FOUR The Church and the Trinity
F O U R The Church and the Trinity 1 Corinthians 3
1 C O R I N T H I A N S 3
Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly— mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow
Apollos," are you not mere men?
What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.
By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should
be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness"; and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile." So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.
The Church and the Trinity The apostle reverts in 1 Corinthians 3 to the "divisions" (schismata) in the Corinthian church. In doing so, he attributes them partly to the sins of jealousy and quarrelling (v. 3) but especially to the Corinthians' fundamentally defective view of the church.
Paul's thesis is this: If they had a true view of the church, they would have a true view of the leaders of the church. Indeed, if they had a higher view of the church, they would have a lower and more modest view of its leaders, for there would be no more boasting about men (v. 21).
1 Corinthians 3 is, in fact, one of the great New Testament chapters on the church. Evangelical people are sometimes criticized for being rugged individualists with a poverty-stricken and even nonexistent doctrine of the church. But if this were true, we would have departed from the biblical vision, including that of this chapter.
The connecting link between chapters 2 and 3 is clear. In 2:14
Paul insisted that spiritual truths can be discerned only by spiritual people. Now he tells the Corinthians bluntly that in his view they do not qualify as spiritual people. Brothers, he writes,
I could not address you as spiritual (pneumatikoi) but as worldly (3:1). The last word of this sentence is an unfortunate NIV translation, because Paul's reference is not to the world (kosmos) but to the flesh (sarx), which is our fallen, self-centered and self-indulgent nature. In calling them "carnal" (sarkinoi or sarkikoi; the manuscripts vary), Paul is not suggesting that they are unregenerate. He does not call them psychikoi, the adjective used in
Basic Christian Leadership 2:14 for those who do not possess the Spirit. Besides, he addresses them as brothers, members of God's family. So they are
Christians, yet he indicates that they are not truly "spiritual"
Christians, governed and controlled by the Holy Spirit. So he uses this third term sarkinoi. And he goes on to develop here the same antithesis between those who live according to the Spirit and those who live according to the flesh, with which we are familiar from Galatians 5 and Romans 8.
At the end of verse 1, Paul has a second way of saying the same thing. He now describes the Corinthians not only as "carnal" but as mere infants in Christ. They have experienced new birth by the Spirit but have remained ne4pioi, babies in Christ; they have not yet become teleioi, mature in Christ. In Donald Carson's words, they are still "wretchedly, unacceptably, spiritually immature."1 I fear that Paul would express the same opinion about many congregations today. We rejoice in the statistics of church growth, but it is often growth without depth. There is superficiality and immaturity everywhere.
On what grounds does the apostle make his evaluation of the Corinthian Christians, and lodge his complaint against them?
By what criteria does he conclude that they are carnal, not spiritual; infantile, not mature? He tells us. The two main ways by which we can tell a child and its age are its diet and its behavior.
First, the child's diet. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready (v. 2). "One of the differences between milk and meat," a retired surgeon once pointed out to me, "is that milk is food already digested by another . . . one's mother or a cow or goat. Too often," he continued, "we want our food pre-digested by another," whereas the Lord wants us to digest his word ourselves.2 Just as babies
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begin with milk—easily redigestible—and only gradually move on to solids, so Paul had been obliged to keep feeding the Corinthians with spiritual milk, or the rudiments of the gospel, because they were not yet ready for more solid instruction (cf. Heb
5:12-14; 1 Pet 2:2). That is, in spite of their knowledge, with which they had been enriched (1 Cor 1:5) and of which they boasted, they were still at an elementary stage in their Christian development—"a hard saying for the Corinthians," comments
C. K. Barrett,3 for they were very pleased with themselves.
What is the difference between spiritual meat and spiritual milk? Paul is certainly not saying that the cross is rudimentary teaching which we grow out of. No, "the difference between milk and strong meat . . . is simply the difference between the more or less perfect development of the things taught."4 Similarly, "the argument of 2:6-16 implies that for Paul the gospel of the Crucified One is both 'milk' and 'solid food.' As milk it is the good news of salvation; as solid food it is understanding that the entire Christian life is predicated on the same reality."5
We never grow out of the cross; we rather grow more deeply into it and into the fullness of its implications.
