The book of 1 Corinthian 1
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE
TO THE
CORINTHIANS
THE ARGUMENT
Corinth (the inhabitants of which are called Corinthians) was an eminent city of Achaia, (that Achaia which is now called the Morea,) and was situated on an isthmus, or neck of land, betwixt the Aegean and Ionian Seas; so was very convenient for merchandise, and by merchandise came to great riches, which gave them great temptations to luxury, drunkenness, whoredom, etc. They were very infamous for the latter, as we read in writers, and grown to that impudence, that they made the increase of harlots a part of their prayers to their idols, and made the bringing of harlots into the city a part of their vows. Lais was a harlot amongst them, very famous in civil history. And as pride usually attendeth wealth, so they also were a people very proud and puffed up. They were also anciently famous for pagan learning, and had amongst them Stoics and Epicureans, who laughed at the resurrection of the body, and looked upon incest, adultery, and fornication, as very venial things, if at all unlawful. We read of Paul’s first coming thither from Athens, Acts 18:1, where, Acts 16:11, he continued eighteen months; there he converted Crispus, 1 Cor 1:8, and Sosthenes, and many believed and were baptized. Paul went from thence to Ephesus, 1 Cor 16:18-19. To the church thus planted at Corinth Paul writeth this Epistle, at what time is not certain; but he is thought to have written it from Ephesus, whither he came, Acts 19:1, the second time, and, as appears from 1 Cor 1:10, was going and coming to and from that city between two and three years. The occasion of his writing this Epistle will appear to any who consideringly reads it. He had heard from some who were of the house of Chloe, 1 Cor 1:11, of factions and contentions that were amongst them, and had heard it reported that they suffered an incestuous person to abide in their communion, 1 Cor 5:1. They had also written to him for his resolution in several cases and questions about marriage, divorce, etc. He had also heard of several disorders amongst them relating to their communion in the Lord’s supper, and of some amongst them who denied the resurrection. For the allaying of these heats, and quieting their divisions, and for the direction of them in those cases about which they wrote to him, and the setting them right in the doctrine of the resurrection, and directing them in the true and profitable use of their gifts, and in the right celebration of the Lord’s supper, and the quickening the exercise of their charity, he writes this Epistle; which is supposed to be placed in our Bibles next to the Epistle to the Romans, (though plainly written in order of time before,) because that as that Epistle most fully discourseth the doctrine of justification, so this most fully resolves questions concerning church order and government. It is a book of holy writ concerning the Divine authority of which there was never any doubt, nor hath any portion of holy writ (for the quantity of it) a greater variety of matter, nor more of those dusno&hta, things hard to be understood, which St. Peter (2 Pet 3:16) tells us are in this apostle’s Epistles; the difficulty of which much ariseth from our ignorance of some rites used in the primitive church, but long since disused, and the usages of that country different from ours.
1 CORINTHIANS 1
1 Cor 1:1-3: After saluting the church at Corinth,
1 Cor 1:4-9: and thanking God for his grace toward them,
1 Cor 1:10: Paul exhorteth them to unity,
1 Cor 1:11-16: and reproveth their dissensions.
1 Cor 1:17-25: The plain doctrine of the gospel, how foolish soever in the eyes of the world, is the power and wisdom of God to the salvation of believers.
1 Cor 1:26-29: God, to take away human boasting, hath not called the wise, the mighty, the noble; but the foolish, the weak, the despised among men.
1 Cor 1:30-31: Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
1 Cor 1:1. Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ: our common custom is to subscribe our name to the bottom of our letters; it seems by the apostolical Epistles, that their fashion was otherwise: he elsewhere telleth us, that it was his token in every epistle, which makes some doubt, whether that to the Hebrews was wrote by him; but others think it is there concealed, for the particular spite the Jews had to him. He had the name of Saul as well as Paul, as we read, Acts 7:58; Acts 9:1: whether he had two names, (as many of the Jews had,) or Saul was the name by which he was called before his conversion, and Paul his name after he was converted, or after he was made a citizen of Rome, (for Paul is a Roman name, nor do we read that after his conversion he was ever called by the name of Saul,) is not worth our disputing. He was a man of Tarsus in Cilicia, by his nation a Jew, both by father and mother; an Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, bred up at the feet of Gamaliel, one of their great doctors; he was also citizen of Rome, as himself tells us, Acts 21:39; Acts 22:3,27; Phil 3:5; by his trade a tent maker, Acts 18:3; a great zealot for the Jewish ceremonies and law, and upon that score a great persecutor, consenting to the death of Stephen, and breathing out threatenings against Christians. Of his miraculous conversion we read, in Acts 9, as also of his being called to be an apostle, not one of those first sent out by Christ, but yet called: he gives king Agrippa a full account of his calling, Acts 26:12-19. Through the will of God; so as he was an apostle by the will of God, God’s special revelation from heaven: he did not thrust himself into the employment, but was sent of God in an extraordinary manner; not only mediately, (as all ministers are,) but by an immediate call and mission. And Sosthenes our brother: in the salutation prefixed to this Epistle, he joineth Sosthenes, whom he calls his brother. Of this Sosthenes we read, Acts 18:17; he was a chief ruler of the synagogue, but converted to Christianity; Paul disdaineth not to call him his brother.
1 Cor 1:2. Unto the church of God which is at Corinth; unto those in Corinth who having received the doctrine of the gospel, and owned Jesus Christ as their Saviour, were united in one ecclesiastical body for the worship of God, and communion one with another. Corinth was a famous city in Achaia, (which Achaia was joined to Greece by a neck of land betwixt the Aegean and Ionian Seas,) it grew the most famous mart of all Greece. Paul came thither from Athens, Acts 18:1. Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue there, believed, upon Paul’s preaching; so did many Corinthians, and were baptized, 1 Cor 1:9. He stayed there eighteen months, 1 Cor 1:11; there Sosthenes (mentioned 1 Cor 1:1) was converted; from thence Paul went to Ephesus, 1 Cor 1:19. These believers were those here called the church of God at Corinth, to whom he writes this Epistle (as it should seem from 1 Cor 16: 
from Ephesus, where Paul stayed three years, Acts 20:31. The members of this church the apostle calleth such as are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints: whether by the term the apostle meaneth only such as by the preaching of the gospel were separated from the heathens at Corinth, and professed faith in Christ, (as, Acts 15:9, the apostle saith the Gentiles’ hearts were purified by faith,) or such in Corinth as were really regenerated, and had their hearts renewed and changed, is not easy to determine: both of them are saints by calling; the former are called externally by the preaching of the gospel, the other internally and effectually by the operation of the Spirit of grace. It is most probable, that St. Paul intended this Epistle for the whole body of those that professed the Christian religion in Corinth, though in writing of it he had a more special respect to those who were truly sanctified in Christ by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. Nor doth Paul only respect those that lived in Corinth, but he directs his Epistle to all those who in any place of Achaia called upon the name of Jesus Christ, whom he calleth their Lord, and our Lord: which is an eminent place to prove the Divine nature of Christ; he is not only called our Lord, our common Lord, but he is made the object of invocation and Divine worship: and it teacheth us, that none but such as call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, are fit matter for a gospel church; which both excludes such as deny the Godhead of Christ, and such as live without God in the world, without performance of religious homage to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, and owning him as their Lord.
1 Cor 1:3. This is the common salutation in all Paul’s Epistles, only in one or two mercy is also added. Grace signifies free love. Peace signifies either a reconciliation with God, or brotherly love and unity each with other: see the notes on Rom 1:7. The apostle wisheth them spiritual blessings, and the greatest spiritual blessings, grace and peace, and that not from and with men, but from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Cor 1:4. Lest his former salutation should be misapprehended by them, as signifying that he thought they were without grace, he here cleareth his meaning by blessing God for that grace which they had received: but no man hath so much grace, but he is still capable of more, and stands in need of further influences; therefore, as he here blesseth God for the grace of God, which they by Jesus Christ received; so he before prayed for grace and peace for them, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is both the Author and Finisher of our faith, he giveth both to will and to do. The beginnings, increases, and finishings of grace are all from him. Grace is indeed from God the Father, but by Jesus Christ; it floweth from him who is Love, but it is through his Well-beloved. No man hath the love of God, but by and through Jesus Christ.
1 Cor 1:5. In every thing; in every grace and in every good gift, (for he is manifestly speaking of spiritual things,) so as this general particle must not be extended to the things of this life, but restrained either to spiritual gifts, or spiritual, sanctifying habits. Thus we read of the riches of grace, Eph 1:7, and of the riches of Christ, Eph 3:8: nor is the metaphor improper, whether we consider riches as signifying plenty or abundance, or that which accommodateth a man in this life, and is fitted to men’s wants, to give them a supply. In all utterance; the word may be translated, in everything, or, in all speech; but the first having been said before, it seems more proper here to translate it, in all word or speech, or in all utterance, as we translate it. If it be taken in the first sense, the gospel is by it understood, the doctrine of the gospel preached amongst them by Paul and Apollos, who preached among the Gentiles the riches of Christ, Eph 3:8. If we interpret it utterance, which our translators prefer, it signifies an ability to utter that knowledge which God hath given us, to the glory of God and the good of others, either in prayer or spiritual discourses. And in all knowledge: some by knowledge here understand the gift of prophecy; but it more properly signifies the ability God had given them to comprehend in their understanding the mysteries of the gospel, the great and deep things of God. The apostle blesseth God both for the illumination of their minds by the ministry of the gospel, so as they knew the things of God, and also for the ability which God had given them to communicate this their knowledge to others.
1 Cor 1:6. By which knowledge and utterance the testimony of Christ, that is, the gospel, which containeth both the testimony which Christ had given of himself, and which the apostles had given concerning Christ; (the gospel is called the testimony of God, Rom 2:1; 2 Tim 1:8 
others understand the gifts of, the Spirit (for the Spirit is one of the witnesses upon earth, 1 John 5:8 was confirmed in you; by the miraculous operations wrought by the apostles, as some think; but the way of confirmation here spoken of by the apostle seemeth rather to be understood of their knowledge and utterance. The gospel, and the doctrine of it, and the mission of the Holy Spirit, were confirmed to them and to the world by the knowledge which God had given the apostles, and these Corinthians, of the great things of God; and their ability to communicate this knowledge unto others, for the honour of God, and the good of others.
1 Cor 1:7. Not that every one of them was filled with all the gifts of the blessed Spirit; but one excelled in one gift, another excelled in another, as the apostle expounds himself, 1 Cor 12:7-8; neither doth the apostle assert them perfect in their gifts, but saith that they came behindhand, or were defective, in no gift; but were all waiting for the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to judgment, of which he mindeth them, to encourage them to go on as they had began.
1 Cor 1:8. Which Lord Jesus Christ, (mentioned immediately before,) or which God who is faithful, (mentioned immediately after, 1 Cor 1:9,) shall confirm your habits of grace unto the end, approving himself the finisher of your faith, (you being not wanting in your duty and endeavour 
so as either you shall not fall, or at least not totally and finally, but so as you shall rise again, and appear in the day of our Lord Jesus without blame, so as he will accept you as if you had never sinned against him.
1 Cor 1:9. God is faithful: faithfulness is the same with veracity or truth to a man’s word, which renders a person fit to be credited. It is a great attribute of God, 1 Cor 10:13; 1 Thess 5:24. This implieth promises of God for the perseverance of believers, of which there are many to be found in holy writ. But these promises concern not all, but such only whom God hath chosen out of the world, calling them to a communion with Christ, which necessarily supposeth union with him. So as here is another argument to confirm them that God would keep them to the end, so as they should be blameless in the day of Christ; because God had called them into that state of grace wherein they were, and would not leave his work in them imperfect; he had called them unto the fellowship of Jesus Christ; see 1 John 1:3; into a state of friendship with Christ, and into a state of union with him, into such a state as he would daily by his Spirit be communicating the blessed influences of his grace unto them.
