SERIES: Christ is the Answer When the Church is in Crisis
Back to the Basics
Introduction: The world’s greatest evangelist of all time was on his second of three great missionary journeys, planting churches around Greece and Turkey, when he first visited the city of Corinth. He had just come from Athens, about 50 miles to the northeast, where he experienced a rather disappointing reception to the Gospel message. The philosophers who debated him on Mars Hill, just below the Acropolis, ridiculed his witness to the resurrection of the dead, though a few believed and became disciples.
If Athens was the intellectual and cultural capital of the ancient world, its neighboring city of Corinth was the commercial and sin capital. Corinth stood on a little neck of land between the Aegean Sea and the Adriatic Sea in southern Greece. Since the route around the islands to the south was very treacherous, almost all ships from the east or west stopped at one of Corinth’s two ports and transported their goods, and sometimes even the ships, overland. Eventually an amazing canal was dug through five miles of solid rock and 500 feet deep in places, but it was not there in Paul’s day.
Corinth was swarming with sailors. They had no better reputations then than they have today, so it’s not surprising Corinth was known as a city of vice and corruption. Paul, however, saw it as a city with a great need for the Gospel. Acts 18 tells the story of his initial visit to Corinth.
Paul’s philosophy of ministry was always one of identification with the community, so he found a couple who were engaged in the same trade as himself, tentmaking, obtained board and room in their home, and used his Sabbath days to preach in the synagogue. Not only did that couple, Aquila and Priscilla, come to faith in Christ, but so did the president of the synagogue. That raised the ire of the other Jews significantly, and they took the opportunity provided by the arrival of a new Roman governor to take Paul to court. Their complaint was dismissed because it was without merit, and Paul was able to continue his ministry in the city, staying 18 months in all. The next president of the synagogue, interestingly, also converted to faith in Christ, and by the time Paul moved on, there was a viable Christian church established in Corinth.
After Paul left, however, things began to deteriorate. Spiritual termites got into the church and began to undermine the foundation. Paul received word that things were a mess, and deeply disturbed, he sent the church a severe letter of rebuke, a letter which is mentioned in 1 Cor. 5:9 but has not been preserved for us. The church leaders responded with a letter of their own, to which the epistle before us is Paul’s answer.
I find it interesting that in these first nine verses, the apostle does not address the problems at all; rather he goes back to the basics, as if to tell us, “Let’s go back to the foundation and re-establish what’s essential; then we’ll deal with the problems.”
I find three basic themes in these early verses: Jesus Christ, salvation, and the church. One of the keys to inductive Bible study is to look for words or phrases that are repeated. God doesn’t waste words, and if something is repeated, it’s for a reason. As we read these first 9 verses, I want you look for something that is repeated at least once in every verse. You might even want to underline it.
“Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, (he was one of the synagogue presidents)
{2} To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:
{3} Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
{4} I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. {5} For in him you have been enriched in every way‑‑in all your speaking and in all your knowledge— {6} because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. {7} Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. {8} He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. {9} God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.” (1 Cor. 1:1‑9)
Well, what is it that is repeated? It’s the name of Jesus Christ, isn’t it? Ten times in nine verses He is mentioned, leading me to conclude that He is the main theme of our passage. What one finds upon careful examination is that …
Jesus Christ is the source of all spiritual blessings and the proper focus of our worship.
Christ is presented as the believer’s authority. (1) “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.” The word “apostle” means “a sent one,” an ambassador, a representative. An ambassador has no inherent authority of his own–all of this authority is delegated. He is authorized to speak only what the one who sent him decides. And lest anyone think Paul appointed himself to be Christ’s ambassador, he specifically claims that his was a divine appointment; he was called by the will of God. Jesus is Paul’s authority, and, by extension, He is ours as well.
Christ is also the One who makes us holy. (2) Verse 2 continues, “to the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy.” Sanctification is a term we don’t use a lot today, but it’s really a rather simple concept. The root word means “to set apart” or “to distinguish.” The believing church, like the wife’s fine china, is set apart for a special purpose. What does that mean in a practical sense? It means that our faith in Christ has made us different. Many Christians don’t like the idea of being different from the rest of society. But we are different, or we should be. We have different goals, different hopes, different priorities, different motivations than our unbelieving friends or relatives have. And Christ is the One who makes us different, who sets us apart.
Will you notice the phrase in the middle of verse 2: “called to be holy”? In all the older versions it is translated, “called to be saints,” or “saints by calling.” I know why the NIV changed the translation–because the concept of sainthood has been seriously tainted by church tradition. Sainthood today is viewed by many as a long, arduous process governed by an ecclesiastical hierarchy and achieved by only a few of the spiritually elite (and only years after their death). But the New Testament knows nothing of that sort of sainthood. In the NT every true believer is a saint. He or she may not act very saintly, but nevertheless they are saints. If you know anything about the book of 1 Corinthians, you know that the members there were anything but a paragon of virtue, yet Paul calls them “saints”–set apart, called to be holy.
