1 Corinthians 4

1 Corinthians 4:8-21

Section 5. (1 Corinthians 4:8-21.)Conditions of the way. We now come to the conditions of the path, conditions which the Corinthians were violating altogether. No connection can be plainer in the word of God than that between a present suffering with Christ and reigning with Him by and by. If they suffered, they would also reign; but was this then, in fact, their condition? It was quite otherwise. They were refusing the place of suffering, and taking the greatest pains to escape that which should have been their real glory. The apostle calls them back to the ways in Christ which they might have seen in him, and of which Timothy would remind them, -ways which were altogether in accordance with the doctrine that he taught.

In fact, how much the ways, the heart, therefore, which is manifested in them, tends to produce the doctrine. It is thus, in fact, that all heresies come in; and with that great truth of the coming of the Lord even, which brings us so sharply to the judgment of God which will then take place upon all our ways; and that is how, plainly, the Lord Himself has emphasized that men say first of all in their hearts, “My Lord delayeth His coming.” The doctrine accordant with this is often not hard to make out, even from Scripture.

1. This, then, was the condition of the Corinthians. They were full, they were rich, they had reigned as kings, “without us,” adds the apostle. It is plain that the apostles were not reigning. He would wish indeed that they did reign all together, but on the contrary, the apostles were in this respect the very last and lowest, instead of having a foremost place in the world; they were a spectacle to the world for their sufferings, nay, to angels also as well as men. How false a test, then, of a Christian’s condition, is what men would call his prosperity! As to the Church in general also, how false a test would this he! The Church indeed at large has followed. as we know, the Corinthians in this way.

It is reigning far more than suffering. It has exhibited in the fullest way this prudence in Christ upon which the apostle remarks here, a prudence which was employed not to avoid what would be hindrances in the way of others, but difficulties in their own way. They were full, “sated” as the word is, but of necessity they were not then in communion with the apostles in this respect, and the same test remains for us and must remain. Are we or not in communion with the apostles? They remained, as we know, until their end in martyr deaths, for the most part, just in the condition the apostle describes here. We cannot reverse that record; and if communion is something more than merely with our own time and generation, if we are to bring it up to the apostolic standard, then what a test of our life and ways does this apostolic record become!

We can see also by this, that the world would remain the world until the day of Christ. Man’s day would characterize it to the end.

He expected no difference. He had no such doctrine as that Christianity was to be a leaven in the world, which was gradually to change the whole condition of things. On the contrary, the Christian’s course would always be one necessitating suffering. As the apostle says elsewhere: “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” No doubt the general character of things will affect in measure this also, but as to the principle, it remains entirely untouched; and these instructors among the Corinthians, of whom he says that they were indeed not fathers, God had not set His seal to their work as He had to those who established that church at Corinth, -these instructors might find for themselves, also, an easy path in leading men in the way of their own wills and desires. He does not, as already said, even mention their names. He will not allow himself to be exposed even to jangle with them.

God, as is implied here, was not with them, and that was enough. As a father to those whom he had begotten in Christ through the gospel, he could beseech them to be imitators of him. 2. On this account, therefore, he was sending to them now Timotheus, himself fulfilling his name, one who faithfully “honored God,” and who would put them in mind, as they needed, of ways which were in Christ, -of the doctrine they had received, and he was giving to them nothing more than in this way: What he said was that they should develop in practice that which they had received. His ways he could boldly profess (and indeed it was evident) were according to the teaching which he had delivered to them. He was coming also himself. His heart plainly urged him to this, but if he came, the question which made him, we may say, hesitate, was that of the manner in which be would have to come to them. Was he to come to exercise apostolic authority and to deal with them with a rod, which God after all had given him, or was he to come as he desired, in love and in the spirit of meekness? They were puffed up, some at least, as if he would not come; but when he came it would not be the speech of those that were puffed up that would be seen, but what was the power; for the “kingdom of God,” he says, “is not in word, but in power.” Power must of necessity characterize a rule of God wherever it existed.