Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 3:21
Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
21. Therefore let no man glory in men ] We are to regard men as nothing in themselves, but in reference to their fellow-men solely as the instruments of a divine purpose, like all other things God has suffered to exist ( 1Co 3:22), a purpose beginning and ending with God, Whose we are, and for Whom alone we have been called into being. Even death itself has a part in that purpose, since through Christ it has become the gateway to everlasting life. See Collect for Easter Eve.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Therefore … – Paul here proceeds to apply the principles which he had stated above. Since all were ministers or servants of God; since God was the source of all good influences; since, whatever might be the pretensions to wisdom among people, it was all foolishness in the sight of God, the inference was clear, that no man should glory in man. They were all alike poor, frail, ignorant, erring, dependent beings. And hence, also, as all wisdom came from God, and as Christians partook Alike of the benefits of the instruction of the most eminent apostles, they ought to regard this as belonging to them in common, and not to form parties with these names at the head.
Let no man glory in men; – See 1Co 1:29; compare Jer 9:23-24. It was common among the Jews to range themselves under different leaders – as Hillel and Shammai; and for the Greeks, also, to boast themselves to be the followers of Pythagoras, Zeno, Plato, etc. The same thing began to be manifest in the Christian church; and Paul here rebukes and opposes it.
For all things are yours – This is a reason why they should not range themselves in parties or factions under different leaders. Paul specifies what he means by all things in the following verses. The sense is, that since they had an interest in all that could go to promote their welfare; as they were common partakers of the benefits of the talents and labors of the apostles; and as they belonged to Christ, and all to God, it was improper to be split up into factions, as if they derived any special benefit; from one set of persons, or one set of objects. In Paul, in Apollos, in life, death, etc. they had a common interest, and no one should boast that he had any special proprietorship in any of these things.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Co 3:21-23
Therefore let no man glory in man.
That it is a great sin to glory in men
This sin is not often preached upon, yet no question political and civil idolatry, making men as gods to us, hath done a great deal of hurt, as well as religious idolatry. Now these ways we glory in men.
1. When we join them with Christ as mediators, and make them co-partners, as it were, in spiritual effects as well as temporal. This is to glory in men, even blasphemously.
2. We glory in men when we make our own, or other good works meritorious, and our sufferings satisfactory unto God. This Pharisee is a greater enemy to Christ, and further off from the kingdom of heaven than many publicans.
3. We glory in men when we rejoice in their favour, and are more glad of that than we are of Gods favour.
4. We glory in men when we desire to please them, and to accommodate ourselves to their humours more than to please God, and to walk according to His will. This sinful pleasing of men is not consistent with a servant of Christs (Gal 1:10; 1Co 7:13).
5. We, then, glory in men when we put our trust and confidence in them, resting and hoping in them, and not depending on God only. As the ground of Divine faith must be some Divine testimony and authority, so the motive of a Divine hope must be only the promise and power of God. It is a sin that all are very prone unto, to trust in earthly power and greatness, and not to eye God above all. Lastly, we glory in men when we boast in anything that is human or earthly, anything that belongs to man. Thus to boast of beauty, apparel, riches, nobility, parts, and learning; all this is a vain and sinful boasting (1Ti 6:15; Jer 9:23-24).
In the next place, we are not to glory in the doctors and teachers we have, which we do–
1. When we are affected more with their parts, and gifts, and earning, than with the powerful demonstration of Gods Spirit in them, and by them.
2. Then we glory in men when we rest on the ministry and their labours, thinking it enough to enjoy them, but never look up to God for success and a blessing. What is Paul or Apollos but ministers by whom ye believe? at the fifth verse. Therefore the principal work is from God.
3. Then we glory in men when we have the persons of some teachers in such admiration, that whatsoever they say or maintain, without any search or dispute, we believe. The disciples of Berea are commended for their noble disposition, that they would search the Scriptures, whether the things were so or not (Act 17:11).
4. Then we glory in men when we prefer one before the other, so as to make differences and schisms in the Church. He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. Yea, saith Paul, God forbid I should glory in anything save in the Cross of Christ (Gal 6:14). (A. Burgess.)
For all things are yours.—
All things are yours
The one theme of the beginning of this Epistle is mans glorying, lost through sin and recovered in Christ. In chap. 1. Paul brings the human race with its wisdom, righteousness, and strength into the presence of the Cross, and shows that its boasting was vain, and bids them take salvation as the free gift of God, and give to Him alone the glory. But he is careful to add that mans ground of boasting is restored to himself: Let him glory. Whereas before he had denied everything to human nature, now he cries, All things are yours. Retrieved in Christ, the Church has an unlimited prerogative.
I. The prerogatives of Christs people are based upon their relation to Him. All things are yours because ye are of Christ.
1. The union between Christ and His people gives the highest illustration of our text. Whatever belongs to the Redeemer belongs to the redeemed. But this requires to be carefully guarded.
(1) These words apply only to the mystical company of the faithful, who are united to Christ by faith and have become one Spirit with Him. The spiritual body of Christ is distinguished both from the race and from the individuals of whom it is composed. And it is of the whole company that Paul speaks, not any separate member. It was for that mystical fellowship that our Lord prayed in words that give Paul his argument. Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those, &c.
(2) Now to this body united to Himself Christ gives an unlimited interest in all His prerogatives. All Mine are Thine and Thine are Mine, and for these He prays that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, &c. (Joh 17:1-26.). The answer to this is our text. As the husband and wife are one flesh and have all things common, so Christ and His Church have one Spirit, &c.
2. Our possession of all things in Christ may be referred to the mediatorial supremacy of the Head of the Church, making all things contribute to our welfare.
(1) When the apostle dilates upon the lordship of Christ he brings all the powers of the universe under His sway; sometimes to magnify Christs glory, but oftener to set forth the absoluteness of His supremacy over all things for the Church. He governs the principalities and powers of the other world for the accomplishment of His designs in this, and they become ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation. The hosts of evil with their prince are governed for our advantage. The world, with all things present, is under His sway for the well-being of His Church. This is the key to all history, and Christs mysterious but most certain sway is bringing politics, science, civilisation, into subordination to the spread of His kingdom.
(2) He is also the Head of a visible community which is governed for the salvation of its spiritual members. Paul, Apollos, and Cephas–the organised ministry of the visible Church is the servant of the Church invisible. The order has been inverted. The saints have been brought into bondage to the Church instead of the Church being the servant of the saints; and this error has produced a sad reaction–the visible Church has been sundered from its close connection with the Church invisible. But let both grow together. Believers are of Christ, not of the Church; but calling Him Lord they rejoice in the order and service of His Church as a rich inheritance.
3. All who are Christs have such a place in His heart, and such an interest in His resources, that in virtue of His special favour they possess all things.
(1) All things are yours is the charter of personal prerogative. Christ is the personal Friend of those who love Him, and gives the treasures of His grace to every individual believer. Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name I will do it.
(2) But here is a necessary limitation which only seems to restrict the privilege–the Redeemer reserves to Himself the decision how much of the all things shall be imparted, when the gift shall be bestowed and when desired. The spiritual position He is more willing to give than we are to ask: our other portion may be more slowly bestowed; reserved from us though our own, for reasons the wisdom of which we cannot always understand.
II. The apostle blends the high statement of Christian privileges with the practical exhortation to rejoice in them.
1. The starting-point of this exhibition is the warning to glory is nothing but our inheritance in Christ. Once before he had uttered it to claim for the crucified Redeemer His sole honour; now he repeats it to claim for the Christian inheritance its rights. The Son receives us into His Fathers house; and to each one He says, All that I have is thine. Henceforth we are servants to none but Himself in God. This leaves no room for self-complacency, for all is of Christ.
2. Paul literally brings the whole compass of things into the believers inheritance.
(1) Life is ours. In its deepest meaning none live but those who are in Christ. We know, indeed, that our life in the flesh will cease; but it is our own while it lasts, to be spent in the care of our souls and in the discharge of our duties; and then we shall pass into more abundant life.
(2) Things present.
(a) The creaturely world. So long as we are of the world, the world is our master; but when we become Christs free men, the whole economy of the creature pays us tribute. But possessing all things we must show that we are really masters of the creature, by our temperate, thankful, and spiritual use of all things.
(b) All the events that make up the course of this world. Not that Christ gives us control of passing affairs. He keeps the direction of our lives in His own hands, and does not always admit us into the reasons of His dealings. But He sanctions our freedom of action, allows large latitude to our prayers, gives us the discretion to make all events contribute to our welfare, and causes all things to work together for our good.
(3) Death and things to come. Christ has the keys of the other world, and our eternal destiny is in His ever faithful hands.
(a) Death, the last enemy, is translated into a ministering angel.
(b) Things to come–the disembodied waiting for the great day, the day itself, the resurrection, &c.
3. Let us hear the apostles exhortation, not expressed, but pervading the whole passage–He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. (W. B. Pope, D. D.)
All things are ours
It expresses richness–this All things are yours; a broad and confident hold on life: a large liberty of mind. To have all things ours; to have, as it were, the freedom of the universe; to feel nowhere hemmed in, excluded, limited, whether in the sphere of truth or of sympathy, is a magnificent prospect, a splendid promise. To a great extent, we are compelled to acknowledge, our primary needs are needs of limitation and restraint, and Christianity presents itself as limiting and restraining. We come out to make our way in the world with good intentions, and around us there are ringing in our ears numberless voices–theories of life–denunciations–schemes–hopes–fears–doctrines–denials–doubts, and we feel anything but the consciousness that all things are ours. We feel no sense of mastery, only of bewilderment. To be free–to give our sympathies on all sides–to trust all voices alike, is to leave our moorings, to be free to wander on a shoreless sea. Or again, careless indiscriminate sympathy, fellowship with human life in all its forms, may present itself to us as an ideal of conduct, Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto. But there is that at once must give us pause. For humanity as it is is a strangely mixed thing. To say that my pulses beat in sympathy with all that is human is to state a fact of my being, but it is a fact suggestive as much of horror as of self-congratulation. For it means that there is no disordered passion, however vile, of which I cannot trace at least in some horrible moment the capacity in my own blood; no craft, no guile to which I can claim to be by nature utterly a stranger. Thus out of the surging sea of conflicting theories–out of the seething of this common manhood which I cannot trust–out of this indiscriminate life which might indeed master me, but which certainly I do not master–in which certainly all things are not mine, I look up for some Hand from above to lift, some Voice to guide, some standard and criterion of life. And lo! there is One who knows lifes secret, One who loves my humanity, who believes in its capacities as none else ever did, and yet distrusts its impulses. One who in our flesh, in the likeness of flesh, of sin, yet restores life; sums it into Himself, and claims to purge it and to reconstruct it. I come to Him–I will be taught by Him. I would have the key to life–I would feel myself under His instruction. He turns upon me, He speaks to me. But it is not first of freedom. A secure life–a strong life, that is the first thing. It must be strong before it can be free–strong at the centre ere it can be free at the circumference, and to make it strong there must be concentration, and that means for the moment mutilation–the cutting off of occasions of sin, of whatever hinders the progress of the true self. If there is a theory which puzzles me, which I cannot refute, which perhaps has some attraction for me, yet seems to militate against my spiritual growth, which is to go–the spiritual growth or the intellectual? Thy intellectual interest, the answer of Christ seems to come, is not thy primary self. Behind thine intellect is thy will–thy spirit. The centre of thy being where conscience speaks, where will acts, where prayer rises and God is known–that is thyself. It conditions all else. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness–at all costs, limit thyself as you mayest to do so. Thus the first claim of Christ is a claim upon us for concentration of faculties upon the pursuit of holiness. All things are yours; but not till ye are Christs, then, as Christ is Gods. But so, if in blind surrender the sacrifice has been made and remade and made for ever,–is the reward sure. What is this vaunt of the Christian life? In what sense does the slave of Jesus Christ find that all things are his?
1. He finds it first in the moral sphere. Self has been cut at the roots, and it is selfishness which is the source of narrowness, the impoverishment of life. Party spirit (that is St. Pauls point) narrows your privileges. To make one great teacher of the Church your patron in such sense as that you exult exclusively in what he taught, exalt his special adherents and depreciate the work of others, is to narrow your Christian heritage. Yours is not what one teacher only was given to teach, but what all were given. All are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas. Argument, it has been said, is often most effective when it is most one-sided. The Christian Church in like manner may gain a certain sort of effectiveness by ignoring half her mission, and dealing with half human nature, but all things are ours. The heritage is not meant to be impoverished and narrowed into ever closer channels as it comes down the ages. Meant for Catholic humanity, it remains in its Catholicity. We believe in one holy Catholic Church, one in its Divine authority, one in the truth it teaches in common, one in the grace which flows in its channels and makes its inner life the same, one in its common organisation, one in its sacred books, and to no part of that one whole do I limit my faith. By no corporate self-assertion would I have a part of that society strive to be the whole. All things are ours.
2. But it is not only within the area of the Christian Church that the Spirit of Christ, by cutting the roots of self-assertion, realises in us the richness of our heritage. Not only Paul, and Apollos, and Cephas, but the world, the , is ours. The Christian realises his freedom in all truth, his kinship with all nature. It is not only that the good man is at peace with nature, that he is in league with the slaves of the field and the beasts of the land are at peace with him; there is a deep ground for such kinship. He has learned to recognise in Christ (in the latter days Incarnate) the eternal Word of God, the expression and counterpart of his being. His mediation in grace is based upon an unceasing mediation in nature. Through Him all things were made. Without Him was not anything made. Whatever has been made, in Him was life. And as the Christian must lay his claim to be utterly at home in the modern scientific conception of nature, so must he also be in the world of universal humanity. The great Greek theologians of the epoch of the great general councils never let their students forget the largeness of the Christian claim. Gods special dealings with the Jews (St. Athanasius reminds us) are given only to prevent us forgetting His universal providence in all history and nature. For He who came into our territory (he tells us) in the Incarnation, came not as a stranger nor as having been far off before. For no part of creation had ever been left void of Him. He had filled all things through all. He was through all the ages coming into the world. He was the light which lighteneth every man–the same Jesus Christ. Dream not, says St. Justin (meeting a difficulty by anticipation), in his apology to the heathen, that persons who lived more than a century and a half ago, before Christ was born in the flesh, escape His judgment. For we have been taught (it is not a private opinion of his own) and have explained before that He is the Logos, in which the whole race of man shared. And those who lived with reason up to their lights, are Christians even though they are reckoned Atheists among men, as among the Greeks were Socrates and Heracleitus, and among the Barbarians Abraham and Elijah, and many others, and those who lived of old without reason, were ever the enemies of Christ and the murderers of those who lived with reason. But they who lived or live with reason (i.e., up to their lights)
are Christians and can live without fear. It ought to have been the instinct of Christianity always to recognise this. Christianity supersedes all other religions not by excluding but by including. In part indeed they represent merely mans bewilderment and ugly perversions of the truth. But in part they also represent that natural revelation of God which is involved in the light shining in darkness, so that the darkness could not suppress it. Everywhere there was something of a witness to God. And Christian faith stands to all other teachings, as that which supersedes them, by containing and elevating the truth they taught, and illuminating and satisfying the human need that they expressed. They become foes only when they become rivals, as even the good may ever be the enemy of the best, as the twilight is darkness by comparison with the sunlight. There are many noble things, says Origen, in the Oracles by those not of Christs part, but with us only are their Oracles complete and pure.
3. All things are yours–Life and death, the world of human nature. It is the privilege of Christian faith to give us the freest access to human hearts. For the wants that Christ came to evoke and to satisfy belong to man, as man, to men equally in every age and in every class. The capacity for prayer, the sense of sin, the need of pardon, the reality and force of temptation, the vicissitudes of spiritual feeling, the moral discouragements and encouragements of life, the moral perplexities from conflicting duties–these things belong to people of utterly different positions in life and with scarcely any reference to degrees of education.
4. All things are ours, whether things present or things to come. The great poet of human nature in our time constantly gives expression to the conviction that the problems of human character demand an immortality for their solution. Human characters he feels, in proportion to their worth, need an environment to develop them larger than this world; need a vaster field to work out their issues. On the earth the broken arcs: in the heaven the perfect round. Gods task to make the heavenly period–perfect the earthen. Now this conviction of immortality in which the Christian lives gives him a leverage for action, and makes him the minister of hope. He can believe in the small beginnings who believes in immortal growth. He can believe in the perfect victory for all who do not finally and obstinately cling by choice to evil. He again has a rational doctrine to hold out to man of human perfection–a doctrine rational because it takes account of experience. Make this world the only sphere of progress, obliterate from mens eyes what we heard of last week as the world as little like Whitechapel as possible, in which, after death men shall wake up, and you certainly have no rational doctrine of hope to present to mankind. Where is the experience that justifies us in expecting that the progress of knowledge and civilisation really means for the sacrificed classes the progress of happiness. Does not experience rather give us a doctrine that nations have their periods of climax, and then their periods of decay? and is there any real ground for believing the later period for a particular race, happier than the earlier? Or have great social convulsions (though they have taught great lessons to humanity at large) been (except under certain conditions not now existing in England) productive of happiness to the nations who were the subjects of them? Does civilisation or knowledge any way tend to minimise the selfishness which is the root of all social evils? Behind the veil, under the feet of the great Head of a redeeming humanity, the Christian knows that the race of man who will consent to have God when He is offered them in His love, is being gathered into an ever developing perfection. (C. Gore, M. A.)
Christs servants lords of all
I. How Christs servants are mens lords. Paul, Apollos, Cephas were all lights kindled at the central Light, and therefore shining. Each was but a part of the mighty whole, a little segment of the circle–
They are but broken lights of Thee.
And Thou, O Lord! art more than they.
And in the measure, therefore, in which men adhere to Christ, and have taken Him for theirs; in that measure are they delivered from all undue dependence on, still more, all slavish submission, to any single individual teacher or aspect of truth. If Christ be our Master, if we take our creed from Him, if we accept His words and His revelation of the Father as our faith and our objective religion, then all the slavery to favourite names, all the taking of truth second-hand from lips that we honour, all the partisanship for one against another which has been the shame and the ruin of the Christian Church, and is working untold mischiefs in it to-day, are ended at once. One is your Master, even Christ. Call no man Rabbi! upon earth; but bow before Him, the incarnate and the personal Truth. And in like manner they who are Christs are delivered from all temptations to make mens maxims and practices and approbation the law of their conduct. They say. What say they? Let them say. The envoy of some foreign power cares very little what the inhabitants of the land to which he is ambassador may think of him and his doings; it is his sovereigns good opinion that he seeks to secure. The soldiers reward is his commanders praise, the slaves joy is the masters smile, and for us it ought to be the law of our lives, and in the measure in which we belong to Christ really it will be the law of our lives, that we labour that whether present or absent we may be pleasing to Him.
II. Christs servants are the lords of the world. That phrase is used here, no doubt, as meaning the external material universe. He owns the world who turns it to the highest use of growing his soul by it. If I look out upon a fair landscape, and the man that draws the rents of it is standing by my side, and I suck more sweetness and deeper impulses and larger and loftier thoughts out of it than he does, it belongs to me far more than it does to him. The world is his who from it has learned to despise it, to know himself and to know God. He owns the world who uses it as the arena, or wrestling ground, on which, by labour, he may gain strength, and in which he may do service. Antagonism helps to develop muscle, and the best use of the outward frame of things is that we shall take it as the field upon which we can serve God.
III. Christian men who belong to Jesus Christ are the lords and masters of life and death.
1. The true ownership of life depends upon self-control, and self-control depends upon letting Jesus Christ govern us wholly. So the measure in which it is true of me that I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me is the measure in which our lower life of sense really belongs to us, and ministers to our highest good.
2. Animals expire; a Christian man may yield his soul to his Saviour, who is the Lord both of the dead and of the living. If thus we feel our dependence upon Him, and yield up our wills to Him, and can say, Living or dying we are the Lords, then we may be quite sure that Death, too, will be our servant, and that our wills will be concerned even in passing out of life. Still more, if you and I belong to Jesus Christ, then Death is our fellow-servant who comes to call us out of this ill-lighted workshop into the presence of the King.
IV. Christs servants are the lords of time and eternity, things present or things to come.
1. The whole mass of things present, including all the events and circumstances of our lives, over these we may exercise supreme control. If we are bowing in humble submission to Jesus Christ, they will all subserve our highest good. The howling tempests of winter and its white snows, the sharp winds of spring and its bursting sunshine; the calm, steady heat of June and the mellowing days of August, all serve to ripen the grain. And so all things present, the light and the dark, the hopes fulfilled and the hopes disappointed, the gains and the losses, the prayers answered and the prayers unanswered, they will all be recognised if we have the wisdom that comes from submission to Jesus Christs will as being ours, and ministering to our highest blessing. We shall be their lords, too, inasmuch as we shall be able to control them. We need not be like the mosses in the stream, that lie whichever way the current sets, nor like some poor little sailing boat that is at the mercy of the winds and the waves, but may carry an inward impulse like some great ocean-going steamer, the throb of whose power shall drive us straight forward on our course, what ever beats against us. That we may have this inward power and mastery over things present and not to be shaped and moulded and made by them, let us yield ourselves to Christ, and He will help us to rule them.
2. And then, all things to come; the dim, vague future shall be for each of us like some sunlit ocean stretching shoreless to the horizon; every little ripple flashing with its own bright sunshine, and all bearing us onwards to the great throne that stands on the sea of glass mingled with fire. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
That all things are for the spiritual good and advantage of the godly man
I. In how many respects all things may be said to be the godly mans, both in the Church and the world. And first, thus, in that there is nothing which would be for their good that God denieth them. Whatsoever is in all the world, if it be good for the godly man, he shall have it (Psa 84:11). There is no man that feareth God, though he may say, I want riches, I want health, I am without this or that, that can say he is without Christ, and justification, and the covenant of grace.
2. There is a limited good, that which in itself is good, but doth not make good those that have it, yea, it may be turned to evil. As wine is good, but give it to the feverish man you hurt him. And thus it is with all the temporal good things of the world; they do not make the possessors good, yea, they may be turned to sin, and increase thy corruption. And then it is no wonder if God, out of His love to thee, withhold these things from thee. If they were as necessary and as good as Christ is, and heaven is, thou wert sure to have them (Rom 8:32). Now this very particular should rebuke all the winds and waves of fears and discontent within thee. Art thou repining thou hast not this, thou hast not that ? Oh, look! Hast thou godliness? Hast thou the fear of God in thy heart, then thou hast all things, because there is nothing that is good for thee that God keeps from thee? Secondly, a godly man may be said to have all things, because he hath a right and a claim to the covenant of grace, wherein is a deed of gift of all things both spiritual and temporal. Therefore godliness is said to have the promise of this life and the life to come (1Ti 4:8). All heavenly and earthly things are by promise made to the godly, only heavenly things absolutely, earthly things conditionally and with subordination. So, then, it is with thee, as some man, who hath all his estate lying in bonds and covenants, though for the present he cannot command such a sum of money, yet he is rich in bonds. Thirdly, all things are the godly mans because he hath God for his God, who hath all things. He that hath the sun hath the light of all the stars; he that hath the ocean hath all the streams. Hence our happiness is said to be in this if we have the Lord for our God. David, in all his exigencies, supported himself with this, that God was his portion and his inheritance. Though a child hath not money and raiment at his command, yet because he hath a rich father, who can procure all these things, therefore he may be well said to have them all. Fourthly, a godly man may be said to have all things because godliness worketh such an holy contentation and satisfaction of spirit, that in what estate he is, he is as well pleased as if he had all things, as if he had the whole world (1Ti 6:6). Thus all things are theirs, because through contentation they have all things. Fifthly, all things are the godly mans because they were made finaliter for him. They are all for his spiritual use. Every gift is given to profit withal (1Co 12:7).
II. Let us now consider why God should make all heavenly and earthly things for the godly. First, we need not wonder at it, if we consider that Christ Himself took our nature upon Him, and did undergo that shameful death, and those terrible conflicts with Gods wrath for His Church, He gave Himself for His Church. So that Christ being theirs, no wonder if all things else be theirs. If ever God would have denied anything, would have withheld anything, it would have been His only Son, in whom He was so well pleased. Secondly, because all things in the world are ordered by His providence only; but the whole work of God about His children is the effect of His predestination.
III. Having asserted a comfortable doctrine out of these words for the godly, we proceed to make some objections or doubts about it. First, the doubt may be, How are all things the godly mans for his use and spiritual edification, when many times we see the godly man gets no good by these? To answer this, first, we must distinguish between Gods intention in giving these, and the godly mans actual improvement of them to that end. When the apostle saith, All things are yours, his meaning is, on Gods part. His love is so great that for the godly only all things in heaven and earth were created. If so be, therefore, at any time these things turn to thy hurt, blame thyself. The physician will tell the patient sometimes, all these potions and all these cordials, they are yours; you are to take them; you may expect much good and ease by them. But if the patient be wilful, and disorder himself, it is his fault, not the physicians, that they do hurt. Therefore, secondly, the godly man, through his weakness and sinfulness, not walking up to Gods order, may make that a hindrance which God intended a furtherance. Thirdly, though the godly may for a while make these things against their end, and not for it, yet this will not be always. Fourthly, when we say all things are the godly mans, you must take them in their collective cooperation, as Rom 8:1-39., All things work together. The next doubt is, If all things be the godlys, why, then, are they so uncomfortable, so dejected, complaining of wants, as if nothing were theirs? Answer: It is true it should be so, but we are weak in faith, we do not live upon Scripture principles and privileges. It is by faith only. A quiet resting and reposing of the soul upon Gods promise puts us into the possession of all these things. Secondly, as they want faith, so a heavenly prudence and skill how to improve them spiritually. Though all things be for their good, yet they must have wisdom to know how to use all things. What is a fountain sealed up, or a book that cannot be read, though it hath never such admirable matter? Thus are all things, though never so useful, if thou hast not Christian wisdom. There is no condition, affliction, or event, but thou mayest say, if I had heavenly wisdom I might make excellent use of it. The last doubt is, How are all things the godly mans, seeing for the most part they are most wanting, they are in the greatest necessities? Answer–
1. This place doth not so much speak of the possession of all things as the spiritual serviceableness of them. Those things which they have no possession of may yet serve for their souls good.
