1 Corinthians 3:12

1Co_3:12-15

Now if any man build on this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble.

Classic buildings and their materials

In such cities as Ephesus, where this letter was written, or Corinth, to which it was addressed, there was a signal difference (far greater than in modern European cities) between the gorgeous splendour of the great public buildings and the meanness and squalor of those streets where the poor and profligate resided. The former were constructed of marble and granite; the capitals of their columns and their roofs were richly decorated with silver and gold; the latter were mean structures, run up with boards for walls, with straw in the interstices and thatch on the top. This is the contrast on which St. Paul siezes,… not, as sometimes the passage is treated, as though the picture presented were that of a dunghill of straw and sticks, with jewels, such as diamonds and emeralds, among the rubbish. He then points out that a day will come when the fire will burn up those wretched edifices of wood and straw, and leave unharmed in their glorious beauty those that were raised of marble and granite and decorated with gold and silver, as the temples of Corinth itself survived the conflagration of Mummius, which burnt the hovels around. (Dean Howson.)

The perishable from the imperishable

One man writes a big book about baptism, and says it means immersion, and winds up by thanking God that, whatever other men have thought fit to believe, he has had grace enough to take up his cross and follow Christ! Another man writes another big book and says it is not immersion, and thanks God, if he has only been sprinkled, he is not so uncharitable as some people! And then they read each others books, and vain janglings follow, as the apostle calls them, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, and perverse disputings. Stubble! Every inch of it. For all purposes of profit to the kingdom of Christ--worthless. The fire shall consume their books and the injury will be, not to Christ, depend upon it, but to themselves. If any mans work shall be burned he shall suffer loss, &c. I was asked if I thought Roman Catholics would be saved. Saved! Assuredly, if they believe Christ died to save them. But they practise auricular confession; they offer prayers for the dead; they celebrate the mass; they invoke the saints; they pay homage to the Pope. Undoubtedly; and as we believe, unhappily and unlawfully, they do. But if they believe in Christ, is all this to imperil their salvation? Is not this the wood, hay, and stubble of their false systems in Gods estimation, and useless for every purpose of progress or consolidation in the operations of the Church? These, with other phases of error--some of them peculiar to Protestantism--the fire will reveal; and they shall perish, and their removal will prove them to have been human in their origin, and innovations upon the truth of God. But the truth, and the one embodiment of that truth as it shall be seen in a purified and finished Church, shall remain unmoved. Gold, silver, precious stones! Faith, love, zeal! No fire shall effect these. They are invulnerable. The removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made shall prove the strength and solidity of those things which could be shaken and which shall remain. Therefore, receiving a kingdom which cannot be removed, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire. (S. Holmes.)

The doctrine and truths of Christ are very precious and excellent

To open the doctrine, let us consider, What is implied in this when the truths of Christ are thus called gold and precious stones? First, the preciousness of them is hereby declared. They ought to be esteemed and desired by us as much as the covetous man desires his gold and silver. This made the holy martyrs willingly die for it; they thought it more precious than life. The apostle calls it that good thing committed to thee. To you that believe Christ is precious (1Pe_2:7). Secondly, it doth denote the rarity of it. It is hardly and difficulty obtained. Gold and silver is not so common as the stones of the street. There are but few mines of gold to the mountains of earth. And thus for the most part the Churches of God have been so corrupted with errors that very little gold did appear. It was a rare thing to have any one truth of God made known. In the Old Testament, under many kings, idolatry and superstition had so prevailed that the book of the law of God in Josiahs time was a rare thing; and in Asas time they had been without the law and a teaching prophet for a long while (2Ch_15:3). So that it is not so easy a matter to obtain the truth, that is found out with much prayer, humility, holiness of life, and industrious using of all means appointed by God. So that the Scripture is the mine where all the gold and silver is; there we must dig, thence we must replenish ourselves. Thirdly, there is implied the durableness and constancy of it. Gold will not melt away in the fire or be consumed as hay and stubble will. So that the truths of God are so constant and abiding that when a man comes to be afflicted, to be persecuted, to be undone for the truth of God, this will abide. Fourthly, the truths of Christ are compared to gold and silver because of the solidity and ponderosity of them; they are weighty and heavy; whereas errors are compared to hay and stubble; what is lighter than these? Whatsoever opinion then is accompanied with vanity, levity, and emptiness, it is not solid, grave, and substantial; refuse that. Fifthly, they are compared to gold because of the purity and sincerity of them. The truths of God, they have an holy simplicity and sincerity, and therefore false teachers are said to corrupt the pure Word of God, as hucksters do their wine (2Co_2:1-17.). David compareth Gods Word to pure gold, even seven times refined (Psa_19:1-14.). And hereby it becomes a very dangerous sin for any to counterfeit it or corrupt it. Sixthly, it is compared to gold for the efficacy and choice virtue thereof. Seventhly, they are compared to gold and silver for the usefulness and profitableness to all things. Many outward comforts in this world may be had for gold and silver; you may have friends, food, raiment. The truth of justification by faith in Christ, is not that more worth than the gold of Ophir? What precious and powerful operations hath it upon the hearts of the ungodly? Eighthly, the truths of Christ are compared to gold and precious stones because they are able to enrich a man with all graces. In the second place, to build gold and precious stones on this foundation is not only to preach sound and pure matter, but this matter in a pure and exact way. First, in preaching of them after Scripture authority, when they are conveyed unto you, as having the stamp and authority of God. Secondly, it is to preach them with Scripture gravity and solidity. As the oracles of God (1Pe_4:11). Thirdly, they are to be preached with Scripture simplicity in respect of aims and ends. For though a man should build gold and silver, yet if it be for human glory and earthly greatness he builds hay and stubble, though this be known to God only. But this fire will discover the secrets of mens hearts. With what delight and holy covetousness you should receive the truths of Christ; they are no less worth than gold, than precious stones. The tabernacle was covered all over with gold, and they brought precious stones to it; and thus is the Church of God still to be built (Rev_21:19). (A. Burgess.)

The losses of the saved

1. You all hope in some way to be saved at last. The mercy of God is so all but exhaustless; He has such a marvellous variety Of saving contrivances; and the thought of being shut out for ever in hell is so horrible, no wonder that you hope to be eventually saved. But hopes amid carelessness, worldliness, or sin are no good sign, for they are hindrances to salvation, and to that fear with which the apostle tells us to work it out. But be it as we wish, viz., that these hopes will not imperil, but secure, our salvation--that will be gain indeed; but be it as we wish, that this hope will not, by the mercy of God, wreck the salvation of any one, it will also be infinite, eternal loss; for it will be a loss of that measure of the capacity of the infinite love of God, which the soul might have gained, but would not.

2. Here we are in the province, not of Gods mercy only, but of His justice. It is by His mercy in Christ that we are saved at all; but when we have been saved, the reward is according to our works. What, then, I wish you to dwell upon is not the risk of hell, which a careless or worldly ambitious life involves, but the certain sufferings of the day of judgment to some who shall be saved, and the irremediable loss which they have brought upon themselves.

3. And this pain and loss will not come to us through sins which separate men from Christ. Day by day, and year by year, men will have gone on, laying tier after tier of their spiritual building, which, on account of their real belief and trust in Christ, they thought enduring. They built on and on; whether they had, from time to time, misgivings is not said. But if they had they stifled them. For they builded on unto the end. And they must all the while have been earnest in their way; perhaps they were praised, and the praise blinded them the more. Some of them may have left names behind them. Oh, if the departed still know of what passes on this our earth, what a hideous mockery must that posthumous fame be when the temple has collapsed in ashes. A life-long labour perished! It is piteous, even when the temporal end, for which a man has toiled all his life, crashes at last. But remediless! And for eternity! Plainly, there must have been self-deceit about it. For not without a mans own will and his own fault would God have allowed such an one to remain so deceived to the end.

4. What, then, are things which shall not be burned--gold, silver, costly stones, which represent something costly and something very pure? They are of different values, but all agree in this, that they are pure. All done for Christ, from the cup of cold water to the martyrs chariot of fire, have their several values; but all spring from the one pure motive, love of Him. What else can we even imagine that God will reward? Why should we look hereafter for a second reward from God for doing what our own natural dispositions prompted us to do, and which brought their own reward? True, all things, even eating and drinking, if done to the glory of God, have their eternal recompense, because in each one of these ordinary things we may please God and gain greater grace and larger capaciousness for His infinite love. But what so common as to have mixed motives for our actions, or, rather, what so rare as to have any one motive for any one action, unless, indeed, it be a lower one?

5. But the day of judgment must clear up all this, and then, as shall be the issue, so shall every man have praise of God. And since nothing can receive praise from God which is not more or less purely done for God, then the day of judgment will, I fear, to very many of the saved, who now stand well with themselves, be a terrible discovery, how very little, in their whole lives, they have really done for love of God. And this is what the apostle means by those things which shall be burned up. Things they are of different degrees of lightness, by which different minds imposed upon themselves, as though they were of value when they were of none. But the most plausible will not leave a rack behind, more than the most openly worthless.

6. Nothing but a continued active habit of directing our actions to God, such as results from offering them to God, with continuous prayer for grace, will rescue some fragments of our acts from the unclean contact of our besetting faults. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)

Loss through little sins

You know well what would become of a house of wood or of a rick if fire was kindled around it, on however good and solid a foundation of stone it might be raised. The foundation upon which it was built would not save it. So then there are works, done by those who do not yet forsake Christ, which shall not stand in the fire of the great day. What are they, then? Are they great, deadly sins, such as the apostle elsewhere speaks of, Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, hatred, drunkenness, revelling, and such like? No. Such works are not and cannot be built upon the foundation; they, as far as in us lies, destroy the foundation, and the soul itself. They who do these things do not build upon the Rock which is Christ; they build their house on the sand; and the ruin of that house, our Lord says, is great. What, then, are these things done by a Christian which bring upon him such terrible loss for eternity? They are heaps of little sins; little self-indulgences against the law and will and mind of God, which do not extinguish the love of God in the heart, yet chill it exceedingly; little vanities; little envies; little self-seekings or selfishnesses; little detractions of a neighbour; little unseriousnesses; little contemptuousnesses; idle imaginings; petty angers; little deceitfulnesses or self-praise. Sins they are of which people make very little, because one by one they think them little sins, but which, weighed together, become very heavy. These encrust the soul, as it were, with habits of mind, in thought, word, and deed, with which they cannot enter heaven. In heaven there cannot be the slightest thought of vain-glory; no petty repugnance or mislike of one another; no suspicion; no comparison of ourselves with others; no discontent; no repining; no thought that we are not cared for enough or loved enough; no grudge; no remembrance of unkindness. And if all these things must be left and laid aside at the very portals of heaven; if none of these things can stand the fire of the day of judgment; if the slightest feeling of unlove would be a dark spot, seen through the whole brilliancy of heaven and unbearable in its transparent purity and brightness; what are any of us doing if we are not using our utmost strength, all the power of our souls, to lay them aside now? (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)

Every mans work shall be … revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is.--

The revelation and test of fire

The nature of every ones work or superstructure shall sooner or later be known; for the great day of the Lord shall dawn in a flood of fire. The house of gold and silver shall be lit up by its dazzling brilliancy; but the house of wood and thatch shall be burnt up. And not only so, but whereas the builder whose house is consumed will lose his reward, having nothing to show, and though he himself, as having built on a true foundation, will be saved, yet he will come out singed and scorched as by an escape out of a burning ruin. It is possible that this whole image may have been suggested or illustrated by the conflagration of Corinth under Mummius; the stately temples standing amidst the universal destruction of the meaner buildings. (Dean Stanley.)

That all errors in religion, though not fundamental, are no better than hay and stubble

Consider, first, though all errors in opinion and religion have no better a name and no better a nature, yet those that build them do not think so. They judge what they build gold and silver; they think their monsters beautiful and comely. The false prophets in the Old Testament, they would presumptuously call their dreams and imaginations the word of the Lord. Secondly, when the apostle calls these errors hay and stubble, he doth not speak of fundamental errors neither, but such as are consistent with and built on the true foundation. They do not damn the author of them, but they make his salvation difficult. He shall be saved, but by fire. So that as all sins are not alike, so neither are all errors. As in sickness some are mortal and deprive of life immediately, others are not so. In the second place, let us consider why the apostle calls errors by such names--wood, hay, and stubble. First, because of the vileness and contemptibleness of them. Men, if they understand the Scripture and walk by that rule, would no more regard them than the straw under their feet. Secondly, it is compared to hay and stubble for the levity and uncertainty of it. Now the lightness and uncertainty appeareth in three things. It cannot abide the touchstone; it cannot endure to be tried. Straw cannot endure the fire. Thirdly, errors are compared to hay and stubble for the uselessness and unprofitableness of them.

(1) They do not truly inform and enlighten the mind.

(2) The truths of Christ are profitable to sanctification and holiness. Sanctify them by Thy truth (Joh_14:1-31.).

(3) They are unprofitable for any sound comfort and joy. That we through the comfort of the Scriptures might have hope (Rom_15:4).

(4) They are not profitable for duration or continuance. This straw will not keep off the rain of Gods tempests. To show the folly either of such teachers or hearers that dote on errors, that admire hay and stubble, as if it were gold and precious stones. Oh, try and prove things by the Word ere you rejoice or boast in them! What makes a Church truly glorious, even when it is pure from errors and heresies? A Church embracing the truth is like a goodly edifice of all beautiful excellencies; but where errors are there is dishonour to it. In all the matters of religion, see what solidity and profit there is in the thing thou believest. (A. Burgess.)

