Ponderings on 1 Corinthians Chapters 1 – 4 (2)

“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?