1 Corinthians 3:1. And I, brethren, &c.— The next matter of boasting, which the faction made use of to give the pre-eminence and preference to their leader above St. Paul, seems to have been this, That their new teacher had led them farther, and given them a deeper insight into the mysteries of the Gospel than St. Paul had done. To take away their glorying on this account, St. Paul tells them, that they were carnal, and not capable of those more advanced truths, or any thing beyond the first principles of Christianity which he had taught them; and though another had come and watered what he had planted, yet neither planter nor waterer could assume to himself any glory thence, because it was God alone that gave the increase. But whatever new doctrines theymight pretend to receive from their magnified new Apostle, yet no man could lay any other foundation in a Christian church, but what he (St. Paul) had said; viz. that Jesus is the Christ; and therefore there was no reason to glory in their teachers, becauseuponthis foundation they possibly might build false or unsound doctrines, for which they should receive no thanks from God, though, continuing in the faith, they might be saved. Some of the hay and stubble which this leader brought into the church at Corinth, he seems particularly to point at, ch. 1Co 3:16-17 viz. their defiling the church by retaining, and as it may be supposed patronizing, the fornicator, who should have been turned out; ch. 1 Corinthians 5:7-13. He further adds, that these extolled heads of their parties were at best but men, and none of the church ought to glory in men; for even Paul, and Apollos, and Peter, and all the other preachers of the Gospel, were for the use, and benefit, and glory of the church, as the church was for the glory of Christ. Moreover, he shews them, that they ought not to be puffed up on account of these their new teachers, to the undervaluing of him, though it should be true, that they had learned more from them, than from himself,—for these reasons: 1. Because all the preachers of the Gospel are but stewards of the mysteries of God; and therefore they ought not to be some of them magnified and extolled, and others depressed and blamed by their hearers here, till Christ their Lord come; and then he, knowing how they have behaved themselves in their ministry, will give them their reward. Besides, these stewards have nothing but what they have received, and therefore no glory belongs to them for it. 2. Because if these leaders were (as was pretended) Apostles, honour and outward affluence here would not have been their portion, the Apostles being appointed to want, contempt, and persecution. 3. They ought not to be honoured, followed, and gloried in, as Apostles, because they had not the power of miracles, which he intended shortly to come and shew they had not, ch. 1 Corinthians 3:1.-iv. 20. See Locke.
As unto spiritual— According to some great commentators, spiritual is here opposed to carnal, as in ch. 1Co 2:14 it is to natural or animal; so that, according to them, we have here three sorts of men: 1. Carnal; that is to say, such as are swayed by fleshly passions and interests: 2. Animal; i.e. such as seek wisdom, or a way to happiness, only by the strength and guidance of their own natural parts, without any supernatural light coming from the Spirit of God;—by reason, without revelation;—by philosophy, without Scripture: 3. Spiritual; i.e. such as seek their direction to happiness, not in the dictates of natural reason and philosophy, but in the revelations of the Spirit of God in the Holy Scriptures. By babes in Christ, are meant such as had not their understandings yet fully opened to the true grounds of the Christian religion, but retained a great many childish thoughts about it, as appeared by their divisions,—one being for the doctrine of his master Paul; another for that of his master Apollos; which, if they had been spiritual, that is, had looked upon the doctrine of the Gospel to have come solely from the Spirit of God, and to be had only from revelation, they could not have done: for then all human mixtures of any thing derived either from Paul or Apollos, or any other man, would have been wholly excluded. But they, in these divisions, professed to hold their religion, one from one man, and another from another; and were thereupon divided into parties. This, he tells them, was to be carnal, and to walk as men,—to be led by principles purely human; i.e. to found their religion upon men's natural parts and discoveries; whereas the Gospel was wholly built upon divine revelation, and the application of it by the Spirit of God, and nothing else; and thence alone those who were spiritual took it. See Locke.

1 Corinthians 3:2. I have fed you with milk— "You being such babes, such mere beginners in the divine life, I could not go so far as I desired in the great doctrines of the Christian religion; but was obliged to content myself with instructing you in the first principles, the more obvious and easy doctrines of it. I could not apply myself to you, as to spiritual men, who could compare spiritual things with spiritual,—one part of Scripture with another." See Hebrews 12:14. Locke and Blackwall's Sacred Classics, vol. 1: p. 72.

1 Corinthians 3:3. And walk as men?— Speaking according to man, signifies, speaking according to the principles of natural reason, in contradistinction to revelation. See ch. 1 Corinthians 9:8. Gal 1:11 and so walking according to man must here be understood. See on 1 Corinthians 3:1.

1 Corinthians 3:4. I am of Apollos— From this verse, compared with ch. 1Co 4:6 it may be no improbable conjecture, says Mr. Locke, that the division in his church was owing to two opposite parties, whereof the one adhered to St. Paul, the other stood up for their head, a false Apostle, who opposed St. Paul. For the Apollos whom St. Paul mentions here was one, as he tells us, 1Co 3:6 who came in, and watered what he had planted; that is, when St. Paul had planted a church at Corinth, this Apostle got into it, and pretended to instruct them further, and boasted of his performances among them, of which St. Paul takes notice again, 2 Corinthians 10:15-16. Now the Apollos whom he here speaks of, he himself tells us, ch. 1Co 4:6 was another man, under that borrowed name. It is true, St. Paul in his Epistles to the Corinthians, generally speaks of these his opposers in the plural number; but it is to be remembered, that he speaks thus of himself also; which, as it was the less invidious way, with regard to himself, so it was the softer way towards his opposer; though he seems to intimate plainly, that it was one leader, who was set up against him. Others, differing in sentiment from Mr. Locke, think it much more probable from ch. 1Co 4:6 that St. Paul chose to make use of the name of Apollos, that he might give no offence, and to shew that he should lament and condemn any division among them, though it were in favour of himself, or the dearest friend he had in the world;—and they cannot think that St. Paul would have described this supposed false Apostle as watering his plantation which he rather wasted; of have spoken of himself, and that messenger of Satan as one. See 1 Corinthians 3:8.

1 Corinthians 3:5. Who then is Paul, &c.— Some would read this and the following verse thus: Who is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed?—And as the Lord gave to every man, I planted, Apollos watered, &c. See Markland on Lysias, p. 560.

1 Corinthians 3:8. Are one— This is another cogent argument against division,—that though their labours were different, and their rewards proportionable, yet they had in the general one office, and were employed as workers-together by God, to plant the seeds of grace and holiness in the souls of men, and to bring them to perfection. St. Paul here introduces an excellent discourse of the happy consequences of faithfulness in the ministerial work, and the aweful account of it to be given up to God:—a subject familiar to his own mind; and so proper for their teachers, that if it render the epistle something less regular, it balances the account, by rendering it so much more useful. See Craddock's Apostol. Hist. p. 156.

1 Corinthians 3:9. For we are labourers together with God— For we are the fellow-labourers of God. Doddridge.

1 Corinthians 3:16. Know ye not that ye are the temple, &c.— "I told you that ye are God's building, 1 Corinthians 3:9. I now observe more than that;—Ye are the temple of God, in which his Spirit dwells." Many of the first ancient writers represent a holy mind as the temple of God, and speak in the highest and strongest terms of the obligations men are under to keep his temples inviolate and unpolluted. Indeed, we cannot conceive a more forcible argument for internal purity, than this, which leads us to consider our bodies as the temple of God, inhabited by his ever-blessed and most holy Spirit. The word rendered defile, in the next verse, more properly signifies destroy, and should be so read, to keep up the contrast. See Elsner, Wetstein, Calmet, and Ostervald's useful treatise "on Uncleanness."

1 Corinthians 3:17. If any man— It is not unreasonable to think, that, by any man, St. Paul designs one particular man;—namely, the false Apostle, who, it is probable, by the strength of his party, supporting and retaining the fornicator mentioned, ch. 5 in the church, had defiled it. We may look upon most of the disorders in this church as owing to the false Apostle; which is the reason why St. Paul sets himself so much against him in both these Epistles, and makes it a principal business of them to draw the Corinthians off from this leader; judging, as is probable, that the church could not be reformed, so long as that person was in credit and had a party among them. See Locke.

1 Corinthians 3:18. Let no man deceive himself.— It was not necessary for St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, who knew the matter of fact, to particularize what it was wherein the craftiness of the person here mentioned had appeared: therefore it was left us to guess; and possibly we shall not be much out, if we take it to be the keeping the fornicator from censure, so much insisted on by St. Paul, ch. 5. That by σοφος, or wise,—[seemeth to be wise in this world] the Apostle means a cunning man in business, is plain from his quotation in the next verse, where the wise spoken of are the crafty. "If any man seemeth to himself or others wise in worldly wisdom, so as to pride himself in his parts and dexterity in compassing his purpose, let him renounce all this wisdom, that he may become truly wise in embracing and owning no other knowledge than the simplicity of the Gospel." See Locke. Some would render the latter part of this verse, If any one be wise among you, let him be a fool in this world, that he may become wise. See Bengelius, and 1 Timothy 6:17.