That all the ways and works of wickedness, though acted in never so secret a manner, shall be made manifest

I. We shall show what kind of hidden wickedness shall be made manifest. First, all the secret and hidden thoughts, affections, and purposes of the heart, God will one day make manifest to the whole world. That as there are a world of flies and motes in the air which we never see till the sunbeams arise, so there are thousands of proud, unclean, covetous, and malicious thoughts and purposes lodging in mens hearts which the world never knows, but God will one day have heaven and earth take notice of them. Oh, then, what a curb should this be to thy heart, to thy thoughts! Secondly, all the impure and unclean works of the flesh committed in secret, these also shall be made manifest. Thirdly, the hidden works of thieving and stealing and unjustly taking away of other mens goods will one day be manifest. Fourthly, there is a hidden work of unrighteousness which is not plain stealing, but it is crafty and artificial cosening in thy trading and commerce with others. Fifthly, carnal and worldly policy to have earthly greatness and power and honour in the world: this is a very deep and secret work, but God will manifest it. Sixthly, dissimulations and inconstancies in matter of religion.

II. In the next place, consider the aggravation of those sins that are secret and hidden.

1. It argueth a man hath more consciousness to himself that he doth not well, therefore he would not have the world know.

2. This secret sinning puts far more respect and fear upon men than God.

3. The more secret any wickedness is, it argueth the heart is more studious and industrious about it, how to contrive it, how to bring it about. Take heed of secret hidden sins, God will one day manifest what thou hast been. (A. Burgess.)

That all the hidden and secret ways of false doctrines God will one day make manifest

I. God will manifest all those hidden causes and ends of thy false doctrines. Now the Scripture gives these causes.

1. Pride and self-conceit, or overweening of thy own abilities and sufficiency; such a man is in the highway to all errors: For the humble and meek God will teach (Psa_25:1-22.). The valleys are fruitful when the high mountains are barren.

2. Ignorance and weakness of judgment. And truly this is the most innocent cause of errors when men, through ignorance and weakness, go in a false way; yet this doth not excuse (2Pe_3:16).

3. Hypocrisy. The Scripture brandeth that for a heavy cause sometimes of the errors in religion.

4. Ambition and affectation of high places in the Church of God, and to be above others. This hath made men build hay and stubble.

5. Discontents and impatiencies at some things which have fallen out in the Church hath been a great cause to make divisions and to sow tares amongst the wheat.

6. Envy and sinful emulation to the gifts and abilities of others that have been above them. This hath made men bring in strange doctrines. So then, as some sharp thorny bushes have pleasant blossoms on them, so many specious and fair opinions that are set out with much glory may yet grow upon such thorny and corrupt causes.

7. A contemplative delight in a mans own notions and conceptions he hath. This hath caused more errors than anything, especially in learned men.

II. The nature of every mans doctrine, and, if false, then the mask will be pulled off. It will appear counterfeit coin, and you know to be guilty of that is a capital crime. Gods authority and stamp will not be found on it. Rehoboam, when the golden vessels were taken out of the Temple, he put brass ones in the stead.

III. God will manifest every mans work in the cunning subtilty he hath managed it with. For the Scripture speaks of the crafty ways men use that they do adulterate the Word of God. For--

1. Before hearers are publicly prepared for them, they go privately and secretly vent their wares. They are said to creep into houses (2Ti_3:1-17.). They are the moles that creep under ground, whereas Christ said He taught nothing but what He did publicly; all did hear.

2. Their craft is seen in mingling some truths with their error, that while we take one we may swallow down the other.

3. This craft is seen either in sweet and winning words, full of love and kindness, or else in pretence to deep and sublime mysteries.

4. Their circumspection to observe the fit seasons to disseminate their errors. Thus, while all were asleep, tares were sown upon the fittest subjects--women, as being more affectionate. They lead captive silly women (2Ti_3:6). Take we heed how we build, and that is by avoiding the causes of error, pride, ambition, envy, discontent. Alas! thou hast cause enough to be humbled; the more thou knowest, thou wilt see thy ignorance the more. A poor man thinketh a little stun of money great treasures. (A. Burgess.)

That God hath His time when He will discover the errors of mens doctrines

First, in that the Scripture calls the time of manifestation a day, wherein is light and the sunbeams; it doth excellently imply that all the while there are corruptions in doctrine and worship that time is a time of darkness. Let them never so much rejoice in them, and count them happy times, yet the Scripture calls them dark times. Secondly, there are no foolish builders that thus deform Gods temple but they are by Gods permission; in His wrath and anger, because men have abused His truth and waxed wanton under it, therefore hath He sent the spirit of delusion and errors amongst men (2Th_2:10). Thirdly, as the corrupt errors of men came from Gods anger, so in mercy He hath appointed times wherein He will purge and take away their dross. Fourthly, this day of Gods revealing may be a long while as to our expectation. You may see only chaff and no wheat; and this may be a long while, so that the ungodly do even languish under their expectations. These things thus explained, let us consider the reasons why God will have a day to declare mens works in matter of false doctrines. And first, because the truth of God is dear and precious to him. Christ Himself makes it one main reason why He came into the world to bear witness to Gods truth. Secondly, it is necessary there should be a time, because of the people who belong to Gods grace, that they may see their errors and bewail them; that they may redeem the time by pulling down their hay and stubble and building gold and silver. Lastly, in respect of men hardened in their errors, that their obstinacy may appear the more; that when they will not see, though the day appear, who then can justify them? To embrace those days of light and revelation which God brings into the world. (A. Burgess.)

That God useth to bring people out of errors and false ways by His Word and afflictions

To understand this, consider that though the Word and afflictions both help to bring a man out of false ways, yet far differently. For, first, the Word of God is of itself sufficient, in a way of light, to inform and instruct, and hath threatenings also to be like a goad in the side; but afflictions of themselves do not inform, do not teach. Gods Word is able to reduce without afflictions, but afflictions cannot do anything without Gods Word. Secondly, there is a difference between the Word and afflictions, because though afflictions have a voice as well as the Word, and the rod speaks as well as Gods Word, yet the Word of God doth it distinctly and plainly, afflictions in a general manner. Thirdly, though the Word of God be thus only able to instruct and convince, being a perfect rule, yet that doth not exclude other helps, especially the ministry; for ministers are called the lights and guides. Let us see how God by the Word reduceth the wandering sheep. First, the Word of God is instrumental to open the eyes, to enlighten the dark understanding. Secondly, the Word of God is fire to try mens works, because it containeth all matter necessary to salvation. Thirdly, the Word of God will be a fire to try, because it doth direct to all those means whereby we may come out of all errors. But you will say, How is Gods Word a fire? How doth that reveal? Answer

1. The defect is not in the Scripture, but in men themselves. The owl and bat are made blinder by the sunbeams, not through any defect in the sun. Secondly, men swallow down first the sweet poison of errors from false teachers, and then they think every place in the Scripture makes for them. Thirdly, they do not attend to the whole Scripture. Lastly, it is not enough to have Scripture, to have many texts, but we are also to make use of those helps for the understanding of them which God hath appointed.

2. Afflictions are Gods fire; they will discover mens works by preparation and fitting the heart to receive. (A. Burgess.)

The test of Christian teaching

Many of us have watched that fascinating but awful sight--the progress of a great fire. We have marked how the devouring element masters first one and then another department of the building which is its victim; but especially we have noted what it consumes and what it is forced to spare, the resistless force with which it sweeps through and shrivels up all the slighter materials, and only pauses before the solid barriers of stone or iron, thus trying before our very eyes the builders work of what sort it is. Now of whom was the apostle thinking when he wrote the warning words about the spiritual builder who employed wood, and hay, and stubble in his work? The eager adherents of Apollos had been powerfully impressed by the brilliant Alexandrian, by his knowledge of what was being said and thought in the Greek world; by his skill in setting out what he had to say to the very best advantage; they were, after the manner of disciples, more eager to imitate their masters methods than careful to be true to the end he had in view. Take care, St. Paul seems to say to the young men who were trading on the great name and authority of Apollos--take care what you are doing with those souls at Corinth. Are you only interesting and amusing them for a few of the passing days of time, or are you building up in them a faith which will enable them to pass death and eternity? What are the materials of the structures within those souls which you are raising? Are they the gold, the silver, the precious stones of the Apostolic faith? No doubt they are; but do they not also include materials of a different kind--less valuable, less durable--wood, hay, and stubble? If this be so, a time is coming when all the precious and worthless alike will be submitted to a serious test. The fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is. But He who at the end will judge us once for all is now and always judging us, and His perpetual presence among us as our Judge, constantly probing, trying, saving us, is revealed by events and circumstances which have on our souls the effects of fire--they burn up that which is worthless, they leave that which is solid unscathed. There is the searching, testing power of a new and responsible position, of a situation forcing its occupant to make it a critical choice, or to withstand a strong pressure. Such a new position discovers and burns up all that is weak in a mans faith and character. History is strewn with illustrations of this truth. The virtuous, though weak, emperor, who was floated to power on the surf of revolution, is by no means the only man of whom it might be said that all would have judged him capable of ruling others if only he had never been a ruler. How often does early manhood open with so much that seems promising--with intelligence, courage, attention to duty, unselfishness, what looks like high principle--and then the man is put into a position of authority--it is the fire that tests the work which he has done in his character. Suddenly he betrays some one defect which ruins everything: it may be vanity, it may be envy, it may be a shadow of untruthfulness, it may be some lower fierce passion which emerges suddenly as if unbidden from the depths of the soul, and wins over him a fatal mastery. All is good is turned to ill, all is distorted, discoloured; he might have died a young man amid general lamentations that so promising a life had been cut short. He does die as did Nero or Henry Tudor, amid the loudly-expressed or the muttered thanksgiving of his generation that he has left the world. The fact was, that the position in which be found himself exposed him to a pressure which his character could not bear. You remember how the old Tay Bridge, before that fatal winter night, was believed to be equal to its purpose. It needed, no doubt, a mighty impact, a terrific rush of wind from one particular quarter, in order to show that the genius and audacity of men had presumed too largely on the forbearance of the elements. But the moment came. We many of us remember something of the sense of horror which the tragical catastrophe left on the public mind; the gradual disappearance of the last train as it moved on its wonted way on into darkness, the suddenly observed dislocation and flickering of the distant lights, the faint sound as of a crash rising for a moment even over the din of the storm, and then the utter darkness as all, train and bridge, together sank into the gulph of waters beneath, and one moment of supreme and unimaginable agony was followed by the silence of death. And we see these truths at work in associated as well as in individual human life. Any one will recall the names of empires which have appeared to possess the elements of unconquerable strength until they have been subjected to the test of new conditions--the empire of the Great Alexander, the empire of Attila the Hun, the empire of the first Napoleon. Alexander subdued all the nations which spread from the Adriatic to the Indies. No sooner had he passed away than the unity of his work was shattered by the ambition of three generals. Attilas kingdom at one time reached from the Volga to the Loire; the vast host at his disposal was attended by a bevy of subject kings and chiefs: the emperors of the East and West were both his obsequious tributaries; and the men of his day expressed the terror which his apparently boundless power inspired when they named him the scourge of God. Yet he had scarcely been discovered dead on his couch after a drunken revel, when his sons, greedy for high place, turned their arms against each other, and so within some fifteen years the Buns had sunk to be the dependents and tributaries of the very race which but now they had ruled. And there is Attilas great counterpart in modern Europe--Napoleon. His vast, motley hosts swept along over much the same ground as Attilas though in an opposite direction. Like Attilas, they passed over ancient and prostrate thrones; like his, too, they went on the errand of an insatiable ambition; but before he died, as we all know, Napoleons work had been tested with a severity which revealed its weakness, and left behind it nothing but a million of tombs and the dying echoes of a vast catastrophe. And as with States, so with particular branches of the Christian Church. A Church may be, to all appearances, highly favoured; it may have leaders conspicuous for holiness or learning; it may reckon its multitudes of devout communicants, its flourishing missions at home and abroad, and its many works of benevolence and mercy; and yet it may have admitted to its bosom some false principles, whether of faith or morals, which will find it out in the day of trial. In the early centuries no Church was more highly favoured than that of Northern Africa. It had, it is said, almost innumerable Churches, which produced saints and martyrs; its intellectual and practical activity was tested by the long series of Councils of Carthage; it was the first Church, so far as we know, certainly it was earlier than any in Italy, to translate the New Testament Scriptures into the languages of the West; it held its own in debate with the greatest Churches of Europe, and with Rome itself; but the day of trial came on it with the invasion of the Vandals, as Augustine lay dying in Hippo. It came again, and more decisively, with the Moslem conquest. There are Churches in the East which have suffered as much as or more than the Church of Northern Africa--Churches which have never ceased suffering, yet which in their weakness are still instinct with life and hope; but the Church of Cyprian and Augustine perished out right. We may guess at the cause--we cannot determine; it may have been a general lax morality among its people; it may have been a widespread spirit of paradox among its teachers; it may have been some far-reaching weakness or corruption which the day of account will alone reveal. But there is the fact. No Church in primitive Christendom stood higher than the Church of Africa: none has ever so utterly disappeared. Let us of the Church of to-day be not high-minded, but fear; for if prominence and success do not discover what is weak in faith and character, there is an agent who comes to all sooner or later, and who will surely do so--there is the fire, the searching, testing power of deep affliction. Many a creed that will do for the sunny days of life will not serve us in its deep shadows, much less in the valley of the shadow of death. The truths which strengthen and brace character, and enable it to pass unscathed, like the three holy children through the fiery furnace of deep sorrow, are the great certainties which were ever to the front in the apostles teaching about God and men, about life and death, about sin and redemption, about nature and grace, and, above all, about the boundless power and love of Jesus Christ our Lord and God. (Canon Liddon.)

Two builders on one foundation

In the vivid imagination of the apostle two workmen are building side by side. One builds a palace, the other a hovel. The materials which one uses are gold and silver for decoration; and for solidity costly stones--not diamonds, emeralds, &c., but valuable building material, such as marbles, granites, and alabaster. The other employs timber, dry reeds, straw. Suddenly there plays around both buildings the fire of the Lord coming to judgment. The marbles gleam the whiter, and the gold and the silver flash the more resplendently; but the straw hovel goes up in a flare! The one man gets wages for work that lasts, the other man gets no pay for what perishes. He is dragged through the smoke, saved by a hairs breath, but sees all his toil lying there in white ashes at his feet. It is a grim picture. Note--

I. The two builders and their work.

1. The wood, &c., are clearly not heresies, for the builder who uses them is on the foundation, and had they been so Paul would have found sharper words of condemnation. They are misplaced learning; speculation; preaching ones self; talking about temporary, trivial things; dealing with the externals of Christianity, and with its morals apart from that one motive of love to a dying Saviour which makes morality a reality. All that kind of teaching, however it may be admired, and thought to be eloquent, original, and on a level with the growing culture of the age, and so on, is flimsy stuff to build upon the foundation of a crucified Saviour. There is no solidity in such work. It will not stand the stress of a gale of wind while it is being built, nor keep out the weather; and it will blaze at last like a thatched roof when that day puts a match to it. The solid teaching is the proclamation of Christ and His great salvation. On that rock-fact we calmly repose. In that great truth are wrapped up, as the plant in the seed, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So let all teachers take the warning that well-meaning men, building on the foundation, may, if they do not take care, be building with rubbish instead of with the indestructible truths of Gods Word; and see to it that they do not carry chaff in their seed-baskets, but only the pure seed of the Word of God.

2. But the principle may be extended to the whole Christian life. The life of a Christian man is a building, suggesting slow and continuous progress and a homogeneous result. It is possible for two men, both of them being Christians, to be building two very different structures in their lives. Many a true follower of Christ may pile much upon the foundation which is unworthy of it. As you may see in the wretched huts in which wandering Arabs house amongst the ruins of some historical city, that half a mans house shall be of fluted marble and the other half shall be of crumbling clay, so, alas! many Christian men and women are building their lives. With what are you building? and what are you building? A palace, a temple, a shop, a place of sinful amusement, a prison--which? We build inconsistently, and in our own persons combine these two builders. Look, then, for yourselves into your building, and see how much, and what, of it is likely to last, and how much of it is sure to be burned up when the fire comes.

II. The twofold effects of the one fire. The day is the day when Christ shall come. And the fire is but the symbol that always attends the Divine appearance.

1. When Christ comes to judge, light comes with Him, and the light pours in upon the actions of men and reveals them for what they are. The builders have been working, as you see builders sometimes nowadays night-work, with some more or less sufficient illumination. The day dawns, and the building stands out disclosed in all its beauty or deformity. Its true proportions are manifest at last. And how many surprises there will be. Many a man who thought that he was building gold, &c., will find out that he was pleasing himself, and not preaching his Master; that he was talking about trivial, transitory things, and not about eternal truths that nourish and save mens souls. Lord! Lord! have we not prophesied in Thy name? And He shall say unto them, I never knew you! Many an humble and timid builder who did not know what he was doing will see that he has built gold, &c., according to that blessed word, Lord! when saw we Thee … in prison and visited Thee? And He shall answer, &c. One of the most precious diamonds in Europe, that blazes now in a kings crown, lay on a stall in a piazza at Rome for months, labelled, Rock crystal, price one franc. And many of the most noble deeds that ever were done on earth have been passed unrecognised by the crowd that beheld them, and forgotten except by Him.

2. Not only is there this revealing process suggested, but the one class of service, teaching, life, is glorified by the fire, and the other is burned up. The gold, &c., are glorified because revealed, and heightened in beauty by being brought into contact with Christ Himself, as a fair jewel is fairer for its setting, and flashes in the sunshine. And, on the other side, how much of all our lives will be crushed into nonentity, made as if it had never been at all, by the simple revelation of Christ! The selfish, God-forgetting deeds, the lust, the greed, will all vanish and go up in foul-smelling smoke. And what is left will be all holy desires, self-sacrificing service, devout aspirations, and pure Christlike character.

III. The twofold effects on the builders.

1. The one gets the consequences of his services. We do not need to shrink from admitting the idea of a reward. Christ perpetually speaks to us about heaven as being, in a very deep sense, a reward; not because men deserve heaven, but because the heaven which they get only by His merits and through faith in Him, is given in the measure of their capacity, which depends on their character, and is largely determined by their habitual conduct.

2. The inconsistent Christians inconsistencies shall be burned up. Thank God for that! What better could happen to them or for him? Instead of the hovels he may build a palace. The fire of London finished the plague, and statelier streets took the place of the fetid alleys. But still that imperfect Christian shall suffer loss--the loss of what he might have gained. He shall lose remembrances which are true wealth, tie shall lose, in that he will stand further from the Lord, and possess, because he can contain, less of His glory. His crown is far less resplendent than the others, His seat at Christs table in the kingdom is far lower. His heaven is narrower and less radiant. These two are like two vessels, one of which comes into harbour with a rich freight and flying colours, and is welcomed with tumult of acclaim. The other strikes on the bar. Some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship, all come safe to land. But ship and cargo, and profit of the venture, are all lost. He shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Good qualities seen in the fiery day

The best qualities of the Christian--patience, gentleness, and forgiveness of injuries--are written by the Spirit of God in the heart of a Christian, out of the sight of the world, and come only to be seen in the day of fiery affliction and trial, just as words written with invisible ink come only to be read when submitted to the heat of the fire. (T. H. Leary, D. C. L.)

Severely tested

Call it by what name you please--dream, vision, or reverie--we found ourselves in a large room, the walls of which were concealed by well-packed shelves of books, from the ponderous folio to the minute thirty-two-me, and in all the variety of dress which a skilful handicraft could devise. While cursorily gazing on these intellectual stores, our attention was arrested by the entrance of two personages of mild and venerable aspect, who very courteously introduced themselves, and stated the object of their visit. They bore the significant names of Time and Posterity, and intimated that they had come to pay their semi-centennial visit, to weigh the merits of authors, and determine their destiny. The task seemed to us an herculean one, where the volumes were numbered by thousands; and we were curious to know by what process they were to ascertain the character of so many candidates for fame. We might, however, have spared our surprise, had we reflected that Time was a gentleman who had seen much of the world, and professed great experience, and Posterity was no less distinguished for the solidity of his judgment. They were well prepared for an expeditious performance of their work, and, in truth, we felt no small degree of horror in witnessing the results of their essay. By the way, we should have mentioned that they were provided with a capacious crucible, under which was burning a large and steady flame. Into it volume after volume was thrown, and the ordeal through which they had to pass was one of fire. Goodly volumes, these, said Time, taking up a brace of octavos on metaphysics, let us test their quality. Placed in the crucible, they were instantly converted into cinders. Dust and ashes, said Posterity. This was the doom of many an ostentatious volume, whose promising title availed as little as its interior embellishments. Time rather soliloquised than addressed Posterity, while subjecting volume after volume. He would remark, Deadborn this; its claims for perpetuity died amidst the types. An old heresy under the slight disguise of a new dress. Nonsense, fustian, bombast. A whole row of poets succeeded each other in their descent into the heated crucible, with no more sympathy on the part of the executioner than a contemptuous exclamation. What is called light literature could scarcely be kept in the crucible long enough to be converted into thin smoke. Whole tons of periodicals and reviews shared the same fate. Occasionally we observed an unscorched leaf or two remained in the crucible, which Posterity carefully gathered and deposited in his portefeuille. At intervals, a whole volume would escape--this, however, was very rare; for in the instances in which they preserved their original shape, large portions of these fortunate volumes were burned out. For the most part, the large books fared worse than the smaller ones, from which we were led to infer that facility in writing was quite a different thing from ability, and that a lumbering ship may be dashed on the rocks over which a small boat may safely ride. Whole piles of periodicals (our own did not entirely escape) were soon converted into ashes. Fabrications, said Time, as he hurled volume after volume of history into the crucible. Some leaves, however, of most of them escaped, out of which Posterity remarked he would make up a small volume of true history worthy of preservation. Many books of religious controversy, and many more of worldly controversies on all subjects went in with the ominously expressed doom, Dust and ashes, and so they came out. We perceived a most offensive effluvium arise as certain Philosophical Disquisitions, and Light of Reason were submitted to the fiery test. Thus went forward the process, the further details of which might be tedious to enumerate, and in a very brief time the great library had so far disappeared that Posterity carried off what was left in a small but beautiful cabinet, made of enduring materials. (Presbyterian.)

If any mans work abide … he shall receive a reward.--

Successful and unsuccessful builders

I. The successful builder.

1. His work.

(1) Well founded.

(2) Well built.

2. Its durability.

(1) It stands the test of time.

(2) Of investigation.

(3) Of fire.

3. His reward.

(1) In the successful issue of his toil.

(2) In the approbation of God.

(3) In the abundant recompense.

II. The foolish builder.

1. His folly.

(1) He had a right foundation.

(2) Selected corruptible materials.

2. His loss.

(1) His work consumed.

(2) His labour lost.

(3) His reward forfeited.

3. His narrow escape. Saved--yet so as by fire. (J. Lyth, D. D.)

Gods truths are of a durable nature, notwithstanding trial

First, there are Divine truths, such as are revealed in Gods Word, most of which human reason could not comprehend; but, as Zacchaeus, of a low stature, got up into the tree to see Jesus, so reason, being too low, must ascend up into the Scripture to behold these truths. Now these are more certain and durable than those natural truths. Secondly, this good building of truth doth not only abide the fire, but desireth the fire; it is willing to come to the touchstone. Thirdly, the truths of God, built by a spiritual builder, do not only abide the fiery trial, but they grow more illustrious and glorious thereby. All the heresies and persecutions that ever have been were like the waters to the ark, they lifted it higher to heaven. The truth about grace had not been so clear had not Pelagius maintained free-will. The Divine nature of Christ had not been so fully evidenced out of Scripture had not the Arrians opposed it. But for the doubt of Thomas Christs resurrection was more confirmed unto us. Fourthly, not only the truths of God in their nature, but also in the proper and genuine effects upon the hearers, they also abide and will endure the trial. (A. Burgess.)

If any mans work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.--

That every man will be altogether a loser in any error or false way that he hath maintained; he shall suffer loss

In the first place we shall show wherein they shall be losers. First, if they thought by erroneous ways to better themselves in an outward condition in this world, in this they are sure to lose. Oh, that this were well thought of by those who think to better themselves by those ways that are not of God! Secondly, if they looked for outward honour and dignity, to be applauded and esteemed, this also they shall be losers in. For by the judgment of those Churches or persons that are orthodox they shall fall from all that repute and esteem they had. Thirdly, they lose all their ministerial labour and study they used in building such stubble. And truly this loss should much affect every man whether minister or private Christian. The wise mad observeth great vanity in all worldly labour, but especially in matters of religion; to labour in vain, there to lose all thy nights and thy days, and thy study, and thy pains, is beyond expression miserable. Fourthly, they will lose their inward peace and comfort of conscience. Fifthly, they lose, though not the total seed of grace, yet the degree and fervency of it; yea, in regard of outward appearance all seemeth to be lost. They have not that tenderness, that strictness they once had. Yea, lastly, men lose their parts and gifts; they have not that clearness and soundness of understanding as they had. (A. Burgess.)

That every godly man, though never so eminent, yet is with difficulty saved

Now the grounds of these truths are--First, from the exactness and strictness that is in the way to heaven. Secondly, the difficulty doth appear from that remainder and relic or corruption that is in every man, which is in danger to break out. Thirdly, there are many afflictions and tribulations which God brings on His people, and they do much endanger. (A. Burgess.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Co 3:12. If any man build upon this foundation — Thus firmly laid; gold, silver, precious stones — The most valuable materials in nature, the most solid, durable, and precious, and which can bear the fire. And here they stand for true, firm, and important doctrines; doctrines necessary to be known, believed, and laid to heart, and which, when so received, fail not to build up the people of God in faith, love, and obedience; rendering them wise unto salvation, holy and useful here, and preparing them for eternal life hereafter. The apostle mentions next, as materials wherewith some might possibly build, and with which indeed many have built in all ages, wood, hay, and stubble; materials flimsy, unsubstantial, worthless, if compared with the former, and which cannot bear the fire. And these are here put, not merely for false doctrines, condemned or unsupported by the word of God, or doctrines of human invention, but all ceremonies, forms, and institutions, which have not God for their author, and are neither connected with, nor calculated to promote, the edification and salvation of mankind: all doctrines that are unimportant, and not suited to the state and character of the hearers; all but the vital, substantial truths of Christianity. To build with such materials as these, if it do not absolutely destroy the foundation, yet disgraces it; as a mean edifice, suppose a hovel, consisting of nothing better than planks of wood, roughly put together, and thatched with hay and stubble, would disgrace a grand and expensive foundation, laid with great pomp and solemnity.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

b. Every man’s work subject to the test of fire, 1Co_3:12-15.

12. Any man—Any preacher of religion.

Gold—Paul mentions six materials: three incombustible and precious, and three combustible and inferior.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 Corinthians

THE TESTING FIRE

1Co 3:12 - 1Co 3:13.

Before I enter upon the ideas which the words suggest, my exegetical conscience binds me to point out that the original application of the text is not exactly that which I purpose to make of it now. The context shows that the Apostle is thinking about the special subject of Christian teachers and their work, and that the builders of whom he speaks are the men in the Corinthian Church, some of them his allies and some of them his rivals, who were superimposing upon the foundation of the preaching of Jesus Christ other doctrines and principles. The ‘wood, hay, stubble’ are the vapid and trivial doctrines which the false teachers were introducing into the Church. The ‘gold, silver, and precious stones’ are the solid and substantial verities which Paul and his friends were proclaiming. And it is about these, and not about the Christian life in the general, that the tremendous metaphors of my text are uttered.

But whilst that is true, the principles involved have a much wider range than the one case to which the Apostle applies them. And, though I may be slightly deflecting the text from its original direction, I am not doing violence to it, if I take it as declaring some very plain and solemn truths applicable to all Christian people, in their task of building up a life and character on the foundation of Jesus Christ; truths which are a great deal too much forgotten in our modern popular Christianity, and which it concerns us all very clearly to keep in view. There are three things here that I wish to say a word about-the patchwork building, the testing fire, the fate of the builders.

I. First, the patchwork structure.

‘If any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble.’ In the original application of the metaphor, Paul is thinking of all these teachers in that church at Corinth as being engaged in building the one structure-I venture to deflect here, and to regard each of us as rearing our own structure of life and character on the foundation of the preached and accepted Christ.

Now, what the Apostle says is that these builders were, some of them, laying valuable things like gold and silver and costly stones-by which he does not mean jewels, but marbles, alabasters, polished porphyry or granite, and the like; sumptuous building materials, which were employed in great palaces or temples-and that some of them were bringing timber, hay, stubble, reeds gathered from the marshes or the like, and filling in with such trash as that. That is a picture of what a great many Christian people are doing in their own lives-the same man building one course of squared and solid and precious stones, and topping them with rubbish. You will see in the walls of Jerusalem, at the base, five or six courses of those massive blocks which are the wonders of the world yet; well jointed, well laid, well cemented, and then on the top of them a mass of poor stuff, heaped together anyhow; scamped work-may I use a modern vulgarism?-’jerry-building.’ You may go to some modern village, on an ancient historic site, and you will find built into the mud walls of the hovels in which the people are living, a marble slab with fair carving on it, or the drum of a great column of veined marble, and on the top of that, timber and clay mixed together.

That is the type of the sort of life that hosts of Christian people are living. For, mark, all the builders are on the foundation. Paul is not speaking about mere professed Christians who had no faith at all in them, and no real union with Jesus Christ. These builders were ‘on the foundation’; they were building on the foundation, there was a principle deep down in their lives-which really lay at the bottom of their lives-and yet had not come to such dominating power as to mould and purify and make harmonious with itself the life that was reared upon it. We all know that that is the condition of many men, that they have what really are the fundamental bases of their lives, in belief and aim and direction; and which yet are not strong enough to master the whole of the life, and to manifest themselves through it. Especially it is the condition of some Christian people. They have a real faith, but it is of the feeblest and most rudimentary kind. They are on the foundation, but their lives are interlaced with the most heterogeneous mixty-maxty of good and evil, of lofty, high, self-sacrificing thoughts and heavenward aspirations, of resolutions never carried out into practice; and side by side with these there shall be meannesses, selfishnesses, tempers, dispositions all contradictory of the former impulses. One moment they are all fire and love, the next moment ice and selfishness. One day they are all for God, the next day all for the world, the flesh, and the devil. Jacob sees the open heavens and the face of God and vows; to-morrow he meets Laban and drops to shifty ways. Peter leaves all and follows his Master, and in a little while the fervour has gone, and the fire has died down into grey ashes, and a flippant servant-girl’s tongue leads him to say ‘I know not the man.’ ‘Gold, silver, precious stones,’ and topping them, ‘wood, hay, stubble!’

The inconsistencies of the Christian life are what my text, in the application that I am venturing to make of it, suggests to us. Ah, dear friends! we do not need to go to Jacob and Peter; let us look at our own hearts, and if we will honestly examine one day of our lives, I think we shall understand how it is possible for a man, on the foundation, yet to build upon it these worthless and combustible things, ‘wood, hay, stubble.’

We are not to suppose that one man builds only ‘gold, silver, precious stones.’ There is none of us that does that. And we are not to suppose that any man who is on the foundations has so little grasp of it, as that he builds only ‘wood, hay, stubble.’

There is none of us who has not intermingled his building, and there is none of us, if we are Christians at all, who has not sometimes laid a course of ‘precious stones.’ If your faith is doing nothing for you except bringing to you a belief that you are not going to hell when you die, then it is no faith at all. ‘Faith without works is dead.’ So there is a mingling in the best, and-thank God!-there is a mingling of good with evil, in the worst of real Christian people.

II. Note here, the testing fire.

Paul points to two things, the day and the fire.

‘The day shall declare it,’ that is the day on which Jesus Christ comes to be the Judge; and it, that is ‘the day,’ ‘shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall test every man’s work.’ Now, it is to be noticed that here we are moving altogether in the region of lofty symbolism, and that the metaphor of the testing fire is suggested by the previous enumeration of building materials, gold and silver being capable of being assayed by flame; and ‘wood, hay, stubble’ being combustible, and sure to be destroyed thereby. The fire here is not an emblem of punishment; it is not an emblem of cleansing. There is no reference to anything in the nature of what Roman Catholics call purgatorial fires. The allusion is simply to some stringent and searching means of testing the quality of a man’s work, and of revealing that quality.

So then, we come just to this, that for people ‘on the foundation,’ there is a Day of revelation and testing of their life’s work. It is a great misfortune that so-called Evangelical Christianity does not say as much as the New Testament says about the judgment that is to be passed on ‘the house of God.’ People seem to think that the great doctrine of salvation, ‘not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by His mercy,’ is, somehow or other, interfered with when we proclaim, as Paul proclaims, speaking to Christian people, ‘We must be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ,’ and declares that ‘Every man will receive the things done in his body, according to that he has done, whether it be good or bad.’ Paul saw no contradiction, and there is no contradiction. But a great many professing Christians seem to think that the great blessing of their salvation by faith is, that they are exempt from that future revelation and testing and judgment of their acts. That is not the New Testament teaching. But, on the contrary, ‘Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap,’ was originally said to a church of Christian people. And here we come full front against that solemn truth, that the Lord will ‘gather together His saints, those that have made a covenant with Him by sacrifice, that He may judge His people.’ Never mind about the drapery, the symbolism, the expression in material forms with which that future judgment is arranged, in order that we may the more easily grasp it. Remember that these pictures in the New Testament of a future judgment are highly symbolical, and not to be interpreted as if they were plain prose; but also remember that the heart of them is this, that there comes for Christian people as for all others, a time when the light will shine down upon their past, and will flash its rays into the dark chambers of memory, and when men will-to themselves if not to others-be revealed ‘in the day when the Lord shall judge the secrets of men according to my Gospel.’

We have all experience enough of how but a few years, a change of circumstances, or a growth into another stage of development, give us fresh eyes with which to estimate the moral quality of our past. Many a thing, which we thought to be all right at the time when we did it, looks to us now very questionable and a plain mistake. And when we shift our stations to up yonder, and get rid of all this blinding medium of flesh and sense, and have the issues of our acts in our possession, and before our sight-ah! we shall think very differently of a great many things from what we think of them now. Judgment will begin at the house of God.

And there is the other thought, that the fire which reveals and tests has also in it a power of destruction. Gold and silver will lose no atom of their weight, and will be brightened into greater lustre as they flash back the beams. The timber and the stubble will go up in a flare, and die down into black ashes. That is highly metaphorical, of course. What does it mean? It means that some men’s work will be crumpled up and perish, and be as of none effect, leaving a great, black sorrowful gap in the continuity of the structure, and that other men’s work will stand. Everything that we do is, in one sense, immortal, because it is represented in our final character and condition, just as a thin stratum of rock will represent forests of ferns that grew for one summer millenniums ago, or clouds of insects that danced for an hour in the sun. But whilst that is so, and nothing human ever dies, on the other hand, deeds which have been in accordance, as it were, with the great stream that sweeps the universe on its bosom will float on that surface and never sink. Acts which have gone against the rush of God’s will through creation will be like a child’s go-cart that comes against the engine of an express train-be reduced, first, to stillness, all the motion knocked out of them, and then will be crushed to atoms. Deeds which stand the test will abide in blessed issue for the doer, and deeds which do not will pass away in smoke, and leave only ashes. Some of us, building on the foundation, have built more rubbish than solid work, and that will be

‘Cast as rubbish to the void

When God has made the pile complete.’

III. So, lastly, we have here the fate of the two builders.

The one man gets wages. That is not the bare notion of salvation, for both builders are conceived of as on the foundation, and both are saved. He gets wages. Yes, of course! The architect has to give his certificate before the builder gets his cheque. The weaver, who has been working his hand-loom at his own house, has to take his web to the counting-house and have it overlooked before he gets his pay. And the man who has built ‘gold, silver, precious stones,’ will have-over and above the initial salvation-in himself the blessed consequences, and unfold the large results, of his faithful service; while the other man, inasmuch as he has not such work, cannot have the consequences of it, and gets no wages; or at least his pay is subject to heavy deductions for the spoiled bits in the cloth, and for the gaps in the wall.

The Apostle employs a tremendous metaphor here, which is masked in our Authorised Version, but is restored in the Revised. ‘He shall be saved, yet so as’ {not ‘by’ but} ‘through fire’; the picture being that of a man surrounded by a conflagration, and making a rush through the flames to get to a place of safety. Paul says that he will get through, because down below all inconsistency and worldliness, there was a little of that which ought to have been above all the inconsistency and the worldliness-a true faith in Jesus Christ. But because it was so imperfect, so feeble, so little operative in his life as that it could not keep him from piling up inconsistencies into his wall, therefore his salvation is so as through the fire.

Brethren, I dare not enlarge upon that great metaphor. It is meant for us professing Christians, real and imperfect Christians-it is meant for us; and it just tells us that there are degrees in that future blessedness proportioned to present faithfulness. We begin there where we left off here. That future is not a dead level; and they who have earnestly striven to work out their faith into their lives shall ‘summer high upon the hills of God.’ One man, like Paul in his shipwreck, shall lose ship and lading, though ‘on broken pieces of the ship’ he may ‘escape safe to land’; and another shall make the harbour with full cargo of works of faith, to be turned into gold when he lands. If we build, as we all may, ‘on that foundation, gold and silver and precious stones,’ an entrance ‘shall be ministered unto us abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’; whilst if we bring a preponderance of ‘wood, hay, stubble,’ we shall be ‘saved, yet so as through the fire.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3:12-15 Some of the things that people build on the foundation of Christ will endure; other things will burn up in the fire of judgment (cp. Mal 4:1). On judgment day, the work of each builder who instructs the church will be assessed (cp. Jas 3:1; see also Rom 14:10-12; 2 Cor 5:10). Those whose teachings are faithful and true will receive a reward; the others will suffer great loss, not of their salvation but of their reward. They themselves will be saved, but just barely, like someone pulled to safety through a wall of flames (cp. Amos 4:11; Zech 3:2; Jude 1:23).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1Co 3:12. Εἰ) whether [But Engl. Ver. if]. Comp. of what sort, 1Co 3:13. There is an indirect question, which does not require the mark of interrogation. In 1Co 3:13, there is the apodosis, whether εἰ be taken as an interrogative, or means if.—χρυσόν, gold) He enumerates three kinds of things, which bear fire; as many, which are consumed by it; the former denote men that are true believers; the latter, hypocrites: Moreover, the abstract is included in the concrete, so that on the one hand true and solid doctrines, or, on the other hand, false and worthless doctrines are denoted together; in both cases, doctrines either of greater or less importance. Even a grain of gold is gold: even the lightest straw feeds the fire.—λίθους τιμίους, precious stones) This does not apply to small gems, but to noble stones, as marble, etc.—ξύλα, wood) In the world, many buildings are fitly constructed of wood; but not so in the building of God, comp. Rev 21:18-19.—καλάμην) stubble.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Co_3:12. Δέ] continues the subject by contrasting the position of him who builds up with that of him who lays the foundation (1Co_3:11). It is a mistake, therefore, to put 1Co_3:11 in parenthesis (Pott, Heydenreich, comp Billroth).