2. If the godly have not all things they would, that want is good for them. The want of any outward mercies may sometimes be better than the having of them.
3. Thou hast what is best for thee, and that according to the wise Gods ordering. Let this silence thee always. (A. Burgess.)
All things are yours
You remember the fable of the beautiful fairy who always appeared to turn evil into good, and you have sometimes wished it true. Paul believed that Jesus had power to make everything that happened turn out for the best welfare of His people. The apostle seems to say, If you serve God, everything in the world shall minister to you as much as if it were really your own. God did not make you for the earth; He made the earth for you. As a father values his children more than the house he has built for them, so the Lord values you more than the world in which you live. Do not think you are of secondary importance, created only as an offshoot of the earth, to grind away at your labour and care and pain for a number of years, and then die. No; the apostle believed that God made everything for us, and that as workmen are employed to construct a beautiful palace, so God employs the earth and life and death, and all things as workers and materials to build us. What more comforting doctrine can you imagine? Every tribulation, and all our worries, crosses, and losses are as workmen governed by the Lord for the good of His people. (W. Birch.)
Owned, but not explored
A dear uncle of mine, an Indian chaplain, made the acquaintance, at Singapore, in 1852, of a Christian widow lady, who told him her story. In 1848 her husbands death had left her, at Manilla, in much reduced circumstances. She owned a little land in Australia, and she now asked an Australian friend to sell it. He did his best; but one barren little field he could not sell, and the widow seemed the poorer for such a possession. Then, in 1851, gold was discovered in Australia; a mine was found in that rough field; and the widow was secured for life from poverty. What was, and had been, her position? In respect of provision, she had owned every nugget, all the fulness of the field, all along. In respect of fruition, she had it all to discover; it was all new wealth. So with you, so with me, in Jesus Christ. We have the fulness of the Spirit–in Him. Have we come to have it–in us? If not, let us be animated by the fact that the gold is in the field, is on the property. (H. C. G. Moule.)
All things are yours when you are Christs
A great gulf is fixed between God and man by sin. The Bible reveals a chain depending from the throne of God stretching across the void and holding up the dislocated world.
I. Christ is gods: that is the highest link. The Creator rejoices in all His works, but He has a special and peculiar interest in man.
1. When the work of creation, as to its bulk, was nearly done, the Creator was not yet satisfied. He found no point of sympathetic contact between Himself, a spirit, and the material world which He had made. Then was held that council in which humanity was planned. Let us make man in our own image. Allied to God by an intelligent mind and an immortal spirit, yet wedded to matter by his body, man was added to the upper edge of creation, a link of communion between the Maker and His work.
2. The mystery of the fall came on and the connecting link was broken. But Satan was not permitted to triumph. When the creature called into being as a son has become an alien, where shall God now find a man, holy as Himself, to be His companion and reciprocate His love?
3. Here is the mystery revealed: Christ is Gods. Behold the man! He dwells in the bosom of the Father, and yet is bound in brotherhood to the human family. This is the plan of redemption. The Father cometh to no man; no man cometh to the Father but by Him. The Fathers delight in the Son incarnate (Psa 42:1-11.; Mat 3:17) is the uppermost link of the chain whereon all our hope for eternity hangs. How strong and sure it is! Satan tried in the wilderness to separate between this Man and God, as in the garden he had separated between the first man and God. The Tempted triumphed and the tempter fled.
II. Ye are Christs: the next link. It is not that He is your portion, but that ye are His. In actual experience, however, the union is mutual. The vine holds the branch, and the branch holds the vine. My beloved is mine–there lies my present happiness; but I am His–there lies my everlasting safety. A very slight temptation may break asunder your love to Christ; but all the powers of darkness cannot overcome His love to you. Who shall separate? A British subject may be safe although surrounded by enemies in a distant land, and his confidence in his queen may rebuke the feeble faith of a Christian. Note–
1. How He obtains His property.
(1) By the sovereign gift of God. Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me (Joh 17:1-26.).
(2) By the price of His own blood. Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price.
(3) By the renewing of the Holy Spirit. God the Father gives you to Christ, and you give yourselves. This latter is the effect of the Spirit working repentance and faith in a human heart.
2. How He will use His property.
(1) As objects to exercise His kindness on. The good delight in doing good. Christ in giving grace to His people is getting delight for Himself.
(2) As servants to do His work. He desires your service and deserves it. To work willingly is a mark of a true disciple.
(3) As living epistles in which the world may read the riches of His grace.
(4) For company at His coming, and for portion evermore,
III. All things are yours: the lowest link. All the fulness of the Godhead bodily has been treasured up in Christ expressly that it may be within the reach of His people.
1. The ministry. The full-bodied doctrinal teaching of Paul, the melting and arousing eloquence of Apollos, and the abrupt, fiery energy of Peter–all are gladly recognised as a wisely mingled provision from the hand of that Father who paints the rose and the violet of different hues but equal loveliness. But, besides the bounty of the Giver, the liberty of the receivers also is signalised in this text. Paul and Apollos and Cephas are yours–not ye theirs. In Rome the ministers have the people; here the people have the ministers. The ministry is an article in the inventory of a Christians goods. They are the Lords gifts to the heirs, not lords over the heritage.
2. The world. The world, under direction of its god, wars against the soul. But our Father in heaven holds that enemy and compels it, in His own time and way, to serve His sons.
3. Life. The natural life is indeed corrupt, but over its corrupt root the new nature is engrafted, and so this lower earthly life becomes the root of a spiritual life in heaven.
4. Death. Through Christ it is only the dark, narrow door in the partition wall between time and eternity, through which the children are led from the place of exile into the mansions of the Fathers house.
5. Things present or things to come. All things are yours in virtue of your union to Christ, whether they lie within the horizon of time or beyond it in the unseen eternity. We have reached now those things that no ear hath heard, and no tongue can tell. I once heard a father tell that when he removed his family to a new and ampler residence his youngest son, yet a lisping infant, ran round every room and scanned every article with ecstacy, calling out in childish wonder at every new sight, Is this ours, father? and is this ours? The child did not say yours; and the father was not offended with the freedom. The infants confidence in appropriating as his own all that his father had was an important element in his satisfaction. Such, I suppose, will be the surprise and joy and appropriating confidence with which the child of our Fathers family will count all his own when he enters the infinite of things to come. (W. Arnot, D. D.)
All things ours
All things mine? Oh, how delightful that would be if only it were true! But it is true. All things mine that I may make them Christs? But that is hardly so delightful as having all things for my own. It is more delightful. Nay, to give all to Christ is the only way to make all things yours. So we might talk on this wonderful passage, finding much that seems incredible, but nothing so incredible as the assurance that all things are ours. Even this incredible assertion, however, may grow credible to you if only you approach it from the apostles point of view.
I. All things are yours.
1. All ministers are yours. Oh, yes, you say, that is true enough; but what are we the richer for that? But I am by no means sure that all ministers are yours. I am quite sure that, if they are, you are much the richer for it.
1. St. Pauls general principle is that the teachers are for the Church, not the Church for the teachers. But the intention of God is one thing and the intention of the Church, as shown by its conduct, is often another.
(1) God intended eloquent Apollos, learned Paul, and sagacious and enthusiastic Peter for the Church at Corinth; but some said, We are of Apollos. They were charmed with the eloquence of the mighty expositor of Scripture, but they did not care for the learned Paul or the plain Peter. Others attached themselves to Paul, but thought Apollos too rhetorical and Peter too rustic, &c. Thus this ancient Church flung away two-thirds of its treasure.
(2) All the ministers of the Church universal are yours in the design and intention of God; but do you permit them all to be yours? What, all the ministers of the Apostolic, Patristic, Mediaeval, Roman, Episcopal, Presbyterian, &c., branches of the one Catholic Church? All are yours, and yet how few of them are yours!
2. But here you may object: We have neither the means nor the opportunity of learning from many of Christs ministers. But do you learn as much, and from as many of them, as you might? Do you study the apostolic preachers with the devotion they deserve? When wise and holy men of other communions than your own publish a volume of choice discourses, do you take as much pains to get it as you take for the last new novel, and read it with even as much interest as you bestow on your daily newspaper? There are those in our Churches who so attach themselves to one minister that, like the Corinthians, they care to hear no one but him. Now I do not say that if you find a minister who can most effectually touch the springs of spiritual thought and emotion within you you are not to love and to addict yourselves to his ministry; but I do say that if you so addict yourselves to one that you can hear no other you are flinging away the greater part of your spiritual heritage. But not only all ministers, all things are yours, in precisely the same sense, viz., to use and to profit by.
2. The world. If a deed of gift were placed in your hand which made over a whole country, or even a whole cosmos to you as your private estate, you might be the worse and poorer for it. So vast an estate would entail responsibilities under which the strongest and wisest must faint. If you cared only to make a personal and selfish use of it, and if your possession of it robbed you of all stimulus to labour, to mental and moral culture, you would simply sink into the most astounding sot and sinner under heaven. Property is what we can appropriate. And what in the world is there of which, with due pains and trouble, you cannot get the best it has to give? The splendour of sunrise and sunset, the glory of the seasons, the beauty of flower and herb and spreading tree, the starry canopy of heaven, do they not become yours in proportion as you have power to appropriate their teaching, their value? Any house or piece of land that you have bought you may lose by a thousand accidents, and at the best you will soon have to leave it behind you; but the culture wrought into your very spirit by your love and admiration of the natural world, this will never leave you.
3. What is there in all the forms and varieties of human life which you may not so observe as to learn its highest lessons, as to work the very essence of it into the very substance of your mind? What have men ever done, what great and noble thoughts have they uttered, of which you may not so read as to make all that is so permanently valuable in them your own? Christ has thrown open to you the whole domain of history and of human life; and it rests with you to determine how far you will go up into it and possess yourselves of it.
4. And He has made death your friend and servant; for if you believe in Him what is death to you, or to those whom you love, but a transition to more life and fuller?
5. So with things present, with which we are so seldom content, and things to come which we are so apt to fear. All are yours in proportion as you make them yours.
II. All are yours because you are Christs, and that you may make them Christs and Gods. Nay, we can only make all things ours as we give them all to Christ and God.
1. All ministers are yours; but when do you make them all yours in fact? Only when you make the best use of the best that is in them, and suffer it to minister to your highest and most enduring welfare. And when you do that, do you not both take them as Gods gift to you and give them back to Him?
2. And in the same way you make life yours, viz., as you yield to its nobler influences and suffer them to mould and reform you. That is to say, all life becomes yours as you give your personal life to God.
3. So, again, with death. Only those who believe that Christ has overcome the sharpness and taken away the sting of death, only those know that death is a minister of God for their good. And who are these but those for whom to live is Christ and to die gain? Who but those for whom to depart is to be with the Lord? Death is ours only as we are Christs and Gods.
4. And only on the same terms are things present ours and things to come. (S. Cox, D. D.)
The Christians possessions
I. The general scope of the declaration. Of course all things are not the Christians in the sense of actual right or control. A man possesses that which he turns to his own account. A miser, though abounding in wealth, is a very poor man; although he has all things he possesses nothing. So all things in creation and providence shall as certainly minister to the Christians present and eternal welfare as if they were absolutely his own. All things work together for good to them that love God.
II. The several particulars.
1. All ministers are yours. Whatever their talents, zeal, piety, fruit, you have an interest in them all. Christ thought of you when He gave some apostles, &c. Feel that you have a personal property in your ministers, not only in their time, talents, prayers, but also in their spiritual prosperity and their growth in grace.
2. The world is yours. The world is created for the saints, and for their sakes is it preserved. It is a mere stage of action for them, and when of these the last has obtained his crown it shall be burned up, having fulfilled its mission in preparing man for a higher condition of existence. The earth hath God given to the children of men, but in an especial sense to the redeemed. It belongs not to men of the world to whom providential gifts are often a ruin.
3. Life is yours, i.e., as it is a blessing, as it serves us for doing the work of God. He lives twice who lives for lifes great end. Only use it rightly, and life is yours.
4. Death is yours; because to the Christian to die is gain.
III. The solid ground upon which these assurances rest: because ye are Christs. Ministers, &c., are not yours by any right of your own, not yours for your obedience, your prayers. And therefore remember that if you are not Christs, then none of these things are yours. Ministers are not yours, for they shall rise as a testimony against you; nor the world, for it is a master by whom you are held in bondage; nor life, for its things are not blessed to you; nor death, for he comes as Gods executioner, to drag you from your tenacious hold on things present, and to make you view your forfeited interest in all the joys of things to come. Oh, see to it, then, that ye are Christs by a good confession, by a choice of service, by faith, by love. (D. Moore, M. A.)
The Christians riches
I. Wherein do these riches consist?
1. It was not without intention that the apostle placed at the head the great apostolic personalities. For the highest of mans possessions is man. What would this whole creation be but for man, the image of God?
(1) But it is man who appears to be least of all ours. How many a man would have given thousands to rescue the life of a beloved child, or have cheerfully laid aside his dignities to lengthen a beloved partners life, or have sacrificed a portion of our own life to redeem that of a friend? How then can we say that men are ours, if we cannot hinder their being snatched away from us?
(2) It is true that what is earthly and perishable in man does not belong to us; of that we must be deprived. But all that is imperishable and holy in human nature is ours, and cannot be snatched from us. Centuries have passed since the great apostles passed away; but have they ceased to be ours? The word of repentance which they preached, has it not awakened us? The testimony they bore to the grace in Christ, has it not converted us? The example of love which they have set forth, has it not enlightened us? This Paul, this Peter, &c., are ours. And not only they, but all who walk in their footsteps. Yes, they too are ours who seem to be far removed from us. Paul had been a persecutor of the Church, and became its protector. Peter was a shaken reed, and became like a rock. Apollos was a disciple of the false Greek wisdom (Act 18:24), and became a scholar of Christ. We will not despair, then, of those whom we cannot call ours in reality.
2. All other created things.
(1) On few things do we seem so dependent. There is the lightning, the hailstorm, the flood, the pestilence, war. These forces, which neither the mind nor the will of man can tame or control–are they ours? That wonderful power that carries men across the country, as on the wings of the wind, that still more wonderful power which multiplies thought with lightning speed; that gold which rules the hearts of men; the spirit of inquiry–do these powers belong to us, Christians? Even the gentle gifts which summer scatters over the trees and fields, will not misuse desecrate them, will not sin poison them?
(2) But we must not be misled by appearances. The apostles statement is true. For can misfortune touch us when we know that all things work together for our good? When we know that we are not the sport of chance, but that an almighty and all-loving hand sends these trials to us; when we have the experience, too, that we are purified by them as gold by the fire? It is true that the commercial activity of the day may serve the purposes of sin; but does it fail to serve the purposes of the kingdom of God? It is true that a prolific press forges weapons of falsehood and ungodliness; but does it fail to forge the weapons of truth? It is true that gold enters many a house with a message of hatred and hostility; but does it cease to be an angel of love and comfort when we carry it into the dwellings of the poor and wretched? It is true that the spirit of inquiry kindles a fire-brand and casts it into the very sanctuary of God; but does it not also kindle the flame of wisdom and throw light into the sanctuary of Divine truth?
3. But, says the doubter, there is one thing you cannot make your own. It is all-embracing time with life and death, the past, the present, and the future.
(1) We will not dispute that there is nothing on which men seem so dependent as time.
(a) What are we to say of life–is this ours? We devise a plan of life to-day, to-morrow it lies in ruins at our feet. We build to-day on our health, to-morrow we are stretched on our bed.
(b) And how about death? When we shall die we do not know; that we shall die is certain. There are some who during life never cease to be in bondage to the fear of death (Heb 2:15).
(c) And is the past ours? What we have done, we have done and cannot recall.
(d) And how can the present or the future belong to us? At the present moment is not the future dark before us? What will happen in the next hour or day we cannot tell.
(2) Amid these apparent contradictions we hold immovably to the apostles word when he calls time ours.
(a) Of course the empty, perishing, earthly life is not ours. But what does this signify? On the other hand, eternal life, whose pledge for us is the resurrection of Christ, will after this life first attain its full perfection. This eternal life is ours, and death cannot rob us of it. For death is ours in Christ.
(b) The past, too, is ours. The centuries have swept away a hundred signs of human devotion; one is left, it is the Cross. Thousands of words of human wisdom have been forgotten; the Word of God remains. Names that once shone brightly in the firmament are now never mentioned; one name remains, it is the name Christ. Numberless hopes have vanished like the morning mist; one hope remains, is ours–the hope of eternal life. The past is ours: all that is worthy and imperishable in it.
(c) And therefore are the present and future ours too. Let men set up new signs, the Cross alone will remain. Let them utter wondrous words, they will all cease to be heard; the Divine Word will remain. Let new names rise into favour, they will all disappear like meteors, while the name of Christ will be like the sun. Let new hopes delude men, our hope is an anchor sure and steadfast.
II. The conditions to be fulfilled that this may be so. The natural man cannot inherit the kingdom of God; therefore, cannot say all things are mine, but must rather confess I belong to all things. The context shows how freedom may be gained, and with it the assurance that all things are ours. The apostle is not addressing the unbelieving, but (verse 16) those who have received the Holy Ghost. This is the condition. The way to become possessed of the Christians wealth is the way of repentance which leads us to the knowledge of what sin is before the Father; the way of faith which causes us to find in God the Son reconciliation and redemption from sin; the way of regeneration-we are renewed and sanctified by God the Holy Ghost. (D. Schenkel, D. D.)
Christian riches
Give me a great thought, that I may live upon it, said a noble man in his dying hour; but even in life there is often need of a great thought to expand and elevate the soul. Such a thought we have in our text.
I. The world has often used these words to deck out a gospel of the flesh. Do we not hear men calling out, All is yours? Lordship over the earth is yours; therefore seize, rule, and enjoy. And because all is yours, ye must all equally rule and enjoy; therefore demolish the old distinction between masters and servants, rich and poor. We know, indeed, that in the early Apostolic Church there was a short time when the word, All is yours, was quite literally fulfilled (Act 2:44), but this state of matters had of necessity very soon to disappear. The providence of God is not uniform, and in different ways will lead different men, setting some as stewards over much, others as stewards over little. But–
II. The highest good is common to all. In the sense of faith, and hope, and love, we say with the apostle, All is yours; for ye are Christs, and Christ is Gods. What can be more my own than what I possess in best thoughts and feelings? Name anything in the whole world, and I ask whether it is not mine if it may serve my inner man and serve me for growth in wisdom and grace. Wert thou ever so poor, art thou Christs, then the whole world must serve thee, for Christ is Gods; but wert thou so rich that thou wouldst have to pull down thy barns and build greater, &c., the days of thy riches are soon numbered. Here, however, are riches which moth and rust cannot corrupt and which cannot be counted. All is yours.
1. Paul, Apollos, and Cephas belong to thee, with their varying gifts. For thee the evangelists write, apostles preach, the sacred poets unfold the depths of their soul. For thee is the exhortation and the promise.
2. The world. Yes, not only the kingdom of grace, but also the kingdom of nature, and the lilies of the field and the birds of the air reveal to thee the glory of God.
3. Life or death. How poor would we be if death, too, did not belong to us. The gospel of the flesh leads its adherents up to the gates of death, and just there death, as it were, calls out, Nothing is yours! But art thou Christs, then to die is gain.
4. And whosoever can speak thus can also say, things present or things to come. Many perhaps will say, Yes, no doubt the present is ours–these misfortunes and sufferings–but where are our joy and peace? But art thou Christs, then these times contain a great wealth of Divine exhortations, warnings, appeals, which also belong to thee for doctrine, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness. And if thou yieldest to these, then also the great word belongs to thee: We are saved by hope, hope in the brighter morning of eternity, when all the children of God will reap with joy, for they bring in the fruits of righteousness.
III. If the Lord is to be able to give us all, then must we be able to give the Lord all. Lord, we have left all and followed Thee. Luther sang, Everything may go To us the crown remaineth. This we too must learn if we would obtain the promise. Let all go that is now thine own; the earthly, selfish desires which hold thee back, because thou thyself holdest them so fast; and many a thing which, though it has had a noble origin, yet turns thee from the riches of God, if thou wilt hold it fast against the will of God. Let go, therefore, the vain dreams of a happiness which knows neither sufferings nor the cross. Perhaps thou hast thyself already experienced the disappointments of this life. There were perhaps some dear ones whom thou couldst truly call thine own! The grave covers them, and why wilt thou still cling to the earthly possession? In the name of Jesus, let it go. For in Him we know that we should not seek the living among the dead; we know that what is sown in corruption will be raised in incorruption, &c. And the better we learn to say from the heart, Let everything go, to us the crown remaineth, the freer, the more joyous, the richer will we be. For then that dies in us which ought to die, and then that lives in us which ought to live. And then we feel that all is ours. (Bp. Martensen.)
The Christians heritage
I. The believer may be said to possess all things in God.
1. The mind of a great author is more precious than his books, of a great artist than his pictures. To have the mind is better than to have merely the products of that mind. Give the fountain, and you virtually have the streams. But no earthly or finite mind can transfer its gifts to another. But there is a sense in which we may become sharers of the Infinite Mind from which all that is true and good and fair in the universe proceeds. As really as true, or noble, or holy thoughts become a portion of the mind which apprehends them, does God communicate Himself through the spirit of the believer.
2. The happiness of this mysterious nature of ours is never to be found merely in the possession of Gods gifts; the soul can find its true satisfaction only in rising beyond the gifts, and claiming the Giver as its own. When you covet the friendship or love of a fellow-man, it does not satisfy you that he bestows upon you only outward gifts; unless the man give you himself, the rest are but worthless boons. So the wealth of worlds would be, to the heart longing after Deity, a miserable substitute for one look of love from the Great Fathers eye.
3. Now, admitting the truth of the thought that God is the portion of the soul, then the argument of the text becomes obvious and conclusive. As the scattered rays of light are all included in the focus, as the fountain contains the streams, so all finite and created good is contained in Him who is the Supreme Good; all earthly excellence is but the partial emanation, the more or less bright reflection of the Great Original. The man who is in possession of some great masterpiece need not envy others who have only casts or copies of it.
II. Some of the special blessings here enumerated.
1. The world is yours. Not, obviously, in the literal sense. This earth is not the exclusive property of the good. It is not their Master, but another who, displaying all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, said, All these will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me. As often as otherwise the rich in faith are poor in this worlds possessions. The best of the sons of men had not where to lay His head; and even this last resting-place the hand of charity bestowed. But the world belongs to the Christian in that he only has a legitimate title to the benefits and blessings he enjoys in it. This earth was not meant to be the home of evil.
(1) Even mute and material things, the laws and agencies of nature, have in them something that asserts their Divine origin, and proclaims that wrong is done to them when forced into the service of sin. If, therefore, you are living a sinful life, you are out of harmony with the world in which you live. You are an intruder on its soil, a misappropriator of its benefits, a usurper and perverter of its laws. And so long as you continue in estrangement from God, it is as if His sun were unwilling to shine upon you, and His air to inspire you, and the fruits of His earth to nourish you, and that earth itself to hold you, and as if the whole creation, weary of a bondage so degrading, were groaning and travailing in pain.
(2) On the other hand, let your soul be brought back into living union with the Father of spirits through His Son, and thenceforward the world will become yours, because you are Gods. In harmony with the Great Centre, you will be in harmony with all things in His universe. Nature will serve him who serves her God. The earth will be fulfilling its proper function in yielding you bread, and the heavens in shedding their sweet influences on your path. You will be able to claim a peculiar property in the works of your Fathers hand, and the bounties of your Fathers providence. You will have served yourself heir to Him who is the Universal Proprietor, and become heir of God, and joint heir with Christ. And so the world and the fulness thereof will become yours, because ye are Christs, and Christ is Gods.
2. Life is yours.
(1) Of course, considered as mere existence or duration of being, life cannot be regarded as the peculiar property of the Christian. For though it is true that religion is really conducive to health and longevity, and that, in absence of its restraints, vicious excess often impairs the health and shortens life, yet it is not always the holiest men who live the longest.
(2) But if the good do not live longer, they live more in the same space of time than other men. Life is to be reckoned not only extensively, but also intensively. An oak lives for centuries; but who would exchange for it a single day of the existence of a living, conscious, thinking man? The briefest life of rationality, again, has more of real life in it than the longest of a mere animal. And, amongst rational beings, that life is longest, whether brief or protracted its outward term, into which the largest amount of mental and moral activity is condensed. We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths, &c. But if so, it is only the man who lives to God who can really be said to live at all. For in him alone the whole man lives–in him alone all the energies of mans being are called into fullest, noblest activity. The man who merely vegetates through existence, who rises day by day only to eat and drink and pursue the same unreflective round, without one lofty thought or pure spiritual emotion–surely, to such an one, life, in its real essence, its true significance, is lost. The man of property, who has an undiscovered gold mine on his estate, is no richer for his latent wealth; and whatever other men contrive to extract out of life–as comfort, honour, knowledge, power–they are, after all, possessors only of its surface wealth; the Christian alone, the man who has discovered and appropriated its hidden treasure of holy thought, feeling, energy, he alone can be said to be its true possessor. Confine a bird for life to a cage, and could it be said to be in reality possessor of the unexercised, unenjoyed power to soar and sweep the heavens? But within every human breast there are capabilities of heaven, folded wings of thought, aspiration, energy, which need only the liberating touch of the Spirit of God to call forth their hidden power, and bear the soul upward to the true region of its life. The true ideal of mans life is that of a heavenly life. To that man only who can say, To me to live is Christ, can we say, in the full significance of the words, Then life is yours.
3. Death is yours. Outwardly, indeed, death bears the same aspect to all. But yet, whilst of all other men it may be said that they are deaths, of the believer alone can it be averred that death is his.
(1) Sin renders a man, in a sense, the rightful property of death, so that, when the hour of dissolution arrives, it is but the lawful proprietor coming to claim his own. In human society, a man by the commission of a crime is by right, if not in fact, the property of the law. The criminal may elude for a while the hands of justice; but, go where he may, he has no right to liberty or life. And when at last, it may be in some unwary moment, he feels a stern hand laid upon his shoulder, and the terrible words, You are my prisoner, fall upon his ear, his guilty freedom is at an end. And though shrinking in dismay from the fate that awaits him, go he must with the officer of justice to meet it. Now, similar to this is the condition of the irreligious man in relation to that law which he has dishonoured, and that dread penalty which he has incurred.
