Identity

While reading 1 Corinthians 1, I couldn’t get past the introduction of the letter for the distraction I felt over the knowledge of what was coming in the rest of Paul’s letter. First Corinthians is not unfamiliar to me. I have read and studied it more than a few times in my life. Therefore, I could not shut out my previous knowledge of the church at Corinth when I read 1 Corinthians 1:2 and saw how Paul identified his audience: 

• “The church of God which is at Corinth.” 

• Those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus.” 

• “Called to be saints.” 

• And those who “call on the name of Jesus Christ.”

My Bible’s commentary calls the Corinthian church “a seriously troubled church.” Some of its troubles mentioned in 1 Corinthians were: divisions among the members, sexual immorality, and abuse of spiritual gifts. Surely these troubles had much to do with their surroundings. Corinth was a decadent, commercial city infected with drunkenness and lewdness propagated from the prevalent worship of pagan gods. Ultimately, we should know that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians as a letter to reprimand the church. 

What Does God Say?

However, his initial focus of his letter is their “in Christ” identity. Why start with identity? 

Because identity is where everything good or bad starts. How we identify ourselves is of utmost importance to our faith and the completion of our faith journey. 

We, as believers in Jesus, cannot identify ourselves in any other way than who He says we are if we are going to follow His ways and fulfill His will in our lives. If we determine ourselves to be anyone or anything other than how God identifies us, we set ourselves on a dismal course of frustrations and failures. All of which can surely be avoided with a right identity. I wrote in detail about this in a previous blog post, Having A Wrong Identity Can Steal From Us For A Lifetime. 

Let’s turn our attention back to the church at Corinth.  In 1 Corinthians 1:4-9, Paul told them even deeper truths about them as related to or a result of Jesus’ work. First Corinthians 1:4-9 is an astounding stand-alone passage of Scripture, but reading it with the knowledge of how messed up the church at Corinth was, put it on another level of astounding. 

Let me list the truths Paul spoke of and reminded them of in 1 Corinthians 1:4-9. 

1) Grace was given to them by Jesus

2) They were enriched in everything by Him 

• In all utterance

• And all knowledge

3) The testimony of Christ was confirmed in them

• “so that” (purpose of the confirmed testimony) they come short in no gift

4) They eagerly wait for the revelation of Jesus, WHO,

• Will confirm them to the end

• That they may be blameless in the day of Jesus
  
  

God is faithful

God is faithful, by whom you were called into the 

fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

1 Corinthians 1:9

Do you see how they were identified and all that they had been given? Do you see how real the work of Christ had been in them and how they had a promise of Jesus presenting them blameless? All the while they are jacked up, messed up people. 

I don’t know if that is as encouraging to you as it is to me, but I am so thankful that Jesus’ work in me is more powerful than my messed up-ness. With all that said, I also can’t say, “Hallelujah, there is nothing I need to do about my messed up-ness.” Because Paul’s next words in 1 Corinthians 1:10 is where he shifted gears and made a turn toward their part of their personal salvation journey. 

“Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all…”

1 Corinthians 1”10a

We should glory in the fact that Jesus promised to see us to the end and present us blameless before God. Scripture speaks of Jesus presenting us blameless in the end several times. However, Colossians 1:21-23 shows us the conditional-ness of this promise, as does the whole of 1 Corinthians. 

And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight – if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I Paul, became a minister.

Colossians 1:21-23

The Conditional Promise

Did you notice the conditional statement? “If indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel.” That’s as conditional as it gets and clearly portrays the heart behind Paul’s pleading with the body of Christ at Corinth. He did not want them to miss out on the promise of being presented blameless before God. And if they did not continue in grounded, steadfast faith he knew that danger loomed before them. 

The completion of our faith journey fully and wholly rests on the work of Jesus, yet we are called to join Him in His work of sanctification in us. That’s why Paul said in Philippians 2:12, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” And he wrote in Romans 6:1-2a, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not!” 

There is no doubt in my mind that Paul began with identity and Jesus’ work in their lives because of the connection to the promise of blamelessness. A new identity and the gift of Jesus’ work in us compels us to join Him in working out the completion of our faith journey that we can know that we know, one day we will stand before God healed, whole, perfected, and blameless because He is faithful to do what He says He will do.