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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 16:09:54 GMT -5
The First Epistle to the Corinthians
Living as Children of the Kingdom of God
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I. Introduction and Overview
A. The Importance and Contribution of First Corinthians
Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians is notably unique among the New Testament writings and it
makes an invaluable contribution to the understanding and life of Christ’s Church.
- First of all, First Corinthians is eminently practical: It interacts with concrete, specific
issues pertaining to an actual, identifiable community of believers. (In contrast, others of
Paul’s epistles – notably Galatians and Ephesians – are directed toward a broader
audience and are more general in their treatment of doctrine and practice.)
- Related to the matter of practicality, the specificity of the issues Paul addressed in this
epistle enables it to provide indispensable insight into the challenges and struggles that
mark the Christian life at both the corporate and individual levels. In a word, First
Corinthians gets “down and dirty,” taking the treatment of the Christian life down into
the trenches of day-to-day existence rather than “floating above the fray” in the realm of
theory and general practice.
- In “getting real” with the issues of Christian living, First Corinthians presses hard against
the ever-present and ruinous problem of sin and ungodliness in the Christian community
as well as the individual Christian life. Paul pulled no punches with his Corinthian
readers, confronting them directly with their failings and demanding that they address
them with all seriousness and zeal.
But equally importantly – though sometimes missed by its readers, First Corinthians also
provides strong encouragement to believers who invariably find themselves laboring to
live out the reality of Christ’s life in them. For, while Paul didn’t ignore, minimize or
excuse ungodliness in the Corinthian congregation, he also didn’t conclude from it that
that community consisted of empty professors of Christ. For Paul, sin in the Church
doesn’t prove the absence of Christ’s life as much as the failure to live into it.
B. Reading First Corinthians
Every written text brings with it various interpretive challenges. First and foremost, short of the
human author being available to explain his meaning, the reader is left to make that
determination based on the text itself along with extra-textual material such as biographical
information on the author, his relation to the subject matter, the occasion for the text, etc. Simply
analyzing the words on the page (word studies, grammar, syntax, etc.) as the means of
interpretation is woefully inadequate since usage determines meaning and usage is an intensely
personal enterprise. People have different vocabularies, but, more importantly, they use words,
grammar, phrases, expressions, etc. very differently as they seek to communicate the ideas that
are in their minds. Rarely will two people express the same idea or content in exactly the same
way; when they do it is only because of close interaction (such as a student with a teacher). This
is why true communication requires the back-and-forth of careful, purposeful dialogue.
For this reason, the person is a fool who thinks, on the one hand, that he always communicates to
others exactly what is in his mind, and, on the other, that he always knows precisely what
another individual means by what he is saying. And if communication is a challenge when two
people are talking to each other face-to-face, how much more is that the case when a person is
attempting to hold a conversation with a written text? There are no audible or visual clues to
meaning with a written text (such as inflection, tone, delivery and body language); those
components of meaning have to be conveyed through the text itself, and it does so through its use
of various literary devices. (The obvious implication is that a reader will fail to “hear” what a
text is saying if he is deaf – for whatever reason – to its literary “speech.”)
The difficulties inherent in person-to-person communication (genuine communication being
dependent on correct interpretation) are amplified when one of the communicating parties is a
written text. That is true of the biblical text, but to an even greater extent than other sorts of texts.
1. As in most cases when interacting with a text, there is no human author to interrogate
with the Bible. But the problem is exacerbated by the fact that the scriptural authors are
so far removed from the reader. It’s one thing to rightly interpret the writings of a
contemporary author who shares the same language, culture, and historical context; it’s
something else altogether when the author and reader have little or nothing in common.
2. Another heightened challenge with the biblical text – and in particular the New
Testament epistles – is that the reader is effectively reading someone else’s mail. He is
eavesdropping on a conversation between two other parties whom he doesn’t know and
whose personal, historical and cultural backgrounds are very distant and foreign to him.
Added to that is the fact that he isn’t privy to the issues being addressed in the
correspondence. Taken together, these considerations show the immense interpretive
challenges facing the reader.
And even presuming the reader correctly understands the content of the epistle, that fact
in itself doesn’t tell him what he’s to do with his insight. After all, he’s reading someone
else’s mail, not a letter written to him. And yet, if that letter is indeed inspired Scripture,
he must do something with it; he must take something from it, and that “something” must
be what God Himself intends. Richard Hays’ comments are illuminating:
“What are we to do with the information gained by eavesdropping on this conversation
between the agitated apostle and his refractory followers [speaking of the First
Corinthian epistle]? How does it speak to us? Paul, after all, was not aiming to write
timeless truth or even a general theological treatise; rather, he was giving direct pastoral
instruction for one community that faced a specific set of problems in the middle of the
first century. For example, was it permissible to eat meat sold in the market if the meat
came from an animal sacrificed to a pagan god? What does it mean to take Paul’s advice
on such a topic, addressed to ancient people in a very different world almost two
thousand years ago, and to declare it to be Scripture? What hermeneutical maneuvers
permit us to read these particular pastoral instructions as God’s word to us? We are so
accustomed to thinking of First Corinthians as part of ‘our’ Bible that we seldom see the
full complexity of this interpretive problem.”
3. And if that weren’t enough, the interpretive challenge is further enlarged by the fact that
the Bible consists of a collection of individual texts that together comprise a harmonious,
organically-related Text. This is where things get especially sticky:
a. First of all, while most readers of the Scripture (certainly Christians) recognize
that the individual books of the Bible are related to one another as parts of a
whole, multitudes don’t understand the nature of that relationship. Some go no
further than relating Scripture books based on which testament they appear in;
more often Christians relate and organize individual texts on the basis of historical
chronology or doctrinal emphasis. In the case of the New Testament, Christians
often organize texts on the basis of their authorship (so the Pauline epistles), their
orientation (the general epistles) or their subject matter (the Gospels).
While such organizing schemes are of some use, they fail to account for the fact
that the Bible is an organic Text in which every individual text is related to the
whole, but in a precise and multifaceted manner. The various texts that comprise
the Scripture may be compared to the individual parts of a living organism, and
that analogy helps to underscore the truth that understanding a given scriptural
text depends utterly upon situating it properly within the organic Text (organism)
and then interpreting it by observing it in its various relations to the whole.
The primary organizing feature of the biblical Text is its salvation-historical
storyline. Beginning with the opening verses of Genesis, the Scripture – in all of
its individual texts – is telling the story of God’s eternal purpose for His creation
and the outworking and accomplishment of that purpose in time and space. It is
precisely because Jesus Christ is the focal point of that purpose and work that He
is the grand subject of all the Scriptures: It is the reason He – and His disciples –
asserted that all the Scriptures – the individual texts – speak of Him; it is the
reason the New Testament writers everywhere interpreted the Scriptures (the Old
Testament writings) in terms of Jesus’ person and work. Any attempt at
interpreting a biblical text that doesn’t begin here is doomed to failure.
b. The interpreter must recognize that the Scripture is organized according to a
Christ-centered storyline detailing God’s activity toward the accomplishment and
consummation of His grand, all-encompassing purpose for His creation. And
because that storyline plays out on the stage of human history, it is both
historically situated (set on an historical timeline) and historically conditioned
(revealed, developed, advanced and interpreted in terms of historical features and
considerations) in its parts as well as the whole.
These truths highlight the second challenge to interpreting a given biblical text,
namely situating that text within the biblical storyline. This obviously involves
locating it at the right place in history (its historical context), but that is only the
starting point. Far more important – indeed critical to correct interpretation – is
locating the text at the right point in the progress of God’s outworking of His
saving and restoring purposes in Jesus Christ (its salvation-historical context).
So for instance, the fact that Ezekiel’s prophecy was written from Babylon during
the early phase of Judah’s captivity and exile contributes nothing in itself toward
understanding that text. In order to interpret Ezekiel’s prophecy one must situate
its historical setting in its proper place within the overall scheme of the salvation
history. The only way for a person to discern the “meaning” of his present
location is for him to know where he’s been, where he’s going, and what the
purpose is for his journey. So a car’s occupant can examine every detail of his
vehicle’s interior and even take note of the mile marker on the road, and yet that
knowledge leaves him completely in the dark as to the meaning of his situation.
4. So it is with the First Corinthian epistle: Matters such as its authorship, date and occasion
of writing, recipients, major themes, etc. play a role in the interpretive process, but are
insufficient in themselves. The same is true of the letter’s linguistic features (language,
grammar, syntax, etc). Too often interpreters stop with these sorts of considerations,
believing that they have done the necessary work to reach a correct understanding of the
text. It’s true that Paul penned this epistle to real people living real lives and facing real
problems and challenges, but he interacted with them and their lives on the basis of what
God has accomplished in His Son and the implications that flow from that fulfillment.
The premises and framework for Paul’s interaction with the Corinthians – and therefore
for interpreting his letter to them – are discovered in the unfolding salvation history as
recorded in the Old Testament and subsequently fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Unless and until
the reader adopts Paul’s perspective and framework, it’s impossible for him to think
Paul’s thoughts after him; it’s impossible for him to “rightly divide” Paul’s instruction to
the church at Corinth. This means that the First Corinthian epistle – as every text of
Scripture – must be read in the light of the entire Bible as it constitutes an organic whole.
a. Again, this letter provides a unique case study of how Christ’s people are to
regard and interact with the various features and dynamics of their day-to-day
existence as individual members of Christ and the New Covenant community. In
this sense, First Corinthians picks up where the book of Acts leaves off:
- Acts treats the subject of the Church from the standpoint of scriptural
fulfillment: It is primarily concerned with the Church’s nature, origin,
early progress and significance in God’s eternal purpose for His creation.
- For its part, First Corinthians takes scriptural revelation further by
showing how the truth of the Church revealed in Acts – its identity,
nature, and role – is to play out in its practical existence in the world.
This essential relationship between Acts and First Corinthians is vitally important
and cannot be overlooked if the latter is to be properly interpreted and applied.
Indeed, this same relationship exists between the book of Acts and all the epistles
(not simply Paul’s), evident in the fact that Acts provides the historical and
salvation-historical bridge between the gospels and the rest of the New Testament.
The four Gospels interact with the person and work of Jesus Christ, and thereby
set the stage for His New Covenant Church as the inaugural fruit of His atoning
death, resurrection and enthronement. On the other hand, the balance of the New
Testament (beyond Acts) pertains to the Church as an already-existing entity. The
gospels predict the Church and the epistles presuppose it; therefore, without
Luke’s record in Acts there would be no concrete way to bridge the chasm
between prediction and realization.
b. Acts is the premise to First Corinthians as much as are the Gospels. But so is the
entire Old Testament: Acts records the realization in history of what the Gospels
predicted as a matter of imminent fulfillment, namely the ushering in of the
kingdom of God. But that prediction was itself only the Gospel writers affirming
that, in Jesus Christ, God was now fulfilling all that He had promised from the
beginning in all the Scriptures. And so, if proper interaction with First Corinthians
depends upon reading it through the lens of Acts and the Gospels, it equally
depends upon reading it through the lens of the Old Testament scriptures.
In summary, First Corinthians is eminently practical as it speaks to the various facets and
challenges of the Christian life. And yet it does so by interacting with a particular ancient
community of believers and their specific issues, challenges and problems; Paul didn’t write his
Corinthian epistles to the Church, but to the church at Corinth. Nevertheless, his instruction
directed toward a particular congregation is inspired Scripture, and therefore speaks across time
and space to every church body and individual believer. Discerning how it does so and then
appropriating that communication is the challenge for Christ’s Church.
- First of all, these considerations show that the contemporary reader cannot read Paul’s
letter to the Corinthians as if it were written to him. As obvious as this is, probably most
Christians do just that. As Hays observed, our personal ownership of the Scripture as
God’s word for us leaves us automatically coming to it as if its content were written by
God directly to us and for us. (So, for instance, the claiming of personal “life verses” and
the use of 2 Chronicles 7:14 as the “theme verse” of the National Day of Prayer.)
- First Corinthians has great practical relevance to the Church in every place and
generation, but its practical value can only be rightly discovered and utilized when the
epistle is read canonically – that is, read in the light of the Old Testament revelation and
promise of the kingdom of God, its fulfillment in Christ, and its manifestation in His
Church. Christians must discern their identity and place within God’s grand purpose if
they are to correctly “apply” scriptural instruction: The truth of correct practice – as
opposed to merely the fact of it – is the fruit only of the truth of correct understanding.
Thus First Corinthians provides an invaluable practical resource for the Church – however, not
as a user’s manual containing step-by-step remedies for particular personal, moral and ethical
maladies (sexual immorality, lawsuits, divorce, etc.), but as a call to Christ’s Church to ongoing
commitment to repentance and faith. Like all of the New Testament writings (albeit in a very
practical way), First Corinthians holds forth the Church’s obligation to discern, nurture and
conform its thinking – and by consequence, its conduct – to the truth as it is in Christ.
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 16:14:19 GMT -5
C. Background
Paul wrote his Corinthian epistles to a particular community of Christians in a particular city.
The letters are intensely personal, not just because they were written to a specific church body, or
even because they address issues and concerns that were, in some respects at least, unique to that
community. Those things are certainly true, but beyond them is the fact that the Corinthian
letters were penned by a man who had more than a year and a half of close, personal interaction
with that particular group of people. Paul wasn’t writing to the church at Corinth as a detached
and dispassionate commentator – a remote apostolic authority pontificating on theological and
practical matters. Rather, he wrote as the Corinthians’ father in the faith (4:14-15):
- Paul regarded himself as a devoted and concerned father who’d begotten the Corinthians
and betrothed them to their Husband and then labored among them for many months to
nurture their faith and strengthen their bond to Christ (ref. 2 Corinthians 11:1-3).
- He was thoroughly invested in the Corinthians as their spiritual father for Jesus’ sake, so
much so that he bore their burdens more than they themselves did and agonized over
them and the strains that had infected and threatened his relationship with them.
The reader of First Corinthians must recognize that he is eavesdropping on an intensely personal
correspondence between Paul and the Corinthian believers. It is true that the underlying problem
in the Corinthian church – unbelief and natural-mindedness – plagues every church body in
every place and time. It is also true that, because people are people, those core maladies manifest
themselves in many of the same ways in every congregation. But every church body has its own
cultural, demographic and personal dynamics, and those dynamics in the Corinthian body
resulted in a plethora of unique problems and challenges. Moreover, the Corinthians’ relationship
with Paul was unique and that introduced its own qualities and issues – for ill as well as for good.
Thus, in order to enter into this private conversation between the apostle and the Corinthian
believers, it is necessary first to enter into their relationship. Only by becoming an “insider” in
that relationship, its history, features, and unique dynamics can the third party reader begin the
process of interpreting this epistle (as any epistle) and discerning its relevance to him.
1. The place to begin is with the Corinthian people, and that requires a careful look at the
civic and cultural aspects of first-century life in the city of Corinth.
a. Corinth lay at the southern end of the Greek mainland on the narrow isthmus
connecting the mainland to the north and the Peloponnese Peninsula to the south.
The city possessed two harbors – one on the Corinthian Gulf leading to the Ionian
Sea to the west, and the other on the Saronic Gulf leading east into the Aegean
Sea. Corinth’s unique geographical location secured for it a prominent and
enviable place in the lucrative Mediterranean shipping trade, and the city took full
advantage of its privilege. Corinth was a bustling and wealthy city, and, like all
busy seaports, one marked by an international flavor and large transient
population. At any given time, the city was filled with diverse peoples and
cultural influences drawn from the East as well as the West.
b. Of course, Corinth’s value as a strategic seaport wasn’t lost upon Rome, and
Julius Caesar refounded the city as a Roman colony in 44 B.C. (The Romans had
destroyed it in a siege a century earlier in 146 B.C.) Soon Corinth was appointed
as the capital of the Roman province of Achaia and therefore the seat of the
regional Roman proconsul (ref. Acts 18:1-13).
c. Roman political influences together with a transient, pleasure-seeking population
of seamen and affluent merchants contributed to Corinth’s infamous reputation; if
Athens was the cultural and philosophical center of the Greco-Roman world,
Corinth was its center of commercial corruption and vice. To this day, seaport
cities are notorious as places for military and merchant seamen to indulge their
appetites fortified by long periods at sea and bulging wallets. Sailors from all over
the Mediterranean world and the Near East came ashore in Corinth seeking every
sort of natural pleasure, and the city’s merchants were all too eager to oblige.
International shipping and Roman political power brought Corinth great wealth,
and the city’s unrestrained trade in vice only further flooded the city with money.
If Athens was full of idol temples and altars, Corinth was full of corruption.
Donald Guthrie notes that “its name had become a byword for profligacy.”
Corinth’s vice trade is most often associated with the voracious fleshly appetites
of visiting merchants and sailors, but the city’s permanent residents were not
immune from its siren song. And yet the people of Corinth found themselves
more profoundly corrupted in other more subtle and insidious ways.
- There was plenty of money to be made for the ambitious and enterprising,
and it wasn’t limited to disreputable businesses. In addition to its ports, the
region around Corinth was blessed with abundant natural resources
(including plenty of water), and Corinthian businessmen took advantage of
this, turning the city into a major production and distribution center for
pottery, bricks, roof tile and other building materials.
- Whether obtained honorably or dishonorably, wealth always encourages
and facilitates every sort of human corruption, and Corinth was no
exception. Corinthian culture idolized the wealthy, successful and
powerful, and, not surprisingly, the people of Corinth were noted for their
fierce pride, material ambition, and self-sufficiency.
d. In terms of its religious culture, Corinth didn’t compete with Athens as the mecca
of Greco-Roman religion, but, like every major city of the first-century Roman
Empire, it, too, was “filled with idols.” Prior to the Roman destruction of 146
B.C., Corinth’s most prominent feature had arguably been its splendid temple to
the Greek goddess Aphrodite. This temple, situated on the crown of the city’s
Acrocorinthus and dedicated to the goddess of love, beauty and sexuality, is said
to have been populated with some thousand female priestesses whose “priestly”
activities included officially sanctioned prostitution. At bottom, Corinth’s
religious orientation was simply the spiritual counterpart to its material one.
Scholars disagree as to how much of this pre-Roman Corinthian practice
continued on into Paul’s day, but one thing is certain: Corinth remained a city full
of temples, altars and statues dedicated to the pantheon of gods worshipped
throughout the Greco-Roman world. When Paul spoke to his Corinthian readers
of “many gods and many lords” recognized by human beings (8:4-6), they had no
difficulty relating to his words.
2. The second step in entering into Paul’s conversation with the Corinthians is
understanding the particulars of his ministry to them. As much or more than any first century city,
Corinth epitomized human society and culture as they reflect and express
man’s alienation from his Creator. And yet, God’s design was that this city should
become an important enclave of faith and the life of the new creation. In many ways,
Corinth was the last place one would have expected the gospel to bear fruit. More than its
moral corruption, Corinth’s culture of arrogant self-sufficiency and self-satisfaction
incited its residents to wave off the gospel of divine mercy and provision in Christ: “I am
rich; I have become wealthy and have need of nothing” (Revelation 3:17).
- Regardless of whether they manifest themselves in discipline or dereliction,
morality or immorality, piety or impiety, the fact remains that human pride,
confidence and autonomy present the greatest obstacle to the grace of God which
always attains its triumph in broken hearts and lowly minds.
- So it was with the Corinthians: They were a self-assured, self-satisfied people
whose minds were filled with “lofty thoughts raised up against the knowledge of
God” (2 Corinthians 10:1-5). Paul knew precisely what awaited him and his
seemingly foolish gospel in Corinth, and thus he came to the city in “weakness
and fear with much trembling” (1 Corinthians 2:1-3).
Paul was entering the belly of the beast when he walked into the city of Corinth. The city
was full of gods, and every one of them contradicted and set itself against him and his
gospel, whether the obvious gods of commercialism, vice, power and false religion, or
the more subtle and insidious ones of self-sufficiency and self-reliance, human
accomplishment, complacency and self-satisfaction. Paul was merely one man and one
small voice called to speak over the bustling, seductive and compelling din of the City of
Man; nevertheless Paul’s God was neither intimidated nor stifled. He had ordained this
seemingly hopeless setting for His triumph among the Corinthians, and soon His apostle
would understand the reason all the more clearly: “God chose the foolish things of the
world to shame the wise, and the weak things of the world to shame the strong, and the
lowly and despised things of the world, things that count for nothing, to reduce to nothing
the things that are something, so that no human being might boast before God.”
a. Luke provides a summary record of Paul’s ministry in Corinth in his Acts account
(18:1-17). When he arrived in the city Paul providentially met a fellow Jew
named Aquila who had recently come to Corinth with his wife as the result of
Claudius’ expulsion of all Jews from Rome. They welcomed Paul into their home
and, working alongside them in their trade, the apostle began his gospel ministry.
Following his usual pattern, Paul first took his gospel to Corinth’s Jewish
residents. The city’s status as an important business and commercial center
attracted many Jews from throughout the Mediterranean region and Corinth
boasted a large and significant synagogue. Luke indicated that Paul continued his
witness to the Jews for quite some time, even devoting himself to it full-time once
Silas and Timothy arrived and began providing for his material support.
Though Jewish by heritage and religion, the Jews of Corinth were still Corinthian.
They assembled in the synagogue, but Corinth’s business and financial
opportunities brought them to the city. As much as their Gentile neighbors, they
were seduced by the City of Man and its promises of wealth, power and security.
Eventually it became clear to Paul that his witness to the Jews had run its course.
Interestingly, Luke says nothing of any fruit during that time (cf. Acts 13:14-43,
14:1, 17:1-4, 10-12, 18:19-20, 19:8-10); he noted only that Paul departed from the
Jews with open condemnation, shaking out his garments and testifying that their
blood was on their own heads. He had fulfilled his obligation to them and his
conscience was clear; he would henceforth take his gospel to the Gentiles.
b. Paul didn’t have to go far; a man named Titius Justus (probably a Roman) lived
next door to the synagogue. He opened his home to Paul and there the apostle
commenced a year and a half of preaching and discipleship. Paul’s season in the
synagogue had appeared fruitless, but the Lord evidently sparked the interest of
Crispus, the synagogue leader. Soon, and right under the noses of his fellows,
Crispus came to faith in Christ along with his entire household. So also Paul’s
months in Justus’ house bore fruit among the Gentile Corinthians (18:8).
c. Paul’s Corinthian ministry proved fruitful, but also daunting and dangerous,
evident in the Lord’s appearance to him (18:9-10). Threats came from without –
primarily from Corinth’s unbelieving Jewish community (18:12-17), but
difficulties also quickly arose from within. Corinth was a diverse city and its
diversity was soon reflected in the new community of believers. The most
obvious distinction was that of Jew and Gentile, but there were other equally
significant differences – differences which posed an ever-present threat to the
fledgling Church’s internal unity and external witness.
