September 1, 2024|Corrupted Identity|1 Corinthians 1:10-17
John-Daniel Cutler
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As we continue our study through 1st Corinthians, I will remind you that last week we saw where the Apostle Paul began this letter by encouraging the believers in Corinth concerning their identity. As a way of reminder, he says.
They were part of the church of God.
They had been set apart in Christ.
They had been called by God, with all those who believe, as saints.
They share a common Father in God and a common Lord in Jesus Christ with all believers.
Because of the grace of God, they had been gifted in Christ Jesus with numerous spiritual gifts.
And finally, they had been called into the fellowship of the son, our Lord Jesus Christ, by God who is faithful.
This is who they were, not who they could be or might be, but who they fundamentally were. Equally important is realizing that this is the identity of all those in Christ.
I believe that the word translated ‘Fellowship’ here- koinōnia, is central to everything Paul said last week and introduces us to what he is going to say in our text today.
1 Corinthians 1:9 (ESV) 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
What we miss in English is this. God is faithful, by whom you all, or ya’ll, were called into the fellowship (singular tense) of his Son.
Paul has a very specific idea here when he uses the word koinonia. It is singular in tense. He is talking about a singular thing.
God, who is faithful, has called you all, all believers in every place, the great multitude, and placed you into the fellowship that Jesus Christ has with his Father. As we saw last week, Christ is at the center of everything Paul has said about our identity.
To the church of God, sanctified in Christ Jesus.
Called to be saints with everyone who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The grace of God given you in Christ Jesus. Waiting for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Our identity comes from Christ, it is shaped by Christ, and it is secure in Christ. In reality then there are only two options when it comes to our identity. Either we are in Christ or we are not.
So shouldn’t it follow then, that if all believers, everywhere, are united in Christ, then we should experience immeasurable unity in the church?
The question then becomes, why does it seem that our experience in the church does not reflect the unity that should be ours in Christ? Why does the Corinthian church’s experience not reflect this truth?
Paul is going to spend a great portion of the rest of this letter calling the Corinthian believers to live out their identity in practical ways. Which, I think, is the great tension of 1 Corinthians. Paul says this is who you are in his opening verses, and then spends the majority of his letter addressing the things that are keeping them from actualizing the unity they already possess.
We are going to pick up where we left off last week in verse 10 of chapter 1 under the heading of Corrupted Identity. I believe that Paul starts at the fundamental problem plaguing the church at Corinth, they have allowed their identity in Christ to be corrupted leading to a whole host of other problems.
Corrupted- to degrade with unsound principles or moral values
The breaking down of their identity because they had accepted unsound principles and moral values. I believe that the same thing that was true of them can be true of us, our identity in Christ can never be taken from us, but it can be corrupted. This we must continually fight against if we are going to see the actualization of Christian unity in our church here in white oak and in the church at large beyond these walls.
The question before us this morning is how. How can we fight against a corrupted identity? A question I think Paul answers in three truths. So this morning we are going to look at these three truths that help us fight against our identity being corrupted.
Let’s read our text together this morning.
1 Corinthians 1:10-17 (ESV) 10 I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
We must recognize that…
Division corrupts our identity.
Paul begins with an appeal in verse 10 that we will look at more fully in the next point, but in verse 11 he gives us the basis for his appeal.
11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers.
Remember at the beginning of our series we stated that Paul wrote 1st Corinthians for a variety of reasons. One, he had received correspondence from the Corinthian church about a number of issues.
About marriage and divorce, about sexual relationships, about food offered to idols, about elements of the worship service, about spiritual gifts and their use.
But two, he had received reports concerning the state of the church from Chloe’s people.
It seems, in their letter, they had left out that their church was divided and that there were factions developing within the body.
Paul sums up what is happening in the Corinthian church with the word quarreling. Your Bible may say contentions. There were heated arguments arising within the body, most likely over many of the issues they were asking Paul about, producing division.
We can summarize what these divisions were primarily about by looking at what the Apostle appeals for them to do.
Be united in the same mind and in the same judgment.
Same mind- the word here indicates a particular mode of thinking and judging.
Same judgment- the same view, judgment, opinion, perhaps even can be viewed as purpose
When used together it seems that Paul here is talking about both the way they think and the conclusions they arrive at in what must be done.
The mind, within, refers to things to be believed: the judgment is displayed outwardly in things to be done [BENGEL]
Paul begs them to share not only the same understanding, but the same purpose.
So where were they divided? In not only the way they were thinking, but the results of their thinking.
You can immediately see how a group of people who were coming to different outcomes as a result of different thinking could easily begin to be divided on a myriad of issues.
What is the result? They are no longer being identified by their relationship to Christ, but by their particular sect of thinking. The root of their identity has functionally shifted from Christ to something else.
We talked a little about this last week in the example of putting anything of identity before the word Christian. I am a black Christian, or an American Christian, or even a Baptist Christian. Why? Because it shifts our identity away from Christ, it adds distinctions that are unhelpful to the core of our identity.
It also shapes the way we think about theological truths and doctrinal implications, doesn’t it?
For instance if a brother or sister in Christ finds their identity in their race first, it is going to affect everything after that. It becomes the lens by which they view the totality of the Christian life.
Or if a brother or sisters in Christ finds their identity in their theological distinctions, it is going to affect everything after that. It becomes the lens by which they view the totality of the Christian life.
What happens, practically, when our identity is corrupted in this way?
One evidence is we start closing ourselves off to people that are even slightly different from us in the church. I can’t listen to them, they articulate their understanding of soteriology (the doctrine of salvation) differently than me, or they have a different understanding of ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church) from me, so I can’t read them.
This is dangerous for a number of reasons, primarily because no one, I repeat no one, has everything right. Every Christian is a theologian and every theologian has things wrong in their theology.
If you are only listening to those who agree with you on every matter, you have probably fallen into this trap. If you are never challenged in your beliefs, that doesn’t automatically make you right, it might be that you have built an echo chamber of people who think like you around you.
Two, you can begin to divide the body of Christ on secondary matters.
That which Christ unites, those who belong to the one body of Christ, are treated as though they are part of a different body, or worse, enemies of the body. So your thinking changes, but then the outworking of that thinking changes your purpose.
You are no longer worried about the advancement of the kingdom of God, but the advancement of your party's agenda, or your faction’s purposes.
Isn’t that what we see happening here in the Corinthian church.?
11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.”
I love that Paul spells it out for them. I have heard that there is quarreling among you. What I mean is that, or what I am saying is that every one of you (collectively) is saying ( individually), I follow Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or Christ.
Here I prefer the KJV or NASB translation, because I think it hits the nail on the head.
What they are saying is two words in the Greek ‘eg-o' i-mee'’ literally I am of…
This is not just, ‘I like Paul better’ or ‘I like Apollos better.’ But ‘I am of’. My identity is rooted in that I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Cephas (Peter), or I belong to Christ.
Now was Paul or Apollos or Peter teaching a different gospel? No.
This probably came down to style and preference more than anything. The greatest factions seemed to be gathering around Paul and Apollos.
We are told in the book of Acts that Apollos was a Jew, a native of Alexandria. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. Probably trained in Alexandria in Greek rhetoric, he is said to be ‘eloquent’ or a skilled orator.
Paul’s preaching style, on the other hand, was self-admittedly more simplistic. He was trained in the finer points of logic and speech but he chose not to employ those tactics in his preaching.
Both preached Christ, but one group of people liked the presentation of Apollos over Paul and others like Paul over Apollos. Perhaps these were some that Peter mentions that abuse Paul’s emphasis on grace to justify their sinful lifestyles. Even further, there were some that said, we don’t want to be associated with either of them, but with Cephas, Peter. Perhaps these were Judiazers that wanted the church to incorporate more elements from Judaism. Perhaps these divisions were over whose ministry they were converted under.
