1Cor 3:12-15 - Foundations and Fruit

12-15 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.


What a man believes will characterize his behaviour. Not what a man professes to believe, but what he actually believes. By their fruits shall you know them {Mt 7:15-20}, Jesus said of the false prophets. They were propagating untruth - another gospel. It is a matter of doctrine. It is why right doctrine is so essential to a healthy outworking of faith. Without right doctrine wrong praxis is inevitable, whereas, with right doctrine at least right praxis is possible.

Some false prophets are more subtle. They propagate the right teaching but do not actually believe it in their hearts. So there is a disjunction between what they say and what they do. Jesus recognized this type also when He said, "Do as they say, but not as they do." {Mt 23:2-3}

In either case it is essential for the church today, and for each professing believer to understand what the doctrines of the faith are. In the past, these were contained in the creeds and hymns which were recited and sung every Lord’s Day. Certainly the rote, traditional, dry recitation of mere words - no matter how truthful - is not of itself of any immediate profit. But hymns and creeds came into disfavour not because they were false, but because many of those professing them failed to evidence a true belief in them. The hypocrisy and deadness of the professors (the very thing they were created to operate against) was the downfall of these things in the modern church.

But the cry must be for authenticity (which is what the emerging church craves) and not for deconstruction (which is what postmodern thinking believes is necessary). The creeds and hymns were never inauthentic of themselves - it was the people who cooled. And the answer to such cooling is to be found only in the gospel of Jesus Christ - the same gospel that comes to us in the great doctrines of the faith that are in the very creeds and hymns that are now rejected.

But it is not a real Catch-22 situation. The solution is not to throw out the baby with the bath water, but to clean the bath water itself. If the church is unresponsive to the word of God properly preached in the Spirit that is one thing - but if the ministers let the truth slip away by degrees and fail to covet and to rely upon the power of the Spirit then that is quite another. And not only the ministers, who bear the greater burden, but also the congregations themselves must be vigilant to defend the gospel, including the great truths - the pre-laid foundation of the faith.

For goodness sake, this is precisely what Paul is talking about here. He is saying that the foundation has been laid and now not only must that foundation be jealously guarded and preserved, but it must also form the guiding principles in all of our teaching and preaching. Whatever we preach or teach must completely agree - must arise from and conform to whatever God laid down beginning with Christ, and then through the Apostles.

It seems so simple until you understand that every armament in the arsenal of hell is arrayed against the preservation of the truth. As soon as it was given the truth was subverted by some. Before it was formally collected into a canon of scripture many, many heresies has sprung up and carried away countless people with them. Men died, some of them horribly, in order to preserve the truth that we now take for granted. As Tertullian said, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." And it is necessary that there be divisions among believers in order that those who are genuine may be seen. {1Co 11:18-19} It is necessary - but not necessarily desirable.

Two mistakes are common today. One is that we get all pious and say we only get our help from the Bible itself. We don’t need all the other stuff. In a way that’s correct. But a better way to put it is that the Bible is our only rule of faith and life - though we are a part of a larger body of believers to whom it has pleased God to shown things from the scriptures that He has not yet shown us. Church fathers, past writers and historians, theologians and apologists and so on have all struggled with issues, as we do, and some of them have been given light that we have not.

Another error often made today is to deny that we need doctrine at all. It is said that doctrine divides. Too right it does, because it is supposed to. Right doctrine exists so that the false can be seen, refuted and rooted out. But by misunderstanding, and using the slogan "doctrine divides" as a basis for chucking out doctrine altogether, many then lean upon experiences and feelings in their stead. Today many throw out the very idea that we need to study to show ourselves approved unto God by coming to serious grips with God’s Word - and instead trumpet the idea of knowing God through some sort of spiritual experience apart from a right understanding of what the founders actually taught. This is Christian suicide just as much as holding to a bunch of theology as a mere intellectual exercise is suicide. One just feels better than the other, but both are actually dead religion arising from the carnal nature.

So this passage is not primarily about works, but about doctrines. The foundation that was laid was laid in a series of teachings about who God is and how He deals with His creation - particularly in His Son Jesus Christ.

If we truly understand and believe the foundational teachings this will show in the teachings we bring forth based upon them. Right belief will produce right understanding and right understanding will produce Biblical teaching which will bear fruit in both teacher and hearer in changed lives. But it is possible to build using worthless materials - even harmful ones - and to try to make them fit the existing foundation. They will certainly be in evidence; there will be some sort of edifice constructed. It may even look solid. But there is coming a Day when God will try what we have believed and how that belief has been worked out and the true value of it all will be made manifest to all.

A comparison of the lives, teachings and fruits of Asahael Nettleton and Charles G. Finney might well serve as an illustration of the greater revelation that will one day take place - though time and space do not permit a suitable treatment here.

The trial of Christian works by fire is a trial of the fruit of right doctrines. Did they propagate and live by the doctrines that they professed? To the degree that they were faithful in word and deed to the foundational truths and teachings of Christ and the Apostles they will receive a reward for their fruit - though they will give all the glory to God. But in case anyone would be tempted to slip into the error that we are justified by our works - or that we are saved by them - Paul is quick to point out that true Christians who show little fruit, due to their failure to abide in the fullness of the truth, will not be damned. They will still be saved because they were saved by grace, justified by God and kept by His power. For Paul to teach otherwise would be to negate his teaching elsewhere {Ro 8:28-30}

The so-called "Free Grace Movement" seen seminally in Charles Ryrie’s teachings, but fully developed by Zane Hodges and his ilk, seems to come close to this concept. Yet it actually demonstrates why we have the need for sound doctrines, and why we ought not to be so quick to throw away the wisdom imparted to brothers in the Lord who have long since passed into glory. They take a position arising from an Arminian understanding of scripture which devolves into antinomianism because it minimizes the responsibility of man. In the extreme form it says that a Christian has only once to make a profession of faith and he can not only live like a pagan, but actually deny Christ and still be saved based on his once-for-all confession.

Funnily enough it is usually Arminianism that accuses Calvinism, with its high and sovereign view of God and with the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, of a similar error; only Arminians believe perseverance doctrine denies human responsibility (for which read human free will) which leads, in their view, to antinomianism. But what does the passage to hand speak of? It says we must build upon the doctrines given to us by Christ and the Apostles.

And they taught both the absolute sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. But they do not teach the response-ability of man, and therein lies the very fundamental difference. True Christians persevere precisely because, knowing what they are apart from God, they rely upon God and call upon Him for grace to live as He commands. (remember Augustine and the Pelagian controversy “Command what you will and grant what you command”). And they are preserved because God is in them to will and to do of His good pleasure. Balanced and Biblical understanding holds these truths simultaneously because the Bible teaches them. They are foundational doctrines of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

So a true Christian has within him (from God) the desire to be delivered from the reigning power of sin and he looks to God for the power and grace to strive against sin - to put to death the deeds of the body and to be found honouring God. Not all Christians do so equally. But this passage teaches that God alone is the final judge of all works - not only of the reprobates, but also of His children.