The first major problem was the divisions that were fragmenting the assembly.
". . . this opening issue is the most crucial in the letter, not because their quarrels' were the most significant error in the church, but because the nature of this particular strife had as its root cause their false theology, which had exchanged the theology of the cross for a false triumphalism that went beyond, or excluded, the cross."19
The surface manifestation of this serious problem was the party spirit that had developed. Members of the church were appreciating their favorite leaders too much and not appreciating the others enough. This was really a manifestation of self-exaltation. They boasted about their teachers of wisdom to boast about themselves.
1:10 By exhorting his readers in the name of their Lord Jesus Christ, Paul was putting what he was about to say on the highest level of authority. The Corinthians were to regard what he was about to say as coming from the Lord Himself.
"That the true source of the Corinthians' illicit behavior is bad theology--ultimately a misunderstanding of God and his ways--is evident from the beginning, especially with Paul's use of crucifixion language in 1:10-2:16."20
There was already disagreement among members of the congregation, but there was not yet division in the sense of a church split. Paul urged his original readers to unite in their thinking. The Greek word katartizo, translated "made complete,"describes the mending of nets in Mark 1:19. He wanted them to take the same view of things, to have the same mind (cf. Phil. 2:2), and to experience unanimity in their judgment of what they needed to do.
"The gospel that effects eschatological salvation also brings about a radical change in the way people live. This is the burden of this letter and the theological presupposition behind every imperative. Therefore, although apocalyptic-cosmological language is also found, salvation is expressed primarily in ethical-moral language.21
1:11 Today no one knows exactly who Chloe was. She evidently had a household or business that included servants some of whom had traveled to Corinth and had returned to Ephesus carrying reports of conditions in the Corinthian church. They had eventually shared this news with Paul. Quarrels and dissension should never mark the church (Gal. 5:20).
1:12 The Corinthians had overdone the natural tendency to appreciate some of God's servants more than others because of their own personal qualities or because of blessings they had imparted.
It was normal that some would appreciate Paul since he had founded the church and had ministered in Corinth with God's blessing for 18 months. Apollos had followed Paul there and was especially effective in refuting Jewish unbelievers and in showing that Jesus was the Messiah. He was a gifted apologist and orator (Acts 18:24-28).
There is no scriptural record that Peter ever visited Corinth, though he may have. Cephas is the Hellenized form of the Aramaic kepa, meaning "rock"(cf. John 1:42). Since Peter was the leading apostle to the Jews, it is understandable that many of the early Christians, especially the Jewish believers, would have venerated him. A fourth group apparently professed loyalty to no human leader but boasted of their allegiance to Christ alone. They appear to have regarded themselves as the most spiritual element in the church. They had devised their own brand of spiritual elitism that made them no better than the others.
1:13 This last group was using Christ as the name of a party within the church. This cut Him off from the other members of the church. Such an idea was unthinkable, and by stating it Paul showed its absurdity.
Next Paul addressed his own supporters. How foolish it was to elevate him over Christ since Christ did what was most important. Note the central importance of the Cross in Paul's thinking. His followers had not submitted to baptism in water to identify with Paul but with the Savior. This reference shows how highly Paul regarded water baptism. It is God's specified way for the believer to identify publicly with his or her Lord (Matt. 28:19; cf. Acts 8:16; 19:5; Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27). It implies turning over allegiance to the one named in the rite.
1:14 Crispus was the ruler of the synagogue in which Paul preached when he first came to Corinth (Acts 18:8). Gaius may be the same person as Titius Justus. This man was a Gentile convert who lived next door to the synagogue and opened his home to the church after the Christians could no longer meet in the synagogue (Acts 18:7; Rom. 16:23).
"Gaius Titius Justus would be a complete Roman name (praenomen, nomen gentile, cognomen)."22
Some Christians contend that water baptism is essential for salvation. If it is, it would seem natural that Paul would have emphasized its importance by personally baptizing more than just two new believers in Corinth (cf. John 4:2).
1:15 Paul deliberately did not baptize his converts so there would be no question as to whose disciples they were. This was one way he kept Christ central in his ministry. Paul believed baptism was important, but it was valid whether he or any other believer administered it. He was not superior to other believers in this respect.
