Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

1 Corinthians 1:2

1 Corinthians 1:2. sanctified in Christ Jesus; through living union with the Fountain of Holiness in His Person.

Called to be saints; not in the mere external sense of Matthew 20:16, but (as the word is always used in the Pauline Epistles) in that inward, efficacious, saving sense which invariably issues in the cordial reception of the Gospel message: as in Romans 8:30, ‘Whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.'

With all that call upon, or ‘invoke,' the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. To get rid of the natural sense of these words, which holds forth our Lord Jesus Christ as an Object of worship, a passive sense has been put upon them, as if the meaning were who are called by the name of Christ; and we are referred to Acts 15:7 and James 2:7, where the sense is undoubtedly passive. But in these two places it is the connection which fixes the sense, whereas here, and in a multitude of other places, the middle sense of the verb ‘call' (‘calling on' or ‘invoking') is plainly intended. See Acts 9:14; Acts 9:21; Acts 22:16; Romans 10:12-14; 2 Timothy 2:22; 1 Peter 1:17. In the Old Testament the identical Hebrew phrase (as also in the LXX. Greek), ‘to call on the name of Jehovah,' means, as every one knows, ‘to invoke' or ‘worship Jehovah.' When, then, we find a phrase already so familiar and so dear to devout Jewish ears transferred to Christians, defining them as ‘callers upon,' ‘invokers,' or ‘worshippers of' Christ and this incorporated among the household words of the churches what can we conclude but that the first Christians were taught to regard their Master as the rightful Heir, in human flesh, of all the worship which the ancient Church had been trained jealously to render to Jehovah alone? Some critics think to evade this By saying that since this worship is always understood to be rendered “to the glory of God the Father” (as in Philippians 2:10), it is meant not of absolute but relative worship. But not to say that the New Testament knows nothing of two kinds of worship, the Question is not, In what relation does the Son stand to the Father in this worship? That relation is internal, Personal, and (to all created intelligence probably) unfathomable. But the one real question is, What is that worship itself? and if it is precisely what is peremptorily forbidden to be offered to any creature, the New Testament must be held to teach the proper Personal Divinity of Christ.

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