1 Corinthians 2:5

The Apostle's purpose in discarding the orator's and the sophist's arts was this: “that your faith might not rest in wisdom of men, but in (the) power of God”. The κἀγὼ ἦλθον of 1 Corinthians 2:1 dominates the paragraph; P. lives over again the experience of his early days in Cor [323]; this purpose then filled his breast: so Hf [324], Gd [325], with the older interpreters; most moderns read into the ἵνα the Divine purpose suggested by 1 Corinthians 1:27-31. Paul was God's mouthpiece in declaring the Gospel; he therefore sought the very end of God Himself, viz., that God alone should be glorified in the faith of his hearers (1 Corinthians 1:31; cf. 1 Corinthians 1:15). Had he persuaded the Cor [326] by clever reasonings and grounded Christianity upon their Greek philosophy, his work would have perished with the wisdom of the age (see 6, also 1 Corinthians 1:19; 1 Corinthians 3:19 f.).

[323] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[324] J. C. K. von Hofmann's Die heilige Schrift N.T. untersucht, ii. 2 (2te Auflage, 1874).

[325] F. Godet's Commentaire sur la prem. Ép. aux Corinthiens (Eng. Trans.).

[326] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

The disowned σοφία ἀνθρώπων is the σοφ. τ. κόσμου of 1 Corinthians 1:10 (see note) in its moral character, a σοφ. σαρκική (2 Corinthians 1:12) “wisdom of men” as opposed to that of God, ἀνθρωπίνη, 1 Corinthians 2:13. Yet not God's wisdom, but primarily His power (see notes on 1 Corinthians 1:18; 1 Corinthians 1:24; 1 Corinthians 1:30) supplied the ground on which P. planted his hearers' faith. All through, he opposes the practical to the speculative, the reality of God's work to the speciousness of men's talk. The last ἵνα clause of this long passage corresponds to the first, ἵνα μὴ κενωθῇ ὁ σταῦρος τ. Χριστοῦ (1 Corinthians 1:17). ἐν should be construed with ᾖ (consistat in, Bz [327]) rather than πίστις, pointing not to the object of faith but to its substratum: for this predicative ἐν “should be (a faith) in,” etc. cf. 1 Corinthians 4:20; Ephesians 5:18; Acts 4:12.

[327] Beza's Nov. Testamentum: Interpretatio et Annotationes (Cantab., 1642).

SUMMARY. Thus the Apostle's first ministry at Cor [328], in respect of his bearing (1 Corinthians 2:1), theme (2), temper (3), method (4), governing aim (5), illustrated and accorded with the Gospel, as that is a message from God through which His power works to the confounding of human wisdom by the seeming impotence of a crucified Messiah (1 Corinthians 1:17-31; 1 Corinthians 1:17-31; 1 Corinthians 1:17-31).

[328] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.