The book of Acts highlights the dynamic of diversity in the Church and reveals it
to be the source of all of the Church’s internal challenges. Acts shows that,
whereas external pressures tend toward the Church’s unity and strengthening,
internal ones tend toward its infirmity and dissolution. Diversity (personal,
cultural, theological, etc.) is always at the heart of the Church’s internal problems,
and the scope of the Church’s diversity only increased with time. Initially, it was
the differences between the Hellenists and Hebraists, but soon Samaritans and
Gentiles were added to the mix. But years later at Corinth, the differences became
more pronounced and complex when the Lord began building a body comprised
of individuals from very diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.
The city of Corinth was a melting pot, and so was its community of believers. The
psychology and practicality of these differences and the challenges and problems
they raised would become central to Paul’s ongoing relationship with and
ministry to the Corinthian church.
3. This points to the third requirement for entering into Paul’s letter, which is discerning the
various dynamics of his relationship with the Corinthians. Again, Paul didn’t write to the
saints at Corinth as a distant and dispassionate adjudicator, but as a devoted father who
knew them well and shared their lives and burdens. Paul’s heart was with and for the
Corinthians, but his fatherly love provoked him to challenge their careless immaturity
and lack of discernment in living into the truth of Christ’s life in them.
a. Paul and the Corinthian believers shared the same faith, the same Spirit, and the
same Christ, and yet in certain notable ways they had little in common. In the first
place, Paul came from a very different culture than the saints in Corinth. True,
there were Jews in the Corinthian congregation, but Jews whose background was
far more Hellenized than Paul’s. These individuals retained something of their
Jewish traditions, but within a larger Hellenistic (Greek) cultural framework and
mindset. Paul, on the other hand, had lived for many years as a Pharisee,
thoroughly indoctrinated in the Hebrew Scriptures and immersed in the strictest of
all Jewish religious and cultural traditions. Paul had spent his adult life sacrificing
everything on the altar of absolute devotion to the God of Israel; the Corinthian
Jews had devoted their lives to the god of mammon (self-interest). Paul’s cultural
background differed greatly from the Jewish believers in Corinth, but all the more
from their Gentile counterparts. The Corinthian church was a human melting pot,
but as much as its members differed from one another, much more did they differ
from the apostle who brought Christ’s gospel to them.
b. From the practical standpoint, Paul also possessed a different perspective from the
saints in Corinth. This is not to say that they lacked the life and mind of Christ,
but only that, as immature “babes,” they failed to live into Christ. Paul saw every
dimension and dynamic of life with the mind of the new man (though obviously
not perfectly), while the Corinthians largely continued to approach life as “mere
men” – individuals who practically, if unconsciously, denied Christ’s life in them.
This disparity couldn’t help but encourage tension and conflict between the Corinthians
and Paul, especially under the influence of distance and time. After his initial departure
Paul would not see them for some time, and, in his absence, other influential voices
emerged in the congregation – voices of “natural wisdom” that gradually undermined
Paul’s credibility and standing with the Church. Apollos’ arrival only made matters
worse, as he provided the Corinthians with a further temptation to judge the apostle with
a natural mind. For, in terms of outward considerations, Apollos triumphed over Paul:
The former was young and vibrant while the latter was aging and increasingly infirmed;
Apollos apparently had a commanding presence, while Paul was diminutive; Apollos was
an eloquent orator who made Paul’s oration unimpressive by comparison. Diversity at
Corinth rapidly devolved into division, and Paul would find himself swept into it.[/font][/font]
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 16:16:46 GMT -5
D. Occasion for the Epistle
Paul spent a year and a half in Corinth during his first visit there. During that time the Lord
raised up a significant community of believers in that area – a diverse group of people, but one
unified in the gospel through Paul’s labors in a long and focused season of discipleship in Titius
Justus’ home. The biblical text doesn’t explain Paul’s decision to move on, but Luke’s account in
Acts indicates that he had determined to return to his home church in Antioch in Syria (18:18).
Thus Paul headed east across the Aegean Sea toward Ephesus and, after spending some days
with the disciples in that city, he set sail again, finally landing at Caesarea. And having visited
the saints there, he made his way across Palestine until he arrived in Antioch (18:19-22).
Paul remained at Antioch for some time, but eventually determined to head out again in order to
visit the churches that were the fruit of his previous missions work. This third journey into Asia
Minor led him ultimately to Ephesus where he remained for three years (Acts 19:1ff). By the
time Paul arrived, a disciple named Apollos had already sailed west to Achaia under the
encouragement of Aquila and Priscilla and the Ephesian saints. (Priscilla and Aquila had
departed Corinth with Paul and then remained on at Ephesus when Paul sailed for Caesarea.
There they met and discipled Apollos, eventually sending him on to Corinth before Paul arrived
back at Ephesus). Though Paul had never even met Apollos, the Corinthians would thrust him
into the middle of a controversy that pitted him against this younger counterpart.
Under Aquila and Priscilla’s tutelage, Apollos became a mighty servant of Christ and the saints
at Corinth found him to be a great blessing, especially as he withstood the Jews who continued in
Paul’s absence to besiege the church and its gospel (Acts 18:24-28). Apollos was Christ’s gift to
the Corinthian church, but they were unable to receive it: Their natural-mindedness would turn
the Lord’s gift on its head, making Apollos a tool of division and discord rather than edification.
It was during this three-year period in Ephesus that Paul penned his first canonical Corinthian
epistle (1 Corinthians 16:8-9), and a couple of things provoked that letter.
1. The immediate occasion for the letter was the arrival in Ephesus of a handful of saints
from Corinth. These individuals were members (servants or family) of the household of a
woman named Chloe (1 Corinthians 1:11), and they evidently came to Paul in Ephesus
seeking his counsel on various issues plaguing the Corinthian congregation. It’s uncertain
whether they happened to be in Ephesus or had traveled to that city specifically to meet
with Paul. Either way, they learned of his presence there and sought him out.
a. They informed Paul that serious discord and division had grown among the saints
in Corinth. That dissension even involved him in the sense that members of the
Corinthian church were setting him and Apollos (and other leading individuals)
against each other as competing authority figures in the church (1:11-12, 3:1ff).
b. In addition, they apparently told Paul of other troublesome situations and
practices among the Corinthian believers. Those included sexual immorality, legal
conflicts, abuse of spiritual gifts and the Lord’s Table along with various doctrinal
controversies, notably disputes regarding the resurrection of the dead.
2. The second reason for Paul’s letter was his need to reply to a letter he’d received from the
Corinthian church – probably brought by the three Corinthian brethren (16:17) –
requesting his input on various issues they were facing (7:1). Their concerns had
theological implications, but were more practical and personal in nature:
Like every Christian individual and congregation, the Corinthian believers were having
to grapple with what it means to honor and serve Christ and live a faithful Christian life
in the context of their own culture and community.
They couldn’t help but bring personal and cultural presuppositions and ingrained patterns
with them into their Christian lives, but that fact obligated them to recognize, understand
and navigate through their convictions and conventions. Only in that way would they be
able to approach life with the mind of Christ. Thus the Corinthians sought Paul’s counsel
on such issues as Christian marriage and sexuality, the intertwining of the idolatry
industry and the marketplace in Corinth, and how the church is to approach its worship,
especially with regard to spiritual gifts and the roles of men and women.
3. The third basis for the epistle was the growing tension between Paul and the Corinthians.
This one was less overt, being overshadowed by the more pressing issues at hand.
a. To what extent Paul was aware of the changing sentiment in Corinth prior to the
arrival of Chloe’s people is unclear, but it’s likely he’d gotten some sense of it
from the church’s letter – from its tone if not its content.
b. Moreover, Stephanus, Fortunatus and Achaicus would have brought news of what
was going on in with the Corinthian believers. Perhaps their visit preceded the one
by the members of Chloe’s household; perhaps it came afterwards. Either way,
both groups would have expressed to Paul the same basic concerns in the church.
c. Finally, First Corinthians wasn’t Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth (5:9).
There is no extant record of that letter, but it proves that Paul had interaction with
the Corinthians between his first visit and his first canonical letter. More
importantly, it proves that he was aware of certain unholy trends in the church
quite apart from the news brought by his two sets of visitors.
Through whatever various sources the information about Corinth came to Paul, it clearly caused
him great concern. This beloved community among whom he’d labored as their father in the
faith was facing challenges of sin and unbelief that, if not promptly and properly addressed,
would tear the church apart, shipwreck the faith of its members, and destroy the church’s
testimony in the world. Paul realized he had to confront these matters head on, but he also knew
there was only one way to bring true resolution, healing, and wholeness to the diseased
Corinthian church: He had to apply the poultice and balm of the gospel.
“In any case, the convergence of the secondary report [from the members of Chloe’s house] with
the Corinthians’ own letter provoked Paul to compose an extended epistle taking up all these
issues and reframing them in light of his gospel proclamation.” (Richard Hays)
E. Purpose for the Epistle
Paul regarded himself as the Corinthians’ spiritual father; he loved them with a fierce and jealous
devotion and this attitude is reflected in the tone and orientation of his letters to them. So it is
that, while First Corinthians is very personal and affectionate, it is also direct and firm. Paul
wasn’t writing an informal social letter to the Corinthians, but a serious response to the various
matters and concerns he’d become aware of. Some of those were raised by the Corinthians
themselves in their letter to him; others reflected Paul’s personal concerns based on reports he’d
received and his own past interactions with them.
1. And so the obvious reason for writing First Corinthians was Paul’s desire to respond to a
series of specific issues that were confronting the personal and corporate life of the saints
at Corinth. He understood that the Corinthians were struggling with and being threatened
by very real problems and practices that needed to be addressed. Yet he also recognized
that, in a certain sense, the troubles and challenges at Corinth were shared by all the
churches, not only in the first century, but in every place and generation. This is because
Christ’s Church exists in this age in the state of already but not yet:
- The saints share in Christ’s life and mind by His indwelling, renewing and
transforming Spirit, but His likeness as the Last Adam and Man of the Spirit is not
yet fully formed in them (2 Corinthians 3:18).
- They have been clothed with Christ (Galatians 3:26-27), but they must
consciously and daily put on the new man created in His image and so live out
His life in them (Ephesians 4:17-24; Galatians 2:20; cf. Colossians 3:1-3).
The Corinthians’ struggle was, at bottom, the struggle to be the Church, but this is the
core challenge that confronts every Christian body. Corinth’s struggle was every church’s
struggle, and yet there were distinct and unique ways in which it manifested itself in the
life of the Corinthian community. The challenge is the same for every church, but the
practical dynamics are not. The reason is that no two churches are the same, and that is
because no two people or communities or cultures are the same; each congregation has its
own character and qualities, and so it was with Corinth.
2. Paul had spent a long time with the Corinthian saints and he knew them well. He was
fully aware of the unique challenges they faced as a believing body residing in the city of
Corinth and recognized that it would be neither appropriate nor helpful for him to speak
to their concerns in broad generalities. He needed to address those things directly, but the
way to do so was to put them into proper perspective; only then could they truly be
remedied. Thus Paul’s intention in writing went beyond providing pat answers and
correctives to a list of practical concerns and sinful behaviors. He understood that the
Corinthians’ problems were merely symptomatic, and he was concerned to treat the
systemic disease that was producing the symptoms.
Paul wasn’t interested in rectifying conduct and remedying problems as such, but in
seeing the Corinthians grow up in Christ (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:1ff; Colossians 1:25-29).
a. And so, while Paul’s letter is deeply theological, it is not so in the sense that many
might think. He didn’t write as a theologian, but as a servant and minister of the
gospel and undershepherd of the Chief Shepherd.
- Paul understood that he – like the Corinthians – was living in the “fullness
of the times”: He recognized that the everlasting age of the eschaton has
dawned and creational renewal and reconciliation – life – has come in the
Living One, the risen and enthroned Christ who is the first fruits from the
dead (1 Corinthians 15:20-23). Paul realized that the Christ event has
changed everything forever, and that made it impossible for him to view
anything in life through the eyes of the flesh – that is, according to the
human paradigm of the old age and old order (2 Corinthians 5:14-17).
- Paul treated the Corinthians’ struggles biblically and theologically, but as
he ought, in terms of christology and eschatology – that is, in terms of the
inaugurated kingdom of God and what it means for those who’ve entered
it and for their testimony – in life and word – to the world outside it.
b. Paul wanted the Corinthians to understand that Christ’s Church isn’t another
spiritual community organized around a particular set of doctrines and practices.
It is the beginning of God’s new creation, even as it shares in Christ’s
consummate, glorified life as the New Man. The Church is His body (12:12ff) –
the embodiment of His living presence in the world, and this means that the
Church’s struggle is the struggle of christiformity.
The Church must be holy, but its holiness consists in its authentic and manifest
Christ-likeness (cf. 1 Peter 1:14-16 with Ephesians 4:17-24). So the Church must
obey its Lord, but its obedience consists in its integrity in conforming itself in
every aspect of its existence to the life of Christ which both defines and animates
it (2 Corinthians 10:1-5; cf. Galatians 5:1-7; also Romans 1:1-5, 16:25-26).
The Church is obligated to be the Church, but this necessitates that it first discern its true
identity; an entity cannot conform itself to that which it does not recognize. From that starting
point the Church can begin to understand how it is to order its life as a body and as Christ’s
witness to the world of men. Paul knew that, for the Corinthian church to be put straight, they
would have to repent: They would have to look beyond their behavior to the ways and patterns
of thinking which lay behind it. At bottom, all of the problems at Corinth were the result of
natural-mindedness – of the “old man” interjecting and imposing his thoughts and conventions at
both the individual and corporate levels.
Unlike so many shepherds (and Christians) in the Church today, Paul wasn’t interested in the
Corinthians reforming their behavior. But neither was he concerned to simply impart to them a
more accurate doctrinal understanding. In themselves, correct doctrine and practice mean
nothing; they are as much the domain of the old man as the new. What Paul sought for the
Corinthians was a renewed mind; whatever the issue, challenge or problem, the saints at Corinth
would find the remedy in their appropriation and application of the mind of Christ
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 16:18:20 GMT -5
II. Salutation and Opening Comments
A. Paul’s Self-Identification
1. Consistent with most of his epistles, Paul introduced himself by affirming his apostolic
calling. He was an apostle of Jesus Christ – a man commissioned and dispatched by Jesus
in His name and authority for the sake of His gospel. In all things, Paul recognized
himself as no longer his own; he was Christ’s servant and ambassador, and not because
he sought this appointment, but because God Himself had willed it (1:1). Far from
pursuing or even desiring his apostolic calling, he’d spent much of his adult life actively
opposing the followers of Jesus Christ and the Way they embraced and promoted.
Through those years Paul had believed he was a faithful servant of the God of Israel; little
did he realize that he was actually fighting against his God, but would yet serve Him, not
by destroying the Way but by becoming its chief advocate in the Mediterranean world.
Despite the years of opposition, God had set Paul apart from his mother’s womb, and at
the appointed time revealed His Son to and in this zealous Pharisee; from that moment,
this man who’d dedicated himself to Yahweh’s service became His servant in truth.
Paul introduced himself this way, not because the Corinthians weren’t aware of his
apostolic credential, but because they needed to be reminded of it.
a. This was the case first of all because of the instruction that was forthcoming. Paul
was poised to address issues and problems at Corinth in a direct and forthright
manner, and the Corinthians needed to understand that he was speaking to them as
Christ’s apostle, not as a mere man expressing his own views. Much of what he
was about to say would be painful to hear and therefore easy to resist, qualify or
set aside. But doing so would amount to despising the Lord’s words and mind -
the very One whom the Corinthians affirmed as their own Lord (cf. 2:6-16 with
5:1-5, 7:10-12, 25, 39-40, 11:1-16, 17-26, also 16:21-24).
b. But the Corinthians also needed this reminder because some among them were
questioning Paul’s ministry as Christ’s apostle, if not his apostolic calling. Paul
knew that his instruction and directives were going to meet with some resistance
among the Corinthians; human beings instinctively press against things they don’t
want to hear. How much more would that be the case with those who questioned
his integrity and motives and perhaps even his apostleship? And these who were
resolute in their resistance would doubtless influence their brethren for the worse.
2. Paul added Sosthenes to his salutation, and this addition served two purposes. The most
obvious is that it extended Sosthenes’ greeting to the saints at Corinth. He likely was the
same Sosthenes named by Luke who was the leader of the Corinthian synagogue during
the latter part of Paul’s first mission in the city (Acts 18:17). Luke’s account implies that
he’d come to faith in Christ, provoking the fury of his Jewish countrymen, but there’s no
record of how he came to be with Paul in Ephesus. Whatever the occasion, Sosthenes
wanted to send his own greeting to his Corinthian brethren.
But adding Sosthenes’ name to the epistle’s salutation (rather than in closing) served
more importantly to connect him with the letter’s content. Sosthenes was likely a leading
figure in the Corinthian church given his role in the synagogue and knowledge of the
Jewish Scriptures. Sending a letter to the church in his name effectively stamped his
imprimatur on Paul’s words, and this couldn’t help but add credibility to the letter and
encourage the Corinthians to embrace it with a whole heart. This was Paul’s sincere goal,
not because he wanted the Corinthians to acknowledge and submit to his authority as
such, but because he longed for them to grow up in all things into Him who is the Head.
B. Paul’s Identification of the Corinthians
1. Paul proceeded from identifying himself to identifying the Corinthians as the recipients
of his epistle. In that regard, he referred to them as “the church of God which is at
Corinth” (1:2a). A couple of things about this designation are important to note:
a. First, it expressed Paul’s conviction that the city of Corinth had only one church,
though the community of believers there doubtless met, not as one assembly, but
as several small congregations. There were no church buildings at that time and,
short of someone allowing his personal property to be used as a meeting place
(ref. Acts 19:9), congregations were forced to meet in the members’ homes which
were generally quite small and unsuitable to large gatherings.
b. The believers in Corinth may not have been able to all meet together, but they
were yet one body. The reason was that they together constituted the Corinthian
component of God’s church, which is one throughout the world. Paul was
reminding the Corinthians that, though they were a widely diverse group of
people, they were to regard themselves as one unified body. And being a part of
God’s church, they needed to recognize their unity with all believers everywhere.
2. The Corinthian Christians were members of the Lord’s church – the singular body that
bears His name and belongs to Him. Regardless of where or when they live, all of the
members of that body are God’s own possession, and they belong to Him by His
determination, not theirs. At Corinth as elsewhere, the community of believers were
“saints by calling” (1:2b) – called according to the will of God as much as Paul himself.
This phrase is sometimes translated, called to be holy (so NAB, NIV), but this leads away
from Paul’s meaning and so loses the profound import of what he was expressing to his
readers. Most simply, this rendering intimates that Paul was highlighting the Corinthians’
practical obligation to live holy lives. It makes their conduct the issue rather than their
identity, which was in fact what Paul was pointing to. By employing this expression Paul
was identifying the Corinthians as “called saints”: men and women called by God
Himself. The meaning of this ascription is fleshed out in the following particulars:
a. First of all, the term saint (“holy one”) designates a being whom God has set apart
to Himself; it speaks of identity, not conduct. So the holy things in Israel’s history
were holy, not because of their inherent nature or function, but their consecration.
Whether made of precious or common material, or whether designated for a noble
or ignoble function in God’s service, a thing (or person) became holy when God
determined to set it apart for Himself to be used solely in His service and worship.
So the ark of the covenant with its solid gold mercy seat was no more “holy” than
the bronze shovels that removed the ashes from the altar of burnt offering; in both
instances, an Israelite other than Aaron and his sons looking upon them or
touching them brought the same sentence of immediate death (Numbers 4:1-20).
So the Corinthian believers (as all Christians) were holy, not because of their
godly behavior or even because they were called to such behavior, but because
God had taken them as His own possession. They were holy because He chose
them out of the world and set them apart into the truth (John 15:19, 17:14-17);
they were holy because He consecrated them to His own worship and service.
In the first instance, holiness is a relational rather than a behavioral concept. It
speaks of what an entity is in relation to God, not in relation to itself as is the
case with behavioral concerns. It was precisely this relational dynamic – who
they were in relation to God – that Paul was reminding the Corinthians of;
keeping that understanding in the forefront of their thinking would be absolutely
vital to them understanding and profiting from his forthcoming instruction.
b. The Corinthians were “saints by calling,” which is to say that they had been
“sanctified (set apart to God) in Christ Jesus.” The divine call had been realized
in them – as it is in all believers – by a trinitarian work. A saint is a person who
has been sanctified by the triune God: one whom the Father has taken to Himself
and consecrated as His son through union with the only-begotten Son by the
enlivening power and indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
3. The Corinthians were not a community of pious or religious individuals, but God’s “holy
ones”: a people for His own possession by virtue of their participation in the life of Jesus
Christ by His Spirit. But this very identity made them members of a larger community –
the Body defined by this trinitarian union and communion (12:1ff). The Corinthians were
“saints by calling,” but they were so together “with all who in every place call upon the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ” – all who confess Jesus as Lord and Christ (1:2c).
a. This statement and its form importantly highlight the fact that the Church is an
entirely christological entity: It has its origin, identity, substance and destiny in
Him (cf. 1:30, 3:11, 6:15, and 12:12-27 with Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 1:9-10).
b. It was clearly no accident that Paul used this expression throughout his opening
statements – in fact, it appears conspicuously redundant (ref. vv. 2-3, 7-10). One
cannot fail to notice the repetition and so also Paul’s emphasis: In laying the
foundation for his instruction, Paul wanted to press again upon the Corinthians
the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ to everything pertaining to their
individual and corporate lives as Christians. This expression accomplishes this
by drawing together all of the core truths of a biblical Christology.
First of all, the name Jesus speaks to the Lord’s true and full humanity. It is the
name Joshua (“Yahweh saves” or “Yahweh is salvation”) which He shared with
many others, but in Him the name realized its true significance. It is indeed true
that “Yahweh saves,” but He has become the world’s Savior in the Man Jesus
who is the Last Adam (Matthew 1:18-21; Romans 5:18-19; 1 Corinthians 15:45).
Whereas Jesus was His human name, Christ is a title identifying Jesus of
Nazareth as the Scripture’s promised Messiah. “Christ” is the English
transliteration of the Greek noun christos which is the equivalent of the Hebrew
meshiach, which is rendered “messiah” in English. The term has the basic
meaning of “anointed one” and designates a person formally set apart and
ordained by God to fulfill a specific calling in relation to His covenant kingdom.
It was applied to Israel’s priests (Leviticus 4:1ff, 6:19-22), kings (1 Samuel 2:10,
16:1-6, 24:1-6), and prophets (1 Kings 19:15-16; 1 Chronicles 16:22).
Building upon these ascriptions, the Scriptures notably apply this title to the
messianic figure who was to fulfill all three roles of prophet, priest and king: the
prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15-19) and the royal Davidic Branch and
Melchizedekian king-priest (Zechariah 6:9-15; cf. Psalm 110). Significantly,
Isaiah assigned the title meshiach to the Persian king Cyrus who served as a
crucial messianic prototype by being the liberator of the covenant people and the
king whose sovereign power authorized and presided over the rebuilding of
Jerusalem and the sanctuary as Yahweh’s dwelling place (Isaiah 44:24-45:4).