1:16 The members of Stephanus' family were the first converts in the Roman province of Achaia (16:15). It was unimportant to Paul whom he personally baptized. This is clear because he temporarily forgot that he had baptized these people. As he continued to write, the Lord brought them to mind.
1:17 Obviously baptizing is part of the Great Commission that all Christians are responsible to carry out (Matt. 28:19). Paul's point was that preaching the gospel is more important than baptizing. He used a figure of speech, litotes, for emphasis.23He would hardly have said this if baptism was necessary for salvation.
"Cleverness of speech"(NASB) and "words of human wisdom"(NIV) greatly impressed the Greeks.
"The Greeks were intoxicated with fine words; and to them the Christian preacher with his blunt message seemed a crude and uncultured figure, to be laughed at and ridiculed rather than to be listened to and respected."24
One of the features of Paul, Apollos, Peter, and Christ that made them attractive to various segments of the Corinthian church was evidently their individual oratorical styles. Later Paul pointed out that the Corinthian Christians were viewing things through carnal eyes, namely seeing things as unsaved people do (3:1-4). Paul did not emphasize or place confidence in the method of his preaching but the message of the Cross. He did not want to draw attention away from the gospel message to his style of delivering that message.
"Paul represents himself as a preacher, not as an orator. Preaching is the proclamation of the cross; it is the cross that is the source of its power."25
This verse provides a transition into the next section of the epistle in which Paul contrasted God's wisdom and human wisdom.
"With this observation Paul is fully launched on his epistle. As in Romans (cf. i. 16 ff.), mention of the Gospel sets his thought and language in motion."26
The crux of the Corinthians' party spirit lay in their viewing things as unbelievers did, specifically Christian preachers and teachers. They failed to see the important issues at stake in ministry and instead paid too much attention to external superficial matters. This was a serious condition, so Paul invested many words in the following section to deal with it (1:18-4:21).
Paul set up a contrast between cleverness of speech and the Cross in verse 17. Next he developed this contrast with a series of arguments. Boasting in men impacts the nature of the gospel. He pointed out that the gospel is not a form of sophia(human wisdom). Its message of a crucified Messiah does not appeal to human wisdom (1:18-25). Second, its recipients are not specially wise in the eyes of humanity (1:26-31). Third, Paul's preaching was not impressive in its human wisdom, but it bore powerful results (2:1-5).
"There are . . . three particularly important expository passages in 1 Corinthians. They may be regarded as the letter's principal theological discourses and as such deserve special attention.
"These three key discourses deal, respectively, with the wisdom of the cross (1:18-2:16), the nature of Christian community (12:4-13:13), and the resurrection of the dead (chap. 15). In each instance Paul's reflections on the topic are deliberate and focused, and lead him to develop a more or less extended and coherent argument. Moreover, each of these passages occurs at an important point within the overall structure of the letter. The discourse on wisdom, situated prominently at the beginning of the letter, supports the apostle's urgent appeals for unity (1:10-4:21). It can be argued that the discourse on Christian community undergirds, directly or indirectly, all of the counsels and instructions in chaps. 8 through 14. And the discourse on resurrection, a response to those who claim that there is no resurrection of the dead' (15:12), is located prominently at the end of the letter."27
"In this part of the [first] discourse [i.e., 1:18-2:5] the argument proceeds in three steps: Paul makes his main point in 1:18-25, confirms it in 1:26-31 with an appeal to the Corinthians' own situation, and then further confirms it in 2:1-5 with reference to what and how he had preached in Corinth.
"The apostle's thesis is registered first in 1:18 and then twice restated (in 1:21 and 1:23-24).28
Superficial displays of oratory that to them appeared to be demonstrations of wisdom impressed the Corinthian Christians excessively. Paul pointed out that the wisdom of God, the gospel of Christ, had power that mere worldly wisdom lacked.
Paul's reference to the Holy Spirit's power (vv. 4-5) led him to elaborate on the Spirit's ministry in enlightening the minds of believers and unbelievers alike. The Corinthians needed to view ministry differently. The key to this change would be the Holy Spirit's illumination of their thinking. People who are pursuing wisdom (sophia) cannot perceive it except as the Holy Spirit enlightens them.
