Paul, God’s merciful father to today’s miscreant church

“For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;

Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.” (1Cor. 3:11-15).

I’ve often wondered about 1Corinthians 3:15. If a man’s works are burned up, why isn’t the man burned up also? We have this statement, and, in my mind, it has stood as a basic, eternal principle of the gospel.

“If you choose sin, and refuse to separate from it, the presence of God, which consumes sin, must consume you.” Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, p. 62.

Yet, this foundational principle seems to contradict Paul’s statement in 1Corinthians 3:15. What gives?

I believe that the message here comes from the two standards of the divine government: Paul’s in 1Corinthians 3:11-15, and Ellen White’s in Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing. And both standards work together. They are:

1) The righteousness of God in His justice.

“Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” (Rom. 3:19).

2) The righteousness of God in His mercy.

“But now the righteousness of God without the Law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ …

Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.” (Rom. 3:21-25).

Both forms of the righteousness of God are manifested in His justice and mercy.

There is a time for justice and a time for mercy (see Ecclesiastes 2:1-8). There are situations needing some justice and a lot of mercy, and situations needing a lot of justice and some mercy, but always both justice with mercy. Never justice without mercy and never mercy without some justice. It’s easier to conceptualize justice with mercy than mercy with justice. But, with God, the great judge, it must ever be. For examples of mercy with justice, read Zechariah 3:4-7; 1Samuel 7:8-14; 2Samuel 12:13,14,10-12; Heb. 10:36-38.

Paul’s use of justice with mercy arose from the premise that Christ was the only foundation. The context of burning man’s work in 1Corinthians 3:15 is that a hypothetical “man”, i.e. in this case, the Corinthian believers who had built on the foundation of Christ. Paul is appealing to the weak and faulty believers of Corinth, inferring that when they accepted the gospel that they heard from him. Then they had begun building on the only true foundation of Christ, and they were still building on Christ. Paul wasn’t blasting them, but he was rebuking them. He is using strong language, but he not violently and hopelessly yanking the rug out from under their feet. He was being fatherly: with force, but also with love, which has one aim, to turn the children back from their path to destruction.

The assumption is that the bad behaving representatives of the most holy God are still in the fold of Christ. There is nothing political in Paul’s wise approach to this group surrounded by so thick a social atmosphere of idolatry and worldliness. All Paul sees and expects from them is the kingdom of God! The apostolic father of these Christian misfits is consumed by the eternal purposes of God and His gospel. He was possessed by, he could see nothing else except, the everlasting gospel and Law of his Redeemer!

Blind to all idolatrous excuses or earthly rationalizations, and blind to any other option, Paul walked into Corinth, like Jonah walked into Ninevah, and overthrew every god and every god’s law of living.

“Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.” (Jon. 3:4,5).

“The people of Nineveh believed God.” The Ninevites saw the unseen world, and the unseen other reality. Jonah disappeared with his heart-wrenching booms, and suddenly,  God was seen and His look of displeasure upon their evils. God’s thunders were heard, not a man’s. The charming ruse that Satan had pulled over their eyes, the strong delusion that the deceiver is so accomplished in, was instantly dissolved by the power of the Spirit.

This is what Paul was doing throughout Asia minor. The whole city of Ephesus turned into an uproar because God entered right behind Paul. “Not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they be no gods, which are made with hands: so that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.” (Acts 19:26,27). When Paul opened his mouth God “spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” (Ps. 33:9). And Corinth had felt the heavy divine presence also.

But, Paul was only being a godly patriarch. He was speaking like Jacob, who told two extremist sons, “Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land.” (Gen. 34:30).

Things get tense inside of nuclear families! But the family unit can survive the “discussions” and the concussions because of love. And Paul was just resurrecting patriarchy. He was taking the Gentile world back to “the old paths, where is the good way” (Jer. 6:16) for the whole world once again to “find rest for your souls.” (Jer. 6:16). So long had the world departed from the ancient godliness from patriarchy.

But, Paul was bringing back the patriarchy. Over the millennia since Noah, first initiated by an apostasy under Nimrod, Satan had taken down the Gentile world into the longest known period of enslavement. They had seen every despotic, mother Godess-based form of pagan leadership—monarchies, republics, democracies, dictatorships.