The coming meshiach would fulfill those roles on behalf of Israel, but ultimately
for the sake of the whole world. This is revealed in two key particulars:
1) The first is the messianic revelation concerning the Branch of David. This
royal strand of Old Testament messianism is conjoined with its priestly
counterpart, first in the Melchizedek typology, but then explicitly in
Zechariah’s physical prophecy of the crowned high priest (ref. again
Zechariah 6:9-15). Zechariah identified that individual as the Davidic
Branch: the Son of David who was to build Yahweh’s house in accordance
with the Davidic Covenant (2 Samuel 7:1-16). Zechariah then enlarged his
prophecy by proclaiming that Branch would build Yahweh’s house as an
enthroned priest, but also that He would do so in conjunction with the
labors of men drawn from all over the world (cf. 1 Peter 2:4-10 with
1 Corinthians 3:10-17; Ephesians 2:11-22).
2) The second is the messianic revelation regarding the Servant of the Lord.
This content is largely concentrated in Isaiah’s prophecy, and Isaiah
revealed that this individual was to be Yahweh’s instrument for cosmic
restoration and reconciliation – a new creation. Through His self-offering,
this One would not only gather to Yahweh an abundance of children from
all the nations of the earth (53:1-54:17, cf. 11:1-10, 49:1-6), His work was
to result in a new heavens and new earth (65:1-25).
In the end, the title “Christ” embodies the totality of messianic revelation: It
speaks to Jesus as the Seed of Eve, the Seed of Abraham and Davidic Branch, the
Servant of Yahweh, True Israel and Yahweh’s Prophet, Priest and King. By
repeatedly ascribing that title to Jesus in his salutation and opening comments,
Paul was purposefully calling the minds of his Corinthian readers back to the
glorious, all-embracing truth of the One who is the fulfillment of all the
Scriptures; the One whose life they shared and whom they served as His Body.
Finally, the title Lord binds together and gives full expression to the significance
of Jesus’ name (“Yahweh saves”) and His status as Yahweh’s meshiach. The
reason is that “Lord” speaks to Jesus’ triumph over Yahweh’s enemies, His role
as liberator of the covenant people, and His supreme rule over God’s kingdom as
the first-born from the dead and enthroned priest-king (cf. Psalm 2, 110 with Acts
2:22-36 and 4:24-30, 33; Romans 1:1-4 with 8:31-39, also 10:1-13; cf. also
Ephesians 1:15-23; Colossians 3:12-25; 2 Thessalonians 1:1ff; Revelation 19:1ff).
And so, after identifying himself and Sosthenes, Paul identified the Corinthians – not
merely as he perceived them or even as they may have perceived themselves, but as they
were in truth; as they were according to the truth as it is in Jesus Christ the Lord.
- They were members of God’s Church – the community of redeemed and
reconciled people He has called by His Spirit and taken to Himself in His Son.
- But precisely because they were members of God’s Church which is in His Son
(1:2b), the Corinthians were to perceive themselves in terms of their sharing in
Jesus’ true humanity, His kingdom of the new creation and His lordship as the
Church’s Head and Husband. They were sons in the Son: a royal priesthood, a
holy nation and a people for God’s own possession (1 Peter 2:4-10; cf. Revelation
5:1-10), spiritual offspring of the Last Adam and children of Abraham and heirs
of the covenant promises made to him (Romans 5:12-19; Galatians 3:26-29).
They were those whose lives were hidden with Christ in God; men who’d died in
Christ and were now living out His life in them (Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:1ff).
- And perceiving themselves in this way as members of Christ, they ought to
recognize that their lives are inextricably joined to their fellow believers – not
only at Corinth, but across the globe and in every generation. Being members of
Jesus – sharing in His life by His Spirit – means being members of all who so
share in Him (1 Corinthians 12:1-27; cf. Ephesians 4:14-16; Colossians 1:18-19).
The notion of the Church of God implies a community that reaches through time and
space, but Paul’s primary thrust was to remind the Corinthians of who they were in
relation to one another in the body at Corinth. The reason was that all of their corporate
sin and dysfunction was grounded in their failure to “rightly judge the body.” As
important as it was for them to recognize Christ’s Body as a universal community, their
well-being and growth as believers depended upon them discerning and living out the
truth of Christ’s Body as it manifested itself in the church at Corinth.
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 16:19:32 GMT -5
C. Paul’s Benediction
1. Also consistent with many of his letters, Paul began his first canonical Corinthian epistle
with the compound benediction of grace and peace (1:3). Because this is a common
Pauline blessing it can appear rote and trivial, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Grace and peace are pregnant terms and embody hugely important concepts within the
Scripture’s gospel doctrine.
a. Grace is often defined as “God’s unmerited favor.” Like most general definitions,
this one isn’t incorrect so far as it goes but it is overly broad and leaves much
unsaid. In the first place, grace is not an inherently theological concept although it
is a relational one: It always refers to the volitional, uncoerced disposition of one
individual toward another, most often that of a superior (in whatever respect)
toward an inferior. Thus it can express a person’s pity or compassion toward his
less fortunate fellow man (Exodus 3:21). It can also operate between more or less
equal persons, as in the relationship between Jacob and Esau (Genesis 32:3-5) or
the dynamic of the attraction of a man to a woman (Esther 2:17).
From the theological standpoint, the concept of grace as it develops through the
Old Testament does convey the notion of God’s undeserved favor toward human
beings. So Noah found “grace” in the eyes of the Lord (Genesis 6:8), as did Lot in
the instance of his deliverance from Sodom (Genesis 19:18-19). But it’s crucial to
recognize that this early biblical concept of grace is not synonymous with its
salvific New Testament counterpart. Numerous times the Old Testament records
Yahweh’s grace toward individuals and groups, and in certain instances this
disposition presaged what was to come in Christ, but it isn’t identical to it. God’s
grace would not be fully revealed and realized except in the person and work of
Jesus Christ (cf. Jeremiah 31:1-7 with Zechariah 4:1-10 and John 1:14-17).
God’s condescending mercy and provision in Christ is the grace Paul was asking
God for on behalf of the Corinthians. They had become recipients of His grace in
salvation when He brought them to newness of life in His Son, but the continual
provision of grace was necessary for their well-being and progress.
b. In the same way, peace is a relational concept and ultimately a gospel one. It is
creational in that it pertains to a state enjoyed by created entities, but a state which
has God as its author and reference point; peace derives from Him and depends
upon Him. This was true in the first instance with the first creation and it is true in
regard to the new creation. The Hebrew noun rendered “peace” is shalom, and it
speaks of a state of creational flourishing and delight resulting from the created
order’s harmonious interrelation and interaction. Two observations follow:
1) Peace is not a purely personal and internal thing, as when people refer to a
state of inner peace. Shalom implicates a particular creature, but with
respect to the created order of which he is a part. It thus speaks to a thing
(or person’s) relationship with other created things.
2) And precisely because shalom implicates inter-creational relationships, it
speaks of the divine-human one. God created man as image-son to be the
interface between Him and His creation – to exercise His rule and
stewardship over it in His name and authority and on His behalf.
Therefore, a shalomic state within the created order – even between
human beings – reflects and presupposes the same shalomic relationship
between men and God. Shalom – peace – is the state in which all things
are as they ought to be in their nature, function and mutual relationships.
The fall brought alienation, isolation and fragmentation to every level of
the creation. The fall vandalized shalom, which implies that the restoration
of shalom demanded the overthrow of the curse and the renewal and
recovery of the created order’s relationship with God and with itself.
Thus, peace is a gospel reality just as grace is: The grace of God was fully and
forever realized in Jesus Christ and the outcome is creational peace. And just as
the grace Paul sought for the Corinthians spoke to the need for God’s ongoing
provision for them, so it was with his petition for peace: Reconciled to the triune
God in Christ, the Corinthians now enjoyed peace with God (Romans 5:1-2), but
the fact of that peace didn’t insure either the sense of it or its appropriation and
application in practice. The saints of God enjoy peace with Him through Jesus
Christ, but sadly that reality often doesn’t manifest itself in good consciences,
either in relation to Him or to one another. So it was with the Corinthians:
The body of Christ at Corinth, which was part of the new creational community
obliged to manifest to the watching world the truth of shalom – that is, the truth of
God’s restoration in Christ of His fractured, vandalized creation, was marked by
its opposite: fragmentation, division, and discord.
2. Paul’s plea for God’s grace and peace was consistently uniform for all the churches, but it
had a particular relevance and poignancy when it came to the Corinthian church. If any
congregation needed the Lord’s gracious bestowment and ministration of peace, it was
the body at Corinth. In pleading for the churches with this benediction, it is notable that
Paul ascribed the divine grace and peace to the Father and Son, but not the Holy Spirit
(cf. 2 Corinthians 1:2; Galatians 1:3; Ephesians 1:2; Philippians 1:2; 2 Thessalonians 1:2;
1 Timothy 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:2; Titus 1:4; Philemon 3). In fact, never does this particular
benediction include a reference to the Spirit. This raises the obvious question as to the
reason for this omission; did Paul see no connection between the Holy Spirit and God’s
grace and peace? Surely this wasn’t the case.
The answer seems to lie in the specific relation the Spirit bears to the ministration of
grace and peace as gospel verities. While every component of God’s dealings with His
creation – both in creation and re-creation – is trinitarian, the Spirit’s involvement in the
work of salvation is administrative. That is, the Spirit is God’s active power in creation
and re-creation; His work is to bring to fruition what the Father has purposed and the Son
has secured. In this sense, grace and peace are from the Father and Jesus Christ.
D. Paul’s Commendation
Paul began his address to the Corinthians by identifying them to themselves. He reaffirmed to
them their identity as the saints of God, and then followed that identification by reminding them
of the present and future endowments, privileges and blessings that belong to God’s “holy ones.”
1. Paul summarized the Corinthians’ spiritual endowments as the ministration of the grace
of God which He had bestowed upon them in Christ Jesus (1:4). Thus, while rightly
acknowledging these endowments as the bona fide possession of the Corinthian believers,
Paul gave the thanks and praise for them to God Himself.
- Clearly God’s foundational bestowment to them was life in the Lord Jesus (with
all that entails and implies), but Paul moved past that to the endowments that
flowed from their union with Him. These endowments came to the Corinthians by
virtue of their sharing in Christ Jesus, but through His indwelling Spirit.
- Moreover, Paul presented them as permanent and effectual, pertaining to the
future as much as to the present: In the Spirit’s hands, this diverse grace of God
poured out on the Corinthians would secure them in the present life and carry
them forward unto the day of their glorification as they entered fully into the
perfection of the Lord Jesus (1:5-9). God’s grace would not fail – even in the case
of the dysfunctional and disobedient Corinthian church – precisely because it
depended for its final triumph upon His faithfulness and not theirs (ref. vv. 8-9).
In this regard they were in league with each and every one of God’s “holy ones” from the
time of the fall – men whose triumph and inheritance in glory was realized, not by them
or through them, but in spite of them. For the Corinthians as for the patriarchs, Moses,
David, etc., their future glory was assured because it did not depend on him who wills or
him who runs, but God who has mercy (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:7-14).
a. As it pertained to the present, God’s grace in His Son had enriched the
Corinthians in their speech and knowledge. In this way it provided tangible
evidence of the truth and power of the gospel and of its fruitfulness in them. But
these particular endowments provided this testimony specifically because they
were spiritual – of the Spirit – rather than natural: Paul wasn’t acknowledging the
Corinthians as having accumulated a vast reservoir of religious knowledge along
with the skills to ably communicate it; in themselves, those things say nothing
about the grace of God and its effectual work in the souls of men. Paul was
referring to insight and understanding that transcend those of the natural man.
1) The noun translated “knowledge” is gnosis, which refers not to the
accumulation of data and facts, but to insight and understanding. (So the
mystery religion Gnosticism which purported to give its initiates access to
esoteric insight unavailable to the rest of mankind.) Natural knowledge
consists in the gathering and cataloging of information; the knowledge
Paul was referring to is the discernment of the meaning of information.
Specifically, Paul was recognizing the Corinthians’ gospel discernment –
their divinely-imparted insight into the truth of God as revealed and
affirmed in Jesus Christ. In a word, he was acknowledging their
possession of the mind of Christ as a gift of God’s grace (2:12-16).
2) The same dynamic applies to Paul’s commendation of their speech. Paul’s
term is logos, which concerns the content and meaning of speech, not the
act of speaking or the mechanics of it. It refers to the communication of
truth rather than linguistics or oratory. (Thus Jesus as the incarnate Logos
– the One who communicates to men the truth and meaning of God).
Understood in this way, speech and knowledge imply one another: Knowledge
manifests itself in speech; speech communicates knowledge. Together they work
to attest the truth as disclosed by the Spirit (cf. 2:1-13). And so, when Paul
referred to the Corinthians as being enriched in speech and knowledge, he was
acknowledging them as vessels of the truth of the gospel of God in Jesus Christ: a
community in whom the testimony concerning Christ had born its fruit of life and
power – a community having all spiritual riches and obligated by them (vv. 5-6).
b. But the grace of God that implicates and obligates the present ultimately sets its
face toward the future and bears its fruit unto the day of Christ Jesus. God’s grace
had enriched the Corinthians in knowledge and speech and lavished upon them
every other good gift of the Spirit (that is, spiritual endowments given for the
building up of the body; 12:1ff). But it had also established them in hope. The
grace of God gave them every provision for their present lives and obligations,
but it equally sealed and secured them for the future day of glory (1:7-9).
In spite of all Paul knew to be going on in Corinth – things he would presently
address, he could still declare to them that the hope God had engraved on their
hearts would not prove vain: The Lord who had confirmed them would do so until
the end (cf. vv. 6, 8) and present them blameless to His Father at His coming; He
who began His good work was going to complete it (Philippians 1:6).
Paul regarded the Corinthians with the eyes of faith; Christ’s Spirit in him enabled
him to see what is unseen and to judge them and their future based upon God’s
purpose, pronouncement and power, not temporal circumstances. Like those he
was commending, the grace of God had enriched Paul in knowledge and speech:
He discerned what escapes the natural mind and spoke accordingly (ref. 2
Corinthians 4:1-18). The natural mind can only judge on the basis of what appears
to the senses and experience. But the mind of the Spirit judges based on the truth
of God as it is in Jesus Christ (2:14-16). Paul could speak to the Corinthians with
what appeared as foolish confidence because he believed God rather than them.
But the Corinthians were to regard themselves with the same eyes of faith. They
needed to redirect their fleshly preoccupation with their present “glory” to the
glory – and the judgment – to come in the day of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:9-10).
2. Paul had a very specific reason for introducing his epistle the way he did. At first glance
it may appear that he was simply following social convention in acknowledging the
Corinthians with a complement. A more reasonable explanation is that he was trying to
disarm the Corinthians in order to make them more receptive to what he had to say. Paul
knew that at least some of them were at odds with him and he had every reason to expect
a certain amount of resistance to his letter.
But Paul was neither a flatterer nor a manipulator. It would have been completely out of
character for him to commend the Corinthians in order to win them over to himself. He
did, however, have a conscious reason for his commendation and that reason did pertain
to his letter and the outcome he hoped to realize from it. Paul wanted the Corinthians to
give heed to his words and act upon his instruction, but in order that things would be put
right in the church and God and His gospel would be honored and attested in truth.
Paul didn’t issue his commendation to flatter or manipulate the Corinthians, but to
confront, challenge and redirect them regarding the disconnect between who they were
as the saints of God and how they were ordering their lives as individuals and as a body.
a. In commending the Corinthians Paul was affirming the very things they affirmed
of themselves and took great pride in. They congratulated themselves that they
were a body marked by unexcelled knowledge, wisdom and every spiritual gift
and grace (4:7-10). By their own estimation, the Corinthians possessed the
fullness of God’s gifts and spiritual provision and Paul wanted them to know that
he agreed with their self-assessment, though unto a different conclusion.
b. Paul acknowledged that God had abundantly blessed the Corinthians with every
spiritual gift and grace; they lacked nothing in that regard. But his reason for
commending them wasn’t to praise them, but to convict them. Paul’s letter was
going to drive them to the painful realization that their unexcelled giftedness was
the occasion for their shame and repentance, not their pride and self-satisfaction.
God had not slighted or deprived them in any way; to the contrary, He lavished His grace upon
them, joining them to His Son (1:9) and giving them every gift in Him. The Corinthians were
depriving themselves by abusing and undermining His gifts. Their failure and guilt were entirely
their own, and their guilt was all the greater because, of whom much is given, much is required.
The Corinthians were God’s saints; He’d set them apart and taken them to Himself and
confirmed their consecration by endowing them with every gift of His grace. Their knowledge –
their insight into gospel realities – afforded them confident hope for their future and their speech
enabled them to support and edify one another in the present against the coming day of glory.
But the Corinthians had seized God’s gifts and transformed them into mammon: They were
treating them as their own, consecrated to their own service and benefit. They had lost sight of
the true nature of the kingdom of God and were living as if it were just another manifestation of
the kingdoms of this world – kingdoms governed by the procedure of the king in which the
greatest gives no grace and the master declines to serve (Matthew 20:17-28; cf. Luke 22:14-27).
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 16:20:47 GMT -5
II. Reported Concerns – News Regarding the Corinthian Church
Paul devoted the first section of his letter to concerns that had been reported to him by visitors
from the church in Corinth (1:10-6:20). In the case of some of those concerns, it’s unclear
exactly who brought them to him. But Paul leaves no doubt as to who informed him of the first
matter: The members of Chloe’s house brought to him the disheartening news that the body of
Christ at Corinth was becoming increasingly divided and contentious.
A. Discord and Division (1:10-4:21)
Of the concerns reported to him, Paul gave the most attention to addressing the matter of division
among the Corinthian saints. Commentators have posited various explanations, but the most
likely reason is also the most obvious: All of the other problems at Corinth were merely differing
manifestations of the church’s fundamental disunity; they were thus symptomatic rather than
problematic. So also the outward divisions and factions among the Corinthian believers were
themselves pointers to the true disease that plagued that body.
As previously noted, the Corinthians were lying against their identity and calling as God’s saints;
though set apart to God in Christ Jesus, they were living as “natural men” (ref. 3:1-4) –
individuals consecrated to their own personal interests. Increasingly it was every man for himself
in the church at Corinth, and this mindset of self-concern and self-devotion was the underlying
cause of their quarrels, their factions, their immorality, their lawsuits, etc. The Corinthians had
transformed God’s good gifts into mammon, and that included the gift of the Body itself.
1. Paul notably introduced his treatment of divisions at Corinth with an exhortation (1:10).
Like a wise father dealing with the contentions of immature children, he first directed the
Corinthians toward the real problem and its remedy; only then did he begin to speak to
the symptoms, namely the emergence of factions at Corinth. Paul’s exhortation was a
passionate call for unity, and several things about it are important to note:
a. The first is that Paul issued it as a plea to beloved brethren. He wasn’t addressing
them as a detached scholar or rabbi offering Bible-based instruction or counsel,
but as their brother in Christ. Though Paul rightly regarded himself as the
Corinthians’ spiritual father in that the Spirit had brought them to faith through
his ministry, his fatherhood didn’t imply superiority or preeminence. He’d merely
obeyed his calling and employed his gifts as a faithful servant of Christ (3:5-7); in
the end, he and those among whom he labored in the gospel were brothers, joined
as equals and equally beloved by the same Lord and Father.
Paul did possess and exercise authority in the Church as the Lord’s apostle, but it
was Jesus’ authority and not his own. Each believer is gifted and called to use his
gifts as a servant of Christ and each will give an account to Him. Those given
leadership gifts are no less servants than those given gifts of “helps” (12:28), and
Jesus will judge both on the basis of how they served the good of His beloved
Body (2 Corinthians 5:10). Paul’s purposefulness is evident even in his plea: He
could not regard himself as superior; how, then, could the Corinthians (4:1-13)?
b. The second observation is that Paul pled for unity, not in his own name, but the
name of Jesus Himself (note Paul’s use again of the comprehensive expression
Lord Jesus Christ). By pleading in this name, Paul was doing a couple of things:
- First, he was invoking Christ’s lordship. Paul wanted the Corinthians to
understand that his exhortation didn’t arise from his own authority,
judgment or desire, but expressed the will of the Lord of the Church.
- Second, he was invoking the Christ’s headship. He isn’t simply Lord of
the Church; He is the Head of the Body. The former speaks to authority,
the latter to relationship. Jesus is sovereign Lord, but not as a detached
despot according to the “procedure of the king.” He exercises His kingly
authority and power as Servant and Benefactor of His subjects – subjects
who comprise His own Body as His fullness (Ephesians 1:22-23). The One
who is Lord is Jesus the Messiah: the Last Adam and Servant-Son in
whom Adam’s race realizes its own human destiny as divine image-son.
Paul’s plea was Christ’s plea, and it called the Corinthians to respond on the basis
of the truth bound up in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul wasn’t suggesting or
recommending unity in the church, but neither was he commanding it as a moral
or ethical obligation. He was exhorting the Corinthians to recognize and return to
the truth of what it means to be the Body of Christ: the truth that they were
members of one another because they were members of Christ (again, 12:1ff).
Paul exhorted them to unity because anything short of it is a lie; it is a denial of
the Lord Jesus Christ who now finds His fullness in His Body, the Church.
c. The third thing to note is that Paul expressed this unity in negative and positive
terms. Negatively, its antithesis is division (Greek, schisma, or schism), this term
denoting a rending or tearing apart. In this usage it refers to the rift that results
from competing ideas, desires, and loyalties. Positively, this unity consists in the
agreement resulting from a common mind and common judgment (1:10).
By treating it in this way, Paul importantly shows that unity in the church isn’t
uniformity; being of the same understanding and judgment doesn’t mean seeing
everything in exactly the same way and with the same level of importance. If
unity were uniformity, how could the church be defined as a spiritual body
comprised of people of every tribe, tongue, nation and people? Differences among
the saints are not merely inevitable; they are necessary and healthy. What Paul
was calling for is the unity that consists in the shared life and mind of Christ.
Literally, Paul expressed this agreement in terms of “speaking the same thing,”
and he posed it as the antithesis of schism. Here again it is important to
understand that Paul wasn’t calling for uniformity in speech, but the common
conviction of a shared “word”: the word of truth as it is embodied in and implied
by the gospel. In turn, sharing the same word of truth implies that the Corinthians
would have a common frame of mind and so a common judgment arising from it.
Here Paul was drawing upon his previous acknowledgement of the Corinthians’
rich endowment in knowledge and speech. They excelled in insight and
understanding (knowledge), but they used it (through their speech) as an
instrument of contention and schism, and Paul was calling them back to the
proper perception and use of those gifts (and all their gifts).