Some of the first converts were under Paul’s missionary work there, he was then succeeded by Apollos, so there were those who came into the church under Paul and others under Apollos. Possibly, some that had been saved under Paul’s preaching or teaching are listed here.
How silly does this sound?
All these men preached Christ and him crucified as the basis of salvation, they all preached the same gospel, and yet the church was dividing itself over preferences and personalities.
Does that sound familiar? It has been happening ever since.
When preferences and personalities become your identifying mark you have allowed your identity to be corrupted.
You say, what about those that say I am of Christ in verse 12. Surely they have it right?
We don’t know much about them, however, we do know Paul does not commend them, but lumps them in with the other voices clamoring about who they are of, so it cannot be that they have a right understanding expressed by ‘I am of Christ’.
No, I personally think these represent the worst division of all. For them, they want Christ, but they want him apart from the ministry of Paul, or Apollos, or Peter. They reject Christ’s body and his messengers while claiming to be of Him.
This is the person who says today, I don’t need a church, a body of believers, it’s just me and Jesus.
Your very identity in Christ is a shared reality with all those in Christ, you can no more separate yourself from them as you can separate your heart from your brain and still function.
What is the truth Paul wants us to understand here? That our identity is in Christ, as revealed by Christ and if we misplace our identity in a particular teacher, or pastor, or even in separating our personal relationship with Christ from the body of Christ, we have actually corrupted that identity.
We must recognize that contentious division in the body of Christ always corrupts our identity. This is the first truth that helps us fight against the corrupting of our identity.
The second is that we must understand that…
Unity restores our identity.
If we have had our identity corrupted or we are operating out of a corrupted identity, what is the answer? Working backwards, we find Paul’s answer in verse 10.
1 Corinthians 1:10-17 (ESV) 10 I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.
Note that Paul, as we have noted before in other places, that he doesn’t command, but appeals. The idea is to come alongside and entreat or beg. Paul’s heart is that the church at Corinth would be unitied around their common identity, but he understands that it is something that they have to strive for.
He roots his appeal in their common salvation, I appeal to you brothers, or brothers and sisters.
He says this not just as an apostle, but as a brother in Christ under their shared banner of the Lordship of Christ.
His appeal has two main parts. That you all agree and that they be united in the same mind and judgment.
Let’s take each one of these and unpack them.
That all of you agree. The word translated agree is a compound of the word ‘speak’ and the word ‘you’.
That you all speak the same. The most obvious implication is that they stop saying all the different things Paul is going to outline in verse 12.
What is Paul's primary point? Stop using your words to divide with one another.
This is powerful. How many times have you seen a church body divide over things that are said, over whispers, complaints, little pockets of influence where words are used to divide the body. Friends it ought never to be like this. It is not only divisive but it goes against scripture, which says if you have something against someone, you are to go to them first. Here’s a test to see if you should say what you are thinking about saying concerning the body of Christ.
Ephesians 4:29 (ESV) 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
Is what I am saying good for the body, does it build up, does it give grace to the one I am speaking to?
Or is it corrupting? Divisive?
Paul’s second appeal is that there be no divisions among you. The word there is the word for tear, like those in a garment. This Greek word is where we get our English word schism, which has come to mean a formal division or separation between a church body. In church history we talk about the Great East/West Schism that resulted in the Western Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is a division that makes fellowship and unity impossible.
The particular schism Paul is addressing here seems to be over what church leader they want to organize under as we have noted. But in the history of the church we have seen it play out over in similar ways with personalities of leaders, over differing music styles, or even over carpet color.
Everyone can see the foolishness of dividing the body of Christ over something so insignificant as preference, unless you are in the middle of it.
When your focus is off of Christ and the unity he provides, and your identity gets wrapped up in secondary, non-gospel issues, you are in danger of corrupting your identity and creating divisions within the church.
What is Paul’s answer?
but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.
‘Be united’ means to mend. To repair what has been torn.
Don’t miss this, Paul says we can and should mend the divisions. A corrupted identity and the division it brings is not the final word. We can find restoration through unity.
