But I speak of this, that each of you says, *I* am of Paul, and *I* of Apollos, and *I* of Cephas, and *I* of Christ.
Paul has just told the Corinthians how he learned of their quarrels. Now he quotes their own slogans back to them. Four names, four followings. The fourth is the name of Christ Himself. How can loyalty to Christ turn into a party badge?
Paul refuses to leave his complaint hanging in the air as a general grumble.
Paul himself avoided all vague and indefinite charges. He was explicit and definite, as the words show: "What I mean is that …" It would be good if people always took such care when they have to bring a charge.
Paul, Apollos and Cephas had done nothing wrong. The letter never names the men who actually led these parties.
They had encouraged schools of teaching, and these produced divisions. Pupils lined themselves up under different teachers and called themselves by those teachers' names. But who were the teachers they ran after, who allowed this and, worse, encouraged it? We may ask, but we ask in vain. Their names were once as familiar as household words, and they have perished. The names of God's faithful servants from the same time — Paul, Apollos and Cephas — remain to this day.
The wrong runs in both directions at once — upward toward the servants, and outward into groups.
The apostle goes on to expose the root from which divisions spring. On one side they were lifting gifted servants of the Lord into a false position as centres of gathering. That is the evil principle of clericalism. On the other side they were forming themselves into parties around these servants, and so starting the evil of sectarianism.
Each man stood for a different kind of work, and different people warm to different servants.
In the light of 1 Corinthians 4:6, we may assume that the real offenders were local leaders, and that Christian delicacy led the apostle to use his own name, together with those of Apollos and Cephas, instead of the names of the actual men. The names he does use are significant. For the Corinthians, Paul had been the evangelist and Apollos the teacher, and the Lord called Cephas to a pastoral ministry, as John 21 shows. It is almost certain that some will prefer the earnest evangelist, some the eloquent, clear-headed teacher, and others the kind pastor. The trouble comes when people magnify the men who have these gifts and turn them into leaders of parties.
Every party gained a favourite and lost the rest.
Those who said, "I follow Paul," lost Apollos and Cephas. Those who said, "I follow Cephas," lost Paul and Apollos. Why not benefit by all the gifts that an ascended Lord has seen fit to give to His church? The church is a whole.
The group that dropped all human names sounds the most spiritual of the four. Both writers quoted here call it the worst.
Someone may ask, what about those who disowned all men as leaders and said, "I follow Christ"? These were really worse than the others. They were trying to make Christ the leader of a party and to ignore the gifts that Christ had given. They assumed they were more spiritual than everyone else. They claimed they could do without the ministry of others, and they pretended to own Christ for themselves alone.
Love for the Lord shows itself in the opposite way, and William Kelly warns how convincing the wrong plea can look.
Anyone who truly loves and bows to the Lord will, for that very reason, honour His servants for their work's sake, and according to the place He has given them. People rightly say that the corruption of the best thing is the worst. So it was here. The church in Corinth was divided, and the plausible plea of those who disowned everyone but Christ could look like the only right and spiritual thing there. How important it is, now as then, to judge rightly, and not by appearances!
The cure is not a better party. It is a Person no section of His people can claim as their own.
God calls all of us into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Once we understand that clearly, we will reject every sect and party. No one will then say, "I follow Christ," and shut out other saints, for all are of Him; and Christ is not divided.
- Named, not hinted. Paul quotes their actual slogans instead of making a vague complaint. That is the pattern for anyone who has to bring a charge.
- Root. The Corinthians put servants in the place of centres, then gathered into groups around them. Clericalism and sectarianism grow from that one root.
- Loss. Whoever claims one gifted servant loses the rest. An ascended Lord gave these gifts to the whole church, not to one wing of it.
- Worst. One group used Christ's own name as a party badge. They claimed to be more spiritual, and shut out other believers.
- Centre. Only one name belongs to every believer alike. Own Him as the centre, and no party has any ground to stand on.
Is the Christ divided? has Paul been crucified for you? or have ye been baptised unto the name of Paul?
Paul has just named the slogans splitting the church at Corinth. He answers them with three short questions, and each one exposes what a party name claims about Christ, His cross, and baptism.
The first question carries its own answer. Everyone who belongs to Christ belongs to the same Christ, and no group can split Him between them.
"Is Christ divided?" asks the indignant apostle. Is He not the Head of that one body the church to which they all belonged? It is a whole Christ to whom all His own belong and who Himself belongs to all. To think of dividing Him would be as irrelevant as absurd. They might divide, not He: what an inconsistency if they valued Him!
The bond that holds Christians together is a Person, not a preference. People can form other bonds, but they cannot cut Him in pieces.
The Apostle condemns their sectarianism by asking, "Is Christ divided?". We are called into a fellowship of which Christ is the bond. We may, alas, form other fellowships with some other bond, but we cannot divide Christ.
One group at Corinth had said, "I am of Christ." That slogan sounds like the safe one. Paul's question shows it was not.
But what about those who were saying, "and I of Christ"? Were they the approved ones — those refusing men's ways and walking in the Spirit? Clearly they were not, for the Apostle censures them with the others. He then asks at once, "Is Christ divided?" — which implies that this is just what they were doing. They were dividing Christ, for their "I" was only the "I" of a faction. Now it is quite true that all the saints are "of Christ," or "Christ's." The last verse of 1 Corinthians 3 says so, because it uses the same expression. But there it is "you," and that meant the whole church at Corinth, not just a faction. This saying, "I of Christ," was really worse than saying, "I of Paul," or "I of Apollos," or "I of Cephas."
The second question moves from Christ's person to His cross. No leader's name can carry that weight.
Then he condemns their clericalism by asking, "Was Paul crucified for you?". Paul refused to be exalted into a false position as a centre of gathering for God's people. The only true centre of gathering for the people of God is the One Who has proved His claim over them by being crucified for them. Paul, however much he loved the people of God, had not been crucified for them. He will not take the place in the affections of God's people that belongs to the crucified One alone. ... In exalting their favourite teachers, and seeking distinction for themselves by following them, they were glorying in men rather than in the Lord, in the gifts rather than the Giver.
The third question turns to baptism. Baptism puts a name on a person, and Paul asks whose name that is.
The influence is blinding wherever people let the first man take the place of the Second. Apostles and others have died, yes, been crucified, but Christ alone died for us. And it is to Him we have been baptized, not to the twelve apostles, still less to other men.
This shaped how Paul worked. He kept his own hands clear of anything that could tie converts to himself.
How carefully he had worked at Corinth, baptising very few, so that no one could say that he had baptised to his own name. His work was to preach the gospel, not to baptise. He was to call souls to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, not to make disciples who took his name. John the Baptist had disciples called after him. Paul avoided all that for himself, for what was right in John's day would have been wrong in Paul's day.
Notice how Paul argues. He measures division by what no Christian could ever accept.
Every Christian must be shocked at the thought of Christ being divided, of Paul being crucified for him, or of being baptized in the name of Paul. But the Holy Spirit declares that the divisions of the Corinthians are just as shocking as these suggestions. In fact, nothing could justify their divisions except the truth of these suggestions.
- Undivided. Christ is Head of the one body; His people may split, but no one can share Him out among rival camps.
- Uncrucified. No teacher, however loved, died for you — so no teacher has the right to stand at the centre of His people.
- Unnamed. You were baptized to Christ's name alone; Paul baptized very few, so no one could say he baptized to his own name.
- Unspared. The party saying "I am of Christ" was censured with the rest, because its "I" was still the "I" of a faction.
- Unanswerable. A party name would only be right if Christ were divided, or if Paul had been crucified for you.