Spiritual gifts are endowments of the one and same Spirit, and so it is with
knowledge and speech. Where they are rightly appraised and appropriated, they
will tend toward a common “mind” and common “word.” Thus, like all the
Spirit’s gifts, knowledge and speech serve the unity and edification of the church;
if the Corinthians would regard and employ them in truth they would see the end
of strife and schism; they would see the mending of the tears in the church’s unity.
d. Finally, it’s notable that Paul didn’t urge the Corinthians to attempt or strive for
this agreement among them, but to simply do it. This implies that true Christian
unity is first and foremost a matter of commitment and will. It doesn’t require
exhaustive theological study or endless debate; neither does it demand – or even
seek – absolute uniformity in conviction with respect to either doctrine or practice
(8:1ff; cf. Romans 12-15). What it does require is the body’s understanding of
what it means to be saints set apart to God in Christ Jesus and their commitment
to live out that truth authentically and in all sincerity.
If Paul was right and this sort of agreement can be realized in this way, why is it
that unity in the Church is (and always has been) so very rare? Why is it that
churches always struggle against dissension and division? One obvious reason is
that multitudes of Christians don’t understand the nature and basis of true unity;
how can they be of the same mind and judgment if they don’t know what that
means or what it is that they’re to unify around?
- Too often Christians confuse unity with uniformity: They think that unity
means the absence of theological, doctrinal and practical (sometimes even
cultural) differences. And since that’s a practical impossibility, the
alternative is to subjugate differences to an agreed upon standard.
- Many believers fail to recognize that true Christian unity is nothing more
and nothing less than common-union in Christ – unity which consists in
His shared life in the Spirit and the shared truth of His gospel.
- Unity is spiritual (of the Spirit), while uniformity is fleshly. Unity is
common-union in Christ by the Spirit (Ephesians 4:1-6), and so is
unconcerned with and puts no ultimate value in any other unifying
criterion. (A body of believers may enjoy other arenas of commonality
such as culture, lifestyle preferences, etc., but all such things are irrelevant
to unity.) On the other hand, uniformity seeks – and often enforces –
“sameness” across a broad spectrum; it is preoccupied with human
concerns, however religious or “spiritual” they may be.
In the end, unity is impossible where it is confused with uniformity; the best that
can be achieved is coerced compliance (through indirect and direct means). But
where unity is rightly discerned and valued – as it ought by God’s saints who are
enriched in knowledge, it becomes a delightful and easy thing. More than that, the
Church becomes what it actually is, namely heaven on earth: the foretaste of
consummation for the saints and the fragrance of the new creation for the world.
2. Paul explained his call for unity by informing his readers that he was aware of just how
fractured and discordant the church at Corinth had become. He wasn’t issuing a generic
exhortation; he was addressing them and their issues directly. The Corinthians couldn’t
rationalize his plea or hope that he didn’t really know what was going on among them; he
knew by firsthand report that they were dividing into a collection of disputing factions –
factions which identified themselves based on their allegiance to certain men (1:11-12).
a. Religious factions always have men at their center even when they’re organized
around and focused on doctrinal concerns. The reason is that doctrine is
formulated, systematized and promoted by men. Adherents may bind themselves
to certain doctrines and form a community unified by them, but men are always
the keepers of those doctrines. This is sadly just as true of Christianity, where so
often the “faithful” identify and demarcate themselves by an authorized body of
doctrine promoted and enforced by powerful and influential individuals.
b. So it was at Corinth; the factions emerging there were associated with leading
men in the Christian community. Paul and Apollos were obvious choices, for both
had played important roles in the life of the Corinthian church; Peter likely gained
a following among the Jewish believers at Corinth due to his prominence as one
of the Twelve and an apostle to the Jews. (It is uncertain whether Peter ever
visited Corinth, but his status and reputation were doubtless known to them.)
What is most important to note – and what was most outrageous to Paul – is that
the Corinthians were adding Jesus Himself to their list of notable men to unify
around. Whether or not they realized it, they had effectively reduced the Lord to
just another prominent Christian leader alongside Paul, Apollos and Peter. One
could be of Paul or of Apollos just as he could be of Christ. It’s possible that the
latter group consisted of those who were rightly devoted to the Lord in opposition
to the other factions. But the fact that Paul lumped them with their counterparts
and used the same language to describe them indicates that this group was itself a
faction implicated in the schisms and strife at Corinth.
- Thus some have speculated that the “Jesus group” consisted of individuals
who regarded themselves as super-spiritual and so couldn’t be bothered
with human teachers and authority (the “I only submit to Christ” crowd).
- Others have concluded that this group was following Jesus as if He were a
spiritual guru – a quasi-gnostic philosopher – and they were the truly
enlightened few among the believers at Corinth (ref. 1:17-2:5).
Whatever the specific convictions and orientation of this Jesus faction, it’s clear that Paul
regarded it, as all the other factions at Corinth, as scandalous and deeply troubling. He
understood all too well that, “when ‘I belong to Christ’ becomes the rallying cry of one
contentious faction within the church, Christ is de facto reduced to the status of one more
leader hustling for adherents within the community’s local politics” (Richard Hays).
Personal agendas and church politics always go hand-in-hand; it was the case at Corinth,
and so it continues to the present day. Christians remain ever inclined to “walk by sight,”
and this natural-mindedness (the “old man”) manifests itself in their allegiance to
traditions, movements and theological systems as well as individual men; two millennia
after the debacle at Corinth, nothing has changed in Christ’s Church.
3. The factions in Corinth were bad enough, but they were made all the worse by the fact
that Jesus was implicated in them. Irrespective of which particular faction a Corinthian
believer happened to align himself with, he was guilty of making the Lord Jesus simply
one notable individual among many. The Corinthians were trampling underfoot the Son
of God, but in so doing they were also denying His gospel – the very gospel they had
embraced and by which they identified themselves. Ironically, in aligning themselves
with the person they believed was the best advocate of Christ and His gospel, the
Corinthians were actually denying both, and so also themselves as Christians.
The Corinthians doubtless believed that their factionalizing was about faithfulness to God
and His truth. But in reality they were serving their own agendas, denigrating their Lord
by setting Him alongside His servants and setting those servants against one another by
exalting one over the other (4:6; cf. 1:30-31, 3:21-23). Paul confronted this travesty head
on, unmasking it through a series of rhetorical questions (1:13-17).
a. In the first place, by splitting into factions the Corinthians were effectively
seeking to divide Christ. Paul would go on to remind them that all of them were
members of His one body; unless Christ can be divided up into various parts and
parceled out, what they were doing in dividing among themselves was absurd and
a lie against the truth of the Church as Christ’s Body and fullness.
b. Moreover, reducing Jesus to simply another spiritual leader denied Him as the
unique Lamb of God. Paul hadn’t been crucified for them and they hadn’t become
the church of God at Corinth through union with him (or Apollos, Cephas, or
anyone else). If the Corinthians were indeed Christians, then they were sharers in
Jesus’ life by virtue of His atoning death and resurrection as the Last Adam.
c. Hadn’t they each affirmed that truth when they were baptized? Each of the
Corinthians had undergone baptism as testimony to his forgiveness, cleansing and
new life, and none of them had been baptized in Paul’s name. Paul’s subsequent
disclaimer (vv. 14-17) suggests that the Corinthian factions may have had some
basis in who’d been baptized by whom, and he made it clear that that issue was
totally irrelevant. It didn’t matter who’d administered baptism, but in whose name
– and in the faith of what gospel – a person had been baptized. Baptism didn’t
produce disciples, but God’s power through the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 16:34:46 GMT -5
Paul’s pointed exhortation to unity made it clear that he repudiated without exception or
qualification all schisms and factionalizing in Christ’s Church. Whether a faction arose because
of heretical doctrine or out of pious devotion to him as Jesus’ chosen apostle, both were equally
outrageous and contrary to the nature of the Body. So also if baptism was supplying a basis for
forming allegiances to men, Paul was going to denounce that just as firmly. It wasn’t that he
regarded baptism as irrelevant, but he recognized that it serves an attesting role:
- Baptism signifies the fact of the believer’s participation in Christ; it does nothing except
testify to the truth that, by the power of the Spirit, a person has been joined to Christ’s
death and resurrection; his human existence is now hidden with Christ in God.
- Thus baptism speaks to and exalts the gospel: the good news of the kingdom of God and
its nature and efficacy in relation to human beings. The gospel is the power of God for
salvation (Romans 1:16) – not only in terms of those who are saved through it, but also in
the sense that this good news holds forth to the world of men the true nature, orientation
and operation of the divine power of the triune God. The gospel discloses and explains
God’s power and how it functions for the recovery of mankind (and the whole creation).
And in the hands of the Spirit, the gospel effects in a person’s life that which it proclaims.
This is why Paul could assert to the Corinthians that Christ had sent him, not to baptize, but to
preach the gospel (1:17). Without this proclamation and its fruitfulness by the Spirit, baptism
would be meaningless and of no value. Baptism has no life or significance in itself; even more, it
speaks to the oneness of Christ’s Body. How, then, can it be the basis for church factions?
5. Paul understood that Jesus had called and commissioned him to proclaim the good news
of the kingdom of God. But he also recognized that that message conflicts with the frame
of reference and pattern of thinking which characterize the natural mind. This truth has
two important implications for the testimony of the gospel, both of which are evident in
Paul’s treatment in the next context (1:18-31).
a. The first is that the natural mind – the mind that is “according to the flesh” (ref.
1:26, 3:1; cf. also Romans 8:5-8; Galatians 5:16-24) – cannot help but regard the
gospel as foolishness. The reason is that every person perceives, thinks and judges
using himself as the datum and standard of assessment; his own perspective,
understanding and value system determine what is true, good, right, worthy,
lovely, desirable, etc. Men have no choice but to think, judge, and respond out
from their own minds, and this means that, where their minds are at odds with the
truth of God as revealed in the gospel, they will perceive the gospel as foolishness
– ultimately irrelevant, if not utterly irrational.
b. The second implication flows from the first, which is the effect of the apparent
foolishness of the gospel on those who hear and proclaim it. Because the gospel
strikes the fallen mind as foreign and foolish, the natural tendency is for the
hearer to “translate” it into an acceptable form. In effect, people hear what they
want to hear, and if allowed to embrace a pseudo-gospel constructed in their own
minds (irrespective of what the speaker is actually saying), they will do so.
On the other side, those who preach the gospel eventually come to recognize this
problem with their hearers and so often find themselves searching for a way to
make the gospel more reasonable and acceptable. To use Paul’s words, they fall
prey to the thinking that “cleverness of speech” will win the day and the hearts of
those listening to them. Beyond concern for the success of his message, the herald
of the gospel has the added selfish motivation of not appearing foolish himself.
But whether they turn to sophisticated, clever and/or persuasive argumentation in order to
make their evangel more clear and compelling or to guard their own reputation
(frequently it’s for the sake of both), Christians who do so are guilty of making void the
cross of Christ. Hays’ comments are helpful in discerning Paul’s point:
“Preaching is the proclamation of the cross; it is the cross that is the source of its power.
The convincing power of the cross could not be fully manifest if preaching shared too
evidently in the devices of human rhetoric; if men are persuaded by eloquence they are
not persuaded by Christ crucified. Hence Paul rejects wisdom as a rhetorical device.”
6. Verse 17 provides the hinge between what precedes and what follows. Paul repudiated
the factions at Corinth, disallowing even baptismal reasons for them by putting baptism
“in its place.” Not baptism, but the preaching of the gospel is the core concern for
Christ’s servants, and that gospel must, in turn, be jealously guarded against everything
that would undermine it and strip it of its power. These enemies of the gospel are not
discernable to natural wisdom; to the contrary, such “wisdom” eagerly embraces them as
proper and profitable; only a different kind of wisdom enables men to discern the true
power of the gospel and expose the foolishness of that which men so highly regard.
So it was with the Corinthians. However proud they were of their discernment and
judgment in aligning with the right man, the truth is that they were fools: men whose
carelessness respecting the truth and wisdom of God in the gospel had allowed them to
become captivated again by human wisdom. Their factions reflected the foolishness of
immature children (ref. 3:1-4), not superior insight and maturity. And so, just as with the
other issues at Corinth, Paul could only deal with the problem of schisms by taking the
Corinthians back to the truth of the gospel and the antithesis it reveals between human
and divine wisdom, between the natural mind and the mind of Christ.
Thus 1:18-31 explains and elaborates upon Paul’s transitional declaration in v. 17. In that
statement the apostle asserted a fundamental antithesis between the gospel and human
wisdom, specifically the truth that “cleverness of speech” evacuates Christ’s cross (which
is central to the gospel) of its power. To a congregation of people enamored with wise
and persuasive rhetoric, this was surely an astounding and even preposterous claim.
a. Paul began his defense of his thesis by noting how human wisdom responds to the
gospel. Despite the fact that the gospel sets forth God’s power for salvation, this
power isn’t manifest to all men; quite the opposite, those who appraise the gospel
with the faculty of natural wisdom find the “word of the cross” to be foolishness.
And regarding it in this way, they turn away from it unto final ruination (1:18a).
Conversely, it is those who are being saved who discern the power of God in the
word of the cross (v. 18b). There are a couple of important considerations that
arise from this assertion:
- The first pertains to the tendency to read this verse in terms of the
relationship between personal faith in Christ and personal salvation. Many
see in Paul’s statement further proof of the doctrine that faith is a gift of
God. That is, apart from God’s work of illumination and regeneration, the
truth of the gospel remains obscured to the hearer; it is foolishness to him.
One must be saved (i.e., regenerated) before he can discern the wisdom of
God in the gospel and the true nature of its power to save.
But Paul wasn’t speaking to this issue, and to read him that way is to
completely miss his meaning and the import and power of his argument
for the Corinthian situation. Paul wasn’t thinking in terms of the salvation
of the individual person, but God’s purpose for His creation and the way
in which He has accomplished it. Hays is again helpful:
“God has revealed in Christ another kind of wisdom that radically
subverts the wisdom of this world: God has chosen to save the world
through the cross, through the shameful and powerless death of the
crucified Messiah. If that shocking event [that is, its meaning] is the
revelation of the deepest truth about the character of God, then our whole
way of seeing the world is turned upside down. Everything has to be
reevaluated in light of the cross.”
- The above observation points toward another crucial consideration,
namely that Paul’s expression, the “word (logos) of the cross,” indicates
that he was speaking of the purpose and comprehensive meaning of the
cross rather than the crucifixion event as such. Indeed, there is no wisdom
– divine or human – in the mere fact of Jesus’ brutal murder. God’s
wisdom resides in His glorious, all-encompassing plan which has been
accomplished in Jesus Christ and is proclaimed to the world in the gospel.
Paul was using the cross of Christ as synecdoche – a figure of speech by
which the whole is represented and signified by one part of it. The cross
here signifies the “Christ event” which itself embodies the totality of
God’s purging, renewing, and reconciling work. Just as the preaching of
the gospel is the preaching of Christ crucified (cf. 1:17-18 with 2:1-2), so
it is the proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of God – the news
that God has fulfilled His promise of creational recovery (Acts 28:30-31).
“The gospel is not an esoteric body of religious knowledge, not a slickly
packaged philosophy, not a scheme for living a better life; instead, it is an
announcement about God’s apocalyptic intervention in the world, for the
sake of the world.” (Hays)
Thus, Paul’s statement in 1:18 isn’t concerned with the mechanisms of how an
individual person “gets saved.” (Is he saved because he believes, or does he
believe because he’s “being saved”? So also, do men perish because they reject or
do they reject because they’re perishing?) Rather, Paul was taking note of the
larger, profound truth that, in the person and work of His Son, God has confronted
the world with His wisdom and power – wisdom and power that are radically
antithetical to the natural mind’s conception of them. The result of this
confrontation is that human beings are compelled to take stock of their own
notions of wisdom and power. That assessment, in turn, serves to divide mankind
into two distinct camps:
- those who hold fast to their natural, self-affirming conception of those
realities and those who see through their own foolishness and impotence
and embrace the wisdom and power of God;
- in Paul’s language, those who are on the path of ultimate destruction
(ruination) and those who are on the path of salvation.
b. Paul understood this dividing to be a matter of prophetic fulfillment – the way in
which God has ultimately fulfilled His scriptural pledge to “destroy the wisdom of
the wise” and “annul the cleverness of the clever” (1:19). Interestingly, Paul drew
his citation from Isaiah 29:14, a passage which, in context, has nothing to do with
Paul’s use of it here. This sort of apparent misappropriation of an Old Testament
passage is characteristic of the New Testament writers and Jesus Himself, and has
posed no little problem for those who insist upon the notion of a “single meaning”
in any given scriptural text. In the name of guarding scriptural veracity (“the Bible
means what it says”) and avoiding speculative private interpretation, such
individuals ironically are forced to do precisely what they condemn, which is to
refuse to let the Scripture interpret itself and say what it means.
Paul’s citation is part of a larger context containing a series of woes (judicial
pronouncements) against Judah and Israel (28:1-31:9). In this particular woe
Yahweh was pronouncing, on the one hand, His just punishment of Jerusalem
(Ariel) and, on the other, His promise of subsequent deliverance and restoration.
With respect to the former, David’s city (symbolizing the covenant kingdom) was
appointed for destruction and desolation because of the people’s arrogance and
complacency toward their covenant Father and Lord. Judah hadn’t abandoned the
required exercises of its worship and devotion; quite the opposite, the people were
proud of their careful piety. But their honor and devotion were merely mechanics
and lip service; their hearts were far from their God (29:13; cf. Matthew 15:1-9).
Yahweh knew this to be the case but the sons of Judah did not: They had blinded
themselves to their true state and become stupefied, unable to see with their eyes
and hear with their ears (cf. Isaiah 1:1-15 with 6:1-11). They believed themselves
to be wise and pious, but they were actually blind, rebellious fools.
Nevertheless, desolation wasn’t to be the last word. Yahweh had given His oath to
Abraham and David regarding an everlasting kingdom reaping the fruit of global
– indeed cosmic – blessing. Israel would yet fulfill its calling for the world.
Thus God’s pronouncement to Judah – the pronouncement which Paul cited –
carried a marvelous double entendre:
- As part of a message of judgment and desolation, it indicated that Yahweh
was going to strip Judah naked and expose her arrogant folly; she who was
convinced of her wisdom and piety and favor with her God would soon be
confronted with the truth in the form of His fierce indignation (29:1-4).
- But more importantly, the pronouncement highlights Yahweh’s
determination to remove the folly and blindness of His wayward people.
He was going to unmask and annul the wisdom and discernment of the
“wise,” but in order to expose as glorious His own wisdom and so bring
men into its light and blessing. For the sake of restoration as well as
condemnation, that which was hidden was going to be revealed (29:9-24).
Paul understood this Isaianic prophecy, not merely as it implicated the near-term
future of Judah, but more importantly as it spoke to Yahweh’s saving purposes for
His creation in His Servant-Messiah. Paul recognized that the Lord’s oath to
“destroy the wisdom of the wise and set aside the cleverness of the clever” was
not liable to numerous interpretations and diverse meanings, but to a unified,
organic meaning that reached forward along the trajectory of salvation-historical
fulfillment to find its fullness – its sensius plenior – in Jesus Christ.
- Isaiah’s prophecy revealed that Judah was soon to be made desolate and
its sons carried away into captivity in Babylon. The Lord’s patience was
coming to an end, and though He’d withhold His wrath for a season,
destruction and exile would not be averted. Zion was going to be stripped
of her children, but a remnant would return and rebuild the sanctuary and
city when Yahweh raised up His meshiach Cyrus. In this way God was
going to judge human wisdom and power, annulling them and abasing
those who exulted in them, in order to reveal and exalt His own.
- Judah would see the triumph of divine wisdom and power in righteous
judgment and restoring mercy, but the remnant’s recovery from Babylon
would not ultimately fulfill the prophet’s promise. There remained another
day for judging and destroying human wisdom and the resource it trusts
and draws upon – the wisdom and sense of personal power which prevent
men from knowing God and therefore from knowing themselves and the
world around them. There remained another day in which Yahweh would
make known to the whole world the glory of His wisdom and might – a
wisdom and power that appear foolish and impotent to the natural mind,
but which vindicate themselves in the new creation in Christ Jesus.
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 16:40:30 GMT -5
7. Isaiah’s prophecy revealed God’s intention to overthrow human wisdom and eclipse
human insight, and Paul recognized that this promise has now been fulfilled in Christ. Yet
God has not destroyed these prized human commodities by eliminating them altogether,
but by unmasking them and showing them for what they really are. He has shown them to
be empty and impotent foolishness, and He has done so by confronting them with His
own wisdom, understanding and power made manifest in the world in the person and
work of Jesus Christ.
This was Paul’s thesis, substantiated as true on the basis of the prophetic Scriptures now
fulfilled in Jesus. And his reason for presenting it to the Corinthians wasn’t to inform
them of something they’d never heard or known, but to press them with their own
foolishness and thereby drive them to repentance. They had allowed their hearts and
minds to be recaptured by natural wisdom and that could not be allowed to stand. In the
first place, they’d become infatuated again with the very thing their God had stripped
naked and revealed as impotent and worthless. But, in so doing, they were also
effectively denying His wisdom and power. Whether or not they realized it, they had
everything backward: foolishness and wisdom, impotence and power, vanity and value.
a. Jesus has revealed to the world God’s wisdom and power by being their tangible
embodiment (1:23-24, 31); the mere fact of His incarnation and redemptive work
has debunked and delegitimized the wisdom and power of men. There was no
doubt in Paul’s mind that the Corinthians understood this, for they’d heard and
embraced his gospel – the gospel of Christ crucified (2:1-5), and he’d spent more
than a year discipling them in that gospel.
Though they’d drifted in their thinking and judgment, the Corinthians were yet
saints of God: They knew He had triumphed over human wisdom. And so Paul
could pose to them a compound rhetorical question whose answer was as obvious
to them as it was to him: “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is
the debater of this age?” No one at Corinth would deny that sages and scholars
were still present and active in the world and even in their city, but the truth
embodied in the “word of the cross” has emasculated all such men; in His Son
and His gospel God had made foolish the wisdom of the world (1:20).
b. Paul followed his rhetorical questions with a statement that directly answers what
those questions imply: The sages and philosophers of this age have indeed been
vanquished, laid bare in the piercing light of the sunrise from on high. God’s
wisdom has shown the world’s wisdom to be nothing more than a delusional
charade; what men regard and exalt as wisdom is actually foolishness.
Paul insisted that God’s wisdom has exposed the world’s foolishness, but that
assertion by itself is insufficient to make the case; it must be defined and bounded
before its truthfulness can be determined. Upon hearing Paul’s spectacular claim,
a thinking person should respond by asking what exactly he meant by it. In what
sense is this claim true? What exactly is the “wisdom of the world” and how has
God revealed it to be foolishness?
Paul himself recognized that his assertion needed clarification to be credible, and
he provided it in his very next statement (1:21). The wisdom he was referring to is
concerned with men’s knowledge of God.
In the most basic sense, wisdom can be defined as the ability to discern something
– persons, things, circumstances, situations, events, etc. – as it actually is and
respond to it perfectly appropriately. This being the case, it follows that the
knowledge of God is fundamental and absolutely essential to wisdom. The reason
is that God is the designer, overseer and director of all created existence:
- He created everything that exists and He orders and directs all things
according to an all-encompassing purpose.