1 Cor 1:10. By the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, is as much as, by Christ, by the authority of Christ, for this is his will; or, by the love which you bear to the Lord Jesus Christ, who hath so often recommended to you peace with, and brotherly love towards, one another. That ye all speak the same thing; that in matters of doctrine you all speak the same thing (for it is capable of no other sense and that you neither be divided in sentiments or opinions, nor yet in affection, that there may be no divisions among you; which is also further evidenced by the last phrase, being joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. A union in affection is the necessary and indispensable duty of all those that are the disciples of Christ, and such a duty as not only concerns Christians of the same nation, with relation one to another, but also Christians of all nations, and may be attained, if by our lusts we do not hinder it. A union in opinion, as to the fundamental truths of religion, is (though not so easy, yet) what the church of God hath in a great measure arrived at. But for a union in every particular proposition of truth, is not a thing to be expected, though we all are to labour for it: God hath neither given unto all the same means, nor the same natural capacities.
1 Cor 1:11. The apostle cometh to show one reason, as why he wrote to them, so also why in the preceding verse he so zealously pressed unity upon them, because of an information he had received from some of the family of Chloe; for it is far more probable that Chloe was the name of a person, head of a family in Corinth, than of a city or town. There are contentions among you: what their divisions were about, the next verses will tell us.
1 Cor 1:12. Every one here signifieth no more than many of you, or several of you; so 1 Cor 14:26: from whence, those that think they have such a mighty argument from Heb 2:9, where is the same particle to prove Christ’s dying for all individuals, may undeceive themselves, and find that they have need of better arguments to prove their assertion. I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ: we may from hence observe, that the divisions amongst the Corinthians were not in matters of faith, but occasioned from their having men’s persons in admiration. This was probably caused either from God’s making of Paul the instrument of some of their conversion, Apollos the instrument of others’ conversion, and Peter the instrument of others’, or else from the difference of their gifts. Of this Apollos we read, Acts 18:24; he was a Jew of Alexandria, who (as may be seen there, 1 Cor 1:2 mightily convinced they, and that publicly, and probably was as useful to the Corinthians. One minister of Christ may be justly preferred to another. We ought to honour those most whom God most honoureth, either by a more plentiful giving out of his Spirit, or by a more plentiful success upon their labours; but we ought not so far to appropriate any ministers to ourselves, as for them to despise others. We are not bound to make every minister our pastor, but we are bound to have a just respect for every minister, who by his doctrine and holy life answereth his profession and holy calling.
1 Cor 1:13. How came these parties? There is but one Christ, but one that was crucified for you, but one into whose name, into a faith in whom, and a profession of whom, you were baptized. Peter baptized you into the name of Christ, so did I; I did not list those whom I baptized under any banner of my own, but under Christ’s banner. The Head is but one, and the body ought not to be divided.
1 Cor 1:14. Concerning the apostle’s baptizing Crispus we read, Acts 18:8; he was the chief ruler of the synagogue of the Jews: why Paul thanks God that he baptized not many, he tells us, 1 Cor 1:15.
1 Cor 1:15. Because by that providence of God it so fell out, that very few of them could pretend any such thing, as that he had baptized any in his own name.
1 Cor 1:16. He correcteth himself, remembering that he also baptized the household of Stephanas, which (1 Cor 16:15) he calleth the firstfruits of Achaia, a family that had addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints. Besides, I know not whether I baptized any other; he did not remember that he had baptized any more at Corinth, though it is very probable he had baptized many more in other parts of the world, where he had been travelling.
1 Cor 1:17. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel; baptism was not his principal work, not the main business for which Paul was sent; it was his work, otherwise he would not have baptized Crispus, or Gaius, or the household of Stephanas, but preaching was his principal work. It is very probable others (besides the apostles) baptized. It is hard to conceive how three thousand should in a day be added to the church, if Peter had baptized them all, Acts 2:41. The apostle goes on, telling us how he preached the gospel, and thereby instructing all faithful ministers how they ought to preach. Not with wisdom of words, or speech. Wisdom of words must signify either what we call rhetoric, or logic, delivering the mysteries of the gospel in lofty, tunable expressions, or going about to evidence them from rational demonstrations and arguments. This was the way (he saith) to have taken away all authority from the doctrine of the cross of Christ: Divine faith being nothing else but the soul’s assent to the Divine revelation because it is such, is not furthered, but hindered, by the arguing the object of it from the principles of reason, and the colouring of it with high-flown words and trim phrases. There is a decent expression to be used in the communicating the will of God unto men; but we must take heed that we do not diminish the authority of God’s revealed will, either by puerile flourishings of words, or philosophical argumentation.
1 Cor 1:18. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness: I know (saith the apostle) that plain discourses about a Christ crucified are to some persons foolish things, and accounted canting; but to whom are they so? To those who, if they be not some that shall perish eternally, yet are some of those who at present are in a perishing estate; these indeed count sermons of Christ silly, foolish things. But unto us which are saved it is the power of God; but to those who shall be eternally saved, and are at present in the true road to eternal life and salvation, it is, that is, the preaching of the gospel is, that institution of God by which he showeth his power in the salvation of those who shall be saved. The apostle saith the same, Rom 1:16.
1 Cor 1:19. What Isaiah said of the wise men among the Jews in his time, is applicable to the wise men among the heathen, God will destroy their wisdom, and make their understanding appear to be no better than foolishness. So as it is not at all to be admired, if the philosophers of this world count the gospel, and the preaching of it, foolishness; the taking away the wisdom and understanding of men worldly wise, is but an ordinary dispensation of God’s providence, no more than God threatened to do in Isaiah’s time to the men of that generation.
1 Cor 1:20. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? He alludeth again to that, Isa 33:18: Where is the scribe? where is the receiver? Where are the wise men amongst the heathens? Where are the scribes, the learned men in the law, amongst the Jews? Where is the disputer of this world? Where are those amongst Jews or Gentiles that are the great inquirers into the reasons and natures of things, and manage debates and disputes about them? They understand nothing of the mysteries of the gospel, or the way of salvation, which God holds out to the world in and through Jesus Christ. Or, where are they? What have they done by all their philosophy and moral doctrine, as to the turning of men from sin unto God, from ways of iniquity unto ways of righteousness, in comparison of what we, the ministers of Christ, have done by preaching the doctrine of the gospel, and the cross of Christ? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? Do not you see how God hath fooled the wisdom of the world? Making it to appear vain and contemptible, and of no use, as to the saving of men’s souls; making choice of none of their doctors and great rabbis, to carry that doctrine abroad in the world; and convincing men that, without faith in Christ, all that can be learned from them will be of no avail to the soul.
1 Cor 1:21. For after that in the wisdom of God: some here, by the wisdom of God, understand Jesus Christ, and make the sense thus: When he who is the Wisdom of God came and preached to the world. Others understand the gospel, which is so called, 1 Cor 1:24, and 1 Cor 2:7. But I take the wisdom of God in this text to signify the wise administrations of Divine Providence in the government of the world to his wise ends. The world by wisdom knew not God; the unregenerate part of the world would not come to a knowledge of and an acquaintance with God, in that way whereby he chose to reveal himself in and through Jesus Christ, as to which they were hindered by their own reasonings and knowledge, and apprehended skill in things, and capacity to comprehend them. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe; it pleased God to institute the great ordinance of preaching the gospel, which they count foolishness, as the sacred means by which he would bring all those that give credit to the revelation of it, and receive Christ held forth in it, to eternal life and salvation.
1 Cor 1:22. The Jews were not without some true Divine revelation, and owned the true God, and only desired some miraculous operation from Christ, Matt 12:38; John 4:48, to confirm them that Christ was sent from God: without signs and wonders they would not believe; giving no credit at all to the words of Christ. And the Greeks, (by whom the apostle understands the Gentiles,) especially the more learned part of them, (for Greece was at this time very famous for human literature,) they sought after the demonstration of all things from natural causes and rational arguments, and despised every thing which could not so be made out unto them.
1 Cor 1:23. But we preach Christ crucified; we that are the ministers of Christ, come and preach to them, that there was one hanged upon a cross at Jerusalem, who is the Saviour of the world, and was not cut off for his own sins, but for the sins of his people. Unto the Jews a stumblingblock; the Jews are stumbled at this, looking for a Messiah that should be a great temporal Prince; and besides, accounting it an ignominious thing to believe in one as their Saviour whom they had caused to be crucified. And unto the Greeks foolishness; and the Greeks, the most learned among the Gentiles, look upon it as a foolish, idle story, that one who was and is God blessed for ever, should be crucified.
1 Cor 1:24. Blessed be God, Christ is not to all the Jews a stumblingblock, nor to all the Greeks is he foolishness; for to so many of them as are called, (not by the external call of the gospel, but only by the internal call and effectual operation of the Spirit,) let them be of one nation or another, by their country, Jews or pagans, Christ is so far from being foolishness, that Christ, and the doctrine of the gospel, appear to them the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
1 Cor 1:25. The foolishness of God is wiser than men; the least things that are the products of the wisdom of God, or the contrivance of God for man’s salvation, which the sinful and silly world calls foolishness, are infinitely more wise, and have more wisdom in them, than the wisest imaginations, counsels, and contrivances of men. And the weakness of God is stronger than men; and those things and means which God hath instituted in order to an end, have in them more virtue, power, and efficacy in order to the production of God’s intended effects, than any such means as appear to men’s eyes of reason to have the greatest strength, virtue, and efficacy. Whence we may observe, that the efficacy of preaching for the changing and converting souls, dependeth upon the efficacy of God working in and by that holy institution, which usually attendeth the ministry of those who are not only called and sent out by men, but by God, being fitted for their work, and faithfully discharging of it.
1 Cor 1:26. To prove that this is the method of Divine Providence, to make use of seemingly infirm and weak means to produce his great effects, you need not look further than yourselves; look upon the whole body of your church at Corinth, it is not made up of many that have a reputation for the wise men or the noble men of your city. Some indeed were such; Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, was converted, and Sosthenes; but the generality were men of very ordinary repute.
1 Cor 1:27. God hath even amongst you chosen persons that are in the account of the world as foolish things, to put the wise to shame; and persons of weak esteem, to confound those that are mighty in the repute of the world.
1 Cor 1:28. Things which are not in the world’s account, to bring to nought things which are in high esteem.
1 Cor 1:29. And God doth this in infinite wisdom, consulting his own honour and glory, that none might say, that God hath chosen them because they were nobler born, or in higher repute and esteem in the world, than others, but that the freeness of Divine grace might be seen in all God’s acts of grace.
1 Cor 1:30. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus; of his grace ye are implanted into Christ, and believe in him. You are of him, not by creation only, as all creatures are, but by redemption and regeneration, which is in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom; the principal means by which we come to the knowledge of God, and an acquaintance with his will; for he is the image of the invisible God, Col 1:15. The brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person, Heb 1:3. God hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Cor 4:6. So that he who hath seen him, hath seen the Father, John 14:9. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in him, Col 2:3. And no man knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him, Matt 11:27. Thus, though God destroyed the wisdom of the wise, yet the Corinthians were not without wisdom; for God had made Christ to them wisdom, both causally, being the author of wisdom to them; and objectively, their wisdom lay in their knowledge of him, and in a fellowship and communion with him. And whereas they wanted a righteousness in which they might stand before God justified and accepted, God had also made Christ to them righteousness: Sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, Rom 8:3-4. And sanctification also, believers being renewed and sanctified by his Spirit. And he is also made redemption: where by redemption is meant the redemption of the body, mentioned Rom 8:23; so as redemption here signifies the same with resurrection of the body. Christ is the resurrection, and the life, John 11:25.
1 Cor 1:31. God doth this, or hath done this, for this end, that man should have nothing to glory in, neither wisdom, nor righteousness, nor sanctification, nor redemption, but should glory in the Lord; acknowledging that whatsoever wisdom, righteousness, or holiness he hath, it is all from God, in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.
1 CORINTHIANS 2
1 Cor 2:1-5: Paul declareth that he used not human learning and eloquence in preaching the gospel to his converts, that their faith, being built on the testimony of the Spirit, and on miracles, might be solely ascribed to God.