In connection with this carrying on of the figure, it is to be noted(1) that Paul is not speaking of several buildings,[510] as though the θεμέλιος were that not of a house, but of a city (Billroth); against which 1Co_3:16 (see in loc[511]) is decisive, as is, further, the consideration that the idea of Christs being the foundation of a city of God is foreign to the N. T. (2) The figure must not be drawn out beyond what the words convey (as Grotius, e.g., does: Proponit ergo nobis domum, cujus parietes sint ex marmore, columnae partim ex auro partim ex argento, trabes ex ligno, fastigium vero ex stramine et culmo). It sets before us, on the contrary, a building rearing itself upon the foundation laid by the master-builder, for the erection of which the different workmen bring their several contributions of building materials, from the most precious and lasting down to the most mean and worthless. The various specimens of building materials, set side by side in vivid asyndeton (Krüger and Kühner, a[512] Xen. Anab. ii. 4. 28; Winer, p. 484 [E. T. 653]), denote the various matters of doctrine propounded by teachers and brought into connection with faith in Christ, in order to develope and complete the Christian training of the church.[513] These are either, like gold, silver, and costly stones (marble and the like), of high value and imperishable duration, or else, like timber, hay, stubble (καλάμη, not equivalent to κάλαμος, a reed; see Wetstein and Schleusner, Thes.), of little worth and perishable,[514] so that theyinstead of, like the former, abiding at the Parousia in their eternal truthcome to nought, i.e. are shown not to belong to the ever-enduring ἀλήθεια, and form no part of the perfect knowledge (1Co_13:12) which shall then emerge. So, in substance (explaining it of the different doctrines), Clemens Alexandrinus, Ambrosiaster, Sedulius, Lyra, Thomas, Cajetanus, Erasmus, Luther, Beza, Calvin, Piscator, Justiniani, Grotius, Estius, Calovius, Lightfoot, Stolz, Rosenmüller, Flatt, Heydenreich, Neander, de Wette, Osiander, Ewald, Maier. Comp Theodoret: τινὲς περὶ δογμάτων ταῦτα εἰρῆσθαι τῷ ἀποστόλῳ φασίν. Two things, however, are to be observed in connection with this interpretation(1) that the several materials are not meant to point to specific dogmas that could be named, although we cannot fail to perceive, generally speaking, the graduated diversity of the constituent elements of the two classes; (2) that the second class embraces in it no absolutely anti-Christian doctrines.[516] To deny the first of these positions would but give rise to arbitrary definitions without warrant in the text; to deny the second would run counter to the fact that the building was upon the foundation, and to the apostles affirmation, αὐτὸς δὲ σωθήσεται, 1Co_3:15. Billroth makes the strange objection to this interpretation as a whole, that χρυσόν κ.τ.λ[517] cannot apply to the contents of the teaching, because Paul calls the latter the foundation. But that is in fact Christ, and not the further doctrinal teaching. In reply to the invalid objections urged by Hollmann (Animadverss. ad cap. iii. et xiii. Ep. Pauli prim. ad Cor., Lips. 1819) see Heydenreich and Rückert. Our exposition is, in fact, a necessity, because it alone keeps the whole figure in harmony with itself throughout. For if the foundation, which is laid, be the contents of the first preaching of the gospel, namely, Christ, then the material wherewith the building is carried on must be the contents of the further instruction given. It is out of keeping, therefore, to explain it, with Origen, Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, Photius, and more recently, Billroth, of the fruits called forth in the church by the exercise among them of the office of teaching (Billroth), of the morality or immorality of the hearers (Theodoret: gold, etc., denotes τὰ εἴδη τῆς ἀρετῆς; wood, etc., ΤᾺ ἘΝΑΝΤΊΑ Τῆς ἈΡΕΤῆς, ΟἿς ΗὐΤΡΈΠΙΣΤΑΙ Τῆς ΓΕΈΝΝΗς ΤῸ ΠῦΡ); or, again, of the worthy or unworthy members of the church themselves, who would be moulded by the teachers (Schott in Röhrs Magaz. für christl. Pred. VIII. 1, p. 8 f., with Pelagius, Bengel, Hollmann, Pott). So, too, Hofmann in loc[518], and previously in his Schriftbeweis, II. 2, p. 124. Both of these interpretations have, besides, this further consideration against them, that they do not harmonize in meaning with the figure of the watering formerly employed, whereas our exposition does. Moreover, if the ἔργον, which shall be burned up (1Co_3:15), be the relative portion of the church, it would not accord therewith that the teacher concerned, who has been the cause of this destruction, is, notwithstanding, to obtain salvation; this would be at variance with the N. T. severity against all causing of offence, and with the responsibility of the teachers. Rückert gives up the attempt at a definite interpretation, contenting himself with the general truth: Upon the manner and way, in which the office of teaching is discharged, does it depend whether the teacher shall have reward or loss; he who builds on in right fashion upon a good foundation (? rather: upon the foundation) has reward therefrom; he who would add what is unsuitable and unenduring, only harm and loss. But by this there is simply nothing explained; Paul assuredly did not mean anything so vague as this by his sharply outlined figure; he must have had before his mind, wherein consisted the right carrying on of the building, and what were additions unsuitable and doomed to perish. Olshausen (comp also Schrader) understands the passage not of the efficiency of the teachers, but of the (right or misdirected) individual activity of sanctification on the part of each believer in general. Wrongly so; because, just as in 1Co_3:6 ff. the planter and waterer, so here the founder and upbuilder must be teachers, and because the building is the church (1Co_3:9), which is being built (1Co_3:9-10). And this conception of the church as a building with a personal foundation (Christ), and consisting of persons (comp 2Ti_2:20; 1Pe_2:4 f.), remains quite unimpaired with our exegesis also (against Hofmanns objection). For the further building upon the personal foundation laid, partly with gold, etc., partly with wood, etc., is just the labour of teaching, through which the development and enlargement of the church, which is made up of persons, receive a character varying in value. The ἘΠΟΙΚΟΔΟΜΕῖΝ takes place on the persons through doctrines, which are the building materials.

[510] So also Wetstein: Duo sunt aedificia, domus regia et casa rustici quae distinguuntur.

[511] n loc. refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

[512] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

[513] Luthers gloss is appropriate: This is said of preaching and teaching, by which faith is either strengthened or weakened.

[514] Compare Midr. Tillin, 119. 51, of false teachers: Sicut foenum non durat, ita nec verba eorum stabunt in saeculum.

[516] Estius characterizes the second class well as doctrina minus sincera minusque solida, veluti si sit humanis ac philosophicis aut etiam Judaicis opinionibus admixta plus satis, si curiosa magis quam utilis, etc. Comp. the Paraphr. of Erasmus, who refers specially to the humanas constitutiunculas de cultu, de victu, de frigidis ceremoniis. They are, generally, all doctrinal developments, speculations, etc., which, although built into the fabric of doctrine in time, will not approve themselves at the final consummation on the day of the Lord, nor be taken in as elements in the perfect knowledge, but will theninstead of standing out under the test of that great catastrophe which shall end the history of all things, like the doctrines compared to gold, etc.be shown to be no part of divine and saving truth, and so will fall away. Such materials, in greater or less degree, every Church will find in the system of doctrine built up for it by human hands. To learn more and more to recognise these, and to separate them from the rest in accordance with Scripture, is the task of that onward development, against which no church ought to close itself up till the day of the final crisis,least of all the evangelical Lutheran church with its central principle regarding Scripture, a principle which determines and regulates its stedfastly Protestant character.

[517] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

[518] n loc. refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Co 3:12 . After the interjected caution to let the foundation alone, P. turns to the superstructure , to which the work of his coadjutors belongs; δὲ indicates this transition. εἰ δέ τις ἐποικοδομεῖ , εἰ with ind [543] (as in 1Co 3:14 f. etc.), a supposition in matter of fact, while ἐὰν with sbj [544] (as in 1Co 4:15 ) denotes a likely contingency. The doubled prp [545] ἐπί (with acc [546] ) an idiom characterising later Gr [547] , which loves emphasis implies growth by way of accession: “if any one is building-on, onto the foundation”; contrast ἐπὶ with dat [548] in Eph 2:20 . The material superimposed by the present Cor [549] builders is of two opposite kinds, rich and durable or paltry and perishing: “gold, silver, costly stones wood, hay, straw,” thrown together “in lively ἀσύνδετον ” (Mr [550] ). The latter might serve for poor frail huts, but not for the temple of God (1Co 3:17 ). λίθοι τίμιοι , the marbles, etc., used in rearing noble houses; but possibly Isa 54:11 f. ( cf. Rev 21:18-21 ) is in the writer’s mind. The figure has been interpreted as relating ( a ) to the diff [551] sorts of persons brought into the Church (Pelagius, Bg [552] , Hf [553] ), since the Cor [554] believers constitute the Θεοῦ οἰκοδομή (1Co 3:9 ), the ναὸς Θεοῦ (1Co 3:16 ) “my work are you in the Lord” (1Co 9:1 ; cf. Eph 2:20 ff., 2Ti 2:19 ff., 1Pe 2:4 f.; also the striking parl [555] in Mal 3:1 ff; Mal 4:1 ); ( b ) to the moral fruits resulting from the labours of various teachers, the character of Church members, this being the specific object of the final judgment (2Co 5:10 , Rom 2:5-11 ; cf. 1Co 13:13 ) and that which measures the work of their ministers (1Th 2:19 ff., etc.) so Or [556] , Cm [557] , Aug [558] , lately Osiander and Gd [559] ; ( c ) to the doctrines of the diff [560] teachers, since for this they are primarily answerable and here lay the point of present divergence ( cf. 1Co 8:10 f., Rom 14:15 ; 2Co 11:1 ff., 2Co 11:13 ff., Gal 1:7 , etc.) so Clem. Al [561] , and most moderns. The three views are not really discrepant: teaching shapes character, works express faith; unsound preaching attracts the bad hearer and makes him worse, sound preaching wins and improves the good (see 1Co 1:18 ; 1Co 1:24 ; 2Ti 4:3 ; Joh 3:18 ff; Joh 10:26 f.). “The materials of this house may denote doctrines moulding persons ,” or “even persons moulded by doctrines ” (Ev [562] ), “the doctrine exhibited in a concrete form” (Lt [563] ).

[543] indicative mood.

[544] subjunctive mood.

[545] preposition.

[546] accusative case.

[547] Greek, or Grotius’ Annotationes in N.T.

[548] dative case.

[549] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[550] Meyer’s Critical and Exegetical Commentary (Eng. Trans.).

[551] difference, different, differently.

[552] Bengel’s Gnomon Novi Testamenti.

[553] J. C. K. von Hofmann’s Die heilige Schrift N.T. untersucht , ii. 2 (2te Auflage, 1874).

[554] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[555] parallel.

[556] Origen.

[557] John Chrysostom’s Homiliœ († 407).

[558] Augustine.

[559] F. Godet’s Commentaire sur la prem. Ép. aux Corinthiens (Eng. Trans.).

[560] difference, different, differently.

[561] Alford’s Greek Testament .

[562] T. S. Evans in Speaker’s Commentary .

[563] J. B. Lightfoot’s (posthumous) Notes on Epp. of St. Paul (1895).

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Co_3:12, 1Co_3:13

Now, if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every mans work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every mans work, of what sort it is.

In consistency with the context, gold, silver and precious stones, can only mean truth; and wood, hay and stubble, error. If by the foundation which Paul had laid were intended the first converts in Corinth, then the above terms would naturally be understood of good and bad members of the church. The sense would then be, I laid the foundation of the church in Corinth by receiving true believers to its communion; let others take heed with what kind of members they build up the church. But as the foundation which Paul laid is expressly declared to be Jesus Christ, or the truth concerning his person and work, the words above mentioned must refer to true and false doctrines. I have laid the foundation of Christ crucified; do you take heed with what kind of doctrine you carry on the work. Besides, the whole discussion has reference to preachers and their duties. Precious stones here mean stones valuable for building, such as granite and marble. Gold and silver were extensively employed in adorning ancient temples, and are therefore appropriately used as the symbols of pure doctrine. Wood, hay, and stubble are the perishable materials out of which ordinary houses were built, but not temples. Wood for the doors and posts; hay, (χόρτος) dried grass mixed with mud for the walls; and straw, (καλάμη) for the roof. These materials, unsuitable for the temple of God, are appropriate symbols of false doctrines.

Every mans work shall be made (or, become) manifest. In this life it may be disputed whether a mans doctrines are true or false. He may have great confidence in their truth, and set himself above his brethren and even above the Bible. But his work hereafter will appear in its true character. For the day shall declare it. The day does not mean indefinitely time, Time shall declare it; nor the day of tribulation; nor the day of light and knowledge as distinguished from the present ignorance; but the great day, the day of judgment, or, as it is so often called, the day of the Lord. That day shall make manifest the truth or falsehood of the doctrines taught, because it is (i.e. is certainly to be) revealed by fire; literally, in or with fire (ἐν πυρί). In 2Th_1:8, it is said, The Lord Jesus shall be revealed in flaming fire, i.e. in the midst of flaming fire. Fire is the constant symbol of trial and judgment. The meaning therefore is, that the day of the Lord will be a day of severe trial. Every work will then be subjected to a test which nothing impure can stand. The context shows that the word day, and not work, is the nominative to revealed. The day of judgment shall declare every mans work, because that day shall be revealed with fire.

And the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is. The figure is that of a building on which many workmen are engaged. Some use proper materials, others wood, hay and stubble. The building is to be subjected to the test of fire. The wood, hay and stubble will be burnt up; only the solid materials will stand. False doctrine can no more stand the test of the day of judgment, than hay or stubble can stand a raging conflagration.

