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Address (1–3). Thanks be to God (4–9). Judgment Ap. Paul about the Corinthian parties (10–17). The Gospel is not the wisdom of men (18–31) 1 Corinthians 1:1. Paul, called by the will of God to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ, and Sosthenes brother, Ap. Paul and his colleague Sosthenes send greetings to the Corinthian Church. "Called apostle", see Rom. 1:1. - “Sosthenes brother.” From the book of Acts we know about Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue in Corinth (Acts 18:17). It is very possible that he was converted to Christianity by Paul and became his collaborator. Ap. Paul probably mentions him here as a person well known to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 1:2. the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, with them and with us: "Churches". In ordinary Greek, the word Church (εκκλησία) denotes an assembly of citizens who are called from their homes on some public matter (cf. Acts 19:40 - “assembly”). In the terminology of the New Testament, this word retains the same meaning. Here God convenes or calls sinners to salvation through the preaching of the Gospel (Gal. 1:6). Those who are called form themselves into a new society, the head of which is Christ. - “God’s”. This word refers to the One who convened the community and to whom it belongs. And in the Old Testament there was a term: “Kehal Jehova” - the assembled society of Jehovah. But there new members of the community appeared through bodily descent from those previously called by God, and here, in Christianity, the Church grows through the free, personal joining of all who can believe in Christ. - “Sanctified in Christ Jesus.” The word “sanctified” refers to the state in which believers are found through the Lord Jesus Christ. To accept Christ within oneself by faith means to assimilate to oneself the holiness that He embodied in His Person. – “Called saints” – see. Rom.1:7 – “With all” – this addition of Ap. reminds the too proud (1 Cor. 14:36) Corinthian Christians that besides them there are other believers in the world with whom they must go hand in hand in their moral development. - “Invoking the name.” This expression was used in the Old Testament (Isa. 43:7; Joel. 2:32) only about calling on Jehovah (in LXX). The expression "name" contains the idea of ​​"being" (Ex. 23:21). - “Gentlemen.” This title designates Christ as the One to whom God has given dominion over the world. The Church consists of persons who recognize this power of Christ over the world. - “In every place.” The Christian Church here appears to have already spread throughout the world (cf. 1 Tim. 2:8). - “With them and with us.” This word should be related to the expression: “Our Lord Jesus Christ” (Chrysostom). Ap. wants to say that the Lord is one for all believers, both the flock and the shepherds! this is a protest against those who, exalting the preachers - the listeners of Christ, forgot about Christ the Lord Himself (cf. 1 Cor. 1: 3, 5, 22, 23). 1 Corinthians 1:3. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. "Grace and peace" - see Rom. 1:7. 1 Corinthians 1:4–9. Before proceeding to expose the shortcomings of the Corinthian Church, Apostle. speaks of what is good in this Church. He thanks God for grace in general and especially for those grace-filled gifts that the Corinthians have, and expresses confidence that Christ will bring them safely to the end of their earthly journey, so that they can fearlessly face the terrible judgment of Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:4. I thank my God continually for you, because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus, In gratitude, what Ap. praises God for the state of the Corinthian Church, there is no flattery or irony. Ap. He knows how, while denouncing people, to appreciate at the same time their known real merits, and the Corinthians had such virtues. - “Grace”. This word denotes not only spiritual gifts, but in general everything that is given from God to people through Christ - justification, sanctification, strength for new life. 1 Corinthians 1:5. because in Him you have been enriched in all things, in all speech and in all knowledge, "Because.." Here the Apostle points out a new fact which proves the reality of the fact mentioned in verse 4. Only from the new state of grace of the Corinthians could the abundance of spiritual gifts that the Corinthian Church possessed come about. – “In the Word” (λόγος). Here is Ap. understands those gifts that were expressed in the inspired speeches of believers (the gift of tongues, prophecy, teaching - see below chapters XII-XIV). "Knowledge" (γνῶσις). Here is Ap. means “understanding” the history of our salvation and the application of Christian dogmas in life. – It’s great that Ap. speaks about the gifts of the Spirit, and not about the fruits of the Spirit, as for example. in the last to Solun. (1 Thess. 1:3; 2 Thess. 1:3 et seq.). These “fruits” of the Spirit - faith, hope and love - therefore, the Corinthians still had too little to thank God for. 1 Corinthians 1:6. for the testimony of Christ is established in you, “For..” is more correct: according to how (in Greek - καθως). Ap. wants to say that the testimony (i.e. preaching) about Christ was established among the Corinthians in a special way, precisely by being accompanied by a special outpouring of spiritual gifts: nowhere, therefore, was there such an abundance of spiritual gifts as in Corinth. 1 Corinthians 1:7. so that you lack no gift, as you wait for the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, “So” - this expression depends on the word “were enriched” (v. 5) - “In no gift.” By “gifting” (χάρισμα) we mean here (according to the thought of verse 5) a new spiritual power or ability that one Christian or another received from the Holy Spirit. Of course, the Holy Spirit in this case did not supplant the soul of the person himself: He only elevated and sanctified the innate abilities of the human soul, giving them the opportunity for their fullest development. - “Waiting...”. The Corinthians had a tendency to imagine themselves as having already achieved Christian perfection (1 Cor. 6:8), especially in relation to knowledge. Ap. here he makes it clear to them that such perfect knowledge cannot yet exist in this life - they must wait for the revelation that will be given at the second coming of Christ, when the secret will become apparent (cf. Rom. 2:16). 1 Corinthians 1:8. Who will also establish you to the end, so that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Which”, i.e. Christ - “Until the end”, i.e. until the 2nd coming of Christ, which the believers then expected as soon to follow. Neither the day nor the hour was revealed to them when it was actually supposed to come (Luke 12:35, 36; Mark 13:32). 1 Corinthians 1:9. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Ap. does not mean by this that God will save the Corinthians, no matter how they behave. On the contrary, at the end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th chapter, he clearly shows that a lack of faith and obedience can completely destroy the work of saving them begun by God. Obviously, the Apostle's confidence in the salvation of the Corinthians is based on the assumption that the Corinthians themselves will contribute to the cause of their salvation. Just as in the expression: “you are called” there is a thought not only about the calling of God, but also about the free acceptance of this calling, so maintaining in communion with Christ presupposes the Corinthians’ own desire, their own steadfastness in this matter. 1 Corinthians 1:10–17. From the praise of Ap. moves on to blame. Rumors reached him about the division of the Corinthians into parties: Pavlov, Apollos, Cephas and Christ, and he expresses his condemnation of this partisanship. First of all, he turns to those who formed the special party that bore his name, and says that he did not give any reason for this at all. 1 Corinthians 1:10. I beseech you, brethren, 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 united in the same spirit and in the same thoughts. "Brotherhood". The apostle calls the readers this way because not all of them were converted by him to Christianity and therefore could not be called his “children,” as the apostle called, for example, the Galatians (Gal. 4:19). - “In the name of the Lord,” that is, by virtue of the knowledge that they have about the person and activity (“name” - όνομα) of the Lord I. Christ. - “So that you all say the same thing,” that is, so that you don’t say what Ap lists. in Art. 12th - they were not divided into parties, but represented a single church society. - “And there were no divisions between you.” The thought just expressed in a positive form is now repeated in a negative form. - “Connected”. The word used here in the Greek text (καταρτίζειν) means: to gather, to put together (eg various parts of a machine), to prepare a worker for work (Eph. 4:12), to organize what is in disorder. In relation to the Corinthian Church, this word undoubtedly has the last of the indicated meanings, but it can also be understood in the sense of uniting all the disparate parts of the church organism into one whole, i.e., in the first meaning. How this connection can be accomplished is indicated in the following expressions: “in the same spirit” and “in the same thoughts.” By “spirit” (νους) it is better to understand (cf. 1 Cor. 2:16) the Christian worldview in general, the understanding of the Gospel as a whole, and by “thoughts” (γνώμη) - opinions, views on individual points of Christianity (cf. 1 Cor. 7:25). The Apostle thus expresses the wish that unanimity prevail among the Corinthians, both in the general understanding of Christian truth and in the way of resolving individual issues raised by the needs of Christian life. 1 Corinthians 1:11. For from the household of Chloe it became known to me about you, my brethren, that there are disputes among you. 1 Corinthians 1:12. I mean what you say: “I am Pavlov”; “I am Apollosov”; “I am Kifin”; “And I am Christ’s.” After this preliminary admonition, Ap. depicts the circumstances of the life of the Corinthian Church that prompted him to address his readers with an exhortation. - "Chloe's Pets". These could have been either the children or slaves of this woman, who probably lived in Corinth. - “They say to you.” – more precisely