1 Cor 2:6-13: The gospel doth contain God’s wise, but secret, counsel for bringing men to glory; which no natural abilities could discover, but the Spirit of God only, by which it was revealed to the apostles.
1 Cor 2:14-16: Upon this account, both the doctrine and its teachers are held in disesteem by the mere natural man, who is not duly qualified to judge of and discern them.
1 Cor 2:1. It should seem by the apostle’s so often declaring against that vanity, that even that age much admired a style, and ministers in sacred things delivering their minds, not in a mere decent, but in a lofty, high-flown phrase; and that they vilified St. Paul, because his phrase did not so tickle their ears. The apostle had declared against this, 1 Cor 1:17; there he called it the wisdom of words; here he calls it an excellency of speech: 1 Cor 1:4, the enticing words of man’s wisdom: 1 Cor 4:19, the speech of them which are puffed up; puffed up with conceits of their own parts and abilities. St. Paul declares, that this was not his way of preaching, he came to declare to them the gospel, which he calleth the testimony of God: this needed no fine words, and excellent phrase and language, to set it forth.
1 Cor 2:2. I did not value myself upon any piece of knowledge I had attained, saving only that of Christ, and him crucified; or, I determined with myself to carry myself amongst you, as if I knew nothing of arts, or sciences, or languages, but only Christ, and him crucified; not to make any thing else the subject of my public discourses. I was acquainted with the Jewish law, rites, and traditions, with the heathen poets and philosophers; I troubled you with none of these in my pulpit discourses; my whole business was to open to you the mysteries of the gospel, and to bring you to a knowledge of and an acquaintance with Jesus Christ; this was my end, and the means I used were proportionable to it.
1 Cor 2:3. Either in a weakness of style, I used a plain, low, intelligible style, studying rather to be understood by all than admired by any. Or in weakness of state, in a mean and low condition; for we read, Acts 18:3, that he wrought with his hands at Corinth; so Acts 20:34. Or it may be, in a weak state of body; or it may be he means humbleness of mind and modesty, which to worldly eyes looks like a weakness of mind. And in much fear and trembling, either with respect to the Jews, and the danger he was exposed to from them, or with respect to the greatness of his work, lest they should refuse the grace of the gospel, by him brought and offered to them. So as (saith he) you might see that all the work was God’s, I but a poor instrument, contemptible with respect to my outward quality, appearing poor and mean, in my phrase and style, and whole behaviour amongst you.
1 Cor 2:4. Either here Paul’s speech and preaching signify the same thing, (expressed by two words,) or else speech referreth to his more private conferences and discourses with them, and preaching signifieth the more public acts of his ministry; neither of them was with the persuasive or enticing words of man’s wisdom. What these persuasive words of man’s wisdom are, will quickly appear to any that considers there are but two human arts that pretend to any thing of persuading; rhetoric, and logic, or the art of reasoning. Rhetoric persuadeth more weakly, working more upon the affections than upon the understanding and judgment. Logic, or the art of reasoning, more strongly, working upon the understanding and judgment, and teaching men to conclude from connate natural principles. Now, saith Paul, my preaching was neither of these ways, I neither studied neat and fine words and phrases, nor did I make it my work to demonstrate gospel propositions to you from principles of natural reason. Objection. Ought not then ministers now to use such words? Answer. A learned popish writer saith, that “at that time it was the will of God that his ministers should use plain speech; but it is otherwise now; the using of words studiously composed and ordered, being now the ordinary way to persuade others.” But, 1. After this rate any thing of the will of God may be evaded; it is but saying, that it was the will of God indeed then, but not now. 2. The thing is false. It was then, as much as now, the ordinary way of persuading to use rhetorical phrases and rational demonstrations. 3. Although now this be the ordinary method of persuading men of learning and capacities, yet for the generality of people it is not so. 4. The apostle’s reason holds now as much as ever. It is the way to make Christians’ faith stand in the wisdom of men, not in the power of God. Objection. Ought then ministers to use no study, but talk whatever comes at their tongue’s end, and to use no reason to prove what they say? Answer. By no means. 1. It is one thing to study matter, another thing to study words. 2. Nay, it is one thing to study a decency in words, another to study a gaudery of phrase. It is an old and true saying, Verba sequuntur res: Words will follow matter, if the preacher be but of ordinary parts. In the study of words we have but two things to attend: (1) That we speak intelligibly, so as all the people may understand. (2) That we speak gravely and decently. All other study of words and phrases in a divine is but folly and vanity. 3. We ought to use our reason in our preaching; but reason works two ways: (1) Either making conclusions from natural and philosophical principles; (2) Or, from Scriptural principles. We ought to study to conclude as strongly as we can what we say from principles of revelation, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, but not from all natural and philosophical principles; for so we shall conclude, there is no Trinity in the Unity of the Divine Being, because, according to natural principles, three cannot be one, nor one three; and against the resurrection, because there can be no regress from a privation to a habit, etc. 4. Again, it is one thing to use our natural reason, ex abundanti, as an auxiliary help to illustrate and confirm what is first confirmed by Divine revelation; another thing to use it as a foundation upon which we build a spiritual conclusion, or as the main proof of it. Paul’s preaching was in words intelligible to his hearers, and decent enough, and with reason enough, but not concluding upon natural principles, nor making any proofs of that nature the foundation upon which he built his gospel conclusions. But in demonstration of the Spirit; by which Grotius and some others understand miracles, by which the doctrine of the gospel was at first confirmed; but Vorstius and many others better understand by it the Holy Ghost’s powerful and inward persuasion of men’s minds, of the truth of what was preached by Paul. All ministers’ preaching makes propositions of gospel truth appear no more than probable; the Spirit only demonstrates them, working in souls such a persuasion and confirmation of the truth of them, as the soul can no longer deny or dispute, or withstand the conviction of them. And of power: by this term also some understand the power of working miracles; but it is much better by others interpreted of that authority, which the word of God preached by Paul had, and preached by faithful ministers still hath, upon the souls and consciences of those that hear it. As it is said, Matt 7:29, Christ taught them as one having authority. And it is said of Stephen, Acts 6:10, They were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. So the gospel preached by Paul came to people, not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, 1 Thess 1:5: and was quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, Heb 4:12. and thus every faithful minister, with whose labours God goeth along in the conversion of souls, yet preacheth in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Nor indeed call those miracles, by which Christ and his apostles confirmed the truth of the doctrine of the gospel, though they were a mighty proof, be, in any propriety of speech, called a demonstration; which, properly, is a proof in which the mind fully acquiesceth, so that it no longer denieth or disputeth the thing so proved, but gives a firm and full assent to it: the miracles wrought by Christ himself never had that effect; the Pharisees and the generality of the Jews believed not that Christ was the true Messiah and the Son of God, not withstanding his miracles. Nothing but the inward powerful impression of the Spirit of God, persuading the heart of the truth of gospel principles, can possibly amount to a demonstration, bringing the minds of men, though never so judicious and prepared, to a certainty of the thing revealed, and a rest, so as they can no longer deny, resist, dispute, or contradict it. With this Paul’s preaching was attended, not to every individual person to whom he preached, but to many, even as many as should be saved: he delivered the doctrine of the gospel freely, plainly, and boldly, not resting upon the force of his rhetoric and persuasive words, nor yet upon the natural force of his reasoning and argumentation; but leaving the demonstration and evidencing of the truth of what he said to the powerful internal impression and persuasion of the holy and blessed Spirit of God, who worketh powerfully.
1 Cor 2:5. Faith properly signifieth our assent to a thing that is told us, and because it is told us. If the revelation be from man, it is no more than a human faith. If it be from God, and we believe the thing because God hath revealed it to us, this is a Divine faith. So as indeed it is impossible that a Divine faith should rest in the wisdom of men. If we could make gospel propositions evident to the outward senses, or evident to such principles of reason as are connatural to us, or upon such conclusions as we make upon such principles, yet no assent of this nature could be faith, which is an assent given to a Divine revelation purely because of such revelation. An assent other ways given may be sensible demonstration, or rational demonstration, or knowledge, or opinion; but Divine faith it cannot be, that must be bottomed in the power of God. Nor ought any thing more to be the care of the ministers of the gospel than this, as to call men to believe, so to endeavour that their faith may not stand in the wisdom of men: nothing but a human faith can do so. This will show every conscientious minister the vanity of not proving what he saith from holy writ: all other preaching is but either dictating, as if men were to believe what the preacher saith upon his authority; or philosophizing, acting the part of a philosopher or orator at Athens, not the part of a minister of the gospel.
1 Cor 2:6. Lest what the apostle had seemed to speak before in defamation of wisdom, should reflect upon the gospel, and give some people occasion to justify against it their impious charge of folly, the apostle here something corrects himself, affirming that he and the rest of the apostles spake wisdom, and what would be so judged by such as were perfect; not absolutely, for so there is no man perfect, but comparatively, that is, persons who have their senses exercised to discern betwixt good and evil, Heb 5:14, or such as are of a true, sound judgment, and are able to discern what is true wisdom. To such, saith the apostle, we speak wisdom; and it needs must be so; for wisdom being a habit directing men to use the best means in order to the best end, the salvation of men’s souls being the best end, that doctrine which directs the best means in order to it, must necessarily be wisdom, and the purest and highest wisdom. Yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought; but, saith he, not what the philosophers, or cunning men, or politicians of the world count wisdom; for all their wisdom is of no significancy at all, in order to the best end, the salvation of men’s souls, and it will all vanish, and come to nothing at last.
1 Cor 2:7. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery; we preach the gospel, where the righteousness in which alone men can another day appear, and be accepted before God, is revealed from faith to faith. It is indeed a sacred secret, a mystery to many men, but it is the wisdom of God, a doctrine directing the best means to the best end of man. Even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: it is hidden wisdom: it was ordained of God before the world unto our glory, the way of salvation for man, which he had from all eternity ordained and decreed; but it lay hidden in the secret counsels of God till the latter ages of the world, when it pleased God to send forth his Son into the world to publish it, and after him to appoint us to be the preachers and publishers of it.
1 Cor 2:8. Which none of the princes of this world knew; which Divine wisdom neither Caiaphas, nor Pontius Pilate, nor any considerable number of the rulers of this age, whether amongst the Jews or amongst the heathens, understood, though they heard of it. For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; for if they had so known it, as to have believed and been persuaded of it, they would never have nailed to the cross that person, who was the Head and Fountain of it, and the Lord of glory; both with respect to his Divine nature, as to which he was God blessed for ever, and also as Mediator, being the Author of glory to those who believe. Nor would this ignorance at all excuse their crucifying of Christ, because it was not invincible, they had means sufficient by which they might have come to the knowledge of him, and have understood what he was; so as their ignorance was affected and voluntary.
1 Cor 2:9. The place where this is written is by all agreed to be Isa 64:4, where the words are, For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him. It is so usual with the penmen of holy writ to quote the sense of texts in the Old Testament, not tying themselves to letters and syllables, that it is mightily vain for any to object against this quotation, as no where written in the Old Testament, but taken out of some apocryphal writings. The sense of what is written, Isa 64:4, is plainly the same with what he speaketh in this place; the greatest difference is, the apostle saith, them that love him; the prophet, him that waiteth for him (which is the certain product and effect of love). The whole of Isa 64, and some chapters following, treat concerning Christ; so doth this text. Christ and his benefits are to be understood here, by the things which God hath prepared for them that love him; which are set out as things not obvious to sense, nor to be comprehended by reason. It could never have entered into the heart of men to conceive, that God should give his only begotten Son out of his own bosom, to take upon him our nature, and to die upon the cross; or, that Christ should so far humble himself, and become obedient unto death.
1 Cor 2:10. God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit; God by his Spirit hath opened our understandings to understand the Holy Scriptures, the types and prophecies of Christ, and what the holy prophets have spoken of him both as to his person and offices. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God; for the Holy Spirit being the third person in the blessed Trinity, and so equal with the Father and the Son, searcheth the deep things of God, and so is able to reveal to us all the counsels of God, whatsoever God would have men to understand concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. So as this text is an evident proof of the Deity of the Holy Spirit, he searching the deep things of God, and being alone able to reveal them unto men, so as they shall acknowledge, comprehend, and believe them.
