04.013. The Christian's Inventory

The Christian’s Inventory All are yours; and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s-- 1 Corinthians 3:22-23.

Here nine possessions are enumerated, but they belong to four classes: Paul, Apollos, Cephas (Peter), as representative preachers and teachers, may stand for the whole body of the ministry of the Church; the world is all inclusive of the whole temporal order (κοσμος, the most comprehensive of the terms, translated “world”). Life and Death belong together as embracing all human history. Things present and to come include all duration, both temporal and eternal. Thus we are here told that all spiritual teachers and ministers, the whole creative order, the entire experience of our mortal career, and the whole succession of events in time and eternity, are made to serve the highest interests of a child of God.

Then the basis of this universal possession is declared to be this; that the believer is by faith linked indissolubly with Christ, even as Christ is with God! There is thus a golden chain with three links: first, that which links God with all things; next, the link which unites God with Christ; and third, the link between Christ and the believer. Thus, through his vital connection with Christ, and Christ’s with God, the humblest regenerate soul becomes, with the Godhead, joint proprietor and possessor of all things. This suggests: