For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
Paul has just warned that even preachers stand in danger. Now he turns to Israel's story to press the warning home. A whole nation once enjoyed God's visible care, yet most of them died in the desert.
The opening word ties this verse to the argument before it. It does not start a new topic. Some older English versions read "Moreover," which hides the link; the ESV keeps "For."
In our English version the first word of the chapter is "Moreover." But the word is really just "For." That shows that what follows is a direct illustration of the point he is making. The great mass of Israel had the outward forms of their holy religion. Yet they missed its living power completely, because they had no faith.
The phrase covers everyone who bore the name of Israel, not only those who truly trusted God. That is why the word "all" carries such weight here.
Notice first the expression "our fathers." It is not used here, as it often is, for God's true and chosen people. It describes the whole nation. Not all who come from Israel are truly Israel, yet all who bore that name were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. The LORD's power in dividing the Red Sea gave the people, who had despaired before, the confidence to follow Moses to the other side. True faith in God Himself kept Joshua and Caleb for the promised land. This faith of the eyes in Israel is a picture of "faith upon evidences," or "rational conviction." It is often found in people who, sadly, show no sign of true life toward God.
Paul himself calls these events types, or examples for us. So we may read them as pictures. The cloud and the sea each did something different for Israel.
The apostle goes on to say, "now these things were our types." That gives us God's own warrant to read Israel's baptism "in the sea and in the cloud" as a picture. Nothing could be more meaningful or practical. They began their wilderness journey as a people baptized in this way. In the picture, they were a people dead to Egypt and all that belonged to it. The cloud and the sea were to them what the cross and grave of Christ are to us. The cloud kept them safe from their enemies. The sea separated them from Egypt. In the same way, the cross shields us from all that could be against us, and we stand at heaven's side of the empty tomb of Jesus.
Once through the sea, everything changed. They had a new place, a new leader and new food.
1 Cor. 10 tells us how the children of Israel "were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea." It was as if the wall of water on each side, and the cloud resting on the water, made a dark tunnel for them to pass through. What a deliverance! No more Pharaoh, no more Egypt. On the other side of the Red Sea they were under the leadership of Moses, with supplies from heaven: water from the struck rock to drink, and the daily manna for food.
The Corinthians prized their gifts and standing. Paul points them to Israel to show what such advantages cannot promise.
Israel stands here as a warning to those who professed Christ. Did the Corinthians boast of their privileges and gifts? He shows them how little safety such institutions as baptism and the Lord's supper give to those who rest in them. ... The danger was not only for preachers, but for all who professed the name — not some of them, but all. Look at the ancient people of God. In the same way, they trusted not in God but in His acts and in the rites He had given them, their own special favours. And this was so from the beginning, not only in later days of cold and dead formality. The heart of unbelief is so ready to depart from the living God.
The line here is thin, but it decides everything. The reality is one thing; the sign of it is another.
He does not say that we can share in the death of Christ and perish. He says that it is possible to share in the symbols of His death and perish. In this way he exposes the trap that most of the Christian world has fallen into: a sacramental system where salvation depends on taking part in baptism and the Lord's Supper.
- Link. The verse opens with "For." Israel's history is not a new subject. It is the proof of the warning Paul has just given.
- Gift. The cloud and the sea were a real rescue: shelter from enemies, separation from Egypt. They were to Israel what the cross and grave of Christ are to us.
- Reach. The word "all" covers the whole nation, not just the believing few. Every one of them shared the privilege.
- Result. Yet most fell in the desert. Sharing the outward signs of rescue is not the same as sharing its life.
- Warning. Baptism and the Lord's Supper cannot make a person safe. They are the signs; only faith holds what they picture.
and all were baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
Paul reminds a confident church at Corinth of something that happened to Israel at the Red Sea. He calls it a baptism. So what does it mean to be baptized to a man? And why press that old story on people who already had Christian baptism and the Lord's table?
One writer traces the whole idea of baptism in Scripture back to this scene:
Take up what Scripture teaches about baptism, and I think you will find that it nearly always, if not always, means being brought into a place. "They were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea." That is, they were brought right into relationship with Moses as their leader. The cloud and the sea marked that connection. It stood in contrast with their earlier slavery to Pharaoh.
The same point holds for the Christian side of the picture:
At that point they definitely committed themselves to the authority and leadership of Moses; just as in Christian baptism, which is in the Name of the Lord Jesus, we are definitely committed to His authority and leadership.
