A. Salutation (1:1–3)
1Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,
2To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:
3Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul’s two earlier letters (1 and 2 Thessalonians) elaborate very little on the three parts of the salutation. With the elaborations of this letter Paul begins a habit that will carry through to the end. In each case the elaborations reflect, either directly or subtly, many of the concerns about to be raised in the letter itself. Even as he formally addresses the church in the salutation, Paul’s mind is already at work on the critical behavioral and theological issues at hand.
1 The two letters to the Thessalonians begin simply “Paul and Silvanus and Timothy.” Here Paul is joined by a co-worker, “our brother Sosthenes.” But before he adds the name of Sosthenes to his own, he affirms that he himself is “called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God.” This word order almost certainly excludes the possibility of Sosthenes’ being an apostle; but Paul’s reason for the insertion lies elsewhere. The Corinthians are a church at odds with their founder: they are judging him (4:1–5) and examining him as to his apostleship (9:1–23). Later (4:15; 9:1–2) he will present further evidence for his apostleship (he founded the church; he saw the risen Lord), but because this church is questioning that apostleship, he begins by asserting its divine origins. Since such an assertion would ordinarily be quite unnecessary (see, e.g., 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon), and given the considerable tensions between them and Paul, it seems unlikely that this emphasis would have escaped notice in Corinth.
Paul stresses three items in this assertion. First, his apostleship is by divine “call” (elsewhere only in Romans). Although the words “to be” are not in the Greek text, nothing else could be meant by the juxtaposed words “called apostle.” He does not intend this as a title to which he has the right and by which he is properly to be called, as in “Paul, called an apostle” (cf. 15:9, where this usage occurs in a negative sense: he is not worthy to be called an apostle). Rather, he is insisting that this is his “calling,” his divine vocation, just as he will go on to affirm (v. 2) that being “God’s holy people” is their calling.
Second, Paul emphasizes the divine origin of his apostleship with the addition “by the will of God.” Such an addition may seem redundant to his being called; however, with this phrase Paul grounds his apostleship, beyond its historical realization in his “call,” in its ultimate origins in the divine purposes. For Paul salvation itself has its point of origin, and therefore its certainty, in the divine will (cf. Gal. 1:4; Eph. 1:3–11), as does the apostleship that through the Spirit’s effectual working announces that salvation to others. In all of this Paul is affirming that God’s action is always the prior one. His own position in Christ, as well as his ministry, is predicated on God’s call, which is but the expression of God’s prior will. Above all else, this sense of call based on God’s will is what fills the apostle with such confidence in his ministry. It also leads to the apparent ambiguity that so many moderns find in him. On the one hand, he can be completely self-effacing in terms of his own person or personal role; on the other hand, he can be absolutely unyielding when it comes to his ministry as such. The latter issues from his confidence that his apostleship had come not by his own choosing but strictly “by the will of God.”
Third, he describes the nature of his vocation as an “apostle of Christ Jesus.” Paul had already used this term in his earliest letter (1 Thess. 2:7) as a designation for himself and his co-workers; its several occurrences in 1 Corinthians demonstrate that it had already become a fixed term in the church to designate a certain group of authoritative people. It obviously includes the Twelve, but also goes considerably beyond them (15:5–7). Part of the problem with the term is that it has a sense of function as well as that of office or position. That is, it primarily had to do with some who were “sent” by Christ to preach the gospel (cf. 1:17). But those who were so sent, and especially those who founded churches as a result of their evangelizing, came to be known as apostles, a designation that had inherent in it a sense of position as well (esp. for those who were directly associated with Christ in his earthly ministry). In Paul the functional and positional usages nearly coalesce. The emphasis in this instance clearly falls on his position of authority in relationship to the church in Corinth; but that position is predicated on his relationship to “Christ Jesus,” as one who was sent by Christ to found this (and other) church(es). Thus the phrase “of Christ Jesus,” although perhaps a possessive, is more likely a subjective genitive, emphasizing the origin of Paul’s apostleship more than his belonging to Christ.
