1 Corinthians 3

Notes

Ver. 1. And indeed, brethren, when I was among you, I perceived in you such an earthly-minded, opinionative, and disputatious temper, as discovered you to be really weak in spiritual knowledge and experience. 2. I therefore made it my chief care to instruct you in the plain principles of the gospel concerning Christ and his salvation, which were suited to your weak capacities, not entering into the more sublime and abstruse points, which neither then, nor even now, ye can improve to your real edification. 3. Your present contentions and envying of one another is a plain evidence that many of you do not in a spiritual manner, or upon proper authority, take up the doctrines of the gospel, but are under the influence of your natural corruptions, and act in the manner of unregenerate men. 4. Nothing can more plainly manifest your great carnality of temper than to extol particular ministers as if they were to be the lords of your faith: 5. For what are ministers but servants of Christ, by whose preaching of one and the same doctrine ye were brought, not by their skill or power, but by his gracious operation on your hearts, to receive and rest upon him for your salvation? 6. I, as an apostle, first published the gospel among you, which, through the gracious and almighty influences of the Holy Ghost, proved instrumental in the conversion of many of you; and Apollos, coming after, laboured in promoting your spiritual edification: but whatever success he or I had, was entirely owing to God's powerful blessing and influence on our labours; 7. And therefore to him alone ought all the glory to be ascribed; not in the least to us, who are neither the authors of the gospel, nor of its efficacy upon you. 8. Whether we be instrumental in the conversion or in the building up of souls, we all act under the same authority of Christ, and are united in our doctrine and principal design, yea, are all accountable to God, and are equally incapable in ourselves of producing any saving effects by our ministrations: and if faithful, shall in due time receive from him a gracious reward answerable to that diligence which his own free grace has enabled us to use. 9. For all of us labour jointly with the same views, and as his workmen, with and in subordination to God, who will never desert us in our work, nor be unmindful of us: and ye are not ours, but God's workmanship and property, and therefore ought to be devoted entirely and only to him. 10. And I, being employed under him as his distinguished workman and first labourer among you, have, with all that knowledge, wisdom, prudence, and care, which he enabled me to exercise, laid the ground-work of your faith and hope, safety and comfort, in the gospel doctrines of a crucified Jesus, and salvation by him alone. Every preacher therefore who comes after me must take care that he attempt not to build you up by any doctrine inconsistent therewith. 11. It is beyond the power of any to lay another foundation of true holiness or happiness beside what is already laid in the incarnation, obedience, and death of the Son of God in our nature, and which is exhibited in the Scripture, and was taught by me. 12. And if Apollos, or any other like-minded, should now, after my preaching, attempt to edify you with the precious truths of God; or if others of a different stamp should attempt to build on it the unsubstantial, contemptible, and perishing inventions of men, 13. Their whole doctrines and practices, as well as those of all other men, shall at the last day be thoroughly tried by Jesus Christ according to the standard of his Word; and the truth and value, or the falsehood and emptiness thereof, be fully manifested to all around. 14. Whoever then shall, in his doctrine and practice, be agreeable to the Scriptures, and answerable to the foundation truth of free salvation through Jesus' blood, shall be graciously and amply rewarded in proportion to his faithfulness and diligence: 15. And whosoever shall, in his doctrine or behaviour, be found unscriptural, though not fundamentally erroneous, shall indeed, if united to Christ, though with apparent difficulty, be saved from eternal wrath; but have nothing but shame and dishonour for his erroneous notions and bad practices. 16. Remember therefore, that as ye, who are God's true church, founded upon Christ preached in the gospel, are set apart, sanctified, and devoted to him as his temple, in which, through his Spirit, he dwells by sweet relation, possession, operation, and favour; 17. If any of you maintain and propagate such errors as are subversive of the foundation, and so at once corrupt yourselves and the church, he shall certainly be punished by him in a fearful and lasting manner, as a defiler of his gospel temple, more sacred and dear to him than any of the apartments of the Jewish. 18. Let therefore every man, preacher or hearer, take heed, lest, through a conceit of his superior understanding, he bring loss and ruin upon himself; and if any have apparently a large stock of earthly wisdom, let him renounce it all as insufficient to lead him to the attainment of gospel truth; and in becoming truly wise towards God, and to the salvation of his soul, through faith in Christ, let him patiently submit to be esteemed as a fool by the carnal pretenders to reason; 19, 20. For as the Scripture repeatedly testifies, all the policy, prudence, wit, and learning, which give men a reputation for wisdom in this world, are but folly in God's account, when compared with his glorious scheme of salvation through a crucified Redeemer: and in the end it will appear to have ensnared them, and discovered the vanity of their minds. 21, 22. Since human knowledge then is so insignificant, and no man can direct you into the way of salvation, but as he himself is taught of God, let none of you, to your own spiritual hurt, set up one gospel minister as his head in opposition to another; for all things, particularly those relating to the dispensation of the gospel, are in the new kingdom secured for, and given to, you who believe, and are divinely directed for your spiritual advantage: all faithful ministers, with all their gifts, graces, and ministrations, are appointed for building you up in faith, holiness, and comfort, to eternal salvation: all the wealth, honours, pleasures, and transactions of this world are in Christ's hands for you, to be given you in property or use, as shall tend to your real good: life, in all its diversified conditions, and death, in all its harbingers and forms, are yours: 23. And what secures all these to you, completes your happiness, as well as calls for your attachment to him, is, that ye are saved from sin by Christ, cleansed from sin by his sacrifice, and filled with all the blessings of his grace and glory; and Christ is God's dear Son and faithful Servant, set up by him to be the infallible mean of your eternal salvation, to the praise of the glory of his love.

