Commentary by John W. Gregson

The Writer's Introduction and The Problem of Divisions in the Church

I Corinthians 1:1 - 17

Paul writes of his calling (from the word kletos) refers to the divine call to service or apostleship. Called was a dynamic word for Paul. It meant more than"invited"; it meant the effective act of God by which one was brought to obedience. The same word is used for the divine call to salvation. Paul makes it clear that God after His own will (from the word thelema or pleasure) called him as an apostle and a preacher to the Gentiles. Paul believed in the sovereign will of God. He shows us that the church belonged to Jehovah God, through the sanctification (egiasmenois) or setting apart of the Lord Jesus Christ. He further writes that the message could have been a church in every place (panti topo). Could Paul have envisioned and expected the letter to be passed on to Christians of all ages?

"Christians today have lost the original meaning of the word church 'of God' or 'of Christ' to such an extent that a building, a denomination, or the universal fellowship of Christians may be called a church. We must remember that in Paul's usage the word always referred to the people as a congregation that belonged to God and functioned as a body of Christ...The word saints has been changed in Christian usage from the New Testament meaning. Today we think of a saint as one who is peculiarly righteous. In the New Testament all Christians were called saints. Paul addressed the Corinthians as saints even though he believed that many of them were 'still of the flesh' and 'behaving like ordinary men'...It is interesting that the word was never used in the singular; there was always the thought of fellowship involved in it" (Fisher, pp. 18, 19).

Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament has much to say about the church. The writer identifies ekklesia in two senses as (1) an assembly or (2) a church. He identifies the church, "The congregation as the gathering of Christians living in a given place, and universally the Church in which all those who are called are together." He says that New Testament lexicons follow the same arrangement, but goes on to make a distinction between the Church (a) as the whole body of believers and (b) as the individual congregation e.g., the house church. He observes that ekklesia is also used in secular Greek to denote a popular assembly. In other words ekklesia could be used of a secular town meeting or any kind of a secular group meeting for some particular purpose (Acts 19:32, 39, 41). The analogy breaks down, however, when he uses the New Testament meaning of the church. Are town meetings in every town referred to as universal town meetings? (Volume III, pp. 501 - 537). The church is not universal although the New Testament does refer to the church in an institutional or generic sense (Matthew 16:18; 18:17, 17). Where the church is not referred to as an institution, it is identified as the church in a certain place, e.g., the church at Corinth, or the church at Thessalonica. Apparently the universal church idea was an invention of Martin Luther; he must have carried the Roman Catholic idea of the universal church with him when he left her. True Baptists believe that the church is a local congregation of immersed believers who have made a convenant together to carry out the Great Commission and practice the ordinances of immersion and the Lord's Supper in the same fashion as did the first century church.

The author uses the Greek word grace (charis) and the Hebrew expression shalom peace (eirene). God is the source of these two nominative absolutes; grace descends from the One who is no longer wrathful, but merciful. Jesus Christ is the Mediator of that grace and peace (Grosheide, p. 25).

4 - 9 Paul thanks God always on their behalf or with reference to the Corinthians. "In this thanksgiving...Paul accomplishes two things: he gives genuine thanks to God both for the Corinthians themselves and for God's having 'gifted' them, but at the same time he redirects their focus...This redirection has two emphases: (1) the Corinthians are genuinely 'gifted,' but as the letter reveals they are also self-satisfied and creature-oriented, boasting in mere human beings. The whole of the thanksgiving is God-oriented and Christ- centered. Everything comes from God and is given in Christ Jesus. The second emphasis is echatological" (Fee, p. 36). The Corinthians were one of the churches in which God had granted more gifts charismata than any other church. Paul prays that in everything God will enrich (eploutisthete from ploutizo) them in speech (logo) and in knowledge (gnosei). "A broad education which takes in much knowledge (pasan ten grosin) and an exhaustive vocabulary with which to expound it, is a great gift from God, but there is a greater gift without which all others are useless (I Corinthians 13)" (Yeager, XII, p. 290). Of course this education and knowledge must be tempered with humility and faith or the Christian is in real trouble. "The Corinthians had something to speak about and they could speak about it...Knowledge as it is used here may be the fruit of intuition, even of a mystic feeling...Knowledge is related to wisdom but, unlike the latter, it cannot be accompanied by a certain measure of ignorance, neither is it directed toward practical acting as much as wisdom is" (Grosheide, p. 28).