So the continuing need for spiritual milk is the first evidence that the Corinthians are still "babies" in Christ or, reverting to the earlier word, "carnal."
The second criterion by which maturity and immaturity can be assessed is the child's behavior. For since there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not worldly? (v. 3). Here as in verse
1 the NIV rendering "worldly" is misleading. It should again be translated "carnal," remembering that both jealousy and quarrelling are included among "the works of the flesh" (Gal 5:1920 KJV) or "the acts of the sinful nature." "So if you behave like
Basic Christian Leadership this," Paul asks, "are you not carnal?" and Are you not acting like mere men (kata anthro4pon) (1 Cor 3:3), following human instead of divine standards? For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men? (v. 4)—that is, merely human rather than godly in your outlook?
Here, then, is Paul's threefold indictment of the Corinthian Christians. Their behavior was carnal, not spiritual (controlled by their fallen nature instead of by the Holy Spirit); babyish, not mature (suffering from what Freud called "infantile regression," reverting to babyhood, having never grown up); and human, not divine (their mindset being not godly but ungodly).
And the evidence for this carnality, immaturity and ungodliness was partly their doctrinal diet (spiritual milk) and partly their moral failures (jealousy and quarrelling).
All this is of great concern to Christian leaders today, especially to those who have pastoral responsibilities in the local church. It would be hard to find a more appropriate or challenging goal than Paul's: "We proclaim him [Christ], admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect [teleios, better 'mature'] in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me" (Col 1:28-29). We think of Paul as an evangelist, a missionary, a church-planter. But here he thinks of himself as a pastor, resolved above all else to lead his converts into Christian maturity.
The apostle now delves more deeply. He argues that the Corinthians have a defective understanding of the church, or they would never behave as they are doing. He develops three pictures or images of the church, each of which has important implications.
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• The first is an agricultural metaphor: God's field (v. 9).
• The second is an architectural metaphor: God's building (v. 9).
• The third is an ecclesiastical metaphor: God's temple (v. 16).
1. YOU ARE GOD'S FIELD (3:5-9)
Paul asks two indignant questions in verse 5 to begin this thought: What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Note that he does not use the masculine gender and ask politely, "Who?"
He deliberately uses the neuter. As J. B. Lightfoot wrote, the neuter is "much more emphatic" than the masculine: "it expresses greater disdain."6
Now see how he replies to his own questions as to who he and Apollos are: Only servants, through whom you came to believe
(v. 5). That is, Paul and Apollos are not masters to whom the Corinthians owed allegiance but servants—only servants.
Moreover, they are not servants in whom the Corinthians had believed, for they are not the objects of their faith. Neither are they servants from whom the Corinthians had believed, for they were not the authors of their faith. But they are servants through whom the Corinthians had come to believe (agents or instruments through whom God had worked to elicit their faith).
Further, this came about as the Lord has assigned to each his task.
All three parts of verse 5 are designed to demote, even debunk, the leaders whom the Corinthians are improperly elevating.
• These leaders are only things (in the neuter), instruments of divine activity.
• They are only servants, agents through whom God had worked.
• They are only doing the job that has been assigned to them by the Lord.
Basic Christian Leadership So neither the Corinthians nor their leaders have anything to boast about.
In verses 6-8 the apostle identifies the different tasks that have to be done in the church, illustrating them from his agricultural metaphor and applying them to himself and Apollos.
There are three main tasks to be done if a field is to produce a harvest, namely planting the seed, watering the seed, and causing the seed to sprout; or sowing, irrigation and growth. Paul applies this to Corinth historically or chronologically in verse 6.
• First, I planted the seed. That is, Paul reached Corinth first, during his second missionary journey, and evangelized the city (see Acts 18:1-18).
• Next, Apollos watered it. He followed Paul to Corinth. Luke recounts the story in Acts 18:24-26. These two men accomplished their pioneer tasks in relation to the seed.
• But God made it grow.
The tenses of the three verbs in verse 6 enforce Paul's point.
"I planted" is an aorist verb. Paul came to Corinth, proclaimed the gospel, planted the church and moved on. Then along came
Apollos and watered the seed (another aorist verb), and went on his way. But "God made it grow" is an imperfect verb, since all the time—incessantly—through the ministries of both Paul and Apollos, God was giving growth to the seed.
