ONLY ONE FOUNDATION

1 Corinthians 3:10–15 (ESV) — 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

I. A FOUNDATION LAID

1 Corinthians 3:10 (ESV) — 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation,

1 Corinthians 2:2 (ESV) — 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

II. BUILD ON THE FOUNDATION

1 Corinthians 3:10 (ESV) — 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.

All the decrees of popes and councils, all the resolutions of assemblies, synods, presbyteries, and associations, and all the ordinances of men as individuals, however great they be, when they are all put together, if they at all differ from the law of Christ, are mere wind and waste paper, nay, worse, they are treasonable insults to the majesty of King Jesus[1]

Luke 6:47–49 (ESV) — 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”

III. JESUS IS THE FOUNDATION

1 Corinthians 3:11 (ESV) —11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 28:16 (ESV) — 16 therefore thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’

(See Romans 9:33; 1 Peter 2:6; Psalm 118:22; Matthew 21:42; Acts 4:11; (cf. 2 Timothy 2:19))

Ephesians 2:20 (ESV) — 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,

As churches we are not legislators, but subjects; it is not for us to frame constitutions, invent offices, and decree rites and ceremonies, but we are to take everything out of the mouth of Christ, and to do what he bids us, as he bids us, and when he bids us. Parliaments and kings have no authority whatever in the church, but Christ alone rules therein. If any portion of a church be not based upon Christ it is a mere deforming addition to the plan of the great Architect, and mars the temple which God has built, and not man.[2]

“Will the churches that are founded upon the biblical gospel continue in that tradition and continue to build with the finest materials? Wisdom, power and spiritual gifts are not the foundation of the New Testament church. The true foundation is ‘Jesus Christ and him crucified’”. David Jackman in Let’s Study 1 Corinthians p. 58.

IV. WORK WILL BE MADE MANIFEST

1 Corinthians 3:12–15 (ESV) —12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

“What is lacking, however, is the recognition of the total sufficiency of Christ crucified to bear my sin and guilt and to make me truly accepted by God.” David Jackman

[1]Spurgeon, C. H. (1879). The One Foundation. In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 25, pp. 520–521). Passmore & Alabaster.

[2]Spurgeon, C. H. (1879). The One Foundation. In The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons (Vol. 25, p. 521). Passmore & Alabaster.