Passage: 1 Corinthians 3:1-4

The Big Idea

The Corinthian believers were real saints, but they were acting like they had two identities: one spiritual and one fleshly. The truth is, in Christ we have only one. Our old self was crucified with Jesus, and Christ now lives in us. The Corinthians were stuck on spiritual baby food because they kept trying to grow by the flesh. Grace isn’t only for starting with God; grace is for growing.

Where Paul Has Taken Us

Paul is getting to the heart of his letter now. So far he’s taught the Corinthian church:

They are saints.
Their identity has to rest in that, or they’ll get distracted by other people and other teachings.
It’s really that simple. Keep your eyes on Jesus and what He has done for you. That’s the wisest way to live.
As you trust Jesus and live by His grace, He teaches you a new language of real love by the Holy Spirit, who lives in you to express God’s love to you and through you every day.

We keep putting on our grace glasses. And now Paul begins to correct the main thing the church has been seeing wrong:

They haven’t accepted their new identity in Christ. They still think they’re the old sinners who struggled to do good and loved to do evil. They don’t yet know or believe everything Jesus has done for them, everything He’s provided through the New Covenant of grace.

They’re like the children of a wealthy king, sitting around the castle all day complaining they’re bored, because they don’t realize the whole kingdom is theirs.

Spiritual or Fleshly? (1 Corinthians 3:1)

Paul says he couldn’t speak to them as spiritual people, but as fleshly, as infants in Christ.

Spiritual versus fleshly. Two identities?

The truth is, we only have one identity.
But we often act like we have two. Maybe our experience or bad teaching has convinced us we have two natures at war inside us. But Romans 6 explains in detail that we have already been crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6). The old self was put to death on the cross with Jesus. We don’t have to kill it again. We simply have to believe what He’s done. This is so important!
We may have competing voices in our heads, but we have only one spirit and one nature, and it’s holy and set apart for God.

Paul says he has been crucified with Christ, and it’s no longer he who lives, but Christ lives in him. The life he now lives in the body, he lives by faith in the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him (Galatians 2:20).

We died with Jesus. How?

Our old identity, what we call the old self, was crucified with Jesus on the cross.
We were then given a new identity, a new spirit.

That’s how the gospel works:

God changes us by changing our very nature, from the inside out.
He doesn’t have to give us rules, because He changes what we want at the deepest level, not just our surface desires but our innermost longings.
All our sin has been forgiven. Yay!
But God has also changed our hearts so that we’ll never be truly happy living in sin.
Can you sin? Yes. And you’ll be forgiven.
But you’ll never have peace and joy living in sin, because you died to sin and are alive to God (Romans 6:11). Because Jesus died to sin and is alive to God, and you’re in Him.

That’s how God gets it done. He puts you in Jesus and Jesus in you, like a sponge in water. United closeness. Union with Christ.

The Spirit who lives in you, who is your very life, will direct and guide you by the peace in your heart (Colossians 3:15).

This may seem confusing, but it gets clearer as we learn our new identity by learning His identity, because He lives in us.

Want to know how healed and loved you are? Look at the life of Jesus, and believe it’s all yours.
Want to be happy? Learn what makes Jesus happy, and walk the same path. Adopt the same priorities. Look to Him for everything. He is your life.

Milk and Solid Food (1 Corinthians 3:1-2)

Paul says he gave them milk, not solid food, because they weren’t ready for it. And even now they still weren’t ready, because they were still fleshly.

“Brothers.” These are God’s saints. Real Christians. They started their relationship with God by grace, through humility and faith. But they drifted from that beginning and tried to grow by the flesh.

What is the flesh?

It’s what “I” can do or produce from my own:

mind (decisions),
will (efforts),
emotions (feelings).

Not able to receive

They weren’t able to receive solid food because they’d filled up on spiritual junk food. They had no appetite for the truth, because they’d found a message more appealing to their feelings, minds and egos.

That’s the trap we fall into:

“You can do it.”
“It all depends on you.”
“What you do, what you think, what you want, how hard you try, how much you want it.”

Nothing depends on you. It’s all a gift of grace, and it’s already been given.

Paul asked the Galatians: who bewitched you? Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified right before your eyes. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by the flesh (Galatians 3:1-3)?

Grace is for growing. That truth is life-changing.

What are milk and solid food?

Hebrews says believers who should be teachers by now still need someone to teach them the basics again. They need milk, not solid food. Everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, like a baby. But solid food is for the mature, who through practice have trained themselves to discern good and evil (Hebrews 5:12-14). And Hebrews goes on to describe the next stage of life as fruitfulness (Hebrews 6:1-12).

Milk is what we learn first: justification, starting a relationship with God by faith.
Solid food is growing in that relationship with God: becoming fruitful.

What is fruit? The fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). How does fruit happen? By abiding in the Vine (John 15:4-5).

Grace is sufficient for both. We never have to earn either one. They’re always a free gift of grace.

We become “unskilled in the word of righteousness” when we teach or believe that we have to produce this stuff by our own effort, instead of by faith in God’s grace.

Paul couldn’t get them to the fruitful stage because they insisted on living by the flesh.

Fleshy vs. fleshly

Paul actually uses two slightly different Greek words in verses 1 and 3:

In verse 1, he calls them fleshy, infants who still think the flesh is their identity.
In verse 3, he calls them fleshly, still depending on the flesh, even though it’s dead.

They were acting as if their spiritual lives depended on the flesh, when they didn’t. As long as we depend on ourselves, we’ll fail. We have to renounce all self-dependence and depend on Christ for everything.

Evidence of Fleshly Fruit (1 Corinthians 3:3-4)

Since there was jealousy and fighting among them, weren’t they acting fleshly, behaving like mere humans?

“You’re acting like mere men. Fleshly men.”
But that’s not really who you are.
Hypocrisy is pretending to be something you’re not. For us, that means acting sinful when we’re not. We’re holy and righteous, because Jesus is holy, and He’s in us.

When some said, “I follow Paul,” and others said, “I follow Apollos,” they were showing that they were still looking to people instead of Jesus, still thinking like the world. (Paul will deal with that next.)

Only listen to the voice of Jesus when you think about your identity.

Grace Takeaway

You don’t have two natures fighting for control. Your old self was crucified with Christ, and Christ now lives in you. Stop living like a beggar in the King’s castle. The same grace that started your life with God is the grace that grows it.

All 1 Corinthians notes | Seeing the Church Through Grace Glasses →

One Identity, Not Two