The Fullness of Christ
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Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,
To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
You all know the situation at this Church from this opening chapter.
They were a church divided.
Paul is calling for unity.
Letter Summary:
a. What constitutes true unity in the Church.
b. What challenges true unity in the Church.
c. What corrects true unity in the Church.
These 3 recur throughout.
Example: Points of unity -
To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:
All set apart unto the same Jesus
All called to sainthood: “holified”
With all who call upon Christ
I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.
Same judgment about what?
1-17 / That salvation is all about trust in Christ and nothing else.
Our unity must be located first and foremost in the Gospel.
We MUST believe, receive, rest in, preach and be committed to the SAME Gospel.
Apart from this, unity is impossible.
The challenges to unity? 11 and following
For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
The scandal of these divisions is that they deny the centrality of the cross.
This is Paul's argument: If we are united in the cross, in the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ at Calvary - then nothing else is to divide us.
A clear Christology which is to be at the center of everything.
This is the very heart of it all.
Who is Jesus Christ?
What did He do at Calvary?
What is my relationship to it?
To divide beyond that - is scandal.
So - we cannot divide by:
So - we cannot divide by:
a. Personalities (12)
b. Baptismal experience (14-17)
c. Giftedness (17) Intellectual or otherwise
d. Social strata (20 & 26)
e. Ethnicity (22)
f. Cultural differences (22-24)
g. Religious heritage (22-24)
h. Christian or spiritual progress (30)
All of which Paul sums up in
And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
Any comparisons or divisions between Believers which come from low views of Christ, but high views of self.
A legalist is anyone whose list of what pleases God is longer than mine, and a libertine is anyone whose list is shorter than mine.
We love to compare ourselves to others rather than looking completely to Christ.
God has made Jesus to be all we need:
Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification & Redemption.
Wisdom:
Wisdom:
Wisdom = More than knowledge
OT - How to live rightly before God
An all encompassing perspective of life from God’s revelation.
All of humanity - 2 basic views:
Naturalism - Everything just is.
Supernaturalism - Everything was made.
Made with a goal or purpose.
Supernaturalism without Jesus misses the endgame: God’s ultimate goal:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
We exist to be examples and proclaimers of grace and mercy in Jesus.
Based upon & , it looks like His final goal is the divinely ultimate manifestation of His mercy and grace through eternal, familial society with a redeemed humanity.
We exist to be examples and proclaimers of grace and mercy in Jesus.
The divinely ultimate manifestation of His mercy and grace through eternal, familial society with a redeemed humanity.
To reveal God as only He could know Himself apart from the Fall.
Wisdom not about what job, career, person to marry or car to buy: Wisdom about why I exist, why I am here.
a. We are here to be an example of what it looks like to experience God’s grace and mercy in Jesus Christ.
b. We are here to declare that same mercy and grace to the rest of the world.
To live and think and act with that all encompassing context - will find us living in the wisdom of Christ regardless of any other incidental in our lives.
ILLUSTRATION: Bobby & Sammy
We know true wisdom because of Him.
That He was sent to be the means of God being merciful to us by being the full satisfaction for our sins on the cross -
And that we are the recipients of His grace - His full and free gift of eternal life in adoptive sonship.
Christ is made unto us wisdom: Without Him in His proper place, we do not know what life is about.
And especially salvation from our sins.
RIGHTEOUSNESS
RIGHTEOUSNESS
Jesus doesn’t reveal to the truth of all life so that we get a 2nd chance: He actually becomes our righteousness.
John Bunyan: But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy righteousness is in heaven; and methought withal, I saw, with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God’s right hand; there, I say, is my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was a–doing, God could not say of me, He [lacks] my righteousness, for that was just before Him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, and to–day, and for ever.
230. Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed, I was loosed from my affliction and irons, my temptations had fled away; so that, from that time, those dreadful scriptures of God left off to trouble me now; now went I also home rejoicing, for the grace and love of God. So when I came home, I looked to see if I could find that sentence, Thy righteousness is in heaven [in my Bible]; but could not find such a saying, wherefore my heart began to sink again, only that was brought to my remembrance, He ‘of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption’ by this word I saw the other sentence true ().
If Christ is not the whole of our righteousness - we are lost.
Ours: Partial and stained at best.
