《Godbey’sCommentary on the New Testament–1 Corinthians》(William B. Godbey)
Commentator
William B. Godbey was one of the most influential evangelists of the Wesleyan-holiness movement in its formative period (1880-1920). Thousands of people experienced conversion or entire sanctification under his ministry, and Godbey gained a reputation for having revivals everywhere he went.
A prolific author, he dictated over 230 books and pamphlets and wrote numerous articles for holiness periodicals. He produced a new translation of the New Testament in 1901, and published a seven-volume Commentary on the New Testament (1896-1900).
Godbey's publications, along with his preaching and "Bible lessons" at camp meetings, earned for the evangelist a widespread reputation among "holiness people" as the "Greek scholar" and "Bible commentator."
Through his publications and sermons, Godbey joined a limited number of other ministers who introduced premillennialism into the holiness movement.
Godbey was also one of the principal agents responsible for keeping the "tongues movement" out of the rest of the holiness movement.
Godbey encouraged large numbers of people to join the new holiness denominations, and through his preaching and publications shaped popular opinion on holiness and millenarian doctrines.
01 Chapter 1
Verse 1
1.“Paul an elect apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God.” “Called” in E.V. impresses the reader that it means “annunciated,” which is really not the meaning. It is a participle from kaleo, “to call,” from which ecclesia, “church,” is derived. Hence it means the call of the Holy Ghost responsive to which we become the elect of God, “nominated” in conversion, “elected” in sanctification (1 Peter 1:2), and “crowned” in heaven if faithful to the end. “And Sosthenes our brother.” Here we see that Paul honors Sosthenes even with a place in the authorship of this letter, showing that he was a preacher of the gospel associated with Paul in labor, and evidently standing at the very front. Sosthenes was he who received a flogging in Corinth when chief ruler of the synagogue in the succession of Crispus. Having become a most virulent persecutor of Paul, he with his Jewish comrades had brought him before Gallio, the Roman proconsul of Achaia, for prosecution, and the latter dismissing the case out of court, thus refusing to try Paul, much less punish him, the Gentile multitude, concluding that Sosthenes as prosecutor deserved a thrashing, set on him and gave him a good one (Acts 18:12-17). As in case of Peter Cartwright beating religion into the big blacksmith, who had flogged and run all of his predecessors out of the circuit, and then he got gloriously converted, became a roaring class leader, and Peter’s right-hand man on the battlefield; it seems that we have a parallel case in the history of Sosthenes, as he is only mentioned in these two passages. In Acts we find him there in Corinth, the chief ruler in the synagogue, doing his utmost to get the governor to kill Paul or run him off, but making a failure and getting a whipping himself. Then the next time we hear of him he is gone away with Paul to Asia on evangelistic work, and associated with him in writing this letter back to his friends and acquaintances who knew him so well in Corinth. Thus wonderful things transpire in the Lord’s battlefield.
Verse 2
2.“To the church of God being in Corinth.” This word ecclesia, from ek, “out,” and kaleo, “to call,” simply means the people who have heard the call of the Holy Ghost, come out of the world and identified themselves with God. This is done only in the supernatural birth of the Holy Spirit. Modern church-joining has done much to deceive and debauch the popular mind, thus alienating the people from the correct apprehension of the essential character of God’s Church. You can not get into it by joining. God’s children are all born into His family, which is His Church. You would as well call a sable Ethiopian a blonde Caucasian as to pronounce a person a member of God’s Church who has not been born from above. It is simply an abuse of language, flatly contradictory of facts and calculated only to deceive and send people to hell. “To those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and have it yet better than ever” this translation is necessary to bring out the force of the Greek perfect tense which here occurs, and unlike the English, which means an action complete in past time and developing a state which continues down to the present, but laying the emphasis on the past. The Greek, having the same definition, lays the emphasis on the present, hence it means that these persons have not only been sanctified in time past, but have it yet better than ever. “To the elect saints,” — E.V., “called to be saints,” “to be” not in the original. As above explained, we are nominated in conversion and elected in sanctification. We find these two prominent classes addressed in this epistle, i. e., “the elect saints who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and have it yet better than ever.” Paul first addresses this class as above. Then follows another class, i. e.. , “with all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus in every place, theirs and ours.” This class includes all the people who are in a state of grace; not only the converted who are not sanctified, but all truly convicted people, because such call upon the name of the Lord. Hence we find this epistle not only addressed to “the elect saints who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and have it yet better than ever,” but to all of the praying people at Corinth. If you will remember these facts, you will have no trouble in the application of this letter to all of the diversified spiritual grades and classes which follow.
Verse 3
3.This is a very common salutatory benediction peculiar to the Pauline Epistles.
Verse 4
4.Here he gives thanks to God in their behalf in view of His grace conferred on the Corinthian saints.
Verse 5
5.“Because you are enriched in him in all word and knowledge.” The E.V. gives this an active, whereas it has a passive, signification, meaning the simple fact that those Corinthians had the rich and invaluable treasure of God’s complete word and that priceless gift of the Holy Ghost (1
Corinthians 1 Corinthians 12:8) denominated “knowledge.” This spiritual gift means insight into divine truth, the omniscient Revelator revealing to the reader the spiritual meaning of His precious word, which He alone understands. Hence those Corinthians were wonderfully rich to have all the word and the spiritual knowledge of the same, i. e., insight into it, illuminated by the Holy Ghost, so they could understand it.
Verse 6-7
6, 7.“As the testimony of Christ is confirmed in you, so that you are deficient in no gift.” The Greek word charisma here occurring is the very identical word used to denote those nine extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost (Ch. 1 Corinthians 12:8-11). Hence we see that some of them actually possessed all of these spiritual gifts which you find in that catalogue of nine, and which Paul expounds in chapters 12 and 14. “Expecting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,” i. e., the same personal Jesus whom they had seen with their eyes, and whose voice they had heard with their ears, and whose body they had taken by the hand, having flown up from Mt. Olivet into heaven, is going to come back where we can recognize Him with our physical senses as before His ascension. Paul lived in constant expectancy of His glorious appearing, and made this great fact of the Lord’s return to the earth exceedingly prominent in all of his ministry, as we see unmistakably in every epistle. As we are eighteen hundred years nearer this glorious revelation of Jesus again on the earth, we should be on the constant lookout.
Verse 8
8.“Who will also establish you unto the end unrebukable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” What a glorious promise that if we are only true to the grace given, our wonderful Savior will see to the fact that we are washed in the blood, filled with the Spirit, robed and ready to meet our glorious King in the eventful day of His coming.
Verse 9
9.Here we are assured of God’s faithfulness who has called us “into the fellowship of his Son.” This word “fellowship” (koinoonia) really means the co-partnership of husband and wife in their matrimonial alliance. Hence it involves at once the beautiful and profound problem of the Bridehood.
Verse 10
10.“But I exhort you, brethren, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you may all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you, but that you may be perfected in the same mind and in the same disposition;” not “judgment,” as E.V., which is a mentality and variant as the diversities of human intellect. We are not to be alike intellectually, but spiritually, in the fact that the Holy Spirit in regeneration has given us the mind of Christ, subduing the carnal mind and utterly destroying it (Romans 6:6), so that all truly sanctified people have only the mind of Christ, and consequently they all have the same mind and the same disposition, i. e., they are “meek and lowly in heart” and go about doing good like their Master, yet they are all liable to differ in judgment. In this verse we see that Christian perfection is God’s preventive of ecclesiastical schisms. Perfection is from the Latin facio, “make,” and per, “complete.” Hence it means “made complete.” Christ came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). Hence when sin is destroyed we are made perfect, becoming what the New Testament denominates a perfect Christian. Where Christian perfection becomes the normal experience, religious schisms all collapse and evanesce. Hence all the divisions in the kingdom of God were born of depravity and die with it.
Verses 11-16
11-16.Here he alludes to manifestations of party spirit among them, and a disposition to focalize around a human leader such as Paul, Apollos or Peter. As Paul was their spiritual father, though plain, blunt and rough in his speech and manner, endeavoring to sink away into God so they would see Jesus only, many were disposed to adhere to him because of his spiritual paternity and say, “I am of Paul.” Others, charmed and electrified by the powerful eloquence and irresistible arguments of Apollos, who evidently contrasted with Paul much to the depreciation of the latter, were very strongly disposed to choose him for their leader, while still another class cried out, “I am of Peter,” because he came with the flattering reputation of the senior apostle of our Lord’s own choosing, who had walked by His side three years, and been honored to preach the first gospel sermon on the day of Pentecost; and still others cried out, “I am for Christ.” Of course these were right; hence we see they had not all fallen into these schisms. You must remember that these divisions were only germinal and never developed into organized parties, as about six thousand have since that day. When we see how Paul put his withering rebuke in the very incipiency of these schismatic tendencies, which have since filled the world with religious denominations — and here he recognizes Christian perfection as the only remedy for the trouble — what an inspiration should this Pauline treatment of the matter give to all Christians to seek perfection, and thus escape from the carnal entanglements of sectarian schisms.
