1Cor 4:9-13 - The True Christian Life

9-13 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.


Now Paul uses his preceding sarcasm to bring them back to the realities of the Christian life, beginning with his own. Quite contrary to apostles thinking of themselves as kings and rulers, or in fact getting any of the acclaim, riches or other benefits of rulership, the Apostles are mostly wandering preachers with no safe place to rest their heads. They give a message that is ridiculed or rejected almost everywhere - and for which there is often persecution. They are slandered, misrepresented and dirt poor. In order not to be a burden upon anyone, nor to provide a stumbling block, they work for a living even though they have a right to the fruits of their flock(s).

But even this is only part of the story. Unlike worldly men and, by implication, unlike immature Christians, they do not complain or accuse or revile; they do not lose hope or give up. They bless, they persist, they try to be at peace with all men - even in the face of all these difficulties and all the ingratitude, misrepresentation, slander and opposition. That is Christ likeness.

Because they did it to Christ they do it to His true followers. And because He is in His true followers, they receive it all as He received it all - with humility, obedience, love and grace - sparing not the truth regardless of the cost. They both exemplify and exhibit Christ in fallen and redeemed man. But note this very carefully - they exemplify the working of grace and the power of the risen Christ in men who are fallen and redeemed. And it is because they are these two things they are both citizens of heaven and dwellers in sinful flesh. According to their faith be it unto them. They must struggle and battle and subdue the flesh, God giving His grace, even as they are the vessels of His message and His mercy, His love and His grace. Though they have not themselves arrived, they call others to the pilgrimage and set up the markers under the Lordship of God who has drawn near to them, even as they learn to draw near to Him.

Now, was this simply a cultural or an epochal situation? Did the Apostles go through all of this because Christianity was new? Or is it something to be expected in every age? Should we expect it today? And if so, should we look only in the unreached areas where the gospel is going for the first time, or also in so-called Christianized societies? What does it mean if Christians are not persecuted but are tolerated by the main culture? What about their leaders and shepherds?

The question is not directed at their provoking problems deliberately, but at their not changing or diluting the message in order to avoid problems. Are problems the sign of God’s blessing or His curse? Are they inevitable when the gospel is rightly preached and taught? What does the Bible say?

I don’t have all the answers. Maybe I don’t have any. But I do know that the world, the flesh and the devil are formidable enemies of the Christian for Christ’s sake, and that He gets glory through their defeat. Defeats come only in battle. So the enemies must be given rein by God to destroy themselves against the phalanxes of the living church, both corporately and individually, as she relies upon the finished work of the Saviour. The victory is so sure because the work has already been done. But the benefits of that work must now be received and applied through faith. We must walk in it.

Walking in the victory of Jesus through faith in His finished work is precisely what Paul has been doing, and it is what he is exhorting the Corinthians to do. The life of Christ was poured out both actively and passively for us. It is a life to be received through faith. And it does not stop there. It is a life not only received, but shown - for all those who truly receive His life will also walk in Him, bearing the fruit of His completed work in a life that springs from new heart. We cannot justify ourselves before God by what we do, but we will bear fruit of the works of Him who is in us, if indeed He is there at all. {Joh 15:4-6, 2Co 13:5}

This proper doctrinal understanding will help us today to avoid the errors of the Free Grace Movement (Ryrie, Hodges, Faust) and the pitfalls of similar antinomianism that stems from both a hyper Calvinistic and the modern Arminian view of decisional regeneration. In the words of B.B. Warfield:

"We are sinners and saints all at once! That is the paradox of evangelicalism. The Antinomian and the Perfectionist would abolish the paradox—the one drowning the saint in the sinner, and the other concealing the sinner in the saint."