Now it was time to resurrect the ancient form of leadership that had descended from the Garden of Eden—patriarchy. And it needed to return, even though Satan would take this fatherly government, the most basic and beautiful style of government based on family, and mix it with the worst of governments—the dictatorship—to form an even worse monster, the hypocritical, lying imposture—papacy. “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” (Luke 21:24). “The court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.” (Rev. 11:2).

Regardless of however Satan would corrupt it with his Mother of gods’ vice-consecrated religion, nevertheless the family-, tribe-, and heaven-based structure needed to be re-established. Only in this balanced justice-and-mercy, father based social construct can real righteousness be grown, full rehabilitation from vice be honed, and true, strong leadership be known. Better than benevolent democracies, republics, monarchies, in patriarchy alone the true purpose of God can be realized in humanity.

Because God is love, effective punishment from a Christ-like parent is all about gentleness and caring love.

“Fear thou not, O Jacob My servant, saith the LORD: for I am with thee; for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished.” (Jer. 46:28).

“I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men:

But My mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee.” (2Sam. 7:14,15).

Paul wasn’t trying to destroy any who weren’t fully possessed by Satan’s purposes, but were in Christ, as David and Solomon had been. Paul was trying to save men’s lives, while, for the family’s sake, removing the stubborn rebel Korahs, Dathans, and Abriams (see Numbers 16). So, he dealt somewhat harshly with the Corinthians believers, but always, always, always in love!

“Now some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power.

For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.

What will ye? Shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness?” (1Cor. 4:18-21).

Paul was this way because he was their father. “For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.” (1Cor. 4:15).

Therefore, as long as they claimed Paul in Christ’s name, he would claim them as his children in Christ, and treat them as children still under Christ. In their behalf, would intercede before Christ, and he could claim the everlasting covenant that goes with parent-children relationships. Apart from each Korah, the true Corinthian believers had built on the foundation of Christ. Paul is appealing to the weak and faulty believers of Corinth, inferring that when they accepted the gospel that they heard from him. Then they had begun building on the only true foundation of Christ, and they were still building on Christ.

The rules of such a covenant exchange grace for trust. The behavior might burst out in terrible ugliness requiring the implementation of justice, but the bonds of familial faith and love will always keep the door of mercy open for the miscreant. If the offending child or children will bow to the justice, then they automatically receive the unreserved grace. Within the bonds of trust that are built from infancy, the renewed trust is genuine and is accepted immediately by the parent. This has been God’s plan and His method since the beginning.

We see this in both Testaments. It is the everlasting covenant-everlasting gospel with its immediate response from the discerning God of ministering spirits.

“I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn Thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God.

Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.

Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore My bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD.” (Jer. 31:18-20).

“I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto Him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before Thee,

And am no more worthy to be called Thy son: make me as one of Thy hired servants.

And he arose, and came to his Father. But when he was yet a great way off, his Father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” (Luke 15:18-20).

In the true religion of truth and grace, justice and mercy, we have the only religion of power to run the spirit of Satan out of contrite minds.

So, for me it was a beautiful thing to understand 1Corinthains 3:15. I needed to see the context better, that the burning of a man’s works didn’t destroy the man if, and only if, he had begun to build on the foundation of Christ—that is, through being humbled, every mouth shut before the reproving Law, the yardstick of the great Schoolmaster, “who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.” (1Tim. 6:15,16).

“Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come” (Rev. 14:7), “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” (Rom. 3:19). Everyone who has been humbled by conviction of sin will come to Christ for the only Saviour from sin and its condemnation by the great Judge of heaven and the earth.

“Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool…: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word.” (Isa. 66:1,2).

“For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.” (Jer. 30:11).

“Wherefore the law was our Schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (Gal. 3:24).

“All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me” (John 6:37).

And if, and only if we have accepted the powerful conviction of sin and been driven to God’s appointed Intercessor, and when we have become Christ’s, then and only then no man can take us out of His hand. Then He can promise us, “If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: but My mercy shall not depart away from him.” (2Sam. 7:14,15).

This is not cheap grace, but the fullness of infinite, divine grace and mercy, and fatherly love of God the Father and of His Son Jesus Christ.