from Greek: “each of you speaks.” The Apostle wants to point out by this the general enthusiasm for the spirit of partisanship. Every Corinthian considered it his duty to belong to one of the parties mentioned here. – “I am Pavlov, I am Apollosov” - see the introduction to the message. - Ap. shows particular tact in the distribution of parties. In the first place he puts his followers, as those who deserve his reproach, and this shows that he himself is far from any self-exaltation. – What distinguished the Pavlovs’ party from the Apollosovs’ party? this was not any difference in essence (1 Cor. 3:5 et seq.; 1 Cor. 4:6), but only in the form of teaching. The Apostle Paul considered Apollos to be the continuator of his work in Corinth: “I planted, Apollos watered” (1 Cor. 3:6) he says, depicting the establishment of the Gospel in Corinth. - “And I am Christ’s.” Some Church Fathers and new interpreters consider these words to be the confession of Paul himself, which he here expresses in opposition to people who bow to the authority of the preachers of the Gospel. But this fourth statement is undoubtedly something symmetrical to the first three preceding it and is subject to the same reproach that sounds in the words of the apostle: “each of you says.” There are many assumptions about the party of Christ, but all of them have little evidence. Some (Renan, Meyer, Heinrici) see in this party a protest against admiration for the apostles and believe that the “Christians” generally went against the exclusive authority of the Apostles, others suggest that this party included the most educated pagan Christians who wanted to make Christ the supreme leader of life, as Socrates was for his students. Still others saw in the members of this party people who, through visions, found it possible to enter into direct communication with Christ. The fourth opinion (Godet) suggests that these were Jewish converts to Christianity, who were proud of their theocratic advantages and, being representatives of the primacy - the Jerusalem - Church, wanted to gradually subject the Corinthian Christians to the yoke of the Mosaic Law. They called themselves “Christ’s” because they imagined that they understood Christ’s intentions better than anyone else. At the same time, however, to please the Greek Christians, they introduced elements of Greek theosophy into their teaching, to which Ap. Paul hints in 2 Epistle. to Corinth. ( 2 Cor. 10:5, 11:3–4 ). This explains the Apostle’s lively polemic against confusing human wisdom with the Gospel (1 Cor. 3:17–20): here the Apostle does not mean the party of Apollos, but the party of Christ. It could be that “Christ’s” held the same view of Christ as the heretic Cerinthos, who did not recognize Christ in the man - the Jew Jesus, crucified on the cross. They could believe, just like Cerinthus, that Christ was separated during suffering from the man Jesus: this Jesus died on the cross, which is why he deserves damnation (cf. 1 Cor. 12:3), and Christ sits in heaven, at the right hand of God the Father, and He alone should be honored by Christians. So. Thus, in Christ’s people one can see “Gnostics before Gnosticism.” – The most plausible assumption is Lütgerfa. This scientist does not find any sufficiently compelling reasons to see the “Christ” party as Judaists. On the contrary, he sees in them supporters of the idea of ​​human freedom in Christianity that have gone too far. These are the “pneumatic libertines” (something like our Doukhobors). The Apostle Paul, in their opinion, stopped halfway to Christian freedom: he does not have the spirit, strength, courage, confidence in victory and self-awareness, which are the qualities of a real pneumatic. He is fearful in his relationship to God and to the Christian community and to the world, but they always behave as if they were free, fearing nothing. They were finally emancipated from any dependence on the apostles, even from the obligation to study in the Holy Scriptures. Scripture, since, according to their conviction, they directly entered into communion with Christ, and this communication gave them the highest wisdom, made them “gnostics,” that is, knowledgeable of all the secrets of life. What such unbridled freedom led to, which was preached by “Christ’s” - this can be judged by the fact that the Apostle speaks about in Chapter V. (the case of the incest). 1 Corinthians 1:13. Was Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul? “Is Christ divided?” Paul addresses this reproach to the “Christian” party, which believed that it alone had the true Christ, while other Christians obviously worship someone else. No,” the Apostle wants to say, “Christ is the same for all Christians!” You cannot make Christ the property of any party! - “Was Paul crucified for you?” - this and the next question show the absurdity of the behavior of those who called themselves Paul’s instead of calling themselves disciples of Christ. The first question, in particular, relates to the activity of Christ as a redeemer, and the second to His position as the Head of the Church. 1 Corinthians 1:14. I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 1 Corinthians 1:15. so that no one would say that I baptized in my name. 1 Corinthians 1:16. I also baptized Stephen's house; I don’t know if I baptized anyone else. Ap. thanks God for entrusting him with another, more important task than performing baptism - the work of preaching (cf. v. 17). If he frequently baptized those who converted to Christianity, they could say that he does this to glorify his name, or even that he baptizes in his own name. In the then religious ferment, when new systems and new cults were appearing everywhere, such an outstanding preacher as Paul could easily found his own religion, force people to believe in his own name, and not in the name of Christ... Of those baptized by himself, Paul mentions the head of the Jewish synagogue in Corinth - Crispus (Acts 18:8) and Gaius, in whose house the Apostle Paul lived at one time (Rom. 16:23). The third exception was the house of Stephanos ("Stephans"), who was among the deputies who came to Paul from Corinth to Ephesus. 1 Corinthians 1:17. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. The logical connection between verses 16 and 17 can be expressed as follows: “if I performed baptism, it was only an exception to the general rule; for this was not part of the duties of my ministry.” The work of proclaiming the Gospel - that was the calling of the Ap. Pavel! this matter, of course, is much more difficult than performing the sacrament of baptism on persons already prepared for baptism. Proclaiming the Gospel is like throwing a net to catch fish, and this was the calling of the Apostle, and baptizing is like taking out a fish that has already been caught from the net. Therefore, Christ did not baptize Himself, but left this task to His disciples (John 4:1–2). “Not in wisdom of speech, lest the cross of Christ should be made void.” Paul wants to say that he remained only a proclaimer of the Gospel of Christ, without resorting to any special means to attract more listeners (he did not dress his sermon in the garb of an oratorical work). Next, he did nothing to form his own party. By “wisdom” (σοφία) Paul means a correctly developed system, religious philosophy. This “wisdom” of the word made the new religion a source of a satisfactory explanation of the being of God, the being of man and the life of the world. But Paul here does not mean the preaching of Apollos, which was in direct connection with his own (1 Cor. 3:4-8), but the wisdom of this world (v. 20), which is abolished by the Gospel (1 Cor. 3:20) and which serves only to desecrate the church of God (1 Cor. 3:17, 18). It is most natural here to see the denunciation of those false teachers who called themselves “Christ’s” and spread ridiculous opinions about Christ and Christianity in Corinth (2 Cor. 11:2-11). This “wisdom of the word” or the false teaching of Christ “abolished the cross of Christ.” The expression to abolish or devastate (κενοῦν) means an action that steals from a known object its essence and its strength. And, indeed, the Corinthian gnosis (see the opinion of Lütgerfa above) abolished, deprived of all power and significance the feat of the cross of our Savior: since Christ left Jesus while Jesus was hanging on the cross, it means that the feat of the cross of Jesus had no redemptive significance for humanity. This is what the passion for false knowledge (gnosis) of the Corinthian Christians led to, and the Apostle did not want to have anything to do with such false sages. 1 Corinthians 1:18–31. In contrast to the teaching of the party of Christ, Apostle. says that the Gospel in its essence is not wisdom, not a philosophical system in which everything is proven and deduced through correct conclusions. This is clear from the fact that the focal point of the Gospel is the cross - the suffering and death of Christ the Savior, which both for Jews and Greeks seemed to contradict their prevailing idea of ​​the Savior. This is also clear from the composition of the Christian Church in Corinth, the majority of which consists of uneducated people. 1 Corinthians 1:18. For the word about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Among the Corinthian Christians there are those (mainly the party of Christ) to whom Paul’s sermon seems devoid of wisdom because the content of this sermon is the cross of Christ. These people whom Ap. rightly calls them “perishing,” that is, those deprived of salvation in Christ, who do not want to see the revelation of God in the Cross. God, who is revealed in the crucified Christ, according to these people, cannot be God. People generally think of God as an Almighty Being who acts to achieve the goals He sets out by performing miracles and extraordinary signs. On the contrary, the crucified Christ saves people by His humiliation, by His apparent weakness. However, for true Christians - whom Ap. calls them “those being saved” in view of the fact that their earthly career has not yet been completed by them - in the preaching of the cross there is that Divine saving power that they so need (cf. Rom. 1:16). 1 Corinthians 1:19. For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and destroy the understanding of the prudent. 