Paul continued dealing with the subject of going to idol temples to participate in pagan feasts in this section. In it he gave a warning to the believer who considered himself strong, the one who knew there were really no gods but the true God. Such a person felt free to accept the invitation of a pagan neighbor to dine in a pagan temple (8:10). The apostle cautioned this element in the Corinthian church because, even though there are no other gods, the possibility of participating in idolatry is very real. He drew his lesson from the experience of Israel during the wilderness wanderings (cf. Exod. 13-17; Num. 10-15).
The point of this example is that God's people can practice idolatry, and persisting in idolatry has dire consequences. Paul stressed the similarity of experience that the church, the Corinthian church particularly, and Israel shared by pointing out that each group had its own "baptism"and "Lord's Supper."
10:1-2 Paul did not want his readers to overlook a very important possibility as they thought about eating special meals in idol temples. He reminded them that their fathers in the faith, believers in Israel, were also all under the protective influence of God. The Corinthians knewthese facts from the Old Testament, but they did not appreciate their significance. The cloud that led them in their wilderness wanderings symbolized God's loving care. Likewise they all experienced a miraculous deliverance when they crossed the Red Sea. Moreover all of them associated with Moses who was their leader and God's instrument in their redemption.
Baptism is the outward expression of the believer's identification with the object of his or her faith (cf. Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27). Consequently Paul could say the Israelites were baptized into Moses even though they did not undergo literal water baptism in the name of Moses. By following him and submitting to his authority they expressed their identification with him. The parallel with water baptism was most vivid when they went under the cloud and crossed the Red Sea. These experiences constituted a dry baptism for the Israelites.
10:3-4 Furthermore all the Israelites, not just some of them, ate the manna and drank water from the rock. They ate manna throughout their wilderness sojourn (Deut. 8:2-4), and they drank from the rock at the beginning (Exod. 17:1-7) and at the end of it (Num. 20:2-13). Paul called the manna and water spiritual food and drink because God provided them supernaturally and because they have spiritual significance. Both of them point to Christ, the real sustainer of His people (cf. John 6:35, 48-51; 7:37-38). The Israelites thought of God as a rock (Deut. 32: 4, 15, 18, 30-31; et al.). He as a rock, not some physical rock, accompanied them in the wilderness. Their eating and drinking of God is similar to and anticipated the Christian Lord's Supper.
Paul's point in these first four verses was that the Israelites were the chosen people of God just as Christians are now the chosen people of God. God accompanied and provided for them faithfully in the past just as He does for all Christians now.
10:5 In spite of these blessings, similar to those Christians enjoy, God was not happy with His people Israel. He permitted none of the adult generation of military age, 20 years old and older, to enter the Promised Land, except Caleb and Joshua. All but those two individuals from that generation died in the wilderness. How the majority displeased God and lost their privileges follows.
Though idolatry was the cause of Israel's failure and the focus of Paul's warning to this church, four other evil characteristics of Israel also seem to have marked the Corinthians. These characteristics also resulted in the Israelites dying in the wilderness.
10:6 The experiences of the Israelites provide lessons for us. Their baptism and partaking of spiritual food and drink did not protect them from God's discipline when they craved evil things. Participation in baptism and the Lord's Supper will not protect Christians either. We should never regard participation in these ordinances as immunizing us against God's discipline if we sin against Him.
The Greek word translated "examples"is typosfrom which we get the English word "type."The experiences of the Israelites in the wilderness are types. They were early examples of situations that would recur later in history that God designed to teach His people lessons.219
10:7 In verses 7-10 Paul cited four practices that got the Israelites into trouble with God. All of them were possibilities for the Corinthians as they fraternized with pagans by participating in their feasts. They are all possibilities for us too.
First, the Israelites participated in idolatry when they ate and played in the presence of the golden calf (Exod. 32:6). It is possible that their "play"involved sexual immorality (cf. Gen. 26:8; Num. 25:1-3). The scene on that occasion must have been similar to what happened at the feasts some of the Corinthians attended. There is a danger that we may compromise our commitment to God, as the Israelites did, when we participate in pagan celebrations.
10:8 Second, the Israelites practiced immorality (lit. fornication) when they participated in one of the Moabites' religious feasts (Num. 25:1-9).220If this sin is only implicit in the record of the Golden Calf incident, it is explicit in the account of the Baal Peor incident. Clearly this was taking place in the Corinthian church (5:1-5, 10-11; 6:9-10, 12-20). Some Christians have participated in fornication that unbelievers have lured them into.
10:9 Third, the Israelites tested the Lord by taxing His patience.221They continued to complain even though He faithfully provided for them (Num. 21:4-9). His provision of manna and water was not adequate from their point of view, and they despised it (Num. 21:5). The Corinthians had given evidence of being dissatisfied with God's prohibition of participation in pagan feasts by opposing Paul's teaching on this point.