The small preposition carries weight. Israel could hardly be baptized into Moses, and that fact settles how the same Greek word should be read elsewhere:
The Greek preposition means "unto" (or "to") as often as "into." Which sense it carries depends on the context, or on the nature of the case. Water baptism is plainly in view in 1 Corinthians 10:2, as a warning to the baptized at Corinth. It is impossible to think that the Israelites were baptized into Moses… Baptism is the symbol of profession. Reality depends on faith, which might, or might not, be true of the person baptized. To say "into" therefore goes beyond God's word. It implies that the rite itself gives life, and Scripture gives no warrant for that.
Each of the two had its own work, and each has a Christian counterpart:
They began their wilderness journey as a people baptized in this way… In other words, in picture they were a people dead to Egypt and to everything that belonged to it. The cloud and the sea were to them what the cross and grave of Christ are to us. The cloud kept them safe from their enemies. The sea separated them from Egypt. In the same way the cross shields us from all that could be against us, and we stand at heaven's side of the empty tomb of Jesus.
The order matters. Blood had already sheltered Israel, and they were still in Egypt:
They were under the shelter of the blood. But they did not get out of Egypt until they had crossed the Red Sea. That crossing pictures the death of Christ and the destruction of all enemies. They are safe, but not saved. The blood shelters them from judgment. Yet they must pass through the waters of death before they appear as a delivered people.
Israel walked across on dry ground; the water stood on either side and the cloud was overhead. Neither one soaked them.
The force of "baptism" in the New Testament does not depend on the manner at all. When Israel were "baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea," they were not immersed in either. To read immersion into the passage would turn its solemn meaning into absolute folly. In that wonderful way they were broken off from their past in Egypt and taken into Moses' school.
Four times in these verses Paul says all — and then says most of them fell in the desert. That is the point of the comparison:
Israel stand here as a warning to those who professed Christ. Did the Corinthians boast of their privileges and gifts? This passage shows how little security such institutions as baptism and the Lord's supper give to those who rest in them… To presume on the Lord's institutions is fatal, whether the one that begins the Christian path or the one repeated after it… To my mind the aim is to guard those who were baptized, and who joined in the Lord's supper, from the illusion that all was therefore right and safe. The warning stands so that they may not sin grievously and perish miserably.
- Leader. Baptism to Moses brought Israel out from under Pharaoh and into open connection with Moses as their leader. Christian baptism commits us in the same way to the Lord Jesus.
- Unto. Commentators read the word as "unto," not "into." Baptism is the symbol of profession. Whether that profession is real depends on faith.
- Cloud and sea. The cloud shielded them; the sea cut them off from Egypt. Together they were to Israel what the cross and grave of Christ are to us.
- Safe, then delivered. The blood sheltered them in Egypt; the sea brought them out. Shelter from judgment and deliverance from Egypt are not the same thing.
- All — and yet. Every one of them was under the cloud and passed through the sea. Yet shared privilege gives no security to those who rest in it, and that is why Paul set this story before a confident church.
and all ate the same spiritual food,
Paul warns the Corinthians by pointing back to Israel in the desert. If God Himself fed that whole crowd, why did most of them never reach the promised land?
The word "spiritual" is doing real work here.
Thirdly, Paul writes, they ate spiritual food. This stresses two things: the manna came from a supernatural source (Psalm 78:25), and it carries a spiritual meaning. As the Lord Jesus explains in John chapter 6, He is the Bread of Life, and only those who feed on Him have life (John 6:31-32).
If the manna stands for Christ, which Christ does it show?
The manna, I need not say, is Christ, the bread of God from heaven, to be our food. It is Christ come down, Christ in all the circumstances of an earthly life, to sustain the life of His people... So here we do not have a Christ in glory, but a Christ humbled. In His blessed person there is everything needed to support and nourish us on our wilderness journey.
Notice what the verse does not tell us about the people who ate.
The subject of 1 Corinthians 10 is privilege, and the responsibility that comes with it for everyone who shares in it, whoever they are. So the words "all ate the same spiritual food" and "all drank the same spiritual drink" say something about the food and the drink. They say nothing about the people who took them, except that they did take them... Yet in the end many of them proved to be unworthy partakers, and we are to take warning from them.
Some have read "the same" as putting Israel's manna on a level with the Lord's Supper. Kelly reads the grammar differently, and the argument with it.