(2) On the other hand, if you are Christs, then death is yours. His power over you is gone. For your condition will be analogous to that of the innocent man in the hands of the law. Over him the law has no power. All its authority, its sanctions, its penalties are on his side. And so, if ye be Christs, the stain of guilt no longer rests upon you, and- death has no longer any claim to your person. It may be still your mysterious fate to pass into the prison-house of the destroyer; but He to whom you belong will soon claim you as one who, like Himself, cannot be holden of death. And then when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality, then shall the believer discover the full and blessed import of the words, Death is yours. (J. Caird, D. D.)
Christian dominion
In Gen 2:1-25. we learn that according to Gods creative ideal, man was designed to subject all things to his own will, to have the power of enjoying all things. But the realisation of that was subject to the condition that man should retain the form and spirit of that Divine life of which he was created. Therefore the truth of the text is that when man is restored to his true character, he recovers his original dominion. Now Christ is the image of God; therefore to be Christs is to recover the original character which God created in man. When it can be said of us, Ye are Christs, it can also be said, Ye are Gods, and all things are yours. Now the two main characteristics in the Divine life in Christ are light in the understanding, love in the will and the heart. And we shall find that progress in enlightenment, and sympathy makes man more and more capable of reducing all things to His service, and of drawing tribute from all things.
I. The gifts of men.
1. Paul, Apollos, and Cephas. Each had his own special power of setting forth some aspects of the Divine truth. To the narrow-minded and narrow-hearted these teachers were of no service; but to the enlightened and unselfish man the powers of thought, of feeling, and of spirit that existed in these men added to his inward wealth.
2. This is for ever the case. Our ability to make use, for our own good, of the splendid gifts of other men depends upon our own state of heart and mind. For instance, the soul of a great poet is a mine of mental and of moral wealth to those who can make him their own; but the coarse, the unintellectual man cannot grasp its treasures. When Pauls body was bound by Nero at Rome, the apostle was not possessed by the brutal emperor who could not enter into his ideas; but the humblest Christian slave in Neros household was able to make the genius of the great apostle contribute to the inward wealth of his own soul.
II. The world.
1. The material form of the world becomes ours not by virtue of our external position but of our inward state of heart and mind. The man of cultured mind and heart, who knows the inward life and the hidden history of the world, who looks at and loves the glorious landscape, who sees everywhere the signs of Gods wisdom and power, who sees the beauty of His works; and above all he who knows how to appreciate the greatest of all–the moral nature of man–is more truly the owner of wide provinces of the world than a king dark in mind and debased in heart.
2. So the wealth of the world does not belong to a man really until he has become renewed in mind and in heart. The narrow-minded, narrow-hearted churl may have countless hoards, but he is not the master of his money, but his money is the master of the man.
3. The callings, the social intercourse of the world, do not really belong to us in the sense of doing us any good until we are renewed in heart and mind. A selfish, Christless man may have a large practice, a lucrative business, a high social position, but he cannot derive from them any rich inward happiness; but the man who is animated by the spirit of Christ, finds in doing his every-day duty a resource that gives strength and satisfaction to the whole being, and he can say, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work.
III. Life. The desire for life is innate in man. How shall I see life? is the cry of the young human heart. The only answer is, I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly. Mere animal existence is not the all of life. The enlightening of the mind by the rays, and the enlargement of the heart by the ardour of that fire of love that came down on Pentecost give the fulness of life. Sensual and worldly life as old age creeps upon us, becomes a burden, not a treasure. But if we are animated by the spirit of Christ we have an undecaying life that we realise day by day more and more our own possession. There are other masters who wish to supersede Christ, that tell us of life sensual and of life intellectual, but they admit that the life of which they speak is not to be our own, and that it is to become the spoil of the grave. Christ alone rescues our life from corruption and makes it ours, ours for ever. Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou alone hast the words of eternal life.
IV. Death. If we are living worldly, sensual, thoughtless lives, then death is not our possession but our enemy; but if we are deadening the lower life and giving ourselves to the life of the spirit in Christ day by day, then death is ours. As the exile welcomes the white-winged ship that is to bear him away from the strange land of his sojourn where he cannot find lasting rest, and to take him across the storm-tossed waves of the ocean to the calm shores where stands the home of his inheritance, so is the approach of death to those who are in Christ. As is the opening of the door to the guest that has long been wearily waiting in the ante-room of the outward existence to be ushered into the presence-chamber where he shall see the king in his beauty, and find the bounty of his favour, so is the approach of death to those who have been all through their life straining the gaze of the soul to catch the vision of the higher life. (Dean Edwards.)
A Christians portion
I. All things are yours.
1. Paul, Apollos, Cephas. Therefore Peter is not the head of the Church. He is named here in the third place. Peter is the Churchs, and therefore cannot be the head and commander.
2. The world.
(1) The world natural–the frame of heaven and earth. All things are made for man, and he is made for God. They have their happiness and misery together with men (Rom 8:21).
(2) The civil world. The commonwealth is for the Church. Therefore St. Paul bids us pray for kings and princes, &c. (1Ti 2:2). Commonwealths stand because the Church is mingled with them.
(3) The world of wicked men, all their plots, and the prince of the world are the Churchs. He and all his instruments are under the command of Him who turns all his designs contrary to his own intention.
3. Life. Why doth God prolong the life of good pastors and good people, but that they may be blessed instruments to convey truth to posterity? (Php 1:23-24). And so the life of good magistrates (Act 13:36). And then our own life is ours, in order to a better life, which is the only life. This present life is nothing but a shadow. Again, life is ours, because the time we live here is a seed time. This time is given us to do a great many good things in, the harvest of which is reserved for the world to come. And life is a special benefit, because by the advantage of life we further our reckonings after death. A good Christian, the longer he lives, the more he soweth to the Spirit.
4. Or death. Paul joins these together, for if life be not ours for good, death will never be ours. But if life be ours, and we have made a blessed improvement of it, then death also shall be ours (Rev 14:13). It tends to our benefit many ways.
(1) It unclothes us of these rags, these sick, weak bodies of ours, that occasion so much disquiet to our souls, and puts on a new robe of immortality, and garments of glory. It ends all that is ill.
(2) It ends labour in our callings, and the miseries and afflictions that accompany them. Death is ours because it is our resting-place.
(3) It frees us from wicked men, and sets us clear out of Satans reach.
(4) It is a passage to another world. It is the gate of glory. Our death is our birthday. For when we die, we begin to live, and we never live indeed till we die. Death is ours every way. It is our greatest friend under the mask of an enemy. It is a good messenger; it brings good tidings when it comes (Ecc 7:1). It is the best physician. It cures all diseases whatsoever of soul and body. And, indeed, death is the death of itself; for after death there is no more death (Rom 6:9).
5. Or things present.
(1) The good things present are ours, for our comfort in our pilgrimage and passage towards heaven (Tit 1:15; 1Ti 4:4).
(2) And as good things, so ill things. Afflictions are ours, because they fit us for a happier state; they exercise what is good in us, and mortify what is ill.
6. Things to come–whether they be good or evil.
(1) For good. The remainder of our life, that is ours to be good in. Death is to come, and that is ours. And judgment, that is ours; for our Brother and Saviour shall be our judge (1Co 6:2). And then after judgment heaven is ours. Indeed, the best is to come.
(2) And evil things to come are ours also. They cannot do us harm (Rom 8:35; Rom 8:38).
II. But we must understand this with some limits. We therefore answer some cases.
1. It may seem there is no distinction of property if all be a Christians. If every Christian may say, All is mine, then what is one mans is anothers, and there will be no property. Undoubtedly there is a distinction of properties in the things of this life. All is ours, to help us to heaven; in order to comfort and happiness.
2. If all is the Churchs, nothing belongs to the wicked. Therefore say the Jesuited papists, the pope may excommunicate ill princes. They are evil governors; nothing is theirs, all is the Churchs. But political government is not founded upon religion, but upon nature and free election, so that the heathen that have no religion may yet have a lawful government and governors. But it is further objected that they succeed Christ, &c., and He was the Lord of the world; and therefore they may dispossess and invest whom they will. But Christ as man had no government at all (Joh 18:36), only as God-man, Mediator; and so He hath no successor.
3. Doth not this hinder bounty? It is mine, and therefore I do not owe any bounty unto others (1Sa 25:11). However all that we possess is ours in law, yet the bonds of duty, both of humanity and religion, are larger than the bonds of law. Therefore all things are ours, not to possess all we have, but to use them as He will have them used, that gives them.
4. If all be ours, we may do what we choose in all things. Not so. There is difference between right, and the use of that right. Gods children have right to that which God gives them, but they have not the use of that right at all times. Again, though all be ours, yet we have not a sanctified use, but by the Word and prayer (1Ti 4:4). We must take them with Gods leave.
5. Again, all things are ours. Therefore truth, wheresoever we find it, is ours. (R. Sibbes, D. D.)
Glorious united property
I. Christ is Gods.
1. Gods Son.
2. Gods image.
3. Gods gift.
4. Gods great ordinance of salvation.
II. Ye are Christs.
1. Negatively.
(1) You are not the devils.
(2) You are not Moses. You are not the property of the law.
(3) You are not Adams. His headship was soon lost.
2. Positively, Ye are Christs. His property, His spouse, His members, His riches, His glory.
III. Having Christ, we have all things. I remember reading of a lady looking over certain treasures of the house. She says, this is mine, and this is mine, and this is mine. The husband very pleasantly smiled, and said, Yes, my dear, all this is yours, because you are mine. Now all belongs to the believer that belongs to Christ, officially, relatively, and by covenant, and by mediation.
1. All the fulness stored up in the person of Christ belongs to His people. It hath pleased the Father that in Him all fulness should dwell. Of His fulness we have received, and grace for grace.
2. All the merit of His work.
3. All the triumphs of His victories. (G. Murrell.)
A call to the utmost expansiveness in religious sympathy
The Church has not always treated its ministers rightly. The attendants on a Christian ministry may be divided into–
1. Those who esteem the doctrine because of the teacher. Paul seems to have had those in his eye when he wrote this chapter. This is a mistake, as bad as it is prevalent.
2. Those who esteem the teacher because of his doctrines. A man who preaches to them, they feel, is estimable only as he embodies and propounds the true doctrines of the gospel. The impropriety of glorying in teachers, rather than in their doctrines, is strikingly illustrated by three things in the text.
I. The universe is for the Church. All things–not some things.
1. The ministry. Whether Paul, or Apollos. In every way it serves man–intellectually, socially, materially. Rut its grand aim is to restore the human spirit to God. Now this ministry, in all its varieties, is the property of the Church. Why, then, should it glory in any one form?
2. The world. In the sense of legal possession the world of course is not the property of Christians, nor of others. Yet in the highest sense it is the property of the Christian. He feels an intense sympathy with God who created it; he rejoices in it as the workmanship of a Fathers hands, as the expression of a Fathers heart, the revelation of a Fathers wisdom and power. Spiritually he appropriates the world to himself, he gathers up its truths, he cherishes its impressions, he drinks in its Divine spirit.
3. Life. There are certain conditions in which men cannot be said to live. The prisoner under the sentence of death; his life belongs to the avenging justice of his country. There are others whose faculties are so paralysed they can neither speak nor move. Life is not theirs. Morally man is dead in trespasses and in sin; his life is not his. But life is the Christians. His sentence of death is removed; his moral infirmities are healed, and he is enjoying the right of life, he is prosecuting the mission of life, he is answering the grand purpose of life.
4. Death. It delivers from all that is incompatible with our peace, safety, and advancement; and introduces us into the scenes, the services, the society of a blessed immortality. It is ours; the last step in the pilgrimage, the last storm in the voyage, the last blow in the conflict.
5. General events. Things present, whatever their character–painful or pleasant–are ours. Things to come. What things come to us in a day! What things, therefore, are to come in eternity!
II. The Church is for the Redeemer. There are two very different senses in which Christian men are Christs. They are His–
1. By His relationship to them. He is the Creator of all. By Him were all things created, visible and invisible, &c. He is the Mediator of all. Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price, &c.
2. By their pledge to Him. They have pledged themselves to Him as their moral Leader.
III. The redeemer is for God. Christ is–
1. Gods Revealer. He reveals Him–
(1) In creation. Gods creative plan was wrought out by the hand of Christ; He, as the builder of the universe, revealed the mind of the infinite Architect.
(2) In His personal ministry. He was the Image of the invisible God, the brightness of His Fathers glory.
2. Gods Servant. He came here to work out Gods great plan of saving mercy. Christ is Gods Revealer and Servant in a sense in which no other being in the universe is, and therefore to Him men should give their undivided attention.
Conclusion: Learn–
1. The infinite worth of Christianity. It gives all things to its true disciples. None of the all things specified here are possessed by those who are not His genuine disciples.
2. The contemptibleness of religious sectarianism. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 21. Let no man glory in men] Let none suppose that he has any cause of exultation in any thing but God. All are yours; he that has God for his portion has every thing that can make him happy and glorious: all are his.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Seeing, therefore, that Christ is but one, his ministers but one, and no more than ministers by whom ye believed, 1Co 3:5; and the principal efficiency of any saving work begun, or carried on in your souls to any degree of perfection, is from God, and the ministers work in that effect nothing compared with his; seeing you are Gods husbandry, Gods building, not merely mans, and the temple of God, not mens temple; leave your glorying in men, and saying l am of Paul, or I am of Apollos; glory only in this, that ye are Christs: besides, all things are yours; why do you glory in a particular minister, when all is yours? As if two joint-heirs in an estate should glory in this or that particular house or enclosure, when the whole estate is jointly theirs, all theirs.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
21. let no man glory in menresumingthe subject from 1Co 3:4;compare 1Co 1:12; 1Co 1:31,where the true object of glorying is stated: “He that glorieth,let him glory in THE LORD.”Also 1Co 4:6, “That no oneof you be puffed up for one against another.”
For all thingsnot onlyall men. For you to glory thus in men, is lowering yourselvesfrom your high position as heirs of all things. All men(including your teachers) belong to Christ, and therefore to you, byyour union with Him; He makes them and all things work together foryour good (Ro 8:28). Ye are notfor the sake of them, but they for the sake of you (2Co 4:5;2Co 4:15). They belong to you,not you to them.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Therefore let no man glory in men,…. The apostle means ministers, who are but men, even the best of them, and therefore not to be gloried in; and has chiefly respect to the false teachers, whose wisdom, learning, and eloquence, the Corinthians were greatly taken with, and boasted of; it was so ensnaring to them, that they even idolized them for it, called them their masters, pinned their faith on their sleeve, gave up themselves to them, and were greatly under their authority, influence, and direction, which is here condemned; and which was so far from being right, that they ought not to behave in such manner to the best of ministers, nor to glory in anyone above another; no, not in Paul, nor Apollos, nor Cephas;
for all things are yours; all the ministers, and all they are endowed with; these were all for their use and service, for their benefit and advantage; wherefore it was very wrong to set up one above, or against another, or for any party to engross anyone minister, when he belonged to them all; and great weakness to reject others, when they had a common right and property in them.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Against Overvaluing Teachers. | A. D. 57. |
21 Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; 22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; 23 And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.
Here the apostle founds an exhortation against over-valuing their teachers on what he had just said, and on the consideration that they had an equal interest in all their ministers: Therefore let no man glory in men (v. 21)– forget that their ministers are men, or pay that deference to them that is due only to God, set them at the head of parties, have them in immoderate esteem and admiration, and servilely and implicitly follow their directions and submit to their dictates, and especially in contradiction to God and the truths taught by his Holy Spirit. Mankind are very apt to make the mercies of God cross their intentions. The ministry is a very useful and very gracious institution, and faithful ministers are a great blessing to any people; yet the folly and weakness of people may do much mischief by what is in itself a blessing. They may fall into factions, side with particular ministers, and set them at their head, glory in their leaders, and be carried by them they know not whither. The only way to avoid this mischief is to have a modest opinion of ourselves, a due sense of the common weakness of human understanding, and an entire deference to the wisdom of God speaking in his word. Ministers are not to be set up in competition with one another. All faithful ministers are serving one Lord and pursuing one purpose. They were appointed of Christ, for the common benefit of the church: “Paul, and Apollos, and Cephas, are all yours. One is not to be set up against another, but all are to be valued and used for your own spiritual benefit.” Upon this occasion also he gives in an inventory of the church’s possessions, the spiritual riches of a true believer: “All is yours–ministers of all ranks, ordinary and extraordinary. Nay the world itself is yours.” Not that saints are proprietors of the world, but it stands for their sake, they have as much of it as Infinite Wisdom sees to be fit for them, and they have all they have with the divine blessing. “Life is yours, that you may have season and opportunity to prepare for the life of heaven; and death is yours, that you may go to the possession of it. It is the kind messenger that will fetch you to your Father’s house. Things present are yours, for your support on the road; things to come are yours, to enrich and regale you for ever at your journey’s end.” Note, If we belong to Christ, and are true to him, all good belongs to us, and is sure to us. All is ours, time and eternity, earth and heaven, life and death. We shall want no good thing, Ps. lxxxiv. 11. But it must be remembered, at the same time, that we are Christ’s, the subjects of his kingdom, his property. He is Lord over us, and we must own his dominion, and cheerfully submit to his command and yield themselves to his pleasure, if we would have all things minister to our advantage. All things are ours, upon no other ground than our being Christ’s. Out of him we are without just title or claim to any thing that is good. Note, Those that would be safe for time, and happy to eternity, must be Christ’s. And Christ is God’s. He is the Christ of God, anointed of God, and commissioned by him, to bear the office of a Mediator, and to act therein for the purposes of his glory. Note, All things are the believer’s, that Christ might have honour in his great undertaking, and God in all might have the glory. God in Christ reconciling a sinful world to himself, and shedding abroad the riches of his grace on a reconciled world, is the sum and substance of the gospel.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Wherefore let no one glory in men ( ). The conclusion () from the self-conceit condemned. This particle here is merely inferential with no effect on the construction (+ = and so) any more than would have, a paratactic conjunction. There are thirty such examples of in the N.T., eleven with the imperative as here (Robertson, Grammar, p. 999). The spirit of glorying in party is a species of self-conceit and inconsistent with glorying in the Lord (1:31).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
All things are yours. The categories which follow form an inventory of the possessions of the Church and of the individual Christian. This includes : the christian teachers with different gifts; the world, life, and things present; death and things to come. In Christ, death becomes a possession, as the right of way between things present and things to come.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Therefore, let no man glory in men.” (hoste medeis kauchastho en anthropois) “So as not one let boast or gloat in men or humanity.” Boast or gloat not in: 1) man’s Wisdom 2) man’s power; 3) man’s wealth; or 4) man’s natural goodness.
2) “For all things are yours.” (panta gar humon estin) “For all kind of things are yours.” Children of God in general, and members of the Lord’s church in particular, are now heirs or possessors of all things that belong to Christ in God. We await our full heirship – maturity which comes in the adoption, by the resurrection, Rom 8:17-23.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
21. Therefore let no man glory in men As there is nothing that is more vain than man, how little security there is in leaning upon an evanescent shadow! Hence he infers with propriety from the preceding statement, that we must not glory in men, inasmuch as the Lord thus takes away from mankind universally every ground of glorying. At the same time this inference depends on the whole of the foregoing doctrine, as will appear ere long. For as we belong to Christ alone, it is with good reason that he teaches us, that any supremacy of man, by which the glory of Christ is impaired, involves sacrilege.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES
1Co. 3:21-23.See Homiletic Analysis. Note the unexpected turn of phrase; not Christ is yours. Rise to the plane of His life and your relations to Him, then you are a possession, not owners. You are feudal holders of your estate, but the baron himself was the kings man.
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.1Co. 3:21-23
Our Estate and our Title: All things yours.
I. Incidental illustration of this in the occasion of the paragraph.
1. All things work together for good to them that love God. Corinthian Church a saddening spectacle to an observer, especially to one having Pauls close personal interest in its welfare. Sad even at this distance of time to see the state of things in a Church hardly more than two or three years old, and endowed with giftsmany of them miraculousbeyond any other of that age. Members split into factions, party spirit running high. Some living in immorality not even named amongst the heathen around them (1Co. 3:1); some defending such sin; others suffering rationalising scepticism to sap the foundations of their faith, and, which always follows, to eat away the vitality of their Christian life. One is sick at heart at the meanness and virulence of their personal feeling against Paul, the man to whom they owed their Church existence, who had spent himself for them, only to find that the more he loved them the less he was loved (2Co. 12:15). Yet to this condition of things we owe these two letters to Corinth; of all his longer Epistles the most human in their interest, and coming nearest to the every-day life of house, market, citizen, church. 2. Especially do we owe to this the many passages, of which this is a specimen, of greatest weight and importance. How again and again, in the midst of passages of rebuke or direction concerning the temporary and sometimes trivial points submitted by the Corinthians to Paul for his decision, do we find his pen guided to such passages of solemn or glorious truth as, e.g., 1Co. 7:29-31, or as this paragraph. As the casual blow of the pick of the lucky miner strikes upon the precious nugget embedded in the rock of quartz, or as many a fair flower grows so strong and so fair out of, and because of, the very corruption with which its roots are fed; so out of the foolish and wicked party spirit of the Corinthian Church grows this glorious title-deed to the Universe and its contents, the estate of the Christian. The very parties in Corinth are ours! [How is the preacher to put all the estate, all things, into one homily? He and his people can but walk over a part of it, noting the things which lie next the path on either hand, or can be seen afar off in large outline. No matter in what direction they strike out together a path over such an extent of possession, new views open on this side and that, new finds of pleasure and profit lie close to their way! Before starting across in even one direction, let them look over their Title. All is Gods; all is Christs, His Son; all He has is yours, His brethren.]
II. The title by which the estate is held by the Church and the Christian.At each link in the above chain of successive conveyance, from God to Christ, from Christ to His people, the ground of possession, the nature of the ownership, varies.
1. Of, through, unto, God are all things (Rom. 11:36). They have being because He willed it; they are what they are, and as they are, and they continue, at His will. All the creatures, and pre-eminently Man, find in His glory the aim and end of their being. Sin would destroy this order. The germ, not only of heathenism but of all sin, is that they worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator (Rom. 1:25). The members of the Church have come again into harmony with the Creators design, and glory with David as he stood amidst his peoples offerings to Gods Temple on earth, bowing at our Creators feet with the homage, All that is in the heaven, etc. (1Ch. 29:11). All the voices of the universe were meant to be and ought to be in harmony with the cry of the four living ones and the four-and-twenty elders who, self-discrowned, bow before the Lord God Almighty in the temple of heaven, saying, Thou hast created, etc. (Rev. 4:11). He is Lawgiver to His universe. The laws which we laboriously make out, are nothing but expressions of His will, the ordinary, orderly methods according to which He is pleased to govern His great Kingdom. All is His, in virtue of His Creatorship; all is subject to Him; all at His disposal.
2. But there comes in between Him and His Created Universe His Son; between, not as a separation, but as a link; as a Mediator, not only between God and man in Redemption, but as between Creator and Creature in Creation and in Providence (Joh. 1:1; Col. 1:16). Even in the days of His veiled glory He once said: All things that the Father hath are Mine; and the writer of the Hebrews (1Co. 1:1-3) allows us to see this Son appointed Heir of all things, sitting down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. And all things are His, subject to His power and at His disposal.
3. Then comes in the astounding revelation that He is all this, and has all this, for the sake of the redeemed race of man. [Note the force of Heb. 1:3-4, Being the brightness, etc., sat down when He, who was all the while this, had by Himself purged our sins. The purging of our sins and the after-session on the right hand, etc., are projected, as it were, on the background of His abiding, continuous dignity as the Brightness and the Image.] Whilst He thus has all things for Himself, He has linked Himself with man, has taken flesh and come down to us, that He might lift us up with Himself to God, and join us with Himself in a possession as wide as His own ownership. The very heart of the argument of Hebrews 2 is here. Yonder sits One Man in whom all the dominion of Psa. 8:4-6, ascribed to man, is actually fulfilled; the only one wearing our nature in whom that dominion is as yet realised. But His enthronement and dominion carry the principle of Mans restored dominion. His royalty is representative as well as personal. His people are so partakers with Him that they already enter into a life of rule rather than of subjection, and their ultimate and complete glory is sure. Ye are Christs carries with it an answer to the old question, What is man? such as was never dreamed of by him who asked it. The creature physically lost in the vastness of the universe, dwarfed into a point by the heavens, the work of Gods fingers, doomed to suffering and to death, in bondage all his life to the fear of death, and in that respect lower than the cattle and the humbler animated creation (Psalms 8), is already beginning, so our paragraph says, to realise that along with and like the Representative Man he is crowned with glory and honour; all things are put under his feet, and serve him; he is to become conqueror of death; angels are his servitors. Indeed, there is nothing, there is no being, in the whole contents of Gods creation-realm, that is not at His orders to serve the interests, and advance to its perfection the life, of those whom Christ has made His clients and His brethren. He is head over all things to His Church (Eph. 1:22 [a paragraph thoroughly parallel to the thought of our present section]). Each member of His bodyof His very Selfmay say, All things that the Son hath are mine. The Lord of all that is or that begins to be, of all that happens in the unfolding of events, of all the forces and contents of the universe in all their capabilities and combinations, is making all ceaselessly contribute to and converge upon the interests of His people and of each single individual of their number. [May illustrate in homely fashion thus: The mere caller at a house is shown into one room; there stays, and only stays; takes nothing, uses nothing, of what is in it. The visitor in the family has the use, the run, of all in common use by the family, and of those set apart specially for him; but he feels that many are closed against him. In a very restricted way does he feel free to use what is at his disposal and service. But the child of the house has the free run of the house. Nothing is shut against him; in submission to his fathers wishes, all it contains may be called into requisition for his use and comfort and welfare.] The home belongs to the brethren of Christ. The estate is His; but, we may almost venture to say, not its smallest value to Him is that He can make His brethren sharers with Him in its possibilities of blessing.
III. The estate and its contents of good.In a word, everything. There is nothing in the physical or the spiritual world; in the present, in the future; persons, circumstances, changes of condition,nothing of which the Christian is not master instead of servant, and which cannot be made to issue in and contribute to the service and advancement of all his best interests.
1. The matter immediately in hand is the ministers and order of the Church: Paul, Apollos, Cephas. With fervid, slavish, personal devotion the Corinthians were ranging themselves very obediently as the adherents of this man and that. Indeed, they were fiercely contending for their favourite, under whose yoke they were eager to put the neck of their judgment and will and heart, almost as if their party-head had been crucified for them, or they had been baptized into his name and not Christs. No man contended more stoutly than did Paul (e.g. chap, 9) for his Apostolic rights and all due recognition of his status. But the place which some at Corinth would have given to him or to other apostles, was one which belonged to Christ (1Co. 1:13). Such exaltation of an apostle into lordship over their own head and heart, was an inversion of the true order. As he looks at the humblest man in Corinth, ennobled by his brotherhood to Christ, he says: Remember, the apostle is for your sake, not for his own glorification. The Church; its arrangements; its officers and their qualifications, exist for your salvation and sanctification, and not at all for their own advancement or glory. You are not theirs, not mine. Paul, Apollos, Cephas, we are yours! There is no one pattern of excellence in the ministry, as there is no one pattern of need or character in the people. Every man is the excellent minister to somebody! The expositor of the Word, or the declaimer of theses on the topics of the day; the man who excels in pathos, or in historical word-painting, or in satire and shrewd analysis of character and its foibles; the man who cannot preach, and the man who can preach but who cannot organise; the man who is at his best in a sick-room, or that other who is a born ruler of men;through all their infinite variety of gifts, there is no faithful minister of Christ who is not and has not something which somebody wants, or at some time will want. Each man will have his own aspect of truth to present and teach, the aspect which he sees most clearly, into which he enters most fully; and all are wanted, Paul and James, Cephas and John, Jude and Apollos, to give the whole round of truth. A many-sided, many-gifted ministry is not the smallest part of the wealth and rich heritage of the Church. Let the Christian man see what he can find for himself in each type of man. There is something. Let him not be so wedded to any one type, that he cannot enjoy, or find help from, or even think kindly of, a man who is not after the pattern of his own best, the style of minister who most helps him. And, similarly, first stands the interest of the individual soul, and next the form of Church organisation and administration. No form is worth anything which never was, or is no longer, of use towards helping those who belong to Christ. Any form, as any man, who does this, is to be recognised and to be utilised as part of the endowment of the people of God.
2. Then Pauls view widens. His words grow broad in their range, even to indefiniteness. World yours! Life yours! Death yours! Then the worldand its predominantly ethical and evil significance need not be excluded from itis no mere necessary evil, which must be endured and perhaps survived. There is no must be which ordains that life, with its business, its sorrows, its trials and conflicts, its unfriendly or uncongenial men and women, its strange perplexities and obstacles of circumstance, shall be of necessity a hindrance to growth in grace; putting the break on, even if it cannot quite stop all progress, as if a Christian could not hope to be thorough in service or enjoyment so long as life in the world lasts, and as if the one thing most to be desired was to shuffle off this mortal coil and be done with it all. Pauls words in our paragraph say rather: You are not to succumb beneath lifes burdens like that. You are not to acquiesce in a low type of spiritual life, because your circumstances and whole location in the world are not favourable to growth. The world is not to be master like that. Evil as it is, its evil is under the rule of your Christ. God shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly (Rom. 16:20), and you may begin to enter into your victory and have your foot even now upon the power of evil; and then all the good there is in life and in the world may be set in motion and utilised for your enjoyment and help. The trials, the difficulties, the very temptations, are not to be met simply as the bulrush bows its head before the storm, praying that the storm may soon be over, and that you may not be uprooted utterly by its passing violence. Rather, like your Master, ride the storm, in His strength. Every hurricane obeys lawsHis lawsand blows as He listeth, towards His goal and for His purpose towards you. The water outside will carry the well-found ship; admitted within, it will sink it. Keep the world outside your heart, and the world is yours, to use and rule and lay under contribution to your growth in grace. Trials may teach. Crosses may lift nearer. [Even so, and in no other way, must every son of man be lifted up!] The very necessity of the strife and of unremitting watchfulness against evil will drive a man so often and so near to Christ his Source of strength, that he emerges from every specially severe testing-time with new knowledge and a new power in prayer. The very weight of lifes burdens will have forced him to find a Friend in Christ, whose strength and faithfulness the world has forced him to test and experience, as he would never otherwise have had occasion to do. He is a fine specimen of manhood, who has taken his place in the world, and felt its storm, and fought it when it assailed him, and after all is not hardened or secularised or soured, but is trained to patience and sympathy with others, and to a more perfect reliance upon his God. The fire will brighten and purify what it cannot burn. In the world it is true that the soldier is in an unfriendly country; but even the enemys country can be requisitioned for what will enable him to carry on the campaign. [The darkest days of life have often been the most fruitful in permanent advancement to the soul. The cross has had a jewel hidden beneath it which has repaid for lifting the cross. A true parable in a German Legend: A famous egg of iron was given by a prince to his bride, who flung down in displeasure so unworthy a gift. The concussion started a spring in the iron case, and revealed a silver white to the egg. Curiosity examined this, and found again within a yolk of gold. In this lay hidden a tiny ruby-set crown, whose circlet concealed a marriage-ring for the union of bridegroom and bride! So, at the very heart of the most forbidding experiences of the world and life, the soul has many a time found the pledge of new love and a closer union with the Christ who rules the world and life, and who gave the painful and hard experience, etc.]
3. Nothing seems more utterly master than Death. The natural heart often stoically looked life in the face and defied it; or sometimes sullenly, doggedly, went onward to meet its changing fortunes and crushing sorrows as the Inevitable. But reckon death a possession, part of ones wealth? No; it must be submitted to! In all literature, except what is Christian, or at least Christianised, Death is the great Conqueror; knocking impartially at the door of palace and hovel, calling as imperiously the king from his throne as the beggar from his rags and wretchedness, and calling them at his own caprice; playing havoc with all mens plans and work, breaking these off at most unlooked-for and unfortunate times; mocking the tears of affection over sundered bonds; defying all efforts to arrest his progress or stay his hand. On the contrary, they who are Christs see that He has conquered death, and they share in His victory. They already have everlasting life. Death has become dying only, simply an incidentno morein the course of an eternal life which began when faith united to Christ, and which stretches on in victorious continuity through the important, but still accidental, change of surroundings and abode and conditions which dissolution occasions. They do not tremble at any capricious shooting of His arrows. The Lord of Life makes every arrow of Death to carry His message attached to it. He has the keys of Hell and of Death (Rev. 1:17). The realm of the departed is part of His dominion. His people enter it as possessors, not as prisoners. They are only advancing into another section of a life which is all theirs. Its doors are opened by Death when He wills, and at His bidding. And so far from putting an abrupt and inopportune end to the execution of their lifes purposes, or thwarting them, they are only by death advanced a stage nearer to their completion. Salvation is put out of peril; for the first time do the majority of His people then see their Lord. To wake up into the blessedness of that first moment, when their eyes at last see the Christ they have heard of, and trusted, and loved, and have tried to serveDeath which brings that is no dread, no enemy; it is a hope, it is their own.
4. Nor does anything seem less their own than the future. Things to come may unfold in such terrible possibilities, and may involve such unforeseen contingencies, as may set at nought all their wisest planning and blight all their brightest prospects. No dawn so clear but the noonday may be shadowed over with clouds which never lift again long as lifes day lasts. Men seem working lifes problem with a quantity unknown, incommensurable, when they must needs take the future into their reckoning. Masters of the future? No, not even its prophets! Rather its sport! Things to come are yours. What these shall be, He is deciding. They lie within the domain which is being ruled by the Son, and ruled by Him for His Church and for the individual Christian man. Even here He used to speak of the unseen world and its facts as one to whose foot the other side of the veil was as familiar ground as this side is to us. In like manner the future lies mapped out to His eye as clearly as, more clearly than, the past is to ours. For instance, some man will one day cross my path who will materially affect my whole after-life. Christ, the Ruler of the future, has His eye upon the point of convergence; and upon the path which that man, perhaps as yet altogether unknown to me, or far from me, in perhaps another hemisphere, is traversing, and which will bring him to the meeting-point by-and-by. When the moment arrives there is the man, just when, and just such as, my life needs. The present is being so guided into the future, and the future is being so fitted on to the present, as that the life of a man who is Christs, is in its whole stretch and extent one perfect harmonious whole (see Homily on 2Co. 1:10). Somewhere in the whole round of His universal possession there is the very help and deliverance he will someday want; it will be brought out and forthcoming at the proper time, in His times (cf. 1Ti. 6:15). As each stage of the earthly series of things to come is reached, relays of help [like the relays of fresh horses awaiting the travellers at each successive posting-station in the old posting days] will always be awaiting him. My times are in Christs hand.
HOMILETIC SUGGESTIONS FOR A COURSE ON 1Co. 3:22
The World is Yours.
I. To lodge in.
II. To study.
III. To use.
IV. To enjoy.
V. To conquer.[J. L.]
Life is Yours.
I. As a daily gift of God.
II. As a period of discipline and instruction.
III. As a season of enjoyment.
IV. As an earnest of a more glorious life.[J. L.]
Death is Yours.
I. To consider.
II. To terminate your sorrows.
III. To effect an important change.
IV. To unfold the mysteries of eternity.
V. To introduce you to eternal happiness.[J. L.]
Things Present are Yours.
I. The dispensations of providence.
II. The provisions and arrangements of the Gospel.
III. All the supplies, agencies, and experiences of time.[J. L.]
Things to Come are Yours.
I. The future of time.
II. The coming of Christ.
III. The resurrection of the body.
IV. The day of judgment.
V. Heaven.
VI. Everlasting life.
VII. God, who was, and is, and is to come.[J. L.]
APPENDED NOTES
1Co. 3:11 sqq. Since it was by preaching and teaching that Paul laid the foundation of the Church of Corinth, the builders must be different kinds of teachers. Since the matter taught is the material the teacher uses, this must be the gold, silver, wood, straw, etc. The results produced by the teacher in the hearts and lives of his hearer are the building he erects. He may produce good results which will last for ever and be to him an eternal joy and glory. Since these results are altogether the work of God, and are revealed in their grandeur only in the great day, they are a reward given by God in that day for work done on earth. But a teacher may produce results which now appear great and substantial, but which will then be found utterly worthless. He may gather round him a large number of hearers, may interest them, and teach them much that is elegant and for this life useful, and yet fail to produce in or through them results which will abide for ever. If so, the great day will destroy his work and proclaim its worthlessness. But he may be said to build upon the one foundation, Jesus Christ. For he is a professed Christian teacher, and people go to hear him as such. He may be a sincere, though mistaken Christian believer, and therefore be himself saved. But his work, as a teacher, is a failure. Now the permanence of a teachers work depends upon the matter taught. The soul-saving truths of the Gospel enter into mens hearts and lives, and produce abiding results. All other teaching will produce only temporary results. We understand, therefore, by the wood and straw whatever teaching does not impart or nourish spiritual life. The three terms suggest the various kinds of such teaching. It may be clever or foolish, new or old, true or false; but not subversive of the foundation, or it would come under the severer censure of 1Co. 3:16 sq. We have Christian examples in many of the trifling and speculative discussions which have been frequent in all ages. We also learn that even of the teaching which produces abiding results there are different degrees of worth; in proportion, no doubt, to the fulness and purity with which the teaching of Christ is reproduced. In both cases the results are the results, lasting or transitory, produced in the hearers hearts by the use of these materials; results which are in some sense a standing embodiment of the teaching.Dr. Beet.
By Fire.
1. It may be homiletically useful to cast into orderly shape the Bible use of Fire. Needless to say that the Bible is not pledged to any such unscientific piece of obsolete antiquity as that Fire is an Elementone of four. It is content to take the visible fact, and its palpable effects, as a serviceable illustration, apprehended readily by the child or the heathen, and perfectly good as an illustration, whatever be the scientific revision of our knowledge of the state of the case. For teaching purposes Fire is Heat and, still more, Flame. Flame is now understood to be gas so highly heated as to become in some degree luminous, and generally made more luminous by being loaded with incandescent particles, whether of carbon or other matter. That is nothing new to the Divine Author of Scripture and of Nature; nor was it unworthy of Him, or untrue, that what was to be the popularly apprehensible phenomenon should in the original planning of Nature be so adjusted and adapted as to lend itself well to teach moral truth. Indeed, the devout students of Nature find that both the superficial, phenomenal facts and the deep scientific laws are alike parabolic and didactic Nature is full of man, and of truth which man wants. Creation is didactic. Creation is redemptive.
2. A convenient starting-point is Heb. 12:29 : Our God is a consuming fire. Closely connected with God is Light. The difference is here: Light is what God is in Himself; fire what He is in relation to (sinful) mankind. Hence frequently the chosen symbol of His self-manifestation,: the Bush, Exo. 3:2; the Pillar, Exo. 40:38; Tongues of Pentecost, Act. 2:3; Sinai, Exo. 19:8; Exo. 24:17; Deu. 4:36; Vision of Gods glory, Eze. 1:4; Exo. 24:9-11 (N.B. Nadab and Abihu), Dan. 7:9; Rev. 4:2. In Isa. 4:5 we have three manifesting symbols of God combinedlight, radiant splendour, burning fire. Still more frequently the accompaniment of His self-manifestation: e.g. After the earthquake a fire, 1Ki. 19:12; fire goeth before Him, Psa. 97:8. Loosely connected with all this are the fiery Chariot and Horses sent for Elijah, 2Ki. 2:11; fiery Chariots round about Elisha, 2Ki. 6:17. This last and the Pillar over Israel, or the Shekinah in its midst, are gathered up in Zec. 2:5.
3. Hence when He accepted, took, ate, appropriated, a sacrifice, it was by a fiery manifestation. E.g. at the Ordination of Aaron and the Inauguration of the priestly system and ritual, Lev. 9:24. So at the Dedication of Solomons Temple, 2Ch. 7:1-3. And in less important instances: Carmel, 1 Kings 18; on Araunahs threshing floor, 1Ch. 21:26; Gideons sacrifice, Jdg. 6:21. The Burnt Offering, as distinguished from the Sin and Peace Offerings, and as symbol of an entire surrender on mans part and an entire appropriation on Gods part, was (as its name says) burnt with fire. And this links on the foregoing to the twofold employment of the symbol as exhibiting the active relation of a Holy God to sinful man.
4. All that could, so to say, be volatilised went up purified and in perfect acceptance; all that was gross and earthly was left behind, to be cast out. Hence, Baptized with fire, Mat. 3:11; Mal. 3:2 brings out the action of the refiners fire upon metals. So Isa. 4:4, Purged Jerusalem by the Spirit of Judgment and the Spirit of Burning; in that day, primarily the return of a purified remnant from Babylon, then the setting up of a Christian Zion, perhaps, by-and-by, a restored and purified Israel once more. Isa. 30:23, and more remotely still Isa. 29:6, perhaps may better come in later on. The same Holiness which is purifying to the man who desires to be purified, burns as a consuming fire against sin and the sinner who will not be parted from his sin. Hence fire frequently sets forth the holy, active antagonism to evil and evil men, in defence of His people. Isa. 30:27, His tongue a devouring fire; lips full of indignation. Fury like a fire, Jer. 4:4 (against unfaithful Judah and Jerusalem), Jer. 21:2. So it proved, Lam. 3:3. So against the heathen and Iduma, Eze. 36:5; against Gog, Eze. 38:18-19. [Psa. 83:14; Psa. 140:10; Eze. 24:9; Amo. 5:6.] God and His people are so identified that they become a fire too, Oba. 1:18; Zec. 12:6. So in Isa. 30:27-33 we have it again. Fire purging the faithful from the unfaithful, sifting the nations, then burning up the pile of Tophet. [But the King may (as Talmud) be the Eternal King, and Tophet the burning-place outside the purified, ideal Jerusalem, where all the refuse is to be cast (Mat. 13:50).] Certainly the twofold action is seen in Isa. 31:9, Fire in Zion; furnace in Jerusalem; Isa. 33:14. As the Assyrian invasion approached, and the denunciations of holy wrath against sinners in and enemies of Zion, sinners in Zion are afraid. Who can dwell with devouring fire? cry they, with everlasting burnings? i.e. with a God whose holy antagonism to sin never relaxes, never spares, never ends. 1Co. 3:15 is the answer. But the principle is here which has occasioned and justified a very frequent use made of this text. Gods fierce, fiery antagonism to sin cannot cease unless sin ceasemust last everlastingly if sinners live on everlastingly sinners still. Same connection appears in Nah. 1:6. Indeed, the whole cycle of events connected with the Assyrian invasion seems the foundation of much Bible language concerning the punishment of wicked. Not only such as Psa. 46:9 (usually [not in Speaker] connected with these events), but Isa. 9:5, bring up the fires with which the dead bodies and the wreck of the host were cleared away (1Co. 9:5 = no fighting, no blood, but simply burning of the litter and refuse and the dead), with, by the usual analogy, a future fulfilment. Isa. 66:24 (foundation of Mar. 9:44-46 [cf. Stier, Words of L. J., i. 156]; rather the figure of a holy Jerusalem with its Gehenna, its burning-place for all the refuse of the city [Mat. 13:50]); here also the fires on the battle-field after Sennacheribs defeat are evidently in the mind of the writer. The battle-field is one vast Gehinnom outside the city walls.
5. Many actual examples of Gods vengeance in which fire is the agent of punishment. N.B. these are all examples of sins very directly against His holiness and unique position and claims. Nadab and Abihu, Lev. 10:2; Taberah, Num. 11:2; Achan, Jos. 7:25; Korah, Num. 16:35; Elijah and the captains, 2Ki. 1:10 (unless, indeed, this be, first and chiefly, Gods manifestation of Himself, appealing both to Elijah and to the witnesses and hearers of the event). Above all Sodom, Gen. 19:24; referred to in Luk. 17:29; and at least shaping the language of Psa. 11:6; Eze. 38:22; Rev. 21:18. [Imagery of Mal. 4:1-2 is anticipated by Gen. 19:24; Gen. 19:23.]
6. So, coming to the New Testament, we find three great cycles of type: (a) Sodom, (b) Gehinnom, (c) Assyrian invasion.
NEW TESTAMENT
1. General.Gods vengeance against sin is fiery, Mat. 3:10 (? primarily the Jewish nation), Tree hewn down and cast into the fire; Heb. 6:8, the doom of the persistently barren ground. Also of individuals, Mat. 7:19; Luk. 3:9; Heb. 10:27, Judgment and fiery indignation; 2 These. 1Co. 1:8, In flaming fire taking vengeance.
2. Gods holiness is testing.1Co. 3:13 [though there is here very little of all this typology; hardly more than the commonly observed action of fire]; 2Pe. 3:7 (Luk. 12:49-52 is connected).
3. Sodom.Jud. 1:7, Suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Rev. 19:20; Rev. 20:10, Lake of fire and brimstone, where the Beast and the False Prophet are [Rev. 18:9, Babylon; cf. Abraham beholding the ascending smoke of Sodom]; the Devil; Gog and Magog deceived by him (obvious ref. to Eze. 38:22); who-soever not found written in the book of life. Rev. 14:10, worshippers of the beast and his image, who have received his mark.
4. Gehenna.Mat. 18:9, Worm dieth not, etc.; Mar. 9:44-46, referring to Isaiah 66. Furnace of fire, Mat. 13:42; Mat. 13:50, where the latter verse, having nothing in the parable connected with it to suggest itthe fish are cast into the watershows that the phrase had become, or was now first made by Christ, a customary equivalent for the doom of the wicked.
5. The battle-field.Linked with Mark 9, as above, but originating the phrase everlasting burnings. In Mat. 25:41; figure (almost?) lost. So completely the revelation of the future that we must say: Whatever be the nature of the punishment of a lost, embodied spirit, if we might ask him what he suffered, he would say, Fire, as the only earthly analogy available.
6. Mar. 9:47. A difficult verse. Every man shallmustcome into contact with the holiness of God. Will a man let it (Him) burn away all impurity, and himself thus become a sacrifice salted with grace, and so accepted? Or, refusing this, will he simply meet and feel the fire which never burns itself out?
1Co. 3:16-17. There were Hebrew converts in Corinth, and such would easily catch St. Pauls allusion to the national Temple. This national Temple in the Apostles mind clearly enlarges and transfigures itself into a Temple spiritual. This living Temple of the Catholic Church is one Temple; it is one, yet elastic; it grows and expands, associating to itself and assimilating, so to speak, many lateral chapels. It is, in fact, an organic unity of several organs, each it itself a unity; it is, in brief, a unity of many contained unities. Each several Church, therefore, of the Catholic Church is the Catholic Church in miniature, so that of the whole all the several parts are themselves wholes; each branch of the Tree is a tree planted in Christ.Evans, in Speaker.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(21) Therefore.Not because of what has been mentioned, but introducing what he is about to mention. Let party-spirit cease. Do not degrade yourselves by calling yourselves after the names of any man, for everything is yoursthen teachers only exist for you. The enthusiasm of the Apostle, as he speaks of the privileges of Christians, leads him on beyond the bare assertion necessary to the logical conclusion of the argument, and enlarging the idea he dwells, in a few brief and impressive utterances, on the limitless possessionsin life and in death, in the present life and that which is futurewhich belong to those who are united with Christ. But they must remember that all this is theirs because they are Christs. They are possessors because possessed by Him. His service is their perfect freedom as the Collect in the English Prayer Book puts it, or, more strikingly, as it occurs in the Latin version, Whom to serve, is to reign.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
21. Glory in men As the Corinthians were so zealously doing. 1Co 1:11-16; and 1Co 3:4-5.
Let no man be fascinated by, and proud of, some partisan leader.
All things Why greedily snatch for particular favouritisms and special leaders when you may comprehensively claim all as your own?
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Wherefore let no one glory in men. For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. All are yours, and you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.’
So their eyes are not to be turned on men and their supposed wisdom, nor must they glory in men. They are but passing. Indeed such things are not of real importance. They are merely the possessions of those who are God’s. Rather they are to glory in the Lord (1Co 1:31). They are to recognise that because they belong to Christ, and Christ is God’s, they possess all things (Joh 16:15; Joh 17:10). They actually possess Paul, Apollos and Cephas because they are but God’s servants. They actually possess the world which is God’s creation. They possess life which is under the control of Christ their Master (Joh 5:21; Joh 5:24-26; Joh 5:28-29), and they possess death which He has conquered (Heb 2:14-15; Rev 1:18). And they possess things present and things to come. For both the present and the future are under His control, because He is the On Who is, and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty (Rev 1:8), the One Who is all in all (1Co 15:28).
‘Or life, or death, or things present, or things to come.’ For this compare Rom 8:38 where such phrases are linked with creatures in the heavenly world, angels, principalities and powers. Men’s destinies are controlled by greater powers than they know, but they Who are Christ’s need not be afraid for He controls all and all are subject to Him (see also Eph 1:21-22).
‘All things are yours.’ Not because they had an intrinsic right to them but because they belong to Christ, to Whom all else belongs. Thus in Christ they are above both earthly and heavenly creatures and teachers, and need and should look to none but Him (Eph 1:19 to Eph 2:10).
‘And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’ Here is the nub of the matter. They belong to Christ and are in Him (see Joh 17:9-26). They are His own treasured possession (Tit 2:14; 1Pe 2:9-10). That is why they share all that is His. Why then look to men’s wisdom when they can know Christ Who is the wisdom of God, and indeed belong to Him? And not only that but they share with Him in the glory of His presence, dwelling in Him and He in them. They are His body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all (Eph 1:23).
And what is more He is of the Godhead and dwells in God and God in Him (Joh 14:11). He belongs wholly to God. And as He is in the Father so we are in Him and He in us (Joh 14:20). And God is supreme over all things.
‘And Christ is God’s.’ Here we reach the ultimate of existence. Christ is the connection between God and men, not only because He is the supreme Man, the Spiritual One (1Co 2:15) but also because he belongs to God. He is of God and He is the mediator between God and men (1Ti 2:5). For the new revelation is that He can only be this because He is both God and Man. He is enveloped in the Godhead. In the beginning He already existed as God in full communion with the Father (Jon 1:1-2). Before creation was, He was. But in His manhood He took the form of a servant, thrusting aside His equality with God (Php 2:6-8).
In His Godhood (to the manifestation of which God restored Him – Joh 17:5), He is Lord over all, Yahweh (‘kurios’ – ‘the Lord’), to Whom every knee shall bow (Php 2:9-11). Yet in His manhood He could say in His humiliation as man, ‘My Father is greater than I’ (Joh 14:28).
In His Godhood He is One with the Father, in such a way that he who has seen Him has seen the Father (Joh 14:9-11), so that He has essentially the right to equal honour with the Father (Joh 5:23). Thus He and the Father are One in all things (Joh 10:30). Indeed in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form (Col 2:9), a fullness revealed as He tabernacled among us (Joh 1:14; Joh 1:18).
Thus when He, having become man and representing man, has finally gathered all together to reconcile them with the Father, He Himself as representing Man and creation will subject Himself to the Godhead, and God will be all in all (1Co 15:27-28). The Triune God will, as it were, have taken all to Himself.
