Chapter One

Address (1–3). Thanksgiving to God (4–9). The Apostle Paul’s judgment on the Corinthian parties (10–17). The Gospel is not human wisdom (18–31)

1 Corinthians 1:1. Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sosthenes the brother, The Apostle Paul and his co-worker Sosthenes send greetings to the Corinthian Church. “Called apostle” — see Rom 1:1. — “Sosthenes the brother.” The book of Acts records a Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue in Corinth (Acts 18:17). It is quite possible that he was converted to Christianity by Paul and became his co-worker. The Apostle Paul likely mentions him here as a person well known to the Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 1:2. to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place — theirs and ours: Acts 19:40. “Church.” In ordinary Greek, the word “church” (εκκλησία) denotes an assembly of citizens summoned from their homes on some public matter (cf. Acts 19:40 — “assembly”). In the terminology of the New Testament, the word retained the same meaning. Here God calls or summons sinners to salvation through the preaching of the Gospel (Gal 1:6). Those who are summoned form a new society, whose head is Christ. — “Of God.” This word points to the One who assembled the community and to whom it belongs. Even in the Old Testament there was the term: “Kehal Jehova” — the assembled community of Jehovah. But there, new members of the community came through physical descent from those previously called by God, whereas here, in Christianity, the Church grows through the free, personal accession of all who can believe in Christ. — “Sanctified in Christ Jesus.” The word “sanctified” refers to the state in which believers find themselves through the Lord Jesus Christ. To receive Christ into oneself by faith means to appropriate for oneself the holiness that he embodied in his own person. — “Called to be saints” — see Rom 1:7. — “Together with all” — by this addition the apostle reminds the Corinthian Christians, who had grown too proud (1 Cor 14:36), that besides themselves there are other believers in the world, with whom they must go hand in hand in their moral development. — “Calling on the name.” This expression was used already in the Old Testament (Isa 43:7; Joel 2:32) only with reference to calling upon Jehovah (in the LXX). The expression “name” contains the idea of “essence” (Exod 23:21). — “Lord.” This title designates Christ as the one to whom God has entrusted dominion over the world. The Church consists precisely of those who acknowledge this authority of Christ over the world. — “In every place.” The Christian Church is presented here as already spread throughout the whole world (cf. 1 Tim 2:8). — “Theirs and ours.” These words should be referred to the expression “our Lord Jesus Christ” (Chrysostom). The apostle wishes to say that the Lord is one for all believers — both for the flock and for the shepherds! This is a protest against those who, in extolling the preachers as hearers of Christ, forgot about Christ the Lord himself (cf. 1 Cor 1:3). 1 Corinthians 1:3. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. “Grace and peace” — see Rom 1:7. 1 Cor 1:4-9. Before proceeding to rebuke the shortcomings of the Corinthian Church, the apostle speaks of what is good in this Church. He thanks God for grace in general and especially for the gracious gifts that the Corinthians possess, and expresses confidence that Christ will bring them safely to the end of their earthly journey, so that they may stand without fear before the dread judgment seat of Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:4. I give thanks to my God always for you, for the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus, In the thanksgiving the apostle offers to God for the state of the Corinthian Church, there is neither flattery nor irony. The apostle knows how, while reproving people, to appreciate at the same time their real and genuine merits — and such merits the Corinthians did have. — “Grace.” This word denotes not only spiritual gifts but everything that God has given to people through Christ — justification, sanctification, powers for the new life.

1 Corinthians 1:5. that in him you were enriched in everything — in all speech and all knowledge — “That...” Here the apostle points to a new fact that proves the reality of the fact mentioned in verse 4. Only from the Corinthians’ new state of grace could there have arisen the abundance of spiritual gifts that the Corinthian Church possessed. — “Speech” (λόγος). Here the apostle has in mind those gifts that were expressed in the inspired speeches of believers (the gift of tongues, of prophecy, of teaching — see below, chs. XII–XIV). “Knowledge” (γνσις). Here the apostle has in view the “understanding” of the history of our salvation and the application of Christian doctrines to life. — It is noteworthy that the apostle speaks of the gifts of the Spirit, and not the fruits of the Spirit, as he does, for example, in the epistle to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 1:3; 2 Thess 1:3 and following). These “fruits” of the Spirit — faith, hope, and love — the Corinthians therefore still had in far too little measure to thank God for them.

