I think I shall best bring out the force of these words by dealing first with that emphatic threefold proclamation of the nullity of all externalism; and then with the singular variations in the triple statement of what is essential, viz. spiritual conduct and character.

I. First, the emphatic proclamation of the nullity of outward rites.

‘Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing,’ say two texts.  ’Circumcision availeth nothing, and uncircumcision availeth nothing,’ says the other.  It neither is anything nor does anything.  Did Paul say that because circumcision was a Jewish rite?  No.  As I believe, he said it because it was a rite; and because he had learned that the one thing needful was spiritual character, and that no external ceremonial of any sort could produce that.  I think we are perfectly warranted in taking this principle of my text, and in extending it beyond the limits of the Jewish rite about which Paul was speaking.  For if you remember, he speaks about baptism, in the first chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, in a precisely similar tone and for precisely the same reason, when he says, in effect, ’I baptized Crispus and Gaius and the household of Stephanas, and I think these are all.  I am not quite sure.  I do not keep any kind of record of such things; God did not send me to baptize, He sent me to preach the Gospel.’

The thing that produced the spiritual result was not the rite, but the truth, and therefore he felt that his function was to preach the truth and leave the rite to be administered by others.  Therefore we can extend the principle here to all externalisms of worship, in all forms, in all churches, and say that in comparison with the essentials of an inward Christianity they are nothing and they do nothing.

They have their value.  As long as we are here on earth, living in the flesh, we must have outward forms and symbolical rites.  It is in Heaven that the seer ‘saw no temple.’  Our sense-bound nature requires, and thankfully avails itself of, the help of external rites and ceremonials to lift us up towards the Object of our devotion.  A man prays all the better if he bow his head, shut his eyes, and bend his knees.  Forms do help us to the realisation of the realities, and the truths which they express and embody.  Music may waft our souls to the heavens, and pictures may stir deep thoughts.  That is the simple principle on which the value of all external aids to devotion depends.  They may be helps towards the appreciation of divine truth, and to the suffusing of the heart with devout emotions which may lead to building up a holy character.