Waiting for the Coming of the Lord
T. Dale, M. A. 1 Corinthians 1:7-8 So that you come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: I. THE OBJECT OF EXPECTATION TO ALL TRUE BELIEVERS. "The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." It should rather have been rendered, the discovery or manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The primary idea is that of stripping off a garment, rolling away a curtain, or removing a screen; and under whichever of these aspects we contemplate the image depicted by the apostle, it will come home with equal power to our own consciousness of frailty, our own liability to death. Practically, that moment will be to us the manifestation of Christ as Judge, which shall strip off this garment of mortality, roll away the dark curtain of the grave, and remove the screen which divides us from the invisible world. The believer does not, like one conscious of unacknowledged and unrepented sin, start back from judgment with apprehension and alarm. It is not a Judge who will be manifested to his spiritual view, arrayed in lightnings and attended by ministers of wrath — it is not such a Judge, but our Lord Jesus Christ: yea, he can even say, with all the confiding appropriation of the Apostle Paul, "Christ Jesus, my Lord, the excellency of whose knowledge is life eternal, and in whom I desire to be found, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." II. THE MODE OF SO PREPARING FOR THE COMING OR MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST JESUS, THAT IT SHALL BE, NOT THE APPREHENSION OF IMPENDING EVIL, BUT' THE EXPECTANCY OF CERTAIN AND ENDURING GOOD. The apostle speaks of God "confirming these Corinthians unto the end." Confirming them, you will ask, in what? The reference is to the fourth verse, in which St. Paul speaks, first, of the producing cause, in which alone preparation had commenced or could commence, even the "grace which had been given through Jesus Christ"; and afterwards of the effect which had been produced thereby — "that they were enriched in all utterance and in all knowledge"; in which utterance, being the declaration of a good confession — and in which knowledge, being that which is to life eternal — he desires that through the same grace, and by the same power, they may he confirmed. III. THE CONSEQUENCE OF BEING THUS PREPARED BY GRACE AND CONFIRMED OF GOD UNTO THE END: viz., that we shall be found blameless in the day of Jesus Christ. This word "blameless" is strictly a forensic term, applicable to the trial of the soul in the high court of heaven, and by God, the Judge of all. Whatever may be the discoveries of the last day, or to whomsoever made, of one thing we are certain, beyond all fear of a contingency, "there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." (T. Dale, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: WEB: so that you come behind in no gift; waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ;