GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
1 CORINTHIANS 1:4-5
4 I always give thanks to my God for you because of the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus. 5 In every way you were enriched in him in all your speaking and in all your knowledge.
What is Paul truly saying in these verses? Is he telling us that just as he thanks God for the Corinthians, so also we should thank God for one another? That it’s good to have good friends, kind friends, caring friends, and thank God for them? Paul is saying much more than that. There are seven passages like this in the Bible; all of them in the letters of Paul. In each case, Paul thanks God “for you” (the reader), but is it for some quality in the reader, or for something God has given or done for the reader?
- Romans 1:8, Paul thanks God for the Romans “because from the beginning God chose you to be saved.” Here he is thankful for what God has done.
- Colossians 1:3, Paul thanks God for the Colossians, “because we have heard of your faith and of the love you have for all the saints.” Here it is God’s act and the Colossian response.
- 1 Thessalonians 1:2, Paul thanks God for the Thessalonians’ faith (producing works), love (producing labor), and hope in Jesus Christ (inspiring endurance). He is thankful for God’s actions and the Thessalonian responses.
- 1 Thessalonians 3:9, Paul wonders how he could thank God enough that the Thessalonians “are standing firm in the Lord.” Here it is true faith he is thankful for.
- 2 Thessalonians 1:3, Paul is thankful that the faith and love of the Thessalonians is growing. Here he is continuing his thought from 1 Thessalonians 1:2, thankful for what God has done and the response of faith that he has brought about.
- 2 Thessalonians 2:13, Paul “ought to thank God” that God saved the Thessalonians through faith by means of the Gospel that was preached to them. Here he reminds them that their salvation depends upon God’s work in their hearts.
Here in the verses before us, Paul thanks God for the grace God showed and gave to the Corinthian Christians. This is a way of talking about God’s plan of salvation which is at work all the time. The very first foundation of the salvation of sinners is the merciful love of God; his resolve to save us.
This resolve selected us before time began: “This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior” (2 Timothy 1:9-10). It is based entirely in the love of God (Romans 8:39), and it has come to us through the intervention of the Son of God, who made satisfaction with his body for the punishment of our sins. “He gave himself as a ransom for all men” (1 Timothy 2:6).
This salvation has come down to each one of us individually, through conversion. Conversion is the act of the Holy Spirit. He transfers a spiritually dead person (each one of us, personally) from the state of sin and wrath into the state of grace and faith in order to make us participate (have a share) in eternal life. “O Israel,” God beckoned, “return to me… remove your disgusting idols from my sight and do not go astray” (Jeremiah 4:1 EHV). “I will not be angry forever. Acknowledge your guilt” (Jeremiah 3:12-13 EHV). By the preaching of the gospel, the heart is moved, made alive, and responds to God’s call with the faith created there. “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to God” (Lamentations 3:40).
According to Scripture, the starting point of conversion is the state of sin in which we exist from the moment of conception. “From the womb they go astray” (Psalm 58:3). “Certainly I was guilty when I was born. I was sinful when my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5 EHV). This is the curse of the fall of Adam and Eve that is passed down to us all; we are not born in a neutral state, as if we might become good or evil; this is not yet a choice we have made. No, we are born in the state of sinfulness and guilt. “But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel” (Luther). In this call, sinful man is passive. This means that we do not cooperate in our conversion, but God accomplishes it in us in the way that a man whose heart has stopped beating is brought back to life from death by the actions of the Paramedic or the nurse who acts on his body. “The Spirit of God,” our confession states, “through the word that has ben heard or through the use of the holy sacraments takes hold of man’s will and works the new birth and conversion” (Formula of Concord).
The new Christian is then able to say “I will thank you with an upright heart” (Psalm 119:7), confident and joyful that Christ has paid the debt of our sin and made us children of our heavenly Father.
We should also notice the word “enriched” here. This word means “to make rich, wealthy” (1 Samuel 17:25; Proverbs 22:16). To enrich someone spiritually, which is the sense we have here, goes beyond earthly wealth. And to enrich someone in “all their speaking” and knowledge is to go beyond a good speaking voice, good grammar, proper use of vocabulary, and a persuasive manner of speaking. None of those things count for anything at all if they are not backed up by faith in Christ. A man with no education, the coarsest way of speaking, and who can’t tell an infinitive from an imperative, but who has faith, is still all the Holy Spirit needs to convey the Gospel. Faith gives us all the riches of God; all his blessings are channeled to us through faith in Christ.
Lord, strengthen my faith in you. Tighten up all the ropes of my tent, seal up all of the holes and the cracks where the winds of false teaching might blow, and keep me secure in your holy word. Amen.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – 1 Corinthians 1:4-5 Salvation