As a question of interpretation, it is clear that when Paul says they all ate the same spiritual food, he is speaking of the fathers, not of the Corinthians or other Christians. His point of warning and instruction is that God took no pleasure in most of them, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. So in these verses he speaks only of Israel. He is in no way saying that their manna and water were the same as our signs of Christ's death, or what men call the sacraments... They held the title of God's people, and they shared in sacred privileges — the very privileges Paul plainly likens to the two institutions so familiar to us in the Christian world. Yet none of this saved the mass of them from being overthrown by God's judgments in the wilderness.
Smith names the mistake this passage rules out: treating religious rites as a guarantee.
Now he warns those who profess faith that it is possible to be baptised, to share in the Lord's Supper, and yet be lost. He does not say that we can have part in the death of Christ and perish. He says it is possible to have part in the symbols of His death and perish. So he exposes the trap that most of the Christian world has fallen into: a sacramental system that makes salvation depend on having part in baptism and the Lord's Supper.
That distinction is what keeps the passage from unsettling a believer's confidence.
This passage is not a warning against having a thing and in any way perishing, but against having the signs of the thing and then perishing.
Israel gathered this food morning by morning. Mackintosh carries that habit straight over to us.
The manna was so pure and delicate that it could not bear contact with earth. It fell upon the dew (see Numbers 11:9) and had to be gathered before the sun was up. Each one, therefore, had to rise early and seek his daily portion. So it is with the people of God now. The heavenly manna must be gathered fresh every morning. Yesterday's manna will not do for today, nor today's for tomorrow. We must feed upon Christ every day, with fresh energy of the Spirit, or else we shall cease to grow.
- Gift — The manna came from a supernatural source, and it meant more than food. It pictures Christ come down from heaven, humbled, to sustain His people on the road.
- Given to all — The verse describes the food, not the faith of the eaters. Everyone in the camp received it; that fact alone proves nothing about them.
- Sign — Kelly holds that "the same" compares Israelites with each other, not their manna with the Lord's Supper. Paul likens the two only as privileges that did not save.
- Snare — You can share in the symbols of Christ's death and still be lost. The danger is holding the sign without the reality, not losing the reality.
- Sustenance — You must eat what the sign points to, and eat it today. Yesterday's portion feeds no one this morning.
and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of a spiritual rock which followed [them] (now the rock was the Christ;)
Paul looks back at Israel's years in the desert. He tells the Corinthians that everything they drank there came from one source — and that source was a Person. So the verse raises two questions. How could a rock "be" Christ? And what does it mean that it followed them?
The food and the drink in the desert were real, yet Paul calls both "spiritual." One writer gives two reasons for that word:
They are probably called "spiritual food" and "spiritual drink" because God gave them both. They were the direct gift of His grace, and in no sense natural products. But there is another reason: what they picture. The food speaks of Christ meeting the needs of His people on their journey. The drink speaks of life in the power of the Holy Spirit, and without that the journey could not be made.
We are not left guessing at the meaning of the desert water. The rock was not divine in itself. It stood for a Person, and the order of events pointed to Him:
The words "and the Rock was Christ" work the same way — that is, the rock represented Christ. The rock was struck before the water flowed out. In the same way, Christ was struck on the cross before the Holy Spirit was given.
No water came out until the rod struck. That blow is the heart of the picture:
Some explain the rod as a symbol of God's power. So when it strikes, it shows His judicial power at work. In this striking of the rock, then, we see the stroke of His judgment falling on Christ at the cross. The struck rock is a crucified Christ. And it was the people's sin, remember, that led to the striking of the rock. It is a vivid illustration of the truth that "He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities."
Israel's history holds two rock scenes, many years apart:
Paul treats the rock of Israel's history as one rock, though many years passed between the two episodes, and it pictured Christ. Christ did not need to be struck twice. Once was enough, and rivers of life-giving water flowed to us.
Did the stone itself travel? One writer answers that the water, not the rock, is what followed:
Wherever they went, the overflowing streams followed them. I do not think the rock moved, but that what came from the rock followed them. Behind, in their track, that shining river came right along. Morning by morning down came the bread, and day by day the water followed them.
The supply never failed, and there was nothing else to drink:
Whatever they needed, it was there — a drink, water for cooking, for washing, for all kinds of uses. It kept flowing, ready for every call and every camp. And there was no other resource in the wilderness. No other stream fed that river, and it never ran dry.
The Rock was more than a picture. Christ Himself was there in the desert, long before His birth in Bethlehem.
It was Christ who followed, as the Rock, His redeemed people in the wilderness, and whom they tempted by their unbelief. It was the holy Person whom we know as the Christ of God, who was there with them in Egypt and through all their wanderings. It was God, God the Son, who was there with them — not shutting out the presence of the Father and the Spirit, but giving prominence here to the Eternal Son.