Charles Hodge — Commentary on Romans (1835), First Corinthians (1857), and Ephesians (1856) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Thirdly, he showeth that they must take heed that the upper part of the building be answerable to the foundation, that is, that admonitions, exhortations, and whatsoever pertaineth to the edifying of the flock, be answerable to the doctrine of Christ, as well in matter as in form: which doctrine is compared to gold, silver, and precious stones: of which matter, Isaiah also and John in the Revelation build the heavenly city. And to these are opposite, wood, hay, stubble, that is to say, curious and vain questions or decrees: and besides to be short, all that kind of teaching which serveth to ostentation. For false doctrines, whereof he speaketh not here, are not said properly to be built upon this foundation, unless peradventure in show only.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Now--rather, "But." The image is that of a building on a solid foundation, and partly composed of durable and precious, partly of perishable, materials. The "gold, silver, precious stones," which all can withstand fire (Rev 21:18-19), are teachings that will stand the fiery test of judgment; "wood, hay, stubble," are those which cannot stand it; not positive heresy, for that would destroy the foundation, but teaching mixed up with human philosophy and Judaism, curious rather than useful. Besides the teachings, the superstructure represents also the persons cemented to the Church by them, the reality of whose conversion, through the teachers' instrumentality, will be tested at the last day. Where there is the least grain of real gold of faith, it shall never be lost (Pe1 1:7; compare Co1 4:12). On the other hand, the lightest straw feeds the fire [BENGEL] (Mat 5:19).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 12. If any men build - gold, silver, c.] Without entering into curious criticisms relative to these different expressions, it may be quite enough for the purpose of edification to say, that, by gold, silver, and precious stones, the apostle certainly means pure and wholesome doctrines: by wood, hay, and stubble, false doctrines such as at that time prevailed in the Corinthian Church; for instance, that there should be no resurrection of the body; that a man may, on his father's death, lawfully marry his step-mother; that it was necessary to incorporate much of the Mosaic law with the Gospel; and, perhaps, other matters, equally exceptionable, relative to marriage, concubinage, fornication, frequenting heathen festivals, and partaking of the flesh which had been offered in sacrifice to an idol; with many other things, which, with the above, are more or less hinted at by the apostle in these two letters.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. Now if any man build upon this foundation He pursues still farther the metaphor. It would not have been enough to have laid the foundation if the entire superstructure did not correspond; for as it were an absurd thing to raise a structure of vile materials on a foundation of gold, so it were greatly criminal to bury Christ under a mass of strange doctrines. By gold, then, and silver, and precious stones, he means doctrine worthy of Christ, and of such a nature as to be a superstructure corresponding to such a foundation. Let us not imagine, however, that this doctrine is apart from Christ, but on the contrary let us understand that we must continue to preach Christ until the very completion of the building. Only we must observe order, so as to begin with general doctrine, and more essential articles, as the foundations, and then go on to admonitions, exhortations, and everything that is requisite for perseverance, confirmation, and advancement.

As there is an agreement thus far as to Paul’s meaning, without any controversy, it follows on the other hand, that by wood, stubble and hay, is meant doctrine not answering to the foundation, such as is forged in men’s brain, and is thrust in upon us as though it were the oracles of God. For God will have his Church trained up by the pure preaching of his own word, not by the contrivances of men, of which sort also is that which has no tendency to edification, as for example curious questions, (1 Timothy 1:4,) which commonly contribute more to ostentation, or some foolish appetite, than to the salvation of men.

He forewarns them that every man’s work will one day be made manifest of what sort it is, however it may be for a time concealed, as though he had said: “It may indeed happen, that unprincipled workmen may for a time deceive, so that the world does not perceive how far each one has labored faithfully or fraudulently, but what is now as it were buried in darkness must of necessity come to light, and what is now glorious in the eyes of men, must before the face of God fall down, and be regarded as worthless.”

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(12) Now if any man . . .—Better, But if any man.

Precious stones.—Not gems, but grand and costly stones, such as marble. “Hay,” dried grass used to fill up chinks in the walls. “Stubble,” stalks with the ears of corn cut off, and used for making a roof of thatch.

Many ingenious attempts have been made to apply the imagery of this passage in detail to various doctrines or Christian virtues, but it seems best to regard it as broadly and in outline bringing before the reader the two great ideas of permanent and ephemeral work, and the striking contrast between them. The truth brought forward is primarily, if not exclusively, for teachers. The image is taken from what would have met the eye of a traveller in Ephesus where St. Paul now was, or in Corinth where his letter was to be first read. It is such a contrast as may be seen (though not in precisely the same striking form of difference) in London in our own day. The stately palaces of marble and of granite, with roof and column glittering with gold and silver decorations, and close by these the wretched hovels of the poor and outcast, the walls made of laths of wood, with the interstices stuffed with straw, and a thatched roof above. Then arose before the Apostle’s vision the thought of a city being visited by a mighty conflagration, such as desolated Corinth itself in the time of Mummius. The mean structures of perishable wood and straw would be utterly consumed, while, as was actually the case in Corinth, the mighty palaces and temples would stand after the fire had exhausted itself. Thus, says St. Paul, it will be with the work of Christian teachers when the “day of the Lord is revealed in fire.” The fire of that day will prove and test the quality of each work.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. Now if any man build upon this foundation] It must be remembered that it is not the conduct of Christians, however applicable the principles here enunciated may be to it, but the doctrine of teachers which is spoken of here. The materials mentioned are of two classes, those that will endure fire, and those that will not. We may dismiss from our consideration such preaching as is dictated by vain-glory or self-interest, for the simple reason that it is not building upon Christ at all. The two kinds of preaching thus become, on the one hand that which leads to permanent results, the glory of God and the real well-being of man; and on the other, that which, though the offspring of a genuine zeal, is not according to knowledge.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Now if any man build upon this foundation,.... The different materials laid by one and the same man, on this foundation, or the different doctrines advanced upon it, are some of them comparable to

gold, silver, precious stones; for their intrinsic worth and value; for the purity and sincerity of them; for their weight, importance, solidity, and substantiality; for their durableness; for the great esteem they are had in by those, who know the worth of them; and for the great usefulness they are of unto them, being rich in themselves, and enriching to them; and these are the great, momentous, and valuable truths of the Gospel, which agree with and are suitable to the foundation they are built upon: so the Jews (m) compare their oral and written law, the former to gold, and the latter to precious stones, but the metaphors much better suit the doctrines of the Gospel: others are like to

wood, hay, stubble; by which are meant, not heretical doctrines, damnable heresies, such as are diametrically opposite to, and overturn the foundation; for one and the same man builds the former, as these, and is himself saved at last; neither of which is true, of such that deliver doctrines of devils: but empty, trifling, useless things are meant; such as fables, endless genealogies, human traditions, Jewish rites and ceremonies; which through the prejudice of education, and through ignorance and inadvertency, without any bad design, might by some be introduced into their ministry, who had been brought up in the Jewish religion; as also the wisdom of the world, the philosophy of the Gentiles, oppositions of science falsely so called, curious speculations, vain and idle notions, which such who had their education among the Greeks might still retain, and be fond of; and through an itch of vain glory, mix with their evangelic ministrations; and in a word, everything that may now be advanced in the Gospel ministry, not so honourable to the grace of God, or so becoming the person, blood, and righteousness of Christ, nor so consistent with the Spirit's work of grace, may be meant hereby; the same minister at different times, and sometimes at one and the same time in his ministry, lays the foundation, Christ, and builds on it for a while excellent valuable truths, raises a superstructure of gold, silver, and precious stones, and then covers the edifice with trifling, impertinent, and inconsistent things, with wood, hay, and stubble; and so at last, of this promising fine stately building, makes a thatched house,

(m) Koheleth Jaacob in Caphtor, fol. 109. 2.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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

Ver. 12. Wood, hay, stubble] Rhetorical strains, philosophical fancies, that tend not to edification. There are those who together with the gold, silver, and ivory of sound and savoury truths, have, as Solomon’s ships had, store of apes and peacocks, conceits and crotchets. Now if he that debases the king’s coin, deserve punishment; what do they that, instead of the tried silver of divine truths, stamp the name and character of God upon Nehushtan, their own base brazen stuff?

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Now if any man - If any teacher in the doctrines which he inculcates; or any private Christian in the hopes which he cherishes. The main discussion doubtless, has respect to the teachers of religion. Paul carries forward the metaphor in this and the following verses with respect to the building. He supposes that the foundation is laid; that it is a true foundation; that the essential doctrines in regard to the Messiah are the real basis on which the edifice is reared. But, he says, that even admitting that, it is a subject of vast importance to attend to the kind of structure which shall be reared on that; whether it shall be truly beautiful, and valuable in itself, and such as shall abide the trial of the last great Day; or whether it be mean, worthless, erroneous, and such as shall at last be destroyed. There has been some difference of opinion in regard to the interpretation of this passage, arising from the question whether the apostle designed to represent one or two buildings.

The former has been the more common interpretation, and the sense according to that is, “the true foundation is laid; but on that it is improper to place vile and worthless materials. It would be absurd to work them in with those which are valuable; it would be absurd to work in, in rearing a building, wood, and hay, and stubble, with gold, and silver, and precious stones; there would be a lack of concinnity and beauty in this. So in the spiritual temple. There is an impropriety, an unfitness, in rearing the spiritual temple, to interweave truth with error; sound doctrine with false.” See Calvin and Macknight. Grotius renders it, “Paul feigns to himself an edifice, partly regal, and partly rustic. He presents the image of a house whose walls are of marble, whose columns are made partly of gold and partly of silver, whose beams are of wood, and whose roof thatched with straw.” Others, among whom are Wetstein, Doddridge, Rosenmuller, suppose that he refers to two buildings that might be reared on this foundation - either one that should be magnificent and splendid; or one that should be a rustic cottage, or mean hovel, thatched with straw, and made of planks of wood.

Doddridge paraphrases the passage, “‘If any man builds,’ I say, ‘upon this foundation,’ let him look to the materials and the nature of his work; whether he raise a stately and magnificent temple upon it, adorned as it were like the house of God at Jerusalem, with gold and silver, and large, beautiful, and costly stones; or a mean hovel, consisting of nothing better than planks of wood roughly put together, and thatched with hay and stubble. That is, let him look to it, whether he teach the substantial, vital truths of Christianity, and which it was intended to support and illustrate; or set himself to propagate vain subtilties and conceits on the one hand, or legal rites and Jewish traditions on the other; which although they do not entirely destroy the foundation, disgrace it, as a mean edifice would do a grand and extensive foundation laid with great pomp and solemnity.” This probably expresses the correct sense of the passage. The foundation may be well laid; yet on this foundation an edifice may be reared that shall be truly magnificent, or one that shall be mean and worthless. So the true foundation of a church may be laid, or of individual conversion to God, in the true doctrine respecting Christ. That church or that individual may be built up and adorned with all the graces which truth is suited to produce; or there may be false principles and teachings superadded; doctrines that shall delude and lead astray; or views and feelings cultivated as piety, and believed to be piety, which may be no part of true religion, but which are mere delusion and fanaticism.

Gold, silver - On the meaning of these words it is not necessary to dwell; or to lay too much stress. Gold is the emblem of that which is valuable and precious, and may be the emblem of that truth and holiness which shall bear the trial of the great Day. In relation to the figure which the apostle here uses, it may refer to the fact that columns or beams in an edifice might be gilded; or perhaps, as in the temple, that they might be solid gold, so as to bear the action of intense heat; or so that fire would not destroy them - So the precious doctrines of truth, and all the feelings, views, opinions, habits, practices, which truth produces in an individual or a church, will bear the trial of the last great Day.

Precious stones - By the stones here referred to, are not meant “gems” which are esteemed of so much value for ornaments, but beautiful and valuable marbles. The word “precious” here τιμίους timious means those which are obtained at a “price,” which are costly and valuable; and is particularly applicable, therefore, to the costly marbles which were used in building. The figurative sense here does not differ materially from that conveyed by the silver and gold. By this edifice thus reared on the true foundation, we are to understand:

The true doctrines which should be employed to build up a congregation - doctrines which would bear the test of the trial of the last Day; and, Such views in regard to piety, and to duty; such feelings and principles of action, as should be approved, and seen to be genuine piety in the Day of Judgment.

Wood - That might be easily burned. An edifice reared of wood instead of marble, or slight buildings, such as were often put for up for temporary purposes in the East - as cottages, places for watching their vineyards, etc.; see my note at Isa 1:8.

Hay, stubble - Used for thatching the building, or for a roof. Perhaps, also, grass was sometimes employed in some way to make the walls of the building. Such an edifice would burn readily; would be constantly exposed to take fire. By this is meant:

Errors and false doctrines, such as will not be found to be true on the Day of Judgment, and as will then be swept away; Such practices and mistaken views of piety, as shall grow out of false doctrines and errors - The foundation may be firm.