Let’s touch briefly on the words mind and judgment again.
Same mind- the word here indicates a particular mode of thinking and judging.
Same judgment- the same view, judgment, opinion, perhaps even can be viewed as purpose
If unity of understanding and purpose can mend division, what things do we need to be united on?
For instance is Paul saying that we all have to agree on everything?
Let’s let scripture interpret scripture. What does Paul say in Romans 14:5?
Romans 14:5 (ESV) 5 One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.
Right before this he says, Romans 14:1-3 (ESV) 1 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. 2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. 3 Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.
In Paul’s theology, there is clearly room for differing opinions on secondary issues like special days and diet.
So what are we to be unified in?
Again, listen to Paul in his letter to the Philippians.
Philippians 1:27 (ESV) 27 Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.
Striving for the faith of the gospel. We must stand united in our understanding concerning the good news of Christ.
These things include believing and affirming the Trinity, the deity of Christ, His virgin birth, sinless life, substitutionary death, bodily resurrection, present enthronement, His soon return, the final judgment, eternality of heaven and hell. Justification by faith alone, Sola Fide. And two: The authority -- absolute authority of sacred Scriptures, Sola Scriptura.
What about the secondary issues? Mathew Henry, in his Concise Commentary says
(Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible) Vs. 10-16. In the great things of religion be of one mind; and where there is not unity of sentiment, still let there be union of affection. Agreement in the greater things should extinguish divisions about the lesser. There will be perfect union in heaven, and the nearer we approach it on earth, the nearer we come to perfection.
If we will unite in the gospel things, the great things as he calls them, the lesser divisions will be extinguished. However, when we focus on the lesser divisions we not only can corrupt our identity and cause divisions in the church, but we can distract ourselves from the mission and purpose of the church.
How do we fight this? We understand that unifying around the gospel can restore our identity. As individuals and as a church family.
Our last truth this morning is that we must believe that…
The gospel grounds our identity.
Here Paul is going to drive home the foolishness of the divisions among them. He begins with a set of questions.
13 Is Christ divided? Literally, can Christ be separated into different pieces?
Within this body, can there be one group under one leader and another group under another leader, as though all do not belong to him, the Head of the church?
Paul calls Jesus by his title here to remind them of the impossibility of dividing ‘the anointed one of God’.
If Christ is the head of the body, the cornerstone of the temple of God, how can anyone within his body be separated into different pieces?
There are differences of opinions whether this is a question or a statement. Either way, the point remains, Christ cannot be divided. Paul continues.
Was Paul crucified for you? The way the question is worded in the Greek anticipates a strong ‘of course not’.
(Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary) "Was it Paul (surely you will not say so) that was crucified for you?"
Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
That is, was your baptism a picture of having been incorporated through death into Paul? Again of course not.
What is Paul’s emphasis here? What is this line of questioning getting at?
If you are looking for your identity in Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, you have forgotten the gospel.
The good news that Jesus, who was the Christ, was crucified for his people, that he rose again, and that it is by being spiritually brought into Christ as pictured in our water baptism that is the source of our salvation and our identity. As he has said from the beginning, it is in Christ that you have been sanctified.
In verses 14-16 Paul thanks God for his providence that Paul was not the one that baptized them so that they could not boast that they were baptized in his name, as though he was their savior. And then he finishes with a reminder of how the Corinthians even came to know the gospel.
17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Christ sent me. Even if they thought it appropriate to identify with Paul because it was under his ministry they were saved, he reminds them that it was Christ who sent him.
To preach the gospel. This is the basis of their identity, they have heard the gospel and believed in the name of Jesus Christ. Paul did not preach himself, Apollos did not preach himself, and Peter did not preach himself, they preached Christ and him crucified.
Not with words of eloquent wisdom. Paul reminds them that they did not believe in the gospel because they were persuaded by eloquent words of worldly wisdom. Paul is setting up the direction he is about to go in his next subject where he contrasts the wisdom of God with the wisdom of the world.