- This means that all things – as well as the circumstances and situations of
their existence – find their definition and meaning in relation to God.
Things are what He created them to be and what He knows them to be.
The truth of a thing is what its Creator knows it to be in itself and in relation to all
other things. Thus the true knowledge of a thing depends upon perceiving it the
way God perceives it, and this like-mindedness, in turn, depends upon a person
knowing God and being aligned with and yielded to His mind and judgment. In
the language of the Scripture, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Man is a spiritual being, created in the divine image and likeness, and so he
instinctively recognizes that truth and meaning are ultimately spiritual matters.
That is, the true meaning of a thing cannot be determined by purely material
(physical) considerations and investigation. People recognize that the pursuit of
wisdom moves them beyond the physical and empirical to the metaphysical and
philosophical (the word philosophy is the transliteration of the Greek term
meaning “love of wisdom”). But in their natural state – their state of estrangement
from God, human beings cannot go beyond their own minds; their wisdom is
confined to human categories and conceptions.
For all his apparent insight and understanding, the natural man is incapable of
knowing God. He believes wisdom is within his grasp and that this wisdom
includes the knowledge of deity and spiritual verities, but the truth is that his
wisdom is foolishness; the only “god” he knows is a notion conceived in his own
mind: The world in its wisdom does not – and cannot – know the living God.
At the same time, the very limitation that precludes human wisdom keeps people
ignorant of their error. They believe they’re wise and are convinced that their
notions of God correspond to the reality of Him (substantially and truly if not
exhaustively or perfectly). Men don’t realize their tragic plight, but God does. He
sees things as they really are; His wisdom enables Him to recognize what “wise”
men cannot: Their apparent wisdom is of no use in knowing Him, and since they
don’t know Him, they don’t know anything else in truth – not even themselves.
Men cannot see the vanity of their “wisdom” and so put their trust in it. They look
to it as their guide and protector – ultimately as their savior. No one entrusts his
life and destiny to that which he perceives as foolish and impotent, and this is
precisely why the natural mind looks for salvation beyond (or in addition to) the
Christ of the gospel. People are able to recognize their need to be “saved,” but
they seek it in a “savior” their sensibilities recognize and affirm. So it was with
many in Israel during Jesus’ earthly life (John 5:39-40), and so it is to this day.
Human wisdom cannot attain to the knowledge of God, but neither can it obtain
salvation. Men cannot know God, but He knows them; their wisdom cannot
secure their salvation, but His can and does. His wisdom has brought salvation to
the world of men, but in what appears to natural wisdom to be a most moronic
way: through the apparent foolishness of the kerygma – the word of the gospel.
c. The reason the kerygma appears foolish is that its message rings hollow; it comes
across as irrelevant, if not absurd. People desire salvation (however they might
conceive it), but their native “wisdom” compels them to have certain expectations
of what salvation involves, how it is obtained, and how its purveyors are
authenticated. So Paul’s experience was that the Jewish mind, conditioned by
scriptural patterns, expected to see God’s truth and servants – including the
Messiah Himself – authenticated through miraculous signs (cf. Matthew 12:38-
40, 16:1-4; Luke 11:16-30; cf. also John 2:13-19 with 10:22-25, 15:24). On the
other hand, the Greek philosophical mind sought truth and authentication in
wisdom itself – that is, in the human wisdom it recognized and embraced (1:22).
d. Though Jew and Gentile approach the matters of wisdom and salvation from
differing vantage points (even to this day), both are bound by natural minds and
natural expectations that cause them to reject the gospel as preposterous. Paul had
experienced this response over and over again, and yet he refused to succumb to
human conceptions and expectations; regardless of the outcome, he was
committed to proclaiming only “Christ crucified” (1:23; cf. vv. 17-18, 21).
This proclamation was a stumbling block to the Jews because Jewish christology
had no category for such a thing. The notion of Israel’s Messiah being crucified
by Rome was inconceivable and utterly abhorrent; Yahweh was sending Him as a
triumphal king to conquer His enemies and deliver and restore His people, not be
killed by those enemies and leave Israel under the foot of the Gentile authority.
To Gentiles, the gospel message is nonsensical. In the first place, where are
wisdom and spiritual power in the brutality and defeat of a Roman crucifixion?
“The scandal of this message is difficult for Christians of a later era to imagine.
To proclaim a crucified Messiah is to talk nonsense… As a particularly horrible
form of public torture and execution, it was designed to demonstrate that no one
should defy the powers that be. Yet Paul’s gospel declares that Jesus’ crucifixion
is somehow the event through which God has triumphed over those powers.”
“Rather than proving the sovereignty of Roman political order, it shatters the
world’s systems of authority. Rather than confirming what the wisest heads
already know, it shatters the world’s systems of knowledge.” (Hays)
Beyond the crucifixion event itself, the gospel proclaims that, in Jesus, deity has
condescended to meet humanity in its need and impotence. This notion is
antithetical to man’s natural egocentric spirituality which, regardless of the
specific form it takes, always envisions a scheme in which the human being is
able to ascend, as it were, into the heavenlies so as to take hold of deity and its
benefits. Primitive paganism, world religion, or popular Christianity, man is a
consummate and incurable magician, always constructing his Tower of Babel.
With the Greeks in particular, the gospel of “Christ crucified” proved to be
especially foolish because it is the proclamation of Christ resurrected. It wasn’t
that the Greeks denied immortality; quite the opposite, their philosophers taught
that the human soul is inherently eternal and cannot be destroyed. It was bodily
resurrection that they couldn’t accept. Even if such a thing were possible, the
whole notion was repugnant. For the Greeks, the goal of death was the soul’s
liberation from the body; only in that way could a human being finally attain to
the fullness of his true nature and existence. Far from being impressed with Jesus’
bodily resurrection, in their “wisdom” the Greeks perceived it as contemptible.
e. Whatever the particular personal, cultural, or historical factors, the fact remains
that the gospel strikes the natural mind as strange and ultimately incoherent. Thus
the response of many is outright rejection; in others it is revision – the reforming
of the gospel truth to make it fit the parameters and expectations of natural
wisdom. But this is not the case with everyone: In the instance of those who are
being saved (here, “those who are the called ones”), Jesus Christ is perceived in
truth, not as a tragic and pathetic victim of Roman brutality, but as the very
wisdom and power of God (1:24, cf. again v. 30 and Colossians 2:1-3).
In their case, this seemingly “foolish thing of God” – Christ crucified – is
discerned to be wiser than human wisdom at its height, even as the apparent
impotence of the cross is discerned to be mightier than anything men can imagine
or hope to accomplish (1:25). The power and wisdom of God have been revealed
and glorified in the person and work of Jesus Christ, but unto the end that they
should also be manifested, affirmed and exalted in human beings. God’s design in
the exercise of His wisdom and power was not displaying them to his creation,
but reconciling and transforming it. He didn’t want men to merely acknowledge
the impotence of their supposed power and the folly of their supposed wisdom,
but to lay hold of His wisdom and power by becoming partakers in His Son.
This emphasis becomes clearer when verses 18 and 23-24 are recognized as forming an
inclusio: a pair of literary bookends bounding the passage. These bookends frame Paul’s
argument, showing that his ultimate concern in treating the contrasting pairs of wisdom
and folly, power and weakness, and vanity and value is salvation in contrast to ruination.
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 16:41:45 GMT -5
8. Paul explained and substantiated his thesis in general terms and then turned his attention
to the specific example of the Corinthians themselves (vv. 26-31). If any at Corinth
questioned the antithesis between the divine and human conceptions of wisdom, power
and worth, they needed only to consider their own community of believers: There were
not many among them who were wise according to human standards, not many who
possessed human authority or power, not many who could claim noble birth or status.
To the contrary, most of the believers at Corinth were men and women whom their own
culture and countrymen would regard as mere “nobodies” – people who had no status or
influence. Before coming to faith they were part of the irrelevant masses; now that they
were Christians, if they drew any notice at all it was in the form of ridicule, disdain and
scorn. The church at Corinth contained many proud and self-important members, so that
Paul’s statement must have provoked some offense. And yet the Corinthians couldn’t
deny his claim. He wasn’t using rhetorical flourish to make a point; he’d lived and
labored among them and he knew their individual lives and backgrounds. When he
declared that most among them were nobodies, he was stating the undeniable truth.
a. At the same time, there clearly were some believers at Corinth who’d come from
noble or noteworthy backgrounds. Among them were Crispus the Corinthian
synagogue ruler and Erastus the city treasurer (ref. Acts 18:8; Romans 16:23). By
design, Christ’s Church is global and cosmopolitan, and this truth has been
ignored only to the Church’s detriment (as, in some respects, was the case at
Corinth). And yet there have always been those intent on making the Church into
another sort of caste system – a system of “us” and “them,” whether in relation to
the world or within the ranks of the Church itself.
- This is present in Catholicism in, among other things, its dogmas of
magisterial authority, the priesthood, and supererogation (which underlies
the three “evangelical counsels” of poverty, chastity and obedience).
- This spiritual caste structure in the Church has counterparts in
Protestantism, among them Christian traditions that value “simple living”
to the extent that the renunciation (or absence) of material well-being
(sometimes even the ease afforded by modern conveniences and
technology) is regarded as appropriate to, if not synonymous with, mature
piety and spiritual commitment. Of course, any such “ethic of subtraction”
tends toward a suspicious and even scornful assessment of professing
Christians whose lives aren’t marked by the same austere “devotion.”
Whether Catholic or Protestant, it’s been all too common for professors of Christ
to adopt (in practice if not in formal doctrine) an arrangement of “us” as opposed
to “them,” where the point of distinction isn’t the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the
circumstances and content of a person’s day-to-day existence. Is it any wonder so
many miss Paul’s meaning when he spoke of “worldliness”? Turning his meaning
on its head, such persons promote as godliness the very mindset Paul rebuked as
worldly and satanic (cf. Colossians 2:20-23; 1 Timothy 3:14-4:6).
b. Paul wasn’t denouncing status and earthly power as such. Were he doing so, he’d
have been denouncing himself since he’d lived his adult life as a prominent
Pharisee – a man of notable status and influence among the sons of Israel. His
statements simply highlight the fundamental difference between the “city of man”
and God’s kingdom (Matthew 20:17-28). Like everything else in God’s creation,
privilege and bestowment are to be regarded and utilized as instruments of
worship and service to God. Of whom much is given much is required.
In this as well Paul was true to his Master and His teaching. Contrary to what
many believe, Jesus didn’t advocate an ascetic lifestyle in which earthly goods
and resources are renounced. Asceticism is a child of natural wisdom, and so is
actually a stumbling block to the life of faith; what matters is rightly appraising
and using God’s good gifts, not ridding oneself of them. Thus Jesus exhorted His
followers to employ “the mammon of unrighteousness” in the cause of obtaining
heavenly friends and heavenly reward (cf. Matthew 6:19-33 with Luke 16:1-13).
c. Nothing is more natural than for human beings who inhabit a material world to
interpret Paul’s antithesis in terms of the “haves” versus the “have nots.” People
are sharply aware of their material existence and needs, and their self-obsession
transforms this awareness and concern into classism. In the religious realm, this
classism not infrequently takes the form of theological dogma.
- On the one hand, material status is regarded as the measure of divine
blessing. This was a characteristic of first-century Jewish theology (cf.
Luke 13:1-5; John 9:1-2), and it is true of many Christians today (so the
widespread “prosperity theology” in American Christianity).
- On the other side of the same coin is the phenomenon of pitting the
“goodly poor” against the “wicked rich.” As noted above, many regard
Jesus’ material lowliness as the paradigm for His followers. Thus the
faithful and godly will be found among the poor, even as they are the ones
upon whom God’s favor rests (cf. Paul’s instruction in 1 Timothy 2:1-6).
But to interpret Paul in this way is to entirely miss his point. His antithesis doesn’t
pertain to the possession or lack of earthly status and power, but to how those
things are perceived and esteemed by God in contrast to men. For God and men
(or, in Paul’s language, divine wisdom versus human wisdom) perceive the value
and usefulness of earthly provision in very different, mutually-exclusive ways:
Divine wisdom, power and significance are antithetical to their human
counterparts, but in the sense that the former effectively negates the latter.
- First of all, it’s important to note that this negation isn’t merely logical (as
is inherent in the notion of antithesis). Rather, it is a matter of nullification
and abolition (ref. 1:19, 28). God’s wisdom and power haven’t simply
“won the argument” against their human counterparts, they’ve effectively
nullified and vanquished them.
- Secondly, the previous discussion shows that this negation isn’t God’s
nullification of certain human beings in deference to others. When Paul
insisted that God has chosen the weak and foolish of the world, he wasn’t
saying that God calls and uses the “nobodies” among men in distinction
from the “somebodies.” It’s not weak and foolish people that God has
chosen, but seemingly weak and foolish things. He hasn’t chosen the poor
and impotent to shame and overthrow the rich and powerful, but He’s
determined to employ things – existential realities – that appear to the
natural mind to be nothing in order to nullify the things the natural mind
holds in high esteem as wise, powerful and prestigious (1:27-28).
Paul’s antithesis resides in the distinction between what men esteem and pursue
and what God has accomplished in His Son. The antithesis is between the
kingdom of man and the kingdom of God – between reality as men perceive it and
as it really is by virtue of the person and work of Christ. Philanthropy, philosophy
and religion are the proof that men admire and pursue righteousness and spiritual
well-being. But they do so according to the conceptions of their natural minds,
and so find the logos of the Christ event (what Paul called the “word of the
cross”) to be incoherent and even absurd. Jew or Gentile, it runs counter to
people’s natural conception of things, and so must either be modified or rejected.
d. Religion, piety and philosophy uphold and promote human wisdom, power and
sense of significance; it is in Christ alone that they are unmasked and exposed as
hopeless and foolish delusions that cannot deliver or save. He has triumphed over
human delusion and folly by exposing them, but He hasn’t left the matter there.
Overcoming an enemy is one thing; restoring what that enemy destroyed is quite
another. So Jesus hasn’t merely destroyed the wisdom of the wise and the power
of the mighty; He has supplanted them with God’s wisdom and power – the
wisdom and power that are bound up, revealed, and granted to men in Himself.
- Jesus has become for our sake God’s wisdom, righteousness, consecration
and redemption (1:30). All truth – all that God is, all that His creation is,
and all that it was created for – is bound up in Him. All things have their
origin, meaning and destiny in Him; Christ is God unto the creation and
the creation unto God. In Him are all the treasures of wisdom,
understanding and power as they pertain to the Creator and the creature.
- Thus Jesus has supplanted all that fallen man perceives and puts forth as
wisdom, power and significance. But this comprehensive supplanting is a
matter of restoration and not mere conquest: God’s wisdom and power in
Christ have vanquished their natural human counterparts, not by logical or
theological triumph, but by creational renewal and restoration.
- And this new creation – the kingdom of God – hasn’t simply replaced the
impotent kingdom of man; it has put the latter on display and notice as an
imposter and usurper. In this way it issues a call to the world of men.
God’s wisdom and power in Christ have nullified the things that are. They reveal
that what men regard as wisdom is foolishness and what they regard as power is
weakness. Moreover, they expose the emptiness and uselessness of their human
counterparts by supplanting them, and the fact that they’ve done so leaves the
human race with a solemn obligation: the obligation to reject falsehood and vanity
in favor of truth and power; to renounce the darkness and embrace the light.
e. Thus the logos of the cross embodies two inseparable components: the truth of
what God has accomplished in His Son and the consequent human responsibility.
The word of the cross is the word of the resurrection, and the resurrection holds
forth the truth that the old order – the former existential reality – has been judged
and done away with in Christ. The old Adamic age has been supplanted by the
new age of the Last Adam. Jesus’ resurrection life has overcome Adamic death
and is the paradigm of the new humanity; more than that, it is the beginning of the
new creation that will one day take the whole created order into its grasp.
This means that the demand of repentance and faith is a matter of conformity to
truth and not mere compliance with divine dictates. God requires all men to find
life in His Son (cf. Isaiah 45:22-25 with Acts 17:30-31) because this is what the
truth demands. For God to not require it would be for Him to embrace falsehood
and make Himself a liar. But God is true, and so cannot abide falsehood either in
Himself or His creatures; He can do no other than require of His image-bearers
that they repent and embrace the truth by embracing the One who is the truth.
Thus embracing Jesus Christ as the truth is a person’s righteousness, not because
it’s the right thing to do, but because He is True Man. A thing’s righteousness (its
“rightness”) consists in its conformity to its true identity and purpose. For human
beings, this involves authentic, uncompromised human existence and this is
realized only by sharing in the life of Him who is authentically and consummately
human. Jesus is what man was created to be; by His incarnation, the divine Son
has become righteousness with respect to men and unto men (1:30).
In His Son, God has accomplished, brought to light and granted to men what they
instinctively seek but can never attain. All men are drawn toward wisdom, power,
significance and immortality – that which is life indeed. The common patterns and legacy
of every human culture demonstrate that human beings sense the supreme and
transcendent value of this sort of “life,” but men also sense their need to obtain it; they
discern that it is neither inherent nor automatic. Thus they seek it through human virtue,
whether in the form of religion (including religious law), philosophy, philanthropy, etc.
The very fact of their pursuit proves their confidence that their goal is obtainable, and it
also implies what they believe such obtainment holds for them, namely the right to boast.
But the logos of Christ crucified affords men no such boast. It does grant them a boast,
but only that they should boast in Him who has wrought marvelous works in the earth.
“Behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous; and the
wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.”
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 16:42:54 GMT -5
9. Paul pointed to the Corinthians’ own personal experiences in coming to faith as concrete
substantiation of his claims respecting the antithesis between natural and divine wisdom
and power. If they were indeed saints of God and members of His household, they had
not become so through the wisdom and power bound up in natural resource, whether in
the form of human sophistication and insight or clever and compelling rhetoric. They had
been raised from death to life through the apparent foolishness and impotence of the
gospel: the logos of life in Christ made effectual through the power of the Spirit.
The Corinthians’ own experience of faith affirmed the truth that the gospel is God’s
power for salvation. Paul could remind them of it because he knew it to be the case, and
he knew it because he himself had brought the gospel to them and witnessed its power in
giving them life. If the Corinthians’ experience substantiated the antithesis between
human and divine wisdom and power, so did Paul’s ministry among them, for their
response in faith was to the foolishness of the logos proclaimed by Paul himself (2:1-5).
a. Paul transitioned into this next section with the emphatic phrase, “and I,” which
served to emphasize to the Corinthians that he linked his own life and experience
in the gospel with theirs. He may have enjoyed a prestigious standing with his
own countrymen that was foreign to many of them, but, like them, he’d learned
that God has chosen what appears foolish and weak to human judgment to nullify
what men instinctively regard as wise, powerful and significant. Far from
commending him to God and His truth, Paul’s Pharisaism with its laudable
scholarship and piety actually kept him back from the One he thought he served.
He, too, had come to realize that a man’s only legitimate boast is the Lord
Himself and His wisdom and power in Christ.
b. It was with this understanding that Paul first arrived in Corinth. He didn’t enter
the city as a man confident in his scholarship and gifts of reasoning and rhetoric,
but as one armed with what he knew would be received with disdain and jeers.
He knew what awaited him and his gospel in Corinth, and yet he refused the
temptation to try to secure for it a more receptive audience by means of
“superiority of speech or of wisdom” (2:1a).
Time had passed, but the Corinthians surely recalled the way Paul had come to
them – not as a wise philosopher or religious scholar, but as an ordinary man with
a straightforward message. His mindset and approach in the proclamation of the
gospel reflected the message itself. Paul knew well that the gospel appears foolish
and impotent to the natural mind, and yet he was unwilling to doing anything to
make it more credible. He’d entered the city of Corinth – an intimidating
epicenter of human sophistication, power and accomplishment – committed to a
simple proclamation of what he knew would be mocked and reviled. In spite of
that immense pressure – and even more, the fervent desire to see the gospel bear
fruit in understanding and faith – Paul refused to succumb to the lure of relevance
and credibility obtained through impressive discourse and a show of superior
wisdom (2:1). If the gospel was going to bear fruit in Corinth, it wouldn’t be
because of moving oratory or esoteric philosophical insight.
Some in contemporary Evangelicalism have taken Paul’s statement (with its
clarification in verse 2) as prescribing the most basic “gospel presentation.” The
reasoning is that Paul’s gospel consisted only of a very simple articulation of
Jesus’ death for sinners and the forgiveness to be obtained by believing in Him,
and this conclusion is then used to vindicate the present-day simplistic “tract
evangelism.” But a closer consideration disallows this conclusion:
1) First of all, the scriptural record of Paul’s evangelistic approach and
message shows that it was anything but brief and simplistic. Whether with
the Jews who knew the Scriptures or pagan Gentiles who knew nothing of
the God of Israel, Paul labored to reason in depth and at length with his
hearers. He was diligent to meet them at the point of their understanding
and worldview, but in order to uncover for them the truth and glory of the
living God’s accomplishment in His Son (cf. Acts 13:1ff, 17:1-3, 16-31).
The Corinthians themselves wouldn’t have interpreted Paul’s statement as
calling for a simplistic presentation, for they knew how he had labored to
minister the gospel among them (ref. Acts 17:4-11).
2) Secondly, Paul recognized that the gospel is the good news of the kingdom
of God (cf. Acts 19:8, 20:17-25, 28:16-31). This fundamental truth is
amazingly lost upon multitudes of contemporary Christians, evident in the
fact that any mention of the kingdom of God is conspicuously absent from
the plethora of gospel tracts and evangelism training programs. Indeed,
perhaps most contemporary American evangelicals make no direct
connection between the gospel and the kingdom: The former pertains to
how a person “gets saved”; the latter to the future Millennium. Nor is this
failure to connect the gospel and the kingdom of God limited to
premillennialists; one need only consider Reformed writings on
evangelism to see that the problem extends beyond premillennialism.
(Walter Chantry’s Today’s Gospel – Authentic or Synthetic exemplifies a
common Reformed approach to understanding and preaching the gospel.)
But precisely because the gospel heralds the kingdom of God – the good
news that God, in His Son, has intervened and restored His estranged
creation to Himself just as He promised and prepared for since the time of
creation, it cannot be reduced to a handful of isolated statements regarding
human sinfulness and God’s righteousness, Jesus’ death for sinners, and
personal forgiveness by believing in Him. The issue isn’t that such
statements are incorrect, but that they are inadequate to the point of being
misleading: Removed from their salvation-historical context, they are
stripped of their biblical meaning and therefore available for men to pour
into them whatever meaning and import they choose.
3) Finally, the larger context of Paul’s statement shows that he was not
referring to a simplistic gospel, but one liberated from the distractions and
colorations of human wisdom and its strategies, however well intended.