So how foolish it would be to glory in men and the puny wisdom that they teach. And this now leads on to the final reminder that all such men will have to give account of themselves to God.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The conclusion:
v. 21. Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours
v. 22. whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;
v. 23. and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. This being true, that the world’s wisdom is foolishness before God, let therefore no one glory in men. Both the self-praise of the world’s wise men and the foolish adoration given to them is here condemned; and this all the more so, since everything is to serve the Christians in the Church, in their faith. So closely is the Church, so intimately are all believers, connected with Christ that they partake of His wonderful glory, Eph 1:19-23. They are no longer in any way dependent upon men, upon the wisdom of this world, but have a direct claim upon the service of everything which belongs to God and Christ. At the service of the believers, by the grace of God, stand Paul and Apollos and Cephas, all the apostles and ministers whom He has sent to proclaim the glorious truths of salvation. At their service stands the world itself, the whole world with all its forces and resources; the right use of them all is in furthering the cause of Christ. In the service of the believers stand both life and death; whether they live, they live to the Lord, and whether they die, they die to the Lord, Rom 14:8. In their service stand both things present and things to come; all states, conditions, offices, trades, professions, everything should aid in the spread of the Gospel, of the Christian faith. “Everything in the wide world belongs to Christ the Ruler. What emperors, kings, princes, government, and subjects have and possess, that is all Christ’s. It has all been subjected to Him. All men must be under this King and Ruler, either in grace or in disgrace. Christ has everything in His hand and power. ” And so Paul concludes in a burst of confident triumph: But you are Christ’s, but Christ is God’s. Since the believers belong to Christ by faith, in and through Him their royal power is exercised. In this relation, therefore, there is praise for no one but Christ. And Christ is God’s, the believers thus, through the Son, being united also with the Father and partaking of His eternal power. God, therefore, is all in all, and it behooves all Christians, instead of spending valuable time in petty bickerings, in forming factions, and in boasting in men, to devote the energy of faith to the spread of His honor and glory. God’s field of tillage, God’s building, God’s temple, we Christians are, because we belong to Christ. And this great honor, on whose account we fall down before God in humble adoration, teaches us to deny the ungodliness of the praise of men and to glory in the Lord alone.
Summary. The apostle reproves the Corinthians for their carnal behavior in forming factions, shows the equality of all ministers, points to Christ as the only Foundation of the Church, predicts that the fiery test of the last day will burn away everything but the substance of the works done in the Church, and warns against the desecrating of the temple of God.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
1Co 3:21-23. All things are yours, &c. How magnificently are the happy privileges of Christians, through Christ, set forth in this noble exultation! First, here is a full and vehement enumeration of particulars; and then a noble gradation, which rises up to Heaven, and terminates in God himself! See Blackwall’s Sacred Classics, and Bengelius.
Inferences.Who, that wishes for the welfare of the church of Christ, must not lament those sad remains of carnality, (1Co 3:1.) which are often to be found among them who have the greatest advantages for becoming spiritual, while the same contentious principles, fermented, no doubt, by the same malignant enemy of the whole body, breathe in so many of its members, and diffuse a kind of poison which at once swells and torments it? What envyings, and strife, and factions among those, who ought to join as brethren, and to know but one interest! 1Co 3:3. What a desire, in many instances, to increase the burdens of each other, instead of bearing them with friendly sympathy!
May Christians be cured of this dishonourable and fatal attachment to distinguished parties, and human names! May ministers feel more of that generous and noble spirit, which this great Apostle expresses, 1Co 3:4.His reasoning has the same force still. Ministers are still intended to be only the instruments of producing and establishing faith in their hearers, and still depend as intirely as ever upon the blessing of God, to give the increase to their labours, 1Co 3:5-7. To that may they daily look; sensible that they are nothing without it; and that with it their part is so small, that they hardly deserve to be mentioned. May their hands and hearts be more united; and, retaining a due sense of the honour which God does them, in employing them in his vineyard, and in his building, (1Co 3:8-9.) May they faithfully labour, not as for themselves, but for the great Proprietor; till the day come, when he will remember them in full proportion to their fidelity and diligence.
With what delight may the Christian survey this grand inventory, 1Co 3:21-23 and, conscious that he is Christ’s, call all things his own! With what pleasure survey the various gifts and graces of ministers, and consider them as given by God for his edification! With what complacency look round on things present, and forward on things to come, in this connection, and call the world his own; and count not only life, but death itself among his treasures! Both, in their different aspects, are made subservient to the happy purpose of glorifying God; and surely when by death we may do it more effectually, death should be more welcome than life. And welcome must it indeed be to every believer, as the appointed means of transmitting him to the sight and enjoyment of God, and the possession of better blessings than Paul or Apollos could ever describe, or any thing present, or any thing to come, in this world, could ever afford.
How should these sublime views elevate the Christian above those occasions of contention, which, for want of ascending to such noble contemplations, are often the source of innumerable evils! Nor let us fail to add that other consideration, 1Co 3:16-17. If we are the temples of the Holy Ghost; if Christians indeed, we are inhabited by God,even by his Spirit. Let this engage us to take the strictest care, neither to defile ourselves, nor to injure our brethren; lest, in either view, it should be resented and punished by the Holy GOD, as a sacrilegious profanation.
What cause have we to over-value the wisdom of this world, when we find it so little regarded by the all-wise GOD? (1Co 3:19.) Let us not be greatly concerned, if fools account our wisdom folly, and our life madness. So censured they the prophets and Apostles before us; nor did our Master himself escape the like calumny and outrage. Happy, sufficiently happy shall we be, if we approve our fidelity to Him,if we build a wise superstructure on Christ, (1Co 3:11.) as the great, the only foundation.
His ministers especially should be solicitous, that they lose not the labour of their lives, by choosing unhappily to employ them in that which will turn to no account in the great day of his appearing. Let such carefully examine their materials: 1Co 3:10. Surely if they have senses spiritually exercised, it cannot be hard to distinguish between the substantial and undoubted doctrines of Christianity, which are as gold, silver, and precious stones,and those fictitious, or at best dubious and intricate points, which in comparison with the former, are but wood, hay, and stubble: 1Co 3:12-15. And if, in urging these, they passionately inveigh against their brethren, and endeavour to bring them into contempt or suspicion, what do they, but cement these combustible materials with sulphur?
O let the frequent views of that last searching fire, that grand period of all, be much in our thoughts; that day, (1Co 3:13.) when not only the works of ministers, but of every private person, must, as it were, pass through the flames. May we then be saved, not with difficulty, but with praise and honour! May our works, of what kind soever they are, abide, so as to be found worthy of applause, and through divine grace receive a distinguished reward.
REFLECTIONS.1st, The Apostle proceeds,
1. To rebuke the carnality, and contentions which reigned among the members of the Corinthian church. I, brethren, (for as such I regard you, notwithstanding the many imperfections which I perceive among you) could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ; for, greatly as many of you are enriched in gifts, (see chap. 1Co 1:5.) yet in grace your attainments are very low, and your affections too much grovelling still on earth: and therefore as babes I have fed you with milk, with the simplest and plainest truths of the Gospel, and not with meat, the more sublime points of revelation and the deep things of God; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able; you would not have been edified by them, but have abused them, and made them minister to your pride and disputatious humour. For ye are yet carnal, and shew too much of an unrenewed spirit; for whereas, or since there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? Whilst under the power of such evil tempers, wherein do you differ from the world that lieth in wickedness? For while one saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal? Does not such a spirit of party prove the deep, unmortified remainders of carnality in your hearts? Assuredly. Note; (1.) Ministers must be faithful to the souls of the people, and never flatter. (2.) There may be great attainments in knowledge, and yet little grace in the heart; and this wisdom puffeth up. (3.) Among real Christians, there are great differences to be observed; some are weak as babes; others, strong as men grown to maturity. Our wisdom, as ministers, is therefore to give to every man his portion in due season. (4.) Nothing is more contrary to the spirit of Christianity than angry disputes, and schismatical divisions.
2. The Apostle ascribes to the rich grace of God all the success which the Gospel had met with among them. It became effectual, not through human instruments, but by divine energy. Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? The men were mere instruments; it was the Lord alone who made their ministry effectual. I have planted, by first preaching the Gospel to you; Apollos watered, succeeding me in labouring among you: but God gave the increase, without whose operation and mighty influence, however great the natural abilities of either may have been, I must have planted and Apollos watered in vain. So then, neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase, to whom the whole glory must be ascribed, exclusive of all the instruments that he may have been pleased to employ. And therefore they are not to be set up either as the authors of the Gospel, or the causes of its efficacy. Note; Ministers should ever be careful to ascribe to God the glory of all the success they meet with; we are nothing; he is all in all.
2nd, All faithful ministers are engaged in the same blessed cause, and have but one end in view, to glorify Christ and save immortal souls; and they shall not lose their reward. Now he that planteth, by first preaching the Gospel word, and he that watereth the seed sown by coming after him, are one in affection and intention: and therefore those who are converted under their preaching should be united also, nor think of setting up one against another: and every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labour; when the great Master comes, he will give to every man according as his work is; to secure his approbation must therefore be our great design, and not the empty honour which cometh from man only, which some of you affect. For we are labourers together with God, united in the same service, and honoured abundantly by the very work committed to us: while ye are God’s husbandry, your hearts the field wherein he sows the seed of spiritual life; ye are God’s building, the spiritual temple which he erects, and where he is well pleased to take up his abode; for ye are the habitation of God through the Spirit. Of this building we may observe,
1. The foundation is Jesus Christ. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, who hath appointed me to the office, and qualified me for the service, as a wise master-builder I have laid the foundation of your faith and hope in a crucified Jesus; and another buildeth thereon, succeeding ministers have carried on the blessed work begun in your hearts: but, it is a needful and important caution, let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ, the rock of ages, the only hope of the miserable, and out of whom there is no salvation.
2. The superstructure must correspond with the foundation. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, inculcating the holy doctrines of the Gospel, and exhorting men to a heavenly conversation which may adorn them, such labourer’s work will bear the severest scrutiny, and shine gloriously; but if they build wood, hay, stubble, urging their own conceits and fancies, and zealous about things insignificant and unessential, while the weightier matters are neglected, every man’s work shall be made manifest; for the day of judgment shall shortly declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and, as the refiner tries the metal in the furnace, the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is; the exact scrutiny of that day shall prove whether men’s opinions and practices corresponded with the Scripture standard or not; and the consequence of the trial will be awful. (1.) If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, and it appears before the great Judge that he has followed his plan, and corresponded with his designs, in building up men’s souls in the doctrines of grace and holiness, he shall receive a reward, eminent and distinguished, according to his labours and fidelity. (2.) If any man’s work shall be burnt, and his opinions and practices be found unscriptural and erroneous, however highly he may have valued himself upon his abilities, he shall suffer loss, and see his fine-spun conceits all destroyed: but, if he has himself been founded upon Christ, and, though weak or mistaken, yet was not allowedly wicked or licentious, he himself shall be saved from the wrath to come, yet so as by fire, with such difficulty as a man escapes naked from his house when in flames. Note; (1.) Before the great trying day comes, we should be often examining ourselves by that word of God whereby we must at last be justified or condemned. (2.) We must not be liberal of rash censures concerning the eternal states of men; but, while we condemn their opinions, must leave their hearts to the great Judge.
3rdly, The Apostle,
1. Presses the argument of holiness upon them from the consideration suggested, 1Co 3:9. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, designed in a more peculiar manner for his abode than that house which Solomon built; and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you, in his gracious presence and mighty operations? If any man defile the temple of God, and seek, by broaching his corrupt opinions, to subvert the foundation, or by evil practices to seduce and draw men away from the truth of the Gospel, him shall God destroy with more fearful judgment than was threatened against the defilers of the material temple: for the temple of God is holy, set apart for himself; which temple ye are, and therefore are bound to be holy in all manner of conversation.
2. He warns them against the danger of vain conceit in their gifts and attainments. Let no man deceive himself with high imaginations of his own superior excellence, and in consequence propagate as truth his own erroneous opinions. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, and values himself upon his attainments in philosophy and human literature, let him become a fool, that he may be wise, renouncing it all so far as it would beget perverse reasonings against the humbling truths of revelation, and content simply to embrace the doctrine of the cross, which the wise world counts foolishness; for thus only can any man become wise unto salvation: for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, all their systems of theology, and their learned disquisitions on religion, are mere folly compared with his glorious scheme of salvation through a dying Redeemer: for it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness, their fine-spun reasonings are the nets wherein they entangle and ruin themselves: and again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are but vain; all their projects and designs, however deeply concealed, are open to his eye; and compared with his thoughts, weakness, folly, and vanity, and stamped upon them. Note; (1.) No man can become truly wise, till, sensible of his spiritual ignorance, like a little child he comes to God’s word to learn the first elements of truth. (2.) How amazingly foolish will all the wisdom of this world shortly appear, when those who trusted on the powers of their fallen reason to lead them to happiness, will find it to have been like the deceitful meteor, a light only to delude them into eternal darkness.
3. He warns them against exalting men, even the best and wisest, or following any minister implicitly, when their faith ought to stand, not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Therefore let no man glory in men, as being this or that man’s disciples, despising others and undervaluing their ministry: for all things are yours, appointed for your blessing and advantage; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas; their gifts are bestowed on them for the edification of the body of Christ; or the world; the administration of it is in the hands of Jesus, and he will give his people such a portion of it as shall be most for their good; or life; he will preserve his faithful people so long, and in such circumstances, as shall be most for his glory and their eternal happiness; or death; he will disarm it of its sting, and, in whatever manner it may come upon the righteous, will cause it to prove their greater gain; or things present; the saints shall be watched over through their pilgrimage by his gracious providence; or things to come; an eternity of glory is before his saints; all are yours, every thing is made a blessing to holy souls, and all things work together for their good: and ye are Christ’s, the objects of his love, the purchase of his blood, the members of his body; and Christ is God’s, the appointed Mediator, the great Covenant-head, who has all things in his hands, and ever lives to perfect the salvation of his faithful saints, and to bring them to reign with him in Heaven, to the eternal praise of the glory of the grace of God.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Co 3:21 . ] Hence , that is to say, because this world’s wisdom, this source of your (see 1Co 3:18 ), is nothing but folly before God, 1Co 3:19-20 . According to Hofmann, draws its inference from the whole section, 1Co 3:10-20 . But . . [564] manifestly corresponds to the warning . . . . [565] in 1Co 3:18 , from the discussion of which (1Co 3:19 f.) there is now deduced the parallel warning beginning with (1Co 3:21 ); and this again is finally confirmed by a sublime representation of the position held by a Christian (1Co 3:22 f.).
] “id pertinet ad extenuandum,” Bengel; the opposite of , 1Co 1:31 . Human teachers are meant, upon whom the different parties prided themselves against each other (1Co 3:5 ; 1Co 1:12 ). Comp 1Co 4:6 . Billroth renders wrongly: on account of men, whom he has subjected to himself and formed into a sect . in 1Co 3:22 is decisive against this; for how strangely forced it is to make refer to the teachers , and to the church!
The imperative after (comp 1Co 4:5 , 1Co 10:12 ; Phi 2:12 ) is not governed by that word, but the dependent statement beginning with changes to the direct . See Hermann, a [568] Viger. p. 852; Bremi, a [569] Dem. Phil. III. p. 276; Klotz, a [570] Devar. p. 776.
] with the emphasis on : nothing excepted, all belongs to you as your property; so that to boast yourselves of men, consequently, who as party leaders are to be your property to the exclusion of others, is something quite foreign to your high position as Christians. Observe that we are not to explain as if it ran: (“illa vestra sunt, non vos illorum ,” Bengel); but that the apostle has in view some form of party-confession, as, for example, “Paul is mine,” or “Cephas is my man,” and the like. It was thus that some boasted themselves of individual personages as their property, in opposition to the . . It may be added that what is conveyed in this is not “the miraculous nature of the love, which is shed abroad in the hearts of believers by the Spirit, in virtue of which the man embraces the whole world, and enjoys as his own possession whatever in it is beautiful and glorious” ( ?), as is the view of Olshausen; but rather, in accordance with the diverse character of the objects thereafter enumerated, the twofold idea, that all things are destined in reality to serve the best interests of the Christians (comp Rom 8:28 ff.), and consequently to be in an ethical sense their possession, [572] and that the actual (Rom 4:13 f.) is allotted to them in the Messianic kingdom. Comp 4 Esdr 9:14. The saying of the philosophers: “ Omnia sapientis esse ” (see Wetstein), is a lower and imperfect analogue of this Christian idea.
[564] . . . .
[565] . . . .
[568] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[569] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[570] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[572] Hence Luther in his gloss rightly infers: “ Therefore no man hath power to make laws over Christians to bind their consciences .”
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 1949
THE CHRISTIANS PRIVILEGES
1Co 3:21-23. Let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christs; and Christ is Gods.
IT is scarcely to be expected, considering the weakness and depravity of our fallen nature, that the Church in any place should be free from dissensions and disputes. If every man who embraced the Gospel were from thenceforth altogether under its influence, nothing but love and harmony would prevail. But, not to mention the insincerity of some, who, like Simon Magus, profess the truth without experiencing any of its sanctifying influence, the hearts of men are not changed all at once, but by a gradual and progressive advancement in the divine life. Hence corruption will be at work, as well as grace; and, whilst the Spirit lusts against the flesh, the flesh will lust against the Spirit, and in some cases prevail against it, to the disturbing and defiling of the Church. So it was even in the apostolic age; and even where Paul himself preached. A party-spirit early prevailed in the Church of Corinth; different parties arraying themselves under different heads; some saying, that they were of Paul, others of Apollos, others of Cephas, and others of Christ [Note: 1Co 1:12.]. To repress these contentions, the Apostle remonstrated with the people on the impropriety of their conduct: and, having exposed the evil of such a spirit, he now, in conclusion, shews, that to glory in men is highly criminal; because of,
I.
Our interest in God
All that God has, belongs to us, if we believe in Christ:
1.
His servants are ours
[They are ours, with all their talents, and with all their labours: the most eminent among them is but a steward of the mysteries of God, appointed by God to dispense them to his people; an earthen vessel, in which treasures are deposited by him for their use. They are Christs servants; and they are ours for his sake [Note: 2Co 4:5.]. Paul, and Apollos, and Cephas were not endowed with their respective powers for their own sake, but for the sake of the Church and of the world; as we are expressly told: When Christ ascended up on high, he gave some, Apostles; and some, Prophets; and some, Evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ [Note: Eph 4:11-12.]: so that all to whom they are sent, may consider them as among their treasures, the gifts of God to them for the benefit of their souls.]
2.
His creatures are ours
[The whole world, and all that it contains, is ours, if we believe in Christ. The sun is ours to light us by day, and the moon and stars by night. The rain is ours, and the produce of universal nature, as far as is for our good. As to the actual possession of it, we may have but little; but as to the sanctified enjoyment, we have all. St. Paul speaks of himself as often oppressed with want and nakedness: yet, not-withstanding in appearance he had nothing, in reality he possessed all things [Note: 2Co 6:10.]. Little as a worldly mind can enter into the idea, it is a fact, that the poor godly man has a richer enjoyment of his pittance, than the most opulent of ungodly men have of all their sumptuous feasts and large estates. To live by faith is a sublimer happiness than to live by sense; because in the cup of one who so lives, there is an ingredient which the other never tasted, and never can taste: God himself is the portion of his inheritance, and of his cup [Note: Psa 16:5.]: whether he have little or much, he enjoys God in it; and therefore he has the best possible use of all sublunary good.]
3.
His dispensations are ours
[Life, with all its comforts, belongs to the believer; nor can it ever be taken from him till his appointed time be come. Death also is among the number of his possessions. Terrible as it is to the unbeliever, it ceases to be so when once we give ourselves up unfeignedly to Christ as his peculiar people: from that moment its sting is drawn: and every man who can say with truth, To me to live is Christ, may with the fullest assurance add, To me to die is gain [Note: Php 1:21.]. The pains and sorrows which usually precede death are only so many means of purifying the soul, and of preparing it for its appearance before God: and the final stroke is no other than the opening of the gates of Paradise for the souls admission to the full possession of its inheritance. If the stroke be more sudden and violent, it may be regarded as the fiery chariot which bore Elijah to the realms of bliss: or, if it be more mild and gradual, it may be viewed as the waggons which Joseph sent to bring his aged father to a participation of all his glory in the land of Egypt. However it may come, it is to the true Christian a termination of all his sorrows, and a consummation of all his joys. Things present too, of whatever kind they be, are precisely such as the believer, if he did but see as God seeth, would choose for himself: and things to come, however involved in impenetrable darkness at the present, are all ordered for his eternal good. To him they are uncertain: but Infinite Wisdom has ordained them all: and though there may be insulated occurrences which in themselves may be evil, they shall all, when taken together, work for good, to those who love God [Note: Rom 8:28.]. Yea, for the believer is prepared the future judgment; and for him are reserved all the glories of the eternal world. And, that we may not doubt the truth of these assertions, the affirmation is renewed at the close of this catalogue, All are yours.]
Before we point out the particular bearing of this part of our text, we will notice the latter part, wherein is stated,
II.
Gods interest in us
Here it will be necessary to mark distinctly the drift of the Aposles argument. He is shewing, that we ought not to glory in men, that is, not to indulge such partiality for some as would lead us to undervalue others. To evince this, he observes, that all things are ours; and that it is absurd to be so over-valuing a minute and comparatively insignificant part of our possessions, when we ought rather to be rejoicing in the whole: and that it is moreover highly criminal to be arranging ourselves under the standard of some favourite preacher, when we should be wholly and entirely given up to God as his exclusive property.
The former of these points we have already considered: the latter now calls for our attention.
We are not to give up ourselves to any man whatever, as though we had an exclusive property in him, or he in us: for,
1.
We are Christs
[In speaking upon this, we shall not enter into it at large, but shall confine ourselves to the precise view in which we conceive it to have been spoken by the Apostle.
We are Christs, and not mans. The minister, who may be the honoured instrument of bringing us to Christ, has no property in us: he is only the servant whom Christ has sent to bring his bride to him. Christ is the Bridegroom; the preacher is only the person who presents the Bride as a chaste virgin to Him [Note: 2Co 11:2.]: and this is the precise view in which every convert ought to regard the person to whom the honour of bringing him to Christ is delegated. The bride may feel obligations to the friend who conveys her to the bridegroom; but she does not once think of shewing to him any such partiality as would interfere with the sacred and inalienable rights of her husband. Thus it should be with all who are converted through the instrumentality of men: they should regard those men as mere instruments, or, as St. Paul expresses it, as ministers by whom they have believed, and by whom they have received the gifts which the Lord himself, their heavenly Bridegroom, sent to them [Note: ver. 5.].
Let this then be borne in mind: Ye are Christs, wholly, and altogether Christs. He formed you originally: he redeemed you with his own most precious blood: he called you by his grace: all that you are, and all that you have, is his. You must therefore consider yourselves as his: his exclusive property, in all the powers of your body, and in all the faculties of your soul. Yea, so entirely must your affections be set on him, as to make all creatures dwindle into insignificance before him, eclipsed as stars before the meridian sun.]
2.
Christ is Gods
[Our affections are not to be so set even on Christ himself, as to forget that he, as our Mediator, is only Gods servant, sent to bring us to God the Father, and to deliver us up to him when the whole work entrusted to him shall be complete. The Lord Jesus Christ is to be considered in a three-fold view; as God, as man, and as the Mediator between God and man. As God, he is equal with the Father: as man, and as Mediator, he is inferior to the Father; as St. Paul has said; I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man: and the head of Christ is God [Note: 1Co 11:3.]. He is the Fathers servant, to redeem both Jews and Gentiles by his own obedience unto death [Note: Isa 42:1; Isa 42:6; Isa 49:1-3; Isa 49:6.] In all that he spoke, and in all that he did, he acted agreeably to the commission which he had received from the Father: and all that he suffered was according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God the Father. Whilst this glorious work is going forward, we must look to Christ, in whom all fulness is treasured up for the use of his Church, and in whom all fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily: but in the last day, when all the elect shall have been gathered in, and every enemy shall have been put under the feet of our victorious Lord, the whole body, with Christ himself at their head, shall be subject unto God the Father, being delivered up to him as the supreme Head of this glorious kingdom, that God may be all in all [Note: 1Co 15:24; 1Co 15:28.]. As a mediatorial kingdom, it has been received from God the Father; and when, as a mediatorial kingdom, there shall be no longer any need of the Mediators office, it shall be given up into the hands of Him from whose counsels it proceeded, and by whose power it was completed.
Seeing then that we, and all the whole Church, are Gods exclusive property, we must, from fidelity to him, guard against the smallest disposition to alienate from him any portion of that honour and authority which are due to him alone.]
We will improve the subject,
1.
In its negative and more appropriate view
[We must not glory in men. It matters little whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, be the object of our preference; the attachment which leads us to set up one above another is altogether carnal. Four times in as many verses is this conduct characterized as carnal [Note: ver. 14.]. Happy would it be for the Church of God, if this disposition were viewed in its proper light! for there is scarcely a place where more than one minister officiates, but this hateful temper springs up to disturb the union and harmony of the Church. Moreover, as this temper is carnal in itself, so is it injurious to the welfare, as well of those who indulge it, as of all who are affected by it. Wherever it exists, it deprives the person of all the benefit which he might receive from those whom he so ungratefully undervalues: he contributes to excite divisions in the Church of God; and, as far as in him lies, weakens the hands of those ministers, on whom, in comparison of his favourite, he pours contempt. Brethren, let the arguments of the Apostle have their proper weight. The object of your idolatrous regard is given, not to you only, but to the whole Church of God, for whose benefit he is sent forth: and whilst he is sent for others, others also are sent for you: and you are ungrateful to God in so limiting your regards, as not to give a due proportion of them to all who seek your welfare. Besides, you are not to view them, so much as God in them: for of themselves they are nothing: whoever plants or waters, it is God alone that gives the increase [Note: ver. 6, 7.]. To God then supremely, and to God exclusively, are your affections due: and, if you will set them on any creature, you will provoke him to jealousy, and cause him to take away from you, as Nehushtan, (a piece of brass,) the instrument which he had raised up for the salvation of your souls [Note: 2Ki 18:4.].]
2.
In its positive and more general view
[You should glory in God with your whole hearts. Think what reason you have to glory in him: what unspeakable benefits you have received at his hands, and what obligations you have to surrender up yourselves wholly unto him! Who, besides the believer, can take to himself the declarations of our text? Of whom, besides him, can it be said, All things are yours? Survey the catalogue, believer, and think whether there be any thing in the whole universe that you can add to it? Should not you then be contented? Should not you be thankful? or rather, should there be any bounds to your joy and gratitude? I ask not whether you be in health or sickness, in wealth or poverty, in joy or sorrow: the state you are in is that which Infinite Wisdom has ordained for your greatest good; and there awaits you, at your departure hence, the immediate and everlasting fruition of God himself. O be joyful in the Lord, all ye people, and make the voice of his praise to be heard day and night! And, as God is wholly yours, so be ye wholly his, in body and in soul, in time and in eternity.
