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. 1 Corinthians 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. 1 Corinthians 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.