1 Corinthians 3:22

22. Paul Claim not one or two apostles sectarianly; but liberally make them all your own collective wealth.

Cephas In 1 Corinthians 3:4-5, where he speaks depreciatingly, he selects himself and his dear associate Apollos; but now, when he speaks honouringly, he brings in Peter, who was claimed by the party opposed to himself.

World… to come Compare notes on Romans 8:38-39. Not only were all the apostles and all Christian teachers theirs, but all the glorious truths and wonders revealed by Christianity through those apostles are also theirs. They, under Christ, as Christ under God, are proprietors of all things. For as God has made Christ heir of all, and the Christian is heir of (or with) Christ, so the Christian inherits all. Away, then, with human philosophies and leader-ships. The world is viewed as created for unfallen man. Lost by Adam, it is regained by Christ. Lost for all in Adam, it is regained for all renewed by Christ. Hence, though the wicked seem to possess the world, it really possesses, masters, and ruins them. This world, then, is the theatre for the Christian’s development for the world to come. Life is the Christian’s commencement for a life eternal. Death is the gate through which he passes from the lower life to the higher.

Things present All events and objects that fill this world and this life.

Things to come The glorious events, sceneries, and personages of a blessed eternity.

All are yours How, then, in view of so sublime and boundless a wealth, can you be engrossed in quarrels and partisanships about the comparative talents of your Christian leaders? And so, also, Paul asks, 1 Corinthians 6:4, since Christians are judges of angels, how can they be judged by pagan courts?

Wonderful it is how this apostle, surrounded by the pomp and power of the world, should be thus able to see by the eye of faith and truth that the world belonged to his humble flock of despised disciples of Jesus. It was because he was gifted with the power divine to look through the deceptions of the phenomenal and temporal, and descry the real and eternal.

Ye are Christ’s As all below you belong to you, so you belong to Christ above.

Christ is God’s The God-man is now subordinate to the Supreme Deity, whose only begotten Son he is. And so God is now supreme, as he finally will become all in all. 1 Corinthians 15:28.

Both as the result of 18-24, and as the point to which the whole epistle has thus far tended, St. Paul has shown how apostles, and so all Christian teachers, must not be viewed, namely, as partisan dividers of the Church: he will now describe how they should be viewed. 1 Corinthians 4:1-13.

There are many at the present day who declaim vigorously and indiscriminately against creeds and dogmas. They are fond of saying that Christianity is not a doctrine but a life. It is easy to carry such declamation to a dangerous extent. Christianity is both a doctrine and a life. No doubt there are unessential dogmas, and subtle distinctions, which, even while valuable in themselves, should not be allowed to produce quarrel and division. Yet there are truths which even he who builds on Christ may neglect or deny to his own loss. There are doctrines of great positive value, and it is right that they should be expressed in concise forms and adopted as articles of Churchly concord.