We cannot however conclude without entreating all to see that these blessings do indeed belong to them. It is to the believer, and to him alone, that they do belong: and we earnestly invite all, first, to believe in Christ as their only Saviour, and, then, to make it evident by their works that they have indeed believed; for, if our character be not clear, we can have but little comfort in the promises to which the saints alone are entitled, and of which they alone will ever receive the final accomplishment ]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
21 Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
Ver. 21. Let no man glory in men ] That is, that they are such a one’s scholars or followers, seeing the Church is not made for them, but they for the Church.
For all things are yours, &c. ] Haec est magnae nostrae Chartulae Epitome, saith Sam. Ward. This is an epitome of the Church’s grand grant or charter. A Christian hath interest in, and right to, all these things, 1. Entirely, Eph 1:23 ; Eph 2:10 ; Col 3:11 . Col 3:2 . Refinedly, the curse is removed, Gal 3:13 ; Pro 10:22 . Pro 10:3 . Really, 1Co 7:31 ; Eph 1:23 . Eph 1:4 . Safely, Pro 1:33 ; Pro 5:1-23 . Serviceably, Rom 8:28 . Rom 8:6 . Satisfyingly, Psa 22:26 . So that the poor Christian, saith one, is like the usurer, who goes meanly and fares hard, but hath thousands out at use.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
21 23. ] A warning to them in general, not to boast themselves in human teachers .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
21. ] , viz. seeing that this world’s wisdom is folly with God: or perhaps as a more general inference from what has gone before since ch. i., that as the conclusion there was, , , so now, having gone into the matter more at length, he concludes, . This boasting in men is explained in ch. 1Co 4:6 to mean .
after is a change of construction. A somewhat similar change occurred in the parallel ch. 1Co 1:31 , : but there, by the citation being adduced in its existing form.
. .] ‘For such boasting is a degradation to those who are heirs of all things , and for whom all , whether ministers, or events, or the world itself, are working together: see Rom 8:28 ; Rom 4:13 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
1Co 3:21 a . : “And so let no one glory in men”. often, with P., introduces the impv [617] at the point where argument or explanation passes into exhortation; cf. note on 1Co 3:7 , and see 1Co 4:5 , 1Co 5:8 , etc. states the forbidden ground of boasting (see parls.), supplying the negative counterpart of 1Co 1:31 . Paul condemns alike the self-laudation of clever teachers, hinted at in 1Co 3:18 , and the admiration rendered to them, along with all partisan applause.
[617] imperative mood.
1Co 3:21-23 form an unbroken chain, linking the Cor [618] and their teachers to the throne of God. Not till the last words of 1Co 3:23 do we find the full justification (sustaining the initial ) for the prohibition of 1Co 3:21 a ; “only when the other side to the has been expressed, is the object presented in which alone the Church ought to glory” (Hf [619] ); standing by itself, “All things are yours” would be a reason in favour of , rather than against, glorying in human power. The saying of 1Co 3:21 b is, very possibly, taken from the lips of the Cor [620] (1Co 3:18 ), who talked in the high-flown Stoic style, affirming like Zeno (in Diog. Laert., vii., 1. 25), , or daring with Seneca ( de Benef. , vii., 2 f.) “emittere hanc vocem, Haec omnia mea esse! ” similarly the Stoic in Horace ( Sat. I., iii., 125 133; Ep . I., i., 106 ff.): “Sapiens uno minor est Jove, dives, liber, honoratus, pulcher, rex denique regum!” Some such pretentious vein is hinted at in 1Co 4:7-10 , 1Co 6:12 and 1Co 10:22 f., 1Co 7:31 . ( . : see notes); the affecters of philosophy at Cor [621] made a “liberal” use of the world. As in 1Co 6:12 and 1Co 10:22 f., the Ap. adopts their motto, giving to it a grander scope than its authors dreamed of (1Co 3:22 ), but only to check and balance it, reproving the conceit of its vaunters by the contrasted principle ( ) of the Divine dominion in Christ, which absorbs all human proprietorship (1Co 3:23 ).
[618] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
[619] J. C. K. von Hofmann’s Die heilige Schrift N.T. untersucht , ii. 2 (2te Auflage, 1874).
[620] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
[621] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
First amongst the “all things” that the Cor [622] may legitimately boast, there stand suggested by , 21 “Paul, Apollos, Cephas,” the figureheads of the Church factions (1Co 1:12 ), enumerated with ( whether P. or Ap. or Ceph.), since these chiefs belong to the Church alike , not P. to this section, Ap. to that, and so on. Christ (1Co 1:12 ) is not named in this series of “men”; a diff [623] place is His (1Co 3:23 ). From “Cephas” the enumeration passes per saltum to “the world” ( anarthrous, as thought of qualitatively; cf. Gal 6:14 ], understood in its largest sense, the existing order of material things; cf. note on 1Co 1:20 . The right to use worldly goods, asserted broadly by Greek Christians at Cor [624] ( 1Co 6:12 , 1Co 7:31 , 1Co 10:23 f.: see notes), is frankly admitted; the Church (represented by its three leaders) and the world both exist for “you,” are bound to serve you ( cf. 1Ti 2:2-4 ; 1Ti 4:8 ; 1Ti 6:17 ; Psa 8 , etc.); the Messianic kingdom makes the saints even the world’s judges (1Co 6:2 , Rom 4:13 ; Rev 5:10 , etc.). , by another bold and sudden sweep, carries the Christian empire into the unseen. Not Life alone, but Death king of fears to a sinful world (Rom 5:17 ; Rom 5:21 , Heb 2:15 ) is the saints’ servant (1Co 15:26 , etc.). They hold a condominium (Rom 8:17 , 1Th 5:10 ) with Him who is “Lord of living and dead” (Rom 14:9 , etc.; Eph 4:9 f., Rev 1:18 ); cf. , , Phi 1:21 . and extend the Christian’s estate over all states of being ; , , stretch it to all periods and possibilities of time . The former of these ptps. (pf. intransitive of ) denotes what has come to stand there ( instans ), is on the spot, in evidence; the latter what exists in intention , to be evolved out of the present: see the two pairs of antitheses in Rom 8:38 f.; these things cannot hurt the beloved of God (Rom.), nay, must help and serve them (1 Cor.). See other parls. for “things present” (esp. Gal 1:4 ) and “to come” (esp. Rom 8:17-25 ).
[622] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
[623] difference, different, differently.
[624] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
The Apostle repeats triumphantly his , having gathered into it the totality of finite existence, to reverse it by the words , “but (not and ) you are Christ’s!” ( cf. 1Co 6:20 , Rom 12:1 f., 2Co 5:15 ). The Cor [625] readers, exalted to a height outsoaring Stoic pride, are in a moment laid low at the feet of Christ: “Lords of the universe you are His bondmen, your vast heritage in the present and future you gather as factors for Him ”. P. endorses the doctrine of the kingship of the spiritual man, dilating on it with an eloquence surpassing that of Stoicism; “but,” he reminds him, his wealth is that of a steward . Our property is immense, but we are Another’s; we rule, to be ruled. A man cannot own too much, provided that he recognises his Owner .
[625] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
Finally, Christ who demands our subordination, supplies in Himself its grand example: , “but Christ is God’s”. We are masters of everything, but Christ’s servants; He Master of us, but God’s Servant ( cf. Act 3:13 , etc.). For His filial submission, see 1Co 11:3 , 1Co 15:22 ff., Rom 6:10 , and notes; also Joh 8:29 ; Joh 10:29 , etc. We cannot accept Cv [626] ’s dilution of the sense, “Hc subjectio ad Christi humanitatem refertur”; for the , just affirmed, raises Christ high over men. It is enough to say with Thd [627] , , : cf. Heb 5:8 . The sovereignty of the Father is the corner-stone of authority in the universe (1Co 11:3 , 1Co 15:28 ).
[626] Calvin’s In Nov. Testamentum Commentarii .
[627] Theodoret, Greek Commentator.
The Ap. has now vindicated God’s rights in His Church (see Introd. to 10), and recalled the Cor [628] from their carnal strife and pursuit of worldly wisdom to the unity, sanctity, and grandeur of their Christian calling, which makes them servants of God through Christ, and in His right the heirs of all things.
[628] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
1 Corinthians
SERVANTS AND LORDS
DEATH, THE FRIEND
1Co 3:21 – 1Co 3:22
What Jesus Christ is to a man settles what everything else is to Him. Our relation to Jesus determines our relation to the universe. If we belong to Him, everything belongs to us. If we are His servants, all things are our servants. The household of Jesus, which is the whole Creation, is not divided against itself, and the fellow-servants do not beat one another. Two bodies moving in the same direction, and under the impulse of the same force, cannot come into collision, and since ‘all things work together,’ according to the counsel of His will, ‘all things work together for good’ to His lovers. The triumphant words of my text are no piece of empty rhetoric, but the plain result of two facts-Christ’s rule and the Christian’s submission. ‘All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s,’ so the stars in their courses fight against those who fight against Him, and if we are at peace with Him we shall ‘make a league with the beasts of the field, and the stones of the field,’ which otherwise would be hindrances and stumbling-blocks, ‘shall be at peace with’ us.
The Apostle carries his confidence in the subservience of all things to Christ’s servants very far, and the words of my text, in which he dares to suggest that ‘the Shadow feared of man’ is, after all, a veiled friend, are hard to believe, when we are brought face to face with death, either when we meditate on our own end, or when our hearts are sore and our hands are empty. Then the question comes, and often is asked with tears of blood, Is it true that this awful force, which we cannot command, does indeed serve us? Did it serve those whom it dragged from our sides; and in serving them, did it serve us? Paul rings out his ‘Yes’; and if we have as firm a hold of Paul’s Lord as Paul had, our answer will be the same. Let me, then, deal with this great thought that lies here, of the conversion of the last enemy into a friend, the assurance that we may all have that death is ours, though not in the sense that we can command it, yet in the sense that it ministers to our highest good.
That thought may be true about ourselves when it comes to our turn to die, and, thank God, has been true about all those who have departed in His faith and fear. Some of you may have seen two very striking engravings by a great, though somewhat unknown artist, representing Death as the Destroyer, and Death as the Friend. In the one case he comes into a scene of wild revelry, and there at his feet lie, stark and stiff, corpses in their gay clothing and with garlands on their brows, and feasters and musicians are flying in terror from the cowled Skeleton. In the other he comes into a quiet church belfry, where an aged saint sits with folded arms and closed eyes, and an open Bible by his side, and endless peace upon the wearied face. The window is flung wide to the sunrise, and on its sill perches a bird that gives forth its morning song. The cowled figure has brought rest to the weary, and the glad dawning of a new life to the aged, and is a friend. The two pictures are better than all the poor words that I can say. It depends on the people to whom he comes, whether he comes as a destroyer or as a helper. Of course, for all of us the mere physical facts remain the same, the pangs and the pain, the slow torture of the loosing of the bond, or the sharp agony of its instantaneous rending apart. But we have gone but a very little way into life and its experiences, if we have not learnt that identity of circumstances may cover profound difference of essentials, and that the same experiences may have wholly different messages and meanings to two people who are equally implicated in them. Thus, while the physical fact remains the same for all, the whole bearing of it may so differ that Death to one man will be a Destroyer, while to another it is a Friend.
For, if we come to analyse the thoughts of humanity about the last act in human life on earth, what is it that makes the dread darkness of death, which all men know, though they so seldom think of it? I suppose, first of all, if we seek to question our feelings, that which makes Death a foe to the ordinary experience is, that it is like a step off the edge of a precipice in a fog; a step into a dim condition of which the imagination can form no conception, because it has no experience, and all imagination’s pictures are painted with pigments drawn from our past. Because it is impossible for a man to have any clear vision of what it is that is coming to meet him, and he cannot tell ‘in that sleep what dreams may come,’ he shrinks, as we all shrink, from a step into the vast Inane, the dim Unknown. But the Gospel comes and says, ‘It is a land of great darkness,’ but ‘To the people that sit in darkness a great light hath shined.’
‘Our knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim.’
Then, again, another of the elements, as I suppose, which constitute the hostile aspect that Death assumes to most of us, is that it apparently hales us away from all the wholesome activities and occupations of life, and bans us into a state of apparent inaction. The thought that death is rest does sometimes attract the weary or harassed, or they fancy it does, but that is a morbid feeling, and much more common in sentimental epitaphs than among the usual thoughts of men. To most of us there is no joy, but a chill, in the anticipation that all the forms of activity which have so occupied, and often enriched, our lives here, are to be cut off at once. ‘What am I to do if I have no books?’ says the student. ‘What am I to do if I have no mill?’ says the spinner. ‘What am I to do if I have no nursery or kitchen?’ say the women. What are you to do? There is only one quieting answer to such questions. It tells us that what we are doing here is learning our trade, and that we are to be moved into another workshop there, to practise it. Nothing can bereave us of the force we made our own, being here; and ‘there is nobler work for us to do’ when the Master of all the servants stoops from His Throne and says: ‘Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; have thou authority over ten cities.’ Then the faithfulness of the steward will be exchanged for the authority of the ruler, and the toil of the servant for a share in the joy of the Lord.
So another of the elements which make Death an enemy is turned into an element which makes it a friend, and instead of the separation from this earthly body, the organ of our activity and the medium of our connection with the external universe being the condemnation of the naked spirit to inaction, it is the emancipation of the spirit into greater activity. For nothing drops away at death that does not make a man the richer for its loss, and when the dross is purged from the silver, there remains ‘a vessel unto honour, fit for the Master’s use.’ This mightier activity is the contribution to our blessedness, which Death makes to them who use their activities here in Christ’s service.
Then, still further, another of the elements which is converted from being a terror into a joy is that Death, the separator, becomes to Christ’s servants Death, the uniter. We all know how that function of death is perhaps the one that makes us shrink from it the most, dread it the most, and sometimes hate it the most. But it will be with us as it was with those who were to be initiated into ancient religious rites. Blindfolded, they were led by a hand that grasped theirs but was not seen, through dark, narrow, devious passages, but they were led into a great company in a mighty hall. Seen from this side, the ministry of Death parts a man from dear ones, but, oh! if we could see round the turn in the corridor, we should see that the solitude is but for a moment, and that the true office of Death is not so much to part from those beloved on earth as to carry to, and unite with, Him that is best Beloved in the heavens, and in Him with all His saints. They that are joined to Christ, as they who pass from earth are joined, are thereby joined to all who, in like manner, are knit to Him. Although other dear bonds are loosed by the bony fingers of the Skeleton, his very loosing of them ties more closely the bond that unites us to Jesus, and when the dull ear of the dying has ceased to hear the voices of earth that used to thrill it in their lowest whisper, I suppose it hears another Voice that says: ‘When thou passest through the fire I will be with thee, and through the waters they shall not overflow thee.’ Thus the Separator unites, first to Jesus, and then to ‘the general assembly and Church of the first-born,’ and leads into the city of the living God, the pilgrims who long have lived, often isolated, in the desert.
There is a last element in Death which is changed for the Christian, and that is that to men generally, when they think about it, there is an instinctive recoil from Death, because there is an instinctive suspicion that after Death is the Judgment, and that, somehow or other-never mind about the drapery in which the idea may be embodied for our weakness-when a man dies he passes to a state where he will reap the consequences of what he has sown here. But to Christ’s servant that last thought is robbed of its sting, and all the poison sucked out of it, for he can say: ‘He that died for me makes it possible for me to die undreading, and to pass thither, knowing that I shall meet as my Judge Him whom I have trusted as my Saviour, and so may have boldness before Him in the Day of Judgment.’
Knit these four contrasts together. Death as a step into a dim unknown versus Death as a step into a region lighted by Jesus; Death as the cessation of activity versus Death as the introduction to nobler opportunities, and the endowment with nobler capacities of service; Death as the separator and isolator versus Death as uniting to Jesus and all His lovers; Death as haling us to the judgment-seat of the adversary versus Death as bringing us to the tribunal of the Christ; and I think we can understand how Christians can venture to say, ‘All things are ours, whether life or death’ which leads to a better life.
And now let me add one word more. All this that I have been saying, and all the blessed strength for ourselves and calming in our sorrows which result therefrom, stand or fall with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is nothing else that makes these things certain. There are, of course, instincts, peradventures, hopes, fears, doubts. But in this region, and in regard to all this cycle of truths, the same thing applies which applies round the whole horizon of Christian Revelation-if you want not speculations but certainties, you have to go to Jesus Christ for them. There were many men who thought that there were islands of the sea beyond the setting sun that dyed the western waves, but Columbus went and came back again, and brought their products-and then the thought became a fact. Unless you believe that Jesus Christ has come back from ‘the bourne from which no traveller returns,’ and has come laden with the gifts of ‘happy isles of Eden’ far beyond the sea, there is no certitude upon which a dying man can lay his head, or by which a bleeding heart can be staunched. But when He draws near, alive from the dead, and says to us, as He did to the disciples on the evening of the day of Resurrection, ‘Peace be unto you,’ and shows us His hands and His side, then we do not only speculate or think a future life possible or probable, or hesitate to deny it, or hope or fear, as the case may be, but we know , and we can say: ‘All things are ours . . . death’ amongst others. The fact that Jesus Christ has died changes the whole aspect of death to His servant, inasmuch as in that great solitude he has a companion, and in the valley of the shadow of death sees footsteps that tell him of One that went before.
Nor need I do more than remind you how the manner of our Lord’s death shows that He is Lord not only of the dead but of the Death that makes them dead. For His own tremendous assertion, ‘I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again,’ was confirmed by His attitude and His words at the last, as is hinted at by the very expressions with which the Evangelists record the fact of His death: ‘He yielded up His spirit,’ ‘He gave up the ghost,’ ‘He breathed out His life.’ It is confirmed to us by such words as those remarkable ones of the Apocalypse, which speak of Him as ‘the Living One,’ who, by His own will, ‘became dead.’ He died because He would, and He would die because He loved you and me. And in dying, He showed Himself to be, not the Victim, but the Conqueror, of the Death to which He submitted. The Jewish king on the fatal field of Gilboa called his sword-bearer, and the servant came, and Saul bade him smite, and when his trembling hand shrank from such an act, the king fell on his own sword. The Lord of life and death summoned His servant Death, and He came obedient, but Jesus died not by Death’s stroke, but by His own act. So that Lord of Death, who died because He would, is the Lord who has the keys of death and the grave. In regard to one servant He says, ‘I will that he tarry till I come,’ and that man lives through a century, and in regard to another He says, ‘Follow thou Me,’ and that man dies on a cross. The dying Lord is Lord of Death, and the living Lord is for us all the Prince of Life.
Brethren, we have to take His yoke upon us by the act of faith which leads to a love that issues in an obedience which will become more and more complete, as we become more fully Christ’s. Then death will be ours, for then we shall count that the highest good for us will be fuller union with, a fuller possession of, and a completer conformity to, Jesus Christ our King, and that whatever brings us these, even though it brings also pain and sorrow and much from which we shrink, is all on our side. It is possible-may it be so with each of us!-that for us Death may be, not an enemy that bans us into darkness and inactivity, or hales us to a judgment-seat, but the Angel who wakes us, at whose touch the chains fall off, and who leads us through ‘the iron gate that opens of its own accord,’ and brings us into the City.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Therefore = So then.
glory = boast, as in 1Co 1:29.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
21-23.] A warning to them in general, not to boast themselves in human teachers.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Co 3:21. , in men) This appertains to [has the effect of] extenuation.[30]-, all things) not only all men.-, yours) Those things are yours; not you theirs, 1Co 1:12; 2Co 4:5.
[30] See App., under the tit. Litotes. Using a weaker expression, when a strong one is meant.-T.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Co 3:21
1Co 3:21
Wherefore let no one glory in men.-Do not glory in men or follow the works and inventions of men. [To glory in men is to boast of ones relation to them, to trust in them as the ground of confidence, or as the source of honor. Thus men are said to glory in the cross because Christ, as crucified, is regarded as the ground of confidence and the source of blessedness. The Corinthians gloried in men when they said, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas.]
For all things are yours;-All that the men sent from God teach is the common heritage of all who believe in God. They all minister good to all who seek to know and do the will of God. No revelation to man was for personal use, but for the good of all the children of God.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Yet Possessing all Things
All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christs; and Christ is Gods.1Co 3:21-23.
1. The Corinthian Christians seem to have carried into the Church some of the worst vices of Greek political life. They were split up into wrangling factions, each swearing by the name of some person. Paul was the battle-cry of one set; Apollos of another. Paul and Apollos were very good friends, their admirers bitter foesaccording to a very common experience. The springs lie close together up in the hills, the rivers may be parted by half a continent.
These feuds were all the more detestable to the Apostle because his name was dragged into them; and so, in the first part of this letter, he sets himself, with all his might, to shame and to argue the Corinthian Christians out of their wrangling. This great text is one of the considerations which he adduces with that purpose. In effect he says, To pin your faith to any one teacher is a wilful narrowing of the sources of your blessing and your wisdom. You say you are Pauls men. Has Apollos got nothing hat he could teach you? and may you not get any good out of brave brother Cephas? Take them all; they were all meant for your good. Let no man glory in individuals.
That is all that his argument required him to say. But in his impetuous way he goes on into regions far beyond. His thought, like some swiftly revolving wheel, catches fire of its own rapid motion; and he blazes up into this triumphant enumeration of all the things that serve the soul which serves Jesus Christ. You are lords of men, of the world, of time, of death, of eternity; but you are not lords of yourselves. You belong to Jesus, and in the assure in which you belong to Him do all things belong to you.
2. There is a fine wholesome exultation about the words, considering from whom they come and to whom they were addressed. We do not like to hear a rich man boasting of his wealth; but when a poor man tells us how rich he feels, that seems wholesome, and it gives us a glimpse into the deeper fact of what being well off really is. And that is what we have in this word of St. Pauls to his Corinthian converts. Poor men they were, every one of them, with little enough of this worlds gear. What different ways of looking at things there are! If we could have gone to any one of the great merchants at Corinth, and asked him about the standing of the score or two of men who were beginning to be known as the followers of the new religion there, his answer would probably have been something like this: Standing, my dear sir? They have not any! Why, there is hardly a man among them worth his fifty ounces of silver. You might buy up the whole lot of them for five talents of gold. The only man among them who has anything is that sailmaker, Agrippa, and he was almost ruined by having to break up and leave Rome on that edict of the emperor, expelling the Jews. That was one way of looking at them. St. Paul looks at them differently. You have everything, he says. I am yours, and Apollos is yours, and so is Cephas. And this world is yours, and the next world is yours, things present and things to comeall things are yours. It was a right royal setting forth of their position, if they could only feel it so. And they did feel it so in the main. Take that early Christian life as a whole; there is very little whining in it, very little about their poverty, or difficulties, or hardships. They rise up before usSt. Paul and his fellows, and those humble, nameless folk who gathered round themthey rise up before us out of the shadows of the past, not as weary and sorrow-laden men, treading painfully along, but as soldiers marching with firm ringing steps, and singing songs of triumph as they go.1 [Note: B. Herford, Courage and Cheer, 235.]
3. All things are yours, says St. Paul, and he goes on with an enumeration which has been called, not without reason, the inventory of the possessions of the child of God, and in which death itself figures. He sums up his enumeration by reproducing the bold paradox with which he had begun, Yea, I tell you, all are yours. Then he adds the ground or basis of this possession. Ye are Christs, and Christ is Gods. All things are yours, he says, but ye are not your own, ye are Christs, and it is because ye belong to Christ and depend on Him that all things belong to you.
I
All Things are Yours
There are days in the year when merchants take account of their stock. It is well sometimes for a Christian disciple likewise to stop and take an inventory of his possessions. The Apostle Paul here gives us such an inventory. All things are yours. There cannot be anything left when you have said All things. That is an expression which sweeps round the whole universe and takes in everything. All things are yours. And now the thought strikes the Apostles mind, They will hardly understand how much that includes, unless I begin to specify, and so he adds: Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, representing all that ministered in word and doctrine; but that is only one department of this great possession. Or the world. The world is one of the most universal terms of which we have any knowledge. It includes the whole human family; it includes the whole of human history; it includes the whole of the habitable earth. Yet even that will not do. Or life. That covers the term of our existence both in this world and in the hereafter; it is all yours with all its experiences. Or death. If there is anything that seems to have both all seasons and all men for its own, it is death. Things present; these include whatsoever is and whatsoever has been, because whatsoever has been belongs to the present as the property of memory, just as whatsoever is belongs to the present as the property of actual daily experience. But all this will not suffice. And things to come. That reaches into the illimitable ages of eternity. St. Paul has been trying to make specifications, to give the items in this stocktaking. But as though discouraged with the attempt to enumerate, he has only succeeded in giving a very few of the things possessed by the disciple, but those are the most comprehensive terms possible. Andlike a man who has begun taking stock in a great manufactory, and has noted five or six great articles that one shelf contains, but, as he sees the vast accumulation of goods before him, gives up in despair in the effort to complete his workSt. Paul returns to the original sentence with which he began: All things are yours.
What does this statement of the Apostle mean?
1. It is worth our while first to recall something of what it does not mean. It does not mean licence, the parody and libel of liberty. It does not mean selfishness, the mind which grasps or which withholds at the dictate of self-will; this is not possession, but theft; this in its effect is nothing but the hard bondage and poverty of the being. It does not mean the faintest shadow of a slur over moral distinctionsthe bad dream that you can be so spiritual as to be, even for one fraction of a moment, emancipated from conscience; the lying whisper that you shall not surely die of permitted sin, because Christ died for you.