1 Corinthians 1:20. Where is the sage? where is the scribe? where is the questioner of this century? Has not God turned the wisdom of this world into foolishness? Ave. Isaiah told the Jewish politicians that God would save Jerusalem from the invasion of Sennacherib Himself, without the help of these politicians, who only harmed their state with their cunning (Is. 29:14). This is what God does - the Apostle wants to say here - even now, with the salvation of the world. He saves people from destruction in an extraordinary and inappropriate way from the point of view of human wisdom - precisely through the highest manifestation of His love, in which human wisdom must withdraw with shame from the arena of its activity. Neither the “wise men” (σοφός), i.e., Greek philosophers (cf. v. 22), nor the “scribes” ( γραμματεῖς), i.e. Jewish learned rabbis, who - both of them - willingly entered into debates and reasoning with those who came to them to study (the expression: “co-questioner” summarizes both of the above-mentioned categories of sages). - “This age”, i.e. this temporary life, to which the Apostle contrasts life after the Last Judgment. – How did it happen, however, that these sages of the world left the stage? this happened due to the fact that “God” made human wisdom real foolishness. He offered humanity a salvation that was at odds with the demands that human wisdom made on every teaching that took upon itself the task of saving humanity, and human wisdom, by rejecting this salvation, clearly showed its madness or unreason before everyone. - “This world”. This is not the same as the above expression “of this age”. There, only the time, the period of activity of the sages, was indicated, but here the character, the direction of their wisdom is indicated: this is the wisdom of humanity that has renounced God. 1 Corinthians 1:21. For when the world through its wisdom did not know God in the wisdom of God, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe. "For". The apostle here points out the reason why God dealt so severely with the wise men. - "When" . Ap. means here a well-known fact - the gradual immersion of the human mind into the abyss of error during the times of paganism, which Ap. calls in another place “times of ignorance” (Acts 17:30). - “In the wisdom of God.” This is the book of nature, in which the wisdom of God is revealed to a reasonable person (see Rom. 1:20 and Acts 14:17, 17:27). A person can, observing the life of nature, the expediency of all its phenomena, come to the idea of ​​the existence of the All-Wise Creator and Provider of the universe. But the human mind (cf. Rom. 1:21) did not turn out to be faithful to this task and deified the creation itself instead of glorifying the Creator. If some philosophers created for themselves the idea of ​​a single and all-good God, it was a rather vague and abstract concept that they were unable to establish beyond the thresholds of their schools. The gods of the people, who ruled over their conscience, held fast in place, and only to Israel, through a special revelation, was the true knowledge of God communicated. - “It was good.” God found the best (pleasing to Him) means for saving people. The mind turned out to be unsuitable - and God calls upon another spiritual force to serve the cause of salvation. - “The foolishness of preaching.” Reason cannot understand and accept the new means of salvation, which is now proposed by God; this means seems to it to have the stamp of “foolishness” and unreason on it. This is what the crucifixion of the Messiah represented to the mind! Such foolishness was imprinted in the eyes of the sages on the well-known sermon of the Apostles about Christ (κήρυγμα delivered with the member τοῦ) - “Believers”. Faith is the new spiritual force that God now calls to action instead of reason. Man must now respond to the manifestation of Divine love not with an act of reasoning, but with a matter of trust. God now demands from man not logical research, but devotion, a contrite conscience and a believing heart. That. The general idea of ​​this verse is this. People were unable to use their reason as they should in order to know and find salvation in this, and therefore God showed them a new means of salvation - faith in Him, faith in the Crucified One, which seemed completely unreasonable to the wise, but which really saves those who can cultivate it in themselves. Ap. here he explains why he does not tell the Corinthians what constitutes the product of human wisdom itself: this wisdom has already been condemned by God to destruction! 1 Corinthians 1:22. For both the Jews demand miracles, and the Greeks seek wisdom; 1 Corinthians 1:23. but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block for the Jews, and foolishness for the Greeks, The preaching of Christ crucified was unacceptable to the Jews, because they looked for strength in the Messiah, the ability to perform miraculous signs (Mark 8:11 et seq.). For the Greek cultural world, the most important thing in the new religion was its conformity with the requirements of reason; they wanted to see “wisdom” in religion, at least of heavenly rather than earthly origin. Meanwhile, Ap. preached that Christ was crucified. This was completely inconsistent with the Jews' concept of the Messiah - the great king and conqueror of his enemies, but to the Greeks this whole story seemed to be a simple fable. – But didn’t Christ do signs for the Jews? Yes, He did, but all His signs and wonders were erased from their memory when they saw Him hanging on the cross. They, of course, thought then that He had previously deceived them with His miracles, or that He Himself was an instrument of the devil’s power. 