Eric Liddell

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Friends, this evening we are turning to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian Church, exploring his response to one of their most pressing questions. Paul, in his response to their questions, made good use of Scripture, so I would encourage you to turn to 1 Corinthians 9 in your Bibles so that you can follow along with my reasoning and thoughts, and to make sure that the words I speak are true to the holy Word of God.

In this portion of his letter, Paul is responding to questions put to him concerning the eating of food previously offered to idols. Corinth, as you’ll see if you ever look at a Biblical map, was really the crossroads of the ancient world, slap bang in the middle of a trading route between the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Owing to this trade route, there were many different cultures and religions present in this part of the world:1 in many ways a little like Glasgow today, a place where people come and often settle. Corinth was a Roman colony, meaning that it enjoyed the protection of Rome, but also lived according to many of Rome’s laws. This included the worship of various gods and goddesses according to Roman custom at the time. Remember this was well before the Romans declared Christianity to be the empire’s official religion – at this point Corinth, and the whole of the Roman empire, was thoroughly pagan.

Paul, along with his fellow tent-makers Aquila and Priscilla, travelled to Corinth in the early 50s AD. After spending some time there, Paul moved to Ephesus, from where he wrote this letter (and many others). Before he wrote 1 Corinthians, he wrote another letter, which he mentions in 1 Corinthians 5. 9:

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people… (1 Cor. 5. 9)2

From this we can assume that his first, and sadly lost, letter concerned immorality, which historians have shown was rife in Corinth at the time. How could the new Christians in that place deal with living in a sexually immoral culture? However, as we can read from the following verse (5. 10) they had misunderstood his letter and were trying to isolate themselves entirely from the world around them. Furthermore he heard from other sources which showed that the Corinthians had misunderstood other teachings concerning marriage, divorce, their relationship with the pagan world and good order within worship, to name but a few of their problems. These problems he sought to address in what the Scriptures know as 1 Corinthians. We can see in various places throughout the letter that Paul writes things like, “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote…” (7. 1), “Now concerning the betrothed” (7. 25), “Now concerning food offered to idols” (8. 1) and so on. It is this last one, concerning idols, that Paul continues to write about in chapter nine, and which underlies our passage this evening.3

As I mentioned earlier, Corinth at the time was a milieu of different cultures and religions, but thoroughly Pagan, as it lived under Roman laws. Therefore the pagan temple was the centre of activity. The worship in Pagan temples involved animal sacrifices to one or many of their deities. We know that “Pagan temples offered parts of animals in sacrifice to the gods, [but] they also functioned as butcher shops and banqueting halls… Often meat from the temple was sold to the public in the marketplace. This section of 1 Corinthians gives clear guidance about the use of such food.”4

The problem that the Corinthians could not solve for themselves was, what should we do when presented with a plate of food that only a little earlier in the day had been offered before some god in the temple?

It was an interesting question. But in their confusion the Corinthians had overlooked one thing: even though the food had been offered to idols, the idols and gods in the temple were not real. The idols had no significance to the Christian, and the gods had no power. They were simply pictures, statues or thoughts. Therefore food which had been offered to this make-belief god was in no way infected by its godliness, because the god didn’t exist!

Paul puts this far clearer than I can, as he writes:

Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Cor. 8. 4-6)

However, Paul explains, just because these idols aren’t real and have no power of their own, we must not ignore the power that other people think they have. Even though the Corinthian Christians knew that the gods were make-belief, the others in the community thought they were all powerful. Therefore they ascribed them powers in their own minds. If an outsider saw one of these newfangled Christians eating food offered to idols, they may put two and two together and get six. Similarly, some new Christians, who had been born again but had not totally understood the way of Jesus might continue to associate the food with the idol. Says Paul,

However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. (1 Cor. 8. 7)

Therefore the Christians had to be careful. On the one hand they had to be sure in themselves that this food was in no way special or soiled just because it had been waved about in the temple, but on the other hand had to be sure that people around them were not confused or, worse, led into error through their actions. Therefore, even though the Corinthians were quite within their rights to eat this meat, and in doing so were not endangering their souls in any way, they had to make sure that their actions did not “become a stumbling block to the weak.” (8. 9)

This is how Paul introduces his theme of self-denial and self-control which forms the basis of this evening’s passage. Throughout chapter 9 Paul goes on to explain and show how this act of surrendering one’s liberty for the sake of others is an inherently Christian action, and that he (Paul) is a fine example of this. Throughout his ministry, Paul shows, he had surrendered various of his rights and privileges for the sake of the Gospel.

These included 1) surrendering his right to eat or drink certain things - “Do we not have the right to eat and drink?” (9. 4); 2) surrendering the right to take a wife and have a family - “Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?” (9. 5); 3) surrendering his right to payment for his ministry among them - “If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?” (9. 11) And all of these acts of surrender were not for the sake of looking good, but, Paul says, “for the sake of the Gospel” (9. 23)

Let’s turn again to our reading for tonight, and in particular to vv. 23-27.

I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Cor. 9. 23-27)

Here we have three things: an illustration, an exhortation, and an application. Let’s look at each in turn:

The Illustration - “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?” (24a)

Alongside being a vitally important trading city, Corinth was also famous as the location for one of the ancient world’s many athletic games, known as the Isthmian Games. Like the similar games in Olympia, Pithynia and Nemea, the Isthmian Games “included every form of athletic exercise… For a Greek these contests were great national and religious festivals. None but freemen could enter the lists, and they only after they had satisfied the appointed officers that they had for ten months undergone the necessary preliminary training.”5 They were a big thing, and often children from a young age were trained in athletics in the hope that, one day, they could bring their families and home towns honour by competing and winning in the games. Remember back to the 2012 Olympics, for example, where every gold medallist would have a postbox in their home town painted gold? This was seen as an honour, but the honour from competing at and winning in the Isthmian Games was even greater. It is said that, when a winning athlete returned to his home town or city from the Games, he would enter not through the gate but through a special, newly made “breach in the walls, the object of this being to symbolise that for a town which was honoured with such a citizen no walls of defence were needful.”6 The recipients of Paul’s letter would be only too aware of what a big deal the Games were, and probably be well aware of the kudos surrounding them. Building on this knowledge, Paul begins his analogy of the Christian life being a race. Throughout his epistles Paul uses a few different analogies, and most of them involve either an athlete, a farmer, or a soldier.

‘Therefore, Corinthians, seeing you know a lot about the games,’ says Paul, ‘remember that just as many people attend the arena on race day, and just as many people enter the race, yet only one person is crowned the winner.’ As John Calvin later wrote, in his commentary on 1 Corinthians:

There is no reason why any one should feel satisfied with himself on the ground of his having one entered upon the race… unless he persevere in it until death.7

Now there is a major difference between the races at the Isthmian Games and the life of a Christian. In the athletics race, many people enter but only one person wins – only one person is crowned – and all the rest go home disappointed. Yes they may have won silver or bronze, but they didn’t win. No gold post-box for their home town. In the Christian race, however, only one Person did win – the Lord Jesus alone fulfilled the entire law, died blameless for our sins, and rose again destroying sin and death – but thanks to His victory we are all winners of eternal life. All we have to do, says Paul, is continue in the race until we die. Therefore, says Calvin, “God requires from us nothing more than that we press on vigorously until we reach the goal.”8

There is, of course, a reason that I am taking us through this text tonight. Of course it is a wonderfully rich passage on which to feed, which would do us good whenever we read it, but being the summer we are in the middle of sports ‘season’. This is the one time of the year when I become a ‘sports widower’, having to sit and amuse myself while Jax shouts in support of the Wimbledon players. Not only this, but as some of you will be all too aware, there was a rather big football match today as well. And, the year being a multiple of four, this summer will see the Olympic Games held in Paris.

However, this year is a particularly special one to me, and to many others, for this year, last Thursday (11th) to be more specific, was the 100th anniversary of Eric Liddell’s 400m race at the Paris Olympics of 1924. Now of course none of us here are old enough to remember the games, but thanks to the wonder of film many of us will have seen it re-enacted in Chariots of Fire.9 Alongside the beautiful scenery and endearing music, the film also shows something else: two men each running their races for a different reason. Harold Abrahams, the Lithuanian Jew, running to try and overcome prejudice and become the fastest runner in the world, pulling out all the stops, employing personal trainers (when such activity was not technically allowed), and Eric Liddell, the son of a missionary who ran because “God made [him] fast”.10 We also know, from the film or from reading the many books about Liddell, that he was meant to be competing in the 100m sprint, but withdrew from this race because it fell on the Lord’s Day. Liddell, a committed Christian and knowing his Ten Commandments, knew that it would be wrong for him to compete on God’s appointed day of rest, so instead ran the 400m race, winning it and setting a new world record which went unbeaten for many years.

In dropping out of his 100m race, Liddell faced criticism both at home and overseas. Even some people in his native Scotland, a land well known at the time for its Sabbatarianism, condemned Liddell for standing aside from his race, claiming he had betrayed his nation and his king. And yet Liddell knew that it was his duty to do so. One of the most moving lines in the whole film (and yes, I am a bit of a fan) is when Liddell is asked whether he had any regrets in not running the 100m. His response, a slight nod of the head, and the words, “Regrets – yes. No doubts though!”11 Whether he said this in real life is debatable, but I feel it says an awful lot.