Paul constructed his argument in this section with three contrasts that overlap slightly. The first contrast is between those who receive God's wisdom and those who do not (vv. 6-10a), and the second one is the Spirit of God and the spirit of the world (vv. 10b-13). The third contrast is the "natural"person and the "spiritual"person (vv. 14-16).48
"Paul is not here rebuilding what he has just torn down. He is retooling their understanding of the Spirit and spirituality, in order that they might perceive the truth of what he has been arguing to this point.
"While it is true that much of the languageof this paragraph is not common to Paul, the explanation of this phenomenon is, as before, to be found in his using theirlanguage but filling it with his own content and thus refuting them. The theology, however, is his own, and it differs radically from theirs. . . . Paul's concern throughout is to get the Corinthians to understand who they are--in terms of the cross--and to stop acting as non-Spirit people."49
2:6 Even though Paul's preaching of the gospel was simple and clear, there was a depth to his message that he did not want the Corinthians to overlook. Immature Christians cannot understand the real depths of the gospel fully. Later Paul would say the Corinthians were not mature (3:1-3).
Paul could have been using the word "mature"as synonymous with "Christian."He may have selected the word "mature"because the Corinthians apparently loved to apply it to themselves.
"All Christians are mature' in the sense that they have come to terms with the message of the cross, while all others, by definition, have not."50
However, Paul later distinguished the natural person, the spiritual person, and the carnal person (2:14-3:4). Consequently by spiritual he may have meant one who has followed God's Spirit for some time, not just one who has His Spirit (cf. Heb. 6:1).
The deep things of God require a type of wisdom that is different from secular wisdom. Presently those who control the climate of public opinion dominate secular wisdom. These rulers are those individuals who set the standard of what people who disregard God's revelation consider as true (cf. 1:20, 26), particularly those who were responsible for Jesus' crucifixion (v. 8). However these people are on the way out because the popular perception of what is true changes and because Christ will end their rule eventually (15:24-25; Col. 2:15).
2:7 The wisdom Paul proclaimed was wisdom that God had not revealed previously. It was not a revelation in addition to the gospel. The message about Christ crucified embodies the wisdom of God. This message was unknown before Christ came. The message of the Cross is a further unfolding of God's plan and purpose beyond what He had revealed and what people had known previously.
Paul expounded on the fact that God had decreed this mystery from before creation in Ephesians 3:2-12. The Ephesian church was more mature and better able to understand this revelation than was the Corinthian congregation.
The end purpose of this new revelation was the saints' ultimate glorification by conformity to the image of God's Son.
2:8 The rulers of this age are probably the intellectual trend-setters Paul mentioned above (v. 7). Those responsible for the death of Christ were members of this group (cf. Acts 3:17-18; 4:25-28). If they had understood the central place that Jesus Christ occupied in God's plan, they would not have crucified Him thus assuring their own doom (cf. Luke 23:34).
"The key [to this section of Paul's argument] is verse 8. The rulers of this age (whether understood as political and religious figures or as apocalyptic powers) demonstrated their ignorance of divine wisdom when they crucified the Lord of glory. The very mention of the crucifixion shows the argument very much in continuity with the preceding section and reminds us that the wisdom of God, which is incomprehensible to the world, is nothing other than the word of the cross (1:23-24)."51
The phrase "Lord of glory"implies the divine fullness. It also ties in with the saints' glory (v. 7). It is through union with Him that we will experience glory.
2:9 The source of this quotation is evidently Isaiah 64:4 and 65:17. It summarizes Paul's point well. There are many things we can know only by revelation. The more God reveals the more clearly we see that He has designed His plans for humanity for our blessing.
"Paul's thought is that there is no method of apprehension open to man (eyes, ears, or understanding) which can give him any idea of the wonderful things that God has made ready for them that love him(cf. Rom. viii. 28)."52
2:10 The wonderful mysteries God has prepared for those who love Him are not knowable only by a select group of Christians. Any and every believer can understand and appreciated them because the indwelling Holy Spirit can enlighten us. The mystery religions of Greece promised deeper insights and new knowledge to their devotees. However any Christian can apprehend the very best that God has revealed because we all possess the spiritual organ of perception, namely the Holy Spirit. "Searches"(Gr. ereuna) means continually examines.
