I Corinthians 1:8

First Corinthians 1:8

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said concerning Jesus in First Corinthians 1:8, "Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." The return of Christ is often called the day of God or the day of Jesus Christ. When He comes, it will be a time of judgment such as the world has never known. The proud and the evil and the unbelieving will bow at the feet of Jesus, and they will be judged for the things that were done in their bodies and in their lives.

Ultimately, no one gets away with any wrongdoing. They will be judged because Jesus will return. Today is the day of grace and mercy, but the time will come when the opportunity to be saved will be no more. In that day Jesus shall tread the winepress of the wrath of God against sin, and none shall be able to escape the wrath of the Lamb: none except those who believe in Him. The believers will be given by His free grace the astounding blessing whereby they shall be able to stand before Him blameless, even though they were sinners like all the rest. There are humans who would choose to blame and accuse whoever they can, just like the devil does; but God offers to all the chance to stand at the judgment and be declared blameless. You would think that more people would choose mercy instead of judgment and to be “blameless” instead of being condemned, but to receive the mercy of God you must truly turn to Jesus and turn from your sins.

The reason that believers will be declared blameless is not because of their own goodness or their own faithfulness, because First Corinthians 1:9 says, "God is faithful, by whom you were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." When someone is saved, it is because God has first touched their hearts and called them to Himself. Once someone responds to Jesus with repentance from sin and surrender to the will of God, that person has entered the best of all spiritual destinies, and the reason is that God has promised to save to the uttermost those that come to God by Christ Jesus. Of those who are given to Christ will He lose none. This is not because of the faithfulness of man, but the faithfulness of God. Unlike humans, God always keeps His promises.

The introduction to the Corinthians was made here in the first nine verses of First Corinthians chapter 1. Now Paul turns his attention to the first problem that existed among the Christians in the city of Corinth. Paul wrote in First Corinthians 1:10, "Now I beseech you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." One of the great things about Christianity is the very high standards’ that are set for us. If you want a challenge in life, there is none greater than to live according to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. We can do no better than the goals that we set, and the teachings of Jesus give us the highest and the greatest goals ever. What Paul was doing in writing to these Corinthians is the same thing that we must do for ourselves: he was reminding them of what the goal is and what the standard is so that they could examine themselves and make any corrections that were necessary.

Jesus did not establish many churches: He established one church. He did not say to Peter, "Upon this rock I build my churches." But Jesus said, "Upon this rock I build my church." Earlier in the introduction to First Corinthians, Paul made it clear that he was not just writing to the Corinthians, but that he was writing to "all that call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." Every Christian should have the same goal that Paul wanted these Christians at Corinth to have: to be careful to contribute to the unity of believers and not to divisions.

Just think of the difference that it would have made if all of the Christians since the first century had been able to remain united. What a mighty army there would have been for the service of the Lord! How many more things would have been accomplished! Unfortunately, the evil one was successful at causing many divisions, and of course there are many divisions in the church today: divisions that from a human standpoint will not be resolved. Many people look at the ills of our modern society such as the moral depravity, the violence, the drug and alcohol abuse, the divorce rate, or the many wars: and they think that these things must be evidences of how greatly things have degenerated and how displeased God must be and how much closer to the return of Christ that we must be: but of much greater concern should be the divisions that have torn the church of Jesus Christ apart and weakened it, and greatly reduced what its effectiveness otherwise would have been.

Unity among Christians is not easy, just like unity in a marriage is not easy. It takes both sides making the effort to have any chance at the unity that is desired, and it only takes one side to destroy it. And concerning the unity of the church there are other factors and other principles that must be considered. What about the history and tradition of one local church as compared to the history and tradition of another? What about doctrinal differences? What about false teachers? Paul wrote to the Romans and said to them, "Mark those that cause divisions contrary to the faith, and avoid them." But in spite of the obstacles to unity, a believer must find a way to be faithful to sound doctrine and at the same time to have the objective that Paul gave to the believers. "…that in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." Every Christian should be careful about what they say and what they do in regards to the unity of the believers. Do we cause divisions, or do we contribute to unity, the right kind of Biblical unity?

In the next several verses Paul is more specific about the divisions that existed at Corinth. First Corinthians 1:11-12 says, "For it has been declared unto me of you, my brothers, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I say, that every one of you says, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ." The problem that had arisen among the Corinthians was that they were beginning to break into groups based upon whom they were following. Some of the Corinthians began to identify themselves as followers of men.

Believers in God should be followers of Jesus and not of men. Many have made the mistake of following men instead of following God. One of the reasons that some people end up in a false cult is because they become followers of men and the person that they follow turns out to be a false teacher. The men that some of the Corinthians were following in an inappropriate way were not false teachers. They were Paul and Apollos and Peter. They were very good teachers. You can end up following a good teacher in the wrong way. The true purpose of a spiritual teacher should be to help you follow God and not to follow man, not even themselves. Sometimes you can tell when people are starting to become followers of man because they will spend quite a bit of time talking about and praising the human who did the teaching, instead of talking about and praising Jesus who was the object of the teaching.

