B. Thanksgiving (1:4–9)
B. Thanksgiving (1:4–9)
Paul usually has a thanksgiving at the beginning of his letters. In view of his trenchant criticisms of the Corinthians some feel that this particular thanksgiving is ironical. There seems no real basis for this. Paul does not give thanks for qualities in the Corinthians like faith and love (contrast 1 Thess. 1:2–3), but for what God’s grace has in fact done in them. With all its faults, ‘the Christian community at Corinth must have presented as a whole a marvellous contrast to their heathen fellow-citizens’ (Lightfoot on v. 5).
4–5. Merely human achievement means little to Paul; in the flesh ‘nothing good lives’ (Rom. 7:18). He gives thanks, not for what the Corinthians have done of themselves, but for what God’s grace given … in Christ Jesus has accomplished in them. He singles out two points, speaking, the telling forth of the truth, and knowledge, the grasp of the truth (Robertson points out that it is important to have something worth saying and not mere fluency). ‘He selects the gifts of which the Corinthians were especially proud’ (Parry). He later combines the two in ‘the word of knowledge’ (12:8).
6. Our testimony about Christ points to the derivative nature of the gospel. The gospel is the good news of what God has done; all that the preachers do is pass it on, bear their witness to it. This witness was confirmed in the Corinthians. The verb is often used in the papyri in the legal sense of guaranteeing.2 Paul is saying that the changed lives of the Corinthians, specifically their ‘speaking’ and their ‘knowledge’ (v. 5), demonstrated the validity of the message preached to them. The effects of the preaching were the guarantee of its truth.
7. The result (Therefore) of all this is that the Corinthians lack no spiritual gift (charisma). This word is used (a) of salvation (Rom. 5:15), (b) of God’s good gifts in general (Rom. 11:29), and (c) of special endowments of the Spirit (12:4ff.). Here the thought is the wider one (b). God has enriched their lives so that they lack no spiritual gift. The reference to the Lord’s second coming is unexpected. But the present foretaste of the Spirit may well turn our thoughts to the fuller experience that awaits us at the last great day (cf. Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:13–14). The word revealed (actually the noun ‘revelation’) points to the fuller knowledge that the coming of the Lord will bring (cf. 2 Thess. 1:7). We shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2). Believers wait, not in apathy, but in positive hope (cf. Conzelmann).
8. The verb keep you strong is that translated ‘was confirmed’ in v. 6. Christ, who has enriched the Corinthians and given them grace and every good gift, is their guarantee that right through until the last time nothing will be lacking to them. The enriching with the Spirit’s gifts is itself an assurance, a foretaste of the good things to come. Just as the end of time may be referred to as the ‘revelation’ of Christ (v. 7), so it may be spoken of as the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament looks for the coming of ‘the day of the LORD’ (Amos 5:18); the New sees this as the day of Christ. Here the thought is that because it is his day and because it is he who will ‘guarantee’ the Corinthians, they may be assured that they will be blameless in that day. No charge can be laid against those whom Christ guarantees (cf. Rom. 8:33).
9. This is not a vain boast. It is a sure confidence grounded in the fact that God … is faithful. The Corinthians may confidently look for the continuance of his blessing, for his character is at stake. Paul goes back to beginnings. The faithful God has called the Corinthian Christians into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Paul has said that he is an apostle because of the divine call (v. 1). Now we see that there is a call to every believer. It is because God has called us and not on account of some initiative of our own that we have become Christians, NIV takes the genitive after koinōnia as subjective, ‘fellowship with’ (as fellowship with the Spirit, Phil. 2:1). But such a genitive may be objective, ‘fellowship in’ (as ‘fellowship in his sufferings’, Phil. 3:10). Here it is possible that Paul means that the fellowship is a common partaking of Christ (cf. NEB, ‘called you to share in the life of his Son’). But the genitive of a person is more likely to be subjective and we should accept fellowship with his Son as the meaning (Ellicott thinks it is both, fellowship ‘in Him and with Him’). The word is the direct opposite of ‘divisions’ in v. 10. It is fellowship with (and in) Christ to which we are called, not divisions from one another.
We should notice the way Paul dwells on the name of his Saviour. Nine times in these nine verses he makes use of this name, and he will do it again in the next verse. Christ is absolutely central. Paul lingers lovingly over the name.