To his own name Paul adds that of “our brother Sosthenes” (lit. “Sosthenes the brother”). Although Paul frequently is joined by others in the writing of his letters (eight times in all), this is a rare phenomenon in antiquity, and one cannot be certain what to make of it. In the letters to the Thessalonians the inclusion of Silas and Timothy is probably to be regarded as their joining in the actual writing of the letter, since the verbs and pronouns throughout are in the first person plural (“we give thanks,” “be imitators of us” [cf. 1 Cor. 4:16!], etc.). So also with 2 Corinthians. But this letter has little or none of that. Sosthenes is not further heard from as a companion or co-worker of Paul, either in this letter or elsewhere. That he is probably to be considered a co-worker is suggested by the absolute use of “the brother” (cf. 16:12; 2 Cor. 1:1; etc.), although in this case, since Sosthenes seems to have had nothing to do with the letter as such, it may be merely the means of identifying one of Paul’s present companions who is well known to the Corinthians. Perhaps in this case he is also serving as Paul’s secretary (cf. 16:21), but that too is conjecture.
The identification of this Sosthenes is also uncertain. It may be that he is the Sosthenes mentioned by Luke (Acts 18:17), the leader of the synagogue in Corinth, who was beaten in the presence of Gallio. If so, then he would have become a believer and was now with Paul in Ephesus. This identification is made the more probable by the simple designation of him as “the [my/our?] brother,” implying that at least he was known to the Corinthians.
2 If the superscription (v. 1) is subtly directed toward the situation in Corinth, even more so is the address proper. The letter is addressed to “the church of God in Corinth.” In his earlier two letters Paul had written to the church of the Thessalonians in God. Here they are the church of God in Corinth. The church belongs to God (cf. 3:9), not to them or to Paul (or Apollos), and by this slight change in the address Paul disallows at the outset one of their tendencies—to think too highly of themselves.
The letter is addressed to the whole church, with no indication of parties or factions. Furthermore, one finds no mention of leaders, nor any appeal to them in the body of the letter, as one does, for example, in Philippians (1:1 and 4:3). Rather, the entire community is addressed, and what is said here and throughout is said to all.
The use of the term “church” (ekklēsia) to designate these early Christian communities was ready-made for them (cf. 1 Thess. 1:1; 2:14; etc.). It already had been used in the LXX to refer to Israel as a gathered people (see Deut. 4:10 and scores of other references), and in the Greek world it was used especially of the body politic, assembled to conduct the affairs of state (hence the concern for the illegal ekklēsia in Acts 19:39). In its use as a term for the local community of believers the emphasis still often lay on their being a gathered community (cf. 5:1–5; 11:18; 14:23), but it also came to serve as the primary designation for themselves as the newly constituted, eschatological people of God, who had submitted to the risen Christ as Lord, and thus awaited his return.
This is the only case in the extant letters of Paul of an extensive elaboration of the address. He says first that they are “sanctified in Christ Jesus.” As with Paul’s apostleship, the emphasis lies on their becoming God’s people as the result of divine activity. What God has done “in Christ Jesus” makes them God’s new people. The verb “sanctified” probably should be understood as a metaphor for Christian conversion (cf. 6:11 and 1:30). However, the choice of this particular metaphor is hardly accidental. Believers are set apart for God, just as were the utensils in the temple. But precisely because they are “set apart” for God, they must also bear the character of the God who has thus set them apart. Thus holiness forms part of the divine intention in saving a people who belong to God alone (cf. 1 Thess. 4:3; 5:23). Paul’s concept of holiness regularly entails observable behavior, thus “holy living.” That will be particularly the case in this letter, which is addressed to a community whose “spirituality” and “higher wisdom” have been largely divorced from ethical consequences. Thus at the outset his readers are singularly identified as the “church of God, sanctified in Christ Jesus.”
They are also “called to be his holy people.” As with the opening elaboration regarding his own name (v. 1), this may sound redundant. The difficulty lies in finding a proper English translation for hagiois (“holy”). The traditional rendering, “saints,” contained too many misleading connotations to be of present value. The term itself had its origins in the exodus narrative, where the Israelites are called God’s “holy people” (Exod. 19:5–6), an expression that in later Judaism referred to the elect who were to share in the blessings of the messianic kingdom (Dan. 7:18–27; Ps. Sol. 17; Qumran). Thus it is another OT term for Israel, especially Israel as God’s elect, which has been appropriated by the NT writers for the newly formed people of God. Again, the use of this particular term, with its root concept of being “holy,” cannot be incidental. The rendering of the present NIV, “[God’s] holy people,” captures both ideas. Thus, just as Paul is an apostle by divine calling, so the Corinthian believers are God’s newly formed people by divine calling, who as such are to reflect God’s character. One might note in passing that this is not their strong suit; in too many ways they look far more like Corinth than they do God’s holy people in Corinth.