The word "all" runs through this passage. Paul uses it as a warning, not a comfort:
The sense is not that they were in the very same condition as we are, or had the same sacraments as we have. It is that they all shared the same spiritual food and drink, and yet God had no pleasure in most of them. They held the title of God's people, and they shared in sacred privileges — the very ones Paul here likens to the two practices so familiar to us. That did not save most of them. God's judgments still struck them down in the wilderness.
- Struck once. The rock gave nothing until the rod of judgment fell on it. That blow pictures the cross, and it never needed repeating.
- Then flowing. Water came from the struck Rock — a picture of the Spirit given, life for people who had no other source.
- Always following. The supply was not a single day's mercy. It was a stream that tracked them through every camp of the journey.
- Christ Himself. The rock represented Christ. He was there with them in the desert — the same Person they tempted.
- Yet not enough alone. All drank; most fell. Carrying the title of God's people did not save them from His judgment.
yet God was not pleased with the most of them, for they were strewed in the desert.
Israel left Egypt with every visible advantage: the cloud, the sea, the food, the drink from the rock. Then the verse turns on one word — nevertheless. Why did God take no pleasure in people who had received so much from Him?
The apostle is writing about the fathers of Israel, not about the Corinthians. And the weight of his warning sits on one word: most.
When the apostle speaks of all eating the same spiritual food, he clearly means the fathers, not the Corinthians or other Christians. The point of his warning is this: God took no pleasure in most of them, for they were overthrown in the wilderness... He speaks here only of Israel. He does not say that their manna and water were the same thing as our signs of Christ's death. They held title as God's people. They shared in sacred privileges, which plainly match the two institutions so familiar to us in Christendom. None of this saved the mass from being overthrown by divine judgments in the wilderness.
The size of the loss is the warning.
Only two of that whole generation came out of Egypt as grown men and lived to enter Canaan. That is a serious warning about what may come from testing Christian profession this way. It is a warning for us all. We have no right to say, "Well, but we are true Christians, and so we need not trouble about these things."
The problem was not a shortage of blessing. It was the absence of faith.
By faith God's people please Him, and by faith and patience they obtain His promise. But Israel, as a nation, did not have faith in God. So when God brought them into the wilderness, their hearts turned back from Canaan to Egypt. They knew God only through their natural senses. The fire and the cloud gave constant witness, yet they failed to see that He was truly with them in that desert place. Because of unbelief they could not enter into His rest.
Something changed at Sinai, and it changed the way God dealt with their failures.
When we look back at Israel's story, we must remember this: their destruction was the natural and just result of the change they had freely made at Sinai, from grace to law. Up to that time they had complained and provoked God, yet not a hair of their heads had perished. It is the law that works wrath.
The same pattern can repeat under a Christian name.
The great mass of Israel had the outward forms of their holy religion. They had no faith, so they missed its vital power. They did not keep their bodies under control. They gave themselves up to their lusts and perished miserably. Seen this way, they were types of people firmly settled in the profession of the Christian religion. Such people are still not true believers, and they perish.
Commentators differ on how far the warning reaches. Some read it as aimed only at empty profession — a person can carry all the signs and be lost. Others press it on true Christians too, who have no right to think the warning does not touch them
This passage is not a warning about having the real thing and then perishing. It warns about having the signs of the thing and then perishing. It speaks to saints, and to all those who call on the name of the Lord Jesus, however bad they might be at Corinth. It would be very dangerous to say that people stand outside these warnings and dangers just because they are so bad.
Israel failed a test, and the warnings that follow trace the failure back to the heart.
When the test came, they fell short: they did not finish the race. Where the reality is missing, it will show in the end. If that was true in Israel, it is true today... This is the first of five negatives. It deals with the state of heart at the root of all the evils that follow. The positive antidote is of course keeping "first love" toward the Person of Christ.
- Privilege. Cloud, sea, food and drink were all real gifts, yet none of this "saved the mass from being overthrown by divine judgments in the wilderness."
- Proportion. God's displeasure fell on most, not a few. Only two of that generation reached the land, so the warning touches everyone.
- Reason. What was missing was faith: they "knew God only through their natural senses" and so could not enter His rest.
- Parallel. People can hold the outward marks of Christianity and rest on them where there is no life. The danger is "having the signs of the thing and then perishing"
- Remedy. The chain of failure starts in the heart. The antidote is "first love" toward Christ Himself.