1 Corinthians 1:6. even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you — “Even as” — more accurately: in the same degree that (in Greek: καθως). The apostle wishes to say that the testimony (i.e., the preaching) about Christ was established among the Corinthians in a particular way, namely by being accompanied by a special outpouring of spiritual gifts: nowhere, therefore, was there such an abundance of spiritual gifts as in Corinth.

1 Corinthians 1:7. so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, “So that” — this expression depends on the word “enriched” (v. 5). — “In any gift.” By “gift” (χάρισμα) the apostle means here (corresponding to the thought of verse 5) a new spiritual power or capacity which the Holy Spirit gave now to one, now to another Christian. Of course, the Holy Spirit in this case did not displace the soul of the person himself: he only elevated and sanctified the innate capacities of the human soul, enabling them to unfold most fully. — “As you wait...” The Corinthians had a tendency to imagine that they had already attained Christian perfection (1 Cor 6:8), especially with regard to knowledge. The apostle here gives them to understand that such perfect knowledge cannot yet exist in this present life — they must await the revelation that will be given at the second coming of Christ, when even what is hidden will become manifest (cf. Rom 2:16).

1 Corinthians 1:8. who will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Who,” that is, Christ. — “To the end,” that is, until the second coming of Christ, which the believers at that time expected as something to occur shortly. The day or the hour when it would actually come had not been revealed to them (Luke 12:35; Mark 13:32).

1 Corinthians 1:9. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. The apostle does not mean by this that God will save the Corinthians regardless of how they conduct themselves. On the contrary, at the end of ch. IX and the beginning of ch. X he clearly shows that a lack of faith and obedience can utterly destroy what God has begun in working their salvation. Evidently, the apostle’s confidence in the salvation of the Corinthians rests on the assumption that the Corinthians themselves will cooperate in the work of their own salvation. Just as in the expression “you were called” there is contained the idea not only of God’s calling but also of the free acceptance of that calling, so also the preservation of fellowship with Christ presupposes the Corinthians’ own desire, their own steadfastness in this matter. 1 Cor 1:10-17. From praise the apostle moves to reproof. Reports have reached him about the division of the Corinthians into parties: those of Paul, of Apollos, of Cephas, and of Christ, and he expresses his condemnation of this partisanship. First of all, he addresses those who formed a distinct party bearing his own name, and says that he gave no occasion whatsoever for this.

1 Corinthians 1:10. I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and in the same judgment. “Brothers.” The apostle calls his readers this because not all of them were converted to Christianity by him, and therefore they could not all be called his “children,” as the apostle called, for example, the Galatians (Gal 4:19). — “By the name of the Lord,” that is, by virtue of the knowledge they have of the person and activity (“name” — ὀνομα) of the Lord Jesus Christ. — “That all of you speak the same thing,” that is, that they not say what the apostle lists in verse 12 — not divide into parties, but present themselves as a single church community. — “And that there be no divisions among you.” The thought just expressed in positive form is now repeated in negative form. — “United.” The word placed here in the Greek text (καταρτίζειν) means: to gather, to fit together (for example, the various parts of a machine), to prepare a worker for work (Eph 4:12), to restore what has been thrown into disorder. With respect to the Corinthian Church, this word undoubtedly has the last of the indicated meanings, but it may also be understood in the sense of bringing together all the scattered parts of the church organism into a single whole — i.e., in the first meaning. How this union may be achieved is indicated in the following expressions: “in the same mind” and “in the same judgment.” By “mind” (νους) it is better to understand (cf. 1 Cor 2:16) the Christian worldview in general, the understanding of the Gospel as a whole, and by “judgment” (γνώμη) — opinions and views on individual points of Christianity (cf. 1 Cor 7:25). The apostle thus expresses the wish that among the Corinthians there should prevail a unity of mind both in the general understanding of Christian truth and in the manner of resolving individual questions that arise from the needs of Christian life.