"Apparently they have thought of spirituality mostly in terms of ecstasy and experience, which has led some of them to deny the physical body, on the one hand, and to a sense of having arrived' (cf. 4:8), on the other. . . .
"They considered Paul's preaching to be milk'; on the contrary, he implies, redemption through the cross comes from the profound depths of God's own wisdom, which his Spirit, given to those who love him, has searched out and revealed to us."53
2:11 It is necessary for someone to be a human being to understand things having to do with human life. Likewise it is necessary for someone to have the indwelling Spirit of God to understand the things of God.
2:12 "We"is emphatic in the Greek text. All believers have received the Holy Spirit (12:13; Rom. 8:9). He helps us understand the mind of God and the things God has given us. This Spirit is vastly different from the spirit (viewpoint) of the world. Unbelievers cannot understand the things of God as believers can because they have no one who can help them perceive these supernatural things.
". . . as a man's own spirit best understands his inner thoughts, so the Spirit of God alone can grasp divine truths (verse 11), and alone can interpret to those within whom he dwells the things that are freely given to us by God' (RV)."54
2:13 Paul and the other apostles spoke the truths that the Holy Spirit had helped them understand (cf. vv. 6-7). They did not choose their words because of what people generally regarded as the best ones to persuade. They did not rely on the rhetorical forms that the orators used either. The Holy Spirit guided them in their communication of divine truth as well as in their perception of it. Spiritual thoughts or truths are concepts the Holy Spirit enables us to understand. Spiritual words are those He guides us to use in expressing these thoughts. The Spirit enables us to speak in language appropriate to the message rather than with human wisdom. In short, the Holy Spirit plays an indispensable role both in our understanding and in our communicating God's revelation.
2:14 The natural man is any person who does not possess the Holy Spirit, namely unbelievers.55Every human being is a natural man until he or she trusts Christ and receives the Spirit. Paul called this person a natural (Gr. psychikos) man because he or she is only natural. He has no supernatural Person indwelling him, and his viewpoints and ideas are only what is natural. He cannot accept all that God has revealed because he does not possess the indwelling Spirit of God.
The natural person can, of course, understand the gospel and experience salvation but only because the Holy Spirit illuminates his or her understanding. Paul did not mean that an unbeliever is incapable of understanding Scripture. However an unbeliever rejects and does not acceptall that God wants him or her to have. One of these things is eternal life through faith in His Son. It is as though God is speaking in a language that the unbeliever does not understand. He or she needs an interpreter. That is a ministry that only the Holy Spirit can perform.56
"It will help us to think clearly about this issue if we recognize that 1 Corinthians 2 is not concerned with the mechanics of how people understand their Bibles generally, or with the quality of a particular scholar's exegesis of some specific Hebrew text. . . . His focus is the fundamental message of the crucified Messiah. And this, he insists, is fundamentally incomprehensible to the mind without the Spirit."57
2:15 In contrast to the natural man stands the spiritual (Gr. pneumatikos) man. He or she is a natural man who now has the Holy Spirit dwelling within. Consequently he or she is a different person and has a different outlook.
One of the things the spiritual person is able to do is appraise or make judgments (Gr. anakrino) regarding all things. In other words, the spiritual man looks at everything somewhat differently than the natural man because he has spiritual perception. This affects his values and decisions. For this very reason he is a puzzle to the natural man. The profane person cannot understand holiness, but the holy person can understand the depths of evil. Even carnal fellow believers cannot fully understand the spiritual person. That is all right because the spiritual person's judge is ultimately God, not other people.58
This verse is not saying believers are responsible only to God but that the Christian is answerable to God alone ultimately (cf. 4:3-4). Paul recognized the value of church discipline (5:3-8), constructive criticism (11:17-18), and self-judgment (11:31) as having immediate value.
2:16 To summarize his thought Paul again cited Isaiah (40:13; cf. Rom. 11:34). That prophet marveled at the mind of God. Who can fully understand what God understands? Certainly no one can. On the other hand, believers can understand to a much greater degree than unbelievers can because we have the Spirit of God in us. Since we have Him, we have the mind of Christ. That is, we view life to some extent as Jesus did because we understand things from God's perspective at least partially.