Paul reasoned at length with people because he was presenting truths and realities
that appear preposterous to the natural mind. He recognized the antithesis between
the divine wisdom and power bound up in the gospel and their natural
counterparts, and so understood that reformulating, repackaging, or otherwise
accommodating his gospel to the perceptions and expectations of natural minds
would effectively destroy it. It would be transformed into a human religious
facsimile – a notion concocted by and therefore acceptable to natural wisdom.
c. In this context Paul referred to his gospel as the “testimony of God.” The
grammar of this phrase is liable to three possible interpretations, and scholars
have divided themselves among them. First, it can mean God’s testimony
(subjective genitive); a second option is testimony concerning God (objective
genitive). Finally, it can mean testimony that has its source in God – testimony
that originated with Him (ablative genitive). The context best supports the second
of the three, but this meaning importantly implies and contains the other two. For
Paul’s gospel was indeed his testimony concerning God and what He has
accomplished in His Son, but Paul was simply testifying to what God had first
attested and which has its origin in His own eternal purpose and counsel.
d. Paul recognized that the gospel sets forth the wisdom of God and that divine
wisdom is antithetical to natural wisdom. As a result, he refused to mingle his
proclamation with anything that might appeal to men’s natural sense of wisdom,
power, and significance. In his own words, he “determined to know nothing
among his hearers except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (2:2).
Starting from the premise that this implies a simplistic and narrow gospel
presentation, some have reasoned that Paul’s approach and message evolved over
time. Some even go so far as to make Paul’s experience on Mar’s Hill a critical
turning point in this evolutionary process. They argue that the overall failure of
his broad and extended treatment at the Areopagus convinced him to reduce his
message to a simple articulation of the details surrounding the crucifixion.
But again, the larger context shows that Paul was referring to the crucifixion as it
is central to and implies the totality of the “Christ event” and all that it has
accomplished and pledged to the creation.
- This is explicitly indicated by Paul’s own words: He didn’t say he
proclaimed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. His gospel set forth the person and not simply the cross of Jesus
of Nazareth, and specifically as He is the Christ (Messiah) promised and
disclosed in all the Scriptures. Without that scriptural (salvation-historical)
context, the crucifixion becomes a senseless and incoherent tragedy.
- This same meaning is reinforced by Paul’s grammar. He describes Jesus as
existing in the state of having been crucified. Not the cross itself, but its
purpose, accomplishment, and fruit were the centerpiece of Paul’s gospel.
e. Paul’s message renounced the pretensions of human power and wisdom and so
did his demeanor. He didn’t come to the Corinthians as a self-assured spiritual
guru confident of his ability to gather followers. Rather, he showed himself to be
(literally, he became toward them) a man marked by a profound sense of his own
weakness and inadequacy (2:3).
Some have taken his statement as indicating that he had been fearful of going to
Corinth, possibly because of the intimidation of being a single small voice in the
midst of a large and bustling city, but more likely because of what he knew
awaited him in this powerful stronghold of Greco-Roman paganism. Paul clearly
recognized the challenges he’d meet in Corinth, but his attitude of lowliness and
trepidation was driven more by the gravity of his work and message than fear of
human opposition. The pressures and persecution that natural wisdom would
bring against him were nothing compared with the grave responsibility of being
the ambassador and herald of God’s wisdom and power in Christ.
In this respect, it’s crucially important to recognize that Paul wasn’t exalting or
promoting Christian timidity or self-effacement. Neither was he denying his
adequacy and sufficiency for the work the Lord had called him to (cf. 2 Timothy
1:7 with 2 Corinthians 3:1-6, 12-13, Ephesians 6:18-20 and Philippians 4:13). His
point was that the man who has the mind of Christ – the man who walks in God’s
wisdom and power – understands that it is folly and falsehood to make much of
himself, but that he can and must make much of Christ in him.
- Thus the same Paul who manifested himself to the Corinthians in a spirit
of weakness and lowliness also insisted to them that he was fully adequate
as God’s appointed minister of His new covenant. Moreover, he was able
and willing to assume a posture of authority and assertive firmness with
them as the situation demanded (2 Corinthians 10:1-18).
- The attitude of personal lowliness Paul brought to Corinth reflected his
recognition that human wisdom and power are empty and useless, but it
equally demonstrated to the Corinthians his conviction that true wisdom
and power are revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So James Denney:
“No man can bear witness to Christ and to himself at the same time. No man can
give the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to save.”
f. As the second verse expands upon the first, so the fourth verse expands upon the
third, but in the reverse manner. In the first instance, Paul explained his manner of
speech (his actions) in terms of his mindset (his attitude); in the second, he
explained his attitude in terms of his actions. The fact that he manifested an
attitude of weakness and trepidation to the Corinthians didn’t mean that his
presence and speech were devoid of power and authority; they were only devoid
of his own personal power and authority. The Corinthians witnessed triumphal
power – the power of God that is revealed in the gospel (1:18; cf. Romans 1:16).
Employing impressive and compelling rhetoric – words directed and empowered
by natural wisdom – would have drawn the Corinthians to himself and reinforced
their flawed sense of human power and significance. This would only substantiate
their natural convictions and thereby draw them away from the gospel. No, Paul
made sure that what the Corinthians witnessed was the “demonstration of the
Spirit and of [divine] power.” But what exactly was the nature of this
demonstration? Was Paul merely affirming that signs and wonders attended his
gospel proclamation? Miraculous signs did indeed accompany Paul’s gospel
ministry at Corinth (ref. 2 Corinthians 12:12), but a careful consideration of the
text and the larger context points in a different direction.
- In the first place, the noun spirit has no article, indicating that Paul was
referring to qualities associated with the Spirit and His work rather than
the Holy Spirit Himself.
- The larger context supports this emphasis, for though Paul directly
mentions the Holy Spirit, his concern was with the Spirit’s work of
illumination and instruction. Moreover, he refers to those who are so
illumined and instructed as being spiritual men (men determined and
governed by the Spirit) in contrast to natural men (men determined and
governed by the fleshly nature) (ref. 2:10-15; cf. also 15:45-49).
The insightful reader may raise the objection that Paul’s contextual argument
seems to be undermined by the fact – which Paul openly admitted – that his
proclamation of Christ crucified was substantiated and reinforced by supernatural
signs. (As a side note, this fact is the basis for the notion of “power evangelism”
which insists that God intends, in every place and generation, for the preaching of
the gospel to be accompanied by signs and wonders.) Specifically, if the Spirit
saw fit to attend Paul’s preaching with miraculous manifestations that would
appeal to the natural mind, doesn’t that contradict Paul’s assertion that he refused
to submit his gospel to the human expectation of such signs (ref. 1:22-23)?
The answer lies in a more precise understanding of Paul’s point: Paul wasn’t
denying or negating the Spirit’s work in attending the gospel proclamation with
signs and wonders. Quite the opposite, he recognized that such supernatural
manifestations authenticated the apostolic message as the very truth of the living
God. This was vital as Jesus’ apostles went out into the world bearing the strange
news of a crucified and resurrected redeemer and savior. In that transitional time
such men acted as the inspired interpretation of the Scriptures as they had been
fulfilled in Jesus (they acted as the “New Testament”), and miraculous signs
affirmed them as well as their message (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:12; Hebrews 2:1-4).
What Paul decried was the legitimization and embrace of human wisdom: taking
God’s wisdom and power in Christ and making them captive to human
sensibilities, whether in the way the gospel is proclaimed in the world or in the
way God’s saints perceive it and conform their lives to it.
g. Paul’s goal in the larger context was to confront and redress the problem of
divisions in the Corinthian church. He rightly discerned that this problem was
merely a symptom of the actual disease, which was that the Corinthians had lost
sight of their identity in Christ and thereby allowed themselves to again become
slaves of natural-mindedness. Nature refuses a vacuum: The depreciation of the
mind of Christ always yields the renewed ascendancy of natural wisdom.
How much more will natural wisdom prevail when the very gospel that sets forth
the wisdom of God is obscured or corrupted by natural (fleshly) human devices?
Paul recognized the truism that a harvest will bring in the fruit of the crop that is
sown; no man sows wheat and expects to harvest barley. So a fleshly gospel – or a
gospel diluted or distorted by natural-minded perceptions, convictions, or
conventions – cannot be expected to yield authentic gospel fruit.
Paul thus makes a crucially important point that many in the Church today would
do well to heed: Where the “word preached” expresses, reflects, or is otherwise
tinged by or mingled with the natural wisdom of human sensibilities and
expectations, the fruit of “faith” it yields must be held suspect; again, one doesn’t
sow wheat and expect to harvest barley. A gospel that is polluted or
overshadowed by that which is of the natural mind can only produce a naturalminded “faith.”
So Paul was resolved to set forth and exalt only the “foolishness”
of God’s wisdom and power in Christ so that his hearers’ faith would be rest upon
the truth of the gospel and not “persuasive words of [human] wisdom.” Were he
to do otherwise, how could he know that those who responded to his message
were being saved? How could he know that the Spirit’s power was at work and
not the power of human devices and psychological tactics? “If men are persuaded
by eloquence they are not persuaded by Christ crucified.” (C. K. Barrett)
Men can indeed be persuaded by eloquence, but there are a myriad of ways in
which “faith” can be secured and directed by something other than the gospel.
When Christians think of a “false gospel,” they tend to think of doctrinal
deviation from what is accepted as Christian orthodoxy. But far worse – because
it is more insidious – is the fact that men can embrace what is biblical on its face
and then make it false by the way they understand and interact with it.
So it was at Corinth: Paul was deeply concerned about deviation from the gospel,
but he envisioned the problem as far more subtle and with more far-reaching
implications than most imagine. As it pertained to the Corinthians and this
context, Paul’s concern wasn’t with a patently false gospel; that played no role in
the Corinthian issues. The problem at Corinth wasn’t a false gospel, but the
subjection of the gospel to natural wisdom. Paul had brought them and manifested
to them the true gospel and they had responded in faith. But now the operation of
their faith was being corrupted by wrong thinking. Thus Paul’s instruction didn’t
consist in correcting the Corinthians’ doctrine of “Christ crucified,” but in
correcting their thinking: redirecting them to the truth of what the Christ event
means for those brought under its power and enlightened to its wisdom.
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 16:44:09 GMT -5
10. Paul’s commitment at Corinth – as indeed everywhere he went as Jesus’ ambassador –
was to present only Christ and Him crucified. He was determined that his gospel would
not in any way or to any extent draw attention to himself or any other human feature,
quality or consideration. Paul understood that his own faithfulness in discharging his
ministry was to be measured by how truly and fully men discerned God’s wisdom and
power in his gospel and were drawn to Christ by them rather than by human device.
In terms of the natural mind and its conceptions, Paul’s gospel was not a word of wisdom
but of foolishness. And yet the truth of the matter is that this seemingly foolish and
incoherent message is profoundly and transcendently wise; the problem is simply that the
fact of its wisdom is lost upon multitudes of people. Paul has insisted that the wisdom
and power of God in the gospel are missed by the natural mind; now he draws out that
truth by applying it to the natural-minded believer.
To the extent that a Christian continues in his natural thinking – whether because he’s a
“babe in Christ” (ref. 3:1) or because he fails to take his mind captive to Christ (ref. 2
Corinthians 10:1-18), the true nature of God’s wisdom and power in the gospel will
continue to elude him. So it was with many among the Corinthian believers; though their
faith in Christ indicated that they’d discerned (at least to a certain extent) and embraced
God’s wisdom in the word of the cross, they were now living out their faith in the
practical denial of that wisdom. Believing themselves to be wise, they remained fools.
a. Thus Paul’s statement that he “spoke wisdom among the mature” (2:6a) directly
indicted the Corinthian community. The Corinthians considered themselves wise
and mature, but Paul’s assertion showed that he rejected that notion on both
counts: The divisions at Corinth were proof that many were missing God’s
wisdom in the gospel; that, in turn, proved that they were yet “babes in Christ.”
There had been a season when their immaturity was justified – when it had been
right and proper to the circumstance. Every Christian begins his life in Christ as a
“babe,” and the Corinthians were no exception. Paul hadn’t begrudged feeding
them milk when they’d first come to faith; spiritual infants can only digest and be
nourished by spiritual milk. But that season had passed; by the time of Paul’s
writing, the Corinthians were beyond their spiritual infancy and should have been
feeding on solid food. But the truth was that they were still not ready for it (3:1ff).
It’s important, then, to understand how Paul was defining immaturity. The
Corinthians weren’t immature in that they knew only the most rudimentary truths
concerning Jesus Christ and had no instruction in the deeper things of the gospel.
This clearly wasn’t the case because Paul himself had been their tutor in Christ
and he’d spent a year and a half discipling them. The Corinthians’ immaturity
wasn’t a matter of the gospel content they’d heard or been taught, but what they’d
taken from it – the way they’d processed and owned the gospel truths Paul had
delivered to them. They were immature because they were fleshly: Christians who
couldn’t profit from “solid food” because they were yet attempting to digest it
with natural minds rather than with the mind of the Spirit (ref. again 3:1-3).
Thus Paul’s statement in 2:6a has two crucial aspects:
1) The first is that he was including the Corinthians (at least many of them)
among the immature to whom he’d been unable to “speak wisdom.”
2) But – and this is most important – the absence of wisdom in Paul’s gospel
witness among the Corinthians was the result of their immaturity – their
natural-mindedness – and not simplistic instruction on his part. By his
own insistence, he came to them proclaiming God’s wisdom and power in
the gospel of Christ crucified (1:22-24, 2:1-5) and he’d spent a year and a
half laying and strengthening that foundation (3:10-11). Paul delivered
among the Corinthians a message of wisdom but, as natural-minded babes,
they had not been able to digest it and be nourished by it. Tragically, their
condition hadn’t changed; they remained in their spiritual infancy.
To their shame, the Corinthians had missed (or lost) the wisdom of God in Paul’s
gospel. The result was that, in their thinking and judgment, they were no different
from those outside of Christ’s Church. Men’s state of alienation has darkened
their hearts and minds, so that even the preeminent rulers and sages of this present
age cannot come to grips with God’s wisdom. They have their own “wisdom,” but
it, like they themselves, is passing away as empty and useless (2:6b). But this
human wisdom was precisely what the Corinthians were enamored with:
- The natural mind has its own standard of wisdom by which it defines and
perceives preeminence, and the world’s leading men (its “rulers”) are the
reflection and expression of that standard. But these are the very men
among whom Paul insisted it’s pointless to speak true wisdom; bound by
their own wisdom, they are insensitive to that which is wisdom indeed.
- But the same human judgment that marks out and exalts the preeminent
men of this age was at work among the Corinthian believers; they, too,
were assessing men with natural minds (cf. 1:12 with 3:1-23).
The implication is clear: The divisions in the Corinthian church were proof that
many among them continued to think and operate according to the principles of
this world as it exists in alienation from God (what Paul here called “this age”).
They were thinking and living as worldlings, and in this way indicting themselves
as liars. For when Jesus joined them to Himself by His Spirit, He delivered them
from the “world” that is the fallen order and brought them into the new age of the
kingdom which He inaugurated in Himself as the Last Adam (cf. John 17:14-16
with Colossians 1:13 and Ephesians 4:17-5:10). For Christians to live according
to the former age – that is, to operate with natural minds – is to lie against the
truth of who they are (Colossians 2:20ff). But more than that, it is to make God a
liar. For Jesus hasn’t merely delivered His people from the old Adamic age; He
has condemned and overthrown it. The one who continues to live according to the
principles and wisdom of “this age” denies the truth of God’s triumph.
b. The natural mind – whether operating in believers or unbelievers – fails to grasp
the full truth and implications of the wisdom of God. In the case of believers, Paul
identified these as the immature to whom he found himself unable to “speak
wisdom.” But there were mature ones among the saints who could receive what
the worldly wise and immature could not; to them Paul was able to communicate
“God’s wisdom in a mystery…” Paul recognized a mysterious quality in the
divine wisdom bound up in Christ, and this idea deserves careful consideration.
- First of all, Paul used the term mystery almost exclusively in reference to
the gospel, and specifically as the gospel embodies the eternal purpose of
the triune God which has been progressively revealed and worked out on
the stage of salvation history culminating with the Christ event (cf. 4:1
with Ephesians 1:9-10, 3:1-9, 6:19-20; Colossians 1:21-27, 2:1-3, 4:2-3;
1 Timothy 3:8-9, 14-16). So here mystery refers, not to something that is
strange or incomprehensible, but gospel truth that is bound up in God and
which He makes known to men according to His purpose and timing.
- Second, the prepositional phrase, in a mystery, can be grammatically
linked to Paul’s statement in a couple of different ways. The first option is
that Paul was using it adverbially such that it clarifies the manner in which
he spoke to the mature of God’s wisdom. That is, he spoke to them in a
fashion that can be regarded as mysterious in the sense that it wasn’t
understood by all who heard. The second option is that the phrase is
adjectival, modifying the noun wisdom. In this case Paul’s meaning was
that God’s wisdom has a mysterious quality to it.
- Determining Paul’s meaning must also take into consideration his second
modifier (hidden), which is an adjectival participle that explicitly modifies
the noun wisdom. This wisdom of God is such that it has been concealed.
- Finally, Paul clarified this concealment and God’s purpose in it with the
relative clause, which God predestined before the ages unto our glory
(2:7b). God didn’t conceal His wisdom in the sense of seeking to obscure
it or keep it from men, but in order to manifest it to the world at the proper
time and in the proper way. The very nature of God’s wisdom – which
again refers to His all-encompassing purpose for His creation bound up in
the person and work of Jesus Christ – precluded God from manifesting it
until the “fullness of the times”: until the time when He had completed His
preparatory revelation and work on the stage of salvation history (cf.
Ephesians 2:11-3:12; Galatians 3:1-4:5; 2 Timothy 1:8-11).
Taken together, these considerations – and the larger context – show that Paul was
attaching the idea of mystery to God’s wisdom in two distinct, but related ways:
1) First, mystery is associated with God’s wisdom in the sense that this
wisdom has only become fully manifest to the world in the Christ event.
The preparatory salvation history focused on it, but disclosed it only in
shadows and types so that it couldn’t be fully discerned until the fullness
of the times and the coming of Yahweh’s messianic Servant (cf. Romans
16:25-26; Colossians 1:25-27). God’s wisdom, for long ages expressed in
terms of His promise to His creation, was confined to the realm of mystery
until it could be fully revealed in the light of christological fulfillment.
This meaning of mystery points toward attaching Paul’s phrase, “in a
mystery,” to the noun wisdom: The wisdom of God – His eternal purpose
for His creation in Christ – was veiled for ages and generations, reserved
for full manifestation in the person and work of Jesus the Messiah.
2) The second sense in which the divine wisdom is mysterious pertains to the
issue of human perception. Though fully disclosed and illumined in the
Christ event, God’s wisdom remains veiled to the natural mind. Such men
are able to understand the facts and acknowledge the correctness of God’s
wisdom in Christ, but they process that truth through the grid of natural
conceptions and sensibilities. The result is that what they perceive and
embrace is the wisdom of men rather than the wisdom of God.
For revelation to succeed, the truth that exists in the mind of God must
come to reside in the mind of men. Thus revelation is ultimately
concerned with meaning and not words, ideas and events as such. This is
why God’s wisdom is hidden from the natural-minded even when they
hear and accept as true the things they’re hearing. Unless and until hearing
and understanding yield faith – that is, the appropriation and conviction of
truth as it is in Jesus Christ, God’s wisdom remains veiled in the realm of
mystery (cf. Matthew 13:1-23; Romans 10:1-21; 2 Corinthians 3:1-16).
This second meaning of mystery points toward treating Paul’s phrase, “in a
mystery,” adverbially. That is, Paul was saying that mystery is attached to
the proclamation of God’s wisdom in the sense that the divine wisdom is
hidden from the natural mind. (In the end, both interpretations are
appropriate to the context and are not mutually exclusive. In fact, it’s quite
possible that Paul intended both.)
This mystery is the reason for Paul’s insistence that “none of the rulers of this age
has understood” (2:8). This statement, too, can be interpreted in two ways: Paul
may have been speaking of human rulers and, by extension, human structures and
systems of authority and power in this world (cf. Romans 13:3), or alternately of
satanic spiritual powers (Ephesians 2:2). Here as well both views are acceptable
and Paul may actually have intended both in that each implies the other: The
human rulers (and all fallen men) of this age operate according to the mind and
will of satanic powers – they are “children of their father, the devil” (John 8:43-
44); so also satanic spiritual powers accomplish their ends through human agents
and their earthly power and authority (cf. Isaiah 14:1-22; Ezekiel 28:12-19).
Whether human or angelic “rulers,” Paul’s indictment holds true: Confronted with
God’s wisdom and power in Christ, their alienated minds could not discern it.
- In the case of satanic powers, they understood what God was attempting to
accomplish in the Christ event but they believed they could prevail against
the divine intent; somehow, in their perverse minds they believed the
death of the Lord of glory would mean their victory.
- The earthly rulers who presided over Jesus’ death had no such insight. At
bottom, the Jewish rulers perceived in Jesus a threat to their theocratic
power and the status quo in Israel (John 11:45-50); their Gentile
counterparts saw only a weak and irrelevant Jew who was at the center of
a foolish Jewish controversy which threatened the civil order.
In both cases, the divine wisdom and power in Jesus Christ were perceived as
foolishness and powerlessness – that which deserved only contempt and
opposition. Angelic and human rulers alike, had they been able to discern “the
glory of God in the face of Christ,” they’d have never crucified the Lord of glory.
But as it was, the wisdom, power and glory of God in Christ were hidden from
them. Angelic and human powers both gloried in Jesus’ death, but they did so as
epitomizing the world of men blinded by their natural minds and bent on the
triumph of their supposed wisdom and power. Natural thoughts and conceptions
necessarily set themselves against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:1-6),
but ultimately to no avail; in the end, human wisdom and power are the servants
of their divine counterparts inasmuch as everything – even error – serves the
triumph of God’s truth in Jesus Christ (cf. 1:18-21 with Acts 4:23-31, 26:1-18).
c. The wisdom of God in Christ is hidden from the natural mind, and this means that
it will inevitably elude every human being apart from divine intervention: In the
entire course of human history with all of its insights and attainments, “no eye has
seen, no ear has heard, nor has it even entered into the heart of man all that God
has prepared for those who love Him” (2:9). Natural resources, faculties, and
processes are inadequate to arrive at divine wisdom, for that which is of flesh is
flesh; for all its striving, flesh cannot transcend its bounds (John 3:1-6, 6:22-65).
Paul’s citation is puzzling in that it is not present in the Scripture in the form he
presents it. And yet his introductory phrase, it is written, shows that he regarded it
as scriptural. This is a classic example of how Paul – and the New Testament
writers – viewed and interacted with the Scripture. Unlike many today who
believe that verbal inspiration demands word-for-word precision in using the
scriptural text, Paul and his counterparts recognized that meaning is the issue in
scriptural inspiration, authority, and infallibility. They employed the Scriptures
organically, canonically and christologically, not narrowly and mechanically.
Thus Paul could ascribe scriptural authority to a statement that doesn’t occur in
the text, and yet expresses a general truth woven into the fabric of the Scripture.
