Called to Be Saints
1 Corinthians 1:1-3
We're studying I Corinthians beginning this morning and it's certainly going to be an exciting book. One of the things you have to do at the beginning of every book is to set a foundation upon which to understand the book. And so we'll be looking at I Corinthians just in the beginning sense the first three verses this morning.
I've entitled this whole portion The Benefits of Being a Saint because I think that's really what he's saying. I suppose that when we hear the word saint, or when we even use the word saint, we think of a catholic image or a catholic medal because maybe that's the dominance significance of the word, at least in our culture, but that is never the biblical meaning of the word. The word scripturally clearly does not refer to a special people who have been canonized by a church council, special people who are venerated by the masses bowing, kissing, and burning candles to their images. The term saint in the word of God is simply defined right here in I Corinthians 1:2. If you'll look at it we'll just begin by examining that term.
"Under the church of God, which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours." Now there you have the term saint used to define those who are sanctified in Christ who call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Anyone made holy in Christ, anyone calling upon His name, that is any believer, any true Christian is a saint.
You have the right to that title. In fact, the next time you introduce yourself you can simply say it's nice to meet you, I'm Saint John and that ought to start a good conversation. I have been made righteous. I have been made holy. I have been declared just by God Himself, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That's a saint.
Now Paul begins in this particular portion, just to give you an overview of the first nine verses, by declaring these Corinthians to be saints, which as we will see is quite a declaration when you start looking at the things that characterize their living. But He declares that they are saints and then proceeds immediately to discuss the benefits of sainthood from verses 4 to 9. And we're going to get into those benefits in detail next Lord's Day.
But the beginning then of His approach to them is you are saints and here is what it is to be a saint. Now I think there is a great purpose intended in the mind of the apostle in so doing this. He starts out by stating their identity as saints. The word saint is hagios in the Greek. It means holy one. They are holy. What is so amazing about this is that the fact is that I Corinthians from really the first chapter in verse 10 clear on out until it's finished deals with wrong doctrine and wrong behavior. If you could imagine a doctrinal error or a behavioral moral error in the church, Corinth had it. They did everything evil conceivably that a church could do, and yet he begins by saying to them, "you are saints."
Now clearly we must remember something that we've distinguished in the past and that is there is a very clear difference between your position before God and your practice, between your standing and your state, as they used to call it in the past, and your actual behavior. I am a Christian. I am a saint. I am one who has been made holy before God. I am in the eyes of God as righteous as Jesus Christ; however, I do not always act like it. My standing is defined as holiness, my behavior is defined as unholiness.
So if you don't understand that distinction you'll really never be able to interpret the New Testament because you'll get everything confused. The Corinthians were holy, holy before God because they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, not holy in the way they lived. They had not yet made their life match their position. They had not yet lived up to who they were.
I always go back to the illustration of the time that I was put in jail, when I was a child. I was about eleven or twelve and I got put in jail for robbing Sears and I mean no Woolworth's or something, going for the big job. Anyway I stole some things from Sears. In fact I stole a bunch of cigars and cigar lighters because that's the only thing that was available when somebody wasn't looking, not that I smoked. But anyway, it was lark and I remember I wound up in the Glendale City Jail. And the comments that were made to me were things like, "Don't you know who your father is? How could you do that?" My father had been playing golf with the deacons at the time. They contacted him at the golf course and he brought the deacons along because he thought it was a mistake and they were in the car when he picked me up at the jail. And of course it was a terrible thing for the local pastor having a son bailed out when he was only eleven years old for robbing Sears.
But the thing I got in response to that was, "Don't you know who your father is? Don't you know who you are? Why don't you live up to the thing that is supposed to be characteristic of you?" And in a sense that's really how a Christian is approached. Don't you know who you are in Christ? Act like it! But sometimes our behavior doesn't always match our position, does it? Sometimes kings don't act like kings, and presidents don't act like presidents, and leaders don't act like leaders, and teachers don't act like teachers, and so forth and so forth. Preachers don't act like preachers. And sometimes Christians don't act like _______, but the Corinthians were holy. They just didn't act like it. Positionally before God they were in absolute righteousness because of Christ.