1 Corinthians 1:24. for those who are called, Jews and Greeks, Christ, God's power and God's wisdom; But the same Jews and Greeks, to whom the preaching of the cross seemed unreasonable, look at the cross completely differently as soon as they become believers. The latter are named here by Ap. “called”, thus putting forward the appearance of divine activity - calling - over human - the assimilation through faith of the truths of the Gospel. – Christ is “God’s power” and “God’s wisdom.” God is the Creator, and in Christ we become a “new creation” (Eph. 4:24) - this reflects God’s power, God’s omnipotence. On the other hand, God is “wisdom” itself, and in the Lord Jesus Christ all the secrets of eternal Divine wisdom are revealed (Eph. 1:8, 9). 1 Corinthians 1:25. because the foolish things of God are wiser than men, and the weak things of God are stronger than men. To explain how the weak and foolish from a human point of view were a manifestation of God's power and wisdom, Apostle. says that in general it is impossible to measure the wisdom and power of God by human standards. What seems weak and foolish to people, in fact, in the hands of God is much more valid than all the best human creations: it is wiser than people with all their wisdom, and stronger than people with all their strength. – It should be noted that Ap. here he speaks only about the relationship of human and Divine wisdom to the matter of human salvation. Here, indeed, all the best products of human wisdom have no power before the Divine economy if they act independently as competitors of Christianity in the matter of saving people. But Ap. does not deny the high significance of human wisdom, how quickly it itself goes to the light of Divine revelation, preparing a person to assimilate the salvation given by Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:26. Look, brethren, who you are who are called: not many of you are wise according to the flesh, not many of you are strong, not many of you are noble; That God did not need worldly wisdom to carry out His plans is evidenced by those whom He chiefly called at the founding of the Church in Corinth. These were mainly workers from the harbors of Corinth, various shipbuilders and other people of the lower strata of society who could not boast of either nobility, power, or nobility of origin. 1 Corinthians 1:27. but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the strong things; 1 Corinthians 1:28. God has chosen the base things of the world and the things that are despised, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. 1 Corinthians 1:29. so that no flesh should boast before God. From ancient inscriptions in the Roman catacombs it is clear that in Rome the majority of Christians belonged to the lower or middle class of society (bakers, gardeners, tavern owners, freedmen, sometimes lawyers). Minucius Felix designates Christians as indocti, impoliti, rodes, agrestes (VIÏ12). This circumstance, which also took place in Corinth, represents the most striking evidence that Christianity conquered the world without any external help, but with its own internal strength. God’s goal in this was to humble human pride, which prevented a person from turning to God for help, having first realized his weakness (cf. Rom. 3:27). 1 Corinthians 1:30. From Him you also are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, 1 Corinthians 1:31. so that it may be as it is written: He who boasts, boast in the Lord. Instead of pride, believers should kindle in themselves a feeling of gratitude to God for His great mercies. - “From Him you too.” Here we should add the expression: you exist (in Greek εστέ). Previously, one might say, they did not exist (cf. v. 28), but now, thanks to God, they represent something very important. - “In Christ Jesus.” Christ gives them in abundance everything that they were deprived of in the opinion of the world, and what exactly he gives is said in the following words. First of all, He became for them “wisdom from God” - that is, a higher wisdom than human wisdom, the lack of which the Corinthian Christians perhaps regretted, - “righteousness and sanctification” - that is, He gives real righteousness to people and leads them along the path of holiness to their intended goal (cf. Rom. 1:18, 6:1 et seq.). Finally, Christ became “redemption” for us, that is, He introduces us into the eternal glory that He Himself has, resurrects our bodies and glorifies us after this in His Kingdom (cf. Rom. 8:18–30 and Luke 21:28; Eph. 1:3, 4:30; Heb. 11:35). - “Braise in the Lord.” These words express the main idea of ​​the entire section, beginning with the 13th verse. It is not the teachers of the faith that should be praised, but Christ Himself—to Him alone belongs the Glory! (Although in St. Jeremiah, “Lord” means “Jehovah,” but the Apostle, obviously, mainly designates “Christ” by this name). You might be interested in: