1 Corinthians 3

14. They are spiritually discerned. That is, they are discerned only by a faculty which he has not; and, therefore, as beings devoid of reason can not understand the truths of science or of man’s wisdom, for they are without the faculty which can discern them, so beings devoid of God’s Spirit can not understand the truths of God. T. A.—There is absolutely nothing to prevent the intellect from exercising itself upon the Christian revelation more than upon the contents of any other printed book, or the reason from estimating it, or the imagination from building on it, or even the gentler affections from softening at its details. But all this external similarity is accompanied with a total internal difference; and this book differs from every other in requiring, so to speak, an organ specially prepared to receive its real purport. These things are “spiritually discerned.” W. A. B.

15. For “judgeth,” “judged,” substitute “discerneth,” “discerned.” A.—As in all subjects, we can understand language only as far as we have some experience of the things it imports, so in religion (by the very same principle) the spiritual heart alone can understand the language of the Spirit-Think of it for a moment, and you will find that, in every book whatever, it is the mind of the reader that puts meaning in the words. The language of the new covenant is a celestial language, and they who will give their fullness to its blessed words must have caught their secret from heaven! W. A. B.

16. The mind of Christ. A higher standard of judging and of acting has been set up in the mind of the world. Our Lord has not only purified man’s abstract conceptions of virtue, but he has taught us what to admire and approve in life and action. He has lived a life, the principles of which are an everlasting protest against the misjudgments of men arising from their low standards. He has shown us the highest human excellence misunderstood, the highest reason pronounced a derangement of reason, and thus has put us on our guard against similar mistakes. In him we see the true measure of what is right and what is practical in conduct, of what in the end must commend itself to the rectified judgment of the world. That is practical and that is practicable which commends itself to a sound soul, to a calm, trustful, courageous soul in unison with Christ, which commends itself to a faith that overcomes the world, to a love that is capable of self-sacrifice. Undertakings will not suffer shipwreck, however maligned or scorned, into which men who have his spirit enter. T. D. W.

1. AND I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

11. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire. Know ye not

17 that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which 18 temple ye are. Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in 19 this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is 20 foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And 21 again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Therefore let no 22 man glory in men. For all things are your’s; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the 23 world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are your’s; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.

EVERY Christian is in himself a temple, “a temple of God,” as well as a separate or single stone in the general edifice. He has to build up, on the foundation of faith, all that is holy in personal character. “Other foundation can no man lay,” as the inward basis of Christian virtue, “than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Religious faith—faith which accepts a personal Redeemer and a personal redemption—is the support and groundwork of Christian excellence. That excellence, however, is reared and perfected by sore labor and slow degrees. “Let every man,” therefore, “take heed how he buildeth”; after what model and with what materials. The aims and purposes, the motives and ends, which influence the soul, the walk and conversation, the practical habits that appear in the life, all that properly constitutes character, the character of the inward and the outward man—this is the building which individual Christians have to labor to erect. In the materials that constitute personal character, as in those that compose the visible Church, there may be the solid and the durable, the chaffy and the worthless. There may be the gold and silver, the precious stones and resplendent ornaments of a divine virtue; or there may be the wood and hay, the straw and the stubble of an earthly life. Just as it is incumbent on the official builders to take care, in their relations to others, that they teach nothing but the true, and sanction and encourage none but the good, so is it incumbent on the private Christian to take care, in relation to himself, that he do the same; that is, that he have just views of what it is that is to be “built up” on the foundation of his faith as “holy living,” and that he strenuously endeavor to embody and realize this divine “idea” in the positive habits of his daily life. And still further: just as in the end the work of one builder will “abide” and he “have a reward,” and that of another will be “burnt” and he “suffer loss,” so also will it be with individual Christians, according as they may be found, at the day of reckoning, to have traded with their talents with intelligence and skill, or to have misunderstood or abused or buried them in the earth. When the Lord is revealed at the last day, the event will be productive of various feelings even in the circle of the saved themselves! Some will rejoice with instantaneous exultation, and be “found of him in peace, without spot and blameless,” while others “will be ashamed before him at his coming,” awake to apprehension, and be “saved as by fire.” T. B.

1,2. Paul taught the Corinthians all the doctrine he had to teach, but not all the conceptions of the blessed life which he knew of. He showed them that, leaving the principles of doctrine, they were to keep themselves in the love of Christ, and be strengthened more and more with his Spirit in the inner man, growing up unto him in all things. But all this by degrees. F. W. R.

5. As to Apollos, who had followed Paul in evangelical labors at Corinth, the apostle is in no wise jealous of him, and does not for a moment suspect him of fostering the spirit of faction. This is quite evident from his desiring his “brother Apollos” to return to that city (12: 16). But he presses on the Corinthians to remember that both Apollos and he were not masters, but servants, by whom they believed; that they were builders, but the building was not their house; it was God’s temple. The church was not for the ministry, but the ministry for the church, and the church for the Lord. D. F.

