1 Corinthians 1:4

Paul’s letters usually open with a greeting and then a thanksgiving, and this one follows straight on from the greeting of 1 Corinthians 1:1–3. Few churches gave him more cause for grief. From 1 Corinthians 1:10–17 onward he deals with factions formed around different leaders, then with immorality (1 Corinthians 5) and with disorder in the use of spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12–14). Even so, he gives six full verses to thanksgiving, while in Galatians, a letter written to correct serious error, the thanksgiving is missing altogether.

Paul knew this church well. He founded it and stayed in the city for eighteen months (Acts 18:1–18), and he wrote this letter from Ephesus, probably around AD 55, in answer to reports about the church and to questions the Corinthians had sent him. Corinth was a busy port and trading city in the Roman province of Achaia. It was wealthy and mixed in its people, full of philosophies and pagan cults such as the worship of Aphrodite, and so known for loose living that “to Corinthianize” came to mean to live immorally. The church gathered Jews and Gentiles, a few people of wealth and influence and many of humble standing (1 Corinthians 1:26–28), and the city’s pride and rivalry found their way into it.

Everything Paul gives thanks for here is God’s doing. Grace is given, they are enriched by Christ, the gospel was confirmed in them, God will confirm them, and God called them. So before any correction, Paul sets the Corinthians on the ground of God’s work in them, and every rebuke that follows is spoken to people whom God has truly saved and will keep. He gave thanks for the Philippians in the same way, sure that God would finish the work he had begun in them (Philippians 1:3–11).

“I thank my God always on your behalf.” The verb eucharistéō, from eucháristos, “grateful”, means to give thanks, and Paul uses it of thanks offered to God. He calls him “my God”, the God he knows and belongs to, and his thanks for the Corinthians are constant, a regular part of his prayers for them.

What he thanks God for is “the grace of God”. Cháris means graciousness or favour, a gift freely bestowed. God’s grace is his kindness to people who have earned none of it, and here it also takes in what that kindness has brought them, the gifts Paul is about to name. All have sinned, and we are justified freely by his grace (Romans 3:23–24). Paul tells the Ephesians that we are saved by grace through faith, as the gift of God, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8–9). That matters in Corinth, where people were proud of their gifts. What a person has been given is his to be thankful for, and it leaves him nothing to boast about.

The grace is “given you by Jesus Christ”. Dídōmi is the ordinary verb “to give”. God is the giver, the Corinthians are the ones who receive, and Christ is the one through whom the gift comes. God showed his love in that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8), and Christ died for our sins and rose again the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). In him believers receive the promised Spirit through faith (Galatians 3:14) and every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3). Christ is himself God’s great gift (John 3:16), the “unspeakable gift” for which Paul writes elsewhere, “Thanks be unto God” (2 Corinthians 9:15). He holds all things together and is the head of the church, with first place in everything (Colossians 1:17–18).

Verse 5 says what the grace has done for them: “in every thing ye are enriched by him”. Ploutízō, from ploutos, “wealth”, means to make rich or to furnish abundantly, and Paul pictures God’s gifts as riches poured out on his people. “In every thing” (en panti) and the twice repeated “all” stress how full the gift was. “By him” points back to Jesus Christ at the end of verse 4.

Paul names two of these riches. “Utterance” is lógos, a word that can mean word, reason or speech, and here it means the gift of speaking God’s truth. That would include teaching and prophecy and perhaps speaking in tongues, all of them gifts the Corinthians prized. “Knowledge” is gnōsis, from ginōskō, “to know”, which means understanding and insight into God’s truth. Together they describe a church that could grasp the things of God and put them into words, and Paul thanks God for both.

He names these two for a reason. The Corinthians valued eloquent speech, clever thinking and spiritual insight, and some of them were proud of having them. Paul later writes, “Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth” (1 Corinthians 8:1). When he comes to the gifts at length, he teaches that “the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal” (1 Corinthians 12:7). He promises to show them “a more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31), which is the way of love (1 Corinthians 13), and he asks that everything in their gatherings be done for building one another up (1 Corinthians 14:26). By calling their speech and knowledge gifts from God in this opening, Paul has already taken away the ground for boasting in them. Paul’s list of gifts in Romans and Peter’s call to use each gift as good stewards of God’s grace say the same (Romans 12:6–8, 1 Peter 4:10–11).

All these riches come from Christ. He is the Word, the lógos through whom all things were made (John 1:1–3), the Son by whom God has spoken to us in these last days (Hebrews 1:1–2), the one “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). The Spirit who gives gifts of speech and knowledge is the Spirit of truth, whom Christ sends from the Father (John 15:26). The gifts are given to build up his body until we all come “in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God” (Ephesians 4:13).

The Corinthians were enriched “even as” (kathōs) the testimony of Christ was confirmed in them, so their gifts matched the way the gospel had taken hold. Martýrion means a witness, or evidence given. “The testimony of Christ” is the gospel, the witness about Christ, his life, his death and his resurrection, which Paul preached in Corinth. It can also carry the sense of the witness Christ himself bears, for he is “the faithful witness” (Revelation 1:5). This gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16).

“Was confirmed” is bebaióō, from a root meaning firm or stable, and it means to make firm, establish or confirm. God made the gospel firm among them. It took root, and the evidence was there to see in their changed lives and in the gifts and knowledge they now had. “In you” uses en, a preposition of place or state. The gospel was established within them, in their hearts and lives, as well as among them as a church.