In verse 7 Paul compares with one another the three actors involved in the evangelization of Corinth and the establishment of its church, namely, himself, Apollos and God. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything. Both planting and watering are unskilled and somewhat mechanical jobs. Anybody can do them. It requires no professional expertise to drop seeds into soil or to sprinkle water on the seeds sown. A Ph.D. is not
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necessary. No, what really counts and is indispensable is the mysterious third stage, namely, causing the seed to sprout and bear fruit. No human being can do this. Paul could not do it with all his apostolic authority. Apollos could not do it with all his knowledge of the Scriptures and his famous eloquence. It is only God, who makes things grow.
Paul adds a further point in verses 8-9 which demonstrates the stupidity of the Corinthians' behavior. So far he has stressed that planters and waterers count for nothing in themselves; so it is foolish to exalt their ministries. Now he points out that both the man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose
(v. 8). Their different tasks serve the same goal, namely, to secure a good harvest. So it is silly to set them in competition with each other. Further, each will be rewarded according to his own labor (v. 8). God will do this on judgment day. So it is senseless of the Corinthians to try to anticipate that day by promoting different personalities. For, he concludes, we are God's fellow workers, and you are God's field (v. 9).
We need to interpret this assertion in its context. Since the aim of the whole passage is to downplay the role exercised by human leaders, it is unlikely that the sentence means "We have the privilege of working with God," although to be sure this is taught elsewhere. Here Paul seems to be saying not "We are partners with God" but rather "We are fellow workers [with each other] in God's service" (Revised English Bible).
What lesson are we intended to learn from this first metaphor? The imagery of the field (the planting, the watering and the giving of growth) does not teach everything we want to know about Christian leadership and ministry. It is always dangerous to push an analogy beyond the point at which it is being
Basic Christian Leadership drawn. It is always unwise to argue from an analogy, saying that because the church is a field, everything about fields has a parallel in the church. Instead, we have to ask at what point the analogy is being drawn.
The metaphor of the field says nothing about gifts in distinction to roles and offices, and nothing about the honor attached to being an evangelist, missionary or pastor. For these things we need to look elsewhere in the New Testament. Instead, like most metaphors it is intended to highlight one main point, namely that in God's field (the church) it is God's activity that really matters. God allocates the tasks. God gives the growth.
God rewards the laborers.
So we must give glory not to ourselves as leaders or to our fellow workers but to God the Lord alone. The church would be a happier and more harmonious community if we remembered this principle.
2. YOU ARE GOD'S BUILDING (3:9-16)
The apostle moves on at the end of verse 9 from his agricultural metaphor (you are God's field) to his architectural metaphor (you are God's building). Yet both illustrate what it means to be God's fellow workers, that is, collaborators in the service of God. For whether we are cultivating a field or constructing a building, we are a team of farmers or builders, working together and not laboring on our own, serving a common enterprise, pursuing a common goal.
Just as in God's field one plants and another waters, so on God's building one lays the foundation while another erects the superstructure. Yet the two metaphors do not make precisely the same point. The emphasis in God's field is that only God
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gives the growth, while the emphasis in God's building is that only Christ is its foundation, indeed only Christ crucified.
Again Paul applies the metaphor to himself and other leaders. By the grace God has given me (an expression he uses at least five times in his letters to refer to his commissioning as an apostle of Jesus Christ; see Rom 1:5; 12:3; 1 Cor 15:10; Gal 2:9; Eph
3:7-8), I laid a foundation as an expert builder (1 Cor 3:10). "Expert" translates sophos, "wise." Perhaps Paul is again saying that the true wisdom is in Christ. Certainly Paul had been given the pioneering task of preaching Christ crucified in Corinth (2:2).
He goes on: and someone else is building on it. He makes no mention of Apollos by name, for several teachers had followed Paul, good and bad, true and false.
Paul's main point is to sound a warning to all Christian teachers in regard both to the foundation they lay and to the superstructure they erect on it: each one should be careful how he builds
(1 Cor 3:10). What kind of "carefulness" does he have in mind?
The foundation. Builders should not tamper with a house's foundation once it has been laid, trying to dig it up or relay it.
