AS A CHASTE VIRGIN TO CHRIST

Three truths are self-evident as we consider our reading for today. Paul’s longing for the assembly at Corinth is genuine and sincere. His great desire was to be able to present the assembly at Corinth in its pristine purity of affection to Christ. To preserve hearts undivided and true, single-eyed like the dove, and stead­fast and pure was the passion which consumed him. He evaded any Solomon-like departure after strange gods. He strove to avoid an Ephesus-like departure from ‘first love’.

His love is displayed as well. It was first of all a love for God; he was displaying a godly jealousy. In human beings, jealousy is a fault. But God is deserving of all, especially of the affections of His people. God is a jealous God in the sense that He desires and deserves the love of our entire being. As a result, Paul, in his love for God, wanted God to receive all that He deserved from His people. His mind raced back to the Garden of Eden and a scene of innocence when the inveterate enemy of God, Satan, had been able to lure Eve from purity of heart. The tactics and goals of the enemy had not changed and Paul was aware of this and alert to the danger.

But Paul also loved the saints and the assembly at Corinth. The highest honour and greatest privilege of the saints was to be lovers and worshippers of God. In his love for them, he sought to warn them and preserve them.

As a result of his longing and his love, He laboured. He reminded the assembly at Corinth of his labour amongst them, not to boast, but to support his apostleship. On this truth rested the authority of the message he had brought and the truth of God. If Paul’s foes were successful in undermining the confi­dence of the believers in Paul’s apostleship, then it would call into question the truth which Paul had taught them.

God deserves the love of the assembly with which I am linked. The love, however, can never rise higher than my own individual love for Him. Do I have in my affections ‘chaste vir­gin’ character? While we can never boast in our love for Him, we should strive to grow in that love.