Tuesday, February 4, 2020

1 Corinthians 3:15: Not About Christian Ministers Merely but All Believers


In my article 1 Corinthians 3:15: A very un-Protestant Verse, I exegete 1 Cor 3:15 and its immediate context, showing that, as with the Doctrine and Covenants, the Bible affirms that certain people who will eventually be saved will endure posthumous suffering, and that works are, in some sense, not for reward in the hereafter merely, but affects one's eternal destiny.

Some Protestants (e.g., James White) have tried to argue that 1 Cor 3 is about Christian ministers merely and not all Christians. However, many Protestants, even those who believe that Paul is only speaking of rewards in the hereafter, state otherwise, including the following scholarly source:

. . . after enunciating the principle that ‘each shall receive his wages (μισθος) according to his labour (κοπος)’ (1 Cor. 3.8), he goes on to speak of a judgment of ‘fire’ that awaits Christians on that Day:

. . . and the fire will test (δοκιμασει) what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation [Jesus Christ] survives, he will receive a reward (μιστος). If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss (ζημιωθησεται), though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Cor. 3.12-15).

Though it is leaders in the church that are primarily in focus in the immediate context, in all probability the judgment that Paul envisages here extends to every servant of Christ, and thus may not unreasonably be generalized to include the entire Christian community. (Roger Mohrlang, Matthew and Paul: A Comparison of Ethical Perspectives [Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 48; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, 1994], 61-62, emphasis in bold added)