For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ (v. 11). This is the foundation Paul had laid
(v. 10). As we love to sing, "The church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord," and this is not another Jesus (cf. 2 Cor 11:4) but the Jesus of the apostolic witness, who is the only authentic
Jesus—namely, Jesus the crucified one. "Paul does not mean," writes C. K. Barrett, "that it would be impossible to construct a community on a different basis, only that such a community will not be the church."7
The superstructure. Builders also have to be very careful about the materials they use in erecting the superstructure.
Basic Christian Leadership Broadly speaking, there are only two possibilities. One is gold, silver, costly stones (probably marble). These are valuable and durable (cf. 1 Chron 29:2) and represent true Christian teaching that will stand the test of time and of the judgment day. The other possibility is wood, hay or straw. These are cheap, perishable materials and represent false teaching or the wisdom of the world. In both cases the quality of the materials used by the builders (i.e., the teachers) will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work (1 Cor 3:12-13).
What will be the result of this trial by fire? Just as there are two possible materials, so there will be two results. On the one hand, if the builder's work is made of durable material (gold, silver, marble) it will survive, and he will receive his reward (v.
14). On the other hand, if his work is made of combustible materials (wood, hay, straw), it will be consumed. In this case he will suffer loss, and his teaching will be seen to be valueless. But in the mercy of God he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames (v. 15), or as we might say, "only by the skin of his teeth." He will lose his reward but not his salvation.
There is surely here no allusion to purgatory, as Roman Catholic commentators tend to argue. The reference is to teachers in particular and not to all believers, and the purpose of the fire is not to purify (as in purgatory) but to test and to judge. As T. C. Edwards writes, Paul "speaks of a probation, not of a purification."8
Paul issues a solemn warning here to all Christian teachers.
The Christian teaching ministry is of the greatest importance because it is designed to build up the church. If what we teach is true, biblical and balanced, we shall be adding a valuable
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building to the foundation, and it will last. If, however, our teaching is unbiblical, the wisdom of the world, then we are adding a ramshackle superstructure that will not survive. Thus what we teach will bless or harm the church not only for time but even for eternity.
3. YOU ARE GOD'S TEMPLE (3:16-17)
First Corinthians 3:16-17 is an extension of Paul's architectural metaphor, since of course a temple is a building. But the apostle develops it differently, since he is thinking of one particular and religious building, the temple, indeed the inner sanctuary, which is what naos really means.
Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple? Paul asks (v. 16). No fewer than ten times in this letter the apostle asks the same question, Don't you know? He attributes the Corinthians' failures to their ignorance or forgetfulness. If only they knew, they would behave differently. Paul sees Christian understanding as the key to Christian holiness, especially our understanding of our identity as the people of God.
In the Old Testament, the essence of the temple in Jerusalem, as of the tabernacle before it, is that it was the dwelling place of God. "I will dwell among them," God had said (Ex 25:8). He promised that the Shekinah glory, the visible symbol of his presence, would inhabit and illumine the Holy of Holies. And the major promise regarding the rebuilt temple was that "the name of the city. . . will be: THE LORD IS THERE" (Ezek 48:35).
In the New Testament, however, God's temple or dwelling place is his people. Now the individual Christian's body (1 Cor
6:19), now the local church (3:16) and now the universal church (including Gentiles) "are being built together to become
Basic Christian Leadership a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit" (Eph 2:22).
So in God's sanctuary today—namely, the church—there is neither an image (as in pagan temples) or a symbol (like the Shekinah glory in the Jerusalem temple) but the Holy Spirit of God himself (1 Cor 3:16). The sacred wonder of the church, therefore, is that it is the dwelling place of God by his Spirit. Of course, "church" means people, not buildings, and God's presence is tied not to buildings but to his covenant people, to whom he has pledged himself. Wherever they are, there he is also, especially when they assemble for worship, even in small numbers, for then he is there in their midst (Mt 18:20). He promises also to be with them when they go on their mission
(28:20).
Because of the sacred nature of the Christian community as the dwelling place of God, it must not be dishonored in any way—divided by jealousies and rivalries, deceived by false teaching or defiled by immoral conduct. These things are acts of sacrilege; they effectively destroy the church, for they destroy its unique identity as the holy people of God indwelt by the Spirit of God. And if anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple (1 Cor
3:17). This is a severe statement. But then to destroy the church (by dividing, deceiving or defiling it) is an extremely serious offense. So a deliberate act of violence against the church is an act against God. This surely shows that the perpetrator in mind is not a true believer. He will be destroyed in hell, for that is what destruction means in the New Testament.
