1 Corinthians 1:4-9

As always, Paul begins with a salutation. After this, before he launches into the body of the letter, he gives brief word of thanksgiving. Something you'll notice if you study the epistles of Paul is how important gratitude was to Paul—it is an idea that he comes back to time after time. And, especially, gratitude to God—this is something that seems to have always been simmering in Paul's soul, ready to bubble up into words. 

This passage is one such outburst of gratitude. However, it also contains a lot of other ideas, many of which will become important later in this letter. You can see that Paul is seeding his readers with the truths that he will communicate later.

This is one of those long, complicated sentences of Paul's, where it can be very easy to lose track of the main thread. But the main thought here, the idea on which all of these other ideas are built, are the first words of the passage: “I thank my God.” This is fundamentally a statement of Paul's gratitude to God. He adds the modifier “always”; this is not something that he just happened to thank God for on this particular occasion—this had been a continual source of gratitude for Paul.

Paul was grateful for what God had done for him personally, but that is not the theme here. He thanked God “on your behalf.” He was thankful for what God had done for the people at Corinth. This goes with the selfless attitude we see throughout Paul's life (his life as a Christian, anyway)--he cared for God and God's work in the lives of others deeply. And so he was thankful to see God helping others; he rejoiced with those who rejoiced. However, this whole prayer may also be Paul's subtle way of reminding the Corinthians of everything that God had done for them.

So Paul was habitually thanking God for what He had given to the Corinthians. But what had God given to the Corinthians? This is the end of verse 4: “grace.” Grace is a favorite word of Paul's. It is a word that has somewhat of a broad meaning both in English and Greek. But at its heart, grace means 'a gift.' Grace is that which is given freely and undeservedly.

Look at Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The word translated gift here is from the same root as the word translated grace in our text. In Romans 6:23 we have this contrast between a gift and wages—wages are that which are earned; your wage is what you deserve, what you are owed because of your own actions and efforts. But a gift is given freely, out of the love of the giver, not the desert of the givee. That is what grace is. Grace is given, not earned.

That is a general definition of grace, but, in our text (as in Romans 6), grace is specifically the “grace of God.” And this grace is given "by Jesus Christ." That can also be translated "IN Jesus Christ." God has given some grace to all people, what theologians call COMMON GRACE or PREVENIENT GRACE, but that is not what Paul is talking about here. This is the grace that God gives on account of and through the agency of Jesus Christ and the atonement provided by His life, death, and resurrection.

There are some parallels between this passage and the opening passage of Ephesians. There, Paul begins with this statement: Ephesians 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” Paul pictures the Christian sitting in Heaven with Christ, partaking in the blessings of that state. The children of Israel received manna from Heaven, but the Christian has (spiritually speaking) entered into Heaven to eat.

The point of this analogy is that God, in salvation, has not given a bare minimum. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32) When we speak of God's grace, often we specifically mean saving grace, but God has done more than merely save us—as great a wonder as that is—and all of that—all that God has done, is doing, and will continue to do for His people—falls under this word grace. Look at the beginning of verse 5: “in every thing ye are enriched by him.”  God had not given them a small spiritual pension; they had inherited a vast fortune of grace.

However, though we can talk about different forms or kinds of grace, they are all united because they all come from God. Paul makes a point of showing the continuity or connection of grace. In verse 6, he compares the grace they were currently experiencing with their initial conversion. They had received grace “even as the testimony of Christ as confirmed in you.” The idea seems to be this: when they first heard the gospel, they had believed that gospel and received God's grace—it had been built up and established in their lives. God had worked in their lives, and just so, He was continuing to work in their lives. 

But what gift does Paul mention here? Specifically, God's grace had made them rich in the knowledge and proclamation of the truth. This is the second half of verse 5. They were enriched in utterance and in knowledge. They had heard the truth and had understood it and now they were continuing to preach it. This was a church with a general grasp of Christian doctrine and a vibrant preaching ministry. The Corinthians had received other gifts, as we will see later, but Paul saw this as being the most important.

This helps us get a picture of the church in Corinth. As we talked about before, this was a church with its share of problems. In many ways, the people of this church were living too much like the world and not thinking and living as Christians. But it was still a vibrant, living church—a church that had preaching and teaching and other spiritual ministries. When we think of a 'worldly church,', we often think of an old church, a church whose members have gradually lost interest in or fervor for spiritual things and so have moved to doing the bare minimum for the church. Corinth was almost the opposite—it was a very young church with comparatively fresh converts. And like many people in their youth, they seem to have had a lot of knowledge but not nearly as much as they thought they did, and a good portion of zeal that was not always put into the right aims.

Obviously, any church is a multifaceted thing, and we don't fully know what this church was like. But we do need to remember that for all the problems they had, they also had many good qualities as well. The Beacon Bible Commentary remarks: “Even though the people in the church at Corinth were beset by an amazing catalogue of carnal qualities, yet the comparison of their new life in Christ to their old life in corrupt heathenism was a source of satisfaction to Paul.” (Note on 1 Corinthians 1:4-5)

So, we see that God had given them grace in salvation and now was continuing to give them grace by empowering the church with knowledge and utterance. And there was a purpose to all this. This is the beginning of verse 7: “So that ye come behind in no gift.” The Corinthian church had good things going on, but they weren't all they needed to be—and God's plan was that they would be; that they would be a strong and established church with every gift and grace they needed.

The end of verse 7 gives further context for this. This was while they were “waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Perhaps the idea is that they were preparing for that event. Their current grace and life in the church was to prepare them for the day of the Lord, the day of judgment.

But this is how this all connects together. At the beginning of their life, they heard the gospel, and the gospel was confirmed and established in them by Jesus. And now Jesus, the same Jesus who was coming again in judgment, would confirm and establish them unto the end so that they would be blameless, not guilty, found innocent in that day. The foundation for this is God's faithfulness. God called them to this fellowship, this relationship, and since God is faithful, He could be counted on to continue doing His part. He had given grace, and He wouldn't withdraw it from them so long as they continued in faith. Jesus had begun a work in them; Jesus was continue to work in them; and if they let Him, He would bring that work to completion. “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6)

And we have to keep all this in mind as we move forward. Paul has very critical words to say about this church. From one perspective, the rest of the book is just Paul criticizing the church. But it wasn't because these people were sinners. It was specifically because they were Christians—it was because they had received the gospel and seen a work begun—therefore, God, working through Paul, was trying to help them become what they needed to be to bring that work to completion. The criticisms of this book are a manifestation of God's love and faithfulness to the church (and, by extension, Paul's love and faithfulness).