Ver. 3. Ye are carnal. By calling the Corinthians 'carnal' the apostle does not mean under the dominion of 'the carnal mind,' Ro. 8. 7, for then, instead of being 'babes in Christ,' they would have been in 'enmity against God.' But he means that, while compared with other believers, they 'came behind in no gift, being enriched in all utterance, and in all knowledge,' ch. 1. 5, 7, yet were they inferior to others in the quality of Christian prudence, which avoids all 'doubtful disputations,' and of the Christian temper which 'bears the infirmities of the weak,' and which in all its witness to the truth, Ro. 14. 1; 15. 1, 'still labours to preserve inviolate the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace,' Ep. 4. 3. C.

Ver. 12. Gold, silver, precious stones—emblems of the glorious truths of the gospel.—Wood, hay, stubble—emblems of errors, not fundamental—but useless, vain, and trifling—such as endless genealogies that never can be settled upon any divine authority, traditions of men, with rites and ceremonies invented as aids to piety, but becoming clogs and weights to the progress of vital godliness. C.

Ver. 15. He himself shall be saved—because he built upon the foundation, Christ (ver. 10); yet 'his work shall be burned,' because his superstructure consisted of mere rituals and imaginations.—Note, The attempt of Romanists to extract from this passage the figment of purgatory is vain—for every man's works—the things saved and burned are tried in the same fire, ver. 13, 15; and, so far as their authority avails, the doctrine obtains no support from the earlier fathers; and the detected attempt to interpolate Theodoret on the passage, throws more than suspicion over all similar interpretations. C.

Ver. 18. Let him become a fool in the estimation of an ill-judging world, to whom salvation by a crucified Saviour appears the very height of absurdity. C.

Reflections.—With great faithfulness and prudence ought ministers to accommodate themselves to the capacities and circumstances of their hearers. And often great pretenders to wisdom and knowledge have no true grace in their heart. When all Christ's faithful ministers are, under him, united in the same spirit and design, how absurd is it to kindle contentions in the church by setting up one above another! Their honour is great in being workers together with God in the salvation of men. And the effectual success of their labours flows wholly from his power and grace. Yet none must expect God to bless their administrations, but in preaching Christ as the sole foundation of the hopes and happiness of sinful men laid by his Father. Terrible is their ruin who refuse to build on him; and great their loss who attempt to mingle their own fancies with the doctrines of Christ. Exact shall be our future account; and our eternal honours be proportioned to our right improvement of Christ and his truths on earth. And very necessary is holiness in every church and member thereof. Great is the danger of selfconceit. And it is very sinful and ruinous to trust our eternal happiness to the care and direction of our carnal wisdom, which is so insignificant before God. But extensive is their happiness, and high their honour, who, as united to Christ through his sacrifice, and to God in him, have all things, present and future, secured as their property, and divinely directed to their best advantage.