7. You may rise up early and go to bed late, and study hard, and read much, and devour the marrow of the best authors; and when you have done all, unless God give a blessing to your endeavors, be as lean and meager, in regard of true and useful learning, as Pharaoh’s lean kine were after they had eaten the fat ones. It is God that both ministereth the seed to the sower and multiplieth the seed sown: the principal and the increase are both his. Sanderson.—What a powerful incentive to thankfulness and prayer, and at the same time to watchfulness and activity! He who must give the increase will do so where the planting and watering are done with an eye upon him. Van O.

8. This is the true inspired remedy for all party spirit: “He that planteth and he that watereth are one.” Each in his way is indispensable. To do our own share in the acting, and to feel that each is an integral, essential portion of the whole, not interfering with the rest; to know that each church, each sect, each man, is cooperating best in the work when he expresses his own individuality (as Paul and Cephas, and John and Barnabas did) in truths of word and action which others, perhaps, can not grasp—that is the only emancipation from partisanship. F. W. R.

Not according to his talents and opportunities, but to the use made of them; not to the harvest that is reaped, but to the seed sown. “Every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labor.” Not according to his gifts; not according to his successes; not according to the worldly applause he may have won; but “according to his labor.” This meets the case of every disciple, as well the poorest as the richest, as well the obscurest as the greatest, as well the servant with one talent as the servant with five. Only be faithful to your trust, and when the labor of the day is over, and you go up to the great harvest-home, you will be “satisfied.” H. A. B.

9-15. Paul’s favorite images are drawn, not from the operations and uniform phenomena of the natural world, but from the activities and outward exhibition of human society, from the life of soldiers, from the life of slaves, from the market, from athletic exercises, from agriculture, from architecture. Here he first uses an agricultural metaphor, and then he passes to an architectural. Paul has planted the precious trees. Apollos, and probably others with him, are watering them. Suddenly the image changes to one more capable of being turned to what the apostle wishes to enforce. A building in progress rises before us. Paul has laid the foundation—laid it once for all, and laid it well. He has no objection to say this, for it has been done by the grace of God. On this foundation Apollos and others are building. As to building on another foundation, this is set aside at once. The work is going on, and will go on indefinitely in the future; but it will be tested. A day will come when the fire will burn up those wretched edifices of wood and straw, and leave unharmed in their glorious beauty those that were raised of marble and granite, and decorated with silver and gold. Those who raised such structures as these shall not only be safe but rewarded; those who lost their time on the others shall just escape out of the conflagration, because they built on the right foundation, but their escape shall be barely an escape. H.

9. God’s building.** The Church below is at best but a small part of the entire structure which belongs to all ages. Much that we behold is, after all, only scaffolding that shall be removed, or rubbish that shall be cast away. But meanwhile the work is going forward, and the walls, however slowly, are rising. Everything in God’s providence respecting the present world is made to lead to this. All preaching of the word, diffusion of truth, conversion of sinners, and edification of saints, are means in God’s hands for carrying up his structure. Prophets and apostles are humble instruments in the work. J. W. A.

11. “Ye are God’s building,” he tells his Corinthian converts, and then he immediately alludes to Christ as the foundation of this building, and the only one. If we divest this language of metaphor, its meaning is that the Lord Jesus stands in a relation to his Church similar to that which a foundation bears to a building. His Church rests on him. Its pardon, its holiness, its hope, its blessedness, its safety, its very existence, all depend on him. C. B.

—That foundation on which the Christian architect builds is Jesus Christ—that is, his experience of Christ as his Saviour. There may be moral men, amiable men, benevolent and charitable men, who do not have this; but you can not call them Christian men. Their life, admirable in some respects, is not a Christian life. The structure they build may be a splendid pantheon or museum, but it is not a Christian temple. They may use labor and diligence, but the Christian corner-stone is wanting, and when the test-hour comes they will find it so. E. H. G.—Some are all their days laying the foundation, and are never able to build upon it to any comfort to themselves or usefulness to others. And the reason is, because they will be mixing with the foundation stones that are only fit for the building. They will be bringing their obedience, duties, mortification of sin, and the like, unto the foundation. These are precious stones to build with, but unmeet to be first laid to bear upon them the whole weight of the building. The foundation is to be laid in mere grace, mercy, pardon in the blood of Christ; this the soul is to accept of and rest in merely as it is grace, without the consideration of anything in itself, but that it is sinful and obnoxious to ruin. Owen.