1 Cor 2:11. Look, as it is with a man, no man knoweth his secret thoughts, and counsels, and meanings, save only his own soul that is within him; so it is as to the things of God, until God by his Spirit hath revealed them to men, none knoweth them but the Holy Spirit of God. It is true as it is with man; when he hath by his tongue discovered his mind to others, they know it so far as he hath so delivered it; but there is no man that discovereth all his thoughts and counsels: so God having in his word revealed his will so far as he hath plainly revealed it men may know it; but there are deep things of God, mysteries in Scripture, which, till the Spirit of God hath revealed to men, they know not nor understand; for none knoweth them originally, but the Spirit of God, who is himself God, and searcheth the deep things of God.
1 Cor 2:12. By the spirit of the world some understand the devil, that evil spirit which is in the world, and ruleth those that are worldly, carnal men: others understand a mere human spirit, by which men understand and comprehend mere worldly things. The sense certainly is, we have not a mere worldly instruction and tutoring, we are not taught and instructed from the world; (so the spirit is put for the effects of the spirit of the world but we are taught and instructed by the Holy Spirit, by which we are taught and know the things that are freely given to us of God, whether they be Divine mysteries, or Divine benefits, both what God hath done for us, and what God hath wrought in us.
1 Cor 2:13. Reason and all practice directeth men to speak and write of subjects in a style and phrase fitted to the matter about which they write or discourse. Our subjects, saith the apostle, were sublime, spiritual subjects; therefore I did not discourse them like an orator, with an excellency of speech or of wisdom, (as 1 Cor 2:1,) or with the enticing or persuasive words of man’s wisdom, (as he had said, 1 Cor 2:4,) nor with words which man’s wisdom teacheth, (which is his phrase here,) but with words which the Holy Ghost hath taught us, either in holy writ, or by its impressions upon our minds, where they are first formed. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual; fitting spiritual things to spiritual persons who are able to understand them, or fitting spiritual language to spiritual matter, speaking the oracles of God as the oracles of God, 1 Pet 4:11; not declaiming like an orator, nor arguing philosophically like an Athenian philosopher, but using a familiar, plain, spiritual style, giving you the naked truths of God without any paint or gaudery of phrase.
1 Cor 2:14. There are great disputes here, who is meant by the natural man, yuxiko_j a!nqrwpoj. Some think that by the natural man here is meant the carnal man: thus, 1 Cor 15:44, the natural body is opposed to the spiritual body; besides, they say, that in the constant phrase of holy writ, man, who is made up of flesh and spirit, as his essential parts, hath constantly his denomination from one of them, and all men in the world are either carnal or spiritual, and that the Greek word yuch_ signifies that soul and life which is common to all men, from whence all common motions and affections are, and is opposed to the Holy Spirit, which dwells in the souls of them that are sanctified, by which they are led and guided, etc. Thus, say they, the natural man is one who is a servant to his lusts and corruption, under the perfect government of his soul considered merely as natural, all whose motions in that estate of sin and corruption are inordinate. Others think that the apostle here speaks of such as are weak in the faith, little ones, babes in Christ, who had need of milk, not of strong meat, and are natural men in comparison of those more spiritual and perfect. In this sense indeed the apostle, 1 Cor 3:4, calleth them carnal. But there is nothing more plain, than that the apostle, under the notion of yuxiko_j a!nqrwpoj (which we translate natural man) here, understands all such as were not perfect and spiritual, such to whom God hath not by his Spirit revealed the deep things of God, 1 Cor 2:10; such as had only received the spirit of the world, not the spirit of God, by which alone men come to know the things that are freely given them of God, as 1 Cor 2:12. Receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: all these, though some of them are much better than others, having their minds more cultivated and adorned with worldly knowledge and wisdom, yet do not in their hearts (though they may with their ears) receive, that is, believe, embrace, and close with or approve of, spiritual and Divine mysteries, such doctrines as are purely matters of faith, standing upon a Divine revelation. For they are foolishness unto him; for men of wit and reason count them all foolishness, being neither demonstrable by sense or natural reason. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned; neither can any man, no otherwise taught and instructed, so comprehend them, as to give a firm and fixed assent to them, or in heart approve them, because they are only to be seen and discerned in a spiritual light, the Holy Spirit of God, which is the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, enlightening their understandings, that they may know the hope of his calling, and what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to them that believe, according to the working of his mighty power, etc., Eph 1:17-19. Thus the apostle gives a reason of what he had said, 1 Cor 2:8, that none of the princes of the world knew the wisdom of God.
1 Cor 2:15. He that is spiritual, in this verse, is opposed to the natural man, in the former verse, pneumatiko_j to yuxiko_j. So that by spiritual here is understood, he that is taught by the Spirit of God, and is by him specially and savingly enlightened. Judgeth or discerneth all things, that is, of this nature, the mysteries of God, which concern man’s eternal life and salvation; not that every good Christian hath any such perfect judgment or power of discerning, but according to the measure of illumination which he hath received. Yet he himself is judged of no man; it may as well be translated, of nothing; and the term judged might as well have been translated examined, or searched, as it is in Acts 4:9; Acts 12:19; Acts 17:11; Acts 24:8; or condemned. The wisdom that is of God is not to be subjected to the wisdom of men, nor to be judged of any man, but only the spiritual man. The truth, which the spiritual man owneth and professeth, dependeth only upon God and his word, and is not subjected to the authority and judgment of men, nor the dictates of human reason: so as the spiritual man, so far forth as he is spiritual, is neither judged by any man nor by any thing. There are some that by he himself understand the Spirit of God; he indeed is judged of no man, nor of any thing; but that seemeth a much more strained sense. 1 Cor 2:16. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? This phrase is taken out of Isa 40:13, and was quoted by our apostle before, Rom 11:34: the sense of it, as here used, is: For what natural man, that never was taught and enlightened by the Spirit of God, could ever know the secret counsels of God, and the Divine mysteries of man’s salvation? Nor can any instruct him what to do. It is by some observed, that sumbiba&sei signifies, by arguments to bring one over to be of his mind, which indeed is a kind of instruction. But (saith the apostle) we, who have the Spirit of God given to us, dwelling and working in us, and instructing us, we have the mind of Christ; for the Spirit of Christ, which is our teacher, knoweth his mind, and hath revealed it unto us.
1 CORINTHIANS 3
1 Cor 3:1-2: Paul showeth that he could not instruct the Corinthians in the higher doctrines of Christianity because of their carnal mind,
1 Cor 3:3-4: which temper discovered itself in their factions.
1 Cor 3:5-9: The most eminent preachers of the gospel are but instruments employed by God in building his church.
1 Cor 3:10-15: Paul hath laid the only true foundation, Christ Jesus; and others must take heed what they build thereon.
1 Cor 3:16-17: Christians are God’s temple, not to be defiled.
1 Cor 3:18-20: Worldly wisdom is foolishness with God.
1 Cor 3:21-23: They that are Christ’s must not glory in men.
1 Cor 3:1. The apostle plainly returneth in this chapter to reprove them for their divisions and factions, for which he had begun to reprove them, 1 Cor 1:11; and (as some think) here he anticipateth an objection, which they might have made against him, against his reproving and judging of them, whereas he that is spiritual (as he had now said) is judged of no man. I, (saith he,) brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, that is, as to Christians who had made any great proficiency in the ways of God, and had arrived to any just degrees of spiritual perfection; but as unto carnal, that is, persons who, though you are not under the full conduct and government of your flesh and sensitive appetite, yet are far from being perfect, either in faith or holiness. In Christ, but not as grown men, but as babes, as the apostle fully explaineth this term, Heb 5:12-13, such as had need be taught again which are the first principles of the oracles of God; and have need of milk, and not of strong meat: for every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness; for he is a babe.
1 Cor 3:2. Milk signifies what the apostle to the Hebrews calls the first principles of the oracles of God, and so is opposed to sublime spiritual doctrines, here set out under the notion of meat; called strong meat, Heb 5:14, fit for those of full age: as young children’s stomachs will not endure strong meat, so neither are sublime spiritual mysteries fit for new converts, until they have senses exercised to discern good and evil; and therefore the apostle gives this as a reason, why he had not communicated the deep things of God to them, because as yet they had not been able to bear the notion of them, nor indeed were they yet able: it should seem that there were many in the church of Corinth, who though they were true Christians, yet were not grown and judicious Christians, but had great imperfections, as indeed it will further appear in this Epistle.
1 Cor 3:3. For ye are yet carnal; not wholly carnal, but in a great measure so, not having your lusts and corrupt affections entirely subdued to the will of God, nor yet so much subdued as some other Christians have, and you ought to have. As an evidence of this he mindeth them of the envying, strifes, and divisions that were amongst them. Strife and envyings are reckoned amongst the works of the flesh, Gal 5:19-21; they are all opposite to love, in which the perfection of a Christian lieth. He told us before what strifes and contentions he meant, and tells us it again in the next verse.
1 Cor 3:4. Not that Christians so large a city as Corinth might not put themselves under several pastors, or, as to themselves, prefer one before another, either in respect of the more eminent gifts of God bestowed upon one, (as doubtless Paul was preferable to Apollos,) or in respect of the more suitableness of one man’s gifts to their capacities than another: but their adherence so to one minister of the gospel, that for his sake they vilified and despised all others, that were also true and faithful servants of God in the work of his gospel, this was their sin, and spake them to have vicious and corrupt affections, and to walk more like men than like saints, not having a true notion of the ministers of Christ, nor behaving themselves towards them as they ought to do.
1 Cor 3:5. Neither Paul, nor yet Apollos, are authors of faith to you, but only instruments; it is the Lord that giveth to every man a power to believe; or else that latter phrase, as the Lord gave to every man, may be understood of ministers, whose abilities to the work of the ministry, and success in it, both depend upon God. The sense of the words is this, then: God giveth unto his ministers variety of gifts, and different success; but yet neither one nor the other of them are more than the servants of Christ in their ministry, persons whom God maketh use of to call upon and to prevail with men, to give credit to the doctrine of the gospel, and to receive and accept of Christ. The work is the Lord’s, not theirs.
1 Cor 3:6. God honoured me first to preach the gospel amongst you, Acts 18 etc., and blessed my preaching to convert you unto Christ; then I left you: Apollos stayed behind, and he watered what I had planted, daily preaching amongst you; see Acts 18:24-26; he was a further means to build you up in faith and holiness; but God increased, or gave the increase, God gave the power by which you brought forth any fruit. The similitude is drawn from planters, whether husbandmen or gardeners; they plant, they water, but the growing, the budding, the bringing forth flowers or fruit by the plant, doth much more depend upon the soil in which it stands, the influence of heaven upon it, by the beams of the sun, and the drops of the dew and rain, and the internal virtue which the God of nature hath created in the plant, than upon the hand of him that planteth, or him who useth his watering pot to water it. So it is with souls; one minister is used for conversion, or the first changing of souls; another is used for edification, or further building up of souls; but both conversion and edification are infinitely more from the new heart and new nature, which God giveth to souls, and from the influence of the Sun of righteousness by the Spirit of grace, working in and upon the soul, than from any minister, who is but God’s instrument in those works.