1 Corinthians 1:11. For it has been made known to me about you, my brothers, by Chloe’s people, that there is strife among you. 1 Corinthians 1:12. I mean this, that each of you says: “I am of Paul”; “I am of Apollos”; “I am of Cephas”; “and I am of Christ. After this preliminary exhortation, the apostle describes those circumstances in the life of the Corinthian Church that moved him to address his readers with an exhortation. — “Chloe’s people.” These could be either the children or the slaves of this woman, who probably lived in Corinth. — “Each of you says” — more precisely from the Greek: “each of you says.” The apostle wishes to indicate by this the universal contagion of the spirit of partisanship. Every Corinthian considered it his duty to belong to one of the parties mentioned here. — “I am of Paul, I am of Apollos” — see the introduction to the epistle. — In distributing the parties, the apostle displays particular tact. He places his own adherents first, as those who deserved his rebuke, and by this shows that he himself is far from any self-aggrandizement. — What distinguished the party of the Paulines from the party of the Apollos group? It was not any difference in essence (1 Cor 3:5 and following; 1 Cor 4:6), but only in the form of teaching. The Apostle Paul considered Apollos the continuer of his work in Corinth: “I planted, Apollos watered” (1 Cor 3:6), he says, describing the establishment of the Gospel in Corinth. — “And I am of Christ.” Some Church Fathers and modern commentators take these words as Paul’s own confession, which he here expresses in contrast to those who bow before the authority of the preachers of the Gospel. But this fourth declaration is undoubtedly something symmetrical with the first three that precede it and falls under the same rebuke that sounds in the apostle’s words: “each of you says.” There are many hypotheses about the Christ party, but all of them are poorly substantiated. Some (Renan, Meyer, Heinrici) see in this party a protest against deference to the apostles, and suppose that the “Christ people” were generally opposed to the exclusive authority of the Apostles; others suppose that this party consisted of the more educated Christians from among the pagans, who wanted to make Christ a supreme guide of life, such as Socrates was for his disciples. Others saw in the members of this party people who, by means of visions, believed it possible to enter into direct communion with Christ. A fourth view (Godet) supposes that these were Jews who had converted to Christianity and who prided themselves on their theocratic privileges, and who, as representatives of the principal — Jerusalem — Church, wished gradually to subject the Corinthian Christians to the yoke of the Mosaic Law. They called themselves “of Christ” because they imagined they had best understood the intentions of Christ. At the same time, however, to gratify the Greek Christians, they introduced elements of Greek theosophy into their teaching, to which the Apostle Paul alludes in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (2 Cor 10:5). This also explains the apostle’s vigorous polemic against the mixing of human wisdom with the Gospel (1 Cor 3:17-20): here the apostle has in mind not the party of Apollos, but the party of the Christ people. It may have been that the “Christ people” held the same view of Christ as the heretic Cerinthus, who did not recognize Christ in the man — the Jew Jesus — crucified on the cross. They may have believed, as Cerinthus did, that Christ separated from the man Jesus during the passion: this Jesus died on the cross, and therefore deserves a curse (cf. 1 Cor 12:3), while Christ sits in heaven at the right hand of God the Father, and it is he alone whom Christians ought to honor. Thus in the Christ people one may see “gnostics before Gnosticism.” — The most plausible hypothesis is that of Lütgert. This scholar finds no sufficiently weighty grounds for seeing Judaizers in the “Christ” party. On the contrary, he sees in them adherents of the idea of human freedom in Christianity who had gone too far. These are “libertine pneumatics” (something like our Dukhobors). The Apostle Paul, in their opinion, had stopped halfway along the road to Christian freedom: he lacks the spirit, strength, courage, confidence in victory, and self-awareness that belong to a true pneumatic. He is timid in his relations to God, to the Christian community, and to the world, whereas they always conduct themselves as free people, fearing nothing. They emancipated themselves entirely from all dependence on the apostles, even from the obligation to receive instruction from Holy Scripture, since, in their conviction, they entered into direct communion with Christ — and this communion gave them the highest wisdom, making them “gnostics,” i.e., knowers of all the mysteries of life. What such unrestrained freedom — as preached by the “Christ people” — led to can be judged from the event the apostle speaks of in ch. V (the case of the incestuous man).

1 Corinthians 1:13. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? “Is Christ divided?” This rebuke Paul addresses to the party of the “Christ people,” who supposed that they alone had the true Christ, while the rest of the Christians obviously honored someone else. No — the apostle wishes to say — Christ is one and the same for all Christians! One cannot make Christ the property of any party! — “Was Paul crucified for you?” — This and the next question show the absurdity of the behavior of those who called themselves Paulines rather than disciples of Christ. The first question, in particular, refers to the activity of Christ as Redeemer, and the second to his position as Head of the Church.

1 Corinthians 1:14. I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 1 Corinthians 1:15. lest anyone say that I baptized in my own name. 1 Corinthians 1:16. I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; and beyond that I do not know whether I baptized anyone else. The apostle thanks God that he entrusted him with another, more important task than the performance of baptism — namely the task of preaching (cf. v. 17). If he had often performed baptism over those converting to Christianity, it could have been said that he did so for the glorification of his own name, or even that he was baptizing in his own name. In the religious ferment of that time, when new systems and new cults were appearing everywhere, such a prominent preacher as Paul could easily have founded his own religion, made people believe in his name rather than in the name of Christ... Of those baptized by him personally, Paul mentions the ruler of the Jewish synagogue in Corinth — Crispus (Acts 18:8) — and Gaius, in whose house the Apostle Paul once resided for a time (Rom 16:23). A third exception was the household of Stephanas (“Stephanas”), who was among the delegates who came to Paul in Ephesus from Corinth.

1 Corinthians 1:17. For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the Gospel — not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. The logical connection between verses 16 and 17 may be expressed as follows: “even if I did perform baptisms, this was only an exception to the general rule; for this was not part of my ministerial duties.” The work of proclaiming the Gospel — that was the Apostle Paul’s calling! This work is, of course, far more difficult than administering the sacrament of baptism to persons who were already prepared for it. To proclaim the Gospel is the same as casting a net to catch fish, and this was the apostle’s calling; while to baptize is the same as drawing out fish already caught in the net. Therefore Christ himself did not baptize but left this task to his disciples (John 4:1-2). “Not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” Paul wishes to say that he remained only a herald of the Gospel of Christ, without employing on his part any special means to attract a larger audience (he did not clothe his preaching in the garments of an oratorical work). Consequently, he did nothing to form his own party. By “wisdom” (σοφία) of words Paul understands a properly elaborated system, a religious philosophy. This “wisdom” of words turned the new religion into a source of satisfactory explanation of the being of God, the nature of humanity, and the life of the world. But Paul has in mind here not the preaching of Apollos, which stood in direct connection with his own (1 Cor 3:4-8), but the wisdom of this world (v. 20), which has been abolished by the Gospel (1 Cor 3:20) and which only serves to defile the temple of God (1 Cor 3:17). Most naturally this passage should be seen as a rebuke of those false teachers who called themselves “Christ people” and spread absurd opinions about Christ and Christianity in Corinth (2 Cor 11:2-11). This very “wisdom of words,” or false teaching of the Christ people, “emptied the cross of Christ of its power.” The expression “to empty” or “to make void” (κενοῦν) denotes an action that strips a given thing of its essence and its power. And indeed, the Corinthian gnosis (see above, the view of Lütgert) made void, stripped of all power and significance, the redemptive work of our Savior: once Christ abandoned Jesus while Jesus was hanging on the cross, it follows that the act of crucifixion of Jesus had no redemptive significance for humanity. Such was the outcome to which the infatuation with false knowledge (gnosis) among the Corinthian Christians led, and the apostle wished to have nothing in common with such false wise men. 1 Cor 1:18-31. In contrast to the teaching of the Christ party, the apostle says that the Gospel by its very nature is not wisdom, not a philosophical system in which everything is proved and derived by means of correct logical deductions. This is evident from the fact that the central point of the Gospel is the cross — the suffering and death of Christ the Savior, which appeared contrary to the preconceived notions about the Savior held by both Jews and Greeks. It is also evident from the composition of the Christian Church in Corinth, the majority of which consists of uneducated people.

1 Corinthians 1:18. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Among the Corinthian Christians there are those (chiefly, this is the Christ party) to whom Paul’s preaching seems to lack wisdom because the cross of Christ is the content of this preaching. These people, whom the apostle rightly calls “those who are perishing” — that is, those who are depriving themselves of salvation in Christ — do not wish to see in the cross a revelation of God. God, who reveals himself in the crucified Christ, cannot be God at all, in the view of these people. People in general think of God as an Almighty Being who acts in achieving his intended aims by working miracles and extraordinary signs. The crucified Christ, on the contrary, saves people by his humiliation, by his seeming weakness. However, for true Christians — whom the apostle calls “those who are being saved” because their earthly course has not yet been completed — in the preaching of the cross there is to be found that divine saving power of which they stand so much in need (cf. Rom 1:16).

1 Corinthians 1:19. For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the discerning I will set aside. 1 Corinthians 1:20. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? The Prophet Isaiah spoke to the Jewish statesmen that God would save Jerusalem from the invasion of Sennacherib himself, without the help of these politicians, who only harmed their state with their cunning schemes (Isa 29:14). So God acts — the apostle here wishes to say — now as well, in the salvation of the world. He saves people from destruction in an extraordinary way, ill-suited from the point of view of human wisdom — namely through the highest manifestation of his love — and human wisdom must withdraw in shame from the arena of its activity; neither the “wise men” (σοφός), that is, Greek philosophers (cf. v. 22), nor the “scribes” (γραμματεῖς), that is, learned Jewish rabbis — both of whom readily engaged in disputations and discussions with those who came to them to learn — can any longer come forward as guides of humanity toward salvation (the expression “debater” generalizes both of the above-mentioned categories of wise men). — “Of this age,” that is, of this temporal life, to which the apostle contrasts the life after the final judgment. — But how did it happen that these wise men of the world left the stage? It happened because God made human wisdom into genuine foolishness. He offered humanity a salvation that diverged from the requirements that human wisdom imposed upon every teaching that undertook the task of saving humanity, and human wisdom, rejecting this salvation, openly showed before all its own folly or unreason. — “Of the world.” This is not the same as the preceding expression “of this age.” There the stress was only on the time, the period of the wise men’s activity, whereas here the character and direction of their wisdom is described: it is the wisdom of a humanity that has cut itself off from God.

1 Corinthians 1:21. For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. “For.” The apostle here points out the reason why God dealt so strictly with the wise men. — “Since.” The apostle has in mind here a well-known fact — the gradual plunge of the human mind into an abyss of error in the time of paganism, which the apostle elsewhere calls “the times of ignorance” (Acts 17:30). — “In the wisdom of God.” This is the book of nature, in which the wisdom of God is displayed before a reasoning person (see Rom 1:20 and Acts 14:17). A person, observing the life of nature and the purposefulness of all its phenomena, can arrive at the thought of the existence of a Wise Creator and Ruler of the universe. But the human mind (cf. Rom 1:21) did not prove faithful to this its task and deified the creation itself instead of glorifying the Creator. If some philosophers did create for themselves the idea of a single and all-good God, it was a rather vague and abstract concept that they did not succeed in establishing beyond the threshold of their schools. The gods of the people, reigning over its conscience, held their ground, and only to Israel was the true knowledge of God communicated through a special revelation. — “It pleased God.” God found a better (and pleasing to him) means for the salvation of people. The mind proved inadequate — and God calls another power of the soul into the service of the work of salvation. — “Through the foolishness of preaching.” The mind cannot understand and accept the new means of salvation that God has now proposed; this means appears to the mind as bearing the mark of “foolishness,” of unreason. Such it appeared to the mind — the crucifixion of the Messiah! Such foolishness seemed to the wise men to be stamped on the well-known preaching of the Apostles about Christ (κήρυγμα is placed with the article τοῦ). — “Those who believe.” Faith — that is the new spiritual power which God now calls into activity in place of the mind. To the manifestation of divine love, a person must now respond not with an act of reasoning, but with an act of trust. God now demands from a person not logical investigations, but devotion, a contrite conscience, and a believing heart. Thus the general thought of this verse is as follows. People did not manage to use their reason as they should have in order to know God and find salvation for themselves — and therefore God indicated to them a new means of salvation: faith in him, faith in the Crucified One, which seemed to the wise men completely unreasonable, but which genuinely saves those who can cultivate it within themselves. The apostle here explains why he does not impart to the Corinthians what constitutes the product of specifically human wisdom: this wisdom has already been condemned by God to destruction!

