NOTES for Co1 3:10-23

Continuing the discussion of Christianity and Christian life, Paul singles out the main thing that constitutes its essence. The question is the extent to which a person shares in God's breath, the Holy Spirit, and the extent to which this breath determines his life. It is in this sense that the apostle calls Christians "temples of God."

Indeed, the human being was originally created by God in order to remain in constant fellowship with Him, a fellowship that included the possibility of the presence of God's "breath of life" in the flow of human life, which in the Bible is called the "soul." A person's "soul" (and therefore the person himself) is alive insofar as God's "breath of life" gives it life. This has always been true, and after Christ's coming, for Christians this "breath of life," God's breath, was revealed in all fullness as the breath of the Kingdom, of which every Christian is an inhabitant, if, of course, we are not speaking of nominal Christianity.

The main question of Christianity comes down to the measure of the presence of God's breath, the breath of the Kingdom, in the life of the Christian: to how much a person receives this breath and to what extent it determines the everyday course of his life. The outcome of a person's Christian path also depends on the measure of the presence of God's breath in his life. God, of course, rejects no one, and Christ will lovingly receive everyone who turns to Him, but with what will a person come to the end of his earthly path? What, in the apostle's words, will he have had time and ability to build in his life for the Kingdom?

A Christian's earthly life becomes the answer to this question. The main question of Christianity is not reduced to what to do and what not to do, but to how to live. It is not a question of external activity, even the most "correct" activity, but a question of the spiritual quality of existence. And that depends entirely and completely on one thing: on one's relationship with God and with Christ. On how far our human will follows the will of Christ, how far it is one with God's will. The greater the gap between our human will and God's will, the less God's breath, the breath of the Kingdom, determines our life.

Only this matters; everything else is secondary. This includes theological disputes, religious disagreements and divergences, and the success or failure of particular church parties and groups. There is one foundation - Christ Himself. And any activity is important only insofar as it allows a person to build life on the true foundation, to change its quality and allow the breath of the Kingdom to determine that quality. Everything that distracts from the main thing is better excluded from life. That is more reliable, because our earthly life is not endless and often ends earlier than we expect.

Anyone familiar with the Gospel knows the parable of Jesus about the corner stone, with which He compares Himself, by implying by house this messianic Kingdom, which He brought to the world. And Paul speaks about Christ, as about the corner stone, on which was founded the Church. As we see, such a reminder was convenient in all the times, without excluding also the early Christian era. One could think that for every Christian this truth must be completely obvious. But all the same already in the time of Paul everything was not also simple. But why so? Maybe, because of this religiosity, which then penetrated into the life if not of the whole Church, then at least of its Jewish component? But it is not indeed even about religion and not of religiosity, but about certain disputes and conflicts in the Corinthian church, perhaps threatening its very existence.

Of course, there would have been a lot of Hebrew in the Corinthian church (the Jewish community of Corinth was one of the biggest in the Roman Empire), and the relations of the Jews, as is known, with the recent heathen were not so simple in the communities of church. However one can think that the tendency to disputes and the quarrels manifested, independently of its origin. It is difficult to say exactly which kind were these disputes and quarrels; it is only clear that the community of church divided into a certain kind of theological parties, which claimed if not for the exclusivity, then at least, for the priority. Here is, in these conditions the apostle reminds of this only foundation of the Church, which one should not look for replacement. And the problem here is not simply in the fact that to dispute for priorities moreover, Who is the real head of the Church, is at least ridiculous.

The problem is again in the fact that, what is the Church, on what depends its life. Disputes about superiority, about priorities, even on the orthodoxy of certain opinions usually begin when the disputers, at the height of their disputes forget about their Head and begin to think that the fate of the Church really depends on the outcome of their discussion, sometimes very violent. Perhaps, in certain cases such would have been the case, if the Church was an ordinary religious organization, the fate of which is defined by its leaders and recognized authorities. And it is the problem here, the fact is that the Church is not an religious organization, but the body of Christ.

And only its Head can define its fate. And the leaders and the authorities can determine, in most, only the fate of certain structures and institutes "of church", and more exactly the fringes of the church. And the apostle calls his coreligionists not to forget it. And to not transform the body of Christ into club of debates, in which each claims to the supremacy, having forgotten the real Head.

Paul's words about Christians, as the Temple, where dwells the breath of God, can seem at first sight either an exaggeration, or an allegory. Of course, even before the coming into the world of Christ, man had the possibility of coming to the Temple, of approaching the altar and to be sanctified, without such sanctification the people of God would not be the people of God. And before the coming into the world of Christ, the prophets felt completely real in their heart the breath ("the spirit") of God, who revealed to them what they later witness to their contemporaries.

But all the same nobody before the coming of Christ had compared man with the Temple: because man could only join this God's presence, which is revealed to the people in the Temple, but without containing it. But as seen, after the coming into the world of Christ, everything changed, and first of all because He brought the Kingdom into the world. The same Kingdom, to which the way is now opened to anyone, who is ready to trust Christ and to follow Him. But indeed, the Kingdom is nothing else than sacred spaces, which formerly, before the coming into the world of the Christ, was limited by this physical space, which God Himself indicated, as the place of His presence.

Now, according to the words of the Savior, all the restrictions have been lifted: "that" or "this" "mountain" is not already important any more, because the breath of God the day of the Pentecost penetrates the world, as a whirlwind, covering it completely. And every inhabitant of the Kingdom is not only a person who approached the altar, entering in the sacred space, but also the carrier of this breath, as the prophets, who felt it as something internal. But the prophets felt the breath of God only sometimes, from time to time, at moments of spiritual ecstasy, but for the inhabitant of the Kingdom such a state is in fact the norm of the spiritual life: because it is impossible to be in the Kingdom and not to be involved in this breath.

Well then it turns out that every Christian becomes himself the likeness of the Temple: because now it becomes the receptacle of this God's presence, which was formerly connected with the Temple, with the altar. This fact is particularly important in the context of this mission, which leads the Church in our world being transformed, but not yet transformed: to be not only a witness, but also a carrier of the Kingdom so that it, by remaining reality "not of this world", would touch all the same the not transformed world, transforming it.

In such a situation every Christian, without being separated from the world, has to remain nevertheless in a certain sense a stranger for the world: because he has to live according to the laws of the Kingdom, and this breath of God, because he, as inhabitant of the Kingdom, is involved, he has to protect against profanation as carefully, as the servants of the Temple protected against this the altar of God. Otherwise the Christian, in fact, will stop being a Christian and a part of the Church as the “body of Christ". And the apostle understands of course that perfectly.

Christianity is not belief that God exists, or even that Christ died for us. Christianity is the life of the Holy Spirit in us (recall St. Seraphim of Sarov's words that the goal of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit). "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" (Acts 19:2) - that is the key question addressed to our faith (not to our reason and not to our feelings). And if we answer "yes," then our attitude toward both ourselves and other people changes radically.

A temple is a place where God dwells, and since He dwells in me, my body becomes a temple. How do I treat this temple, what goes on in it, and is anything happening in it that is completely incompatible with God's presence? Has it become a "house of prayer" (Matt. 21:13), has it been swept clean, are lamps being lit in it, is everything in it "decently and in order" (1 Cor. 14:40)?

The Bible repeats several times this simple idea in various forms; the cause of this, is probably not only our unwillingness to understand it, but also its practical importance. We can give many explanations to these words. The best of them is given by God Himself, when he speaks about the construction of the building without taking into account the peculiarities of the ground ("the house upon the sand and the house upon the rock", Matt. 7:24-27). It is clear that, when we limit ourselves with the frames of this world, not thinking about its Creator, any of our claims upon wisdom is nothing else than ridiculous.

It is important that from this idea of the apostle Paul, we can make a practical conclusion, and not only one. Man cannot surmount his boundedness without God's assistant, but he {the man} can remember about that and seek for this help and guidance. And the God, Who said, He is the Good Shepherd, will not leave you alone. And besides: the life, to which God calls you, can look piteous from the point of view of "the wisdom of this world ".

The wisdom of this world speaks up the sense and the purpose of life in a very diverse way: the spectrum extends itself from primitive enjoyments to the liberation from any bondage. But this kind of purpose of life, like the Holy Spirit, for the "earth’s" wisdom is inscrutable, and there isn’t another authentic purpose... That is why you should not take the words of the apostle as regret (" ah, we understand nothing "), but as a practical recommendation to be guided by God's Wisdom. It is obvious, how much Apostle Paul is faithful in this to all millennium tradition of the Old Testament.