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 16:45:28 GMT -5
11. The uniform message of the Scriptures – which Paul aptly captured with his summary
thesis – is that the glory of God’s wisdom in Christ is unavailable to the natural mind,
irrespective of its philosophical, spiritual or religious attainments. The reason is found in
the nature and substance of God’s wisdom: It is neither philosophical nor religious;
neither is it of the created order though it has the creation as its core interest. God’s
wisdom holds forth divine verities that transcend natural perception and conception; in
Paul’s language, things which eye and ear have never detected; indeed, things which have
never arisen even in the deepest recesses of the human psyche.
The divine wisdom originates in and flows outward from the Godhead. It pertains to the
trinitarian purpose and work in and for the creation; to again use Paul’s language, it
pertains to God’s determination to sum up everything in the heavens and earth in the
incarnate and glorified Son (cf. again 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 with Ephesians 1:9-10).
The wisdom of God is that the creation should enter into the most thoroughgoing
intimacy with its Creator in and through man the image-son – man, the unique creature
who alone bears the divine image and likeness. God indicated this purpose for His
creation at the very beginning by the way He structured and ordered all things in relation
to Himself (Genesis 1-2). The incarnation of the divine Son reaffirmed the eternal goal of
Creator-creature intimacy, but much more, it served to fully define and realize it.
- In the incarnation, the eternally purposed union/communion of deity and
humanity was fully accomplished and secured forever. Jesus Christ is in Himself
God unto man and man unto God.
- But in this way, God also made known for the first time and in all fullness the
exact nature and scope of His intended intimacy with His human creature (and
through man, with the rest of His creation). For in His own person, Jesus Christ
has introduced and established forever the eternally purposed truth of God-Man:
the sublime and mysterious wisdom of God that is the perfect and glorious
conjunction of deity and humanity – not the mere conjoining of divine and human
affection, will and work, but the conjoining of being. In Jesus Christ, the Godhead
has become forever humanized, unto the end that the human creature should
become, by entering into the life of the divine Son and Last Adam, a fellow sharer
in the divine nature (cf. Galatians 2:20; Colossians 2:9-10, 3:1-3; 2 Peter 1:2-4).
Thus Paul could rightly speak of Jesus Christ as the mystery of God’s wisdom brought to
light; He is the fullness of the truth of God as God has to do with His creation and as His
creation has to do with Him; in Christ reside all the treasures of divine wisdom and
knowledge (cf. Ephesians 3:1-12; Colossians 1:13-2:3; 1 Timothy 3:16).
Some may perhaps protest that, if this is what the Scripture means by the wisdom of God,
then it really isn’t true that God’s wisdom escapes the natural faculties of the human
creature. Human beings are certainly able to grasp the particulars of the “Christ event”;
matters such as vicarious sacrifice and atonement, forgiveness and divine/human
reconciliation were central to Israel’s relationship with God and religious consciousness.
Even the sublime truth of incarnation – the truth of the hypostatic union, though not a
construct within Israel’s religious thought, isn’t transcendent to the point that a human
mind could not conceive of it in any sense and adopt it as part of a philosophical or
religious system. The notion of the divine assuming human form or substance is, in some
form or another, part of various human religious traditions. So likewise certain religions
embrace some concept of human deification, whether it is understood as enlightenment
(Buddhism), nirvana (Hinduism) or exaltation (Mormonism).
But Paul’s contention – and that of the Scripture he looked to – wasn’t that men are
unable to conceive of existential and phenomenal categories and ideas related to Christ’s
person and work, but that they are only capable of conceiving, processing and
interpreting that data through the grid of their natural minds. In his own words, he could
only speak wisdom in the case of the mature – not because his language and concepts
were incoherent to the immature and unbelieving, but because the full truth and import of
his gospel was lost upon them. In the case of many at Corinth, they had heard, understood
and embraced Paul’s gospel, but it had failed to bear its due fruit. It had yielded faith, but
a faith that was infantile and impotent, one that was easily eclipsed by natural wisdom.
Paul would have been the first to concede that the natural mind is fully capable of
immense attainments in religion and spirituality – even the religion unfolded in the
biblical scriptures. He had devoted his life to biblical scholarship and meticulous,
rigorous conformity to every obligation of scriptural piety. By his own admission Paul
could boast of blamelessness under the Law of Moses. He knew what the natural mind is
capable of, but he had also come to realize where its capabilities end. The natural mind
can know about God, but it cannot know God in truth; the God it deduces – even when
its deduction proceeds out of the most exhaustive knowledge of biblical data and doctrine
– will always be an extrapolation of its own inherent naturalness.
a. So Paul importantly identified the beneficiaries of the incomprehensible riches of
God’s wisdom in Christ as those who love Him rather than those who know Him
(2:9). In the context of Paul’s citation, these individuals are beneficiaries in the
sense that God has prepared these benefits for them. But what God has prepared
will actually be appropriated. The beneficiaries will obtain God’s gifts, but not
without coming to rightly discern them and embrace them for what they are. Does
God bestow the riches of His wisdom in Christ in a vacuum? On the other side of
the equation, can a person lay hold of those divinely-prepared riches (and why
would he even seek to) if he does not perceive them for what they are?
“All that God has prepared for those who love Him” encompasses that which is
bound up in His wisdom in Christ; it is the fruit of God’s all-comprehending
purpose for His creation. The wisdom of God is uncovered in the gospel of the
kingdom, and the gospel reveals that what God has prepared for men is relational,
not material. Stated simply, the bestowment that God has prepared for men is
Himself; the Giver is also the gift. This is why Paul insisted that the gift comes to
those who love Him. Only those who love God can embrace Him as the supreme
endowment – the gift in which all other riches and endowments are contained.
This also explains why that which God has prepared for men is incomprehensible
to the natural mind. The natural mind cannot discern God as He really is, which
requires discerning the sublime mystery of His wisdom in Christ. This mystery is
uncovered in the case of those who love God, for loving Him means knowing
Him as He really is – as He is in and through Jesus Christ.
b. Thus Paul’s assertion about those who love God must not be separated from his
discussion of God’s wisdom and the fact that it escapes the natural mind. Every
human being is capable of loving his own notion of God, but this is nothing more
than another expression of man’s innate devotion to himself. Paul was referring to
authentic love for the true God, and this presupposes authentic knowledge of that
God. Or to use Paul’s language, it presupposes true insight into the wisdom of
God bound up in and manifested in Christ.
Paul insisted that this insight is unavailable to the natural mind, whether the mind
of man as he exists in his alienation from the life of God, or the mind of the
believer as he has not taken it captive to the truth as it is in Christ. In both cases,
the remedy is the same: Insight into the wisdom of God is – and can only be –
granted by the Spirit of God (2:11-12). The reason is inherent in the very nature
and substance of God’s wisdom as Paul speaks of it here:
- Again, the wisdom of God doesn’t refer to God’s intellectual or rational
faculties or prowess, but His transcendent, comprehensive purpose for His
creation that is to be realized in and through Jesus Christ. For this reason,
the divine wisdom is inseparable from the divine being and character. This
truth is perhaps best substantiated by the scheme of biblical revelation.
For, throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, God reveals Himself by His
works and His interpretation of them; scriptural revelation consists of
narrative and commentary. So it is in the case of the supreme divine
revelation in Jesus Christ: He has fully revealed God in His own person,
but specifically by His works and words (John 10:22-30, 15:22ff).
- The wisdom of God is bound up in the being and mind of God, and this
means first that it proceeds outward from God to the creation. But it also
means that an effective mediating agency – an agency that is able to
successfully communicate the divine wisdom to creaturely entities – must
have access to and connection with the being and mind of God.
Paul made this case with a simple analogy: Every human being knows that
the things that truly define and characterize him as a person reside within
his own psyche. They aren’t accessible to others, no matter how closely
another person might scrutinize him. No one knows a human being like
that person knows himself. So it is with the person of God; no entity
knows the things of God’s being and mind but God Himself. Thus the only
way those things can be disclosed to men is through an agent that both
inhabits the being of God and is able to speak to the minds of men.
Paul identified that agency as the Spirit of God – the One who proceeds from God
and is uniquely able to take His things and communicate them to men. As the
Spirit of the Father and of the Son (Romans 8:9-10), He knows the things of God
even as a man’s spirit uniquely knows him. But He is also the Spirit of man in that
He is the point of ontological union and communion between the Godhead and
the human creature. Believers possess the mind of Christ precisely because they
possess Christ’s Spirit; the One who mediates and forms Jesus’ life and mind in
those He renews and indwells (John 14:1-26, 16:12-15; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18).
c. The Spirit alone reveals to men the wisdom of God that is bound up in the person
and work of Jesus Christ. This doesn’t mean that there are no other “spirits”
communicating to men; Paul acknowledged that there are, but they all speak
according to the same “wisdom”: the natural wisdom that informs and drives the
world as it operates in alienation from the life and truth of God. Thus Paul could
refer to the unitary “spirit of the world” (2:12), though this “spirit” manifests
itself in a myriad of voices. The point is clear: In the end, there are only two
spirits that inform the minds of men; the One communicates the wisdom of God;
the other communicates and reinforces the wisdom of the world – the wisdom that
characterizes the natural mind and reflects the mind of the “god of this world” (cf.
John 8:30-45 and Ephesians 2:1-2 with 2 Corinthians 4:1-5).
In the case of the Corinthians, they thought they were listening to and being
taught by the Spirit of God. Their giftedness convinced them that this was the
case (ref. 1:4-7), and they exulted in their sense of wisdom and maturity. But their
self-perception and exultation expressed and encouraged pride, autonomy and
division, proving that it wasn’t the Spirit of God that was informing their thinking
and judgment, but the spirit of the world (4:7-8). This was all the more evident in
their strained relationship with Paul himself: The Corinthians were at odds with
him because they resented his instruction and correction, yet he had always
“spoken wisdom” to them – the wisdom he’d been taught by the Spirit (2:12-13).
Paul spoke wisdom to them, but it was being lost upon them because they were
listening to the spirit of the world – the spirit of natural wisdom – rather than the
Spirit who communicates God’s wisdom in Christ.
d. Paul’s ministry to the Corinthians embodied the communication of spiritual
verities (the wisdom of God revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ and mediated
by the Spirit) using spiritual words (words taught by the Spirit rather than by
natural wisdom, v. 2:13). He’d come to Corinth as he had to every place – as the
Spirit’s servant and mouthpiece in proclaiming the wisdom of God bound up in
Jesus Christ. Paul proclaimed the Spirit’s truth in the Spirit’s way. He’d rejected
clever speech and compelling arguments and devices taught and encouraged by
natural wisdom. Instead, he was committed to letting the Spirit speak by letting
God’s wisdom and power in Christ make their own case (2:4-5), knowing full
well that they remain obscured to the natural mind captivated by natural (worldly)
wisdom. Paul’s commitment was to a good conscience before God, not ministerial
“success,” however men may judge it (2 Corinthians 4:1-5).
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 16:47:02 GMT -5
e. The mediation of divine wisdom from God to men is solely the work of the Spirit.
Again, this is true first because only the Spirit of God knows the depths of God
(2:10) where the transcendent, glorious truth of His comprehensive purpose in
Christ originated and has its life and power. Even the angels who dwell in the
very presence of God long to gaze into these mysteries (1 Peter 1:10-12). The
second reason is that man in his natural state is incapable of discerning and
appropriating God’s wisdom (2:14); as the Spirit plumbs the depths of the divine
wisdom in Christ, so He reveals that wisdom in the depths of the human soul.
Paul’s statement in 2:14 is often drawn upon in defense of the doctrine of total
depravity and its central concern of human inability. This doctrine is widely
understood in terms of an absolute human incapacity and resistance toward God
and His truth. Thus man’s natural condition of “spiritual death” is often
caricatured as the absence of all understanding and interest in the things of God,
other than a hatred for God that expresses itself in conscious, active hostility.
So, in the case of the present passage, many see it as teaching that man’s natural
state leaves him utterly unable to understand the biblical text and embrace its
teaching. Kept in a narrow purview, this conclusion might appear reasonable
enough, but it exemplifies the danger of “proof-texting”: of using an isolated
Bible passage to defend a presumed doctrine or position.
- In the first place, this interpretation is entirely foreign to Paul’s argument
and conclusions in the larger context. That this is the case shouldn’t be at
all surprising; the more narrowly one examines something, the more
possibilities he opens up respecting that thing’s identity and meaning.
- But secondly, the canonical text does not support this conclusion. One
need only consider the nation of Israel – and its epitomization in the
Israelite Paul – to see that the natural (depraved) man is capable of
spiritual fervency, sincere commitment and remarkable attainment in his
interaction with the God revealed in the Bible (cf. Exodus 24:1-3; Joshua
24:1-18; Acts 22:1-3, 26:2-7; Galatians 1:13-14; Philippians 3:1-7).
- Indeed, the above interpretation has a very dangerous implication: If the
unsaved man can neither understand nor embrace the things of God
revealed in the Scripture, it follows that interest, understanding and
approval of the biblical text are sure proof that a person is saved.
But Paul’s intention here wasn’t to prove the doctrine of total depravity; he was
continuing his argument regarding the antithesis between divine and natural
wisdom and the implications for the Corinthian church and its malaise. His goal
was to cause the Corinthians to see that they had been brought under the sway of
natural wisdom and so had become insensitive to God’s wisdom. A man – even a
saved man – cannot listen to both the Spirit of God and the spirit of this world.
The Corinthians were listening to the latter, to the great detriment of the church.
For all their confidence respecting their spiritual wisdom and maturity, many at
Corinth were actually in the position of “not accepting the things of the Spirit of
God” (those “things” being God’s wisdom in Christ mediated by the Spirit). This
is a critically important observation that is readily missed by those who assume
that Paul’s intention here was to affirm the doctrine of human inability and its
counterpart of divine monergism in personal salvation. Interacting with Paul’s
statement from that vantage point, the immediate (indeed, the necessary and
unquestioned) conclusion is that the apostle was speaking of unsaved people.
But while the unregenerate are certainly included among those who are “natural
men,” Paul was actually referring to the Corinthian believers – at least those
among them who were implicated in the issues he was addressing.
- The phrase “natural man” refers to men as they think and operate in
accordance with their natural humanness. The contemporary connotation
notwithstanding, Paul did not employ it as a pejorative implying
irrationality, insensitivity or even sinfulness; it merely designates human
beings as they are in and of themselves. It applies just as aptly and fully to
the religiously astute, disciplined and upright as to the worst of men.
The natural man is the person who is informed and directed (most often,
quite unconsciously) by the “spirit of the world” – that is, by natural
wisdom. In his case, the wisdom of God is transformed into the wisdom of
the world: an understanding of gospel verities that effectively misses the
truth as it is in Jesus Christ. In the instance of the natural man, the wisdom
of God remains in the realm of mystery (cf. again 1:20-25, 2:6-10, 3:1-4).
- Paul set the “natural man” in antithesis to the “spiritual man,” which
refers, not to the religiously attuned and astute, but to those who are taught
and led by the Spirit of God. These are the mature ones in whose case
Paul’s gospel was rightly appropriated as God’s wisdom in Christ.
Unbelievers are obviously “natural men” as Paul defined that concept; indeed,
they are the proper referents of that designation. But, in context, Paul was
addressing the Corinthians, not the world of unsaved men: They were the “men of
flesh” who were not able to receive the things of the Spirit of God, at least to the
extent that these things of the Spirit amounted to “solid food.” And precisely
because the Corinthians were saved individuals – persons who possessed the mind
of Christ in substance through the indwelling Spirit (2:16), their guilt before God
went beyond that of their unbelieving countrymen. The unbelieving of the world
are in fact “mere men”: men devoid of the Spirit and therefore of the life and
mind of Christ; the Corinthians were guilty of conducting themselves as if they
were still “mere men” – as if they were “men of flesh” (cf. esp. 3:1, 3). They
weren’t devoid of the Spirit, but were “babes in Christ,” childish believers who
were grieving and quenching the Spirit. In that state, and despite their convictions
to the contrary, they were men who were unable to appropriate God’s wisdom.
f. Paul followed his assertion with the justification for it, which is that the things of
the Spirit of God (God’s wisdom in Christ) are spiritually appraised: The wisdom
of God can only be rightly discerned when the recipient processes it with the mind
of the Spirit who mediates it to him rather than by the spirit of the world. For
those who lack this mind (for whatever reason), God’s wisdom is reduced to the
wisdom of men. Unbelievers lack this mind altogether because they are devoid of
the Spirit. But Christians also effectively lack the mind of the Spirit to the extent
that their perception, thoughts and judgment are governed by natural wisdom.
This was the problem at Corinth, but not uniquely so; the Corinthian church was
merely a microcosm of the church in every place and generation. For churches are
comprised of believers in the process of transformation into Christ-likeness. They
possess Jesus’ life and mind, but not consummately and without admixture. The
Spirit is yet transforming them “from glory unto glory,” toward the day when they
will manifest in themselves the whole stature of the fullness of Jesus’ glorious
humanity (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:18; Ephesians 4:1-13). The Spirit will accomplish
His work in the lives of God’s people (2 Corinthians 4:13-14; Philippians 1:6),
but not in a vacuum: Christiformity demands human effort, both personally and in
the context of the life and function of the body (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 with
Ephesians 4:11-16; Philippians 2:1-13). Thus Paul’s exhortation to “put off the
old self and put on the new” (Ephesians 4:17-24; cf. Colossians 3:1-11).
g. Putting on the “new self” amounts to walking by (“keeping in step with”) the
Spirit – that is, intentionally yielding oneself to be informed and led by Him
(Galatians 5:16-26; cf. Romans 8:1-17; Ephesians 5:15-21). So Paul here asserted
that receiving and knowing in truth the things of the Spirit of God depends upon
spiritual appraisal, and this capacity is the property of “the one who is spiritual”
(2:15). Again, Paul was referring, not to the person who is characterized by
spiritual interest or “spirituality” in the contemporary sense, but the person taught
and led by the Spirit of God. Importantly, the spiritual man is thus the antithesis
of – and only alternative to – the natural man (cf. vv. 14-15): There are those who
think (and so order their lives) in accordance with the mind of the Spirit; all
others think with natural (worldly) minds in accordance with the spirit of the
world. Again, simply being born of the Spirit doesn’t exempt one from natural mindedness,
as the Corinthian situation proved (cf. Colossians 2:20-3:4).
And because the spiritual man relates to all things with the mind of the Spirit, to
that extent his perception is accurate and his judgment is true; he is able to rightly
“appraise all things,” including those who are natural men. But the nature of the
case won’t allow the converse: The spiritual man appraises the natural man, but
he isn’t himself subject to the latter’s appraisal (2:15). At this point it’s critical to
recognize that Paul wasn’t promoting some sort of Christian elitism or a spirit of
autonomy by which a believer regards himself as above criticism, correction or
accountability. Quite the opposite, the “spiritual man” who rightly judges all
things will be the most humble, receptive and accountable of men, for he operates
with Jesus’ mind, which is the antithesis of pride, autonomy, and self-seeking.
h. Paul substantiated his contention regarding the spiritual man (“he who is
spiritual”) with a profound summary, drawn from the Scripture and directed at the
Corinthians as well as himself. The essence of his summary is that the spiritual
man has the capability Paul ascribed to him because has the mind of Christ (2:16),
which is the mind of the Spirit of Christ. Considered within the larger context, this
means that the spiritual man – like the Spirit Himself who indwells and instructs
him – has access to the deep things of God, here the “mind of Yahweh.”
Paul’s citation is taken from the Septuagint of Isaiah 40:13, which has a markedly
negative sense in its Isaianic context. That is, the question Yahweh posed through
His prophet anticipated from Israel a negative response: No one understands the
mind of the Lord, and no one has counseled Him. This question comes at the
outset of a large section highlighting Yahweh’s coming salvation in His Servant,
and His point (as Paul’s) is that His glorious purposes for His creation are His
own, hidden within His own mind, but one day to be revealed to the sons of men.
The Isaianic question begged a negative response from Israel, and the contextual
reason is clear: Yahweh’s messianic Servant had not yet entered the world and
accomplished its reconciliation and restoration by His atonement and outpoured
Spirit. The covenant people – as the entire world of men and the earth they inhabit
– yet remained under the curse of estrangement from Yahweh. The Abrahamic
nation designated “son of God” held that status in name only; they were, in truth,
“sons of harlotry” who didn’t know their covenant Father and Lord (Isaiah 1:1-4).
At the time of Isaiah’s interrogation, the answer the covenant people were
compelled to give was that they didn’t know the mind of the Lord. But Paul
understood the larger context of Yahweh’s question and recognized that it held
prophetic significance, looking ahead to the day when the plight of Israel (and the
world) would be finally and forever resolved. In that day, Yahweh was going to
liberate the sons of men from their bondage to the “blindness” of worldly wisdom
and grant them insight into His mind and purpose – His wisdom in Christ (cf.
Isaiah 40:1-11 with 40:21-31, 41:21-29, 42:1-25, 44:1-20, 45:1-25, 48:1-49:23).
Paul understood that that promised day has come; the Lord’s Servant has
accomplished His work and sent His Spirit (cf. 48:16 with 42:1-7 and 44:1-5) to
enliven and illumine the world of men and gather them into His kingdom as bona
fide sons of God – sons who share the divine life and mind. Thus Yahweh’s
question to men now calls for a positive response: There are those who know the
mind of the Lord as it pertains to His glorious purposes revealed in Jesus Christ;
in Paul’s terms, there are those who are able to discern God’s wisdom in Christ
because they possess the mind of Christ. Paul was one of those individuals, but so
were the Corinthians (“we have the mind of Christ”): They’d been given the
Spirit in order to “know the things graciously given to them” in Christ (ref. vv. 9,
12; cf. again John 14:16-28, 15:26, 16:13-15 with Acts 1:1-8). They were, by the
grace of the Father and the Son and the renewing work of the Spirit, spiritual men.
But they were yet living as “mere men”; they were living a lie.
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 17:57:12 GMT -5
12. The Corinthian church was marked by the principle of division that defines the natural
man. The Edenic fall fractured the created order’s unity and harmony (its shalomic state)
at all levels and in every relationship. The universal flourishing that is life and rest was
replaced by death: disorder, dysfunction and disintegration that are the necessary
consequence of the creation’s alienation from its Creator.
- Form always follows function, and so the creation reflects the Creator’s relational
purpose for it. The divine design was that the created order would flourish in
intimate relationship with its Creator, drawing its life, order, prosperity, and
harmony from Him. But the all-comprehending Creator-creature relationship is
centered and administered in man, the unique creature who is the image and
likeness of the Creator. In man the divine and the created are conjoined; in man
the Creator established and orders His relationship with the works of His hands.
- Thus the intricate fabric of inter-creational relationship stands upon and reflects
the Creator-creature relationship, and this, in turn, has its lifeblood in the
relationship between God and man. This is why the fracturing of the divine
human relationship in Eden had creation-wide implications. The fracture that
resulted was comprehensive: Man became estranged from God, which resulted in
the creation’s estrangement from Him. But beyond that, estrangement became the
defining principle of creational existence, with men now being alienated from the
natural world, from each other and even from their true selves.