1 Corinthians 1:22. For Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom; 1 Corinthians 1:23. but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks, The preaching of Christ crucified proved unacceptable to Jews because they sought in the Messiah a force, a capacity to perform miraculous signs (Mark 8:11 and following). For the Greek cultural world, what mattered most in a new religion was its conformity to the demands of reason; they wanted to see in religion a “wisdom,” if of heavenly rather than earthly origin. Yet the apostle preached that Christ was crucified. This was wholly inconsistent with the Jews’ concept of the Messiah as a great king and conqueror of his enemies; to the Greeks the whole story seemed a mere fable. — But did Christ not perform signs for the Jews? Yes, he did, but all his signs and miracles were erased from their memory when they saw him hanging on the cross. They naturally thought at that point that he had previously deceived them with his miracles or was himself an instrument of diabolical power.

1 Corinthians 1:24. but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God; But those same Jews and Greeks, to whom the preaching of the cross had seemed unreasonable, look at the cross in an entirely different way once they become believers. The apostle calls them here “the called,” thereby bringing into prominence the divine activity — the calling — before the human one — appropriation by faith of the truths of the Gospel. — Christ is “the power of God” and “the wisdom of God.” God is the Creator, and in Christ we become “a new creation” (Eph 4:24) — in this is manifest the power of God, the almightiness of God. On the other hand, God himself is “wisdom,” and in the Lord Jesus Christ all the mysteries of the eternal divine wisdom are disclosed (Eph 1:8).

1 Corinthians 1:25. because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. In order to explain how that which is weak and foolish from a human standpoint was a manifestation of the power and wisdom of God, the apostle says that in general the wisdom and power of God cannot be measured by a human standard. What appears to people as weak and unreasonable is in fact, in the hands of God, far more effective than all the finest creations of human beings: it is wiser than people with all their wisdom, and stronger than people with all their strength. — It should be noted that the apostle is speaking here only of the relation of human and divine wisdom to the work of human salvation. In that regard, indeed, all the finest products of human wisdom have no power whatsoever against divine providence, when they come forward independently, as rivals of Christianity in the work of saving people. But the apostle does not deny the high significance of human wisdom as soon as it itself moves toward the light of divine revelation, preparing a person for the appropriation of the salvation granted by Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:26. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to the flesh, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; That God did not need worldly wisdom to realize his plans is also indicated by those whom he called chiefly at the founding of the Church in Corinth. These were mainly workers from the Corinthian harbors, various sailors and other people of the lower strata of society, who could not boast of distinction, power, or noble origin.

1 Corinthians 1:27. but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong; 1 Corinthians 1:28. and God chose the lowly and despised things of the world, even the things that are not, to nullify the things that are — 1 Corinthians 1:29. so that no flesh should boast before God. From ancient inscriptions in the Roman catacombs it is evident that in Rome, too, the majority of Christians belonged to the lower or middle class of society (bakers, gardeners, tavern owners, freedmen, and sometimes lawyers). In Minucius Felix, Christians are described as indocti, impoliti, rudes, agrestes (VIII. 12). This circumstance, which was the same in Corinth, is the most striking witness that Christianity conquered the world without any external help, but by its own inner power. God’s purpose in this was to humble human pride, which prevented a person from turning to God for help after first acknowledging his own weakness (cf. Rom 3:27).

1 Corinthians 1:30. And it is from him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom for us from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 1 Corinthians 1:31. so that, as it is written: let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. Instead of pride, believers should cultivate in themselves a feeling of gratitude to God for his great mercies. — “And it is from him that you are.” Here one should add the word “exist” (in Greek: εστέ). Before, they could be said not to have existed (cf. v. 28), but now, thanks to God, they represent something very important. — “In Christ Jesus.” Christ gives them in abundance all that they had been lacking in the world’s estimation; and what specifically he gives is stated in the following words. First of all, he became for them “wisdom from God” — that is, a wisdom higher than human, the lack of which the Corinthian Christians perhaps lamented — “righteousness and sanctification” — that is, he gives people genuine righteousness and leads them along the path of holiness toward their appointed goal (cf. Rom 1:18 and following). Finally, Christ became for us “redemption” — that is, he brings us into the eternal glory that he himself possesses, will raise our bodies and then glorify us in his Kingdom (cf. Rom 8:18-30 and Luke 21:28; Eph 1:3; Heb 11:35). — “Boast in the Lord.” These words express the central thought of the entire section beginning at verse 13. It is not the teachers of the faith who should be praised, but Christ himself — to him alone be the glory! (Although in the prophet Jeremiah “the Lord” means “Jehovah,” the apostle evidently has in mind chiefly “Christ” by this name.)