And so when Paul begins the letter to them he takes the first nine verses to tell them they're saints and tell them all that means. Why you marvelous saints, you've got everything past, present, future that a saint would ever have.
Now he begins in verse 10 of 1 by saying act like it. "Now I beseech you," do you see it there? First four words! On the basis of who I just said you are, "Now I beseech you brethren." And he starts in on all of their sins. And so the apostle Paul then is going to state the identity of these people and he does so by giving them the benefits of being a saint. And we'll get into that in real detail next Lord's Day.
But let's look back at verse 1 and let's see how he begins his letter to them. The first word is what? Paul. I memorized the first word of every one of Paul's letters. You know what it is? Paul! Wasn't too tough. All thirteen of his letters begin that way, and you know that's the way the Greeks wrote a letter. They started the letter with the name of the author, which seems a lot more reasonable than putting it at the end because the first thing you do when you get a letter that you can't recognize the writing in you turn to the end to find out who wrote you the letter so you can believe or not believe what is being said as you read it. I mean you have to be able to evaluate it, right? Well, the Greeks wrote the letter, by first of all, this is me talking to you. We do that. We don't have a phone conversation at the end say, "Signed John." No, you first of all say who you are so there can be some conversation.
So the usual form of a Greek letter begins with the name of the author and then the identification of the reader, such as in verse 2, "The church of God which is at Corinth," then the greeting, such as verse 3, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." This is a very typical format for the apostle Paul. He establishes his identity and then immediately, look at verse 1, he establishes his authority as an apostle. Now this is something that Paul repeatedly did and there were many reasons why he did this. You do not find the other writers of the New Testament doing this in the way Paul does. Of course, not all of the apostles wrote in the New Testament, but nevertheless, Paul is the one who is continually identifying himself as an apostle. And I think there are some very specific reasons why he does this.
He says, "Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God." He identifies his calling to be in identification with Christ and by God's expressed will. Now I want you to get this in the very beginning. Paul is not doing this in order to gain self-glory. I often think to myself that when you go someplace and they introduce you and they always like to introduce you with a whole lot of titles, you know. Everybody wants to introduce you as Dr. so and so, and people always introduce me as Dr. so and so, and I'm not a doctor. I'm not even a nurse, I'm just plain John, but that's great. But people always want a title. They always want some kind of point of identification, and you know you hear people give introductions and he did this and he did this and he went here and he went there and he has this degree and so forth and so forth and so on. And I wonder sometimes what the purpose of it is, and I suppose the purpose doesn't have to glory, doesn't have to be vainglory; it actually could be establishing some authority. I mean here's a guy who's this and this and this and this; therefore, what he says you ought to listen to because he's got a background.
Well if we can translate that into Corinthians 1 and elevate it to its highest concept, that's exactly what Paul is doing. He is not saying, I am apostle, clap for me. He is saying, I am an apostle; listen to me. I have authority and I speak with authority. What I am about to say to you comes from Jesus Christ at the will of God, for therein lies my calling.
So it has nothing to do with vanity; it has nothing to do with self-glory, he absolutely and totally disdains self-glory and personal merit. Later on in I Corinthians he says I am the least of the apostles, I don't deserve any of this, I am what I am by the grace of God.
And so it is not for that reason he calls himself an apostle, a sent one, an ambassador, an envoy, and a messenger of Jesus Christ. You day then, what is the reason? Well I sat down and maybe for the first time really tried to think through categorically why Paul does this in almost every single letter. The only times he doesn't do it is where he includes another name where he says Paul and Silvanus unto such and such a group. Wherever there is only his name identified initially he does call himself an apostle. And I came up with what I think are five reasons that he does this, and I'm just giving them to you for your future reference, as well as now.
He does this first of all because of his relation to the twelve. Now there were originally twelve disciples. One of them was disqualified. His name was Judas. His place was taken, according to Acts 1, by a man named Matthias, and the ranks of the twelve were then completed, filled up. They became the foundation for the early church; they became the authoritarian group as you come into Acts Chapter 6, it is the apostles that are really running the church. Even in Acts Chapter 2 the people were studying the apostles doctrine, that is the apostles teaching. The apostles laid the foundation for the church and the twelve were known by the church as the authoritative voice of Christ.
