1 Corinthians 4

Life, or death. Life is the Christian’s in a far higher and fuller sense than it is the worldly man’s, since he enjoys it on a far higher level of blessedness, and uses it in a much nobler cause. Even death is his, since, though for a moment it triumphs over him, in the end he triumphs over it, and, while he seems to yield to it, he treads it under his feet. For it is the portal to life; and while our friends are weeping at our bedside a chorus of angels welcomes us into Paradise. What the world dreads, the believer at last welcomes, for it severs us from sin, and takes us to the vision of God. A. W. T.

Things present. Wherever the Lord Jesus takes up his abode, what before was evil, and a complication and accumulation of evils, becomes now a train of God’s ministers for good, a chariot of fiery and glorious discipline, to which Satan himself is harnessed, if God pleases, to do God’s bidding. G. B. C.

Things to come. Thine are not only all the former and present but also all the future; thine the new heaven and the new earth; thine all the promises and their glorious fulfillment; thine all the battles, and, therefore, also the coming final one between light and darkness, and the mighty victory of light, eternal peace, the unending rest of the people of God! Thine are the angels and all the blessed in the New Jerusalem; thine all the glory of God and Christ in the world of light; for thee shine all the stars in this life and the next; for thee are rising the enduring mansions of the heavenly home. Christleib.

All are yours. All things are the Christian’s—this marvelous life, so full of meaning, so pregnant with infinite opportunities. Still more death, which seems to come like a tyrant—death is his in Christ, his minister to lead him to higher life. Paul is his, to teach him freedom. Apollos his, to animate him with his eloquence. Cephas his, to fire him with his courage. Every author his, to impart to him his treasures. But all things are ours on this condition—that we are Christ’s. When the law of the cross is the law of our being, when we have learned to surrender ourselves, then, and then only, they are ours, not we theirs. The Christian is “creation’s heir.” He may say triumphantly, “The world, the world is mine.” F. W. R.

1. 1 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries 2. 2 of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. But with me 3. 3 it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge 4. 4 not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he 5. 5 that judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the 6. 6 counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God. And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be 7. 7 puffed up for one against another. For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? 8. 8 Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to 9. 9 God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you. For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the 10. 10 world, and to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; 11. 11 we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised. Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no cer- 12. 12 tain dwellingplace; and labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; 13. 13 being persecuted, we suffer it: being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the 14. 14 world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day. I write not these things to 15. 15 shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through 16. 16 the gospel. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me. For this cause have I sent

17 unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church. 18 Now some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. But I will come to you 19 shortly, if the Lord will, and will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but 20 the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. What will ye? shall 21 I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness?

To do right, to do always right, and to do it without concern as to the judgment of human creatures, belongs to the very highest degrees of moral culture, to the strong man in Christ Jesus. Yet we should strive after it as indispensable as well to our holiness as our happiness. Multitudes are daily kept from doing or attempting what they know to be right, by the dread of what fellow-creatures will say or think. In this there is such a weakness that we are prompt to despise it, when presented in the abstract, or in the case of another, while we are perpetually incurring the same condemnation by our indecision and cowardice. As the character thus formed is insusceptible of true greatness, so it is liable to unspeakable misery. No man can lift up his head with manly calmness and peace, who is the slave of other men’s judgments. It is, therefore, a matter of great moment, in our discipline of heart and life, to keep before our minds those considerations which shall dispose and enable us to say with Paul, “With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man’s judgment.” J. W. A.

1,2. These verses are addressed to congregations in order that a right estimate may be formed by them of the ministerial office, which neither, on the one hand, ought to be depreciated, nor, on the other, to be unduly valued. Paul’s view was in opposition to all tendencies to worship the man, or to represent the office as magical or mysterious; and, on the other hand, his view was in direct opposition to all opinions which value it only as a sphere for the exhibition of gifts and talents. And in reference to that right, so liberally assumed, of passing judgment, of criticising individual ministers, the apostle teaches that the same definition excludes this right, because of the impossibility of judgment; for all that a steward can have of merit is fidelity, and fidelity is exactly that which men can not judge—it is a secret hidden with God. F. W. R.—As a faithful steward does not curtail to his master’s servants their due, but gives them their portion of meat in due season, so is it also with stewards in the kingdom of grace. Thereby they prove themselves to be honest, blameless laborers, by rightly dividing the word of truth, by not corrupting the word of God, by feeding souls unto eternal life with unadulterated doctrine, and with sound words which can not be condemned. Besser.

3. A small thing that I should be judged of you.** Not because he was above judgment, not because he was infallible, or teaching truths too grand for them, but because he was to be judged before a tribunal far more awful than Corinthian society. F. W. R.—It is a good observation of Fuller that “those are the best Christians who are more careful to reform themselves than to censure others.” The world, it must be expected, will be void of charity toward God’s people, and judge them as hypocrites, enthusiasts, and what not; but it is much to be lamented that the children of grace should judge one another so rashly as we often see them do. Hill.

4. “By myself” should be “against myself.” When our version was made, “by myself” had this meaning, as may be seen in the comments and sermons of the time. A.—He that judgeth me is the Lord. Suppose men condemn me, yea, suppose all men unite in censure and reprobation, what is this, if He that sitteth in the heavens looks down with approval? This is the only true ground to take in regard to the regulation of our conduct: to do all as in the immediate presence of God and as subject to his animadversion. How serenely, how loftily may a true Christian go on in the performance of some distasteful or unpopular duty, if he can say with assurance, “I know that the eye of my God looks down with approbation on what I am doing.” This sustained Paul, and has sustained God’s most faithful servants in every age; the thought and assurance of God as ever sitting in judgment upon every act. J. W. A.

We need such an order of men still, not self-assuming or dominant, as “lords over God’s heritage,” but gentle among them, while loyal to truth and to its God—men of kingly nature, because they serve a heavenly Master, and who are bold to utter his word without fear and without favor. Never since the world began were such men needed more. And let it be remembered that, while this duty falls with double weight on those who have been called to it by the rule of God’s house, it does not belong to them alone. Wherever a man feels the force of divine truth within him, he should be fearless in his place to speak it out, without shrinking, and to show that he is a witness for God. It was the noble wish of Moses, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets,” and all that follow him, however humbly, to testify in word or deed to the truth of God, shall have a share in his reward. “This honor have all his saints.” Ker.

5. Before the assembled myriads of all the earth’s inhabitants, before listening angels, before the great Judge himself, the secrets of our hearts will be laid bare, and our inmost thoughts brought into the light. The veil of hypocrisy will drop off; and many, who in the praise of men have had their reward, will stand exposed in the shame and deformity of their own imaginations. The self-deceiver and the careless alike will be dismayed at the array of sins which dwelt unheeded, if not encouraged, in the secret chambers of their hearts. And the most faithful, watchful Christian may find matter for serious meditation in the truth that his every thought, as well as word and work, must be exposed on that day to the scrutiny of a righteous Judge. J. J.

8. “Ye are,” says he, “already become full, ye are already become rich, ye reign without us.” They were in spirit and conduct as if the kingdom of Christ had with them already reached its consummation, and they as partakers therein had attained to all riches, to the satisfaction of all their desires. And would this were so, says he; would they had already attained to this participation in the perfected kingdom of Christ; for then, assuredly, the apostles would not have been excluded therefrom, nor would their circumstances be such as they now are. Thus he holds up before them his own life of conflict, in contrast with their false security, their unauthorized and groundless exultation. N.

9. Persons appointed to death. This is an allusion to the Roman theatrical spectacles. In the morning those criminals to whom they gave a chance of escaping with their life fought with the wild beasts armed; but in the afternoon the gladiators fought naked, and he who escaped was only reserved for slaughter to another day; so that they might well be called “persons appointed to death.” By comparing the apostles to these devoted persons, Paul hath given us a strong picture of the dangers which the apostles encountered in the course of their ministry: dangers which at length proved fatal to the most of them.

10. We are fools on account of Christ. The apostle repeats ironically the things which his enemies in Corinth said of him. And in the same spirit of irony he attributes to them the contrary qualities. M.

12. We are expressly told, in the history, that at Corinth Paul labored with his own hands. That manual labor he continued at Ephesus (Acts 20:34); and not only so, but continued it during that particular residence at Ephesus near the conclusion of which this Epistle was written; so that he might with the strictest truth say, at the time of writing the Epistle, “even unto this present hour, we labor, working with our own hands.” M. H.—It is during his sojourn at Ephesus that we get our first glimpse of a fact, which was no doubt one of the constant facts of his life—that he supported others as well as himself by his manual toils. When he took leave of the Ephesian elders, he says, “Ye yourselves know that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me.” It is one of the most touching and impressive scenes in a life rich above most in tragic adventures. As we see the apostle lift those thin strong hands, worn and scarred with constant toil, even we are moved by the appeal. Those toil-worn hands speak to us with a still more pathetic eloquence when we know how constant and unremitting were the labors in which they had been occupied. Cox.

15. Here the whole order, work, and result of the ministry are given in brief but significant summary. “In Christ Jesus,” who giveth the Spirit, and whom the Spirit glorifieth, Paul, the living preacher, “had begotten” to their new birth the Corinthian disciples, “through the gospel,” as the divinely appointed instrument of their renewal and conversion. And here, too, are summarily involved: the new man; his renewal, or new birth; the implied agency of the Spirit; and the instrumentality of knowledge, “the gospel.” This unfolds the whole work. The gift of the Spirit, which results in that “new man” wherein dwelleth God, whether as the Father, or as Christ, or as the Holy Ghost, is communicated through, or by, the gospel, by means of knowledge or of divine truth. J. S. S.

16. When Paul says, once and again, I beseech you, be ye followers of me, it has a sound, taken as it may be taken, of conceit, or vanity; but, when we look upon him as a man who goes after Christ in the ways of scorn and suffering patience, bearing his Master’s dark flag of patience and loss, and calling others to follow, we only see that he has taken Christ’s own spirit, and despises even to send the flock before him, where he does not lead himself. H. B.—It is not good for a man to be living any life which he would not desire to see made perfect and universal through the world. Paul says, “Be what I am”; but Dives cries out of the fire where he lies, “Oh, send and warn my seven brethren lest they come where I am!” The dying Christian tells those beside him of the blessedness of serving Christ. The dying murderer with his last breath warns men from the scaffold not to be what he has been. Oh! test your lives thus! Do not consent to be anything which you would not ask the soul that is dearest to you to be! Be nothing which you would not wish all the world to be! P. B.