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The Greeks regarded Christ crucified as foolishness. The doctrine of Christ's death and resurrection, is the foundation of Christianity. b. ? I am an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, not the will of any man.. The plain fact is that Paul did not know when these events would take place, and nowhere does he claim to know. i. Lord: A title designating not only master and boss, but also the Lord revealed in the Old Testament (known as Yahweh or Jehovah). 1. : At the outset of the letter indeed, the very first few words Paul fearlessly declares his apostolic credentials. Fourth, every day seriously test your hope and experience. Jesus does not belong to any one party. These cliques ignore the truth of unity over all diversity in the church, even if they were all in the name of spirituality. He can be confident because God is faithful. These bodies which are subject to disease, injury, and one day decay, are unsuited for heaven. By which you are also saved, if you hold fast that word I preached to you. You see that the mark of a child of God is that by the grace of God he is what he is; what do, His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, : Though grace made Paul what he was, Paul still, i. They say, Here is a Christians body, lying in a grave with no casket. His replacement was a man named Sosthenes, who was beaten by the Roman officials in a bit of anti-Semitic backlash against the Jews who tried to persecute Paul. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. b. If the cross and its message seem weak, they are not; they are powerful and wise. ii. For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloes, : Chloe was a woman (probably a Christian) whose business interests caused her representatives (those of her. ) Through much of this book, Paul deals with the moral problems of the Corinthians: envy, divisions, pride, immorality, greed, irreverence, and selfishness. Jesus gave him the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and hes our man. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. No one was present in the tomb with Him when His body transformed into a resurrection body. 3. i. Clarke on Chloe: This was doubtless some very religious matron at Corinth, whose family were converted to the Lord; some of whom were probably sent to the apostle to inform him of the dissensions which then prevailed in the Church at that place., b. Contentions among you: The Corinthian church suffered under quarreling and conflict. i. Click to enable/disable Google Analytics tracking. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain. : Even if your labor is vain to everyone else, and everyone else discounts or doesnt appreciate what you do for the Lord, . He will. This remarkable, instant gathering of Christians unto Jesus in the clouds has been called, iii. Whatever the preacher may mean in his heart, he will be guilty of the blood of souls if he does not clearly proclaim a real sacrifice for sin. (Spurgeon), vi. Paul thought carefully about this letter. How can Paul be confident of this when the Corinthian church has so many problems? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? He recognizes that the gifts were not the problem, but wrong attitudes and beliefs about the gifts. Jesus did not die as a mere martyr for a cause. You have lost a dear friend: yes, but only lost that friend that you may find him again, and find more than you lost. If one preaches the word with a reliance on, i. If there is no resurrection, then there is no future judgment to consider. A truly Christian minister will seek much more to do spiritual good to men's souls, than to get the greatest applause to himself. ii. a. : God was at His most foolish and very weakest at the cross, but it was infinitely wiser and stronger than anything man could do. By proceeding, you consent to our cookie usage. Do not be deceived: Evil company corrupts good habits. Where did the Corinthian Christians get their strange ideas about the resurrection, ideas Paul spent this chapter trying to correct? i. : God takes pleasure in accomplishing our salvation in a way no one would have expected. d. Those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints: Paul continued his description of the Corinthian Christians. A hard knot must have a hard wedge, a dead heart a rousing reproof. (Trapp). 1 Corinthians 15:23. Sanctification speaks of our behavior, and how the believers are to be separate from the world and unto God. d. Is Christ divided? d. That no flesh should glory in His presence: This is the end result. If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here: We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. d. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed: Since sleep is a softer way of describing the death of a believer, Paul tells us that not all Christians will die, but there will be a final generation who will be transformed into resurrection bodies at the return of Jesus before they ever face death. I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thou lookest like a dragon, but thy sting is gone. Paul will often (more than 17 times in the letter) refer to Jesus as. He clearly denies here that he considers baptism essential to the remission of sin or the means of obtaining forgiveness. (Robertson), How did Paul preach in Corinth? The. ) Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? : Whether Paul or one of the other apostles brought the message, the result was the same. Paul knew that God gives His grace, we work hard, and the work of God is done. ( 1 Corinthians 15:1-2) Preface to the proclamation of Paul's gospel. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man. b. Paul quotes from an ancient, secular comedy play, Thais, written by Menander. This the church of Corinth was famous for. : A resurrected body is not a resuscitated corpse. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site. If Jesus cannot offer a complete sacrifice for sins, our sins are not completely paid for before God. : In the previous part of the chapter, Paul demonstrated beyond all doubt that Jesus rose from the dead, and the importance of that fact. These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience. 15:20-34 All that are by faith united to Christ, are by his resurrection assured of their own. Jesus: The given name of the son of Mary, and adopted son of Joseph, which is the Greek pronunciation of Joshua. a. Jesus, who became for us wisdom: Jesus perfectly shows us, in His teaching and life, Gods wisdom. I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, lest anyone should say that I had baptized in my own name. Knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord: Even if your labor is vain to everyone else, and everyone else discounts or doesnt appreciate what you do for the Lord, your labor is not in vain in the Lord. 1. i. Salvation is not the achievement of human wisdom; it is the embrace of Gods dramatic, unexpected act of love at Calvary. This may be a foolish question (Paul calls his imaginary questioner Foolish one in 1 Corinthians 15:36), but it is a question Paul will answer. At these meetings He ate with them, comforted them, commanded them to preach the gospel, and told them to wait in Jerusalem for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit after His ascension. As much as Paul was once offended by a crucified Messiah, so the Greeks thought a message of salvation through a humiliating instrument of death foolish. Many things made Corinth famous. Their desire for wisdom was not bad, but their rejection of Gods wisdom was. , he does not speak of his spiritual identification with the death of Jesus. For it is written: In this quotation from Isaiah 29:14, Paul shows that in spiritual matters, God opposes the wisdom of man. i. Mans flesh only is informed by a reasonable and immortal soul, not so the flesh of other creatures: and hence the difference. (Trapp). I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end. Jesus also made a special appearance to Peter (Luke 24:34; 1 Corinthians 15:5). The hearing and trusting of the true gospel will bring the, . The bottom line is this: is the church influencing the city, or is the city influencing the church? Used by permission. How can Paul be confident of this when the Corinthian church has so many problems? You can check these in your browser security settings. ii. And so it is written, The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam, , gave us one kind of body. It is the heart shown in God when it is said of the Lord, The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance ( 2 Peter 3:9 ). Let every pulpit rightly say, we preach Christ crucified! A strong church once inscribed these words on an archway leading to the churchyard. Even in his introduction, Paul thinks about the critical issues he needs to communicate to the Corinthian Christians. d. Those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved: The verb tenses of are perishing and are being saved are significant. Were the ones really right with God! (Acts 18:24-25), iii. We know He lives because the historical evidence, , the brother of Jesus, who is seen as a prominent leader in the church in Acts 15. d. Lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect: Paul makes it clear that it is possible to preach the gospel in a way that makes it of no effect. : Our resurrection body will be glorious! the gospel. They did not come behind any of the churches in any gift, v. 7. A well-known piece of graffiti in Rome shows a worshipper standing next to a crucified figure with the body of a man and the head of an ass, and it says, Alexamenos worships his god. This is how foolish the Greeks saw the cross. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changedin a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. i. we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, mean that Paul predicted Jesus would come in his lifetime? He was not shy about saying he worked harder than any of the other apostles did. Pottery and Corinthian brass (a mixture of gold, sliver and copper) from the city were world famous. If you do not believe Jesus Christ rose from the dead in a resurrection body the way the Bible says He did, then, g. When you know what rests on the resurrection, you know why, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. , and because in Matthew 12:40 Jesus refers to, : Because this idea is so important, Paul repeats it twice in these two verses. That there be no divisions among you: The ancient Greek word for divisions is schismata. Although we derive our English word schism from this Greek word, it does not really mean a party or a faction; it properly means tear or rend. Pauls plea is that they stop ripping each other apart, tearing up the body of Christ. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching, If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is in vain, : If there is no resurrection, then Jesus is not risen, and Paul and the other apostles have preached. Yet He was no phantom; He had a real flesh and bone body. It wasnt so much that they thought Apollos was great, but that. Click to enable/disable essential site cookies. c. We preach Christ crucified: Instead of giving the Jews and Greeks what they demanded in deliverance and wisdom, God gave them something unexpected: a crucified Messiah. Even if this is the case, the picture fits. 1 Corinthians 15:51-58 EXEGESIS: THE CONTEXT: Corinth was an important and wealthy city on the isthmus (narrow strip of land) separating Northern and Southern Greece. 1. : The death of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, is the center of the gospel. Were the ones really right with God!, iv. The resurrection body of Jesus was material and could eat (Luke 24:39-43), yet it was not bound by the laws of nature (Luke 24:31, 24:36-37). I am not an apostle through the appointment of the other apostles. Were the ones really right with God!, : There was the Apollos Party, who declared We are following in the footsteps of a man who is great in power and spiritual gifts, and an impressive man. When you bury the body of a believer, you are sowing a seed that will come out of the earth as a resurrection body. c. To the church of God which is at Corinth: Notice the contrast: The church of God (something good), which is at Corinth (someplace bad). Everything good the Corinthian Christians have from God has come to them by. ii. Click to enable/disable Google Analytics tracking. Each of us is definitely moving in one of those two directions. It was prosperous, busy, and growing; it had a deserved reputation for the reckless pursuit of pleasure. (39-41) The analogy of living and heavenly bodies. That he does, : I am in constant peril of my life. Pauls life was lived so on the edge for Jesus Christ that he could say, , . His life was always on the line; there were always people out to kill him. Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother. Secondly, it was right and proper for Paul to live as if the coming of Jesus was imminent, though he did not in fact know when Jesus would return. body, suited for life in heaven, not only life on this earth. c. He who glories, let him glory in the LORD: Paul uses this reference to Jeremiah 9:23-24 to show that God did it all this way so that God would get the glory. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website. It doesnt matter if you get the praise or the encouragement; sometimes you will and sometimes you wont. Answer: First Corinthians 13:8-10: "Love never fails. This is not to say the other apostles were lazy (although some of them may have been), but that Paul was an exceptionally hard worker. But God cannot be found through human wisdom, but only through the message of the cross. First, every day carefully consider the certainty of death. Paul doesnt only consider believers in Corinth to be the church of God. Instead, a stalk of wheat grows. But resurrection means, that your labor is not in vain in the Lord, steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. has Old Testament associations, especially in the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament). ii. What message does a cruel, humiliating, unrelenting instrument of death have? We can follow Pauls logic point-by-point: If there is no principle of resurrection, then Jesus did not rise from the dead. of our resurrection in the sense that He is our entrance fee to resurrection. c. The world through wisdom did not know God: There is a constant tendency to think that the smartest and wisest humans will know the most about God. (3-4) The content of the gospel Paul preached. He is, b. is typical of Pauls letters, and draws from both Greek and Jewish customs. No doubt, many of the Corinthian Christians were beginning to think of themselves in high terms because of Gods work in them. But Hodge recognizes that Paul isnt necessarily referring to only believers of. a. Pottery and Corinthian brass (a mixture of gold, sliver and copper) from the city were world famous. What of the dead in Christ before that day? He establishes the certainty of our Saviour's resurrection, ver 1-11. b. Are they lying in the grave, in some kind of soul sleep or suspended animation? The pursuit of human wisdom may bring an earthly contentment or happiness (though this is rare), but in itself, it can never bring the true knowledge of the true God. ! ii. I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily, : Paul will boast a little here. If Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins and remove our guilt, then why is the resurrection of Jesus so important? The resurrection body of Jesus was material and could eat (Luke 24:39-43), yet it was not bound by the laws of nature (Luke 24:31, 24:36-37). 1 Corinthians 1:14-17 INTRODUCTION 1. This isnt the gathering of the world, but, iv. Jesus will take His rightful place as, He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet, : Paul here refers to the one-thousand-year reign of Jesus described in Revelation 20:1-6. Some mock the idea of resurrection. Are they lying in the grave, in some kind of soul sleep or suspended animation? b. Before that he served as director and teacher at Calvary Chapel Bible College, Germany, following more than 20 years of pastoral ministry. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. i. iii. The Book of 1 Kings; The Book of 2 Kings; The Book of Job; The 119th Psalm; The Book of Ecclesiastes; The Song of Solomon; The Book of Isaiah; The Book of Jeremiah; The Book of Daniel; New Testament. Yet, we can see by this that baptism is not essential to salvation. Originally it said strongly, we preach Christ crucified. iv. Jesus is both their Lord and our Lord, and because they share a common Lord, they share an essential unity. If there were not men who differed a little in their creeds, we should never get as much gospel as we do God has sent different men to defend different kinds of truth; but Christ defended and preached all Christs testimony was perfect. (Spurgeon), ii. Human wisdom is constantly rejecting God and opposing Him, and ultimately showing itself foolish and perishing in doing so. I am not an apostle through the appointment of the other apostles. The lack of adequate respiration resulted in severe muscle cramps, which hindered breathing even further. In His work, He communicates three things to those who are, means that we are legally declared not only not guilty, but to have a, speaks of our behavior, and how the believers are to be separate, by focusing on ourselves, but on Jesus, because Jesus, is a word from the slave trade. Paul praises God for their positives, and expresses confidence that God will take care of their weak points, and, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, i. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory., O Death, where is your sting? But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from Godand righteousness and sanctification and redemptionthat, as it is written, He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.. d. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory: Some take this to mean there will be different degrees of glory for believers in heaven. For the message of the cross: In 1 Corinthians 1:17, Paul declared the idea that the cross could be made of no effect if it were presented with the wisdom of words. Gods wisdom is not mans wisdom multiplied to the highest degree. Chuck Smith points to a grammatical construction that would be different if this trumpet were the trumpet of Revelation 11. iii. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grainperhaps wheat or some other grain. Corinth was a major city of business, especially because of its location. I am of Christ: There was the Jesus Party, who declared You all are so carnal, following after mere men. : The book of Acts does not record an occasion when Paul faced wild animals in an arena. On all counts, the resurrection body wins! As Paul said to Agrippa in Acts 26:8, This may be a foolish question (Paul calls his imaginary questioner , Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. a. Those baptized by the great apostle Paul had no advantage over those baptized by some unknown believer. He had the right, and the authority, to command the Corinthian Christians in these matters. We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Those who deny the deity of Jesus say this verse proves their point. It might be easy for us to think they werent even saved! For some, this would just be spiritual sounding talk, which showed more pride than humility. i. Philippians 3:21 repeats Pauls theme: Who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. He speaks of utterance and knowledge. : Does this mean everyone is resurrected? Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. In the Septuagint it is one of the words used to denote the people of Israel in their religious character as Yahwehs assembly. (Bruce in his Acts commentary). Where is your disputer of this age? Their desire for deliverance was not bad, but their rejection of Gods way of deliverance was. ii. Because church was a secular term (referring to the gatherings of the citizenry in a city-state to discuss and decide on matters of public interest [Mare]), Paul calls the gathering of Christians in Corinth the church of God. iv. In putting the strong and wise and great to shame, God does not exalt the weak and uneducated and worthless, but brings all of them down to one common level. (Calvin). The words sanctified and saints communicate the same idea, of being set apart from the world and unto God. We dont grow in sanctification by focusing on ourselves, but on Jesus, because Jesus became for us sanctification. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. 1 CORINTHIANS - PROBLEMS OF A LOCAL CHURCH Click chart to enlarge Charts from Jensen's Survey of the NT - used by permission. 3. also implies there were some people or some things which might want to snatch the true gospel away from the Corinthian Christians. So, he persecuted the church before being confronted by Jesus on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). In the Septuagint it is one of the words used to denote the people of Israel in their religious character as Yahwehs assembly. (Bruce in his. Many noble men and women have died horrible deaths for righteous causes through the centuries. It is a vain inquiry here, whether he means good or bad angels. : We dont often think of the burial of Jesus as part of the gospel, but it is. is a softer way of describing the death of a believer, Paul tells us that not all Christians will die, but there will be a final generation who will be transformed into resurrection bodies at the return of Jesus before they ever face death. 6. He currently serves now as the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara. Those who believe that Jesus gathers His people after He has poured out His wrath on a Jesus-rejecting world sometimes argue that it is the last trumpet of judgment, cited in Revelation 11:15-19. But our expectations of what God should do keep us from receiving that power and wisdom. He did not or will not rise at some general resurrection of the dead. This is due to the fact that grace is the source of peace. Crucify him! if we had our wits about us, we would have shouted back, Dont crucify Him! You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. He was once scandalized by a crucified Christ; it infuriated him that one obviously cursed by God (according to Deuteronomy 21:23) should be honored as Messiah and Lord. It is important to understand that when Paul says, . The first perfect man, Adam, gave us one kind of body. Lady Huntington, the rich and influential friend of Whitfield and Wesley, said she was going to heaven by an m: it isnt, But God has chosen the foolish things of the world, : Looking again at the Corinthians, Paul can say you arent wise according to the world, you arent mighty, you arent noble but you are among, i. 5. viii. i. Paul will tell the Corinthian Christians something they could not have known by reason or research. What the Church supremely needs is to correct the spirit of the age.. c. There are contentions among you: Though division is ungodly, it is not wrong to make distinctions between churches and ministers. The Book of 1 Kings; The Book of 2 Kings; The Book of Job; The 119th Psalm; The Book of Ecclesiastes; The Song of Solomon; The Book of Isaiah; The Book of Jeremiah; The Book of Daniel; New Testament. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. Copyright - Enduring Word       |      . The power of baptism is in the spiritual reality it represents, not in who performs it. He writes of the constant imminent danger to his physical life. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. Their idolatry was to conceive of God as ultimate Reason, meaning of course what. : Instead of giving the Jews and Greeks what they demanded in deliverance and wisdom, God gave them something unexpected: a crucified Messiah. (5-8) Concrete evidence of Jesus resurrection. The ancient Christians were for the most part slaves and men of low station; the whole history of the expansion of the church is in reality a progressive victory of the ignorant over the learned, the lowly over the lofty, until the emperor himself laid down his crown before the cross of Christ. (Alford, quoting Olshausen). Where is the wise? But because of all the time Paul spent in Corinth, and all the letters he wrote them, we know more about the Christians at Corinth than we know about any other church in the New Testament. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. We dont find freedom by focusing on ourselves, because, He who glories, let him glory in the LORD, : Paul uses this reference to Jeremiah 9:23-24 to show that God did it all this way so that God would get the glory.