ‘salvation’ starts from a double metaphorical meaning.  It means either—­and is used for both—­being healed or being made safe.  In the one sense it is often employed in the Gospel narratives of our Lord’s miracles, and it involves the metaphor of a sick man and his cure; in the other it involves the metaphor of a man in peril and his deliverance and security.  The negative side, then, of the Gospel idea of salvation is the making whole from a disease, and the making safe from a danger.  Negatively, it is the removal from each of us of the one sickness, which is sin; and the one danger, which is the reaping of the fruits and consequences of sin, in their variety as guilt, remorse, habit, and slavery under it, perverted relation