So, when the Lord’s Day came on 11th July 1924, Liddell was not found in the arena, but in the Scots Kirk in Paris, where he preached a sermon based on the opening verses from Isaiah. His life story did not end there, though, for on his return from France Liddell entered the Missionary Service and was sent to China. There he ministered for nearly twenty years, before the outbreak of the Second World War. He was taken prisoner in one of the barbaric Japanese concentration camps, and there died only a month before the end of the war. In the film, in his writings and in his cultural legacy, we see a man who not only physically ran for the glory of God (and refused to run when such running would dishonour Him), but also ran the race of life in God’s service, trading the pomp and riches of sporting celebrity for the dirt and death of the Missionary service, dying in squalor in a Japanese concentration camp. Unlike Harold Abrahams (also depicted in the film) who ran for glory and power, in order to prove himself, Liddell ran for God

The Exhortation - “So run that you may obtain it.” (24b)

‘Therefore, taking the athletic imagery into account,’ says Paul, ‘keep running so that you can attain the prize as well.’ There is, I feel, a sense of deep desperation in Paul’s plea. It’s as though he’s the coach or trainer, shouting ‘Keep going’ as he sees his student starting to slow down half-way around the track. ‘You’ve come this far, Corinthians, don’t stop now!’ He has reminded them of the need to exercise self-control in all things, and now encourages them to continue in their race.

Calvin explains that “it is not enough to have set out [in the Christian life], if we do not continue to run during our whole life.”12 Dear friends, if you were baptised, or became a member, or came to faith in the Lord Jesus one, ten, fifty years ago, this means little unless you continue to run the race.

Now, this talk does potentially raise big questions for us, as Reformed Christians. We know all too well that it is not our works that save us or fit us for heaven. We do not earn our way up the heavenly ladder through the things we do, the things we pray, even the things we give up. It is all of God’s grace. We know too, from our Bibles and from the Westminster Confession, that once a person is saved, called and sanctified by God, that’s to say, once a person is born again in Jesus Christ, he or she can never fall away from God:

They whom God hath accepted in His Beloved, effectually called and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace; but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.13

No matter what we do, no matter how far we may wander or how many times we may fall foul of the same sin, we cannot wriggle free from God’s grasp on our lives. However, armed with this amazingly good news – and good news it most certainly is – it does not mean that we should stop running, stop trying to live a good life for Christ. James, in his letter, asks:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2. 14-18)

If you have been saved by God’s grace, friends. If you are a Christian, a believer, sitting here tonight, then this message of Paul’s applies to you. Yes, you have been saved, and this is excellent news, but you need to keep on in the race. Don’t stop now: for not only would stopping running naturally lead you back into a life of sin and lawlessness, but it would grieve God’s Holy Spirit (which we are commanded not to do, see Ephesians 4. 30) and “hurt and scandalize others,”14 bringing us back full-circle to the Corinthians eating meat offered to idols.

Continuing in Paul’s analogy, we can ask a follow on question. What of those people who were born again, who were good, steady Christians, but fell away? What of those who now have nothing to do with church? And I’m not talking here about people who are unable to come to church because of ill health, or duties, I’m talking about folk who have no interest in the Gospel any more. Well, in this instance, the question would naturally arise: if a Christian falls while running in the race (as we all do), but doesn’t immediately get back up, repent and seek to enjoy the race, was he or she truly saved in the first place?

Some people may direct us to Hebrews 6, where we can read this:

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. (Heb. 6. 4-8)

And to explain it, we can read:

Most argue, however, that although these people may have participated fully in the Christian covenantal community (where they experienced enlightened instruction on the Word of God, where they saw public repentance occur, and where the Holy Spirit was at work in powerful ways), when such people do ‘fall away’ it is clear that they are not true Christians because they have not made a true, saving response to the Gospel, resulting in genuine faith, love and perseverance (vv. 9-12). Significantly, they are like land which received much rain but bore no good fruit, only ‘thorns and thistles’ (v. 8). They may have participated outwardly in the Christian community and they may even have shared in the blessings of Christian fellowship; but like the seed that fell on rocky ground in the parable of the sower, ‘they have no root’ (Mk. 4. 17) and they ‘fall away’ when faced with persecution.”15

Returning to Paul, and our text for this evening, however, the big question is: What are we running for? And where are we running?

The Application - “ Every athlete exercises self-control in all things…” (vv. 25-27)

Paul, having made his point about food in chapter 8, illustrated it in

  1. 24a, and exhorted his readers in 9. 24b, now turned to the really important bit – applying it to his readers’ lives. Yes, they must persevere. But how?

