1 CORINTHIANS: MOVING FROM THE CARNAL TO THE SPIRITUAL STATE

Part VII: Countering Carnal Divisions Over God's Servants By Recognizing Their Accountability To God

(1 Corinthians 3:10-15)

I. Introduction

A. Functioning by means of the sin nature, what we term "carnality," is often a challenge in today's churches.

B. 1 Corinthians was written to carnal believers (1 Corinthians 3:1-3), and 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 shows how the believer can counter carnal divisions over God's servants by recognizing their accountability to God at the Judgment Seat of Christ after the rapture of the Church, a passage with extensive application for us as follows:

II. Countering Carnal Divisions Over God's Servants By Recognizing Their Accountability To God.

A. In seeking to counter carnal divisions in the Corinthian Church over the personalities of human leaders in the body, Paul had noted in 1 Corinthians 3:9 that such leaders were merely God's servants in God's Church.

B. To make this point even stronger, Paul noted the great accountability of such human servants of God to the Lord Himself at the Judgment Seat of Christ that occurs after the rapture of the Church, 1 Corinthians 3:10-15:

1. Paul observed that he had been graciously granted by God as a wise "master builder" (architekton, Arndt & Gingrich, A Grk.-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 112) to lay a foundation in his apostolic ministry, to bring the Gospel to his Corinthian readers, but that another man was building upon it, 1 Corinthians 3:10a.

2. However, Paul warned that each man who did so was to take care how he built on it, 1 Corinthians 3:10b.

3. To explain his warning, Paul added that no one was able to lay a credible foundation besides what he had laid, that foundation being Jesus Christ, that is, salvation by faith in Him, 1 Corinthians 3:11 with 15:1-11.

4. If any man built upon that foundation spiritually valuable works of figurative gold, silver and precious stones or spiritually worthless items of figurative wood, hay and stubble, each man's work would "become" (ginomai, U. B. S. Grk. N. T., 1966, p. 584; Ibid., Arndt & Gingrich, p. 157-159) "plainly seen" (phaneros, Ibid., p. 860), for the "Day" (NIV) -- the Day of Christ's evaluation of it at His Judgment Seat where believers' works are judged -- will "reveal" (deloo, Ibid., p. 177) it, 1 Corinthians 3:12-13a.

5. The figurative "fire" of God's evaluation will test each believer's work for the Lord to expose its spiritual "quality" (hopoios, Thayer's Grk.-Eng. Les. of the N. T., 1963, p. 449), 1 Corinthians 3:13b.

6. Applied to the figurative items of gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay and stubble, the first three items would survive the figurative fire while the latter three would not.

7. If any man's work remains following God's evaluation of it, he will receive a reward (1 Corinthians 3:14), but if any man's work is burned up, he will suffer a loss of reward, but he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the fire, 1 Corinthians 3:15 NIV. [This verse reveals the unconditional salvation security of the believer in spite of having produced a lifetime of unacceptable service to God!]

C. In the context of countering carnal divisions over human personalities, the application of this description of the accountability of God's servants at the Judgment Seat of Christ can be made as follows:

1. Since any human servant of the Lord is completely accountable to the Lord for his ministry, for believers to exalt any human servant of God over another one in a divisive manner in the Church is to miss the point that that servant of God is not the focal point of the Church, but that God is! It is foolish to extol one servant of God over another since only GOD is the ultimate Discipler of everyone in the Church!

2. It is equally foolish for any human servant of the Lord to exalt himself over any other servant of God or believer, for he must give an account of his own ministry to God at the Judgment Seat of Christ, and to exalt himself is not only unbiblical, but carnal, what must be burned up at the Judgment Seat of Christ!

3. It is also foolish for either any human servant of God or the people of God to devalue that servant's work in the Church, for if he is called and gifted of God to serve as he does, his workmanship will be rewarded by Christ at the Judgment Seat of Christ regardless what the congregation or the servant of God himself thinks of his workmanship now! We must thus all focus on God's Biblical service standards, not man's!

Lesson: The production of carnal divisions in the Church over human servants of God is utterly foolish since each servant of the Lord will give an account to Christ for the spiritual quality of his workmanship for the Lord, meaning that the Head of the Church is God, not any such human servant, and only the work he does that please GOD -- not persons in the congregation or the servant himself -- will ultimately be of any value whatsoever!

Application: May we not divide over God's human servants, but realize that in light of the Judgment Seat of Christ, each such servant is precisely that, a servant of God, and how God wants to use him is the only point worth noting!