13. It takes a spiritual vision to see that nothing but what is invisible is indestructible. Only truth, love, purity, spiritual affections, and spiritual attainments survive that fire which shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is. The soul is holier than the scene and the instruments amid which it is trained, because it has an everlasting consciousness, responsibility, judgment. It is not written of our reputation, our trade, or our estate, but of our souls, that they shall “all stand before the judgment-seat of God.” F. D. H.

15. Saved so as by fire.** Many get to the foundation, “other than which no man can lay,” which is “Jesus Christ.” The faith which unites them to him is a foundation in themselves, on which is to be built the beautiful fabric of the Christian virtues; but they build nothing upon it at all, or nothing but “wood, hay, and stubble”; or the materials of their character are so heterogeneous that it appears to consist of a strange mixture of the valuable and the worthless. Christian professors with enormous means do nothing. With great influence, they never exert it for great ends; with talents for service, they let them lie unimproved; or, having only one talent, they bury and conceal it because they have not ten. What strange practical inconsistencies are to be seen on all sides! What questionable conformity to the world! What subjection to fashion! What luxury and display! What liberties of speech! What keenness in business—so very nigh to taking an advantage, imposing upon ignorance, or overreaching the unwary! What clutching and covetousness and hardness of heart! What terrible justice in some people; in others what explosions of temper! In most, what a want of harmony and entireness; and in many, at times, what strange apparitions of even the old animal life! Yet, along with all these diversities of defect, or in connection with most of them, there shall be unquestionable proofs of the men having a firm standing on “the foundation”; and there shall be manifest in the entire structure of their habits several portions of solid masonry, and, mixed with the mud and rubble they put into it, a good many valuable and precious things. T. B.

16. The Spirit of God dwelleth in you.

No passing visit is here, no sudden but transient illumination, no power fitfully given and suddenly withdrawn. “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” We need motives, strong motives, one and all of us. We need them for purposes of action and for purposes of resistance. And among these none is better and more serviceable than the motive which appeals to the sanctity, the responsibility, the powers, the capabilities implied in that inward presence of the eternal Spirit, which is the great gift of the new covenant between God and man. In moments of moral surprise, in moments of unusual depression, in moments of a felt sense of isolation which threatens to take the heart out of our whole life, in moments of spasmodic daring, when ordinary sanctions have lost their hold upon us, it is well to fall back upon the reassuring, tranquilizing, invigorating resources of such an appeal as that of the apostle: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” H. P. L.

A sublime truth is here! The body of every saint is a temple far more real than that on Mount Zion, and the heart of every saint is a “holiest of all” far more glorious than that of old; for the Shechinah was but a symbol of the divine presence, but the Spirit is infinitely beyond a symbol. He is an actual Deity, positively dwelling in the heart, and beatifying it with his own heaven. Davies.—Roofs arched with gold and palaces adorned with marble are vile in comparison with that house which the Lord has chosen to be his temple, in the which the Holy Ghost dwells. Illuminate this house with the light of righteousness. Its ornaments shall never fade, and it shall dwell hereafter in spotless beauty and eternal majesty. Cyprian.

17. The Corinthian Christians were guilty of sins both against purity and charity. The popular idolatries of Corinth, aggravated by the commercial and maritime importance of the place, would probably have exposed them to considerable temptations to unclean living; and they had even learned to look with self-complacency upon evils which were not tolerated by heathen opinion. And so little did they understand the love which was due to their brethren in Christ, that they evidently regarded the Church as only another form of political life, with its natural divisions of opinion and its heated passions and its pervading earthly taint. For both evils the remedial truth is one and the same: Christians are members of a society which the Spirit inhabits, because he dwells in them individually, and so has made them collectively the body of Christ. H. P. L.

22. Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas.

No doubt there were some differences of views even between Paul, and Peter, and Apollos; for while, on the one hand, they were all enlightened by the Spirit of God, yet, on the other hand, they retained still their human differences of character and disposition, which must on several occasions have been manifest. But Paul was earnest that schism should be ended by all parties remembering that whatever became of the truth or falsehood of their own particular views of Christianity, yet that Christianity according to any of their views was the one great thing which was their glory and their salvation. “Paul, and Apollos, and Peter, are all yours; but you are Christ’s.” T. A.—There is not a wise or a luminous man of the past, or of the present age, who does not shine to give light to the children of light, who does not belong to all the good. A. R.

The world. The soul, by virtue of union with God, has the divine life in it. Rising above the fears and fascinations of sin, growing into the image of him whose new life is now the soul’s life, it becomes absorbed in the pursuit and the enjoyment of something higher and better than it ever tasted or sought before. The sources of pleasure from which the soul drank before are not cut off;

but those sources are themselves purified, and living water springs up even in a desert. Love, friends, letters, music, art, are not less to the soul in Christ than they were when the eye and ear and heart had not been anointed. They are all loved more, enjoyed more, because “All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” Prime.