We need to keep reminding ourselves that the church is God's sanctuary. It may (in our view) consist of uneducated, unclean, unattractive people. And the congregation may be
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small and, like the Corinthian church, immature and factious.
Nevertheless, it is the church of God (1:2), his dwelling place by his Spirit, and needs to be treated as such. Looking back over this chapter so far, note Paul's threefold, indeed trinitarian portrayal of the church. It highlights the role of God (Father,
Son and Holy Spirit) in relation to the church, and it thereby downplays the role of human beings, especially of leaders.
What matters most about the church, Paul insists, is that as God's field its growth is caused by God himself, as God's building its only foundation is Jesus Christ, and as God's temple it is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. This is the apostle's comprehensive vision of the church. It owes its existence and growth to God the Father. It is built on the foundation of God the Son. It is indwelt by God the Holy Spirit. It is a unique, trinitarian community. There is no other community in the world that even remotely resembles it.
In verses 18-23 Paul wraps up his godly perspective on the church by a further reference to wisdom and folly. For the wisdom of God includes his new society. So if the Corinthian
Christians belittle God's church by exalting human leaders, they are showing their folly, not their wisdom. Do not deceive yourselves, Paul writes. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age (i.e., according to the prevailing wisdom of the world), he should be willing to become a "fool" (in the eyes of the world) so that he may become truly wise (v. 18). For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. To clinch his argument Paul quotes two verses from the Old Testament wisdom literature, namely, Job 5:13 and Psalm 94:11. Both express
God's rejection of worldly wisdom. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness" (v. 19), and again, "The Lord knows that
Basic Christian Leadership the thoughts of the wise are futile" (v. 20).
What was needed, then? The Corinthians needed to repent of their boastful, self-centered human wisdom and to develop a new humility, summed up in the slogan no more boasting about men! (v. 21). This is the climax of the passage, although Paul goes on to finalize his thesis. Instead of taking pride in their leaders, and claiming to belong to them, the exact opposite was the case. All things are yours (v. 21), whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas (Peter; v. 22). That is to say, far from the Corinthians belonging to their leaders, if anybody belonged to anybody in the Christian community, their leaders belonged to them. The Corinthians were not to say, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Peter," for Paul and Peter were theirs.
More than that. Not only are your leaders yours, Paul continues, but all things are yours, including the world or life or death or the present or the future. It is an almost incredible statement, but the reason for it is plain. All things are ours because we are
Christ's and Christ is God's (v. 23). As in Romans 8:17, we are "heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ." So what belongs to him belongs to us, if he is ours.
This question of who belongs to whom in the church is still a vital issue today. When I was ordained over fifty years ago, the accepted way to begin a letter to a bishop was "My Lord," while the accepted conclusion was "I am your lordship's obedient servant." I am glad that I managed to keep it up for only a year or two, and that this form of address has long since been discontinued. But it should never have been begun.
Similarly, I doubt if pastors and church elders are wise to use the possessive adjective in relation to the church and refer to "my church," "my people," "my congregation." They do not be-
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long to us, nor do we have any proprietary rights over them. It would be entirely biblical for them to refer to us as their ministers. But when we speak of them, it would be more modest to allude to them as "the people we have been called to serve." For we are their servants; they are not ours.
CONCLUSION
We urgently need a healthy, biblical understanding of the church, for only then shall we have a healthy, biblical understanding of Christian leadership. We must not define the church in terms of its leaders but rather define leaders in relation to the church.
We must also renounce secular views of the church as a merely human institution like any other corporate body, with human leaders wielding human authority and being lionized as celebrities. All that has to go.
In their place we need to develop a godly view of the church as a unique community unlike any other: the redeemed and covenant people of God. In this community ministers give humble service. There is no boasting about human beings, but all boasting is directed to God the Holy Trinity: to God the Father, who alone gives growth to the seed, to God the Son, who alone is the foundation of the church, and to God the Holy
Spirit, who alone indwells and sanctifies the church.
So "no more boasting about men!" (1 Cor 3:21), but "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord" (1:31).