2. It does not mean a relaxation of the Divine rule of self-sacrifice. It is not spoken in order to throw the halo of the Gospel over a life which, professing godliness, is yet secretly, perhaps almost unconsciously, making itself as comfortable as possible for its own sake. It is not spoken to help us to minimize the call to bear the cross, and to serve the Lord in others, while we multiply and magnify excuses for indulgences and enjoyments which, however cultivated and refined, terminate in ourselves. The words are not given us to insinuate that, if we will but say Lord, Lord, with a certain fervour, we may live as those who think that a mans life does consist in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.
3. But then, most certainly, the words have a meaning, positive and beautifulAll things are yours. They are spoken indeed to those, and to those only, who are not their own but their Lords possession; but they do not merely restate that side of truth. They give its contrast and its complement; they turn the shield quite round, to show its other faceand it is another. You are not your own; be sure of that, it is an immovable fact. All things are yours; be sure of that also; it is meant to carry to you a magnificent message, affirmative, distinct ive altogether its own. Now as then, now and for ever, the man who belongs to Christ in truth is a child of God. And his Father will do anything for him. Nothing of his Fathers resources shall be grudged to him. Wisdom and love may, and will, sort and sift, and in that sense limit, the things which shall be put actually into the childs hands. But the whole wealth of the great home is his, in the sense that he is the child for whom anything shall be done, on whom no resources are too great to spend. His utmost good is watched for, always and everywhere. His Father delights exceedingly to meet his wishes, and limits the meeting of them only by the interests of the child; and He has made those interests identical with His own.
Adolphe Monod, great saint, great teacher, great sufferer, lying on a premature couch of anguish and death at Paris, collected in his bedchamber, Sunday by Sunday, a little congregation of friends; Guizot was sometimes of the number. There he addressed them, like Standfast in the Pilgrims Progress, as from the very waters of the last river, speaking always on his life-long theme, Jesus Christ. The pathetic series of these Adieux ses Amis et lglise was gathered after his death into a volume. Late in its pages comes a discourse with the title All in Jesus Christ. From this let me quote a few sentences: Be it wisdom, be it light, be it power, be it victory over sin, be it a matter of this world, or of the world to come, all is in Christ. Having Christ, we have all things; bereft of Christ, we have absolutely nothing. All things are yours, and you are Christs, and Christ is Gods. Well, then, what is the result for me? I am poor, it may be. Yet all the fortunes of this world are mine; for they are Christs, who Himself is Gods, and who could easily give them all to me, with Himself, if they would serve my interests. The whole world, with all its glories, with all its power, belongs to me; for it belongs to my Father, who will give it me to-morrow, and could give it me to-day, if that were good for me. I am very ill, it may be. Yet health is mine, strength is mine, comfort is mine, a perfect enjoyment of all the blessings of life is mine; for all this belongs to Christ, who belongs to God, and who disposes of it as He will. If He withholds these things from me to-day, for a fleeting moment, swift as the shuttle in the loom, and for reasons wholly of His own; it is because these pains and this bitterness conceal a benediction worth more to me than the health so precious, than the comfort so delightful. I challenge you to find a thing of which I cannot say: This is my Fathers; therefore it is mine; if He withholds it to-day, He will give it me to-morrow. I trust myself to His love. All is mine, if I am His.1 [Note: H. C. G. Moule, The Secret of the Presence, 56]
A distinguished American politician in a heated campaign is said to have telegraphed to his friends: Claim everything. That, in a much profounder sense, is precisely the summons which Christianity makes on life. All things are yours. The whole of life is holy. Religion is not a province but an empire. It comprehends both the church and the world, both life and death, both the present and the future. The world is one, and all of it is sacred, and it is all yours, if ye are Christs, as Christ is Gods.2 [Note: Peabody, Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. 231.]
Amidst all my hurry, however, I had five minutes alone by my little Lenas grave. The beautiful white coral was blackened, but the grass and shrubs had grown, and the lemon branches with their bright fruit were bending over and shading it beautifully. How naturally one looks up to the blue sky above, and wonders where the spirit is, or if she can see the mourning hearts below. She would have been running on her own little feet now, had she been on Earth; but though my heart aches for her still, I would not have it otherwise, for she was not sent in vain, and oh, what a little teacher she has been! When John took Dr. Steele to see the grave, he said: You have thus taken possession; and I felt we had taken possession of more through her than that little spot of ground on Aniwa.3 [Note: John G. Paton, ii. 296.]
O wealth of life beyond all bound!
Eternity each moment given!
What plummet may the Present sound?
Who promises a future heaven?
Or glad, or grieved,
Oppressed, relieved,
In blackest night, or brightest day
Still pours the flood
Of golden good,
And more than heartfull fills me aye.
My wealth is common; I possess
No petty province, but the whole
Whats mine alone is mine far less
Than treasure shared by every soul.
Talk not of store,
Millions or more
Of values which the purse may hold
But this divine!
I own the mine
Whose grains outweigh a planets gold.
I have a stake in every star,
In every beam that fills the day;
All hearts of men my coffers are,
My ores arterial tides convey;
The fields, the skies,
The sweet replies
Of thought to thought are my gold-dust;
The oaks; the brooks,
And speaking looks
Of lovers, faith and friendships trust.
Lifes youngest tides joy-brimming flow
For him who lives above all years,
Who all-immortal makes the Now,
And is not taen in Times arrears:
His lifes a hymn
The seraphim
Might hark to hear or help to sing,
And to his soul
The boundless whole
Its bounty all doth daily bring.
All Mine is thine, the Sky-Soul saith;
The wealth I Am must thou become;
Richer and richer, breath by breath
Immortal gain, immortal room!
And since all His
Mine also is,
Lifes gift outruns my fancies far,
And drowns the dream
In larger stream,
As morning drinks the morning-star.1 [Note: David Atwood Wasson.]
i. Paul, Apollos, Cephas
1. Each of these names stands for a distinct species of teaching the argumentative, the eloquent, the hortatory. Let us not rely of them by; from those with whom we have least only we may glean something. Each disciple brings some bits of bread and fish. Each stone flashes some colour needed by the prism to effect the beam of perfect light. Each flower may furnish some ingredient for the common store of honey.
2. Not in vain have martyrs suffered, and fathers taught, and saints prayed, and philanthropists laboured, and reformers preached. All these too are ours. It is ours to note the martyr Ignatius weighed down with years but undaunted in heart, with a spirit soaring higher than the courage of a hero and bowing lower than the humility of a child, not daring yet to count himself a disciple, but setting his face stedfastly towards the Roman amphitheatre, thirsting to become food for the wild beasts, that haply while finding them he might also find Christ. It is ours to observe the kingly spirit of Athanasius, who through nearly half a century, resolute and unswerving, defied obloquy and persecution, maintaining with no less clearness of vision than stedfastness of purpose the faith of Christ alone against the world. It is ours also to take to heart the example of Francis of Assisi, the most gentle and loving of saints, who delighted to claim kindred with all the works of creation and all the dispensations of providence, as the sons and daughters of the one beneficent father, greeting even fire as a brother and death as a sister; who preached to a literal age in the only language which that age could understand, by a literal obedience to the precept of Christ, and went out into the world taking with him absolutely nothing, casting in his lot with the poor whom men despised, and the leper whom they abhorred! So we may go on through all the ages, feeding the fires that are within us with the fuel of these bright examples of Christian faith and heroism and love. And we shall do this without fear. We shall use these examples without abusing them. We shall not say, I am of Martin Luther, or I am of Francis Xavier, or I am of John Wesley; for Luther and Xavier and Wesley are all ours. Brilliant though their lives may have been, they are after all only broken lights of Him who is the full and perfect light.
3. Not only are all Christian teachers ours to serve us after their own kind, but the whole world of men is ours to do the same. If there is a man anywhere with a thought in his mind worth having, whether he be a historian, or a poet, or a romancer; if there is a man anywhere who has a practical idea to communicate, whether he be a statesman, or a political economist, or a sanitarian; if there is a man anywhere who knows something valuable about the earth or the heavens, we should listen to that man with all gratitude. For the whole world of such men is oursmen of thought, men of imagination, men of inventive genius men of character; all are ours, and we should not despise any one of them. They have all their place in the economy of human nature. We should not favour the historian and neglect the poet, or welcome the scientist and spurn the romancer; we should look upon each as a valuable servant ready to render us a service peculiar to himself.
Literature may almost be called the last stronghold of paganism for the cultivated classes all over the Empire. It is hard for us to sympathize with the feelings of Christians in the fifth century for whom cultivated paganism was a living reality possessed of a seductive power; who could not separate classical literature from the religious atmosphere in which it had been produced; and who regarded the masterpieces of the Augustan age as beautiful horrors from which they might hardly escape. Jerome had fears for his souls salvation because he could not conquer his admiration for Ciceros Latin prose, and Augustine shrank within himself when he thought on his love for the poems of Vergil. Had not his classical tastes driven him in youth from the uncouth latinity of the copies of the Holy Scriptures when he tried to read them? Christianity had mastered their heart, mind and conscience, but it could not stifle fond recollection nor tame the imagination.1 [Note: Cambridge Medieval History, i. 115.]
ii. The World
By the world St. Paul here means the existing order of material things, the world we live in, the physical universe. The world, he says, is yours. The world, the cosmos, the Divine order of the created universe, with all its intricate harmonies and all its manifold glories, is ours. Our Lord is not only the Head of the Church, the spiritual creation; He is also the Centre of the Universe, the material creation. This He is, as the Eternal Word of God by whom all things came into being, in whom they are sustained, through whom they are governed. In our modern theology we almost wholly lose sight of this aspect of Christs Person; and the loss to ourselves is inestimable. Science and religion, in the Apostles teaching, have their meeting-point in Christ. There is no antagonism between them; they are the twofold expression of the same Divine energy. And therefore science, not less than theology, is the inheritance of the Christian. It is ours to roam through the boundless realms of space with the astronomer, and to plunge into the countless ages of the past with the geologist: ours to enter into the vast laboratory of nature, and to analyse her subtle processes and record her manifold results. It will be no intrusion into an alien sphere. It is a right which we can claim as Christians. It is ours because we are Christs.
This is our school, hung with maps and diagrams and simple lessons. There is not a single flower, not a distant star, not a murmuring brooklet, not a sound sweet or shrill; there is not a living creature, or a natural process, that may not serve us; not only by meeting some appetite of sense, but by teaching us such deep lessons as those which Jesus drew from the scenes around Him, saying, the kingdom of heaven is like.1 [Note: F. B. Meyer.]
1. That man owns the world who remains its master. There are rich men who say they possess so many thousand pounds. Turn the sentence about and it would be a great deal truerthe thousands of pounds possess them. They are the slaves of their own possessions, and every man who counts any material thing as indispensable to his well-being, and regards it as the chiefest good, is the slave-servant of that thing.
My friends, do you remember that old Scythian custom, when the head of a house died? How he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and carried about to his friends houses; and each of them placed him at his tables head, and all feasted in his presence? Suppose it were offered to you in plain words, as it is offered to you in dire facts, that you should gain this Scythian honour, gradually, while you yet thought yourself alive. Suppose the offer were this: You shall die slowly; your blood shall daily grow cold, your flesh petrify, your heart beat at last only as a rusted group of iron valves. Your life shall fade from you, and sink through the earth into the ice of Caina; but, day by day, your body shall be dressed more gaily, and set in higher chariots, and have more orders on its breastcrowns on its head, if you will. Men shall bow before it, stare and shout round it, crowd after it up and down the streets; build palaces for it, feast with it at their tables heads all the night long; your soul shall stay enough within it to know what they do, and feel the weight of the golden dress on its shoulders, and the furrow of the crown-edge on the skull;no more. Would you take the offer, verbally made by the death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you? Yet practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a measure; many of us grasp at it in its fulness of horror. Every man accepts it, who desires to advance in life without knowing what life is; who means only that he is to get more horses, and more footmen, and more fortune, and more public honour, andnot more personal soul. He only is advancing in life, whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the earththey, and they only.1 [Note: Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies (Works, xviii. 99).]
We shall never learn from our Lord to look with an unloving and cynical eye upon the common sights and ordinary ways of nature and of men. Who, if not He, has enabled us to read Divine philosophy in the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, in the transactions of the market, in the work of the farm, in the casting of a net, and the sweeping of a room? Where, if not in His school, have we been taught that it was a good God who made the world, and sent us into it, not to withdraw ourselves from it, not to feel scorn for it, but to study it, toil in it, and help one another to profit by our stay in it? Are they not His lessons which have redeemed the life of the peasant from dulness, as they have deepened the insight of the artist, and strengthened the heart of the philanthropist? It is inconceivable, wholly inconceivable, that He who lived and taught thus, could have meant us to understand that His truest followers were to be those who should pass through this earthly life unoccupied, uninterested, unstirred spectators, unfriendly critics, or active foes of its development and progress.2 [Note: A. W. Robinson, The Voice of Joy and Health, 109.]
2. He owns the world who turns it to the highest use of spiritual nourishment. All material things are given, and were created, for the growth of men; or at all events their highest purpose is that men should, by them, grow. And therefore, as the scaffolding is swept away when the building is finished, so God will sweep away this material universe, with all its wonders of beauty and of contrivance, when men have grown by means of it. The material is less than the soul, and he is master of the world, and owns it, who has got thoughts out of it, truth out of it, impulses out of it, visions of God out of it, who has by it been led nearer to his Divine Master. If I look out upon a fair landscape, and the man who draws the rents of it is standing by my side, and I draw more sweetness, and deeper impulses, and larger and loftier thoughts out of it than he does, it belongs to me far more than it does to him.
Hazlitt, relating in one of his essays how he went on foot from one great mans house to anothers in search of works of art, begins suddenly to triumph over these noble and wealthy owners, because he was more capable of enjoying their costly possessions than they were; because they had paid the money and he had received the pleasure. And the occasion is a fair one for self-complacency. While the one man was working to be able to buy the picture, the other was working to be able to enjoy the picture. An inherited aptitude will have been diligently improved in either case; only the one man has made for himself a fortune, and the other has made for himself a living spirit. It is a fair occasion for self-complacency, I repeat, when the event shows a man to have chosen the better part, and laid out his life more wisely, in the long-run, than those who have credit for most Wisdom 1 [Note: R. L. Stevenson, Ordered South.]
Read that touching book, The Story of a Scotch Naturalist; or the life of Hugh Milleronly a workman in the Cromarty stone quarries, yet to whom that Old Red Sandstone belonged more than ever it did to the men for whom he worked. Or think of Thoreau, one of that little group, with Emerson at their head, who made Concord famousThoreau, in his little shanty in the Walden woods, cultivating just enough for lifes barest needs, and meanwhile making the wisdom and beauty of Nature and of books and men his own; loving everything around him and loved by allthe birds perching upon him as he hoed his garden, the squirrels nestling up to him as he sat reading in his woodland nooks; taking all that country-side into his mind and heart, and making it curiously his own. So that to-day, as people drive by it, they say that is Thoreaus wood!2 [Note: B. Herford.]
3. He owns the world who uses it as the arena, or wrestling ground, on which, by labour, he may gain strength, and in which he may do service. Antagonism helps to develop muscle, and the best use of the outward frame of things is that we shall take it as the field upon which we can serve God.
First, then, behold the world as thine, and well
Note that where thou dost dwell:
See all the beauty of the spacious case;
Lift up thy pleased and ravisht eyes;
Admire the glory of this Heavenly place,
And all its blessings prize.
That sight well seen thy spirit shall prepare
To make all other things more rare.
Mens woes shall be but foils unto thy bliss:
Thou once enjoying this:
Trades shall adorn and beautify the earth;
Their ignorance shall make thee bright:
Were not their griefs Democrituss mirth?
Their slips shall keep thee right;
All shall be thine advantage; all conspire
To make thy bliss and virtue higher.1 [Note: Thomas Traherne.]
iii. Life, Death
Of the powers acting, in the world there are two, of formidable and mysterious greatness, which seem to decide the course of the universelife and death. The first comprehends all phenomena which are characterized by force, health, productiveness; the second, all those which betray weakness, sickness, decay. From the one or the other of these two forces proceed all the hostile influences of which the believer feels himself the object. But he knows also that he is not their puppet; for it is Christ his Lord who guides and tempers their action.
1. Life is yours. Life is a very inclusive term. Think of the vastness of its meaning. It means here, as always, more than existence. Life has its dimensions: length and breadth, and depth and height. It is not enough to count the years that you live if you would measure your life. The days of our years are threescore years and ten. That is simply a line from the cradle to the grave, reaching over seventy years of length. A man may broaden out his life by broadening out his sympathy, his love, by taking into the embrace of his thought and his affection things that are outside the narrow line of self-interest. As he thinks of his neighbour; of a dying world; of the destitute and the widowed and the orphan and the oppressed; as he thinks of the Kingdom of God in all its vast out-reachings, the little narrow line of self-interest is crossed, and the territory of life broadens out to cover a vast continent of affection and of thought. When a man begins to cultivate his own nature, when he goes down into the depths of his own soul to find out what is there of sin, and by the grace of God expel it; what is there of weakness, and by the grace of God strengthen it; and what is there of selfishness, and by the grace of God displace it; when he learns, like a man who occupies uncultivated land on a farm, to plough it up, and subsoil it, and enrich the ground, so that he may yet get out of his own being the utmost possible yield for himself and his family and humanitythat man is discovering the depth that is possible to life. And when he looks beyond the present and the transient and the temporal, when he casts his eyes upward to God, when he reaches up after God, His likeness, His honour, His glory, then he is learning the height that is possible to life.
How is this abundant life ours?
(1) The world of human life is most his who knows it best, and loves it best. How shall we appropriate this world of man to ourselves and make it ours? The common idea has been to get some kind of lordship or kingship or mastership over it, or over as much of it as we can. In the old feudal times, the vassal used to kneel at the feet of the lord of the manor and swear to be his man. But that is a poor notion. Let us go forth into the busy world and love it; interest ourselves in its life; mingle kindly with its joys and sorrows; try what we can do for men rather than what we can make them do for us, and we shall know what it is to have men ours, better than if we were their king or master. If we look through history, whose, most of all, is the world? Not Alexanders or Napoleons, but Christs, who made men His because He knew them and loved them. He whom we bind to ourselves by love becomes, as far as it is possible, ours. A friendship is more truly a possession than a slave. Shakespeares plays become ours not by our owning a handsome copy of them, but by our knowing them and loving them. Beethoven and Mendelssohn are theirs who love and understand them. So true is this, that Ruskin has pleaded that in works of art it is wrong to claim any private property or ownership. Such things belong to humanity. Would we allow that any money purchase could give a man any real right to make a bonfire of Raphaels pictures or to break up the Laocoon into paperweights? So of character and the deep qualities of life itself. We cannot buy these things; we cannot pay a master even to teach us goodness, or uprightness, or purity. This does not mean that the teacher can do nothingknowing here too goes for something, but it is loving that does infinitely the most. The quality we love becomes a part of us. Our friends nobleness, if that is what we really love in him, gives us also some touch of nobleness. We may never have much opportunity for heroism; but if, as we read of some brave, heroic deed, our heart throbs with deep loving admiration, that love by subtle chemistry transmutes the deed into our character; not the whole of it, but some touch of it, becomes a part of what we are.
(2) Life in its pleasures is ours; there is no bright or helpful pleasure that is not ours. There is no place on earth which a Christian man cannot transform and transfigure to be the very gateway of heaven. All mirth is ours, all laughter is ours, all amusements are ours. Amusement in our hands will turn to spiritual help, and to the making of manhood and womanhood. All music is ours, all poetry is ours, the drama is ours. Pleasure in its noblest, best, sweetest, truest sense belongs only to the Christian. It is only when we are really armed in Christ for the shocks and storms of life that we are safe to remember that we are made fit in Christ for a double enjoyment of its joys.
Life is really so wondrous; this fibrine, iron, sinew, bone, flesh, and colouring substance is so miraculous when alive, walking about and thinking, and the eye is so expressive, the tone so eloquent, the brain so active, and the heart so full of love and feeling, that the mere gift of life is a largess so grand and utterly magnificent that the dry bones breathed on should indeed rejoice. Man is king of the world, monarch of the air, which is his circumambient servant and puts colour in his cheeks and brightness in his eye; of the earth, which on her brown bosom bears him corn and wine and oil of gladness; of the sea, which scatters its treasures at his feet and conveys him from land to land; of the sky, which is peopled with winged servants of his; of the caverns and hollows under the earth, which yield iron and copper and lead and gold to serve him, and give him precious stones to glitter in his sight, and the treasures of antediluvian woods, laid up as coal to warm him in the winter. Of the other inferior life that shares the earth he too is master. Yoked to his chariot the swift steed bears him; and all animals, from the lion to the lamb, minister to his recreations, sports, desires, or wants.1 [Note: J. H. Friswell, This Wicked World, 269.]
(3) Life in its disciplines is ours. To say that life is pleasurable is also to say that life is sad. To say that life is full of beauty is also to say that life is full of sorrow. There are minor as well as major chords in our life. There are none of us without our struggles, none of us without our failures, none of us without disappointments, none of us without bereavements, none without our sorrows. The old theologians and prophets used to look upon life as a probation. Life is not a probation; life is something nobler than that, it is an education. If we struggle, if we fight, if we are foiled, if we are down, let us not call it our sad destinylet us call it Gods educating force to make us perfect men or women in Christ Jesus.
Blaspheme not thou thy sacred Life, nor turn,
Oer joys that God hath for a season lent
(Perchance to try thy spirit and its bent,
Effeminate soul and base!)weakly to mourn!
There lies no desert in the land of Life;
For een that tract that barrenest doth seem,
Laboured of thee in faith and hope, shall teem
With heavenly harvests and rich gatherings rife.2 [Note: Frances Kemble.]
(4) Life in its possibilities is ours. John Stuart Mill once said that no man could think of the heights of feeling that were possible to him. Do we not believe that; do we not believe with all the future before us, and with all the love of God on our side, there are scarcely any stages which we cannot reach? There are heights of purity to climb, valleys of humility to go through, all the magnificent possibilities of service, of self-sacrifice, and of life for others, a new start, and prospects which the grace of God alone can give. When we look back upon our life, the saddest thing is not that we have been dishonest, not that we have been impure, perhaps; but the saddest thing is that our life has been so meagre when it might have been so grand, that it has been so petty when it might have been so sublime, so poor when it might have been so rich.
From the first Christianity had proclaimed that the whole life of man belonged to it. This meant everything that made mans life wider, deeper, fuller; whatever made it more joyous or contented; whatever sharpened the brain, strengthened and taught the muscles, gave full play to mans energies, could be taken up into and become part of the Christian life. Sin and foulness were sternly excluded; but, that done, there was no element of the Grco-Roman civilization which could not be appropriated by Christianity. So it assimilated Hellenism or the fine flower and fruit of Greek thought and feeling; it appropriated Roman law and institutions; it made its own the simple festivals of the common people. All were theirs; and they were Christs; and Christ was Gods.1 [Note: Cambridge Medieval History, i. 96.]
Thank God for life: life is not sweet always,
Hands may be heavy-laden, hearts care full,
Unwelcome nights follow unwelcome days,
And dreams divine end in awakenings dull.
Still it is life, and life is cause for praise,
This ache, this restlessness, this quickening sting,
Prove me no torpid and inanimate thing,
Prove me of Him who is of life the Spring,
I am alive!and that is beautiful.2 [Note: Susan Coolidge.]
2. Death is yours. We had forgotten that; or we had not realized it. We had thought that we belonged to death, not death to us. We knew that we had some feeble hold upon life, but death was not thought to be a possession, desirable or undesirable. We had not added that to the catalogue of our wealth. We had never reckoned it among our treasuresamong our resources. We had not realized that death is one of our opportunities.
The writers of the Epistles make little or nothing of physical death. They bear two great points in mind, (1) our present standing, and (2) our ultimate standing in the day of the Lord. We persist in walking by sight and esteeming this existence Life, and the end of this existence Death; whereas, rightly viewed, this existence is but a stage in mortality, and so-called Death a step onwards to the fulness of immortality. Each one of us is, as it were, a limb of God, with the potentiality of perfection, and gradually, through the experience of multiform error, to be developed into the full exercise of spontaneous and joyous activity.1 [Note: R. W. Corbet, Letters from a Mystic of the Present Day, 20.]
There are two very striking engravings by a great, though somewhat unknown, artist, representing Death as the Destroyer, and Death as the Friend. In the one case he comes into a scene of wild revelry, and there at his feet lie stark and stiff corpses in their gay clothing and with garlands on their brows, and feasters and musicians are flying in terror from the cowled Skeleton. In the other he comes into a quiet church belfry, where an aged saint sits with folded arms and closed eyes, and an open Bible by his side, and endless peace upon the wearied face. The window is flung wide to the sunrise, and on its sill perches a bird that gives forth its morning song. The cowled figure has brought rest to the weary, and the glad dawning of a new life to the aged, and is a friend.2 [Note: A. Maclaren.]
Lo! all thy glory gone!
Gods masterpiece undone!
The last created and the first to fall;
The noblest, frailest, godliest of all.
Death seems the conqueror now,
And yet his victor thou:
The fatal shaft, its venom quenchd in thee,
A mortal raised to immortality.
Child of the humble sod,
Wed with the breath of God,
Descend! for with the lowest thou must lie
Arise! thou hast inherited the sky.3 [Note: John Banister Tabb.]
(1) To the believer death is not a step into the dim unknown, but a step into a region lighted by Jesus. Death is not the end of something; it is not an enemy that crushes us; it is not a loss, a defeat, a calamity; it is a possession, a weapon in our armoury, an opportunity, a resource. It is not a putting off, but a putting on.
At end of Love, at end of Life,
At end of Hope, at end of Strife,
At end of all we cling to so
The sun is settingmust we go?
At dawn of Love, at dawn of Life,
At dawn of Peace that follows Strife,
At dawn of all we long for so
The sun is risinglet us go.1 [Note: Louise Chandler Moulton.]