Now on top of this here comes a sort of a Johnny-come-lately by the name of Paul, one who at first introduction to the church was breathing out threatening and slaughter, and killing Christians and maiming them and throwing them in to prison and doing all kinds of things against the church. He had not lived and walked with Jesus Christ in his pre-death years. He had not seen the resurrected Christ before He ascended into heaven. And the qualifications for an apostle according to the Scripture, Acts 1, were that they know Christ in His post-resurrection reality, and that they be specifically and personally and directly chosen by Christ. They had to have seen the resurrected Christ and been called specifically by Him into the apostolate. That's the reason we can't have any apostles today. That's the reason there couldn't be any past the biblical ones because no one since then has seen the living resurrected Christ and been specifically commissioned by Him. He has ascended into heaven where He is until He comes again.
So the apostolate has ceased. It was foundational according to Ephesians 2: 20. But here came Paul and he came along a little bit late and so people were saying, "Yeah Paul, un huh, we hear what you're saying but you're not one of the twelve. You're not one with authority." So he continually establishes that he has authority, and that he was, in fact, one who saw Christ.
I Corinthians 15, he hallucinates. He says, "Christ, having been raised from the dead was seen of Peter then of the twelve," now watch, verse 8, "And last of all He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." And when and where did Paul see Him? On the Damascus Road at his conversion he saw Him in blazing glory and was blinded by Him. And then you remember then further than that the Lord appeared to him on other occasions, once in Jerusalem and then again when he was a prisoner later in Jerusalem, appearing to him to tell him he would go to Rome.
So he saw the resurrected Christ. He was specially called on the Damascus Road to be the apostle to the Gentiles. And I believe that he states this because of his relation to the twelve that he might establish the fact that he is in equality with them as a foundational teacher of revelatory truth.
Secondly, I believe that he gives himself this title in the Scripture because of his relation to false teachers. He was continually being harassed by false teachers. Teachers would come in and they would say to the people whom Paul had just taught, "He has no credibility, he has no authority. He is not one of the apostles. The Judaizers particularly did this. And Paul was constantly being knocked. He was constantly being persecuted. He was constantly being buffeted around even by people who claimed to be his friends, at least they were Jews and he was a Jew. And he answer this, I think, in I Corinthians 4:9. He says, "I think that God has set forth us, the apostles last, as if it were appointed to death. We are made a spectacle to the world, and angels, and men.
He says in verse 11, "Unto this present hour we hunger, we thirst, we are naked, buffeted, have no certain dwelling place, labor working with our own hands." You remember he did that. "Being reviled we bless, being persecuted we endure, being defamed we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world and the offscouring of all things unto this day." And here he simply says I am constantly being battered. I am constantly being defamed and dishonored. I am constantly being persecuted and reviled. This goes on all the time. I am considered filth, I am considered offscouring, something you scrub off and throw away. False teachers are constantly doing this to the apostle and I believe that one of the reasons that he establishes his apostle is because he defends himself against those who would discredit him.
Thirdly, I feel that Paul gives himself this title because of his relation to Christ. This has not to do with the false teachers as much as it has to do with the Christian. The Christians in Jerusalem, at least, were not really sure about Paul and maybe in many other areas initially they weren't too sure about him either, about whether he had credibility, whether he had legitimate apostolate. And one of the reasons I believe he repeats his apostolate statement again and again is in order to insure the readers that he is equal to the rest of the apostles, because you see they weren't too sure about it. False teachers had infected them and given them bad information.
Remember when Paul came back to Jerusalem after his third missionary journey he had to take his life in his hands because even the Christians were after him. They had heard all kinds of terrible things about him. Equally had the Galatian Christians been sold a bill of goods about the apostle and he wants them to know that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ and he is in every sense commissioned by Christ. I am related to Christ just like the rest. He said, I never speak anything that was not given to me of Jesus Christ. "I am determined to know nothing," he says in 2:2, "among you except Christ and him crucified."
