Article
Look Up and Remember
January 11, 2019
1 Corinthians 2:7–10 (KJV) "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God."
Early in the life of the Corinthian church, Paul received word that the assembly he had recently founded was deeply divided.
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Some congregants had embraced Greco-Roman ideals of enlightenment and succumbed to a sophistic understanding of wisdom and eloquence. Paul assessed that, by adopting the values of the world around them, these Corinthians had aligned themselves with “this present age” (2:6). Moreover, by aligning themselves with “this present age,” these members had created a rift within the Corinthian congregation between themselves and those who were, in their estimation, less enlightened. These elite members may have even looked down on Paul and questioned the legitimacy of his ministry (4:3–4). In response to the divisive Corinthians’ preoccupation with “this age,” Paul does not merely rebuke pride or a particular philosophy. Instead, for Paul, the great danger in worldly preoccupation is that believers began to lose perspective as to their call, responsibility, and identity in Christ. Thus, to harken the Corinthians back to right-thinking and right-perspective, Paul calls them to both remember of the cross and to renew their anticipation for the Christ’s coming.
It is essential that we note that Paul often points to the return of Christ to realign his readers with the will of God (e.g., 1 Cor 15:58; 1 Thess 5:1–8; 2 Thess 2:13–15). However, here in 1 Cor 1–2, Paul places both the past and present revelation of the cross and the future revelation of Christ’s return at the center of his exhortation. Christ crucified is the true “wisdom of God” (1:23). Christ’s return is the coming revelation (2:9). However, both the past and future works or God through Christ are made a present, experiential reality through the work and revelation of the Spirit (2:10). That is, the Spirit makes both the past work of Christ and the future coming of Christ a present realization for the believer. To understand this, we must first understand how Paul thinks of the Kingdom of God.
For Paul, history began anew with the advent of God’s Kingdom through Christ’s work on the cross and resurrection. It was through this one act that a newly created order had broken into the world. As N.T. Wright observes, Christ’s resurrection “inaugurates God’s new creation right in the middle of the old one."
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Moreover, this inauguration anticipates the culmination of salvation-history in the return of Christ. For Paul, the cross, resurrection, and return are not just disparate salvific events but make up the one great manifestation of God’s coming kingdom. In other words, God’s salvific action in the world through Christ—the cross, the resurrection, the return—is one act of victory spread out over several stages.
To make sense of this, let’s examine the analogy of the child-bearing. There are several stages in a child’s prenatal development. The child is consummated, grows, and is finally born. However, these separate stages make up a single reality which we call ‘child-bearing.’ At no point in the process is there any doubt that the next stage will come.
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Consummation necessitates birth. All stages in child-bearing participate in the inevitable life which is to emerge. Once life begins in the womb, life will inevitably come out of the womb. For this reason, the subsequent life of a child, though made up of different stages, is one single happening.
For Paul, the dawning of the victorious age of Christ is like childbirth. The cross and resurrection consummate the new creation within the old. The life of Christ is then carried within the church awaiting the inevitable revelation of Christ at His coming. Like childbirth, the inevitability of the end is predicated upon the beginning, and the beginning necessitates the end. In this sense, for Paul, the cross, the resurrection, and the return of Christ is a single reality: the coming of the Kingdom of God.
But what bearing does all this have on our scripture?
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How should Paul’s eschatology inform our lives and ministry?
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First, we must realize how Paul’s understanding of the present and yet still coming Kingdom of God shaped his teaching. Because Paul believed that the Church exists in the newly inaugurated Kingdom, both the coming of Christ and the cross of Christ should be ever before its eyes as presently experienced realities. For Paul, remaining conscious of the cross and soon return of Christ brings us— our behavior, our prayer lives, our worship, our ministry—all into proper alignment with the heart and will of God. Gazing both upon the cross, where we meet Christ, and outward toward the return of Christ, for which we now labor, quickens our hearts and minds with conviction to remember to which Kingdom we belong.
As with the Corinthians, our hearts are susceptible to the allurements of “this present age.” Once we begin to adopt the values of the world around us, once “this age” instructs us as to what we should value, we will have begun to step out of the new creation and back into the old. To remain faithful to our Lord and not fall prey to the encumberments of the world, we must live in full, wide-eyed realization of the cross and the soon return of our King. But, how are we to do this? Paul makes it clear: God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit (2:10). Daily, in reliance upon His Spirit, we must pray, be broken before God, and look up and remember.
1 Richard B. Hays. First Corinthians. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 5. It is likely that Paul founded the Corinthian church around 49 AD, left in 51 AD and wrote 1 Corinthians between 53 and 55 AD.
2 N. T. Wright. Surprised by Hope
(HarperCollins: Kindle Edition, 2007), 68. Wright goes on to wright that “if Jesus, the Messiah, was the End in person, God’s-future-arrived-in-the-present, then those who belonged to Jesus and followed him and were empowered by his Spirit were charged with transforming the present, as far as they were able, in the light of that future.” That is, while the church ministers within time, it also ministers according to the future kingdom which is presently coming and will be fully realized at the return of Christ.
3 For sake of the analogy, I am speaking in terms of natural processes. Of course, in the real world we know that complications may prevent a pregnancy to continue. However, if undeterred, child-birth is inevitable upon the child’s consummation. This latter point is the central purpose of the analogy
4 It is helpful to note that, in in 1 Cor 2:9, Paul is quoting both Isaiah 64:4 and 65:16–17. Here, in Isaiah, the prophet also points toward the day of the Lord in order to call his divided hearers back to faithfulness.
5 “Eschatology” refers to “end time” or even “end of life” teachings from scripture. It is a combination of two Greek words, ἔσχατος and λογος (lit. “end teaching”).
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