1 Corinthians 3:22,23

“Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours; 23. and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.”

In the front are placed the names of the three teachers who had been made party chiefs, and in connection with whom all this instruction is given. To express his conclusion, Paul has only to give back the three formulas. Instead of saying, “I am Paul's,” the Corinthian should say, “Paul is mine.” The Church is the end; the ministers are the means. Peter, with his personal memories of the life of Jesus, Apollos, with his knowledge of the Scriptures and the irresistible charm of his eloquence, Paul, with his superior knowledge of God's plan for the salvation of the world and his incomparable apostolic activity, are not masters to whom the Church should bow as a vassal, but gifts bestowed on it, and which it is bound to turn to advantage, without despising one or going into raptures over another. Paul cannot, of course, give back the watchword of the fourth party in the same way; for in itself this formula exactly expressed the truth. We shall see, by and by, how he brings it back to its true meaning.

These three gifts represent one and the same idea, that of the ministry, that is to say, in general, gifts of a spiritual order. In contrast to them Paul names the world, the totality of beings who, outside the Church, may tell on the lot of believers, or of the Church itself. Animate or inanimate, the creatures obey Christ who has received power over all things, and, through Him, the Church, which is His body (Ephesians 1:22).

Of the powers acting in the world there are two, of formidable and mysterious greatness, which seem to decide the course of the universe, life and death. The first comprehends all phenomena which are characterized by force, health, productiveness; the second, all those which betray weakness, sickness, decay. From the one or other of these two forces proceed all the hostile influences of which the believer feels himself the object. But he knows also that he is not their puppet; for it is Christ his Lord who guides and tempers their action. Chrysostom, Grotius, and others have restricted the application of these two terms, life and death, to the teachers of the Church. But the apostle, on the contrary, would have them taken in their widest generality.

To these two pairs, that of the spiritual order and the terrestrial order, and that of life and death, the apostle adds a third in relation to time, things present, and things to come. The participle τὰ ἐνεστῶτα, strictly: what is imminent, here, as often, in contrast to “things future,” takes the sense of things present. It comprehends all that can happen us in the present state of things, and as long as we form part of it; while the things to come denote the great expected transformation, with its eternal consequences. Then the apostle sums up his enumeration by reproducing the bold paradox with which he had begun: “Yea, I tell you, all is yours. ” It is easy to see what the apostle wishes: to exalt the consciousness of this Church, which is degrading itself by dependence on weak human instruments (ἀνθρώποις, 1 Corinthians 3:21), to the height of its glorious position in Christ. He strives to restore it to self-respect. It is the same intention which comes out in the following words.