Paul desires that the church be granted many gifts as they await the coming (apokalupsin) or revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. This same word is used in II Thessalonians 1:7 and Revelation 1:1. While the Christian awaits the Lord's coming, he is to live a blameless or a guiltless life exercising the gifts given to him so as to witness to the end. God is faithful and Paul implies that the Corinthians must remain faithful. God is steadfast; He never changes His mind, and He keeps all of His promises. Not even Satan and all of his imps can thwart His divine experiment on earth.

God wants His children to be a testimony (marturion) or a witness to the end, either the end of our lives here on the earth or His return to the earth. He will confirm (bebaiosein) or establish the Corinthians and us to the end, and He can make us blameless unto that day. While they wait for Christ's coming, Paul admonishes the Corinthians to exercise the gifts which the Holy Spirit has given them. The words "the end" eos telous can mean the end of the church age or the day of Christ's coming.

10 - 17 Now Paul gets to the reason for his epistle; he had heard of divisions (schismata), from which we get our English word 'schism' or dissensions (R. S. V.) within the church. In verse 11 Paul calls them contentions (erides) or quarreling. He urges their united effort (speaking the same thing) rather than some choosing to follow him, some Apollos, some Cephas and some Christ. They are to be "perfectly joined together" (katertismenoi) and have the same mind and the same judgment. The word translated "perfectly joined together" is used by Matthew (4:21) where he stated that the two brothers, James and John were "mending their (fishing) nets" when Jesus called them. Paul wants the church members to be mended together, and he rebukes the Corinthians for their divisions. "When one member of the Body of Christ disagrees, in thought, word or action with another, it is apparent that Christ, the Head of the Body (Ephesians 1:22) is not in complete control...When a church has dissension, because individual members of the same Body of Christ, have differing views, it is evident that someone is out of fellowship with the Head in glory and with the indwelling Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6:19, 20) (Yeager, pp. 296, 297).

Paul posed the questions, "Is Christ divided (memeristai) or separated into parts? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were ye immersed in the name of Paul? These questions seem to be rhetorical questions and expect a negative answer. Various groups in the church had their own slogan; they must have been guilty of hero worship, and that problem is still common today. Apparently none of these heros (Paul, Apollos or Cephas) had been guilty of recruiting adherents. In fact, Paul wrote in 1:31, "He that glorieth (boasts), let him glory (boast) in the Lord."

Then he writes that he immersed none of them except Crispus and Gaius, and maybe the household of Stephanas; Paul seems to have a lapse of memory here. This scripture must be devastating to those who believe in baptismal regeneration! Since the Corinthians were baptized into Christ's death and in His name, they belonged to Jesus Christ. What about others that had been saved under his preaching, were they immersed? Doubtless Paul was assisted by Timothy and possibly Apollos in performing the ordinance of immersion. God had called Paul to preach rather than to immerse believers; he did so not in the wisdom of this world, lest the cross of Christ be ineffectual or void. Paul is not discrediting immersion or baptism; his is simply concentrating upon the preaching and permitting others to baptize, much the same a Jesus did (John 4:1, 2), and as Peter did (Acts 10:48).

Verse 17 emphasis is given to Paul's preaching - it was not with the wisdom of this world, so that the cross of Christ should be made void. Words of wisdom may have been a slogan of the Corinthians. "God wants His gospel presented in plain unadorned language" (Yeager, p. 304). Paul's preaching emphasized the bringing of good tidings or proclaiming the good news (euanggelizontai) the word from which we get our word evangelism. In Paul's preaching the Cross of Christ was the central theme; what our Lord did on the Cross is good news to the sinner.

Commentary by John W. Gregson

CHRIST THE POWER AND WISDOM OF GOD

I Corinthians 1:18 - 31

18 - 21 The Apostle Paul identifies what preaching really is. To the foolish person it is foolishness (moria); that is, preaching the Cross and faith in He Who died on that Cross as the way of salvation is foolish to the learned men of the world. To the humble person it is the power (dunamis) of God unto salvation. "Paul is explaining why he determined that never again would he attempt to dress up the story of Calvary with worldly erudition as he had done at Mars Hill...What brings life to those elect souls is the power of God, while the same message considered foolishness by the perishing, brings death to them" (Yeager, p. 305). The word dunamis in verse 18 is the same word from which we get our English word dynamite, dynamo and dynamics. Christ's death on Calvary for the sins of mankind is nonsense or folly to Paul's contemporaries; it does not make sense to the intellectual of this world. They view Christ's death as that of a criminal or a degenerate slave, for only such social deviates were crucified by the Romans.