(2) Death is not the cessation of activity, but the introduction to nobler opportunities, and the endowment with nobler capacities of service. To become dead is an experience which is part of life. It is an experience in lifes upgrowth and development. There are many whom we know, who always seem to have been thwarted; who seem to be disinherited; who do not seem to have come into their rightful place or possession. If we look at their lives, from the cradle to the certain grave, we cannot understand them. There seems no accomplishment; there seems no real purpose; there seems no achievement worth the travail. But we are not to look at any one, viewing him merely from the cradle to the grave. Death is our interpreter. It alone gives the true perspective; and when death comes to such as we have spoken of, it is seen to be the endowment of the disinherited. Life, its meaning, its purpose, its wealth, is for them beyond the grave. It is beyond the grave for all of us; but it is clearly seen to be so for them. Death is the endowment of the disinherited.
The shutters are drawn and the people talk in whispers and walk softly, an immortal soul is passing out of time into eternity. His has been a commonplace life, but he has been faithful, and now he has reached the end of the journey. The sunset has come and the shadows of evening are thickening. Between two worlds hangs the veil which separates time from eternity. On this side the veil it is a house of sorrow. Loved ones are in tears and speak to each other in broken sobs and cry out to God for comfort.
But on the other side of that thin veil the scene is far different. It is the hour of coronation. There are no tears, no sobbing grief and heart-broken prayers, but the chant of victory, for a faithful soul is coming to its own. All the pomp and circumstance of heaven centre there. The face of the pilgrim has lost its death pallor and the eyes shine with the light of expectant immortality. God is once more placing the crown of life on the brow of death.1 [Note: J. I. Vance, Tendency, 229, 233.]
Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep
He hath awakened from the dream of life
Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance, strike with our spirits knife
Invulnerable nothings.2 [Note: Shelley, Adonais, xxxix.]
(3) Death does not separate and isolate us, but unites us to Jesus and all His lovers. Those we have lostwe have not lost them. Death is the guardian of our treasures. Here they would have faded, faded, faded. Do we ever think, that if friendship were to last for ever on this earth of frailty, the last horror would comethe hearts even of friends would get worn out? This mortal must put on immortality before life can stand its own strain and the glory of its meaning; the life we learn on earth is too high for earth; death alone can release it to its fit dominion. And death is the guardian of your hidden treasures and the keeper of your secret wealth, of all the unknown that lies beyond the veil for usnot only those whom we have let go, but those we have never known, whom God has made and is keeping for us. Our treasures, some of them, are here; but we will not know how rich we are till we have passed beyond.
I cannot think of them as dead
Who walk with me no more;
Along the path of life I tread
They have but gone before.
The fathers house is mansioned fair
Beyond my vision dim;
All souls are His, and, here or there,
Are living unto Him.
And still their silent ministry
Within my heart hath place,
As when on earth they walked with me,
And met me face to face.
Their lives are made forever mine;
What they to me have been
Hath left henceforth its seal and sign
Engraven deep within.
Mine are they by an ownership
Nor time nor death can free;
For God hath given to Love to keep
Its own eternally.1 [Note: Frederick Lucian Hosmer.]
I have no fear lest my Saints should be far from me in their upper heaven; Gods hierarchy is the hierarchy of conjoining love, and His great ones have their place in power to draw near even to the very least. The heights of heaven must be close to every lower place, as close as heart and heart may be.2 [Note: A Modern Mystics Way.]
iv. Things Present, Things to Come
All things are yours, says the Apostle, in the spiritual order (whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas) and in the terrestrial order (the world); the great powers of the world are yours (life and death); now he adds a third pair in relation to time (things present, and things to come). Things present comprehends all that can happen to us in the present state of things, and as long as we form part of it; while things to come denotes the great expected transformation, with its eternal consequences.
Or things present, or things to come. How quickly the incidents of daily life are gliding over us! and as they pass, to our weak gaze they steal from us so much that we hold dearthe elastic step, the clear vision, the strong nerve, the beloved friend, the hard-earned gold. Sometimes they manifestly enrich us. For the young there is a constant sense of acquisition. One good and perfect gift follows swiftly on the heels of another. But when we have crossed the summit of lifes hill there is an incessant consciousness of loss. Yet in Gods sight, and in the spiritual realm, these distinctions vanish and pass away as mists under the touch of the sun: and we find that all incidents come to bless us; all winds waft us to our haven; all tribes bring their tribute into the throne-room of our inner being. We are not the creatures of circumstances, but their masters, their kings, their lords. All these things are the servants and tutors appointed by our Father, to wait on and minister to us, His heirs.
1. Things present.Our present lot is one of the all things which belong to us. We may not like it; we may greatly desire to be quit of it; we may be looking forward with intensest eagerness to a happier day, when our griefs or our difficulties shall no longer be with us. But these, remember, are from God to us, and Gods love is in them. Let us not be anxious merely to rid ourselves of them. Let us dig in them, and we shall find treasure.
We read some time ago, in an Australian paper, of a nugget worth a thousand pounds. In its picture a very ungainly block it looked. Most of us might have fallen in with it and heedlessly passed it by, or cast it aside as something in the way. The digger knew better, and he and his mate made a little fortune in a day.1 [Note: J. Walker of Carnwath, Essays, Sermons, and Memoir, 318.]
We can be only in the present, but not in the present without a past, nor in the present without a future. We need a present stretching from an eternal past to an eternal future. In Jehovah alone is such a past, present, and future found (Psa 90:1-2). Jehovah hath created the heavens and the earth. We are here, and here as an integral part of them. Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion: bless the Lord, O my soul. We are connected in that verse with all places of His dominioneverything, everywhere, my soul. Yet the foundations of our being, of our eternity, are in Godour possibility in His omnipotenceour futurition in the purpose of His will, as our actuality in our generic creation, and our individuality from Him who calls the generations from the beginning. So of menso of our salvation, omnipotence, purpose, creation in Christ. Theres something there that Ill no spin out; it could be spun out into a long thread.2 [Note: Rabbi Duncan, in Memoir of John Duncan, 498.]
2. Things to come.The dim, vague future shall be for each of us like some sunlit ocean stretching shoreless to the horizon; every little ripple flashing with its own bright sunshine, and all bearing us onwards to the great Throne that stands on the sea of glass mingled with fire.
(1) All the future that hope anticipates or fear apprehends is ours, and we can safely leave it with Him. We are like a cathedral that has been building through ages; the scaffolding is round about it, obscuring its beauty and symmetry, but essential to the erection of the towering spires. But, when the whole thing is completed, the scaffolding will be torn down and burnt up, and the grand building will appear in perfection.
(2) The Hebrew youth who, eager and buoyant, full of joyous young life and aspiration, left his fathers home to seek his brethren in the distant pasture-lands, had no dream of things to come for himno dream of his sale as a bondsman, of his exile, of Potiphars house, of the false accusation, of the fetters and the dungeon, of the hope deferred and the sudden release, of the unexpected exaltation, of the reunion to his family in circumstances baffling all human calculation, and fraught with a history so grand, with an influence stretching down through all time and abroad over all lands. Not in his wildest imaginings did that future of wonders ever open up before him. But as you see the roll of his destiny unwind, as event follows event in the marvellous career, you recognize how truly all that came to him was his, and for his sakechastening, sifting, humbling, purifying, preparing him alike for an earthly or a heavenly future. So is it for us all, if we are truly of the seed of Jacob.
To-morrow is the Gorgon; a man must only see it mirrored in the shining shield of yesterday. If he sees it directly he is turned to stone. This has been the fate of all those who have really seen fate and futurity as clear and inevitable. The Calvinists, with their perfect creed of predestination, were turned to stone; the modern sociological scientists (with their excruciating Eugenics) are turned to stone. The only difference is that the Puritans make dignified, and the Eugenists somewhat amusing, statues.1 [Note: Chesterton, Whats Wrong with the World.]
The man who believes in God and in His loving providence need not darken his days by fretful cares and dread of evil to come. Believing in Gods purpose of love with him, he knows that the future cannot bring anything contrary to that. If there are any trials and sorrows in that time to come, he knows that the Fathers grace is sufficient for him through them all. If there are temptations, he knows he will not be tempted above what he can bear. His times are in Gods hands. If his days are to be long, the more time to worship and to witness. If they are to be few, the greater need to redeem the time now. If they are to be lived through much tribulation with darkness and storm, with a long stretch through the valley of the shadow, the Shepherd of his soul is ever with him. He will ask to see the heart of good in every evil that touches his life, the joy that slumbers in every pain, and in the hour of the final passion will commit his soul to God.1 [Note: Hugh Black, Comfort, 179.]
Why wilt thou be concerned beyond to-day, asks Luther, and take upon thyself the misfortunes of two days? Put thus, with Luthers sanctified common sense, it is foolish from any point of view, but it is more than foolish from the point of view of faith.2 [Note: Ibid. 191.]
II
Ye are Christs, and Christ is Gods
All things are yours, says St. Paulwith one exception. That exception is a very startling one. All things are oursbut ourselves! That is really what the Apostle means when he says, All are yours, and ye are Christs. And in this matter we are in precisely the same position as the Lord Jesus Christ. While all things are His, He is not His own any more than we are. All things are yours, and ye are Christs, and Christ is Gods. There is no one in this universe his own but God the Father. He is the only absolute Being; all the rest of us belong to some one else. Christ is Gods and we are Christs. Christ belongs to God by right of generation. Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. We belong to Christ by right of purchase. Ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price.
1. It is because we are not our own, but Christs, that all things are ours. How should we, poor creatures of yesterday, have all things if it were not for our connection with Christ? Has not God given all things to Christ? As the Word has it, The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. And how should we have all things, if they were not given us by Christ, whose we are?
2. We are truly our own only when we are Christs. The highest truth ever lies in the completest paradox. There are many things that we never truly possess till we give them up. It is only when we relinquish the world that we possess it. It is only when we let pleasure go that we obtain it. It is only when we give money away that we enjoy it. It is only when we lose our life that we find it. And it is only when we become Christs that we become our own.
Lord, Thou art mine, and I am Thine,
If mine I am; and Thine much more
Than I or ought or can be mine.
Yet to be Thine doth me restore,
So that again I now am mine,
And with advantage mine the more,
Since this being mine brings with it Thine,
And Thou with me dost Thee restore:
If I without Thee would be mine,
I neither should be mine nor Thine.
Lord, I am Thine, and Thou art mine;
So mine Thou art, that something more
I may presume Thee mine than Thine,
For Thou didst suffer to restore
Not Thee, but me, and to be mine:
And with advantage mine the more,
Since Thou in death wast none of Thine,
Yet then as mine didst me restore:
O, be mine still; still make me Thine;
Or rather make no Thine and mine.1 [Note: George Herbert.]
3. All things are ours to serve us, and we are Christs to serve Him. Service is the golden thread that runs through all creation, making it one. The ancient fable told that all things were bound by golden chains about the feet of God: and surely the real deep connection of which the fable spoke is to be found in the service which each lower order of creation renders to the one above, the service becoming rarer and more refined as the pyramid of existence tapers to a point.
Our Lord was also the servant of God, and we are His servants. We are, of course, His, in the sense of being owned by Him: He made us; He bought us; He claims us. But how many of us resemble Onesimus, the runaway slave of Philemon!who probably bore the brand of his master, and had certainly been purchased by his gold, but who withheld from him his service, following the bent of his own wayward will, and herding with the most abandoned of the populace that rotted in the criminal quarters of ancient Home. We too have been bought by the Lord, at priceless cost; but we are far from serving Him with the same sort of loyal and whole-hearted ministry as that with which He, in His unwearied solicitude for us, serves the Father.
4. Whenever we get into this right attitude towards our Lord Jesus, we shall find that all things begin to minister to us in a constant round of holy service. Each event or circumstance in life becomes an angel, laden with blessed helpfulness, bringing to us the gifts of our beloved Master. That title, Rabboni, Master, the sweetest name by which the prostrate soul can address its Saviour, does not degrade or demean it; but enables it, like the babe Christ, to be the recipient of costly presents sent from afargold, frankincense, and myrrh. If we have been chafing at our lot, thinking that time and things are robbing us, we may be sure that we are not as we should be towards Christ; and the true cure will be to get as a slave to His feet. Then all things will be ours in this deep sense.
5. And Christ is Gods. If Christ is at the right hand of God, then the world is ours. The world is transformed from a prison into a home, and life from a dream into a reality. All that we know and love and strive for is given permanence and worth.
To see the glorious fountain and the end,
To see all creatures tend
To thy advancement, and so sweetly close
In thy repose: to see them shine
In serviceable worth; and even foes,
Among the rest, made thine:
To see all these at once unite in thee
Is to behold felicity.
To see the fountain is a blessed thing,
It is to see the King
Of Glory face to face: but yet the end,
The deep and wondrous end, is more;
In that the Fount we also comprehend,
The spring we there adore:
For in the end the fountain is best shewn,
As by effects the cause is known.
From one, to one, in one, to see all things,
Perceive the King of Kings
My God and portion; to see His treasures
Made all mine own, myself the end
Of His great labours! Tis the life of pleasures
To see myself His friend!
Who all things finds conveyd to Him alone,
Must needs adore the Holy One.1 [Note: Thomas Traherne.]
Yet Possessing all Things
Literature
Alexander (W. L.), Sermons, 122.
Arnold (T.), Sermons, iv. 39.
Caird (J.), Aspects of Life, 205.
Carr (A.), Hor Biblic, 193.
Clark (H. W.), Meanings and Methods of the Spiritual Life, 200.
Cox (S.), The Genesis of Evil, 91, 106.
Duncan (J.), In the Pulpit and at the Communion Table, 221.
Evans (R. W.), Parochial Sermons, 301.
Greer (D. H.), From Things to God, 1.
Herford (B.), Courage and Cheer, 235.
Hodge (C), Princeton Sermons, 197.
Horder (W. G.), The Other-World, 3, 111.
Jeffrey (G.), The Believers Privilege, 57.
Kennedy (J. D.), Sermons, 83.
King (D.), Memoir and Sermons, 403.
Lewis (F. W.), The Work of Christ, 33.
Lightfoot (J. B.), Sermons on Special Occasions, 1.
Lockyer (T. F.), Inspirations of the Christian Life, 189.
Maclaren (A.), Creed and Conduct, 56.
Meyer (F. B.), Present Tenses, 123.
Moule (H. C. G.), The Secret of the Presence, 33, 48.
Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. 229.
Pope (W. B.), Discourses on the Lordship of the Incarnate Redeemer, 325.
Talmage (T. de W.), Sermons, vi. 404.
Vaughan (C. J.), Temple Sermons, 485.
Walker (J.), Memoir and Sermons, 311.
Watkinson (W. L.), Noonday Addresses, 1 ff.
British Congregationalist, Nov. 11, 1909, p. 418 (Shepherd).
Cambridge Review, ii. Supplement No. 45 (Ince).
Christian Age, xlii. 68 (Talmage).
Christian World Pulpit, xi. 408 (Beecher); xiii. 65 (Duckworth) xv. 312 (Pulsford); xviii. 145 (Duckworth); xxi. 337 (Edwards) xxxvii. 90 (Smith), 104 (Clarke); xxxviii. 179 (Duckworth xl. 58 (Hobbs); xli. 154 (Garrett Horder); xlvi. 307 (Phillips xlviii. 121 (Goodspeed).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
glory: 1Co 3:4-7, 1Co 1:12-17, 1Co 4:6, Jer 9:23, Jer 9:24
For: Rom 4:13, Rom 8:28, Rom 8:32, 2Co 4:5, 2Co 4:15, Rev 21:7
Reciprocal: Gen 25:5 – General Gen 33:11 – enough Gen 49:25 – with blessings Num 5:10 – hallowed things Num 11:29 – Enviest Num 18:20 – I am thy part Num 23:10 – the death Psa 16:6 – I have Pro 3:16 – and Son 2:16 – beloved Isa 20:5 – their glory Dan 2:30 – but Hos 2:21 – saith Zec 8:12 – the remnant Mat 13:46 – one Mar 2:27 – General Luk 6:20 – for Joh 17:10 – all Rom 8:9 – he is 1Co 5:6 – glorying 2Co 1:6 – whether 2Co 1:14 – that 2Co 6:10 – and 2Co 8:9 – that ye Gal 4:7 – heir Gal 6:4 – and not Gal 6:13 – that they may Gal 6:14 – that I Col 3:11 – but 2Ti 1:9 – which Jam 2:5 – rich 2Pe 1:3 – all Rev 21:6 – freely
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Verse 21. No man glory in men. One man is no more important in God’s sight than another, regardless of his apparently great qualifications. All things are yours denotes that all of these seemingly great things have been provided for the benefit of the brethren and not for their worldly glorying.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Co 3:21. Wherefore, let no one glory in menin one preacher as opposed to another.For all things are yours.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Here the apostle closes his discourse with an inference not to glory in any teacher whatsoever, either in Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, seeing they were all theirs; that is, all the apostles and ministers of Christ, from the highest to the lowest, from the greatest to the least, and all their ministerial gifts and labours, are all ordained and appointed by God for their use and service: All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas.
Learn hence, That all ministers, and ministerial abilities, are wholly for the church’s service, and spiritual advantage: all their power is for the church’s preservation, all their gifts are for the church’s edification. Their message is for the church’s comfort and consolation: thus all things, in and belonging to the church, are ours.
Next he mentions the things of the world are ours. Or the world, that is, all the good things in the world are ours, houses, lands, honours, friends, relations so far as God sees them good for us.
But are there not many that are Christ’s who want houses and friends, and other comforts; how then can they be said to have them?
Ans. 1. They have all things eminently and transcendently in God and Christ, by whom they have a title to all things, Rev 21:7.
2. They have all things virtually, in their contentment and satisfaction of mind which they do enjoy.
3. They have all things eventually: they have the good of all things, when they have not the actual possession of all things; their very wants, in the event, work for good.
Or life; this is ours two ways; the comfort of life is ours, and the end of life is ours, with the true use of it; for the sincere Christian only lives to purpose, by answering the great end of life, which is the promoting God’s glory, and securing his own salvation.
Or death; that which is in itself so terrible is for the believer’s advantage, their friend, their privilege, their passage to heaven, their deliverer from sin, the perfecter of their grace; when we come at heaven, and not till then, we shall fully understand what this meaneth, Death is ours.
Or things present: that is, all the events of providence which befall us, whether prosperity or adversity, health or sickness, riches or poverty, they are all sanctified to us, and are instrumental for the sanctifying of us. They are covenant blessings, and dispensed in love to us.
Or things to come; that is, all future things which may befall us in this world, and in the world to come, shall be to our abundant advantage; whether they be merciful or good things, or grievous and sad things: particularly death is to come, but to die is gain.
Christ’s death was the death of death; he has disarmed death of its sting; the believer fears not its dart; it is not an hurting, but an healing serpent: there is no venom or malignity in it, but that which was before in the number of threatenings, is now brought within the compass of the gospel promises: all things are ours, life or death, things present and things to come.
And ye are Christ’s: that is, not Paul’s or Apollo’s disciples or servants, but only Christ’s, therefore glory only in him, and in him only.
And Christ is God’s: that is, as you are Christ’s, and for his glory; so Christ, as Mediator, is God’s, and for his glory. He is God’s servant, to do his will, to execute his pleasure. he was begotten of his Father before all time. He sought not his own, but his Father’s glory, in the doctrine which he preached, in the miracles which he wrought; but lived in an entire resignation to his Father’s pleasure.
Lord! how will it shame us thy servants, to follow thy servant Christ, and to be called by his name, if we seek not his glory and exalt not his will, and live not to his praise, who died for us and rose again!
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
1Co 3:21-23. Therefore Upon the whole, considering all that has been advanced, and especially considering in what view the great God regards these things which we are so ready to value ourselves upon; let no man glory in men So as to divide into parties on their account; for all things are yours And we in particular. We are not your lords, but rather your servants: whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas We are all equally yours, to serve you for Christs sake: or the world This leap, from Peter to the world, greatly enlarges the thought, and argues a kind of impatience of enumerating the rest. Peter, and every one in the whole world, however excellent in gifts, or grace, or office, are also your servants for Christs sake; or life or death These, with all their various circumstances, are disposed as will be most for your advantage; or things present On earth, or things to come In heaven. Contend therefore no more about these little things, but be ye united in love as ye are in blessings. And ye are Christs His property, his subjects, his members; and Christ is Gods As Mediator, he acted as his Fathers servant, and referred all his services to his Fathers glory. Others understand the passage thus: All things are appointed for your good, and ye are appointed for Christs honour, and Christ for Gods glory.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Vv. 21. So then, let no man glory in men, for all things are yours.
The apostle began by reminding the Corinthians of what preachers are in relation to the Church: servants (ministers) of the one Lord; then, in a passage which may be regarded as an episode, he put before the eyes of the Church and of ministers themselves the grave responsibility incurred by the latter (1Co 3:10-20). Now he concludes; this is shown by the particle of transition , so that; we can only translate it here by so then, because of the following imperative. We shall see that this same conjunction is ordinarily used in this Epistle to announce the practical conclusion to be drawn from a foregoing statement of doctrine; comp. 1Co 7:38, 1Co 11:33, 1Co 14:39, 1Co 15:58.
On the imperative after , see on 1Co 1:31.
To glory in a person can only mean: to boast of one’s relation to him, to take honour from belonging to him, as a servant or a disciple takes glory from the name of an illustrious master. It is an allusion to the formulas: I am of Paul,…Apollos,… etc. Far from its being believers who belong to their teachers, it is much rather these who belong to them; and not only their teachers, but all things. Stoic wisdom had said: Omnia sapientis sunt, because the wise man can make use of everything, even of what is adverse to him. The believer can say so with a yet loftier and surer title, because he belongs to God, who puts all things at the service of His own. It is in this sense that Paul says, Rom 8:28 : All things work together for good to them that love God. As he develops it in the same passage, God, in His eternal plan, has disposed all things with a view to the salvation and glory of those who He knew beforehand would believe on His Son. The contents of this , all things, are detailed in the following enumeration, which has been called, not without reason, the inventory of the possessions of the child of God, and in which death itself figures.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Wherefore let no one glory in men. [A returning upon the thought at 1Co 1:31] For all things are yours [why, then, grasp a paltry part and forego the glorious whole?];
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
21. So let no one boast among men. Vainly do the millionaires, scholars and aristocrats of this world boast over the Lords poor ignoramuses. They know not what they are doing. We have all things and they are our slaves. For all things are yours.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
1Co 3:21 a. Desired result of the foregoing. After warning us, by quotations from Scripture, not to think, (1Co 3:18) ourselves wise, Paul now says that the same quotations are a reason for not looking upon others as wise and making them the heads of parties.
Exult: 1Co 1:29 : let no one be lifted up because of anything men are or can do. Paul refers evidently to the boasted superiority (1Co 4:6) of certain teachers, which gave rise to the church-parties. All such boasting in men is shut out by the powerlessness of all human wisdom.
1Co 3:21-23. Another reason for not boasting in men.
All things: in the wisest sense, all the men and things (cp. 1Co 1:27) with which we have to do. All these were made by God and were by Him permitted to assume their present form that they may work out, and they are now (Rom 8:28) working out, His purposes of mercy toward us, which are also (so far as we understand them} our own purposes. All things are, therefore, ours; in the sense in which a father’s house belongs to his whole family.
Whether Paul etc.: details included in all things. Whatever powers, acquirements, or spiritual life, Paul possessed, were an enrichment to the whole church. For whatever Paul had, he used for the good of all.
Therefore we cannot exult in one to the depreciation of others. For all exist for our good. That Cephas is not mentioned in 1Co 3:4-5; 1Co 4:6, suggests that the partisans who adopted his name and that of Christ were so few that Paul could leave them out of sight in his general treatment of the matter. His mention here of Cephas, was a courteous acknowledgment that he was an enrichment to the whole church, even to Gentile believers.
The world: 1Co 1:20. A sudden leap from individual men to the entire world. All men and things around us are working out our good.
Life or death: cp. Rom 8:38. The various events of life come that they may develop our spiritual strength and give us opportunities of working for God and thus obtaining eternal reward. And the angel of death is our servant waiting to lead us into the presence of Christ. The infinite variety of circumstances surrounding us today, and the unknown and perhaps quite unexpected events of tomorrow, are God’s gift, working out our good.
All things are yours: triumphant summing up. We look out into the world around and into the unknown future, and say, All these belong to me: for they were created, and are now directed and controlled, by my Father, for my good.
1Co 3:23. As lords of the world we belong to One infinitely greater than ourselves. Only so far as we exist for Christ do all things exist for us. Cp. 1Co 6:19; 1Co 15:23; Rom 14:8.
And Christ is God’s: rising, as usual, from the Son to the Father. So 1Co 1:9; 1Co 3:7; 1Co 4:1; Rom 9:5; Rom 15:5; Rom 15:13; Rom 16:20; Rom 16:25. We have here the great truth that the Son is essentially subordinate to the Father, not as a creature, but as the Son, of God; a truth absolutely essential for a correct view of the unity of the divine Trinity. We belong to Christ, and exist to work out His purposes. And in this subordination our divine Master is our pattern. For the Eternal Son receives His being (Joh 5:26) from, and therefore belongs to, and bows to, the Eternal Father, and exists to work out the Father’s purposes. Cp. 1Co 15:28. See my Romans Dissertation 1. 7. Christ’s absolute devotion to the service of the One Father should deter men from inscribing even His name, as did (1Co 1:12) some at Corinth, on the banner of a party. Whether Paul had this in view in writing these words, we do not know: for the truth here taught was naturally suggested by the foregoing words.
Fuente: Beet’s Commentary on Selected Books of the New Testament
3:21 {11} Therefore let no man {h} glory in men. For all things are {i} yours;
(11) He returns to the proposition of the second verse, first warning the hearers, that from now on they do not esteem as lords those whom God has appointed to be ministers and not lords of their salvation. This is done by those that depend upon men, and not upon God that speaks by them.
(h) Please himself.
(i) Helps, appointed for your benefit.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
"So then" marks the apostle’s conclusion. It is wrong to line up in cliques behind one or another of God’s servants. In doing so, the Corinthians were only limiting God’s blessing on them. They were rejecting God’s good gifts by not appreciating all the people God had sent to help them.
"Perhaps we cannot help but have our personal preferences when it comes to the way different men minister the Word. But we must not permit our personal preferences to become divisive prejudices. In fact, the preacher I may enjoy the least may be the one I need the most!" [Note: Wiersbe, 1:581.]