Don't miss what Paul is saying here, You don’t owe your salvation to the way I presented the gospel. It was not my cleverness or persuasive ability that saved you, it was God through his gospel.
What Paul says next is interesting. Why did he not come to preach with words of eloquent wisdom? So that the cross would not be emptied of its power.
To understand this we need to understand that Paul says here is lest the cross of Christ be emptied, or to be made void.
The word power is not there in the Greek. So why did the English translators use it, because of verse 18.
(ESV) 18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
That’s a verse we will deal with next week, but for context purposes we need to understand what the cross would be emptied of if Paul’s preaching had been rooted in eloquent wisdom.
Paul says, I made the cross of Christ central because that is where the power of God is revealed, not just in our initial justification, but in our ongoing salvation.
To those who are being saved… saved is in the present passive participle. Those that are in the present moment are being saved.
What is Paul telling us here? That we never get beyond the gospel, that we never move beyond the cross. The gospel is not just the way we are saved, it is foundational to our understanding of who we are in Christ.
The Corinthian believers are so worried about dividing themselves into factions that they are missing that everyone comes to Christ by way of the cross. It is the means by which God has chosen to save his people.
Was Paul crucified for you? Did Apollos bear the weight of your sins on the cross? Did Peter become sin for you?
Did John MacArthur, did Adrian Rogers, did David Jeremiah, did your Pastor or your former Pastor?
Were you baptized into the name of Paul? Did you publicly identify with Paul as your savior? Did you participate in his death and his life as pictured in Baptism?
Listen friends, it comes down to these two things for Paul, the cross and baptism. This is a summary of the gospel. (Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary) The cross claims us for Christ, as redeemed by Him; baptism, as dedicated to Him.
The cross is the means by which we are saved and baptism is the corporate picture of our salvation displayed. Paul is reminding them that their identity begins with the gospel and should stay in the gospel. To put their identity in anything else is foolishness, because it is powerless.
If we will ground our identity in the gospel, it will protect our identity from being corrupted in the first place.
What did this look like in the Corinthian church? People forming parties around personalities, resulting in broken fellowship, contention, and disunity, leading to a host of other problems that we will see in this letter.
What does this look like in the church today? It takes all kinds of forms, but it produces the same thing. Broken fellowship, contention, and disunity.
Things that hinder our fellowship and harm our growth together as a body.
How do we fight against it?
Three truths that Paul gives us to fight the corrupting of our identity.
One, we recognize that contentious division corrupts our identity.
Two, we understand that unity restores our identity.
Three, we believe that the gospel grounds our identity.
We must strive to actualize the unity that has been given to us in Christ. We must put away divisive speech, we must refuse to divide over secondary issues or personal preferences, we must put the gospel at the center of our life together.
I would like to close with three questions this morning.
If you are in a position of leadership, are you leading people to find their identity in you?
Under the guise of discipleship or leading others, some people actually lead others to follow them, to look to them for answers, to find their security and identity in the fact that they belong to their class, that they agree with them on doctrinal matters, that they feel like apart from them, they would be lost.
If you are in leadership, ask God to search you and root out any pride that may lead to this. If this is present within your ministry, you need to repent, ask them for forgiveness, and remind them that we all share a much greater identity in Christ.
If not even the Apostle Paul would allow Christians to find their identity in him, may God help us never to be content or desirous for anyone to find it in us.
Are there divisions you have caused or contributed to in the church that you need to mend?
Paul gives us the way to mend, pursue unity in the gospel in both our mind and our actions. What steps can you take today, this week to pursue unity in the gospel?
Finally,
Are you finding your identity in something other than Christ?
I hope you understand that not only can that thing not bear the weight of your identity, it can cause unnecessary division within the body you belong to. I pray that you would remember and rest in the power of the cross that saved you.
At the very outset of this letter, the Apostle Paul wanted the Corinthian believers to understand that their divisions were actually corrupting their identity and robbing them of the unity and identity that was theirs in Christ Jesus. May his words do the same for us through the power of the Holy Spirit that inspired them this morning.
Let us pray.
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