In his epistle to the Philippians, Paul urged his readers to adopt the mind of Christ (Phil. 2:5). Even though we have the mind of Christ we need to adopt it and use it to view life as He did. One evidence of Christian maturity is the believer's consistent employment of Christ's attitude and viewpoint in all of life.
In this section (vv. 6-16) Paul elaborated on the subject of the Holy Spirit's ministry of illuminating the believer about what God has revealed. He had previously reminded his readers that he had conducted himself in their midst with this supernatural viewpoint (vv. 1-5).
The basic theological point of tension between Paul and the Corinthians in this epistle was over what it means to be pneumatikos, a Spirit person. Because of their experience of glossolalia (speaking in tongues) they considered themselves to be "as the angels"and in need only of shedding their bodies. The sources of this distorted view were popular philosophy tainted with Hellenistic dualism.59The result was a "spirituality"and "higher wisdom"that had little connection with ethical behavior.60
"The concern from here on will be to force them to acknowledge the folly of their wisdom,' which is expressing itself in quarrels and thereby destroying the very church for which Christ died.
"Paul's concern needs to be resurrected throughout the church. The gift of the Spirit does not lead to special status among believers; rather, it leads to special status vis-à-vis the world. But it should do so always in terms of the centrality of the message of our crucified/risen Savior. The Spirit should identify God's people in such a way that their values and worldview are radically different from the wisdom of this age."61
The apostle proceeded to tell the Corinthians that they had not been viewing things from the spiritual point of view. He was referring specifically to their exaltation of one or another of God's servants above the others (1:10-17). Paul urgently appealed to them to change.
3:1 Here Paul introduced a third category of humanity, namely the "fleshly"(Gr. sarkinos) or "worldly"(NIV) man. The Corinthians were spiritual rather than natural because they possessed the Holy Spirit. Notwithstanding Paul said he could not speak to them as spiritual men. He explained the reason in verse 3. Instead he had to address them as fleshly people, even as babes in Christ. The fleshly believer then is an immature Christian. Immaturity is not blameworthy if one is very young. However if a person has been a Christian for some time and is still immature, his or her condition is blameworthy (cf. 2:6). Such was the condition of the Corinthians.
3:2 When Paul had been with them they were new converts, so he gave them the milk of the Word, the ABCs of the faith (cf. 1 Pet. 2:2). Now when they should have been able to take in more advanced teaching they were not able to do so (cf. Heb. 5:11-14). Their party spirit was one evidence of spiritual immaturity, lack of growth. Their fundamental need was not a change of diet but a change of perspective.
Paul's use of the vocative ("brothers [and sisters]") and second person plural pronouns in verses 1 and 2 indicates that he was addressing the whole church, not just a faction within it (cf. 1:10). The actions of many in the congregation had defiled the whole body.62
3:3 The reason Paul did not feel he should give them more advanced instruction was that their flesh (Gr. sarkikos) still dominated them. As believers they were making provision for the flesh to fulfill its desires rather than following the leading of the Holy Spirit. They were not only immature believers but also carnal Christians. The carnal believer is the fourth type of person Paul mentioned in 2:14-3:4.63
Paul let the Corinthians diagnose themselves. Are not jealousy and strife the works of the flesh (Gal. 5:20)? Did these qualities not indicate that they were conducting themselves as unbelievers, as people who do not even possess the Holy Spirit?64
"Being human is not a bad thing in itself, any more than being sarkinoiis (v. 1). What is intolerable is to have received the Spirit, which makes one more than merely human, and to continue to live as though one were nothing more."65
3:4 Partisanship is a manifestation of human wisdom. All the philosophical schools in Greece had their chief teachers. There was keen competition among these teachers, and there were strong preferences among the students as to who was the best. However this attitude is totally inappropriate when it comes to evaluating the servants of Christ. It is completely contrary to the mind of Christ who Himself stooped to raise others.
This section of verses makes it very clear that it is possible for genuine Christians to behave as and to appear to be unbelievers. The Corinthians' conduct indicated carnality, not lack of eternal life. Prolonged immaturity as a result of carnality is a condition all too prevalent in modern Christianity. Often we mistake carnal Christians for natural men, unbelievers.
Paul turned next to a positive explanation of how his readers should view himself and his fellow workers.
"At issue is their radically misguided perception of the nature of the church and its leadership, in this case especially the role of the teachers."66
The apostle now combined the threads of his argument, which began at 1:18, and drew a preliminary conclusion. If his readers insisted on taking the natural view of their teachers and continued to form coteries of followers, they would limit God's blessing on themselves needlessly. Rather than their belonging to Paul or Apollos, both Paul and Apollos, and much more, belonged to them because they were Christ's and Christ is God's.
3:18 Paul continued the subject of spiritual rather than natural wisdom. He urged his readers to turn away from attitudes the world regards as wise and to adopt God's viewpoint so they would be truly wise.
3:19-20 Again Paul used Old Testament quotations to give added authority to his thought (cf. 1:19, 31; 2:9, 16). Here he referred to Job 5:13 and Psalm 94:11. The best wisdom the natural man can produce is foolishness compared with the wisdom God has revealed in His Word. Unbelieving humanity cannot avoid God's judgment through its own rationalizing. The reasoning of the wise of this world is useless regarding the most important issues of life. In 1:18-25 Paul had said that the wisdom of God, namely Christ crucified, is foolishness to the world. Here he made the same point in reverse: the wisdom of the world is foolishness in God's sight.
3:21 "So then"marks the apostle's conclusion. It is wrong to line up in cliques behind one or another of God's servants. In doing so, the Corinthians were only limiting God's blessing on them. They were rejecting God's good gifts by not appreciating all the people God had sent to help them.
3:22 All of God's servants were God's gifts to them. The world (Gr. kosmos, universe) belongs to the Christian in the sense that we will inherit it and reign over it with Christ one day. Life and all it holds contains much blessing for us. Even death is a good gift because it will usher us into the presence of our Savior. This list is similar to the one in Romans 8:38-39 and, as there, is a way of saying "everything."The figure of speech is a merism.82
"The five things . . . represent the fundamental tyrannies of human life, the things that enslave us, the things that hold us in bondage."83
3:23 All the Corinthians belonged to Christ, not just those of the "Christ party"(1:12). They belonged to Him, not to one of His servants. Even Christ belongs to God in the sense of being under the authority and protection of the Father (cf. 8:6; 11:3; 15:28). This is functional rather than ontological subordination. All things belong to the Christian because the Christian belongs to Christ, and all things are His. Thus in Him we possess all things, but it is only in Him that we do.
Paul made several references to the administrative order of God when correcting disorders of various kinds in the Corinthian church. This order is the Father over the Son, the Son over the man, and the man over the woman (e.g., 8:6; 11:3; et al.). The apostle stressed divine order because the Corinthians were disorderly having failed to submit to the Holy Spirit's control.
"On this high note Paul's response to the Corinthian pride in man and wisdom has come to a fitting conclusion. But the problem is larger still; so he turns next to deal with their attitudes toward him in particular."84
The apostle now returned to the subject of himself and the other teachers of the Corinthians as servants of God. He did so to say more about what it means to be a servant of God. In this section he clarified the essential features of an acceptable servant of God. He did this so his readers would appreciate them all more and so they would follow Paul's example as a servant themselves. However, Paul stressed his authority too since the factions in the church that favored Apollos, Peter, or Christ really opposed Paul.
"Throughout 1 Corinthians 1-4 Paul is primarily concerned to address the factionalism that was tearing the church apart with squabbles, jealousy, and one-upmanship. But because not a little of this quarreling arose from the habit of different groups in the church associating themselves with various well-known Christian leaders (I follow Paul,' . . .), Paul found it necessary to address several Corinthian misconceptions regarding the nature of genuine Christian leadership. These believers were adopting too many models from their surrounding world."85
"What Paul is trying to do above all else is to get the Corinthians to enter his orbit, to see things from his eschatological perspective. Therefore, it is not simply a matter of his being right and their being wrong on certain specific issues. It has to do with one's whole existence, one's whole way of looking at life, since you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.'"86