But what exactly did Paul intend by the next phrase, “together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours”? Grammatically it could go either with Paul and Sosthenes, suggesting that the whole church universal is somehow to be seen as joining in the writing of this letter (which seems quite unlikely), or with “called to be God’s holy people,” or with “the church of God in Corinth.” Similar usage elsewhere (2 Cor. 1:1; Phil. 1:1) suggests that the latter is intended. But what can it mean in this case? Surely not, as in the other two instances, that the letter is addressed to all Christians everywhere. Despite the difficulty with the syntax, Paul’s own point seems clear enough. The pneumatikoi in Corinth seem to have struck an independent course, both from Paul and therefore also from the rest of the churches (see 4:17; 11:16; 14:33; and esp. 14:36). So Paul starts by giving them a gentle nudge to remind them that their own calling to be God’s people belongs to a much larger picture. In the new people that God is creating for himself in the coming age that has already dawned, the Corinthians have a share with all “the saints,” fellow believers “in every place” who also “call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” that is, who have put their trust in him and pray to and worship him. What Paul will say to the Corinthians, he reminds them regularly, is what he has said to all the churches.
The universal nature of the church is further emphasized by the phrase “everywhere” (lit. “in every place”). “Everywhere” is probably not quite the nuance of Paul’s Greek, which rather implies “in every meeting-place.” Thus the Corinthians are being reminded that they are not alone; rather there are those all over the world who call on the name of the Lord when they meet together. That this is Paul’s point seems certain by the final addition of “theirs and ours,” which probably in this instance is intended to go beyond his own churches to all the churches of God’s newly formed “holy people.” The one whom the Corinthians call “Lord” is also Lord of the whole church, and as such is finally to have his way among them as he does in the other churches.
Thus in a variety of little ways, even in the salutation, Paul scores some points he must make later in specific ways in response to their attitudes and actions.
3 The salutation proper had already achieved its basic form in Paul’s two earlier letters. In 1 Thessalonians the simple “grace to you and peace” appears; in 2 Thessalonians he adds the source, “from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” the form (with the addition of “our”) it would take thereafter (except for Colossians).
Here is a marvelous example of Paul’s Christianizing whatever he put his hand to. The traditional greeting in the Hellenistic world was chairein— the infinitive of the verb “to rejoice,” but in salutations meaning simply “Greetings!” (see Acts 15:23; Jas. 1:1). In Paul’s hands this now becomes charis (“grace”), to which is added the traditional Jewish greeting shalom (“peace”). Thus instead of “greetings,” it is “grace to you—and peace.” In a sense this sums up the whole of Paul’s theological outlook. The sum total of all of God’s activity toward his human creatures is found in the word “grace”; God has given himself to them mercifully and bountifully in Christ. Nothing is deserved; nothing can be achieved: “ ’Tis mercy all, immense and free.” And the sum total of those benefits as they are experienced by the recipients of God’s grace is found in the word “peace,” meaning “well-being, wholeness, welfare.” The one flows out of the other, and both together flow from “God our Father” (see ) and were made effective in human history through our “Lord Jesus Christ.”
The collocation of Father and Son in such texts as these must not be overlooked. If in later passages (8:6; 11:3; 15:26–28) there is a functional subordination of the Son to the Father in terms of Christ’s “work,” texts such as this one (cf. 1 Thess. 3:11 and 1 Cor. 12:4–6) make it clear that in Paul’s mind the Son is truly God and works in cooperation with the Father in the redemption of God’s people.
A final note, therefore, about the salutation as a whole, namely its christological emphasis. Paul is an apostle of Christ Jesus; the Corinthians have become believers (“were sanctified”) in Christ Jesus; Christians universal are designated as those who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; and grace and peace from God the Father are effected through our Lord Jesus Christ. A similar emphasis will be seen in the following thanksgiving, an emphasis that had already taken place a few years before in his earliest two preserved letters (1 and 2 Thessalonians) and therefore by now had become commonplace for him.