Those who are referred to may be building on the Lord Jesus, and may be true Christians. Yet there is much error among those who are not Christians. There are many things mistaken for piety which will yet be seen robe false. There is much enthusiasm, wildfire, fanaticism, bigotry; much affected humility; much that is supposed to be orthodoxy; much regard to forms and ceremonies; to “days, and months, and times, and years” Gal 4:10; much over-heated zeal, and much precision, and solemn sanctimoniousness; much regard for external ordinances where the heart is missing, that shall be found to be false, and that shall be swept away on the Day of Judgment.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Now if any man build, &c. This is a hard place, says St. Augustine, lib. de fid. & Oper. chap. xvi. tom. 6. p. 180. The interpreters are divided, as to the explication and application of this metaphorical comparison, contained in these four verses. St. Paul speaks of a building, where it is evident, says St. Augustine, that the foundation is Christ, or the faith of Christ, and his faith working by charity. The difficulties are 1. Who are the builders. 2. What is meant by gold, silver, precious stones, and what by wood, hay, stubble. 3. What is meant by the day of the Lord. 4. What by fire, how every one’s work shall be tried, and how some shall be saved by fire. As to the first, by the builders, as St. Paul had before called himself the first architect, who had laid the foundation of the faith of Christ among the Corinthians, interpreters commonly understand those doctors and preachers who there succeeded St. Paul: but as it is also said, that every man’s works shall be made manifest, St. Augustine and others understand not the preachers only, but all the faithful. As to the second difficulty, if by the builders we understand the preachers of the gospel, then by gold, silver, &c. is to be understood, good, sound, and profitable doctrine; and by wood, hay, stubble, a mixture of vain knowledge, empty flourishes, unprofitable discourses; but if all the faithful are builders, they whose actions are pure, lay gold upon the foundation; but if their actions are mixed with imperfections, venial failings, and lesser sins, these are represented by wood, hay, stubble, &c. 3. By the day of the Lord, is commonly understood either the day of general judgment, or the particular judgment, when every one is judged at his death, which sentence shall be confirmed again at the last day. 4. As to fire, which is mentioned thrice, if we consider what St. Paul says here of fire, he seems to use it in different significations, as he many times does other words. First, he tells us, (ver. 13.) that the day of the Lord...shall be revealed; or, as it is in the Greek, is revealed in, or by fire; where, by fire, is commonly understood the just and severe judgments of God, represented by the metaphor of fire. Secondly, he tells us in the same verse, that fire shall try every one’s work, of what sort it is. This may be again taken for the examining and trying fire of God’s judgments: and may be applied to the builders, whether preachers only or all the faithful. Thirdly, he tells us, (ver. 14. and 15.) that some men’s works abide the fire of God’s judgments, they deserve no punishment, they are like pure gold, which receives no prejudice from the fire: but some men’s works burn, the superstructure, which they built upon the faith of Christ, besides gold, silver, precious stones, had also a mixture of wood, hay, stubble, which could not stand the trial of fire, which met with combustible matter, that deserved to be burnt. Every such man shall suffer a loss, when his works are burnt, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. Here the apostle speaks of fire in a more ample signification: of a fire which shall not only try, and examine, but also burn, and punish the builders, who notwithstanding shall also, after a time, escape from the fire, and be saved by fire, and in the day of the Lord, that is, after life (for the time of this life is the day of men). Divers of the ancient fathers, as well as later interpreters, from these words, prove the Catholic doctrine of a purgatory, that is, that many Christians, who die guilty, not of heinous or mortal sins, but of lesser, and what are called venial sins, or to whom a temporal punishment from the sins they have committed, still remains due, before they can be admitted to a reward in heaven, (into which nothing defiled or unclean can enter) must suffer some punishments for a time, in some place, which is called Purgatory, and is such a manner, as is agreeable to the divine justice, before their reward in heaven. These words of the apostle, the Latin Fathers in the Council of Florence[1] brought against the Greeks to prove purgatory, to which the Greeks (who did not deny a purgatory, or a third place, where souls guilty of lesser sins were to suffer for a time) made answer, that these words of St. Paul were expounded by St. John Chrysostom and some of their Greek Fathers (which is true) of the wicked in hell, who are said to be saved by fire, inasmuch as they always subsist and continue in those flames, and are not destroyed by them: but this interpretation, as the Latin bishops replied, is not agreeable to the style of the holy Scriptures, in which, to be saved, both in the Greek and Latin, is expressed the salvation and happiness of souls in heaven. It may not be amiss to take notice that the Greeks, before they met with the Latins at Ferrara, of Florence, did not deny the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. They admitted a third place, where souls guilty of lesser sins, suffered for a time, till cleansed from such sins: they allowed that the souls there detained from the vision of God, might be assisted by the prayers of the faithful: they called this purgatory a place of darkness, or sorrow, of punishments, and pains, but they did not allow there a true and material fire, which the Council did not judge necessary to decide and define against them, as appears in the definition of the Council. (Conc. Labb tom. xiii. p. 515.) (Witham) --- The fire of which St. Paul here speaks, is the fire of purgatory, according to the Fathers, and all Catholic divines. (Calmet) --- St. Augustine, expounding Psalm xxxvii. ver. 1, gives the proper distinction between this fire of purgatory and that of hell: both are punishments, one temporary, the other eternal; the latter to punish us in God’s justice, the former to amend us in his mercy.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The apostle is discoursing metaphorically, he had compared the church of Corinth to a building, 1Co 3:9, and called them there God’s building; they were built upon the doctrine of the gospel, the doctrine of the apostles and prophets, who had preached Christ to them, this was the foundation; and had told us, that none, by any pretence of right, could lay any other foundation. But there was to be a superstructure upon this foundation, which might be of various materials: he names six; three very good and excellent,

gold, silver, and precious stones; three others vile and invaluable,

wood, hay, stubble. By these he either means good or bad works, or rather, good or bad doctrines. Good doctrine is signified by the gold, silver, and precious stones mentioned; bad doctrine by the wood, hay, and stubble mentioned; by which may be understood various degrees of bad doctrine, as some doctrines are more pernicious and damnable than others, though the others also be false, unprofitable, trivial, and of no significancy to the good of souls, but bad, as they are unprofitable.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Gold, silver. Perhaps St. Paul thought for a moment of the gorgeous metals. rod rich marbles used in the Corinthian temples, as well as in the temple at Jerusalem. But it is surely fantastic to suggest that his reference is a historical reminiscence of the melting of gold and silver in the burning of Corinth by Mummius, nearly two hundred years before. Costly stones; i.e. costly marble from Paros, Phrygia, etc. Wood, hay, stubble. These words seem to symbolize erroneous or imperfect doctrines, which would not stand the test, and which led to evil practices. Such were the" philosophy and vain deceit," "the weak and beggarly dements," "the rudiments of the world," of which he speaks in Gal_4:9; Col_2:8. So in the Midrash Tehillin, the words of false teachers are compared to hay. The doctrines to which he alludes are not anti christian, but imperfect and human such, for instance, as, "Humanas constitutiunculas de cultu, de victo, de frigidis ceremoniis" (Erasmus)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If any one build gold, silver, costly stones - Three sorts of materials which will bear the fire; true and solid doctrines. Wood, hay, stubble - Three which will not bear the fire. Such are all doctrines, ceremonies, and forms of human invention; all but the substantial, vital truths of Christianity.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The building itself:

v. 12. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble,

v. 13. 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.

v. 14. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

v. 15. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.

Paul here treats of the superstructure which is erected upon the one foundation, and distinguishes between rich and durable material on the one hand, and poor, paltry, and perishing on the other, both, however, serviceable for the erection of the building. He is not referring to the believers that make up the temple of God so much as to the doctrine by which they are won for Christ, and the manner in which their faith serves the entire building in all forms of Christian works, both pictures, however, being closely associated in his mind. However, among these [in the body which is built upon the true foundation, i. e. , upon Christ and faith] there are also many weak persons, who build upon the foundation stubble that will perish, i. e. , certain unprofitable opinions [some human thoughts and opinions], which, nevertheless, because they do not overthrow the foundation, are both forgiven them and also corrected. And the writings of the holy Fathers testify that sometimes even they built stubble upon the foundation, but that this did not overthrow their faith. And we need not even think of human thoughts, opinions, and faults, but only of the great diversity of gifts and abilities in the kingdom of God, since the building is all done on the basis of the same good foundation, Jesus Christ. "Whether it be the gold of prophecy, or the silver of doctrine, or the precious stones of hymns, or the wood of keeping rank, or the hay of discipline, or the stalks of alms; whether it be high, brilliant endowment or endowment for the service in small, insignificant things; whether it be the oratory of spiritual tongues or the hand that offers assistance: everything may serve for the benefit of the congregation and reward the worker in the building of God, if he but offers it in the intention of Christ, that it may serve for the growth of the building on the foundation which is laid, not only as a mere outward appendage, but grown together inwardly with the foundation and charged with the love of the Spirit. " Of all these attempts the apostle says: The work of each man will become manifest, for the day will disclose it. So much, indeed, is evident even now with what kind of material everyone is serving in the Church; it can be seen to some extent what special abilities he possesses; but how a person works, what success he has in his efforts, whether they redound to the blessing or the harm of the believers in the Church, that shall be disclosed and made manifest on the day, the great day, the Day of Judgment and of the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For on that day it shall be revealed with fire, in fire, and the work of every man, what kind it is, that fire will assay, will show. It is a probationary, not a purgatorial fire; and not the persons are subjected to this fire, but their works in the Church. The idea of a physical purgatory is absolutely remote to this passage. Consuming fire is the element of the last day, and in flaming fire the Lord Jesus will reveal Himself from heaven, 2Th 1:8. "This fire will reveal what was worldly and perishable as well as what was spiritual and imperishable in the building of God. Outward honor and dishonor, splendor of wisdom and cover of foolishness, will then be judged infallibly; the fire of probation will penetrate through all pretext into the inner substance, and only that will remain which was built in a Christian manner, borne up by and of the same material as the indestructible foundation, Jesus Christ. The dross of reason and the vagaries of men, even if they be meant ever so well, will be mingled with the ashes, and in the light of the perfect knowledge, wherewith the fire of that day will shine round about us, will be revealed what was imagination and what was divine wisdom, what was hollow talk of art and what powerful word, what was mere opinion and what infallible truth. " Note that all this presupposes a building upon the foundation of Jesus Christ and His blessed Word.

The result of the test is now shown: If the work of any man will remain that he has built, he will receive a reward; if any man’s work shall be burned up, he will suffer loss; himself, however, will be saved, but in this manner as through fire. The statement is very general and refers to every kind of material, to all the various abilities and gifts. For whether a Christian is highly, moderately, or poorly gifted, so far as the work of the Church is concerned, that is of little or no consequence; everything rather depends upon this, that the work in the Church be free from the dross of human reason and vanity, that it rest upon the true foundation, and that it be actuated by love of Christ. In such measure as any Christian’s work will stand the test of the last day he will receive the reward of grace. And whatever part of the work will not stand up under the test of the fire of that day will be consumed. By so much as the imperfections of every man’s work will be revealed, by so much will his reward of mercy be reduced, by so much will he forfeit what he might have possessed, had his work all measured up to the standard set by God. But though such a person will not have the enjoyment of an unusual degree of glory, yet he will have the possession of the heavenly salvation, but so as through fire. He is like a person that has escaped with his naked life from a fire that threatened death and destruction, or like one that escapes from a shipwreck, but loses both money and goods. The special reward which God promises to faithful and excellent work such people lose, but that which is not the wages of their work, but only Christ’s merit, namely, life and salvation, that they inherit, because they retained faith in the forgiveness of their sins, also of their hidden sins, to their end. Mark that the apostle throughout the passage has in mind especially the teachers of the Church, but that the others, in all their several posts in the Church, are by no means excluded.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

In these words the apostle speaks of two sorts of preachers, under the metaphor of builders.

1. Some that are sound and orthodox, who hold the foundation, and build upon it gold, silver, and precious stones; that is, such sincere and wholesome doctrine as will bear the touchstone and trial.

2. Others that are unsound and erroneous, who hold indeed the foundation of Christianity, but build upon it such doctrines as will not bear the trial, expressed by wood, hay, and stubble, which are not proof against the fire.

Learn hence, That the doctrine of Christ, and the truths of the gospel, are very excellent and exceeding precious; compared to gold, silver, and precious stones, for their usefulness and preciousness.

Learn, 2. That all errors and falsehoods in religion, all erroneous and false doctrines, though not fundamental, are yet no better than hay or stubble, vain and unprofitable, vile and contemptible.

Observe, 3. As a twofold event declared: some men’s works, that is, their doctrines and practices, will abide the fire; others will be burnt up, and suffer loss.

Where by the fire, understand the word and Spirit of God. A probatory, not a purgatory fire, is here intended: because it is said to burn not the person but the action, and every action too, of every man. Now the popish purgatory fire tries not all persons, some are exempted, as martyrs: and not all actions neither, but wicked ones only; whereas this fire shall try every man’s work.

The meaning is, that the light of God’s word and Spirit will manifest the verity or vanity, the soundness or falseness, of doctrines delivered by all preachers. Sound doctrine, that, like good metal, will endure the furnace, shall be rewarded; but such doctrines as will not endure the trial, shall miss of the reward.

Learn hence, 1. That all the ways and works of wickedness in general, and all hidden and secret ways of false doctrine in particular, God will one day reveal and make manifest: Every man’s work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it.

Learn, 2. That the true and sincere doctrine of the gospel is firm and durable, and such as will abide the closest trial; yea, and will grow more illustrious and glorious thereby.

Learn, 3. That men may hold the foundation, and maintain the fundamentals of Christianity, and yet may so superstruct thereupon it, and superadd so many things unto it, whereby they may greatly endanger their own and others’ salvation. They shall be saved, yet so as by fire: that is, with great difficulty, having exposed themselves to the utmost hazard and danger.

The speech is proverbial, and signifies both the greatness of the danger, and the difficulty of escaping it; intimating that errors in judgment endanger a person’s salvation as well as ungodliness in practice.