Even perfect obedience is only our duty.
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
Corinthian disunity: Establishing their own standing in some way.
Always divides.
John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1995), 105–106.
Those holding Christ as their righteousness:
a. Security - HE would have to sin for me to be refused.
b. Judgmentalism: Others have the same righteousness as I do.
He is made unto us the righteousness we need.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
SANCTIFICATION
SANCTIFICATION
Normal use: Growing in Christ’s character.
Basic use: Set apart uniquely unto God for His delight and purposes.
Paul’s view of sanctification lived out:
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.
Separation FROM the morality and values of the World UNTO God’s holiness.
How?
By virtue of our union to Him, we have His own Holy Spirit within us:
for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
He does not leave us to our own devices to deal with sin:
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
Jason Meyer: Union and Communion -
“Union with God is a unilateral act of God’s sovereign grace. It does not depend on human works, and so it does not fluctuate with our obedience or disobedience. Once we are joined to Christ through the gift of regeneration and faith, our union with God does not go up or down.”
“Communion with God is different. It is a responsive relationship; it is not robotic or mechanical. God responds to our obedience or disobedience. Our obedience pleases him, and our disobedience displeases him. We experience the ramifications for our choices at the relational level: we can experience intimacy with God, or we can feel distant from God.”
He is made sanctification to us by making us partakers of His Holy Spirit.
He has brought us into union, so that we might enjoy close COMMUNION.
The Spirit never yet led anyone into sin - always into holiness.
Christ made unto us: Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and -
REDEMPTION
REDEMPTION
1 Corinthians: Crossway Classic Commentaries Paul’s Defense of His Manner of Preaching (Verses 17–31)
When he is called our Redeemer, he is presented as our deliverer from guilt, from hell, from sin, from the power of Satan, from the grave. But when redemption is distinguished from justification and sanctification, it refers to the final deliverance from evil. “The day of redemption” is the day when the work of Christ will be consummated in the perfect salvation of his people as to soul and body (Romans 8:23; Ephesians 1:14; 4:30; Hebrews 9:12).
Always: Release - especially from captivity or pain.
1. The curse of the Law - that we are condemned by it.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
2. FROM lawlessness.
who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
3. Special prizes of His own. His inheritance.
It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb,
Inheritance
having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
4. Forgiveness
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
5. Eternal life
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
Salvation is not a spiritual catch & release program.
6. For the glorious day to come.
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
7. Redemption from Adam to Christ
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
The author and finisher of our faith.
Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
He has bought us to Himself for an unimaginably glorious future - which will commence at His return - the Day of Redemption.
The whole of our salvation rests in Christ alone.
He is made unto us:
Wisdom - to live in the light of God’s plans and purposes.
Righteousness - That we might know we are acceptable to God.
Sanctification - That we might grow ever more into the image and character of Christ - and wage a hopeful battle against sin.
Redemption - Bought back from all sin and ruin
so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
What an amazing, glorious and precious Savior He is.
What are we to do with all of this?
There are some - perhaps even here tonight, whose whole worldview is wrapped up in themselves - even when it comes to serving God.
What is MY ministry, MY place, MY position?
This passage would call you to be free of that by recapturing the way Christ is made unto you wisdom: To see that your first ministry, the calling you have above all others is to glory in His mercy and grace toward you, and to make that known to others.
See yourself in the big picture of God’s grand purposes in Christ, and not in your own little world.
2. There are perhaps some here who love Christ, but still worry and fret that you don’t do enough and aren’t good enough.
Spend much time meditating on how Christ is made unto you all the righteousness you need to be fully accepted by the Father.
That you are complete in Him. And rest in His perfect righteousness imputed to you by faith.
Salvation isn’t Jesus helping you to be good enough. It is found in His being good enough.
3. There may be some who in their struggle against indwelling sin are fighting a losing battle because you are either trying to annihilate sin altogether, or trying to tackle it in your own power.
Christ has placed His own Spirit within you: constant, conscious, deliberate dependence upon Him - and His promise to finish the work.
4. There may be some who are not aware of all Christ has redeemed you from - and thus you do not look forward to the day of redemption with joy and anticipation.
Dwell on the finished work of Christ on your behalf - and long for His return to consummate it all.
Let us all look more to the Christ who is made unto us all these things.