Verse 17
17.“For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel.” Here we see clearly and demonstratively that while water baptism in some way or other with reference to quantity, quality, subject, manner, or administrator has been the bone of contention among the religious denominations through all ages, and really the hot-bed of schisms, here you see plainly that, instead of deserving such prominence in the gospel economy, it is in fact no part of the gospel, and never was, but merely incidental to it — right in its place, but no part of the thing itself; hence, utterly unessential to salvation. This is clearly tenorable from Paul’s discrimination between baptism and the gospel. If it had been a part of the gospel, Paul never could have said, “Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel,” “not in wisdom of word, in order that the cross of Christ may not be made empty.” Why is the cross the great salient fact in the plan of salvation? Because on it Jesus made the atonement and redeemed the world from sin, death and hell. Such is the historic truth of the cross. Again, because all of His followers must go with Him to the cross, be nailed to it and die; i. e., just as the humanity in Him, though sinless, died on the cross for sin, so must the sinful humanity in us i. e., Adam the first, die on the cross; otherwise we never can follow our risen Savior up to heaven. This is the experimental truth of the cross. Hence we find that even Romanism does not make the cross too prominent. It is all right to show it up externally in order that our senses may assist our faith. But the trouble with them is they stop with the externalities, retaining only the historic doctrine of the cross, having lost sight of the experimental, which is the essence, and is indispensable to salvation. Many Protestants clamor constantly about water baptism, which you see plainly here from this irrefutable truth is no part of the gospel, but merely incidental to it, and hence not necessary to salvation; whereas they make nothing of the cross, which is really everything.
Verse 18
18.“For the word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” So long as the wicked are in this world they are in a land of grace, and have a chance to be saved. Hence they have not utterly perished, but are only in a perishing condition. So long as the righteous are in this world they are not finally saved, but are exposed to temptation, still on probation, liable to forfeit all and make eternal shipwreck. Hence they are only in the process of salvation, i. e., being saved by the blessed Holy Spirit. Regeneration is primary salvation; sanctification, full salvation and glorification, final salvation.
Verse 19
19.“For it has been written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to naught the understanding of the intelligent.” The implication here is directly to worldly wisdom and understanding, which is vain and futile, and destined to come to an end. It belongs to this old ruined creation, which is under the ban of condemnation, it being only a question of time as to when it shall go down. The only hope is in the new creation. The soul is created anew in regeneration, the wreck and ruin of the Fall being fully and finally eliminated in entire sanctification. This old body must go down in mortal dissolution and rise again in the bright glories of the new creation. Even this old world is to go down amid the consuming fires and rise again in the transcendent beauties and fadeless glories of the new creation.
Verse 20
20.“Where is the wise man?” i. e., wise man in a general sense. He is simply nowhere; i. e., his wisdom is all empty vanity. “Where is the scribe?” i. e., the wise man among the Jews, as he wrote the Scriptures and they were dependent on him for Bibles. “There were also the teachers in synagogues,” i. e., the pastors of the churches. But he is nothing in the things of God who is everything, and others only available through him. “Where is the disputer of this age?” i. e, the Greek philosopher. At that time the Greeks stood at the head of the world’s learning. But it is all empty vanity, destitute of substantial and available truth. “Hath not God rendered foolish the wisdom of the world?” This He has done by revealing the true wisdom in the Bible, which exposes the futility of the Greek philosophy and all the wisdom of the world.
Verse 21
21.“For since in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God.” All the mighty researches of deep-thoughted Greece, the magical lore of Egypt, and the contemplative philosophy of the Orient never succeeded in sending a solitary scintillation into the dark realm of man’s true character, origin and destiny. They had the world at their disposal four thousand years before Christ came, and had never reached a syllable of primary truth nor sent a single ray into the problem of salvation. “God was pleased by the foolishness of preaching to save such as believe.” From the standing-point of worldly philosophy, preaching is sheer folly. Truly it is literal foolishness to all the worldly wise, and is bound so to remain. God’s salvation is a Masonic secret to all the uninitiated, and never can be otherwise. You can not explain the Mammoth Cave without going into it; so you can never know anything about the kingdom of God unless you enter it. This you can only do by faith, which is not knowledge, but believing.