1 Corinthians 3:1-4

CRITICAL NOTES

1 Corinthians 3:1. And I.—Q.d. “As any other ‘spiritual’ teacher would have to do.” So Ellicott; but perhaps laying undue stress upon the “and,” which, if more than merely a half-colloquial redundance, may rather be parallel with 1 Corinthians 2:1; q.d. “Accordingly I,” etc., i.e. in agreement with the broad lines of necessary procedure laid down in 1 Corinthians 2:6. Spiritual.—In the precise and quasi-technical sense of chap. 2 [or inter alios, Galatians 6:1]. Carnal.—We should have expected “natural” (= “psychical, animal-souled”). But this would have denied to them any participation in the grace and awakening and renewal of the Spirit. They are Christians of a low type, but not so low as that. They are “in Christ,” but only as “babes.” Note the reading: only appearing in the Received Text in 2 Corinthians 3:3, but now here also and in Romans 7:14; Hebrews 7:16. Some deny any distinction between the old form and the new, except of literary rank. Trench would (§ 72) distinguish as between “fleshly” (= the displaced reading) and “fleshy” or “fleshen,” parallel to “wooden” (= the new reading, and in 2 Corinthians 3:3); as if distinguishing between men in whom “the flesh” was indeed predominant, but with many gracious checks and restraints, and men in whom the one apparent feature in life was so much the literal “flesh” that they were “not anti-spiritual, but un-spiritual, … flesh and little more, when they might have been much more.” Yet he regards the word as conveying a less grave accusation than the ordinary word for “carnal” (“fleshly”) does. The varying judgments of the authorities show how slight at best is the distinction.

1 Corinthians 3:2.—Cf. Hebrews 5:11 to Hebrews 6:4, where note that the doctrine of 1 Corinthians 15 is amongst the “elements,” the “milk” for babes. Also Paul “preached the Resurrection” to the merely “natural” men of Athens (Acts 17:18). Cf. “New wine in old bottles”; “new cloth on old garment.” So Christ only spoke plainly to the disciples about His death, when, e.g., Peter’s faith in His Godhead had first risen into a bold confession; and then also the announcement, so perplexing to a Jew, and so distressing to a friend like Peter, was followed up by a view of his Master in His true, native glory (Matthew 16:20). Cf. “Neither yet now are ye able” with “Ye cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). Also cf. “earthly things” and “heavenly things” (John 3:12).

1 Corinthians 3:3.—Helps to a definition of “the flesh”; as does Galatians 5:19, by no means a catalogue of bodily sins alone. See life in the flesh plainly differentiated from life in the material body (Romans 8:9), “Ye are not in the flesh.” Note the changes of translation in After the manner of men.—So in 1 Corinthians 15:32. But the special colouring of the phrase, whether neutral or condemnatory, varies from instance to instance of its use.

1 Corinthians 3:4.—Less complete enumeration than in 1 Corinthians 1:12. Perhaps for the reason explained in 1 Corinthians 4:6. Also he and Apollos were more closely connected than any others with the origin and growth of the Corinthian Church.

HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.— 1 Corinthians 3:1

“Babes in Christ.”—(Read Critical Notes, on “carnal.”)

I. The Creator has stamped His own unity upon His many-sectioned creation in the many homologies which link together part and part, and, above all, natural things and spiritual things, physical facts and the facts of the world of morals and religion. Just because Christ knew these links of idea and these correspondences most perfectly, He spake parables as never man spake. He saw Nature parabolic as never man saw it. He stood at the central point of God’s Idea, and saw its radiating lines of expression touching, traversing, connecting, the concentric [and, as the geometer says, “similar”] areas of diverse classes of facts. The physical history of the human body, the natural, morally neutral history of the development of the human mind, is a Parable in Nature, easily, early, always read. [1 John 2:12 is a good example of this way of reading. (a) There are the “little children” who barely know more, but who do know this, that they “know their Father,” and that because of forgiven sin there is nothing but love between them. Loving, happy, living childhood, content to be alive and know Him and His favour. (b) There are the “young men,” victorious over the Wicked One, with well-knit body, and the firm tread of vigorous early manhood, to which the indwelling Word is bread and life. (c) There are the “fathers,” of whom only one thing is said—“they know Him that is from the beginning.” The strength, élan, enterprise, of manhood is perhaps gone; in a sense, the life has returned to its starting-point—as “children” they “knew Him”; but now with a deeper insight, with the experience of an intercourse of long years’ standing; as an adult, mature man who is a father, for the first time “knows” his father.] In St. Paul “babes” is never a word of praise. He hurries forward to, and hurries forward his converts to, “perfection”; the adult manhood, with its perfection; of harmonious development of every power and faculty and grace; of “knowledge of the world” of spiritual things with which for years the man “in Christ” has been conversant; of ripeness of character without any first touch of senile failure or weakness or decay. These are “babes” at Corinth.

II. Babes and carnal.—

1. “Natural” (chap. 2) would hardly have been too strong for the fact. “Envying,” “strife,” “schisms,” and these ruling and raging, are incompatible with the “spiritual” man’s life. These are “works of the flesh.” In fact, the discrepancy, as to area and included human contents, between the Ideal Church and its actual, historical, disciplinary expression and embodiment and enumeration, had already begun to appear. The Church, as its Lord reckons its census, may here and there overpass the bounds of the Church, as our humanly designed and most faithfully administered methods mark it off from “the world.” But much oftener it shrinks far within the boundary-line of our survey, and leaves the Church, of any real, effective, sanctified life, a central area of occupation within a much larger one which is hardly more than in name and claim and ownership still Christ’s. These men are still within the bound of the external organisation; the branch most utterly dormant, if not utterly dead, is still in mechanical connection with the Vine, as Paul cultivates and cares for it. He had not cut these off, as he bade them without pity or delay do with incestuous man (1 Corinthians 3:5). Indeed, in the hopefulness of charity, he goes further than logically would be possible, and speaks of these men over whom “sin has” such clear “dominion” (Romans 6:14), as “in Christ,” though “babes.” [Does he? Has he really given to those who had lapsed from any but the external, mechanical connection with Christ, the elementary lessons which, elementary as they are, belonged really to a stage in advance of them?] But it is at most the tender judgment which without any tampering with, or disloyalty to, the inevitable distinction between “natural” and “spiritual,” is willing for the moment to look no deeper than the outward profession and the still maintained connection with the Church. None but a reckless hand will lightly disturb even the outward connection, if it has at one time meant life, and is not manifestly declared unreal by flagrant sin or long-continued indifference. So long as it continues, there is always the happy possibility that the branch may again fill and thrill and throb with life; it will not lightly be disturbed. The claim of the Church is paramount that it should be kept pure; the claim of the Head of the Church demands that all dead or unworthy membership be cut off; but the claim of the redeemed soul demands that the membership, once admitted, shall be tenderly dealt with, and rated at its most hopeful value. “Envying, strifes, partisanship,” and the like; yet Paul will concede to them a place “in Christ,” if it be only as “babes,” and will “speak to them” accordingly.

2. How many members never get beyond the stage of “babes in Christ.”—There is a beauty about infancy, in nature and in grace. Nothing more charming than the simple, unaffected, direct love of God’s “little children” towards Him and towards each other. Happy manhood, both in nature and grace, which never loses the affectionate, childlike heart; keeping it fresh under, and along with, all the manly gains in knowledge and experience. A beauty about the simple directness of a child’s trust in all that is told to it; it may be deceived and misled, but the faith of a little child is more beautiful and more receptive of grace than the cynical scepticism of the man who always begins by suspecting, and presumes the worst. A beauty about the loving obedience which belongs to at least the ideal of childhood, and is one of the first, most tender fruits of the Spirit’s new birth. What music in God’s ear, and how delightful to a “perfect man” in the life of God, the first, unschooled, open, spontaneous, unconventional utterances of their thoughts and experiences, from the lips of God’s little children! But this beauty is no beauty when it becomes permanent. Fifteen, or fifty, with the face and mind and powers of five years of age, would be a calamity to the grown child, an agony to parents, a subject of mockery or of pity to outsiders. She sees of the travail of her soul and is satisfied,—that mother into whose arms is laid the helpless babe, that does not yet know her, or know itself, but simply lives, and is perfectly formed and healthy. To Him who died that His people “might have life,” that He might Himself “see His seed,” life is better than death; life is full of all possibilities; death has no possibilities, no future, but corruption. It is some measure of reward for His “pangs,” some measure of “satisfaction,” when His people begin to live, even as “babes in” Him. In a human home, in Christian lands at any rate, the child that grows weakling, puny, sickly, deformed, often calls out a love that seems intensified by the very need of love in the dependent creature; the tenderer the child, the tenderer the love. But the “satisfaction” is in the children who grow hearty and strong, who develop girlish beauty and youthful strength, until at last womanhood and manhood fill the parents’ heart with satisfying joy. What a disappointment to Paul [may the same human word be attributed to Christ also?] that after these years, since he first went to Corinth, these members of the Church there, “enriched in” everything for the sustenance and training of the new-born life (1 Corinthians 1:5), were still, at the most favourable estimate, only “babes in Christ”! There was no beauty or satisfaction or honour in such a standstill life. There are such in every Church. Always learning to stand, to walk, to do; never accomplishing much at either; indeed, spiritually always learning to live. To them the Church is hardly yet a school; certainly not a workshop; more truly a nursery. Every pastor has many such, who must not only be “looked after” incessantly, lest, like naughty or heedless children, they stray away into the world, but who must be nursed lest the feeble flicker of life be extinguished in death. How large a part of the work of the Churches, how large a part of the care of the ministry, must be absorbed in the working of keeping up to the level of even “babes in Christ,” some who have been in outward membership for years! [The coincidence of our paragraph with Hebrews 5:11 is noteworthy.]

3. Paul refers to their food: “Milk, not meat.”—No humble child of God’s family but acknowledges how often, in some of the lessons of God’s school, he has never seemed to get beyond the A B C of teaching. The same discipline year after year, the same trials, because the one lesson has never been perfectly learned yet. To promote His scholar into the work of the next higher “form,” whilst yet the lessons of the lower have never been mastered, would only be to ensure bad work, to attempt to “rush up” a building upon a badly laid foundation. The Jerusalem scoffers in Isaiah’s day cried half in scorn, half in anger, “Whom shall he [the prophet] teach knowledge?… weaned babes? Does he take us for such, with his precept upon precept, … here a little, there a little?” (Isaiah 28:9). The words are read by some, and are as true, if they be seriously spoken, perhaps by the prophet himself. What they said in scorn was a simple, sad necessity. They were fit only for such lessons. There are truths which alone the children can take in. There are truths which are of “the secret of the Lord,” only revealable to the grown men. There must not be on the part of the human teachers—from any mistaken policy, or from any fear of being misunderstood by their youngest pupil—any such keeping back of truth as makes what is taught all but falsehood. Economy, reserve, are not for man, for ecclesiastics, to practise. If the Spirit of God has only gradually (Hebrews 1:1) brought out the full round of truth, it has been from no desire to conceal anything; the disclosure has been conditioned by the receptiveness of the scholars, and by that only. To Nicodemus the Master Himself distinguished between “earthly things” and “heavenly things” (John 3:12), as being of different grades of comprehensibleness. Human teaching will adapt; it will not for the teacher’s sake reserve anything which is needful and can be communicated. The human difficulty is to teach elementary truth without so far distorting it that before anything more can be added, something must be unlearned; we must often pull down a little before we can “graft” the new work upon the old. The model should be the teaching of the Revealing Spirit; all absolutely true, so far as it goes; no need for unlearning in order to new learning; from milk to meat in His teaching is one orderly, harmonious progress and growth of truth. But how long He has to say, “Ye were not able to bear it; neither yet now,” etc.

4. Note the special token of carnality, of infancy.—They are children with their favourites, over whom they boast and wrangle and quarrel. No sign of “manhood in Christ,” to be so devoted to one man, or one type of minister, as to appreciate and be helped by no other.