1 Corinthians 1:29

῞Οπως, that thus. This conjunction denotes the final end with a view to which all the preceding ἵνα, that, indicated only means. The negative μή, according to a well-known Hebraism, applies to the verb only, and not at the same time to the subject all flesh; for Paul does not mean to say that some flesh at least should be able to glory. The word flesh is taken in the sense pointed out, 1 Corinthians 1:26. No man, considered in himself and in what he is by his own nature, can glory before God, who knows so well the nothingness of His creature. The words, all flesh, seem to go beyond the idea of the preceding propositions, where the question was merely of the humiliation of the wise and mighty. But is it not enough that these last be stripped of the right of glorying that the whole world may be so along with them, the weak and ignorant being already abased by their natural condition? As Hofmann says: The one party are humiliated because with all their wisdom and might, they have not obtained what it concerned them to reach, salvation; the other, because if they have obtained it, it is impossible for them to imagine that it is by their own natural resources that they have come to it.

The mode of the Divine calling, to which the apostle pointed the attention of his readers, 1 Corinthians 1:26, had two aspects: the first, the rejection of things wise and mighty; the second, the choice which had been made of things foolish and weak. The first of these two sides has been expounded, 1 Corinthians 1:26-29; the apostle now presents the second.