Perhaps our understanding would be helped by means of an analogy. It is possible to say of a person at one and the same time, “He is intelligent” and “He is ignorant.” What we mean is that the person possesses high native intelligence but lacks common sense. By the same token, it is possible for a believer to be a saint and still act quite unsaintly. It’s not right, but it happens. Paul, then, is speaking of the believer’s position, not necessarily his practice. And we are going to discover that the purpose of this book is to help saints learn how to act saintly–it is by allowing Christ to be the center of our lives.
Christ is our Lord. (2) Later in verse 2 we are told that the true church is made up of everyone who in every place calls Jesus “Lord”; i.e., everyone who acknowledges His deity and sovereignty. This affirmation is both inclusive and exclusive. It is inclusive in that it tells us the church consists of all true believers. Whether they belong to the Free church or not is irrelevant; whether they are charismatic or not is irrelevant; whether they baptize infants or not is irrelevant; whether they are Calvinist or Arminian is irrelevant. The only thing that determines one’s membership in the Church of Jesus Christ is whether he or she sincerely recognizes the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Now I’m not suggesting these other issues are unimportant or of no value; I’m simply saying they have nothing to do with determining who is and isn’t part of the Body of Christ.
But the verse is exclusive at the same time. It is only those who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus who are part of God’s family. Some people may be very religious; they may even belong to a local church; they may give to charity. But if they haven’t called upon the name of the Lord Jesus for forgiveness of their sins, they are not part of His church. Jesus is our Lord.
Christ, along with His Father, is our source of grace and peace. (3) In verse 3 we find the salutation of the epistle: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Salutations should not be overanalyzed, but they do tell us something. I remember when I was a young teenager, I attended Arcadia Valley Bible Camp southwest of St. Louis, and every year I would come home from camp with a new girlfriend. Unfortunately, she always seemed to live in Decatur or Cairo or some other place a hundred miles away, so the blazing courtships had to be carried on by mail. I remember the first thing I would look for when I would receive one of these perfumed epistles was the salutation. If it said, “Dear Mike,” I knew things were cool. If it said, “Dearest Mike,” I was ready to go back to camp. But if a later letter came which just said, “Hi Mike,” I knew I was in trouble. The one I really dreaded was the one that read, “Dear John.”
Paul’s salutation to his friends in Corinth is simply, “Grace and peace.” Those are the Greek and Hebrew words for “Hello.” Charis and shalom, “Hello and Hello.” But he is really saying more than that, for to Paul these words had profound spiritual meaning. Grace is the unmerited goodness of God to those who have forfeited it and are by nature under a sentence of condemnation. Peace describes the rest, safety and harmony which results when a man’s life is right with God. The fact that he always mentions grace before peace indicates that God’s grace is necessary before God’s peace can be experienced.
By the way, the apostle mentions Christ again as the source of grace in verse 4: “I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.” The grace of the salutation probably refers to what we call common grace, the term used to describe God’s general goodness to all mankind. But the grace of verse 4 refers to God’s special grace or saving grace. Notice that the verb “given”is in the past tense, referring to a gift God has already granted in Christ. He’s talking, of course, of the fact that He gave His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross in our place. That’s the epitome of God’s saving grace.
Christ is the One who makes us spiritually rich. (5) Verse 5 reads, “For in him (i.e., in Christ), you have been enriched in every way–in all your speaking and in all your knowledge.” The word “enriched” in Greek is the word ploutizo. I mention that only because we have an English word that comes from the same root, the term “plutocrat,” which means an extremely wealthy person. Politicians sometimes accuse the opposition of wanting to set up a plutocracy–a government by the rich. They mean it negatively, but Paul uses the term positively; he says we are spiritual plutocrats because of our blessings in Christ. We are wealthy in the extreme.
One of the ways the Church has experienced abundance and enrichment in Christ is in respect to spiritual gifts. In fact, right here in verse 5 two of those gifts are mentioned–speaking and knowledge–but notice an even more striking statement in verse 7: “You do not lack any spiritual gift.” I’m going to return to this topic in a few moments, but for the time being, let me just ask, “Isn’t God good?” He’s not stingy at all; in fact, He’s amazingly generous. Yet sometimes we Christians become so negative about the church, about the future, and even about ourselves and our own abilities. We sound like anything but a congregation of plutocrats.