Likewise Christians are in danger of failing to appreciate God's provisions for them in Christ and despising Him. We can feel dissatisfied rather than thankful and content. Evidence that this attitude existed in the Corinthian church surfaces in 1:12 and 11:17-34. Perhaps the fact that some of the believers were participating in pagan feasts also indicated dissatisfaction with the Christians' special feast, the Lord's Supper.
10:10 Fourth, the Israelites grumbled frequently against the Lord during the wilderness wanderings. Moses recorded 10 separate instances in Exodus and Numbers. However the occasion Paul had in mind was when God sent fire that consumed some of the people on the edge of the camp (Num. 11:1-3). Here Paul added that God executed His wrath by using an angel, a fact that Moses did not mention in Numbers. The Septuagint translators used the same term, "the destroyer"(Gr. olothreutes), to describe the angel who executed the Egyptians' first-born on the night of the Exodus (Exod. 12:23; cf. Heb. 11:28).
Many instances of the Corinthian Christians' dissatisfactions with God's provisions for them come out in this epistle. Not the least of these was their rejection of some of the Lord's servants who had come to minister to them because they preferred some others (1:10-4:21). They did not appreciate Paul's earlier instruction to break off company with idolaters and the sexually immoral (5:9-11). Another example is the impatience of the "strong"in the church with the "weak"(8:1-3). Grumbling is a telltale sign of selfishness and discontent with what God has given us.
10:11 Having cited four specific examples of Israelite failure (vv. 7-10), Paul restated the general principle (cf. v. 6).
The last phrase in this verse refers to the present age as the time of fulfillment about which the Old Testament prophet had spoken. We should be careful that we do not overlook the lessons of history since we live in these times.
10:12 Paul concluded with a word of warning to those who felt too confident that they were all right with God (cf. vv. 1-4; 8:4-6). The "strong"who felt free to participate in pagan feasts seem to be those he had in mind. Self-confidence could lead to a spiritual fall, as it had so often in Israel's history.
10:13 The apostle did not want his readers to overreact and become paranoid as they considered Israel's record either. Failure was not inevitable. The temptations the Corinthians faced were not unique, and the Lord would give them grace to handle any temptation they might face.222
God has promised to enable us to do His will in any and every situation, and He will stand true to His promise (cf. Matt. 28:20; et al.). He provides a way of escape with every temptation He allows to touch us. The use of the definite article "the"with both "temptation"and "way of escape"points to a particular way of escape that is available in each temptation. Paul did not mean there is one way of escape that is available regardless of the temptation. If we deliberately put ourselves in the way of temptation and so put God to the test (v. 9), we are not taking advantage of the way of escape. We may fall. Therefore we should flee from idolatry (v. 14).
The Corinthians were putting themselves in danger by continuing to attend cultic meals, which they needed to stop doing. Nevertheless God had made a way of escape open to them, as He had with Israel. The Lord's Supper and the Christian fellowship connected with it was His divine replacement of this idolatrous activity (v. 16).
This whole section (vv. 1-13) deals with the dangers involved in participating in pagan activities. Some of these activities are wrong in themselves because they involve idolatry, and Christians should not participate in them. If we should participate, we need to be aware that in doing so we are walking on the edge of a precipice over which many other believers have fallen, including the Israelites in the wilderness. We dare not underestimate the danger of the situation or overestimate our own ability to handle it. We need to walk closely with God every day.
The apostle proceeded to warn his readers of the danger of idolatry further (cf. v. 7). This paragraph concludes the long argument that Paul began in 8:1 concerning going to temple feasts.
10:14 Formerly Paul urged the Corinthians to flee fornication (6:18; cf. v. 8). Now he concluded all he said in verses 1-13 with the charge to flee idolatry, the worship of idols. He softened his strong command with an affectionate address ("my beloved"). Amoral activities are alright for the Christian, but if they involve or lead to idolatry we should avoid them.
10:15 This statement prepares for what follows. The apostle was confident that the Corinthians had the wisdom to understand the correctness of what he was about to tell them. He believed they could make correct judgments about what they should do. Still, to follow his logic they would need to use their minds. As we have seen, the Corinthians considered themselves very wise. They should judge for themselves that Paul was right.
10:16 The apostle employed rhetorical questions again to make his point. He was setting the Corinthians up for what he would say in verses 19-21.
Most New Testament references to the bread and the cup in the Lord's Supper occur in that order. Here Paul reversed the normal order. He probably turned them around because he wanted to give more attention to the bread in the verses that follow. The cup may focus on the vertical dimension of fellowship between the believer and the Lord whereas the bread focuses on the horizontal dimension (cf. v. 17).223The pagan feasts also emphasized both dimensions of fellowship, with the god and with the fellow-worshippers.
The "cup of blessing"was a technical term for the third of four cups of wine that the Jews drank in the Passover celebration. At the Last Supper the drinking of this cup preceded the giving of thanks for the bread (cf. Luke 22:17-20). However the Lord's Supper only involved eating bread and drinking one cup (cf. 11:23-29).
Paul described the cup as a cup of blessing, a common Jewish expression for the last cup of wine drunk at many meals. The Jews used it as a kind of toast to God for His goodness.224However, Paul turned this around by saying we bless the cup. That is, we give thanks to God for the cup because of what it symbolizes, namely our sharing in the benefits of Christ's shed blood (cf. 11:25).
Likewise the bread used at the Christian feast, the Lord's Supper, is a symbol of our participation in the effects of Christ's slain body (cf. 11:24). The Greek word here translated "sharing"(NASB) or "participation"(NIV; koinonia) in other places reads "fellowship"or "communion."This is why another name for the Lord's Supper is the communion service.
10:17 When Christians take communion we all eat from one bread symbolic of the physical body of Christ. In the early church believers seem to have used one loaf, the literal meaning of the word translated "bread"in this verse (artos). Paul stressed that many people eating from one loaf symbolized the solidarityof our relationship as a redeemed community in Christ. (He developed the idea of the unityof the body more fully in 12:14-27 in his explanation of the diversity that exists within the unity of the spiritual body of Christ, the church.) The emphasis here is on the solidarity of believers that forbids all other unions.
10:18 We can see the partnership of those who partake of sacrifices with everything the altar stands for in Judaism (cf. Deut. 14:22-27). Paul referred to Israel literally as "Israel according to the flesh."He contrasted all the physical Israelites with those who are Jewish Christians (cf. Phil. 3:3). This description lends no support to the idea that the church replaces Israel in the program of God. "Israel"always refers to Jewish people in the New Testament.
Paul's line of reasoning was proceeding as follows. Christians who eat the bread at the Lord's Supper thereby express their solidarity with one another and with Christ. Likewise Jews who ate the meat of animals offered in the sacrifices of Judaism expressed their solidarity with one another and with God. Therefore Christians who eat the meat offered to pagan gods as part of pagan worship express their solidarity with pagans and with the pagan deities.
"As in the Holy Communion, therefore, so also in the Temple services, participating in sacrificial feasts is sacrificial fellowship with an unseen power, a power that is Divine. There is something analogous to this in the sacrificial feasts of the heathen; but in that case the unseen power is not Divine."225
The "wise"man in Corinth (v. 15) could have replied to Paul's conclusion as follows. Yes, but you agreed before that idols have no real existence and there is only one true God.
10:19 Paul proceeded to clarify what he meant. He was not saying that sacrifices to idols or idols themselves were anything. That is, sacrifices to idols were not in themselves sinful nor were idols genuine entities. On this point he and the Corinthians agreed. Idols were only pieces of wood or stone, not gods with supernatural powers. Nevertheless these idols represented supernatural powers (v. 20), and so eating cultic meals had genuine significance.
10:20 The power behind pagan religion is demonic (cf. Deut. 32:17; Ps. 106:37). Consequently people who sacrifice to idols express solidarity with demonic powers. Eating the food sacrificed to idols means that the people who participated shared in what had been sacrificed to demons just as the Israelites shared in what had been sacrificed to God. The cultic feasts were really sacrifices to demons, so they involved the worship of demons.
10:21 It is inconsistent for a Christian to partake in the Lord's Supper and to take part in pagan religious feasts. In the former he eats and drinks in union with Christ, and in the latter he is in union with demons who direct the devotees to worship idols. What the Lord promotes and what the demons promote are opposite. This inconsistency must be obvious to "wise men"(v. 15). Christians have a unique relationship with the Lord and with fellow-believers, which the Lord's Supper symbolizes. It is, therefore, inappropriate for us to have a similar association with demons and unbelievers (vv. 20-21), which participation in cultic events involves.
10:22 The Israelites provoked the Lord to jealousy by doing just such a thing when they joined in Moabite worship (Num. 25; cf. Deut. 32:17, 21-22). We are to learn from their experiences. It would be folly to provoke the Lord unless we are stronger than He. If we provoke Him and are not, we can count on His chastening since He is a jealous God.
The Corinthians were arguing for the right to attend pagan religious meals. They even viewed attendance as a way of building their "weaker"brethren. Paul responded that attendance was wrong on two counts: it was unloving, and it was incompatible with life in Christ, which their participation in the Lord's Table symbolized. He forbade any relationship with the demonic. The demonic is not as remote as some modern Western Christians would like to believe.
