This is the brightest bolt of lightning that can strike in the darkness of your life, whether now or till you're dead. John Piper
So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future - all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. 1 Corinthians 3:21-23
The saints (yes, the Holy Spirt calls them saints!) in the church in Corinth were proud and jealous and boasting in men instead of in God alone. So Paul seeks to turn them away from this pride and sin by reminding them that, in Christ, they own everything. They don't need to boast or fear because "everything is yours."
The apostles and teachers of the faith belong to them and serve them for their everlasting good!
The world belongs to them - all knowledge, all joys, all pains, all things in the world are theirs and serve them for their everlasting good!
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5
For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. Romans 4:13
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32
. . . as having nothing, yet possessing everything. 2 Corinthians 6:10
Life belongs to them - everything holy, good, righteous, and satisfying - everything that makes you happy in life - it's yours. Even all that's bad and painful in life - even your own sin - is working together for your everlasting good!
Death is yours. Death only serves you now since Jesus has defeated death. Death will only bring you into the full enjoyment of everything that already belongs to you. Death will bring you into the presence of God where there's fulness of joy and pleasures forevermore!
The present is yours. You own it all. You will not miss out on anything. Don't fret. Don't worry. All things are now, in the present, working together for your good!
The future is yours. You have the most glorious, happy future awaiting you! The best days of your life are always in the future! As Tolkien wrote, "all things sad will become untrue." God will wipe away every tear from your eyes - there will be no more sin, no more death, no more pain, and no more tears. There will be no more losses to that last enemy, death. There will be no more sickness and decay. There will be no more broken relationships. There will be no more loneliness. Everything is yours!
If you are a Christian, trusting in God, trusting in His Son, the God-Man, and believing His Gospel, all this is true because you are Christ's and Christ is God's. You have all of this if you are in Christ by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to the Bible alone, all for the glory of God alone!
I considered how these glorious truths might be applied to those who are suffering this Christmas season because of the loss of a loved one or the loss of a romantic relationship or the lack of a relationship. We might be tempted to find our blessedness in those relationships we've lost. On 1 Corinthians 3:21-23, Charles Hodge wrote:
To "boast about" any person or thing is to trust in him or it as the ground of confidence or as the source of honor or blessedness. It is to regard ourselves as blessed because of our relationship to it. Thus people are said to boast about the Lord or the cross because God, or Christ as crucified, is regarded as the ground of confidence and the source of blessedness.
How does knowing you own everything keep you from boasting and from finding your "source of honor or blessedness" in the people or things of this world? If you own everything, you will be happy and content, so there would be no need to ever boast (except in the cross!) because the weak, insecure need to "be better than others" and boast is gone.
So in what ways do we as followers of Jesus Christ own everything? How is everything yours?
Everything is yours in the sense that all the knowledge, fellowship, relationships, oneness, joy, happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, peace, and rest that you fear you are missing out on in this life will finally and fully (beyond your wildest imagination!) be found in God and in your new, glorified life in the New Heavens and the New Earth. You will not miss out on anything! You know that your "source of honor or blessedness" is absolutely guaranteed and sure in the life to come!
But this promise is not just future. All thing are yours now! This means everything belongs to you in the sense that everything serves you (you own things for the purpose of them serving/helping/supporting you), and God is using everything to work together for your everlasting good and to conform you into the image of Christ, which is your greatest good! (Romans 8:28: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3)
So, are you missing a dearly departed husband or wife, father or mother, son or daughter this Christmas and tempted to "boast" in them in the form of hopeless despair as your lost source of honor and blessedness? Take heart. Though they are dead, they still belong to you. All things are yours! In all the ways God wants you to still have them, they still belong to you. In Christ, you had them just as long as God wanted you to have them to make you and them more like Jesus. God's taking them away from you is also part of His plan to give you everything God wants you to have, especially that you may be conformed more and more into the image of Christ. All the joy and happiness you had with them - all the wonderful memories together - are yours. And these were just a tiny foretaste of the joys you will have in the life to come! All of that joy and happiness and satisfaction you had with them belongs to you in the future - with even more passion - even more intensity - even more depth and joy! It will be even better throughout all eternity in the presence of God! And if they too are in Christ, you will someday enjoy them forever in a new and even better way for all eternity. In all the ways God knows best, they still belong to you and serve you in the best way by making you more like Jesus. Because everything is yours!
Are you missing a romantic relationship because of a breakup this Christmas and tempted to "boast" in him or her in the form of hopeless despair as your lost source of honor and blessedness? Take heart, there is a sense in which that person you lost still belongs to you. "Everything they were, or are, or will be (See John Piper's comments on Cephas), everything they say and do, is being woven into the tapestry of your life with perfect skill to make it beautiful and complete." (Piper) In Christ, you had them just as long as God wanted you to be with them to make you and them more like Jesus. All the sweet times of fellowship, joy, times of prayer, study of God's Word - that's all yours! It all made you more like Jesus! And something better is coming! All the joys you had with them; all the happiness they brought you; all the joy you received in bringing them joy; all the satisfaction and hopes and dreams you had for that relationship - it's all yours. Because you have all that and something better in Christ. And you will get all that joy and all that happiness and all that fellowship and all that satisfaction - deeper, fuller, better, and forever in the life to come in God's presence where there's fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore! Because everything is yours!
You are not going to miss out on anything! All things are yours! Everything is yours! There's no need to fear or fret or worry. There's no need to be anxious. In Christ, everything is yours! Rest in Him!
Another thing: things present are ours. Now, folks, I’m not going to tell you what that is, that’s everything! We’d be here all day. But it’s all the objects, all the people, all the situations, all the events, and all the experiences of life – listen – are for your blessing. You say, “Even the bad ones?” Yeah, that’s part of the “all things that work together for good.”
Listen, Lenski says – this is good. He says, “It is as if all things in life are a multitude of servants surrounding us on bended knees. They hold out their precious offerings to us. Some of these servants, like pain and injury and sickness and grief, may at first have a strange look to us who do not know our royalty sufficiently. It is God who commissions them all and makes each one bring us some blessing, so that as kings unto God, we shall lack nothing.”
Do you know that pain, and grief, and sorrow, and all that stuff serves you? It serves you. It’s yours. “All things work together for good.” All things present, all things present. And if you would compare that with Romans 8:38 and 39, you will see that there is nothing in the present that can separate you from the love of Christ, right? Not things present, not things to come.
What Paul means by ‘everything’ is quite astonishing, for it includes not only ministers but also life and death and the present and the future. Everything is a gift to the Corinthians because they belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God, and thus everything is theirs in Christ. Therefore, boasting in leaders is foolish, because those who do such are satisfied with lesser things when the whole world is theirs . . . In verse 22 the ‘all things’ that belong to the Corinthians are listed. Paul begins by naming himself, Apollos and Cephas. In naming these ministers, Paul circles back to 1:12 where he indicated that the divisions in the church centre on the evaluation of Paul, Apollos and Cephas. Here he explains that such divisions are foolish, for why select one above the other when all of them are for the benefit of the Corinthians! The Corinthians, in their divisions, are satisfied with so little when God offers them so much more. Paul goes further, using language reminiscent of Romans 8:38 where he affirms that nothing can separate believers from Christ’s love, not even ‘death’, ‘life’, angelic powers, the present nor the future. In 1 Corinthians, the world, life and death, and the present and the future are mentioned. The parallel in Romans helps us understand the point being made here since it is evident in Romans 8:35–39 that some of the things mentioned bring suffering to believers. Paul is not claiming, then, that everything in life is pleasant for the Corinthians. Instead, his point is that everything in life is for their benefit. As Romans 8:37 says, believers ‘are more than conquerors’ in everything they face, which is another way of saying that God ‘works’ everything ‘for the good of those who love him’ (Rom. 8:28), and the good is being ‘conformed to the image of his Son’ (Rom. 8:29). The Corinthians were riven by divisions and failed to comprehend that falling prey to divisions was mistaken since every minister and every circumstance was for their benefit. In verse 23 the basis for the stunning affirmations of verse 22 is given. The Corinthians do not enjoy these promises inherently; the promises are granted to them because they belong to Christ, and Jesus Christ is the enthroned king at God’s right hand, the one who reigns over the universe (Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:20–22). The rule of Jesus Christ over the world and his triumph over death finds its roots in his relationship to God. It is because he belongs to God that he was victorious over death, and thus God exalted him as the obedient one to his right hand as Lord over all (Phil. 2:6–11; cf. 1 Cor. 15:28) . . . The Corinthians were inclined towards the world’s wisdom because it gave them status and honour in Graeco-Roman society. The Lord, however, will frustrate and bring to nothing what the world prizes. Ironically, the Corinthians failed to see all that God had for them in Christ. They were already reigning with Christ in the sense that everything in life was for their benefit.
Jonathan Edwards wrote:
By virtue of the believer’s union with Christ, he does in fact possess all things. But it may be asked, how does he possess all things? What is he the better for it? How is a true Christian so much richer than other people? To answer this, I’ll tell you what I mean by “possessing all things.” I mean that God three in one, all that he is, and all that he has, and all that he does, all that he has made or done—the whole universe, bodies and spirits, earth and heaven, angels, humans and devils, sun, moon and stars, land and sea, fish and fowls, all silver and gold, kings and potentates—are as much the Christian’s as the money in his pocket, the clothes he wears, the house he dwells in, or the victuals he eats; yes, properly his, advantageously his, by virtue of the union with Christ; because Christ, who certainly does possess all things, is entirely his: so that the Christian possesses it all, more than a wife the share of the best and dearest husband, more than the hand possesses what the head does. It is all his. Every atom in the universe is managed by Christ so as to be most to the advantage of the Christian, every particle of air or every ray of the sun; so that he in the other world, when he comes to see it, shall sit and enjoy all this vast inheritance with surprising, amazing joy. ("Miscellany ff," in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 13, The "Miscellanies," a-500, ed. Thomas A. Schafer (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 183; language slightly updated.)
Merry Christmas!
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