Untitled Sermon (24)
Paul is concerned to warn, in the strongest possible language, those who are currently “building the church.”
First, the apostle did so “according to the charis (grace) given him.”
Second, Paul laid the foundation “as a wise builder.
By laying the foundation he did—Jesus Christ and him crucified—the apostle himself was the truly “wise” master-builder in contrast to the “wise” in Corinth, who are building the church with totally incongenial materials and are therefore in danger of attempting to lay another foundation as well
With this clause, and especially with its accompanying warning “but each one should build with care,” Paul is once again directing his aim at the Corinthians themselves, and in particular those who are leading the way in their strife and divisions
that for Paul the “gold, silver, and costly stones” represent what is compatible with the foundation, the gospel of Jesus Christ and him crucified; what will perish is sophia in all of its human forms. It belongs only to this age, and this age is passing away, along with all that belongs to it
Finally, it is probably not irrelevant that “gold, silver, and costly stones” recur regularly in the OT to describe the building materials of the temple.
And what they are currently doing is desecrating the only temple of the living God in pagan Corinth.
On the other hand, those who persist in pursuing sophia, who are building with “wood, hay, and straw,” will see their work consumed and they themselves “will suffer loss”—although their loss, he is quick to qualify, does not refer to their salvation
Thus, as surely as there is final judgment, there is also “reward” and “loss.” What is not known, either from this passage or elsewhere, is the nature of the reward. This text only affirms its certainty.
Thus Paul is not so much making a soteriological, and thus theological, statement as he is warning his Corinthian friends.
He wants them to desist from their current worldly wisdom; he wants them, with him, to be saved and to experience reward.
It is unfortunately possible for people to attempt to build the church out of every imaginable human system predicated on merely worldly wisdom, be it philosophy, “pop” psychology, managerial techniques, relational “good feelings,” or what have you. But at the final judgment, all such “building” (and perhaps countless other forms, where systems have become more important than the gospel itself) will be shown for what it is: something merely human, with no character of Christ or his gospel in it
But the good news of the passage is that one does not need to build badly. That which has the character of the foundation, Jesus Christ crucified and risen, will not only survive any present hour of testing, but will enter the final judgment as a glorious church; and those responsible for such building will receive their due reward, which in itself is an expression of grace.
In the two preceding paragraphs Paul has been trying to correct the Corinthians’ false view of church leadership, by redirecting their focus from the teachers themselves to God, who owns all and whose alone they are. At the same time he must correct their understanding of the nature of the church itself.
Thus the argument now takes another slight turn, in which Paul carries the preceding imagery (vv. 9b–15) a step further by specifying the kind of building that he and the others have been erecting, namely God’s temple in Corinth
With this imagery he does two things: (1) he tries to help the Corinthians to see the nature and significance of their being God’s people in Corinth, and (2) by picking up the immediately preceding imagery of judgment (vv. 13–15), he sternly warns those who are in process of destroying the church by their divisions
The imagery of the gathered church as God’s temple, which occurs twice more in Paul (2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21), is a pregnant one both for the Jewish Paul and for the Gentile Corinthians. The word used (naos) refers to the actual sanctuary, the place of the deity’s dwelling
For Paul the imagery reflects the OT people of God. Although they are never called God’s temple as such, they are God’s own people, among whom God chose to “dwell” by tabernacling in their midst
As practicing pagans (see 6:9; 8:7) most of them would have frequented the many pagan temples and shrines
But now Paul is calling their attention to the fact that, since there is only one God, that one God can have only one temple in Corinth, and they themselves, as a gathered community of believers, are that temple
His immediate concern is not to assert that the Spirit dwells in each of them, true as that would be for him (cf. 6:19), but that the Spirit of God “dwells in your midst” when they have assembled together for worship
17 As God’s temple in Corinth, the church was to be God’s alternative to Corinth
This threat takes the preceding warning (vv. 10–15) to its next step. The whole is addressed to the church.
God is holy; his temple is therefore also holy, set apart for his purposes; and as God’s temple, the only temple the living God has in Corinth, you are by implication also to be holy. As this letter reveals, this is not one of their strong suits. So the threat, which is real, is at the same time turned into an invitation for them to become what in fact they are by the grace of God, “God’s holy temple in Corinth.”
One of the desperate needs of the church is to recapture this vision of what it is by grace, and therefore also what God intends it to be. In most Protestant circles one tends to take the local parish altogether too lightly. Seldom does one sense that it is, or can be, experienced as a community that is so powerfully indwelt by the Spirit that it functions as a genuine alternative to the pagan world in which it is found. It is perhaps not too strong to suggest that the recapturing of this vision of its being, in terms both of its being powerfully indwelt by the Spirit and of its thereby serving as a genuine alternative (“holy” in the most holistic sense) to the world, is its single greatest need.
First he urges that none of them be deceived by what appears to be wisdom but is not.
Those who persist in pursuing sophia, who are thereby destroying, not building, the church, are self-deceived—and a fearful judgment threatens them (God will destroy the one who destroys God’s temple, the church in Corinth [v. 17])
The opening salvo is irony once again: “If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age.” Of course they do; that is quite the point.
Therefore, God’s people must abandon confidence in the securities of the present age; they must trust in God’s folly—“such a person should become a ‘fool’ ”—and thereby become truly wise.
And how do we know? Because once again, as earlier (1:19), there is sufficient evidence from what “is written” that God has always so regarded human efforts to understand God’s ways. In this case two texts are cited, Job 5:13 and Ps. 94:11 (LXX 93:11)
The second text emphasizes their ultimate futility. God knows their reasonings, that they are futile. The obvious point for Paul, therefore, is that the Corinthians are themselves fools if they do not take seriously this divine view of things.
21a With a final emphatic “So then” (see on 3:7), Paul brings the present argument to its conclusion, which is at once exhortation, theology, and doxology
First, then, the exhortation: “No more boasting [in] human leaders.”
Why not? Because “all things are yours.”
For those in Christ Jesus, what things were formerly tyrannies are now their new birthright. This is the glorious freedom of the children of God. They are free lords of all things, not bound to the whims of chance or the exigencies of life and death. The future is no cause for panic; it is already theirs
Paul’s point is not that “all things are yours” willy-nilly, or selfishly,
Thus it is only in Christ that the believer possesses all things; but in him the believer does indeed possess all things
