“Paul, called as an apostle of
Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of
God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus,
saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 1:1-3/NASB).
One of my professors, when
discussing public speaking, said, “The difference between an amateur and a
professional is that an amateur will ask, “What do you want me to speak on?”;
while a professional will ask, “Tell me about my audience.” To whom is Paul
writing?
He is writing to the church, the
called-out people of God, a collective group of people in Corinth who are in
the world but not of the world; they are physically in the world but their lives,
their souls, their hearts, their minds have been called out of the world (John
Chapter 17; John 15:18 – 16:4; 1 John 2:15 – 17). These people no longer live
by the life of the world, they once were dead but now they are alive in Christ
Jesus (Romans 12:1-2; Ephesians 2:1 – 10).
This ought to challenge us. Where
do we live our lives? Where is our thought life? What do our hearts ponder?
What are we hungering and thirsting for? Are our congregations a distinctive
people? Do our congregations manifest the priorities of God’s Kingdom or the changing
values of earthly society?
Paul is writing “to those who
have been sanctified in Christ Jesus.” The idea of sanctification and holiness
(in Greek the same word family) is twofold, carrying the meanings of being set apart
unto God, and being made pure by God and unto God. In Christ we have been sanctified, we are being
sanctified, and one day our sanctification will be completed and fully
manifested in our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1:8 looks forward to the consummation
of our transformation into the image of Jesus Christ).
Here is another challenge for us.
There is a defective view of salvation and the plan of God which says, “God
saved me to take me to heaven, therefore in this life I will be preoccupied
with going to heaven.” If, when we think of “going to heaven,” we are thinking
of, and anticipating, living in the deep Presence of God with His saints; if we
are looking for that city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God
(Hebrews 11), then we are on the right path. But if our perspective is simply
one of salvation as a fire escape, well then, we are missing the plan of God –
for God’s plan for humanity predates “the Fall” – and before “the Fall” there
was certainly no need for a fire escape.
1 Peter 1:1 – 9 gives us a
picture of our multi-faceted salvation. Peter looks backwards to the
foreknowledge of God and His choosing; Peter looks at God’s present work of
salvation within us, and then Peter looks forward to the completion and full
manifestation of God’s sanctifying work within us. Salvation is so much more
than getting a ticket punched, it is holistically our transformation into the image
of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29) as individuals and as the People of God (Ephesians
4:13).
If we think that the Christian
life is about “getting saved” and then waiting to die and go to heaven the
chances are that we’ll be preoccupied with ourselves, not receptive to the work
of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God in our transformation into the image of
Christ, not unduly concerned with the witness and worship and transformation of
the People of God (the Church), and that we’ll not be “seeking the Face of God”
– that is, intimacy with the Trinity will not be important. This is akin to
being delivered from slavery and still living and thinking like a slave, or to
being raised from the dead and still living like a dead person (there is one to
ponder), or to living like an orphaned pauper and then finding out you are the
daughter or son of a king or a rich family and continuing to eat out of garbage
cans.
Are we living like those who have
been “called out” and who are being sanctified? Is this our mentality? Is this
our heart-life? What do our actions tell us and others? Our words?
Paul is also writing to those who
are “called saints” or “saints by calling.” When Paul writes to churches, with the
exceptions of Galatians and the two letters to Thessalonica, he addresses his
audience as “saints”, which can also be translated as “holy ones.” This word is
from the same root as “sanctification” and carries the same double meaning – set
apart to God and made pure by God. Once again, we have been called saints, we
are being called saints, and the fulness of our sainthood will one day be fully
manifested in Jesus Christ – after all, John sees a “holy city” descending from
the heavens (Revelation 21:2). Are we living in that holy city today? Are we
participating in the expression and descent of that City today?
If Paul knew what he was doing,
if Paul knew his audience, then Paul never wrote a letter (at least an extant
letter) to sinners. I am not sure why we often insist otherwise – for we are
not talking about our works but rather the perfect work of God in Christ. We
ought not to teach and preach the same way with the same content to the church
that we do evangelistically – those are two different audiences. Granted, we
often have a mixture in our congregations, but surely the center of gravity
ought to be on what Christ has accomplished, on His perfect work; including His
work in bringing us from darkness to light, from death to life, and from being
sinners to being saints by His calling and work.
Considering what follows in 1
Corinthians – sexual immorality for example – you would think that if Paul
wanted to set a motivational stage for leveraging the thinking and emotions of his
readers to obedience that he would have called them miserable sinners rather than
saints; but Paul knew, as we ought to know, that what Christ has accomplished Christ
has accomplished; and that our identify is in Christ, not in who or what we
were outside Christ. When we consider verses 4 – 9 we’ll see that Paul extends and
expands this view of sanctification and being “called saints” as he confirms
the work of Christ and the identity of the Corinthian believers in Christ.
This in turn plays into Chapter
Two, for he appeals to the Corinthians as saints, not as those living in the
natural. In Chapter Three Paul will contrast the way they are living with who
they are (which he begins to do in 1:10), they are saints (1:1 – 9) but they
are living like “mere men.”
If I am a sinner then it should
be no surprise if I live like a sinner, but if I am a saint then it is a
disgrace to live like a sinner. This is about Jesus Christ, it is not really
about us.
Verses 1 – 9 also anticipate the
great resurrection chapter (15), for one Day we will fully bear the image of
the heavenly; we are no longer of the earth and earthly.
Paul knew his audience. Do we
know our audience? Do we know who we are in Jesus Christ?
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