1 Corinthians 1:8

In the opening chapter of his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul speaks positively and hopefully about the church's spiritual prospects. The context shows clearly that he is speaking of the church corporately:

I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor. 1:4-9).

Here the Corinthian church is praised because it is so richly endowed with spiritual gifts, because the testimony of Christ has received confirmation in the church's life and experience, and because it waits eagerly for the coming of Christ. Paul fully expects God to bring the church to the place where it is blameless before Him (the letter shows the church has a long way to go!), and he bases this expectation on God's faithfulness. Paul is sure that the many problems at Corinth, which he is about to discuss, can be worked out.

It would be a mistake to read more into the text than that. There is not to be found here a guarantee that each and every Christian individual will necessarily be brought to the place where his Christian life is "blameless" before God. (The word "blameless" is the same one we have met as "above reproach" in Colossians 1:22.) In Paul's mind no such guarantee existed.9

(1) Paul's view in
1 Corinthians 3

This is made perfectly plain in this very letter. In chapter 3 the Apostle describes the evaluation of the Christian's life and work which will someday take place at the Judgment Seat of Christ (see again, Rom. 14:10-12; 2 Cor. 5:10). His words are these:

For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire (1 Cor. 3:11-15).

It is clear from this text that Paul entertained the possibility that in the Day of divine evaluation, a Christian's work might be "burned up." The Greek verb employed in verse 15 (the one rendered "burned") is in fact an intensive word like our own verb "burned down." Should a Christian's works suffer such a fate Paul insists that his eternal destiny nevertheless will not be affected. "But he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire."10

This declaration is so straightforward that it is absolutely amazing how widely it has been ignored. Obviously, if a believer's works are "burned down" he will not stand "blameless" before God. So 1:8 does not claim that a "blameless" state will be true of every Christian at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Paul was speaking primarily about the spiritual status which he expected the Corinthian church to achieve corporately.

(2) A Further
Caution

But even here caution must be exercised not to make the words of 1:8 say more than they actually do.

If a counselor says to a troubled counselee, "God will strengthen you and see you through," this claim ought not to be taken as a flat and unconditional prediction. Instead it is an expression of the counselor's conviction that God can be relied upon by the troubled individual who needs Him. Naturally he expects the counselee to appropriate God's help in the proper ways.

In 1 Corinthians 1:4-9 Paul begins his epistle on a positive note. He commends in the Corinthian church what there is to commend (there was a great deal to criticize!), and he expresses the expectation that "God will confirm you [that is, `give you strength'] to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." But it is implied in such a declaration that the Corinthians must want that strength and must appropriate it properly.

Paul's main point is that God will furnish the needed help, because He is faithful (verse 9). Those who have elevated the statement of 1:8 to the level of a theological claim about Christian perseverance have misunderstood Paul's meaning.11 They have also created false theology.

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