Essay on 1 Corinthians 9:27

Earlier, I began to offer Installments of Reworked Segments of an Essay on 1 Corinthians 9:27. However, now I simply direct you to the full essay titled “'Lest after preaching to others I become disqualified' Grace and Warning in Paul’s Gospel (1 Corinthians 9:23-27)."

Here is my thesis.

We will understand that Paul administers this warning to himself and to us without simultaneously calling upon us to doubt that God will preserve us, his children, safely to the end but might relinquish his grasp upon us with the result that we will perish in the Last Day. Instead of subverting his own and our confident assurance that God, who has begun his work of redeeming grace in us, will preserve us in his grace to the end, Paul’s warning is wholly compatible with his affirmations of confidence in God’s preserving his own people unto final salvation. Precisely because the apostle believes in the power of God’s redeeming grace to secure his children, Paul is also confident that warnings for him and for us are essential to the gospel’s call upon us. As it is indispensable in a foot race not only to leap from the starting blocks but also to run steadfastly to the goal, so God’s saving grace, announced to us in the gospel, beckons us with urgency to run faithfully to the end after we have left the starting blocks of initial belief. If we do not run faithfully, we will fail to attain unto the prize, the eternal wreath of life everlasting. By means of warnings, such as we hear in 1 Corinthians 9:27, the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ reiterates the inseparable continuity between the beginning of belief in Christ Jesus and obtaining salvation that awaits us at the finish line. The continuity of belief that lays hold of eternal life in the Last Day runs through the travails, the troubles, the tribulations of this present life, both externally imposed and internally experienced, as the gospel requires faithful endurance from us in order that we might lay hold of salvation in the age to come.

Installments of Reworked Segments of an Essay on 1 Corinthians 9:27 (1)

On Easter Morning I completed and submitted a requested essay on 1 Corinthians 9:27. The request came because of my part in writing The Race Set Before Us. I intend to offer a few blog installments that derive from my essay. I have not yet determined how many installments there will post. Eventually, I may have opportunity to post a link to the essay. We shall see.

The passage I address in my essay is 1 Corinthians 9:23-27. I connect verse 23 with verses 24-27 in order to preserve the coherence of Paul’s concern with spiritually benefitting from the gospel he preaches.

And I do all things on account of the gospel, in order that I might be a fellow partaker of it. Don’t you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize. Run in such a manner that you might win. And everyone who competes in the arena engages in rigorous self-discipline in all things. Therefore they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we do it for an imperishable one. Therefore, I run in such a manner as not to be aimless; I box in such a manner as not to punch the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, lest after I have preached to others, I myself should be a reprobate (1 Cor 9:23-27).

Interpretations of the passage diverge in two opposite but shortsighted directions based upon a preemptive question that biases responses. Does Paul fear that he might not persevere in salvation but perish and be lost in perdition in the end? This question dominates discussions of the passage, whether the response given is affirmative or negative. Interpretations focus upon the meaning and use of adokimos (ἀδόκιμος) in 9:27. Does adokimos refer to eternal perishing? If so, how? If not, then to what does it refer? Expositors who answer with the negative tend to fasten upon another question: Is Paul simply afraid that he might lose a reward that has nothing to do with salvation itself?

A more basic and more foundational question needs to be posed and answered. This question tends to get pushed aside and ignored in favor of the simplistic and reductionistic question that dominates. The question that we should ask concerning Paul’s passage is: What is the function that Paul assigns his athletic imagery in 1 Corinthians 9:23-27? This is the question that guided the exegetical and theological work that Tom Schreiner and I did on warnings and admonitions in The Race Set Before Us. It is the question that should constrain us first before we yield to the popular and simplistic question that I mention above.

Before we pose the fundamental question concerning 1 Corinthians 9:23-27 and offer the interpretation that persuades me that best explains Paul’s passage, however, I will identify other interpretations, that are guided by the popular simplistic question, and I will critically engage them.

Subsequent entries will address the Loss of Eternal Salvation View and then variations on what I call Extra-Salvation Loss Views. Critique of the former will be briefer than that of the latter. I will address three variations on Extra-Salvation Loss Views: (1) Loss of Eternal Rewards View; (2) Loss of Testimony for the Gospel View; and (3) Loss of Divine Approval of Apostleship View.