1 Cor 3:7. So that, look as it is in earthly plantations, God hath the greatest influence upon the growth and fruitfulness of the plant, and the husbandman or gardener is nothing in comparison with God, who hath given to the plant planted its life and nature, by which it shooteth up, buddeth, and bringeth forth fruit, and maketh his sun to shine and his rain to fall upon it: so it is in the spiritual plantation, God is the principal efficient Cause, we are little instrumental causes in God’s hand, nothing in comparison with God. I have planted, Apollos hath watered; but if we see a soul changed, or grow, and make any spiritual proficiency, we must say, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be given the glory: God hath done the main work; we have not done any thing in comparison with him. These words do no more tend to vilify the ministry of the gospel, or make it useless, than, taking them in their native sense, as they respect earthly plantations, they would prove, that there is no need of the husbandman’s or gardener’s hand to plant or to water plants, because all that he doth of that nature is to no purpose, unless God first gives to the plant its proper nature and virtue, and then followeth the planting with the influence of the sun, dew, and rain. But yet it is observable, that the apostle doth not say, the man himself gives the increase, from the good use of the power that is naturally in his own will, but God giveth the increase; which argues the necessity of special grace both to conversion and edification, superadded to the best preaching of his ministers. Though Paul himself by preaching plants, and Apollos watereth, yet God must make the soul to increase with the increase of God. Hence the apostle argueth their unreasonableness, in adoring one minister, and magnifying him above another, when indeed neither the one nor the other had any principal efficiency in the production of the blessed effect, but a mere instrumental causation, the effect of which depended upon the sole blessing of God, in comparison with whom, in this working, neither the one nor the other minister was any thing.
1 Cor 3:8. The ministers of Christ, though one be used in planting and another in watering, one in laying the foundation and another in building thereupon, yet are one; one in their office and work, one in their ministry, being all servants to Christ, who is one; all serving one and the same Lord, all doing the same business, proposing the same end, and with all their might labouring towards it; and therefore, as they ought not to divide into parties and factions, so you ought not for their sakes to be so divided. Yet they are not so one, but that one may labour more than another, and be honoured by God with more success than another, and every one shall receive a reward proportioned to his labour: the apostle saith not, according to the success of his labour, (that is not in his power,) but, according to his labour.
1 Cor 3:9. Though compared with God we are nothing, yet our station is no mean station; God works as the principal efficient Cause, we work with God as his instruments; God worketh one way, by his secret influence upon the heart, we another way, by publication of the gospel in people’s ears, but the scope and end of the work is the same. The Lord is said to work with his ministers, Mark 16:20, and they are here said to work with him. Hence he proveth what he had before said, that they should be rewarded; God will not suffer those who work with him to be without their reward: as also that they were one, for they are all labourers together with God. Yet do not think yourselves our husbandry, for you are God’s husbandry: thus God’s people, Isa 61:3, are called the planting of the Lord. God’s building: thus the church is called the house of God, 1 Tim 3:15. Still the apostle minds them, that they were God’s, not their minister’s; it was God to whom they were beholden for their conversion, for their edification, etc.
1 Cor 3:10. According to the grace of God which is given unto me: xa&rin here signifies either the ability which God hath given Paul to preach the gospel, or the apostolical office, to which God had called him; he maketh both to proceed from God, and to be the effects of his free love and favour to him. According to this he saith: Look, as a wise masterbuilder first layeth the foundation, then buildeth upon the foundation which he hath laid; so I, being the first whom God pleased to employ in this his work at Corinth, have laid the foundation, that is, have first preached the gospel in this famous city: thus the first preaching of the gospel is called, a laying the foundation, Rom 15:20; Heb 6:1. Another buildeth thereon; afterwards Apollos and other ministers further carried on that work of preaching the gospel amongst them. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon; but (saith he) whoever cometh to preach after me had need take heed what he buildeth; for, Gal 1:8, though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
1 Cor 3:11. Can in this text doth not signify a mere natural power, but a rightful power: No man by any just right or authority can lay any other foundation, can preach any other doctrine of salvation, than that which I have already preached, which is the doctrine of salvation by Jesus Christ. Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved, Acts 4:12.
1 Cor 3:12. The apostle is discoursing metaphorically, he had compared the church of Corinth to a building, 1 Cor 3:9, and called them there God’s building; they were built upon the doctrine of the gospel, the doctrine of the apostles and prophets, who had preached Christ to them, this was the foundation; and had told us, that none, by any pretence of right, could lay any other foundation. But there was to be a superstructure upon this foundation, which might be of various materials: he names six; three very good and excellent, gold, silver, and precious stones; three others vile and invaluable, wood, hay, stubble. By these he either means good or bad works, or rather, good or bad doctrines. Good doctrine is signified by the gold, silver, and precious stones mentioned; bad doctrine by the wood, hay, and stubble mentioned; by which may be understood various degrees of bad doctrine, as some doctrines are more pernicious and damnable than others, though the others also be false, unprofitable, trivial, and of no significancy to the good of souls, but bad, as they are unprofitable.
1 Cor 3:13. Now, saith he, there will come a time when every man’s, that is, every teacher’s, work, or doctrine, shall be made manifest. As the metal is brought to the touchstone to be tried, whether it be gold or silver, or some baser metal; so there will come a time, when all doctrines shall be tried and made manifest, whether they be of God or no. For the day shall declare it: what day shall declare it is not so steadily agreed by interpreters. Some by a day here understand a long time, in process of time it shall be declared; as indeed erroneous doctrines have not used to obtain or prevail long: Dagon falls before the ark. Others understand it of a day of adversity and great affliction, the day of God’s vengeance; and indeed thus it is often seen, a false faith, or a lie believed, will not carry a man through the difficulties which he meeteth with in an evil day: the truths of the gospel are of that nature, that they will give a soul relief and support in a day of affliction and under God’s severest dispensations, but errors and falsehoods will not do it. Others understand by the day here mentioned, the day of judgment, which is indeed often called the day of the Lord, 1 Cor 1:8, and described by fire, Joel 2:3; 2 Thess 1:8; 2 Pet 3:10; but this text saith not the day of the Lord, but only the day. It seemeth, therefore, rather to signify the bright shining out of the gospel; for the text seemeth to speak of such a manifestation as shall be in this life, not in the day of judgment. Because it shall be revealed by fire; the same thing is also to he understood. The fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is: by the fire here mentioned, not the fire of God’s wrath, or the fire of affliction and adversity, nor the fire of the last judgment, but the truth of the gospel shining forth in the world, and burning up the dross and stubble of corrupt, false doctrine, that shall bring all the doctrines which men teach, to the trial.
1 Cor 3:14. If any preacher keeps the foundation, and the doctrine which he hath built upon the true foundation prove consonant to the will of Christ, God will reward him for his labour: he shall hear the voice saying: Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
1 Cor 3:15. But if his work do not abide, if it shall appear upon the more clear and bright shining out of the truth of the gospel, that though he hath held the foundation right, yet he hath built upon it wood, hay, and stubble, mixed fables, and idle stories, and corrupt doctrine with the doctrine of the gospel, he shall suffer loss by it, either by the afflicting hand of God, or by a loss of his reputation, or some other way. But yet God will not cast off a soul for every such error, if he keeps to the main foundation, Jesus Christ; he shall be saved, though it be as by fire, that is, with difficulty; which certainly is a more natural sense of this text, than those give, who interpret as by fire, of the fire of the gospel, or the fire of purgatory, of which the papists understand it. For, 1. It is, and always hath been, a proverbial form of speech to express a thing obtained by difficulty; we say: It is got out of the fire, etc. 2. For the fire of purgatory, it is a fiction, and mere imaginary thing, and of no further significancy than to make the pope’s chimney smoke. 3. That pretended fire only purgeth venial sins; this fire trieth every man’s work, the gold as well as the stubble.
1 Cor 3:16. The apostle, 1 Cor 3:9, had called the church of Corinth, and the particular members of it, God’s building; after this he had enlarged in a discourse concerning the builders, and the foundation and superstructure upon that foundation; now he returns again to speak of the whole church, whom he here calleth the temple of God, with a manifest allusion to that noble and splendid house which Solomon first built, and was afterwards rebuilt by Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah at Jerusalem, as the public place for the Jewish church to meet in to worship God according to the prescript of the Levitical law: in which house God was said to dwell, because there he met his people, and blessed them, and there he gave answers to them from the mercyseat. He calls them the temple of God, because they were built, that is, effectually called, for this very end, that they might be to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved, Eph 1:6: and, as the apostle Peter further expoundeth this text, 1 Pet 2:5, the people of God are a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. And God by his Spirit dwelt in them, both by his person, and by his gifts and graces, which is a far more noble dwelling in them than the dwelling of God was in the Jewish temple. From this text may be fetched an evident proof of the Divine nature, of the Third Person in the blessed Trinity; for he is not only called here the Spirit of God, but he is said to dwell in the saints: which dwelling of God in his people, is that very thing which maketh them the temple of God; and those who are here called the temple of God, are, 1 Cor 6:19, called the temple of the Holy Ghost.
1 Cor 3:17. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; the word which we translate defile and destroy (for the Greek word is the same for both) signifieth to violate, corrupt, or destroy. Our translators generally render it corrupt, 1 Cor 15:33; 2 Cor 7:2; 1 Cor 11:3; Eph 4:22; Jude 10; Rev 19:2. The people of God, who are here called the temple of God, are defiled, either by imbibing false doctrine, or being tempted to any looseness of life and conversation. Now, (saith the apostle,) if any one goes about to do this, which all preachers do who teach any false doctrine, or any principles that lead to a liberty for the flesh, or lead to an ill and scandalous life, God shall destroy those men. For the temple of God is holy; for as the temple of God of old was a place built and set apart for holy uses, and therefore not without great peril to be abused and profaned; so those that are the people of God, are by God called and set apart in a more immediate, eminent manner for the honour and glory of God, and therefore cannot be debauched or defiled by any as instruments in that action, without exceeding great peril and hazard to them that endeavour and attempt any such thing.
1 Cor 3:18. Let not man deceive himself: there are some that, with their eloquence and flourishes of words, or with their philosophical notions and reasonings, (which, Col 2:8, the apostle calls vain deceit,) or with their traditions after the rudiments of the world, (as the apostle addeth in that place,) would cheat and deceive your souls, under a pretence of making you wonderfully wise: the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world; if any of you seemeth unto others, or seemeth unto himself, that is, thinketh that he is endued with what the world calleth wisdom. Let him become a fool, that he may be wise; if ever he would be truly wise, wise unto God, and to eternal life and salvation, let him be contented, by the wise men and philosophers of this world, to be looked upon as a fool; and let him be willing to deny himself in any notions or opinions of his own, which he hath taken up upon the credit of his natural reason and philosophical principles, which agree not with the Divine revelation, that so he may be truly and spiritually wise, truly understanding, savouring, and believing what God hath in his word revealed, and is alone able to make the man of God wise to salvation, thoroughly furnished unto every good work.
1 Cor 3:19. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God; God accounteth that folly which the world calleth wisdom, and indeed it is so (for God cannot err, nor be mistaken in his judgment the philosophers and wise men of the world propose the happiness of man as their end, which indeed is the true end which all men aim at, and do propound to themselves; true wisdom directeth the best means in order to the best end. Whatsoever directeth not to the best end, or to what is not the best means in order to that end, is not wisdom, but real folly; worldly wisdom neither directeth to the best end, for it looks at no further happiness than that of this life, nor yet to the best means, and therefore is truly, what God accounts it, foolishness. For it is written: He taketh the wise in their own craftiness; and to see the wise and learned men of the world thus err both in their judgment and practice, is no wonder at all; for God is set out of old by Eliphaz, as one that taketh the wise in their own craftiness, Job 5:13.
1 Cor 3:20. And again, it was said by the psalmist, Ps 94:11, that: The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity: man’s counsels, imaginations, reasonings, they are all vanity; they propose to themselves ends which they cannot attain, and pursue them by means that are inefficacious with reference to their ends.
1 Cor 3:21. Seeing, therefore, that Christ is but one, his ministers but one, and no more than ministers by whom ye believed, 1 Cor 3:5; and the principal efficiency of any saving work begun, or carried on in your souls to any degree of perfection, is from God, and the minister’s work in that effect nothing compared with his; seeing you are God’s husbandry, God’s building, not merely man’s, and the temple of God, not men’s temple; leave your glorying in men, and saying I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos; glory only in this, that ye are Christ’s: besides, all things are yours; why do you glory in a particular minister, when all is yours? As if two joint-heirs in an estate should glory in this or that particular house or enclosure, when the whole estate is jointly theirs, all theirs.