If anyone is saved, he will saved by the power of God. Kistemaker asks two questions (concerning salvation); they are: (1) What precisely does Paul teach concerning the time of salvation? And (2) what tense of the verb to save is used? Past - "For in this hope we were saved" (Romans 8:24); "By grace you have been saved" (Ephesians 2:5, 8); "By his mercy he saved us" (Titus 3:5). Present - "Through which (gospel) you are being saved" (I Corinthians 15:2); "Those who are being saved" (II Corinthians 2:15). Future - "How much more shall we be saved?" (Romans 5:9); "Thus all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26) (p. 54).

Then Paul paraphrases Isaiah 29:14, or he probably quotes from the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, which reads, "...the wisdom of the wise men will perish, and the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish." In the context of this passage, God nullifies the wisdom of Israel's pundits and causes human intelligence to dissipate. God will destroy (apolo from appollumi) or defeat the wisdom of the wise; He will bring to nothing (atheteso from atheteo) or disannul the wisdom of the prudent. Jehovah God is going to take apart the philosophy of the "wiseacres." Paul then gathers together the wise, the scribe, and the disputer or debater of this world. The wisdom of this world is foolishness to God; all the wisdom of this world and all of the wise men compared to God's wisdom is foolishness with God. Paul uses the word (kerugmatos) meaning "to proclaim" and not the act of preaching itself, but the content of that proclamation, namely the message of a crucified Messiah. Preaching the death, burial and resurrection of Christ as the means of saving lost man by faith is a mystery to the wise of this world. It is beyond their comprehension. Our Lord prayed, "...I think thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes" Matthew 11:25. God was pleased to send His Son the sinner's sacrifice for sin; the Son was pleased to die in the sinner's stead. "Christians believe the gospel and therefore they 'know' (I John 5:13). And when the Christian uses the word 'know' he uses it in a different sense than is found in the mouth of the scientist and/or philosopher. For the Christian 'know' is synonymous with 'believe' when he is speaking within the context of Christian epistemology" (Yeager, p. 312).

22 - 25 The Jews were always looking for a sign (semeion), a token or a miracle; they repeatedly asked Jesus to show them signs (Mark 8:11, 12; Luke 11:16; John 2:18; 6:30). They wanted Jesus to authenticate Himself or to validate His messianic credentials with powerful displays. He replied there will no sign be given except the sign of the prophet Jonah (Matthew 12:38 - 41). God has entrusted to the Jews the Scriptures of the Old Testament; they were recipients of God's covenants, the law, the promises and worship regulations (Romans 9:3, 4). The Jews were looking for and had expected a victorious Messiah. They were an evil and adulterous generation.

The Greeks sought religion through their language, culture and their philosophy (philosophian) or knowledge; Paul deals with this problem in I Corinthians 2:1 - 5. The true preacher, however, preaches Christ crucified; to the Jew preaching the Cross is a stumbling block (skandalon) or snare and to the Greeks foolishness or moronic (morian from which we get our word 'moron'). "It is hard for those in the christianized West, where the cross for almost nineteen centuries has been the primary symbol of the faith, to appreciate how utterly mad the message of a God who got himself crucified by his enemies must have seemed to the first-century Greek or Roman. But it is precisely the depth of this scandal and folly that we must appreciate if we are to understand both why the Corinthians were moving away from it toward wisdom and why it was well over a century before the cross appears among Christians as a symbol of their faith" (Fee, p. 76).

Those who receive the call from God (either Jews or Greeks) the gospel is the power and wisdom of God. The uncalled Jews of Jesus time regarded Jesus as an imposter; the uncalled Greeks regarded him as a fool. "God uses a crib in Bethlehem as a cradle for his royal Son, and He selects a cruel cross as the instrument of death for His Divine Emissary" (Kistemaker, p. 60). Grosheide says that, "...the sound of the word 'cross' was worse to Jewish ears than 'noose' sounds to us" (p. 49). If Jehovah God had a weakness, it would be stronger than man; if there were anything foolish about God, it would be more intelligent than the wisdom of man. To the perishing the cross is 'God's folly;' God 'out-smarted' his human creatures and thereby nullified their wisdom. In the same cross God also 'overpowered' his enemies, with lavish grace and forgiveness, and thereby divested them of their strength" (Fee, p. 77). When Paul sought the Lord to remove his thorn in the flesh God replied, "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness." Jehovah God, however, is never foolish nor is He powerless. His power is omnipotent and His knowledge is omniscient.

