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"Use this world as not abusing it."
I Cor. 7: 31.
pp. 89 - 91
The words of our title come in an answer to some questions which the Corinthians had
asked the apostle relative to marriage.
Dispensationally, the coming of the Lord was an event that bounded the horizon of the
then living generation. The crisis of Acts 28: was yet future and unknown. The
answer of the apostle concerning the question of marriage was given "because of the
present distress". When a new phase of God's dealings was made known, the apostle
commanded even young widows to re-marry and Eph. 5: gives its benediction to the
married state. While, therefore, those who are not under the dispensation which obtained
when I Corinthians was written have no need to bind themselves by the apostle's advice
to the Corinthians, the spirit of the message is as true as ever, and may prove a word in
season to many.
Three arguments are put forward by the apostle to show the reasonablesness of his
statement.
(1). It was a time of distress.
(2). The time was short.
(3). The fashion of this world was passing away.
The time of distress will come again with intensified violence as the coming of the
Lord draws near (Luke 21: 23-26). Already signs are multiplying about us, and
foreshadowings warn us. The time too is shortening, the season of grace draws near to its
close, and the day of vengeance approaches. Students of prophecy realize that the time
for the resumption of prophetic times draws on apace. The world has not improved since
the days of the apostle, the transitory nature of all its ways and wealth are still patent to
the eye of faith. What is our attitude?
"But this I say, brethren, the season having been shortened, henceforth both they that
have wives, be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and
they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed
not; and they that use this world, as not using it to the full; for the fashion of this world
passeth away."
Those who were married were not to renounce their obligations. Those who wept or
rejoiced felt some pain or pleasure; those who bought obtained possession as a matter of
course. The point is, all was to be held loosely, nothing was considered an end in itself.
Sorrows need not unduly depress, joys will not unduly exalt, all will be tinged with the
presence of sin and so be spoiled, and all may be lustred by the presence of the Lord and
so be blessed. We use the world (by our creaturehood we must), it is even of necessity
that we have dealings with the ungodly, for as the apostle wrote:--
"I enjoined you in the letter not to mix with fornicators; not that you should utterly
forego all intercourse with the fornicators of this world, or lascivious, or extortioners, or
idolators, since you would need to go out of the world entirely" (I Cor. 5: 9, 10).