This is why the principle of division defines man in his natural state. Division defines
every relationship of fallen man and so indicts them all as fraudulent. Whether in relation
to other men, to God, or even to themselves, human beings are left with no option but to
regard utility and reciprocity (which are the way human dividedness relates to the
“other,” even if the other is oneself) as love – unless, of course, they are to deny
altogether the notion of love.
a. The natural man is a divided man, and this is the case regardless of whether his
natural-mindedness is due to his lost and estranged condition or his failure, as a
partaker in the new creation in Christ, to “put on the new man.” So it was with the
Corinthians. Paul recognized that all of their issues were merely symptoms of this
fundamental problem: Whether factions, immorality, legal contentions, use of
spiritual gifts or the administration of the sacraments, all reflected the dividedness
– the “me versus you” – that is at the heart of natural (worldly) wisdom.
It wasn’t that the Corinthians lacked the mind of Christ (2:16); the Spirit had
joined them to Christ and made them sharers in His life. Moreover, their union
with Christ meant their vital, ontological union with the triune God: Individually
and as a body, the Corinthians were the sanctuary of the living God by virtue of
the indwelling Spirit of Christ (3:16; cf. 6:15-20; Ephesians 2:19-22; 1 Peter 2:4-
5). The Corinthian problem was their effective denial of the mind of Christ; for all
their self-perceived maturity and insight, the truth was that they remained
captivated by natural wisdom; they were living as if they were yet “mere men.”
Paul’s rebuke was as stinging as it was ironic: These who congratulated
themselves that they were mature believers were in fact mere “babes in Christ.”
They weren’t at all what they thought they were. Had they applied the mind of
Christ to themselves and their attitudes and relationships they’d have seen this,
but the eyes of fleshly wisdom presented to them an entirely different portrait;
their natural minds assured them that they had much to exult in.
What made Paul’s words all the more painful was the fact that the Corinthians –
as Paul himself – understood that there had been a time when their infancy in
Christ was entirely proper. They knew that in the early days of his ministry to
them Paul had given them “milk” to drink because they weren’t able to ingest and
digest “solid food.” But the Corinthians believed they had long since outgrown
their infancy and become fully mature Christians – men of such stature that they
were even fit to sit in judgment of Paul and Christ’s other apostolic servants (cf.
1:12, 3:4ff, 9:1ff; also 2 Corinthians 10:1-13:10). Paul knew otherwise, and
dashed their delusions: So far from being able to nurture others, they were
themselves babes incapable of receiving solid food. They were yet operating out
of natural minds unable to profit from the things of the Spirit (cf. 2:14-15, 3:1).
b. Paul’s proof of his assertion was the very issue at hand, namely the divisions and
factions that existed among the Corinthian believers. Whatever may be a person’s
giftedness and knowledge (1:4-7), his natural-mindedness proves his immaturity,
and division – in whatever form – is the hallmark of the natural mind (3:4).
Paul recognized that division was manifesting itself in the Corinthian church in a
myriad of ways. Factions and contention were only its most blatant form, but that
may well have been the reason Paul chose to address that particular issue first
(1:10ff). As noted previously, factions are always formed and organized around
particular people, teachings or ideologies, and so it was at Corinth. In their case,
the matter of spiritual leadership provided the factionalizing incentive,
particularly as it implicated apostolic authority in Christ’s Church.
- The Church’s authority resides in the word of Christ – the gospel that
embodies the “faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3ff), and
Jesus entrusted this gospel to His apostolic witnesses. Their role was to
interpret and proclaim the “Christ event” (cf. John 15:26-27; Acts 1:1-8).
- The word of Christ was (and is) synonymous with the apostolic gospel: the
good news of the kingdom of God now realized in Jesus Christ. But before
that gospel was formally recorded in the New Testament scriptures, it was
largely a matter of oral proclamation and instruction that carried the
authority of Jesus’ chosen apostles. Apostolic authority was attached to
Christian proclamation and instruction, either because it came through the
mouth of a recognized apostle (whether orally or through letters – ref. 2
Peter 3:14-16), or because the speaker/writer was an associate of the
apostles and taught in conformity to the apostolic doctrine (ref. Acts 2:42).
In the first-century Church there was no formalized New Testament; men were the
basis of gospel authority and truth, and thus it’s not surprising that individual
Christians and churches began to align themselves with certain apostolic figures.
Obviously the objects of such allegiances were men who had a notable reputation
or influential role with their followers; in the case of Corinth, several men had
that sort of standing and those figures became the focal point of the Corinthian
factions. There’s no record of Peter traveling to Corinth, but the Christian
communities outside Israel knew of Peter’s prominence, both as a leader of the
mother church in Jerusalem and as possessing a unique commission from the Lord
Himself (cf. Matthew 16:13-19; John 21:15-17; Galatians 2:1-10). Paul and
Apollos, on the other hand, had played significant roles in the life of the
Corinthian church, and so Paul focused his discussion on the two of them (3:4ff).
c. The core of Paul’s argument was that, by aligning themselves with men, the
Corinthians had fractured their essential unity and set themselves against one
another. This was bad enough, but they were also drawing Paul and Apollos into
their disunity so as to pit the two of them against each other. To align oneself with
either Paul or Apollos (or someone else) is to imply that those men were divided.
But most importantly, the Corinthians were setting Paul or Apollos (or both)
against Christ Himself. For if it were actually the case that either Paul or Apollos
(or Cephas) was more worthy of deference and allegiance as a disciple of Jesus
Christ, it follows that that particular individual was more closely aligned with
Christ and His gospel. The very fact that the Corinthian believers were
characterized by “I am of Paul” and “I am of Apollos” (3:4; cf. 1:12) showed that
they regarded the two men as not equally faithful (or worthy) servants of Jesus
Christ. That’s the basis for the way Paul advanced his argument (3:5ff).
d. The factions at Corinth implied that Paul and Apollos were to be distinguished in
terms of their faithfulness or correctness in their ministry of the gospel. Paul
acknowledged distinctions between him and Apollos, but not of the sort intimated
by the Corinthian schism. Both men were equally servants of Christ – men He’d
set apart for the one cause of the Corinthians’ faith. They equally served that
cause, but in different ways. Paul’s ministry came first and was primary; Apollos’
labors stood upon Paul’s. They had played distinct roles in Corinth, but toward
the same end. Thus neither man was more important, let alone more worthy of
allegiance; both were necessary to the realization of the Lord’s purposes (3:5). In
making this case, Paul drew upon two illustrations: a field and a building (3:6-9).
Everyone recognizes that the goal of agricultural endeavors is the production of a
fruitful harvest. And yet that outcome depends absolutely upon many different
and distinct activities. Though some of those activities may appear more
important than others, if any of them are neglected the harvest will be
compromised, if not destroyed altogether. So planting the seed may seem to be
the singularly important task, but the “ignoble” work of weeding and fertilizing is
equally critical for securing the harvest.
So it is with Jesus’ goal of reaping the harvest that is His Church. Obviously that
work depends first upon “planting the seed” of the gospel in the soil of hearts
prepared by Christ’s Spirit. But implantation and germination are only the starting
point. The harvest pertains to a mature crop: God’s goal isn’t delivering people
from their guilt; it is perfecting the life and likeness of His Son in them. The goal
of the triune God is the summing up of everything in the creation in Jesus Christ;
as it pertains to human beings, this means that those who share in Jesus’ life must
“attain to the measure of the stature of the fullness which belongs to Christ.” In
terms of Paul’s agricultural analogy, this outcome requires that the work of
planting be followed by watering (3:6), and so God has given to His Church
gifted men through whose labors the body of Christ will “grow up in all things
into Him who is the Head” (Ephesians 4:11-16).
Paul reinforced this truth with his second analogy of constructing a building.
Here, too, the goal is a completed endeavor whose fruition depends upon many
distinct activities. The very nature of the building process dictates that it begin
with the preparation of the ground on which the edifice is to stand (analogous to
preparing the soil before planting seed). Once the ground is suitably prepared, the
foundation must be properly laid. Only then can the laborers start building the
superstructure, which itself must be constructed according to an orderly and
staged process. The building isn’t complete until the final touch is applied, and
each aspect and phase of construction, though distinct, is united with the others in
looking toward and contributing to that outcome. All of the individual pieces and
processes are unified in looking ahead, but also in looking back – that is, in
building in organic fashion upon what is already in place.
To the casual observer it may appear that Paul chose these analogies simply
because they work well to make his point about the diverse role of various
persons and gifts in the Church. But anyone familiar with scriptural language
immediately recognizes that Paul drew both analogies from biblical symbolism
related to the people of God and their identity as a unified, organic community.
- Paul’s agricultural analogy – the Church as a field – ties most closely with
God’s description of Israel as a vineyard. In this metaphor God’s people
are depicted as a field which He has selected, prepared, planted with a
choice vine, tended and protected, all with the expectation of a rich
harvest. Toward that end He has appointed men to work in His vineyard
on His behalf and present to Him its yield in its season (cf. Isaiah 3:13-15,
5:1-7 and Jeremiah 12:7-11 with Matthew 21:23-43 and John 15:1-8).
- The second analogy is primary and draws upon the idea of the people of
God as His sanctuary. Paul wasn’t envisioning a generic building, but the
temple of God. This is the Scripture’s elemental ecclesiastical motif, for it
embodies the core reality of the kingdom of God (cf. Genesis 17:1-7;
Exodus 25:1-8; Deuteronomy 7:1-21, 12:1-12; Psalm 46, 78:69; Isaiah
2:1-4; Ezekiel 43:1-12; 1 Peter 2:4-10; Revelation 1:9-20, 21:1-22:5).
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Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2024 17:59:24 GMT -5
Paul assigned primary importance to his building metaphor, and for good reason.
From the point of creation the Scripture employs the sanctuary motif to express
the notion of “sacred space” – not holy place, but how God is in relation to His
creation. This is the fundamental issue in biblical revelation (so also in the notion
of the kingdom of God) because it speaks to the heart of the divine intention that
is revealed and played out in the Scripture as it unfolds the salvation history.
As it pertains to the present context, sacred space is the very marrow of what Paul
called God’s wisdom in Christ, which, again, is the divine purpose for the creation
bound up in Jesus Christ and now brought to light in the gospel. All of the
preparatory salvation history spoke to this wisdom, but in a mystery. So it was in
the first instance with the creation itself, and then more thoroughly in the various
features of the Israelite kingdom. But at every level and stage of development, the
wisdom of God had the concept of the divine sanctuary at its heart, whether Eden
as the Garden of God (Genesis 2:8-15), Canaan as the divine habitation (Exodus
15:17) and then, more narrowly, Jerusalem and Mount Zion (cf. Deuteronomy
12:1-12 with 1 Chronicles 23:1-25; also Psalm 9:11, 76:1-2; Zechariah 2:1-5).
The wisdom of God speaks to the kingdom of God, which itself concerns the true
and ultimate realization of sacred space. God’s presence in the midst of His
people defined the Israelite kingdom (hence His departure signaled the kingdom’s
dissolution), and so it would be with the everlasting kingdom which the Israelite
theocracy merely prefigured (cf. Isaiah 2:1-4, 11:1-13, 51:1-6; Jeremiah 31:27-40,
33:1-26; Ezekiel 36:16-36; etc.). The divine sanctuary stands as the essential and
fundamental feature of the kingdom of God now realized in Jesus Christ, but no
longer in terms of a place and a physical structure (cf. John 1:14, 2:18-22, 4:1-24
and 14:1-4 with v. 23; also again 1 Peter 2:4-10 and Revelation 21:1-7).
e. Paul understood these things and recognized their fulfillment in Christ and then,
by extension, in the Church He is building. And for that very reason he discerned
the significance and seriousness of the Corinthian factions.
- The Church is founded and built upon the one foundation that is Jesus
Christ (3:11). God laid this foundation in the first instance (cf. Psalm
118:19-24; Isaiah 28:16; Mark 12:1-11; Acts 4:8-11), but He subsequently
lays this same foundation in individual human hearts through the word of
the gospel. Thus Paul could speak of laying the foundation of Christ – that
is, union with and new life in Christ – as a wise master builder (3:10).
- The foundation that is Christ Himself is laid in the case of each individual
believer, but in order that they should become living stones in the living
sanctuary that is Christ’s Church. In this sense, the Church itself as a
corporate entity is constructed upon the foundation of Christ. What this
means is that all that transpires in the Church’s life stands upon and
implicates that foundation; the question then arises, do those things build
on the foundation positively or negatively; do they build up or tear down?
In the case of the Corinthians and their various factions, each group doubtless
believed they were properly building on the foundation of Christ by aligning
themselves with the Lord’s most worthy representative. What could be more
positive and praiseworthy than the commitment to seriously appraise Christ’s
servants and bestow one’s allegiance accordingly?
But what appears to the natural mind to be building with “gold, silver and
precious stones” is actually building with “wood, hay, and straw.” Building in this
way is constructing something upon the foundation that is Christ, but what is
erected is worthless and will not stand. Many in the Church err by attempting to
overtly lay another foundation alongside Christ (3:11), but the more subtle and
insidious form of this error is building wrongly upon the one true foundation. The
implication is clear: The mere fact that Christ is the foundation of the Church’s
life and labors isn’t enough; as the saints build upon it – and every believer does
indeed build upon it one way or another – they must be careful how they build.
f. Whatever a person may believe about his labors in the name of Christ, the true
nature of the wisdom reflected and expressed in his work will finally be shown for
what it is. God will judge it by bringing it into the light and testing it. Wisdom is
vindicated by her deeds and her children (Matthew 11:16-19; Luke 7:31-35): So
natural wisdom proceeds from the flesh and bears offspring for it, while divine
wisdom flows from the mind of the Spirit and bears fruit for God. And once
again, while the antithesis of flesh and Spirit speaks properly to the two possible
realms of human existence (cf. John 3:1-8, 6:53-63 with Romans 7:1-6, 8:1-14;
Galatians 6:7-8; Philippians 3:1ff), to the extent that men born of the Spirit yield
to natural wisdom, they are yet “men of flesh” (ref. again 2:14-3:4; cf. Galatians
3:1-5, 5:16-26). Such are men who build with “wood, hay, and straw” – men
whose works will not stand but will be consumed as dross in the day of judgment.
Two important doctrinal observations need to be made:
1) First, this passage is a classic Catholic proof-text for the dogma of
purgatory. It is interpreted as affirming that all believers (or virtually all)
must pass through a purging “fire” before they are fit to enter heaven’s
perfection. The reason is that Christians depart this world still marred by
corruption and uncleanness. Purgatory is an unbiblical notion on many
counts, and this passage in no way supports it. In the first place, purgatory
pertains to a time of purging following God’s judgment of the individual
soul; Paul was speaking of the day of judgment itself. As well, the “fire”
in this context serves to assay a man’s works, not purge him of his sin.
2) The second thing to note is that Paul was here referring to judgment that is
coming upon Christians, not unbelievers. Three things make this clear:
The first is the larger context; second, this judgment is directed at
evaluating what a man constructs upon the foundation of Christ; finally,
those who pass through this judgment are saved, albeit at great loss (3:15).
Set alongside Paul’s overall doctrine of salvation, this second observation might
appear perplexing or even troubling. For everywhere in his writings Paul insisted
that the Holy Spirit brings to perfection and fullness Jesus’ life and likeness in
those He indwells. In accordance with the Spirit’s purpose and power, newness of
life leads inexorably to consummation of life (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:18 with 4:1-18;
cf. also Romans 8:1-11, 31-39; Ephesians 1:1-23, 2:1-7; Philippians 1:1-6; etc.).
Yet here Paul allows for the “perfection” that is final salvation, but one that is
accompanied by immense loss and shame. Indeed, the sort of Christian Paul was
referring to will be saved “by the skin of his teeth,” having little or nothing to
show for his life in the service of the Lord and His Church.
The difficulty and apparent inconsistency, however, are easily resolved when
careful attention is given to Paul’s statements and their context:
1) Of first importance is recognizing that Paul was speaking of the Church –
the truth of what it is, what God has purposed for it, and the role men play
in its growth and well-being. Paul wasn’t addressing the issue of final
judgment for individual Christians as such, but of the due recompense that
awaits “builders” in Christ’s Church. Like a construction worker whose
pay is determined by the appropriateness, outcome, and quality of his
labors as they contribute toward the completion of a building project, so it
is with those who build into the Lord’s temple.
2) For this reason, Paul’s statements have nothing to do with the question of
faith versus works in the matter of personal salvation. He wasn’t speaking
to the question of how an individual obtains his righteousness before God,
but of the accountability of Christians in the performance of the work to
which the Lord calls them as His servants. Here, the specific concern is
the accountability of those who teach and lead in the Church. Of whom
much is given much is required; so the authority and influence such men
wield in God’s name brings them under a greater accountability and
judgment (cf. Jeremiah 8:8-12; 23:1-40; Ezekiel 34:1-10; Micah 3:9-12
with Matthew 23:1-36; Mark 6:34; John 10:1-10; James 3:1).
3) Though Paul’s concern here was the Church’s leadership, the principle of
accountability he set forth applies to all Christians. Leaders are gifted by
the Spirit for their work in the Church, but so is every believer. All are
given gifts to be used for the good of the Body, and all will be brought to
account for how they employed their endowments (2 Corinthians 5:10).
The Scripture’s message – unfolded in the Old Testament and now brought to
realization in Jesus Christ – is that men are justified and restored to fellowship
with God as He satisfies the demand of their guilt and grants them to share in His
life. Indeed, the nature of the problem precludes any role for human works. On
the other hand, the nature of the resolution – new life in the power of the Spirit –
establishes the believer’s obligation (cf. Ephesians 2:1-10; 2 Timothy 1:1-2:26).
g. Christ’s Church – which included the fleshly and dysfunctional congregation at
Corinth – is God’s possession and project; it is His field and His building. Those
metaphors have profound biblical significance and power, but most especially as
they together point to the supreme truth of the Church, namely that it is God’s
holy habitation. Unlike its two counterparts, this descriptor is no mere metaphor,
but the literal truth. The Church is literally and truly the dwelling of God in the
Spirit. So Paul could confront and correct the Corinthians at the point of what
they knew to be true but had lost sight of: They were in fact the temple of God
precisely because the Spirit of God literally dwelled in them (3:16-17).
It is the divine presence that made the tabernacle and later the temple in actual
fact what they represented physically. That is, the sanctuary wasn’t holy because
of the rare and consecrated materials from which it was constructed. Neither was
it holy because of the holy ordinances that took place there, or even because of
what the sanctuary symbolized. It was holy because the glory of God – Yahweh’s
manifest presence in His Shekinah – was there (Exodus 40:1-35; 1 Kings 8:1-11).
Over time (and for various reasons) Israel lost sight of this and came to regard the
truth of the temple as residing in the temple building itself. Thus they concluded
that Jerusalem could never fall because God had put His name there, signified by
the physical sanctuary on Mount Zion. But what made the sanctuary Yahweh’s
sanctuary was His presence there as Israel’s enthroned King (cf. Psalm 80:1, 99:1
with 1 Chronicles 29:23); once His glory had departed it was just another human
structure in just another human city (cf. Ezekiel 10:1-8, 24:15-27).
Yahweh’s departure from the sons of Israel meant their exile from Him, whether
or not they remained in the land of Canaan. And because the essence of the
Israelite kingdom was the covenant relationship between divine Father and human
son (Exodus 3:1-10, 4:21-23, 6:1-8), Yahweh’s sending away of His covenant son
meant the end of the Israelite kingdom (cf. Isaiah 1:1-8; Hosea 1:1-2:13; etc.).
Yahweh departed from His sanctuary and soon after destroyed David’s kingdom
(Ezekiel 10:1-19, 24:1-21). Destruction, however, was not to be the last word; the
Lord was going to restore David’s house and throne, but the prophets were
emphatic that neither physical return from exile nor the rebuilding of Jerusalem
and its temple would end Israel’s exile and reestablish David’s kingdom. Exile
would end and restoration would come when Yahweh returned to His sanctuary.
- Moreover, this theophany was to be realized in the person of the Davidic
Servant (cf. Isaiah 40:1-11 with 42:1-13, 49:1-13, 59:1-21; cf. also Ezekiel
34:1-31 with 43:1-9; Haggai 2:1-9; Zechariah 6:9-15; Malachi 3:1ff).
- And most astonishing of all was the fact that this Servant, who in Himself
would fulfill Yahweh’s promise to return to His sanctuary, was also the
One who was going to build that sanctuary, and do so through the labors
of men drawn from the ends of the earth.
70
This was the glorious testimony of God’s prophets, and Paul recognized precisely
how these promises had been fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
- Jesus’ coming restored Yahweh’s glory to His temple – not a physical
building constructed of stone and wood, but a true and living sanctuary
constructed upon Himself as the cornerstone (John 1:14, 2:19-21, 4:1-24).
- He is the “head of the corner,” but also the builder of the sanctuary who
builds upon Himself as Living Stone a superstructure composed of a
multitude of living stones (cf. Mark 12:1-11; Acts 4:1-12; 1 Peter 2:4-6).
- And as Zechariah prophesied, Jesus Christ, the Branch of David, is
building Yahweh’s sanctuary in connection with the labors of men – men
who build into God’s sanctuary even as they themselves are built into it.
Paul grasped the wisdom of God in Christ; He recognized that, in Him, all the
divine promises had attained their true meaning and realization. It was through
that lens that he appraised the church at Corinth and the matter at hand. And so
Paul’s language wasn’t mere metaphor chosen as an illustrating device; he was
underscoring the christological, eschatological and spiritual nature of the Church
and how the Lord orders and nurtures its life. The divisions at Corinth stood as an
effective denial of Christ, the truth of His Church and how He builds it.
- Paul understood that the Church is the sanctuary of the triune God. For
this reason, the Corinthian factions represented far more than sinful and
unhealthy disagreement. So also their sin wasn’t confined to jealousy,
strife and disputations. The Corinthians doubtless viewed their contentions
as evidence of their commitment to God and His truth, but in fact they
were guilty of defiling His holy sanctuary (the Corinthian church). Left to
continue their present course, they would eventually bring it to ruin.
- Most importantly, their factions amounted to blasphemy because they
assigned an importance to men which belongs to God alone. Men have
their role in God’s purposes and accomplishment and will give an account
for their labors (3:12-15). But the building of the Lord’s sanctuary
depends ultimately on His hand and not man’s: He has laid the foundation
that is Christ Himself, He insures the progress of building upon it, and He
will place the capstone on the last day (cf. 3:7-11 with Zechariah 4:1-10).
Thus the Corinthian factions incurred a culpability and judgment beyond simply
division itself. They were undermining the Lord’s work toward the harvest and
the completion of His temple. In terms of the latter symbolism, they were, on the
one hand, building upon the foundation that is Christ with worthless materials
(3:11-12); on the other, they were effectively tearing down (literally, corrupting
unto ruination) the superstructure that was already in place (3:16-17). Both incur
the severest judgment commensurate with the gravity of the violation.
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