1 Corinthians 1:17

“For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel; not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.”

Between 1 Corinthians 1:16-17 the logical connection is this, “If I baptized, it was only exceptionally; for this function was not the object of my commission.” The essential difference between the act of baptizing and that of preaching the gospel, is that the latter of these acts is a wholly spiritual work, belonging to the higher field of producing faith and giving new birth to souls; while the former rests in the lower domain of the earthly organization of the Church. To preach the gospel is to cast the net; it is apostolic work. To baptize is to gather the fish now taken and put them into vessels. The preacher gains souls from the world; the baptizer, putting his hand on them, acts as the simple assistant of the former, who is the true head of the mission. So Jesus Himself used the apostles to baptize (John 4:1-2); Peter acted in the same way with his assistants; comp. Acts 10:48. Paul certainly does not mean that he was forbidden to baptize; but the terms of his apostolic commission had not even mentioned this secondary function (Acts 9:15; Acts 22:14-15). Though he might occasionally discharge it, the object of his mission was different. To the aorist εὐαγγελίσασθαι, the reading of the Vatic., the present εὐαγγελίζεσθαι is to be preferred, which better suits the habitual function.

The connection of the last proposition of 1 Corinthians 1:17 with what precedes is not obvious at the first glance. But the study of the following passage shows that we have here the transition to the new development which is about to begin. This transition is made very skilfully: it resembles that of Romans 1:16, by which the apostle passes from the preface to the exposition of his subject. There might be a more subtle way of appropriating souls to himself than that of baptizing them in his name, even that of preaching in such a way as to attract their admiration to himself by diverting their attention from the very object of preaching: Christ and His cross; now this is excluded by the term evangelizing (preaching the gospel), taken in its true sense. Paul means, “I remained faithful to my commission, not only by evangelizing without baptizing, but also by confining myself to evangelizing in the strict sense of the word, that is to say, by delivering my message without adding to it anything of my own.” The term evangelizing signifies, in fact, to announce good news; it denotes therefore the simplest mode of preaching. It is the enunciation of the fact, to the exclusion of all elaboration of reason or oratorical amplification, so that the negative characteristic, without wisdom of words, far from being a strange and accidental characteristic added to the term evangelize, is taken from the very nature of the act indicated by the verb. Thus Paul has not only continued steadily in his function as an evangelist; he has at the same time remained faithful to the spirit of his function. He has therefore done absolutely nothing which could have given rise to the formation of a Paul-party at Corinth.

The objective negative οὐ is used because the regimen refers, not to ἀπέστειλε, sent me, in that case the negative would depend on the Divine intention in the sending, and the subjective negative, μή, would be required, but to εὐαγγελίζεσθαι, which denotes the fact of preaching itself.

This second part of the verse contains the theme of the whole development which now follows. The formation of parties at Corinth evidently rested on a false conception of the gospel, which converted it into the wisdom of a school. Paul restores the true notion of Christianity, according to which this religion is above all a fact, and its preaching the simple testimony rendered to the fact: the announcement of the blessed news of salvation (εὐαγγελίζεσθαι). It is thus clear how the second part of the verse is logically connected with the first, the idea of wisdom of words being excluded by the very meaning of the term evangelize.

The phrase σοφία λόγου, wisdom of words, is not synonymous with σοφία τοῦ λέγειν, the art of speaking well. The emphasis is rather on the word wisdom than on words. The former term applies to the matter of discourse; it denotes a well-conceived system, a religious philosophy in which the new religion is set forth as furnishing a satisfactory explanation of God, man, and the universe. The latter bears on the form, and denotes the logical or brilliant exposition of such a system. Most critics think that by this phrase Paul means to allude “to the teaching of Apollos, at once profound and highly flavoured.” “The orator preferred to Paul,” says Reuss, “was no other than his friend and successor Apollos.” We know few commentators who have been able, like Hilgenfeld, to rise above this prejudice, which has become in a manner conventional. As for me, this application seems to be directly contrary to all that Paul himself will afterwards say of Apollos, and to the way in which his teaching is described in the Acts. Paul, in this very Epistle, 1 Corinthians 4:4-8, testifies to the closest relation between his own work and that of Apollos. Far from there having been conflict between the two works, that of Paul is represented, 1 Corinthians 3:6, under the figure of planting, and that of Apollos under that of watering. Paul adds, 1 Corinthians 1:8: “He that planteth and he that watereth are one. ” The apostle, on the contrary, characterizes in the following verses the mode of teaching which he would here combat, as belonging to that wisdom of the world (1 Corinthians 1:20) which the gospel comes to destroy; he applies to it (1 Corinthians 3:20) these words of a Psalm: “The thoughts of the wise are only vanity;” he accuses it of “destroying the temple of God,” and threatens its propagators “with being destroyed” in their turn “by God” Himself (1 Corinthians 3:17-18); and it is of the teaching of his friend and disciple Apollos that he meant to speak! According to Acts 18:27-28, the whole preaching of Apollos was founded on the Scriptures, and not at all on a human speculation which he had brought from Alexandria, as is alleged by those who make him a disciple of Philo. It is even said that “ by the grace of God he was very profitable to those who had believed.” The person of Apollos must therefore be put out of the question here: it is impossible even to suppose that all which follows applies to his partisans. We have much more reason to think that those referred to here are the teachers who, under the name those of Christ, were propagating strange doctrines at Corinth regarding the person of Christ, and whom Paul accuses, 2 Corinthians 11:2-4, “of corrupting minds from the simplicity which is in Christ,” and of beguiling them “as the serpent beguiled Eve.”

The systematic and brilliant exposition of the fact of the cross would have the effect, according to Paul's phrase, of κενοῦν, literally emptying it. Those who, like Meyer and so many others, apply the foregoing expressions to Apollos, attenuate the meaning of this term as much as possible; according to them, it merely signifies that in consequence of this mode of preaching, the salutary effects of preaching will be ascribed rather to the brilliant qualities of the orator than to the matter of the doctrine, the cross. But this meaning is obviously far from coming up to the idea expressed by the word κενοῦν, to make void. Kling comes nearer to the energy of the expression when he refers to the fact that a dialectic and oratorical mode of preaching may indeed produce an intellectual or aesthetical effect, but not transform the egoistical self. But if Paul had meant nothing more than this, he would rather have used the word which is familiar to him, καταργεῖν, to deprive of efficacy. The term κενοῦν denotes an act which does violence to the object itself, and deprives it of its essence and virtue. Salvation by the cross is a Divine act which the conscience must appropriate as such. If one begins with presenting it to the understanding in the form of a series of well-linked ideas, as the result of a theory concerning man and God, it may happen that the mind will be nourished by it, but as by a system of wisdom, and not a way of salvation. It is as if we should substitute a theory of gravitation for gravitation itself (Edwards). The fact evaporates in ideas, and no longer acts on the conscience with the powerful reality which determines conversion. The sequel will be precisely the development of this thought.