26 - 31 God seldom calls a man who is wise after the flesh, not many mighty men, nor many noble men are called. This does not mean that the college professor, the chief executive officer of a huge corporation or the philanthropist (aristocrat) cannot be saved, however, God, a majority of the time, chooses men with little education and with little economic clout, to preach His word and to serve Him. He does not call the world's "beautiful people;" He calls the "nobodies." God chooses those things that are of insignificance to confound (kataischune) or to make ashamed those who are wise. After people are saved and after some men are called to preach, God enrolls them in "the University of Jesus Christ" in order to train them for His work. Their textbook is the Bible, and their Teacher is the Holy Spirit. "Since God's fools are smarter then the unsaved intellectuals and God's weaklings are stronger than the mightiest forces of Satan, He has chosen to use them to embarrass the enemy. Thus 'the meek' shall inherit the earth' (Matthew 5:5) and 'the last shall be first' (Matthew 19:30)" (Yeager, p. 319).

Paul emphasizes the word "consider" or "contemplate" as a command; he wants them to consider or to contemplate their call or calling. All are called through the preaching and teaching of the gospel. Probably some of the members at Corinth were educated and financially and socially prominent, but status meant nothing to God; He recognizes no ruling class, no nobility, nor the worldly-wise. God exercises His sovereignty; He has chosen the base things (agene), low born or ignoble and the despised (exouthenemena), contemptible things or things of no account. "For instance, according to the Roman author Seneca, God's people did a foolish thing by keeping the Sabbath; the Gentile world had no concept of a week and thus regarded resting on the Sabbath utter foolishness and a waste of time. But God uses the things which the world calls foolish to shame the men who are reputed to be wise" (Kistemaker, p. 62). Thus God shames the wise; He shames the strong and nullifies the things that in man's eyes are important (Ibid., p. 63).

He has chosen things that do not exist to replace things that now exist. Some examples are as follows: "A man who was 100 years old and his wife, who was 90 fathered a great nation. A jawbone of an ass in the hands of a backslider slew the Philistines. A donkey taught a preacher a lesson. The testimony of a little slave girl was used to heal a leper. Jesus paid His taxes with a fish. A little lad's lunch fed a multitude. A handful of Christians spread Christianity throughout the Roman Empire in 300 years. A whale taught a disobedient prophet to obey" (Yeager, 320). God can take the most simple and transform them into His children. Why does He do that? The answer is in verse 29, "That no flesh should glory (kauchesetai), brag or boast in His presence." Saved man can only boast or brag in the Source of his relationship with Christ Jesus, from Him we receive wisdom (sophia), righteousness (diakaiosune), sanctification (hagaiasmos) and redemption (apolutrosis). These four words say it all. Oh, what riches we have in Christ! Then the author quotes from Jeremiah 9:24, "But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord who exerciseth loving-kindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth; for in these things I delight, saith the Lord." So if there is any boasting on the part of man, it is in the Lord Who is the Source of all that man has that is good. Thomas Hastings puts it this way: "Nothing in my hand I bring/Simply to Thy cross I cling/Naked, come to Thee for dress/Helpless, look to Thee for grace/Foul, I to the fountain fly/Wash me, Savior, or I die." James wrote, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (James 1:17). No church, Corinth included, needs to be a beggar in the world, for all the resources she needs are available through the Lord (McCann, p. 7).

Fee points out that the word "glory" or "boast" in Jeremiah 9 comes very close to our concept of "trust" or "to put one's full confidence in," which is our concept of faith. "Thus one must put full confidence, one must 'boast, glory' in the Lord and His mercy. Every other form of 'boasting' is thereby abolished, except that which reflects the 'weakness' and 'foolishness' of God" (p. 84).

Christ Jesus is the blessing of wisdom; that is, the true understanding as opposed to false wisdom. Righteousness is acceptance with God as His children. Sanctification (consecration) is the act of God in making us His own. Redemption is the purchased price paid for the release of a slave or captive. Each of these comprise the entirety of Christian salvation from different viewpoints (Fisher, p. 133).

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