He that has a due care of his soul’s salvation, will be as well afraid of erroneous principles as he is of debauched practices; for error is as damnable as vice: the one is an open road, the other a by-path, to hell and destruction.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. “But if any one build on the foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble,

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble ;

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

12. If any man buildeth upon this foundation. There is only one foundation for all builders to build upon. The church or temple will be of the character of the material built upon it. If this material be precious and imperishable, if apostolic doctrines and men moulded into the image of Christ be this material, it is well. If erroneous doctrines and unstable men, wood, hay, stubble, this will all be revealed in due time.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

General Information:

Paul speaks of what builders usually do when constructing a building to describe what the teachers in Corinth are actually doing. Builders usually only use gold, silver, or precious stones as decorations on buildings.

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw

The building materials used to build a new building are being compared to the spiritual values used to build a person's behavior and activities during his lifetime. AT: "Whether a person builds with valuable materials that will last or with cheap materials that burn easily" (See: Metaphor)

precious stones

"expensive stones"

his work will be revealed

This can be stated in active form. AT: "God will show everyone what the builder has done" (See: Active or Passive)

for the daylight will reveal it

The "daylight" here is a metaphor for the time when God will judge everyone. When God shows everyone what these teachers have done, it will be like the sun has come up to reveal what happened during the night. (See: Metaphor)

For it will be revealed in fire. The fire will test the quality of what each one had done

Just as fire will reveal the strengths or destroy the weaknesses of a building, God's fire will judge man's efforts and activities. AT: "God will use fire to show the quality of his work" (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

found

gold

silver

reveal

fire

test

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

12. χρυσίον, ἀργύριον אB. ADE read χρυσίον, ἀργύριον.

12. εἰ δέ τις ἐποικοδομεῖ ἐπὶ τὸν θεμέλιον. It must be remembered that it is not the conduct of Christians, however applicable the principles here enunciated may be to it, but the doctrine of teachers which is spoken of here. The materials mentioned are of two classes, those that will endure fire, and those that will not. We may dismiss from our consideration such preaching as is clearly dictated by vainglory or self-interest, for the simple reason that it is not building upon Christ at all. The two kinds of preaching thus become, on the one hand that which leads to permanent results, the glory of God and the real well-being of man; and on the other, that which, though the offspring of a genuine zeal, is too much mixed up with worldly alloy of one kind or another to be of any real use to Christ’s cause.

χρυσίον, ἀργύριον. These are the diminutives of χρυσός and ἄργυρος. The latter signify the metal, the former small pieces of the metal, hence generally gold and silver coin. Here the idea is not the abstract one of the metal, but rather of the portions of the metal added by each particular workman to the adornments of the building. It is easy to see how this subtle distinction may have escaped the copyists. See Critical Note.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12.] The δέ implies that though there can be but one foundation, there are many ways of building upon it.

To the right understanding of this verse it may be necessary to remark, (1) that the similitude is, not of many buildings, as Wetst. and Billroth,—but of one, see ver. 16,—and that [one,] raised on Christ as its foundation;—different parts of which are built by the ministers who work under Him,—some well and substantially built, some ill and unsubstantially. (2) That gold, silver, &c., refer to the matter of the ministers’ teaching, primarily; and by inference to those whom that teaching penetrates and builds up in Christ, who should be the living stones of the temple: not, as , Chrys., Theodoret, Theophyl., , , , &c., to the moral fruits produced by the preaching in the individual members of the church,—εἴ τις κακὸν βίον ἔχει μετὰ πίστεως ὀρθῆς, οὐ προστήσεται αὐτοῦ ἡ πίστις εἰς τὸ μὴ κολάζεσθαι, Chrys. Hom. ix. p. 77. (3) That the builder of the worthless and unsubstantial is in the end saved (see below): so that even his preaching was preaching of Christ, and he himself was in earnest. (4) That what is said does not refer, except by accommodation, to the religious life of believers in general—as Olsh., Schrader, see also the ancient Commentators above:—but to the duty and reward of Teachers. At the same time, such accommodation is legitimate, in so far as each man is a teacher and builder of himself. (5) That the various materials specified must not be fancifully pressed to indicate particular doctrines or graces, as e.g. Schrader has done, “Some build with the gold of faith, with the silver of hope, with the imperishable costly stones of love,—others again with the dead wood of unfruitfulness in good works, with the empty straw of a spiritless, ostentatious knowledge, and with the bending reed of a continually-doubting spirit.” Der Apostel Paulus, iv. p. 66. This, however ingenious, is beside the mark, not being justified by any indications furnished in our Epistle itself. An elaborate résumé of the very various minor differences of interpretation may be seen in Meyer’s Comm. Exo_2, in loc. Cf. also Estius’s note; and Stanley’s.

λίθους τιμίους] Not ‘gems,’ but ‘costly stones,’ as marbles, porphyry, jasper, &c., compare 1Ki 7:9 ff.

By the ξύλα, χόρτον, καλάμην, he indicates the various perversions of true doctrine, and admixtures of false philosophy which were current: so Estius, “doctrina non quidem hæretica et perniciosa, talis enim fundamentum destrueret: sed minus sincera, minusque solida; veluti si sit humanis ac philosophicis, aut etiam Judaicis opinionibus admixta plus satis: si curiosa magis quam utilis; si vana quadam oblectatione mentes occupans Christianas.” Comm. i. p. 268 b.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

12. εἰ δέ τις κ.τ.λ. The various kinds of superstructure represent various degrees of inferiority in the ministry of the ‘after-builders,’ i.e. according as they make, or fail to make, a lasting contribution to the structure. With regard to the whole passage, three things are to be noted.

(1) The metaphor is not to be pressed too rigidly by seeking to identify each term with some detail in the building. This Grotius does in the following way: proponit ergo nobis domum cujus parietes sunt ex marmore, columnae partim ex auro partim ex argento, trabes ex ligno, fastigium vero ex stramine et culmo; all which is very frigid.* The materials are enumerated with a rapid and vivid asyndeton, which drives each point sharply and firmly home.

(2) The ‘wood, hay, stubble’ do not represent teaching that is intentionally disloyal or false (αὐτὸς δὲ σωθήσεται), but such as is merely inferior.

(3) The imagery alternates between the suggestion of teaching as moulding persons, and the suggestion of persons as moulded by teaching (Evans), so that it is irrelevant to ask whether the materials enumerated are to be understood of the fruits of doctrine, such as different moral qualities (Theodoret), or of worthy and unworthy Christians. The two meanings run into one another, for the qualities must be exhibited in the lives of persons. We have a similar combination of two lines of thought in the interpretation of the parable of the Sower. There the seed is said to be sown, and the soil is said to be sown, and in the interpretation these two meanings are mingled. Yet the interpretation is clear enough.

χρυσίον, ἀργύριον. As distinct from χρυσός and ἄργυρος, which indicate the metals in any condition, these diminutives are commonly used of gold and silver made into something, such as money or utensils; as when by ‘gold’ we mean gold coins, or by ‘silver’ mean silver coins or plate (Act 3:6, Act 20:33). But this is not a fixed rule. See Mat 23:16 and Gen 2:11.

λίθους τιμίους. Either ‘costly stones,’ such as marble or granite, suitable for building, or ‘precious stones,’ suitable for ornamentation. Isa 54:11, Isa 54:12 and Rev 21:18, Rev 21:19, combined with the immediate context (‘gold and silver’), point to the latter meaning. It is internal decoration that is indicated.

χόρτον, καλάμην. Either of these might mean straw or dried grass for mixing with clay, as in Exo 5:12, καλάμην εἰς ἄχυρα, ‘stubble instead of straw’; and either might mean material for thatching. Romu leoque recens horrebat regia culmo (Virg. Aen. viii. 654). Luther’s contemptuous expression respecting the Epistle of St James as a ‘strawy epistle’ was made in allusion to this passage. Nowhere else in N.T. does καλάμη occur.

After ἐπὶ τ. θεμέλιον, א 3 C 3 D E L P,; Vulg. AV. add τοῦτον. א* A B C* Sah. Aeth. RV. omit. We ought probably to read χρυσίον (א B) and ἀργύριον (א B C) rather than χρυσόν and ἄργυρον (A D E L P). B, Aeth. insert καί after χρυσίον.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

If any man build, etc. It is important to have a clear conception of Paul 's figure, which must be taken in a large and free sense, and not pressed into detail. He speaks of the body of truth and doctrine which different teachers may erect on the one true foundation - Jesus Christ. This body is the building. The reference is to a single building, as is shown by ver. 16; not to a city with different buildings of different materials. The figure of Christ as the foundation of a city does not occur in the New Testament. To this structure different teachers [βυιλδερσ] bring contributions of more or less value, represented by gold, wood, hay, etc. These are not intended to represent specific forms of truth or of error, but none of them are to be regarded as anti - Christian, which would be inconsistent with building on the true foundation. It is plainly implied that teachers may build upon the true foundation with perishable or worthless materials. This appears in the history of the Church in the false interpretations of scripture, and the crude or fanatical preaching of sincere but ignorant men. The whole structure will be brought to a final and decisive test at the day of judgment, when the true value of each teacher 's work shall be manifested, and that which is worthless shall be destroyed. The distinction is clearly made between the teacher and the matter of his teaching. The sincere but mistaken teacher 's work will be shown to be worthless in itself, but the teacher himself will be saved and will receive the reward of personal character, and not of good building. Luther alluded to this verse in his unfortunate description of the Epistle of James as "an epistle of straw."

Stubble [καλαμην] . Not the same as kalamov a reed. See Rev 11:1; Rev 21:15; and on 3Jo 1:13. This word means a stalk of grain after the ears have been cut off. It was used for thatch in building. Virgil, "Aeneid," 654, alludes to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus with its roof bristling with stubble.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Vv. 12, 13. “But if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; 13. 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.”

The δέ is adversative: “My work, the part assigned to me, is done, and well done. But let those who labour now take heed what they do!” The εἰ might be taken interrogatively: Is it that? as sometimes. But it is simpler to translate it in its ordinary sense of if, and to find the principal proposition at the beginning of 1Co 3:13.

The guidance of converted souls is a much more delicate work than the labour bestowed on their conversion; in fact, it is easy to employ materials in the work of their spiritual development which shall be more hurtful than useful. Now the Church is God’s house, God’s habitation, and into such a building no materials should enter save such as are worthy of its sublime destination. Oriental palaces and temples presented to the eye only the most precious materials: marble, jasper, alabaster (precious stones), besides gold and silver in profusion. This is what is still seen at the present day when one penetrates into the interior of the dwellings of rich Oriental merchants. The houses of the poor, on the contrary, are built of wood and of earth hardened with straw, and covered with thatch. — The diminutives χρυσίον and ἀργύριον differ from χρυσός and ἄργυρος (in T. R.) only in this that they denote specially either an ingot, or a piece of gold or silver.

God, the owner of the Church which is to become His dwelling, is represented here as a Lord who has contracted with numerous builders each charged with a part of the building. They are of course held bound to employ only materials appropriate to such an edifice, and to the dignity of him who means to make it His habitation. Most modern commentators think that the three kinds, whether of good or of bad materials, represent the doctrines taught by preachers, the didactic developments added by them to the fundamental truth of the gospel, that of salvation. This, with shades of difference, is the opinion of Clement of Alexandria, Erasmus, Luther, Beza, Calvin, Grotius, Neander, de Wette, Meyer, etc. But is not this to forget that the edifice to be built is not a book of dogmatics, but the Church itself, composed of living personalities? Other commentators have been led by this reflection to apply the figure of the various materials to the different classes in the membership of the Church: so Pelagius, Bengel, Hofmann; preachers, according to this view, are regarded as responsible for the good or bad composition of the churches which they instruct and guide. But if Paul could censure those preachers for having tolerated unworthy members or allowed them to make their way into the Church, could he have accused them of having voluntarily introduced them into it, as would be implied by the figure of the bad materials employed in the work? And could preachers of this kind end with being saved (1Co 3:15)? The good or bad materials can therefore neither represent the doctrines preached, true or false, nor the members of the Church, worthy or unworthy. There remains only one interpretation, which is to a certain extent that of Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, and, in our day, of Osiander. The apostle means to speak of the religious and moral fruits produced in the Church by preaching. The spiritual life of the members of the flock is, in a certain measure, the teaching itself received, assimilated, and realized in practice. Either the pastor, by his preaching, his conversation, his example, the daily acts of his ministry, succeeds in developing among his flock a healthy religious life, drawn from communion with Christ, abounding in the fruits of sanctification and love; and it is this strong and normal life which St. Paul describes under the figure of precious materials; or the pastor, by his pathetic discourses, his ingenious explanations, succeeds indeed in attracting a great concourse of hearers, in producing enthusiastic admiration and lively emotions; but all this stir is only external and superficial; with it all there is no real consecration to the Saviour. This faith without energy, this love without the spirit of sacrifice, this hope without joy or elasticity, this Christianity saturated with egoism and vanity: such are the wood, hay, stubble. The apostle himself sets us on the way of this explanation when in chap. 13 he calls faith, hope, and love “the three things which remain;” these then are the materials which will survive intact the trial by fire.

It was for the successors of Paul and Apollos to judge whether they had continued in the spirit which had animated the authors of the work. Chaps. 12-14 show plainly enough that it was not so.

It would be a mistake to think that the gold, silver, precious stones represent three different stages of the Christian life. As, in the figure, these three kinds of materials have their normal place side by side with one another in the temple or palace, they must be taken to represent the different forms of spiritual life which are produced in souls by healthy evangelical preaching.

The apostle had declared, 1Co 3:8, that each would be appraised and recompensed according to the nature of his work. He now points out when and how this discrimination will take place.

Frédéric Louis Godet — Commentaries on Luke, John, Romans, and 1 Corinthians — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1870s–1890s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.