In organized Christianity those who become followers of men will cause divisions because they will favor the teachings of someone that other believers will not favor. If one group follows one human and another group of believers follows another human, it is the fact that they followed different humans that really caused their division in the first place. If they had only followed God, they would have more easily stayed united with one another. Many of the denominational differences that have arisen over the years have come about because of believers making this same mistake: they followed man instead of God.

The number one reason that all true believers should be united is because they serve the same Lord. Keeping this fact in mind will help them to be united. But people will lose their focus when they start thinking too much about the human that is a teacher. It is very clear that the mistake of the Corinthians was to emphasize in the wrong way the attachment that they had to certain teachers, even though those teachers were sent by God. But you can make the same mistake of causing divisions even when claiming to be followers of God. There was one such group among the Corinthians. They did not claim to follow Paul or Apollos or Peter. They claimed to be followers of Christ, but evidently they did it in an arrogant and divisive way, and were just as wrong as those who were followers of men. It is not only what you do that counts, but how you do it. It is not only what you say, but the attitude that you have when you say it. There are groups even today who have put the name of God or Christ into the name of their group and yet it has been no guarantee for them, because some of them have made even worse errors than the Corinthians.

In First Corinthians 1:13 Paul wrote, "Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" There is only one Christ. Therefore, those who believe in Christ should not be divided. There is not Christ for one group and another Christ for another group. If someone believes in Christ, they believe in the same Jesus that you believe in. It is the same principle that applies to God. There is only one God. If someone on the other side of the world believes in God, then they believe in the same God that you believe in. They may know some things about God that you do not know, and vice versa; but it is the same God. Do not look for how you are different but how you are the same, and use the things that you already have in common to create a greater bond. When Paul went to Athens he saw that they had an altar built with an inscription that said, "To the unknown God." Paul told the Athenians that he was going to teach them about this unknown God in whom they already believed, but about whom they did not know enough. Belief in God at any level can be a unifying concept that can be built upon, and should never be something that divides people. At the end of time for those that are in heaven, the one thing that they will all have in common will be their belief in the One, True God and in the Son Jesus Christ.

Paul spoke of himself and said that he certainly should not be one who was followed in the way that the Corinthians were following men, and Paul gave two reasons for it in First Corinthians 1:13. First, Paul had not been crucified for them. We do not follow men, because all men are sinners. At best they are sinners saved by grace, and therefore God should get the glory for anything that is taught by them or done by them. If they do teach something that is good and beneficial, they can only do so because God has gifted them for it. We owe our allegiance to Christ because He died for us. Only Christ was qualified to die for our sins. What could anyone do for us compared to what Jesus has already done? Therefore, we will follow Christ and not man.

Most Christians have been baptized. When they are baptized, they are not baptized in the name of the person who was their teacher or their pastor, but they were baptized in the name of Jesus. They should therefore be always careful to be followers of Jesus and not of any man. The Christians in Corinth 2,000 years ago were not baptized in the name of Paul. They should therefore not be forming groups where they identify themselves with Paul, to the exclusion of other believers who did not have the same identification with Paul. Christian groups have made this mistake time after time after time, where they have emphasized their allegiance to some human being or their teachings, and they have thereby contributed to the divisions in the church that belongs to Jesus.

Paul had a few more things to say about baptism in First Corinthians 1:14-17. He wrote, "I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius; Lest any should say that I had baptized in my own name. And I baptized also the household of Stephanas; besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. 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 no effect." The reason that Paul was glad that he had not baptized very many people in the city of Corinth was because they were forming divisions based upon their allegiance to human beings, and Paul was glad that they did not have the additional excuse of being baptized by him as another reason to form a group that divided itself from other groups of believers.

In other words, baptism should not be a source of division and dispute among believers. Look at what we have in organized Christianity today. Many divisions are still caused because of the way that baptism is taught. What does that demonstrate to you about the true spiritual condition of many churches today? If what you teach and what you believe and what you emphasize about baptism causes divisions among Christians or causes you to exclude certain Christians from your group, then you are committing the same error as that of the believers in Corinth.

Paul said that he was glad that he had baptized none of them, with a few exceptions; and he went even farther and said that he was called not to baptize, but to preach the gospel. It may be a disappointment to anyone who puts a big emphasis on baptism, but according to Paul, baptism is not even a part of the gospel. Performing baptisms or being baptized is not a part of the gospel. That is because baptism is only symbolic. Water cannot wash away sin. Becoming free from sin through Jesus Christ is a spiritual experience. If you rely upon baptism to free you from your sins then you have not understood the teaching of Paul or the gospel of Jesus Christ, because Paul said, "I have not come to baptize but to preach the gospel." But no matter what you believe about water baptism, if you believe in Jesus, you are a brother or a sister in Christ.

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