Now these things, brethren, I have transferred, in their application, to myself and Apollos, for your sakes, that ye may learn in us the [lesson of] not [letting your thoughts go] above what is written, that ye may not be puffed up one for [such a] one against another.
Paul has been talking about himself and Apollos, and here he explains why: the two names stood in for other men. Behind them lies a rule — think of no one above what Scripture says, and party pride collapses.
Paul says he "applied" these things to himself and Apollos. Commentators read this to mean the people the Corinthians were rallying around were other men. Paul left them unnamed.
They were not actually lining up under the banners of Paul, Apollos or Peter, as 1 Corinthians 4:6 shows. Out of Christian tact, the apostle did not name the men who were making themselves party leaders, or whom the Corinthians were making into party leaders. He spoke "in a figure." He moved the matter over to himself and to Apollos, so that in that way they might learn the lesson: do not be puffed up for one man against another.
Naming names would have handed his critics an easy answer.
If he had rebuked those people by name, they might have shot back: "It is all very well, brother Paul, for you to rebuke us. The fact is you are jealous of your position. So you want to get rid of us, and leave no one to challenge you." How effective the rebuke was when he used his own name — and meant it!
By putting himself under the measure, Paul made it impossible to argue that the rule was for lesser men.
Here the apostle explains what he has also done elsewhere. He applies to himself, and in this case to Apollos as well, a principle he meant for others. He does it so that the saints might profit. The men misleading the Corinthians were the ones he really had in view, as he implies here. But he lays down a standard, and he does not hesitate to measure himself and Apollos by it. The saints could then use that same standard on others, whose claims were as high and groundless as the service of Paul and Apollos was real and from God.
One writer uses this verse as a key to how Paul writes elsewhere. When Paul says "I," he may be picturing a case rather than telling his own story. (He quotes an older wording of this verse: "in a figure transferred.")
Romans 7:9 says, "I was once alive apart from the law." Paul does not mean to point to a state he had been in himself. It is a great principle, and he shows it by personifying it. As he says elsewhere, "these things I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos." That does not describe any one individual — it is every man.
Scripture sets the limit on what we may think of any servant. Kelly puts it plainly: "What is written makes God everything, and man at best an instrument, since he is rightly only a servant. God alone makes the difference between one person and another." Another writer shows why Paul mentioned these two men so much, and what happens when that limit goes:
It was for their sakes that he spoke so much about these two men who had helped their joy. He went against his own inclination, so that they might learn from these two, and from their own estimate of that ministry, not to go beyond what is written.
Subjection to Scripture is the only real freedom from harmful human influences. If we neglect or forget the word of God, we will not profit as we should even from a ministry that is itself from God. An inspired apostle would be only a snare and a hindrance to a soul that saw truth in him alone. Such a soul did not find the Master in His servant.
Party feeling is a swap of attention. The messenger fills the view that belongs to the message.
To be puffed up for one against another is to be more taken up with the vessel than with the truth the vessel contains, more taken up with man than with God — a serious mistake! "What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each."
Left alone, admiration of teachers hardens into a system.
They were already forming themselves into schools of teaching, with this or that teacher as the head of the school. They were saying, "I am of Paul, and I of Apollos," and were making themselves disciples of men. They were coming to belong to those who in God's thought belonged to them.
- Screen — Paul hides the real party leaders behind his own name and Apollos's. The rebuke lands without a personal attack.
- Self first — He measures himself first, then hands the same measure to others. He argues the same way elsewhere when he says "I."
- Standard — "Not beyond what is written" makes Scripture the limit of what we think of men. God alone makes one servant differ from another.
- Swap — To be puffed up for one man against another is to prize the vessel above the truth it carries.
- Slide — Unchecked, this ends in schools of teaching. Believers become disciples of men, and belong to the teachers who in God's thought belong to them.
For who makes thee to differ? and what hast thou which thou hast not received? but if also thou hast received, why boastest thou as not receiving?
The Corinthians had lined up behind rival leaders, each group proud of its favourite. Paul answers with three questions aimed straight at that pride — and the answer to all three is the same: God.
The verse is not free-floating advice. It lands on a church that had turned God's servants into rival brands.
Verse 6 shows us that the real party leaders at Corinth were not Paul or Apollos. They were most likely gifted local leaders, or even visiting teachers who pressed the Jewish law on the church. Paul points to them more plainly in his second letter. Paul avoided using their names, but he wanted all to learn the lesson, not to be puffed up for one as against another. No one has any ground for boasting, however shining their gift, for all that they have they have received from God.
The first question does not deny that believers differ. It asks who made them differ. Older translations word it "Who makes you to differ?" — the wording these writers quote.
"Who makes you to differ?" (v. 7) means: if anyone has more gift than another, where does it come from? It all came from God. One was saying, "I am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos." But the apostle says to them: it is all yours. And if one is greater than another, who made him to differ? Just as John says, "A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven."
The second question moves from difference to merit. A gift is not a wage.
To those who might be seeking a position among the saints that was not theirs, he asks, "Who makes you to differ from another?" If a gift made the servant differ from others at all, he still had nothing except what he had received. If it was a gift, it was given and not earned by any merit. Where, then, was there ground for boasting? Unless near to the Lord and strong in His grace, how weak is the most gifted servant!
The third question exposes the trick the heart plays: holding a gift, then acting as though you had earned it. The Corinthians had not denied grace. They had stopped remembering it.