1 Cor 3:22-23. Here are in these two verses three things asserted: 1. The believer’s title to all things. 2. The specialty of their title. 3. The force of the apostle’s argument from hence, why they should not glory in men. He had said before: All things are yours, which he repeats again, in 1 Cor 3:22: they have a right and title to all things, and all things are for their good, use, and advantage. Amongst these he first reckons ministers: every one of them might lay a claim to Paul, to Apollos, to Peter; for they were all servants of Christ for the use of the church, a part of which they were. Then he goes on, and saith, the world, that is, the things of the world, are theirs; that is, whatsoever portion of them the providence of God orderly disposed to them, they had a true title to it, and it was for their use and advantage; so were the lives and deaths of God’s ministers, their own lives and deaths, all things present, and all things that were to come, they were all theirs by a just title; if the providence of God gave them to them in an orderly way, they might comfortably use them. They themselves were Christ’s; they were not of Paul, nor of Apollos, nor of Peter. He that had the bride was the bridegroom; these ministers were but the friends of their bridegroom. And Christ is God’s, the Son of God by an eternal generation; the servant of God as man, and born under the law, so yielding obedience to his Father; the Messiah or Anointed, and sent of God as Mediator. All things are God’s, by God given to Christ, by Christ given to and sanctified for you; that makes the believers’ special title to all things. The men of the world derive their title to what they have from God alone, as Creator; they derive not from Christ, as being ingrafted and implanted into him. Hence the apostle rightly concludes their vanity, in glorying in their relation to this or that special apostle or minister, whereas they had a true and just right to the labours of all ministers, and ought to look upon all faithful ministers as God’s gifts to his whole church, and for the advantage and benefit of all: yet this hindereth not, but that people ought to have their particular pastors and teachers, to whom they ought ordinarily to attend in their ministry; but they ought not to have their persons in such admiration, as for them to despise or slight any other faithful ministers, nor to make parties and factions in the church of God.
1 CORINTHIANS 4
1 Cor 4:1-5: Paul showeth in what account such as he should be held, of whose fidelity it should be left to God to judge.
1 Cor 4:6-7: He dissuadeth the Corinthians from valuing themselves in one teacher above another, since all had their respective distinctions from God.
1 Cor 4:8-13: To their self-sufficient vanity he opposeth his own despised and afflicted state,
1 Cor 4:14-16: warning them, as their only father in Christ, and urging theme to follow him.
1 Cor 4:17-21: For the same cause he sent Timotheus, and meant soon to follow in person, when he would inquire into the authority of such as opposed him.
1 Cor 4:1. The apostle here gives us the right notion of the preachers of the gospel; they are but ministers, that is, servants, so as the honour that is proper to their Master, for a principal efficiency in the conversion and building up of souls, belongeth not to them; they are ministers of Christ, so have their primary relation to him, and only a secondary relation to the church to which they are ministers; they are ministers of Christ and so in that ministration can only execute what are originally his commands, though those commands of Christ may also be enforced by men: ministers of the gospel, not of the law, upon whom lies a primary obligation to preach Christ and his gospel unto people. They are also stewards of the mysteries of God, such to whom God hath committed his word and sacraments to dispense out unto his church. The word mystery signifieth any thing that is secret, but more especially it signifieth a Divine secret, represented by signs and figures; or a religious secret, not obvious to every capacity or understanding. Thus we read of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, Matt 13:11; the mystery of godliness, 1 Tim 3:16; the mystery of Christ, Eph 3:4. The wisdom of God, Col 2:2; the incarnation of Christ, 1 Tim 3:16; the calling of the Gentiles, Eph 3:4; the resurrection from the dead, 1 Cor 15:21; Christ’s mystical union and communion with his church, Eph 5:32; the sublime counsels of God, 1 Cor 13:2, are all called mysteries. Ministers are the stewards of the mysterious doctrines and institutions of Christ, which we usually comprehend under the terms of the word and sacraments.
1 Cor 4:2. It is required of all servants, but especially of chief servants, such as stewards are, who are intrusted with their masters’ goods, to be dispensed out to others. The faithfulness of a steward in dispensing out his master’s goods lies in his giving them out according to his master’s order, giving to every one their portion, not detaining any thing from others which it is his master’s will they should have; as Paul gloried, Acts 20:20,27, that he had kept back from the Ephesians nothing that was profitable for them, nor shunned to declare to them all the counsel of God; not giving holy things to dogs, or casting pearls before swine, contrary to Christ’s direction, Matt 7:6.
1 Cor 4:3. Those who said, I am of Apollos, and I am of Cephas, did at least tacitly judge Paul, and prefer Apollos and Cephas before him; and it is probable, and will appear also from other parts of these Epistles, that they passed very indecent censures concerning Paul: he therefore tells them, that he valued very little what they or any other men said of him. In the Greek it is, of man’s day; but it is generally thought that our translators have given us the true sense, in translating it man’s judgment, day being put for judgment; as Jer 17:16, where woeful day signifies woeful judgment. So the day of the Lord in Scripture often signifieth the Lord’s judgment: the reason of that form of speech seems to be, because persons cited to a court of judgment use to be cited to appear on a certain day. Yea, I judge not mine own self; yea, saith the apostle, I pronounce no sentence for myself, I leave myself to the judgment of God. I may be deceived in my judgment concerning myself, and therefore I will affirm nothing as to myself.
1 Cor 4:4. I know nothing by myself; nothing amiss, nothing that is evil; yet this must not be interpreted universally, as if St. Paul knew nothing that was evil and sinful by himself; himself, Rom 7, tells us the contrary; but it must be understood with respect to his discharge of his ministerial office: I do not know any thing wherein I have wilfully failed in the discharge of my ministry; yet even as to that I durst not stand upon my own righteousness and justification before God, I may have sinned ignorantly, or have forgotten some things wherein I did offend. But he that judgeth me is the Lord; God knoweth more of me than I know of myself, and it is he that judgeth, and must judge me. Though in this text Paul doth not speak of his whole life and conversation, but only of his conversation with respect to his ministry; yet the conclusion from hence, that no man can be justified from his own works, is good; for if a man cannot be justified from his conscience not rebuking him for his errors in one part of his conversation, he cannot be justified from his conscience not rebuking him for his whole conversation. For he that keepeth the whole law, if he offendeth but in one point, must be guilty of all, because the law curseth him who continueth not in every point of the law to do it.
1 Cor 4:5. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come; seeing that the judgment of secret things belongs to God, judge nothing before the time, which God hath set to judge all things. The works of the flesh are manifest, and men may judge of them; but for secret things, of which it is impossible that those who do not know the hearts of men should make up a judgment, do not judge of them before the time, when God will certainly come to judge all men. Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: if men cloak the hidden things of darkness with the cover of hypocrisy and fair pretences, they will at that day be most certainly uncovered, and the secret thoughts, counsels, and imaginations of men’s hearts shall in that day be made manifest. And then shall every man have praise of God; and then those that have done well, every of them shall have praise of God; as, on the contrary, (which is understood, though not here expressed,) those that are hypocrites, and whose hearts have been full of evil thoughts and counsels, shall by God be put to shame and exposed to contempt.
1 Cor 4:6. And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes: by these words the apostle lets us know, that though he had said, 1 Cor 1:12, that some of them said: We are of Paul, and others: We are of Apollos; yet the names of Paul and of Apollos were but used to represent other of their teachers, which were the heads of those factions which were amongst them. In very deed there were none of them that said, We are of Paul or of Apollos, (for those that were the disciples of Paul and Apollos were better taught,) but they had other teachers amongst them as to whom they made factions, whom Paul had a mind to reprove, with their followers; and to avoid all odium, that both they and their hearers might take no offence at his free reproving of them, he makes use of his own name, and that of Apollos, and speaketh to the hearers of these teachers, as if they were his own and Apollos’s disciples; that those whom the reproof and admonition concerned properly, might be reproved under the reproof of others. That you might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written; and that (as the apostle saith) all the church of Corinth, as well ministers as people, might learn to have humble opinions and thoughts of themselves, not to think of themselves above what, by the rules of God’s word, was written in the Old Testament they ought to think; or above what he had before written in this Epistle, or to the Romans, Rom 12:3. That no one of you be puffed up for one against another; and that none of them, whether ministers or private Christians, might be puffed up. The word signifieth to be swelled or blown up as a bladder or a pair of bellows, which is extended with wind: it is used in 1 Cor 4:18-19; 1 Cor 8:1; Col 2:18.
1 Cor 4:7. It is apparent that pride was the reigning sin of many in this church of Corinth; pride, by reason of those parts and gifts wherein they excelled, whether they were natural or acquired habits, or common gifts of the Spirit which were infused: to abate this tumour, the apostle minds them to consider, whence they had these gifts from which they took occasion so to exalt and prefer themselves; whether they were the authors of them to themselves, or did receive them from God. Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? It became none of them to glory in what they had received from another, and were beholden to another for. What the apostle here speaketh concerning natural or spiritual abilities, is applicable to all good things; and the consideration here prompted, is a potent consideration to abate the pride and swelling of a man’s heart upon any account whatsoever; for there is nothing wherein a man differeth or is distinguished from another, or wherein he excelleth another, but it is given him from God; be it riches, honour, natural or spiritual gifts and abilities, they are all received from the gift of God, who gives a man power to get wealth, Deut 8:18; who putteth down one and setteth up another, Ps 75:7: and, as the apostle saith in this Epistle, 1 Cor 12:7-9, gives the manifestation of the Spirit to every man to profit withal: to one by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge; to another faith; to another the gifts of healing, etc., all by the same Spirit.
1 Cor 4:8. Now ye are full, now ye are rich; you that are the teachers at Corinth, or you that are the members of the church there, think yourselves full of knowledge and wisdom, so as you stand in need of no further learning or instruction. Ye have reigned as kings without us; ye think now you have got a kingdom, and are arrived at the top of felicity. And I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you; I am so far from envying you, that I wish it were so, and we might have a share with you. The apostle speaketh this ironically, not that he indeed thought they were so, but reflecting on their vain and too good an opinion of themselves.
1 Cor 4:9. For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death; the lot of us who are the apostles of Christ is not so externally happy, but a lot of poverty and misery, as if we were the worst of men, men appointed to death. For we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men; to be a mere sight or gazingstock to the world, angels, or men. Some think that the apostle here hath a reference to the barbarous practice of the Romans, who first exposed and carried about for a sight those persons that were condemned to fight with wild beasts, that by them they might be torn in pieces. You are happy men, saith the apostle, if you can own Christ, and profess Christianity, and yet be in such credit and favour with the world, so full, and so rich, and so like princes: we are those whom God hath honoured to be his apostles and the first ministers of the gospel; our lot and portion is far otherwise.
1 Cor 4:10. We are accounted fools for Christ’s sake by the wise men of the world, and we are willing to be so accounted; but you think yourselves wise, and yet in Christ. We are weak in the opinion of men, we suffer evil, and do not resist; but ye account yourselves, and are by the world accounted, strong: ye are accounted noble and honourable, but we are despised and contemptible.
1 Cor 4:11. Our state in the world is low and mean; though you be full, we are hungry and thirsty; though you be richly clothed, yet we are next to naked, clothed with rags; though you be hugged and embraced by the men of the world, yet we are buffeted; though you have rich and famous houses, yet we have no certain dwellingplace. Thus it hath been with us from the beginning of our profession of Christ, and thus it is with us at this day, saith the apostle: from whence he gives these Corinthians and their false teachers a just reason to suspect themselves, whether they were true and sincere professors, yea or no, and to consider how it came to pass, that their lot in the world was so different from the lot of those whom the Lord had dignified with the title and office of his apostles. The condition of the most faithful and able ministers and the most sincere Christians that have been in the world, hath always been a mean and afflicted state and condition.
