“What, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God; and that whosoever will be the friend of the world, is the enemy of God?”
The Corinthian Church attempted to take the place of rulership in the world.
With keen and biting words the Apostle rebukes them.
Thus he writes to them:
“Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we might also reign with you.”
Then he adds by way of contrast:
“I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels and to men.”
It is this same apostle who under the inspiration of the Spirit in his second epistle writes to Timothy:
“If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.”
It is not while her Lord is the crucified and rejected that the Church is to reign and rule over the world. Not while He is seated on His Father’s throne in heaven and His own throne on earth is cast down and trampled in the dust. Nay! if the Church is faithful she will walk in separation from the world. If the Church is faithful she will testify against the world, not testify merely against certain abuses, but against the world as a system, that it is built upon the principle of the enthronement of self and not God, the exaltation of the flesh and not spirit.