In answering this, Paul turns again to the lives of athletes, and also to the lives of boxers. Both of these groups of people have to exercise great self-control and self-denial in their lives, for they know that their twenty-second sprint on the pitch, or their twenty minute fight in the ring is wholly dependent on the weeks, months, years of training that went before it. Just as the competitors at the Isthmian Games had to show that they’d been in training for many months prior,16 so too the boxer and the runner have to prepare. Whether we see this in Chariots of Fire, where both Abrahams and Liddell are seen practising hard, whether we see this in the lives of the athletes in Wimbledon or the Football, we know that their short time on the pitch or stage is only possible thanks to their devoted training beforehand.

We, in our Christian journey, whether we call it a race, or a walk, have to exercise “self-control in all things” (v. 25). Perhaps the image that Paul was reminded of was of the Greek boxers who ate the coliphium, “a kind of bread that was fitted to maintain and increase strength, which was commonly made use of by wrestlers, and persons of that sort.”17 This coliphium was not nice food: they ate it because it made them strong, not because it tasted nice. They “voluntarily den[ied] themselves every delicacy”18 to prepare them for the fight. And if they did this for “a perishable wreath” (v. 25 - “a garland of pine leaves of ivy”19), how much more then should we be prepared to deny ourselves and exercise self-control in spiritual matters, for the crown that never fades.

Friends, this is not intended as a sermon warning you to watch what you eat: let’s face it, I’m hardly qualified to do that. All too frequently I find that I’m eating the wrong things, and this week I didn’t get to the gym once, just like every other week for the last twenty-five years! It isn’t about your physical health (although for Paul to his readers it was a helpful analogy). This is about something far bigger: what are you and I willing to put down for the sake of taking up the Gospel?

Paul offers us himself as an example: he does not “run aimlessly” (v. 26), he runs toward the prize. He willingly denies himself certain things, be that food, or money, or power, or relationships (see ch. 8), for the sake of a) reaching the Gospel prize himself, and b) leading others towards it. And whether he does this through the control of his body (and bodily urges) as in v. 27, or his actions in v. 26, he does it for this purpose.

Dear friends, we have set before us a Gospel imperative, a challenge and example from Paul, himself following the Lord Jesus, to put down those things which may hinder us in our Christian run, and instead take up training for the Christian race. There will be people here tonight who have been on this race for many years or decades: people who may be nearer to the finish line, and there will be people here tonight who have just entered the track.

Wherever you are in the race, know that you and I are running towards the greatest prize of all, and that when we fall (as we most certainly will) we must not give up, but get straight back on our feet and re-enter the race. The self-control that we are expected to exercise as Christians may seem tedious or burdensome, but the reward is beyond our wildest dreams, bringing us closer to Jesus and encouraging those people around us. May the Lord richly bless us in our Christian walk, sustaining us and keeping us on the right path, and may we, in our final breath, be able to say like Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”. (2 Tim. 4. 7)

  1. Lane T. Dennis, Wayne Grudem, and J. I. Packer, eds., ESV Study Bible, Personal Size, First Edition (Crossway, 2015), 2187. ↩

  2. This, and other Scriptures unless otherwise stated, from the ESVUK. ↩

  3. Much of this information taken from Dennis, Grudem, and Packer, ESV Study Bible, Personal Size, 2187–88. ↩

  4. Ibid., 2202. ↩

  5. The Rev. E. H. Plumptre DD et al, The Rev. W. Sanday, and The Rev. T. Teignmouth Shore, ‘Acts to Galatians’, in A Bible Commentary for English Readers by Various Writers, ed. Charles John Ellicott, vol. 7 (London: Cassell and Co., n.d.), 321. ↩

  6. Ibid. ↩

  7. Jean Calvin, Commentary on The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to The Corinthians (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1981), 308. ↩

  8. Ibid. ↩

  9. Chariots of Fire (20th Century Fox, 1981). ↩

  10. Ibid. ↩

  11. Ibid. ↩

  12. Calvin, Corinthians, 309. ↩

  13. Westminster Divines, ‘The Westminster Confession of Faith’, in The Confession of Faith (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons Ltd., 1969), sec. 27. 1. ↩

  14. Ibid., sec. 27. 3. ↩

  15. Dennis, Grudem, and Packer, ESV Study Bible, Personal Size, 2369 Emphasis mine. ↩

  16. The Rev. E. H. Plumptre DD et al, The Rev. W. Sanday, and The Rev. T. Teignmouth Shore, ‘Acts to Galatians’, 321. ↩

  17. Calvin, Corinthians, 309f. ↩

  18. Ibid., 210. ↩

  19. The Rev. E. H. Plumptre DD et al, The Rev. W. Sanday, and The Rev. T. Teignmouth Shore, ‘Acts to Galatians’, 321. ↩