No Other Foundation

February 20

Read: 1 Corinthians 3

Paul, expressing his irritation with the carnality of the Corinthian believers, uses a number of analogies to push his point home. He begins by describing them as babes, dependent on milk and unprepared for solid food (vs. 1-2). He progresses to the idea of husbandmen or farmers, telling them that we are all just God’s helpers. He is the one responsible for any increase (vs. 6-8). Finally, he uses a construction analogy, telling them in vs. 9-11:

“For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.
According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

Paul stresses first that the only foundation is Christ. Jesus is not the best foundation, He is the only foundation. When Paul preached the gospel at Corinth, he was giving them the only possible basis for a relationship with God. Jesus taught the same thing, saying in John 14:6 that He was “the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the father except by me (Jesus).”

The exclusivity of Christ is affirmed again and again in the New Testament by such passages as Acts 4:12, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.” And in 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

For those of us who are Christians, who have the proper foundation, Paul goes on to warn us concerning how we build on that foundation. Every work will be tested. Those of the right sort will stand and all others will be burned away. If the foundation is solid, though, even though the works are lost, the soul is secure. The foundation is the key. The only foundation is Jesus Christ.

In Matthew 7, at the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses those whose religion was on the wrong foundation. He said there would come a day when they would cry out to Him, “Lord, Lord!”. His response? I never knew you.

You can have a lot of religion. But if the foundation is wrong, nothing else will matter.

Just a servant,

Bro. Tom