Did they, or could they, forget who it was who had put a difference between them and their former selves? Who and what were they, as believers, except by the grace of God? Forgetfulness has always been the standing discredit of God's people. What we hold should kindle gratitude and keep the Giver's grace always before the heart. Too often it has led instead to pride and thankless excess... Outwardly these Corinthians admitted that they owed everything to grace, yet they treated God's gifts as their natural right. So they dishonoured Him who had enriched them, even while they gloried in His gifts.
If nothing we hold began with us, boasting has no ground left.
Verse 7 strikes sharply at this unseemly pride. Who created the differences among the saints? Certainly not themselves. It is God who has made each one just what he is. Or if it is a question of abilities, capacities, or spiritual gifts, we have not been the originators of these, but the receivers. And if we have simply received them — from God, of course — then thankful humility should be our only response. We must not boast as though we were self-made.
The verse cuts both ways. It removes boasting upward, and it removes contempt downward. Commentators apply it to the way better-taught believers handle those still learning — as with Apollos, who knew only part of the truth until Priscilla and Aquila explained it more accurately.
How sad it is to despise those today who are where we were yesterday! "What do you have that you did not receive?" So the apostle later rebuked the vain Corinthians. The godly couple he was staying with in that very city felt very differently: "But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately."
Humility in a servant of God does not rest on this verse alone.
Here, then, we have three solid reasons why humility should mark the servants of Christ. First, as to what they are: the Lord makes His servants differ in their qualifications, and everything they have, they received. Second, as to what they do: it would come to nothing unless God gave the increase. Third, as to what they preach: they exalt Christ, and Christ only.
- Source. God makes every real difference between believers; the believer never does.
- Gift. No one earns a gift. A gift carries no merit, and so no claim.
- Forgetting. Pride is not the denial of grace but the forgetting of it — treating God's gifts as natural rights.
- Boasting. To boast in a gift is to act as though you never received it. That is where party spirit starts.
- Gratitude. Thankful humility is the one fitting response. It also keeps us from despising those who are today where we were yesterday.
Already ye are filled; already ye have been enriched; ye have reigned without us; and I would that ye reigned, that *we* also might reign with you.
Paul has just asked the Corinthians what they have that they did not receive. Now he draws a picture. The church acts as if the day of glory has already come, while the men who brought them the gospel still suffer.
The words are not praise. One writer hears irony in them, and points to the bad teaching behind it.
But he strikes another blow, and this one is the sharpest irony. Isaiah did the same when he exposed the folly of idol-worship. Poor, even corrupting, doctrine always lowers practice. Without noticing it, the Corinthians had given up the place of sufferers with Christ. The apostle points this out witheringly. "Already" here means before the time. When Christ reigns, we shall indeed be at ease and fully satisfied. But now is the time to deny self, to take up one's cross, and follow Him, who suffered many things, indeed all things, here below. They were deceiving themselves: the time had not yet come.
Their fullness showed itself in material things. One writer ties it to money and comfort, and to what those had done to the church.
This spirit had also led to self-satisfaction and a focus on material advantage. That focus practically made them reign as kings. They were filled up with earthly things (Corinth means "satiated"), and rich — but not in any practical spiritual sense. This display of material prosperity does not suit the character of the Church of God. His people trust a despised, rejected Lord. They wait for the time when He will be exalted and reigning.
These two small words carry the sting. The apostles were not reigning at all, and that fact sets a test for every claim of prosperity.
They were full, they were rich, they had reigned as kings, "without us," adds the apostle. It is plain that the apostles were not reigning... they were a spectacle to the world for their sufferings, and to angels as well as men. What a false test, then, of a Christian's condition is what men would call his prosperity!
A bigger absence lies behind the missing apostles. Christ Himself is not reigning yet.
The thought that the church will one day reign without Christ is very harmful, though it comes naturally to man's heart! The Corinthian saints fell into it (1 Cor. 4:8) and were rebuked for its unspiritual, worldly character. What could be more opposed to the portion of the apostles, and of Christ? We are called to suffer now, not to reign... A loyal Christian heart could not enjoy, or even accept, a reign of saints without Christ, the Firstborn among many brothers.
This was more than a mood. What they believed had changed what they wanted.
No doubt it was with much anguish of heart that Paul wrote these words. Bad doctrine, as it always does, had produced bad practice. They had forgotten that the Lord's pathway through this world was one of suffering, shame and loss, and that theirs should be the same. Instead of suffering they preferred indulgence. Instead of trouble they preferred triumph. Instead of the world's curse they preferred its crown... Paul waited patiently for the time of reigning, so he could share it with his beloved children. But they preferred to reign without him.
The Corinthian mistake is still alive. One writer pictures it at a coronation.
At the crowning of a British king or queen, the lords and ladies who may attend Westminster Abbey bring their coronets with them. But they do not put them on until the crown goes on the sovereign's head. Today many Christians seem eager to put on their coronets before the Saviour appears, crowned with His many crowns.
- Already — The key word is timing. They claimed the fullness, riches and royalty of the coming kingdom now, while their Lord is still rejected.
- Without us — Look at the company they had left behind: the apostles, who suffered and became a spectacle to the world. Prosperity that leaves such servants behind proves nothing about spiritual health.
- Without Him — Deeper still, a reign begun now is a reign without Christ, who is not yet on His own throne. No loyal heart could want a crown He is not wearing.
- Doctrine into practice — Bad teaching produced bad living. They chose indulgence over suffering, triumph over trouble, and the world's crown over its curse.
- Would that you did reign — Paul truly wanted that day, shared with them and with Christ. Until it comes, the coronets stay off.