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‘But thanks be unto God, Which always leadeth us in triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest through us the savour of His knowledge in every place.’
2Co_2:14
I. The true meaning is the exact opposite. St. Paul and his fellow-believers are not here compared to a general triumphing after a battle; they themselves are led in triumph as captives by a victorious general. In very deed they have been conquered themselves.
II. ‘Thanks be to God,’ or, ‘Glory to God,’ St. Paul may well say, for it was the love of God which sent Jesus Christ, and it is the story of His dying love which melts, subdues, and conquers human hearts, and transforms human lives, and brings the sweetness of heaven down to this earth of tears and blood.
III. If a man is to be saved, the will must bow, the heart must surrender. But how can this miracle be wrought? Christ acts on human wills and human hearts by the spell, by the charm, by the force of irresistible love. So that the man says—
‘Saviour, I yield, I yield,
I can hold out no more;
I sink by dying love compell’d,
And own Thee Conqueror.’
Rev. F. Harper.
Illustration‘John Newton was a well-known evangelical preacher of rather more than a hundred years ago, and he was a miracle of grace. “I was a wild beast on the coast of Africa,” he said, “but the Lord caught me and tamed me, and now you come to see me as people go to look at the lions in the Tower.” In truth he had been a swearing sea-captain, and withal a dealer in slaves, but he became transformed, and sat at the feet of Jesus, and heard His Word, and preached it too, and wrote the hymn “How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds.” ’