Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you.
Irony. Translate х eedee (G2235) kekoresmenoi (G2880)], 'Already ye are filled full (with spiritual food), already ye are rich, ye have made yourselves kings, without us.' Ye act as if ye needed no more to "hunger after righteousness," as though already ye had reached the "kingdom" for which Christians have to strive and suffer. Ye are so puffed up with your favourite teachers, and your own fancied attainments in knowledge through them, that ye feel like those 'filled full' at a feast, or as a "rich" man glorying in his riches; so ye feel ye can now do "without us," your first spiritual fathers (1 Corinthians 4:15). But before the "kingdom" and the "fulness of joy," at the marriage feast of the Lamb, must come the cross, to every true believer (2 Timothy 2:5; 2 Timothy 2:11-12): so the self-complacent Laodiceans (Revelation 3:17: cf. Hosea 12:8). Temporal riches tended at Corinth to generate this spiritual self-sufficiency: the contrast to the apostle's literal "hunger and thirst" (1 Corinthians 4:11) proves this.
I would ... ye did reign - `I would indeed' х ge (G1065)] that your kingdom had begun.
That we also might reign with you. Your spiritual prosperity would redound to us, your fathers in Christ (1 Corinthians 9:23). When you reach the kingdom, you shall be our "crown of rejoicing, in the presence of our Lord Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 2:19).
For. We may well desire that the time of 'reigning' were come, to relieve us from our present trials; "for," etc.
I think. The Corinthians (Greek, 1 Corinthians 3:18) 'thought' themselves "wise in this world." Paul, in contrast 'thinks' that God has set forth him and his fellow-ministers "last" - i:e., lowest. The apostles fared worse than even the prophets, who, though sometimes afflicted, were often honoured (2 Kings 5:9; 2 Kings 8:9).
Us the apostles. Paul includes Apollos with the apostles, in the broader sense. So Romans 16:7; 2 Corinthians 8:23. (Greek for 'messengers,' apostles.)
Appointed to death - as criminals condemned.
A spectacle - theatron: a theatrical spectacle. So Hebrews 10:33, "made a gazingstock by afflictions." Criminals "appointed to death" in Paul's time were exhibited as a gazingstock to amuse the populace in the amphitheater, and "set forth last" in the show, to fight with wild beasts, (cf. Tertullian, 'De Pudicitia,' 14:)
Unto the world - to the whole world, "the whole family in heaven and earth" (Ephesians 3:15). As Jesus was "seen of angels" (1 Timothy 3:16), so His followers are a spectacle to angels, who take a deep interest in the progressive steps of redemption. Paul tacitly implies that, though "last" in the world's judgment, Christ's servants are deemed by angels a spectacle worthy of their intense regard. However, since "the world" is comprehensive, and is applied in this letter to the evil especially (1 Corinthians 1:27-28), and since spectators (in the image from the amphitheater) gaze at the show with savage delight, rather than sympathy for the sufferers, bad angels are included, besides good. The generality of the term "angels," and its frequent use in a good sense, as well as Ephesians 3:10; 1 Peter 1:12, imply here good as well as bad angels, though, for the reasons above, the bad be principally meant.