1 Corinthians 3:13 - Exposition

Each man's work shall be made manifest. The real nature—the worth or worthlessness—of each man's work, will be made clear sooner or later. The day shall declare it. "The day" can only mean "the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" ( 1 Corinthians 1:8 ), which would specially "make manifest the counsels of the hearts" ( 1 Corinthians 4:5 ), and "judge the secrets of men" ( Romans 2:16 ), and make all men manifest "before the judgment seat of Christ" ( 2 Corinthians 4:10 ). It shall be revealed by fire; rather, because it is being revealed in fire. The phrase "is being" is called bad English, but some such phrase is positively needed to render the continuous present tense, which here expresses certainty, natural sequence, perpetual imminence. This tense is constantly used to express the continuity and the present working of Divine laws (comp. Matthew 3:10 ). As the nominative is not expressed, it is uncertain whether "it" refers to "each man's work" or to" the day." Either gives an apposite sense ( Malachi 4:1 ; 2 Thessalonians 1:8 ). Some would make "he" (namely, Christ) the nominative, because "the day" means "the day of Christ;" and in favour of this view they quote 2 Thessalonians 1:7 , "The revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven in flaming fire." But the ellipse of an unexpressed nominative is harsh. The fire itself shall prove each man's work. This is the "probatory" or testing fire of the day of the Lord, of which we read very frequently in the Fathers. The doctrine of purgatory has been in some measure founded on this verse; but such a view of it cannot be maintained. The reader will find the subject examined and the quotations from the Fathers given in the writer's 'Mercy and Judgment,' p. 69. All that is said here is that the fire of Christ's presence—the consuming fire of God's love—shall test the work, not purge it. The fire is probatory, not purgatorial, and it is not in itself a fife of wrath, for it tests the gold and silver as well as the inferior elements of the structure. It is the fire of the refiner, not of the avenger.