Chap. 5 Special Design. 35B. 1 Corinthians
It is well to note in chap. 14:3 that we have no definition of prophecy here, only its description in contrast with “a tongue.” Edification is the great criterion for the assembly, as comely order is due to Him Who dwells there, and to the Head. Revelation, now complete in scripture, is distinguished from knowledge; and power is subject to the Lord's authority Who gives rules which bind even prophets who might plead divine impulse, as they impose women to silence in the assembly. They might use their gifts at home, though as subject to order, like Philip's four daughters who prophesied. The word of God did not come out from the assembly, nor does it come to one only. Through a called and inspired channel it is for all the church, being the Lord's commandment. “But if any be ignorant,” is his withering rebuke of the independent, “let him be ignorant.” God has not only spoken but written, and His word abides forever. May we be subject to the Lord, not in word only but in deed and truth.
Next comes the great unfolding of Christ's resurrection and its consequences. Some of the Corinthians doubted that the saints rise. They had no question as to the soul's immortality, but ventured to deny that the dead rise. The apostle treats the matter from its root in Christ, and thus decides it for the Christian, associated as he is with Him, as man is with the head of the race. It is for the apostle fundamental, bound up not only with God's counsels but with the gospel itself, which announces the glad tidings of Christ dead and risen. With this accordingly he begins, proved by the weightiest and fullest testimonies, his own closing them (15:1-11). Then (12-19) he reasons on Christ's resurrection out of (or from among) dead men as the incontrovertible truth which utterly destroyed their speculation. “How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?” For this denies Christ's, and if so Paul's preaching, and their own faith; nay, it would make them false witnesses of God Who in that case had not raised Christ, and they must be yet in their sins, as those put to sleep in Christ must have perished, and Christians alive be the most pitiable of all men.
This he interrupts with a sort of parenthetical revelation, terse, pregnant, and profound. “But now hath Christ been raised from out of the dead, first-fruits of those that are asleep, For since through man [is] death, through man also [is] resurrection of the dead.” Two heads have thus their families respectively characterized, dying, and made alive. “But each in his own order (or, rank): Christ first-fruits; then, those that are Christ's at his coming; then the end, when he shall give up the kingdom to the God and Father, when he shall have annulled all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign till he put all the enemies under his feet. Death, last enemy, shall be annulled. For he subjected all things under his feet. But when he saith, All things are subjected, it is evident that he is excepted who subjected all things to him. And when all things shall be subjected to him, then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all” (20-28). The resurrection of those that are His is at His coming, and to reign with Him. The end is, when He judges those that are not His, yet raised; and He delivers up the kingdom, all enemies put down, for the everlasting scene, when not the Father but “God” (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) shall be all in all.
Next he renews the reasoning, and refers in 29 to 18, and in 30 to 19, which clears up the sense. Why by baptism join such a forlorn hope, why share such a life of danger, if dead men are not at all raised? Paul's life was in view of resurrection; as theirs denied it who merely eat and drink. Let such not be deceived, but wake up righteously and sin not. Ignorance of resurrection is ignorance of God and holiness, to the shame of those that speculate. And why raise curious questions? God surrounds us with even natural facts of analogous character: wheat and other grain, after death of what perishes, spring up, not what was sown, but of those kinds and not different, yet in a new condition. There are also heavenly bodies and earthly. So too is the resurrection; and here again and yet more richly the last Adam, the Second Man, is contrasted with the first; and we who believe are styled heavenly, for we shall in due time bear that image, as now we bear the image of the earthly (or rather dusty) man, Adam (29-49).
Christ's life, and in resurrection, if men were to be His associates, alone suits God's kingdom and incorruption (50). This introduces a mystery or secret of God not revealed in the Old Testament: “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in an eye's twinkling, at the last trumpet; for trumpet it will, and the dead shall be raised, and we shall be changed” (51, 52). And this new Christian truth he connects with Isa. 25:88He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it. (Isaiah 25:8) and Hos. 13:1414I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes. (Hosea 13:14), the heavenly things with the earthly; for the Kingdom of God, as our Lord shows (John 3:1212If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? (John 3:12)), comprehends both. All is wound up with a call to his beloved brethren to be firm, unmoveable, abounding in the work of the Lord always, knowing that their labor is not vain in Him.
This is fitly followed by the various details of chap. 16. As he directed the assemblies of Galatia to collect for the poor saints in Jerusalem, so he wished those in Corinth to do. Each first of week is a most proper day for the Christian, in the sense of his blessing and of that infinite grace which is its source, to lay by him in store as he may have prospered. The apostle would not use personal influence when he came; but whomsoever they should approve, these he would send with letters to carry their bounty to Jerusalem; and if well for him also to go, they should go with him. How incomparably better is God's way than man's societies and their machinery or devices! Christ and His work is the center of all. It was only when restoration wrought that in his Second Epistle he explains why he did not then visit them. But while tarrying at Ephesus, he would have no despising of Timothy if he came. And he lets them know how much he besought Apollos to go to Corinth, who, though not now, would come when he had good opportunity (1-12).
The apostle then charges them to watch, stand fast in the faith, play the man, and be strong. “Let all ye do be done in love.” They had failed in all: he despaired in nothing (13, 14). They knew the house of Stephanas, that it was the first-fruits of Achaia, and that they devoted themselves to the saints for service; so he besought them to be subject to such, and to every one working together and laboring. This is the more notable, as we never hear of elders in the two Epistles to the Corinthians; for if there had been, they must naturally have incurred special blame. Apart from such (who needed appointment by those who had discernment and full authority) there were, as we learn, laborers to whom the subjection of the saints was due, as we also find in other Epistles: fact of the utmost importance for the present circumstances of the church. Further, he speaks of Stephanas with two others he names, coming and by their practical love refreshing his spirit “and yours” he graciously adds. “Own therefore such” (15-18). Salutations of assemblies and individuals follow, as he affixes his with his own hand (19-21). But as he desired the fullest flow of holy affections with one another, he pronounced an unsparing curse on any one that loved not the Lord [Jesus Christ]: “Let him be anathema Maranatha” (our Lord cometh). This assuredly was no license for such to be in their midst (22). Not content, in the face of much he had suffered from them, with the prayer “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you,” he concludes with “My love be with you all in Christ Jesus, Amen” (23, 24). What more Christlike!