1 Cor 4:12. And labour, working with our hands; we do not only labour in the word and doctrine, but we labour with our hands, that we might not be burdensome to the church, our hands ministering to our necessities, Acts 20:34; though, as he saith, 1 Cor 9:4, they had a power to eat and drink, that is, a right to have demanded meat and drink of them, and might have forbore working; for who goeth a warfare at his own charges? 1 Cor 3:6-7. Whence we may observe, that though the ministers of Christ ought to be maintained by the churches to which they relate, and they sin if they neglect it; yet where this either is not done through men’s sinful neglect of them, or cannot be done through the poverty of the members of such churches, it is lawful for them to labour with their hands. Being reviled, we bless; we are reviled and spoken ill of, but we do not revile others, but speak well of them, and wish well to them. Being persecuted, we suffer it; though we be hunted and pursued to the endangering of our lives and liberties, yet we do make no resistance, but patiently suffer it. By this the apostle showeth them the duty of Christians, as well as their lot and portion in this life; and also tacitly reflecteth on them and their teachers, who were some of those that thus reviled the apostles; and though they did not, it may be, smite them with their hands, yet they persecuted them with their tongues; and leaves it to their consideration, whether the apostles or they lived more up to the rule of Christianity given by Christ, Matt 5:39-41.
1 Cor 4:13. Being defamed, we entreat: we are blasphemed, Gr. that is, spoken evil of, which is the same with defamed in our language, men speak all manner of evil of us to take away our reputation; but we entreat God for them: the word signifieth to exhort, entreat, comfort, we exercise ourselves in all pious and charitable offices toward them, who are most uncharitable toward us. We are made as the filth of the earth, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day: here are two words used, which signify the most vile, abject, contemptible things in the world, excrements, sweepings of houses. The apostle by these two words signifies, that no persons could be more base, vile, and contemptible than they were, nothing more despised, or in less esteem: he speaketh not this as complaining, or in any discontent at what he saw was the will of God concerning them; but to show them the difference betwixt the apostles, and them and their teachers, and possibly reflecting upon them, as being in some degree guilty of this scorn and contempt of them, or at least, more than they ought, neglecting them under these mean and afflictive circumstances.
1 Cor 4:14. I tell you not of this to make you blush, as having had any hand in these indignities which are put upon us, nor yet to shame you (though possibly you have reason to be ashamed, either for your neglect of us, or for your adding to our affliction I look upon you as my sons, and sons whom I love: I only write to warn you, both of your duty, to have some respect for us, and of, your sin, if you have neglected us beyond what was your duty to have done.
1 Cor 4:15. The great lesson of this text is: That people ought to have a tender respect for those ministers whom God hath honoured with their first conversion, and bringing them home to Christ. God may make use of a multitude of ministers to instruct Christians, and carry on his work in their souls to perfection; but he maketh use of some particular minister at first to convince them, and be an instrument in the changing of their hearts; such they ought to have a great value for, they are their spiritual fathers in a proper sense. For, saith the apostle, in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel: where we have regeneration (as it signifieth a new state) set out in its causes. The principal efficient cause is Christ Jesus; the instrumental cause is the minister of the gospel; the means is the doctrine of the gospel, or the preaching of the gospel. In Christ Jesus signifieth here by the grace of Christ Jesus; those who are born again, are not born of flesh or of blood, but of the will of God, John 1:13, and by the influence of Christ upon their hearts; though God makes use of the minister of the gospel as his instrument, and the minister makes use of the word and the preaching of the gospel, as the sacred means which God hath appointed to that end, 1 Pet 1:23. All these causes unite and concur in the work of regeneration.
1 Cor 4:16. I might as a father command you, but I beseech you, be ye followers of me, in preserving the unity and promoting the holiness of the church. He expounds this, 1 Cor 11:1: Be ye followers of me, as I am of Christ. Holiness of life and conversation is necessary to a true minister of Christ; for their people ought not only to be their hearers, but their followers; they are ensamples to the flock, 1 Pet 5:3, and ought to be examples of believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity, 1 Tim 4:12; in all things showing themselves patterns of good works; in doctrine showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, etc., Titus 2:7. Those who teach well and live ill, are no good ministers of Christ; they cannot say unto people, Be ye followers of me.
1 Cor 4:17. This Timothy Paul found at Lystra, Acts 16:1. His father was a Greek, his mother a Jewess, therefore Paul circumcised him; her name was Eunice, the daughter of Lois, 2 Tim 1:5. Paul took him along with him in his travels. He was ordained by the imposition of the hands of the presbytery, 1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6. Paul calls him his beloved son, either because he was his spiritual son, or because he was by him instructed in the gospel: he calls him his own son in the faith, 1 Tim 1:2. Faithful in the Lord, because he was faithful in the work of the Lord, in the business of the ministry. Who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church; he (saith the apostle) shall bring to your remembrance my ways in the Lord, he shall acquaint you with both what doctrine I have preached and what course of life I have lived; how I have preached to every church, what rules I have given for the ordering of every church, and how I have walked before and toward them.
1 Cor 4:18. I hear that some of your teachers, and some of your members, are so conceited of themselves, that they would persuade you that I durst not see their faces, or come to discourse with them face to face, and therefore would not come unto you.
1 Cor 4:19. But I will come to you shortly: Paul intended in his journey to Rome to pass through Macedonia and Achaia, but he knew that God could hinder him, and therefore he adds, if the Lord will: neither did Paul go to them so soon as he intended, but had time before he went to write another Epistle, as we shall afterwards find. All Christians are bound, when they promise or resolve upon any journeys, to understand, if God will, and to have in their thoughts the power of God to hinder them, and to speak with submission to his pleasure, who counteth their steps and telleth their wanderings, and ordereth their steps; though they be not strictly bound at all times to use this form of speech. And will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power: and when I come, then I shall understand these teachers of yours, who so vilify me; I shall not regard so much their fine words and philosophical reasonings, as what there is of spiritual life and power in them; either in their doctrine or life, how conducive it is to the ends of the gospel, and how consonant to the truth of the gospel, what good they do amongst you, what manner of lives they live: these are the things that my eyes shall be upon, and which I shall regard.
1 Cor 4:20. The kingdom of God in the church, or the kingdom of God in the particular soul. God hath not sent his ministers to subdue souls to himself by fine, florid words and phrases, but by a lively preaching the gospel, while his power attends their plain preaching; and the power and efficacy of the preachers’ doctrine appeareth in their holy life and conversation, so as their people cannot say to them: Physician, heal thyself, as to those spiritual diseases which thou wouldst cure us of. So the kingdom of God in particular souls doth not appear in words, but in the power which the word of God hath upon men’s hearts, in subduing their lusts and corruptions, and bringing their hearts into a subjection to his will.
1 Cor 4:21. Which will ye rather choose? That I should come unto you as a father cometh to his child under some guilt for which he must punish and correct him, or as a father cometh to his child that hath done nothing provoking his displeasure, in love, and meekly? I am not willing to come to you to correct and punish any of you by ecclesiastical censures, which are a rod which Christ hath intrusted to me; I had rather come in love and meekness, that we might mutually rejoice in each other’s society.
1 CORINTHIANS 5
1 Cor 5:1-2: Paul reproveth a scandalous incest committed and protected from censure in the church at Corinth,
1 Cor 5:3-5: and by his authority in Christ excommunicateth the offender.
1 Cor 5:6-8: The necessity of purging out the old leaven.
1 Cor 5:9-13: Christians guilty of notorious crimes are not to be consorted with.
1 Cor 5:1. The apostle here giveth a reason of the question which he propounded in the former chapter, whether they would be willing that, when he came to them, he should come unto them with a rod? Because such horrid wickedness was committed amongst them, as he, being an apostle to whom Christ had intrusted the government of his church, could not pass over without correction: he instanceth here in one, which he calleth fornication; by which word is often in Scripture to be understood all species of uncleanness, though, in strict speaking, we by fornication understand the uncleanness of a single person, as by adultery we understand the uncleanness of a person married, and by incest the uncleanness of a person with some near relation, as a mother, a sister: in strict speaking, the sin here reflected on was incest; but the Scripture by this word comprehends all species of unlawful mixtures. Such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles: this sin he aggravates by saying, that the Gentiles by the light of nature discerned and declined such an abomination; by whom is not to be understood the more brutish part, but the more civilized part of the heathen, such as the Romans, etc. were. That one should have his father’s wife: by having his father’s wife, in this place, is not to be understood, the marrying of his father’s wife, his father being dead; but the using of his father’s wife as his wife while his father was yet alive, (as some judicious interpreters think,) because hardly any nation would have endured a son openly to have married the widow of his father. And in 2 Cor 7:12, there is mention made not only of one that had done, but of another that had suffered the wrong; which latter must be the father himself: so as there was both incest and whoredom in this fact.
1 Cor 5:2. And ye are puffed up; you are so conceited of your own parts and gifts, and are so full of your contentions about the preference of ministers, and things of little concernment to your souls and the interest of the church, that you have not been able to find leisure to deal with this scandalous person, as a church of Christ ought to have done. This seemeth rather the reason of their not mourning, than any rejoicing in iniquity, as if they had thought the gospel had opened that door against this licentiousness which the law had shut, or triumphed in this incestuous person, being one of their teachers (which can hardly be thought). And have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you: they ought rather to have mourned, keeping times of fasting and prayer, on the behalf of this scandalous member amongst them, that his sin might (upon his due sense of it, and repentance for it) have been forgiven him, and the blot upon their church, by their having such a one in their fellowship, might be washed out, by his being cast out of their fellowship and communion. It was no time for them to glory in their gifts, and be puffed up with the parts of their teachers or members, when they had such a blot upon them by a putrid member that was amongst them. They had a great deal more cause for humiliation, than for pride and glorying.
1 Cor 5:3. Though I be absent as to my bodily presence, yet God having intrusted me with a superintendency and care over his church amongst you, out of the care and solicitude which I have for you, as well as the other churches of Christ, and in discharge of that trust which God hath reposed in me, I do determine, and have determined as much as if I were present amongst you, what ought to be done by you concerning this person so notoriously scandalous.
1 Cor 5:4. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; either having solemnly called upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for his counsel and direction, or blessing your action, that it may be of spiritual advantage to the party concerned; or according to the command of Christ, or by his authority, or for his glory. It may be referred either to what went before, I have judged or determined by the authority of Christ; or to what follows after. When ye are gathered together, and my spirit; when you are gathered together by the authority, or according to the institution, of Jesus Christ, and my spirit with you, you having my judgment in the case. With the power of our Lord Jesus Christ; and the power and authority of Christ committed to me, and to you, as a church of Christ.
1 Cor 5:5. What this delivering to Satan is, (of which also we read, 1 Tim 1:20,) is something doubted by interpreters. That by it is to be understood excommunication, or casting out of the communion of the church, can hardly be doubted by any that considereth, 1. That the apostle speaketh of an action which might be, and ought to have been, done by the church of Corinth when they met together, and for the not doing of which the apostle blameth them. 2. That the end of the action was, taking away the scandalous person from the midst amongst them, 1 Cor 5:2; purging out the old leaven, that they might become a new lump, 1 Cor 5:7. 3. It was a punishment inflicted by many. Those, therefore, who interpret the phrase of an extraordinary power given the apostles or primitive churches, miraculously to give up the scandalous person to the power of the devil, to be afflicted, tormented, or vexed by him, (though not unto death,) seem not to have considered, that the apostle would not have blamed the church of Corinth for not working a miracle, and that we no where read of any such power committed to any church of Christ; and one would in reason think, that persons under such circumstances should rather be pitied and helped, than shunned and avoided. The only question therefore is: Why the apostle expresseth excommunication under the notion of being delivered to Satan? Some have thought that the reason is, because God was so pleased to ratify the just censures of his church, delivering such persons as were cast out of it into the hands of Satan, to be vexed and tormented by him; and that this might be in some particular cases, none can deny, but that this was an ordinary dispensation of Providence as to all excommunicated persons, wants better proof than any have yet showed us. It appears to me a more probable account of this phrase which others have given us, telling us, that Satan is called the god of the world, and the prince of the world, as world is taken in opposition to the church of God; so as delivering to Satan, is no more than our Saviour’s—If he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican, Matt 18:17. Only for the further terror of it, the apostle expresseth it by this phrase of delivering up to Satan; thereby letting us know, how dreadful a thing it is to be out of God’s special protection, and shut out from the ordinary means of grace and salvation, and exposed to the temptations of our grand adversary the devil, which is the state of all those who are out of the church, either having never been members of it, or, according to the rules of Christ, cast out of the communion of it. For the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus: the end of excommunication is not for the destruction of the person of him who is cast out, but for the destruction of his flesh, that is, his lusts, which are often in Scripture called flesh, or the maceration and affliction of his body through grief and sorrow; for a determination of his fleshly being cannot be here understood by the destruction of the flesh, for that is no effect of excommunication; and those who interpret the delivery to Satan, of an extraordinary punishment, which the apostles or church in the primitive times had a power to inflict, make it to terminate not in the death, but in the torments only, of the person so punished. Again, the apostle mentioneth this punishment as a means to the eternal salvation of this person’s soul in the day of Christ. There is no text in Scripture which more clearly asserts and opens the ordinance and nature of excommunication, than this text doth. As to those who are to inflict it, it lets us know, that it is to be done by the church, when gathered together; though the elders of the church may put the church upon it, and decree it, yet the consent and approbation of the whole church must be to it; and indeed it is vain for the officers of a church to cast any out of a communion, when the members of that communion will yet have communion with him or them so cast out. It also lets us know, that it is a censure by which men are not shut out of the fellowship of men as men, but of men as Christians, as a church of Christ, in such religious actions and duties as concern them, considered as such a body: excommunication doth not make it unlawful for persons to buy and sell with the persons excommunicated, but to eat and drink at the Lord’s table with them, or have communion with them in acts proper to a church as the church of Christ. The excommunicated person is in something a better condition than a heathen, for he is not to be counted as an enemy, but admonished as a brother, 2 Thess 3:15. Heathens also may hear the word; he is only to be avoided in acts of church fellowship; and as to intimate communion, though it be not religious, as appeareth from 1 Cor 5:11, and from 2 Thess 3:14. Further, we are taught from hence, that none ought to be excommunicated but for notorious, scandalous sins, nor without a solemn invocation on the name of Christ, inquiring his will in the case. We are further taught, that the person that is duly excommunicated is in a miserable state, he is delivered up to Satan, cast out of God’s special protection, which is peculiar to his church, and oftentimes exposed to formidable temptations. Finally, we are from this text instructed, that excommunication ought to be so administered, as may best tend to the saving of the soul of him that falls under that censure: men’s end in excommunications should not be the ruin of persons in their health or estates, only the humbling of them, and bringing them to a sense of their sins, and a true repentance; and all means in order to that end should be used, even to such as are cast out of any church, such are repeated admonitions, the prayers of the church for them, etc.
1 Cor 5:6. You boast and glory because you have men of parts amongst you, persons whom the world count wise; your glorying is not good; what do you glory for, when you have such a scandalous person amongst you, and take no care to cast him out? Can you be ignorant, that as a little leaven taken into the midst of the meal, and there kept, presently soureth the whole mass, and leaveneth the whole lump; so one notorious, scandalous sinner detained in the bosom of a church, casts a blot upon the whole church?
1 Cor 5:7. Purge out therefore the old leaven: if the article th_n in this place be emphatical (as some think) it ought to have been translated this old leaven, that is, the incestuous person, whose communion with you influenceth your whole communion, which is defiled by it, through your church’s neglect of their duty with reference to him. If the article be not to be taken emphatically, these words may be understood as spoken to every individual member of this church, and is no more than put off the old man; the lusts and corruptions of our hearts, as well as false doctrine, being compared to leaven, which influence our whole man, as leaven doth the whole mass of meal. The first seemeth to be most proper to this place, if we consider what went before, and that the apostle is speaking to the whole church, and had been before speaking of an act to be done by them not singly, but when they should be gathered together in a church assembly; these he commands to purge out the old leaven, that is, this incestuous person. That ye may be a new lump; that they might be truly a Christian church, reformed from such things as no way agreed with the doctrine and profession of the gospel. As ye are unleavened; as you are or should be unleavened, like the Jews, who at the passover kept the feast of unleavened bread, when for seven days together they might have no leavened bread in any of their houses, Lev 23:6. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; for though the feast of the Jewish passover be ceased, and you be tied to none of those Levitical observations, yet you are under as high an obligation; for Christ, who is the true paschal Lamb, is slain or sacrificed for us, and your old man should be crucified with him, and you no longer serve sin.
1 Cor 5:8. Therefore let us keep the feast: here is a manifest allusion to the feast of the Jewish passover, which was immediately followed with the feast of unleavened bread for seven days. As the passover prefigured Christ, who is our paschal Lamb, whose flesh we eat and whose blood we drink by believing, and sacramentally in the Lord’s supper; so the Jewish subsequent feast of unleavened bread prefigured all the days of a Christian’s life, which are to be spent, not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth: which may be either understood of those evil and good habits which they signify, and so let us know the duty of every particular Christian to take heed of any malice or wickedness; or else (which seemeth most proper to this place) the abstract is put for the concrete, malice and wickedness for wicked and malicious men, and sincerity and truth for persons that are true and sincere. So that we are from hence taught, both the duty of every particular Christian, considering that Christ hath died as a sacrifice for his sin, to live up to the rule which he hath given us, abhorring malice and all wickedness, and acting truth and sincerity; and also the duty of every true church of Christ, to keep their communion pure from the society of wicked and malicious men, and made up of men of truth and sincerity. The latter seemeth to be principally intended.
1 Cor 5:9. It should seem that Paul had wrote so in some former epistle which he had directed to this church, which is lost; for we must think that Paul wrote more epistles to the several churches than those left us upon record in holy writ (yet so as not to undermine the perfection of the Holy Scriptures). By fornicators are meant any sorts of unclean persons known to them; and the keeping company with them, which the apostle had prohibited to the Corinthians, was not a mere fellowship with them in their works of darkness, but any intimacy of communion with any such persons.
1 Cor 5:10. Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world; I did not intend that admonition as to such persons as were no Christians, no members of the church (so this term world is used, John 15:19; John 17:14; and so it is to be interpreted here). He extendeth this admonition to other scandalous sinners, such as covetous persons, by which he understandeth such as by any open and scandalous acts discover their too great love of money, whether by oppression, or by cheating and defrauding, etc.; or extortioners, such as exact more than their due; or with idolaters, by which he understandeth such as worship images: and under these few species of scandalous sinners here mentioned, the apostle understands all others alike scandalous. For then must ye needs go out of the world; for (saith he) you could have no commerce nor trading with men in the world, if you might keep no company with such as these. Which is true at this day, when the world is much more Christianized than it was at that time.
1 Cor 5:11. Of late there have been some disputes what eating is here intended, whether at the Lord’s table, or at our common tables. Intimacy of communion is that which undoubtedly is here signified by eating; and the apostle’s meaning is, that the members of this church should forbear any unnecessary fellowship and communion with any persons that went under the name of Christians, and yet indulged themselves in any notorious and scandalous courses of life; of which he reckoneth up several sorts. 1. Unclean persons, noted for any kind of uncleanness. 2. Covetous persons; by which he understands all such as, out of their too great love of money, either scandalously sought to add to their heap, or to detain what was others’ just due. 3. Idolaters; by which he understands such as out of fear, or to gain favour with the heathen amongst whom they lived, would frequent and perform Divine worship in the idol’s temple. 4. Railers, such as used their tongues intemperately and scandalously, to the prejudice of others’ reputation. 5. Drunkards; under which notion he comprehends all such as drank hot liquors intemperately, whether they had such an effect upon them as to deprive them of the use of their reason or not. 6. Extortioners, viz. such as, being in any place, exacted more than was their due of those that were under their power. But yet by this interpretation the argument is not lost against eating with such at the table of the Lord, which is no more necessary communion with them, than civil eating is; for neither hath God spread that table for any such, neither ought any church to endure any such persons in its communion: nor are any Christians bound for ever to abide in the communion of that church, which shall wilfully neglect the purging out of such old leaven. Admitting this precept prohibitive of a civil intimacy with scandalous persons, though they be called brethren, it holds a fortiori, as a stronger argument against religious communion with such, in ordinances to which, apparently, they have no proximate right.
1 Cor 5:12. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? My jurisdiction extendeth not to heathens; God hath intrusted to me not the government of the world, but the government of his church. Do not ye judge them that are within? Nor would I have you concern yourselves further, than in judging your own members, those that are within the pale of your church, and who, by a voluntary joining with you, have given you a power over them.
1 Cor 5:13. But them that are without God judgeth; for heathens that live brutish and scandalous lives, God will judge them; the church hath nothing to do with them, they never gave up themselves to them, and are only under the justice of God in the administrations of his providence. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person: do you, therefore, what belongs to you to do. This incestuous person, besides his subjection to God’s judgment, who is the Judge of all, whether within or without the church, is subjected also to your judicature; therefore use that power which God hath given you, and put away from amongst you that evil person. The conclusion of this discourse helps us clearly to understand those former precepts, Purge out the old leaven, 1 Cor 5:7, and: Let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, 1 Cor 5:8; that they are not so properly to be interpreted of particular Christians’ purging out their lusts and corruptions, (though that be every good Christian’s duty,) as of every Christian church’s duty to purge themselves of flagitious and scandalous persons.
1 CORINTHIANS 6
1 Cor 6:1-6: The Corinthians are reproved for bringing their controversies before heathen judges, which they ought to decide among themselves.
1 Cor 6:7-11: There would be no occasion for lawsuits, if men acted up to the principles of the gospel, which exclude from the kingdom of God all notorious transgressors of the moral law.
1 Cor 6:12-14: All lawful things are not expedient,
1 Cor 6:15-20: but fornication is a gross offer we against our bodies, which are members of Christ, temples of the Holy Ghost, and not our own to dispose of otherwise than to God’s glory.
1 Cor 6:1. The apostle having already sharply reflected upon this church for their pride, and contentions, and divisions, (which were branches from that root,) and for their vilifying him who was their spiritual father, and magnifying their instructors above him, as also for their looseness in their church discipline; he cometh in this chapter to another thing, viz. their going to law before pagan judges; for such was the misery of those times, that they had no other, though some think that they might have had, the pagan persecutions being as yet not begun. The apostle speaks of this as a thing which he wondered that they durst be guilty of, that they should be no more tender of the glory of God in the reputation of the Christian religion, and should not rather choose arbitrators amongst the members of their church, to hear and determine such differences as arose amongst them, than give pagans an occasion to reproach the Christian religion for the contentions and feuds of Christians. The reputation of the gospel and the professors of it being the thing for which Paul was here concerned, and upon the account of which he thus speaketh; it becometh Christians yet to consider, whether what he saith concerneth not them, where either the judges, or the generality of the auditors in such judgments, may probably reproach religion, or that way of God which they own, for their trivial and uncharitable contentions.
1 Cor 6:2. If indeed the Corinthians had had no other competent judges, they might have been excused in making use of infidel judges; but, saith the apostle, you have other persons competent enough, whom you may (by your submission to them) make judges; for you know that the saints shall judge the world; in the same sense (as some think) as Christ saith the Ninevites and the queen of the south should rise up in judgment against the Jews, and condemn them; but certainly there is something more than that in it; when the apostle said, the saints should judge the world, he intended to say something of them which was not common to some heathens with them. Others therefore think, that the saints in the day of judgment shall judge the world, approving the sentence of Christ pronounced against the world, and as being assessors with Christ, which indeed is what Christ said of the apostles, Matt 19:28; Luke 22:39. Others think, that the phrase only signifieth a great honour and dignity, to which the saints shall be advanced. A late learned and very critical author hath another notion of the saints’ judging the world here spoken of, interpreting it of a time when the secular judgment of the world should be given to the saints, which was prophesi