“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
The Basket Case Chronicles #5
“Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius; Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name. And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect” (1 Cor. 1:12-17).
One of the great problems at
The factionalism was seen in the primary identification that some Christians were putting in the wrong place—“I am of Paul,” and so forth (v. 12). Four names are mentioned—Paul, Apollos, Cephas (Peter), and Christ. It is interesting to note that the spirit of sectarianism does not vanish simply because the name of Christ is employed. Often that can be the indicator of a hyper-sectarianism—“I am of Christ. Not so sure about you.” So a Christian church can be just as sectarian as a Lutheran or Wesleyan one. Sectarianism is found in the heart, and in how tight the baptismal wagons are circled, not on the sign board in front of the church.
Such sectarianism is in evidence when Christ is treated as divided—when anyone who actually belongs to Him is treated as though he does not belong to Him. To divide the body is an attempt to divide the Head (v. 13). And if Paul did not die for your sins, still less did Calvin die for them (v. 13). And if no one was baptized in the name of Paul, still less were they baptized in the name of any of the church fathers or reformers. Paul then slides easily from the name into which people were baptized to the person administering at the baptism. He thanks God that he did not actually baptize more than a handful of the Corinthians—Crispus, Gaius (v. 14), and the household of Stephans (v. 16) to be exact. There might have been a few other strays (v. 16), but Paul has established his point. If he had baptized the whole church someone might point to that as evidence that Paul was baptizing in his own name, instead of baptizing Christians into the triune name (v. 15).
Rightly understood, water baptism is certainly a part of the biblical presentation of the gospel (Matt. 28: 18-20). But water baptism has been wrongly understood from the very beginning, and so it is important for Paul to distinguish, and sharply, between the heart of what Christ sent him to do, and the external accoutrements of what he had been sent to do. If we get any of this wrong, then the cross of Christ is made of “none effect” (v. 17).
There are two ways this can happen that Paul mentions here. The first is through a wooden sacramentalism which simply collapses baptism and the gospel together. The second is “wisdom of words.” If Catholics are prone to the first error, Protestants are to the second. The former have ornate fonts, the latter ornate pulpits. The human heart will slip off the gospel every chance it gets, and so Paul sets both priestly muttering and pulpiteering arabesques off to the side.