The same God stands behind all his promises. Paul says that Christ confirmed the promises made to the fathers (Romans 15:8), that all the promises of God in him are yea (2 Corinthians 1:20), and that it is God who establishes us in Christ and has anointed us (2 Corinthians 1:21–22). He seals believers with the Holy Spirit as the pledge of their inheritance (Ephesians 1:13–14), and Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). The gifts in Corinth were proof that the gospel had truly taken hold there, and that gospel was the one truth all the factions shared.

“So that ye come behind in no gift”. Hysteréō means to be later, and so to fall short, to be deficient or to lack. Chárisma, from charizomai, “to give freely”, is a gift of grace, an ability God gives out of his favour. Paul is saying that the Corinthians had every gift of grace they needed for their life together and their service. Christ, raised and exalted, poured out the Spirit (Acts 2:33) and gave gifts to men (Ephesians 4:7–8), apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers among them, for building up his body (Ephesians 4:11–13).

The gifts belong to a time of waiting. Apekdéchomai, “waiting for”, is eager, earnest expectation joined to patient endurance. What they wait for is “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”, and the word for coming is apokálypsis, from apokalyptō, “to uncover”. It means a disclosure or unveiling. When Christ returns, he will be revealed in his person, power and glory for all to see. Paul calls this “that blessed hope” (Titus 2:13), and he says that our citizenship is in heaven, from where we look for the Saviour who will change our bodies to be like his glorious body (Philippians 3:20–21), and that the Lord himself will come and the dead in Christ will rise (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18). On that day we will see him “as he is” (1 John 3:2), and God will have finished making us like his Son (Romans 8:29). The church’s prayer in the meantime is the one Scripture ends with, “come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).

So the gifts are equipment for the road. They are given for living faithfully and serving one another until the Lord comes, and the hope of his coming gives them their purpose. For the Corinthians, that hope also put their present troubles in their place and called them to holiness and unity before the One they were waiting for.

“Who shall also confirm you unto the end”. The one who confirms is God, the God whom verse 9 calls faithful. The verb is bebaióō again, the same verb as in verse 6. God made the gospel firm in them, and he will also make them firm. He strengthens his people, holds them up and keeps them steady.

“Unto the end”: télos means an end in time, a result or a purpose. Here the end in view is the day of Christ, so God’s keeping lasts through the whole of their lives until that day. Paul says the same to the Philippians, that he who began a good work in them will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).

“That ye may be blameless”: anénklētos means unaccused, and so beyond reproach, someone against whom no charge can be made to stand. It is a word from the law court, and it describes the verdict over God’s people on the last day. Paul prays that the Thessalonians will be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord, and adds that the one who calls them will do it (1 Thessalonians 5:23–24). Jude gives glory to the one who is able to keep us from falling and present us faultless (Jude 1:24), and Christ has reconciled us in order to present us holy and unblameable in God’s sight (Colossians 1:21–22).

“In the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” uses hēméra, “day”, and kýrios, “Lord”, with the names Iēsoûs and Christós. It is the day of Christ’s return, when the dead are raised and the world is judged, the day toward which God’s whole work of redemption moves.

“God is faithful”. Pistós, from a root meaning to persuade, means trustworthy, reliable and constant. God is true to his word and steady in his character, so his people can lean their whole weight on him. Moses told Israel that the LORD is “the faithful God”, who keeps covenant and mercy with those who love him (Deuteronomy 7:9), and the Old Testament speaks of his steadfast love, hesed, which endures forever. What God begins, he completes. Paul says the same in one line to the Thessalonians: “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24). His faithfulness is seen most fully in Christ, in whom all his promises are yea and amen (2 Corinthians 1:20).

“By whom ye were called”. Kaléō means to call, and here it is God’s summons, an invitation with his authority and purpose behind it. The calling came from God’s side, by his grace and will. Paul speaks of those who are called according to his purpose, and says that those he called he also justified and glorified (Romans 8:28–30). So the God who called the Corinthians is the same God who will bring them to glory, and that is why verse 9 can stand behind the promise of verse 8.

“Unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord”. Koinōnía means communion, participation and partnership, a shared life. To be called into the fellowship of God’s Son is to be joined to Christ, sharing in his life, his purposes, his sufferings and in the end his glory. Paul longed to know Christ and “the fellowship of his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10), and John writes that our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3). Christ makes this fellowship possible, for he reconciled us to God through his death (Colossians 1:21–22) and through him we have access by one Spirit to the Father (Ephesians 2:18). The Spirit unites believers to him so that they abide in him and bear fruit (John 15:4–5). The Father calls, the Son is the one we share in, and the Spirit makes the communion real.

The full title, “his Son Jesus Christ our Lord”, gathers up who he is: the Son of God, the Saviour, and the Lord with authority over his people. Every believer in Corinth had been called into this one fellowship, which bound them to each other as well as to Christ. That shared bond is the ground of the appeal for unity that Paul begins in the very next verse.

Paul’s thanksgiving runs from grace given in the past, through gifts enjoyed in the present, to a day still to come, and God holds every part of it. He gave his grace by Jesus Christ, he made the gospel firm in the Corinthians, he will make them firm to the end, and he called them into the fellowship of his Son. The church that received these words was divided and proud, and careless in places, and Paul still thanked God for it, because what God had begun there was real.

The passage shows us who God is. He is generous, and he gives his people every gift they need while they wait for Christ. He is faithful, so the end of the story depends on him, and his people can look toward the day of Christ with hope. He calls people into a shared life with his Son, the same fellowship that joins every believer to every other. The words “God is faithful” stand over everyone who is in Christ, as they stood over Corinth.