So because of his relationship to Christ he says this. I want you to know that I'm sent by Christ, that I have every bit as much authority as anyone else, that I am possessed by Christ. I am not my own. I am His and He it is that speaks through me.
Fourthly I think he uses this title to express his relationship to the readers themselves. He wants them to know that he has been sent to them, that he is not just an apostle, but he is an apostle, verse 2, unto the church of God, which is at Corinth. His calling was to them. He had been called of God to go to them with the message. In I Corinthians 9 he defends this again. He says, "Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are not you my work in the Lord? If I be not an apostle unto others, yea doubtless I am to you, for the seal of my apostleship are ye in the Lord." Your very church, the fact that it exists after my 18 months of effort proves that I was sent by God to you. So he states his title again in order to express that he is related to them as a special messenger from God.
Then to lastly fifth, I think that he expresses his title to show his relation to God. So his relation to the twelve, to false teachers, to Christ, to the readers, and lastly to God. When he says, "I am an apostle by the will of God, he in effect is saying what I say to you comes as a delegation from God. God has delegated to me this information to give to you. Now they understood this. They understood the word apostleship. There was a Jewish Supreme Court. Do you remember their name? Sanhedrin. They were made up of seventy of the wisest elders of Israel and they made the decisions regarding every Jew in the world, religious decisions, moral decisions, and when anyone had a problem in any place they would send that to the highest court and it would go to the Sanhedrin if it couldn't be settled at the council of their own synagogue and the Sanhedrin would make a judgment and a verdict on this decision and then they would dispatch a man to take the verdict back to the community of Jews that had asked for it. That man was called Apostlelas. He was called an apostle, a sent one, a messenger, an envoy, an ambassador, an agent and he would be sent back and he would say to that group, "I speak with the authority of the Sanhedrin. Here is their verdict," and he would give them the verdict. Paul is saying I am not an independent operator. I come as an envoy from the throne of God and what I give you are God's judgments. You see?
So he's establishing his authority every way possible. From the viewpoint of his relation to the other apostles, the viewpoint of his relation to the readers, the viewpoint to the relation of the false teacher who were knocking him, his relation to Christ and his relation to God. In every way he has authority and he verifies it. He came in the power of God, not in men's power, not in his own authority.
At the end of verse 24 of Chapter 1, he came in the power of God and the wisdom of God. Chapter 2:4, it says, "He came in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power." And so he came with all authority and he establishes his authority at the very beginning that the people might listen to what he has to say.
Now he's not gloating. He's not boasting. Chapter 15 he says, "I'm the least of the apostles. I'm not even fit to be called one because I was a persecutor, but I am what I am and I am that by the grace of God." What he means is I am an apostle by His grace and you're to listen.
Now you say what is an apostle, what do that do? Well for you that might not have known this, and you might want to reread the book, or if you haven't read it get it, The Church the Body of Christ, because we deal with all these things. In fact we deal with much of what we'll be dealing with in I Corinthians. You can read it again, or get it if you haven't read it. But the apostles were especially selected as the foundation of the church. You say well what were they supposed to do? I'm going to give you their duties, as they're indicated in Scripture.
Duty number one of an apostle is in the first chapter of I Corinthians, right where we are, verse 17. "For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel." The first thing an apostle was to do was to preach the gospel. What was the gospel? The good news that Jesus died and rose again. Salvation was by faith in Him. The apostles then were to preach the gospel. That was the beginning of their task. And later on I Corinthians 9, he repeats basically the same thing that the apostles were to preach the gospel and also to live of the gospel, which means they were to gain a livelihood from that preaching.
Acts 6:4, gives us further instruction as to what the apostles were to do. It says that, "The apostles said we will give ourselves," Acts 6:4, "continually to prayer." All right, the second thing the apostles were to do was to give themselves continually to prayer, third, and to the ministry of the word. In fact in Ephesians 4:11, it says, "And he gave some apostles for the perfecting of the saints." They were then to evangelize, to pray, and to teach the church that it might grow. And the last thing that they were to do was to perform miracles.