Christ is the focus of our witness. (6) In verse 6 Paul tells us why his converts have been enriched in Christ: “because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you.” The fundamental truth I want us to glean from this is that when Paul shared his testimony, he focused on Christ. I have been to scores of testimony meetings in churches, camps, or home Bible studies, and I find myself frequently disappointed at the short shrift given to the Savior. People will talk about their experiences, their problems, their blessings, their plans, their failures, their sins. But what about Christ? I think every testimony should focus on Him–the death He died, the salvation He provides, the blessings He bestows, the lessons He teaches, the forgiveness He offers. Christ must be the focus of our witness.
Christ provides our security. (7-8) Verses 7 & 8 go together: “Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” How many of us are eagerly waiting for the Second Coming? That’s not easy to do, is it? We get so wrapped up in our day‑to‑day lives, in politics, in the stock market, in school, that it’s very difficult to keep Christ’s return before our minds. But we should, because the true believer is going to be confirmed blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The term “blameless” has legal connotations; it means unimpeachable. Those who have been forgiven by the death of Christ will never be faced with their sins again. Just as Richard Nixon, guilty or not, could never be indicted for any federal crimes he may have committed in office because of the pardon given to him by President Ford, so we, guilty or not, will stand blameless before God because of the pardon we received through the death of Christ. There is no double jeopardy for the Christian. But please note that our security does not depend upon us, but rather upon the Savior. “He will keep you strong to the end.”
Christ is the foundation of our fellowship. (9) Verse 9 says, “God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.” “Fellowship” is another of the important Biblical words which is often misunderstood. It doesn’t mean “coffee and donuts” or “standing around engaging in small talk,” although at times those activities may be conducive to fellowship. Fellowship means sharing, and the kind of sharing depends upon the context. Here the sharing is with Christ. What do we share in common with Him? We share His life, His temptations, His sufferings, and His victories. Some of the implications of this fellowship we will examine in a few moments.
Thus far we have seen eight truths about the Person of Christ:
He is our authority.
He is the One who makes us holy.
He is our Lord.
He is our source of grace and peace.
He makes us spiritually rich.
He is the focus of our witness.
He provides our security.
He is the foundation of our fellowship.
Paul’s epistle is obviously going to have a major focus on Christ. Now the second of the three basic themes in the introduction is the theme of salvation. Let me state this one also in the form of a proposition:
Salvation is primarily and ultimately God’s work, though He Himself has established human response as a necessary part of the process.
Again, I believe this theme is detectable through an inductive study of the text. In the original Greek there are nine main verbs in these first nine verses, and only two of them are active verbs. You may not be able to see this in your English translation because translators sometimes change the form of verbs in order to communicate better. I don’t want to insult your intelligence, but perhaps a brief grammar lesson might be helpful for those of us who have been out of school for a while. In Greek, as in English, most verbs are either active or passive; that is, the subject is either doing the acting or being acted upon. For example, the sentence, “He threw the ball,” employs an active verb, while “The ball was thrown” employs a passive verb.
The only two active verbs in our entire passage are found in verse 4 and verse 8. In verse 4 Paul says, “I thank,” and in verse 8 he says, “Jesus will keep you strong.” In contrast, all the verbs which refer to the salvation process are in the passive voice in the Greek, which means the subjects, namely us, are being acted upon.
All of these passive verbs convey that salvation is God’s doing, not ours. We don’t earn our salvation; it is His gift. No one yet has sought God on his own without God first reaching out to that person. “We love him,” the Scripture tells us, “because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) And Jesus Himself says in John 6:44, “No one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him””
But isn’t that fatalistic? I suppose it would be if that’s all the Scripture taught. But constantly the Scriptures seek to balance the divine action in salvation with the necessary human response. While it is true that “no one can come to Christ unless the Father draws him,” it is also true that no one whom the Father draws will be saved unless he exercises personal faith in Jesus Christ. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and then you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).
In fact, we find even in the passage before us a hint of the human response which God demands in the salvation process. In verse 2 we read about those in Corinth who have been set apart as God’s people, but they are not alone–they are joined by those everywhere who “call upon the name of the Lord Jesus.” And while the word “call” here is a participle in the Greek, it nevertheless conveys an active idea, namely that a person becomes part of the family of God by calling upon the name of the Lord.
My conclusion to Paul’s teaching on salvation in this passage would be that God must be given His rightful place as “the author and finisher of salvation,” but that at the same time, every man must recognize his personal responsibility to respond to God’s offer. You cannot be saved by osmosis, i.e., by sitting next to believers in a church service. You must personally receive Christ as Savior.
With that we come to the third theme of our text, the Church, and let me express the truth conveyed in still another proposition:
The Church is the visible and organized expression of those who are the recipients of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.
A number of important and interesting comments are made in this passage about the church.
The Church is localized. This letter is addressed to the church “at Corinth.” Obviously, Paul doesn’t mean that the entire Church of God is at Corinth, but rather that a part of the Church is there. A part also was at Philippi, and a part at Thessalonica, and another part at Ephesus. Another part is in Kansas City, another in St. Louis, and still another in Lincoln.
The Scriptures, you see, use the term “church” in several ways. On the one hand, it is sometimes used of the universal church, which means “the family of God,” and is composed of all true believers everywhere. The Apostle’s creed uses this sense when it says, “I believe in the holy, catholic church,” The term “catholic” there has a small “c” and means “universal.” That’s a very legitimate way of speaking of the church.
The other, more common New Testament meaning of “church” is the local church, and it refers to all those who gather together in a single place on a regular basis for teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. But never does the NT use the term “church” of a building. That is why our church sign reads, “The Home of First Evangelical Free Church.” The church is people; the building merely houses them.
Now it is possible to be a member of the universal church but not a member of a local church. We have families in our church who have attended faithfully for many years, some for a dozen or more, who give, and serve, and pray for the Body, but they have never joined. I don’t know why, but perhaps something happened in the past that made them jittery about joining. I am certain they are members of the universal church, but they are not members of the local church.
On the other hand, it is possible to be a member of a local church but not be a member of the universal church. This is a much more serious matter. Many of you were church members before you became Christians. I have even known pastors who served in churches for a number of years before coming to personal faith in Christ. In fact, the Free Church had its origin when a Lutheran pastor had the courage on Easter Sunday, 1817, to stand before his congregation in Geneva, Switzerland and tell them that he had just been born again by faith in Christ. He was defrocked by the bishop for heresy; after all, he had been baptized as an infant and that automatically made him a Christian, according to the Bishop. In order to continue in ministry, he felt he had to start a “free” church, that is, one free from the control of the church hierarchy. That’s where we came from.
In the passage before us, Paul is talking about the local church at Corinth, but his comments have relevance to all local churches, including ours, for he speaks with apostolic authority.
The Church is not lacking in any gifts. It’s extremely important to note that the “you” in verse 7 is plural, not singular, in the original Greek, so Paul is not saying that no believer lacks any spiritual gift, but rather that no local church lacks any gift (i.e., any ability to serve). Later in the letter he observes, “All these gifts are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines” (12:11). Then a few verses later, still talking about spiritual giftedness, he adds, “God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” I understand all this to mean that all the gifts are in the Body, and in just the right proportion, because God Himself put them there. If some tasks are not getting done, it must be because some people are not using the gifts God has given them.
If first grade S.S. classes are lacking teachers or Senior High students are lacking volunteer leaders, it’s not because the necessary individuals are not present in the church, but rather that some of those gifted are not using their gifts. If finances are lacking in a church, it’s not because the money is not there, but because some with the gift of giving are not exercising their gift. If the church is languishing in a defeatist attitude and not realizing its potential, it’s probably not because of a poor location or inadequate facilities or lack of strategic planning so much as because some with the gift of faith are not exercising their spiritual gift.
Or just maybe there’s another reason. Maybe all the blame cannot be laid upon lazy, selfish saints. Maybe the church leaders have failed to help the members identify their gifts and equip them to use those gifts. Probably it’s a bit of both. There may be nothing more important for any believer’s spiritual growth than to identify and use his or her spiritual gift or gifts. In fact, Paul will devote three entire chapters to the subject later in this letter.
The final characteristic of the local church I would like to point out is this:
The church is designed for fellowship. The fellowship spoken of here in verse 9 is, as we noted earlier, fellowship with Jesus Christ. But it has very important implications for relationships in the Church. Listen to 1 John 1:3: “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” Our fellowship with God and with His Son is the basis for the warm sharing of our joys and sorrows, our triumphs and our frustrations, our finances and our lives. Would our church be properly classified as a warm fellowship? I think it is for some but probably not for others, and we can never rest on our laurels. The Church is designed for fellowship.
In conclusion, let me ask the question, “So what?” How are you better off for having heard this message than you would have been had you slept in this morning? I hope that question is not in your mind, but I’m going to try to answer it just in case. We have seen today that the Church of Jesus Christ has been built on a very solid foundation. God has taken great care in establishing His church. He sent His Son as our Savior; He called us, sanctified us, enriched us, and secured us; and He gathered us into a fellowship known as the Church. These are very high privileges; our position is unique, and Jesus has said that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His church.
Isn’t it time for you to join? I’m not talking about joining First Free. That’s a good thing, and I encourage it for those who have already taken the far more important step of joining the universal church. I’m talking about receiving Christ as your Lord and Savior, acknowledging that all your personal efforts at finding meaning and value in life have failed–that real life can only be obtained from the one and only Life-Giver. He died for you; He offers you forgiveness of your sins; He invites you to spend eternity with Him; but He also wants to help you enjoy life now. Won’t you accept Him today, friend?
DATE: September 3, 2000
Tags:
Holiness
Saints
Sovereignty and human responsibility
Local church
Universal church