1 Corinthians 1:2 - Exposition

Unto the Church. This form of address is used in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. In St. Paul's later Epistles, for some unknown reason, he prefers the address "to the saints." These forms of address show the absence of any fixed ecclesiastical government. He does not in this Epistle address any "bishops" or "presbyters" whom he might regard as responsible for the growing disorders which prevailed at Corinth, but he appeals to the whole Church. The word ecclesia— signifying those who were "called out of the world," and so primarily applied to "the congregation of Israel"—came ultimately to mean "a congregation." The only apostle who uses the word "synagogue" of the Christian assemblies is St. James ( James 2:2 ). Of God. Not the Church of this or that party leader. Some commentators give to these words an emphasis and importance which does not seem to belong to them. Which is at Corinth. So in 2 Corinthians 1:2 . In 1 and 2 Thessalonians he prefers the form, "the Church of the Thessalonians." "The Church at Corinth" was an expression which involved the sharpest of contrasts. It brought into juxtaposition the holiest ideal of the new faith and the vilest degradations of the old paganism. It was "a glad and great paradox" (Bengel). The condition of society at Corinth, at once depraved and sophistical, throws light on many parts of the Epistle. Cicero describes the city as "illustrious a like for wantonness, opulence, and the study of philosophy." Even them that are sanctified. The apostles could only write to Churches as being really Churches, and to Christians as being true Christians. In all general addresses they could only assume that the actual resembled the ideal. They never conceal the immense chasm which separated the real condition of many members of their Churches from the vocation which they professed. They knew also that it is (as Calvin says) "a perilous temptation to refuse the name of Church to every Church in which there is not perfect purity." Ideally even the Corinthian Christians were redeemed by Christ's expiation, consecrated and sanctified by the work of the Holy Spirit. They could only be addressed in accordance with their ostensible position (see Hooker, 'Eccl. Pol.,' Ecclesiastes 3:1 ; Ecclesiastes 5:1-20 :68). Our Prayer book is constructed on the same principle. The harvest is still a harvest, though amongst the corn there may be many tares. In Christ Jesus . The words, "in Christ," constitute what has been happily called "the monogram of St. Paul." The life of the true Christian is no longer his own. The Christ for him has become the Christ in him. His natural life is merged into a higher spiritual life. Baptized into Christ, he has become one with Christ. Called to be saints. (On this Christian calling, see Ephesians 4:1 , Ephesians 4:4 ; 2 Thessalonians 1:11 ; 2 Timothy 1:9 ; Hebrews 3:1 ; 2 Peter 1:10 .) They are called to be united saints, not schismatic partisans or members of antagonistic cliques. The description of what they were ideally is the more emphatic because he feels how much they had fallen away. With all that… in every place. Perhaps this may mean the same as 2 Corinthians 1:1 , "With all the saints that are in the whole of Achaia;" or the words may imply that St. Paul's exhortations are applicable to all Christians, wherever they may be and (as is expressed in the next clause) whatever may be their varying shades of individual opinion. It was well in any case to remind the Corinthians that they formed but a fraction of the Christian communities. Catholicity, not provincialism, makes the true Church of God. Call upon the Name. The Greek verb is here in the middle voice, not "who are called by the Name"(comp. James 2:7 ; Amos 9:12 , LXX .). It means, therefore, all who reverence the Name of Christ, all who adore their one "Lord" in the fulness of his nature (see Joel 3:5 ; Acts 2:21 ; Romans 10:1-21 :24; 2 Timothy 2:22 , etc.); in other words, "all who profess and call themselves Christians" (comp. Acts 25:11 ). Their Lord and ours . I connect these words, not with "place," as in the Vulgate, In omni loco ipsorum et nostro— which, however it may be twisted, can give no good sense—but with "Jesus Christ." It has been in all ages a fatal temptation of party Christians to claim a monopoly of Christ for themselves and their own sects, as though they only taught the gospel, and were the only Christians or the only "Evangelicals." But Christ cannot thus be "parcelled into fragments" (see 2 Corinthians 1:12 , 2 Corinthians 1:13 ), nor has any party a right to boast exclusively, "I am of Christ." The addition, "and ours," could not be regarded as super fluous in writing to a Church of which one section wanted to assert an exclusive right in Christ.