For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you
except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
1 Co 2:2
John Calvin says:
In adding the word crucified, he does not mean that he preached nothing respecting Christ except the cross; but that, with all the abasement of the cross, he nevertheless preached Christ. It is as though he had said: “The ignominy of the cross will not prevent me from looking up to him1 from whom salvation comes, or make me ashamed to regard all my wisdom as comprehended in him—in him, I say, whom proud men despise and reject on account of the reproach of the cross.” Hence the statement must be explained in this way: “No kind of knowledge was in my view of so much importance as to lead me to desire anything but Christ, crucified though he was.” This little clause is added by way of enlargement (αὔξησιν,) with the view of galling so much the more those arrogant masters, by whom Christ was next to despised, as they were eager to gain applause by being renowned for a higher kind of wisdom. Here we have a beautiful passage, from which we learn what it is that faithful ministers ought to teach, what it is that we must, during our whole life, be learning, and in comparison with which everything else must be “counted as dung.” (Phil. 3:8.)
John Calvin and John Pringle, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, vol. 1, 97.
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