In the first five verses of chapter 10, Paul follows the
same general theme he has introduced in 9:24-27, where he
points out that in a race, all run, but one wins. Now, in
10:1-5 he turns to the ancient Israelites and points to the
blessings which all experienced; yet most failed to enter
the land, dying instead in the wilderness. The first
blessing was that of divine deliverance, or we might say
salvation. They were all under God’s protection. The cloud
spread itself over them as a mighty sheet, to defend them
from the burning sun in the sandy desert. They miraculously
crossed through the Red Sea, where the pursuing Egyptians
were drowned: it was a lane to them, but a grave to the
Egyptians, a proper type of our redemption by Christ, who
saves us by conquering and destroying His enemies and ours.
The second blessing, they were all baptized into Moses that
is, brought under obligation to Moses’ law and covenant, as
we are by baptism under the Christian law and covenant. It
was to them a typical baptism.
Israel’s third blessing was a counterpart to the Lord’s
Supper or communion. At communion, we eat of the bread, and
we drink of the wine. The bread symbolizes the sinless body
of our Lord. The wine symbolizes the blood that He shed on
our behalf, cleansing us from sin. The manna on which they
fed was a type of Christ crucified the bread that came down
from heaven. Their drink was a stream from a rock that
followed them in all their journeying in the wilderness; and
this rock was Christ, that is, in type and figure. He is the
rock on which the Christian church is built; and of the
streams, that issue from Him all believers drink, and are
refreshed.
Now all the Jews ate of this meat, and drink of this rock,
called here a spiritual rock, because it typified spiritual
things. These were great privileges. One would think that
this should have saved them; that all who ate of that
spiritual meat, and drank of that spiritual drink, should
have been holy and acceptable to God. Yet was it otherwise,
with many of them God was not well pleased, “for they were
laid low in the wilderness” (v 5).
Men may enjoy many and great spiritual privileges in this
world, and yet come short of eternal life. Many of those
“who were baptized into Moses in the cloud and sea, that is,
had their faith confirmed by these miracles, were yet
overthrown in the wilderness, and never saw the promised
land. Let none presume upon their great privileges, or
profession of the truth; these will not secure heavenly
happiness, nor prevent judgments here on earth.
God supernaturally provided for all of the true needs of all
the Israelites during their 40 years in the wilderness. He
divinely provided for their salvation, for their protection,
and for their guidance, by the cloud and by leading them
through the sea. God provided for the food and water that
these Israelites required while in the wilderness. Yet in
spite of all these divine provisions, the Israelites failed
to enter into the land. Only two of all those wilderness
wanderers ever entered the land of Canaan. Even Moses did
not enter the land. Even though God provided for their
essential needs, they did not please God, and they did not
enter the land. Many left Egypt; all partook of divine
blessings and privileges; only two entered the Promised
Land.
God’s blessings and privileges do not guarantee that one
will “win the race.” No one can ever say they failed to
finish the race because they were not adequately provided
for. Those who failed to enter into the Promised Land are
those who failed to appropriate God’s provisions. More than
this, those who failed to enter into the Promised Land were
those who lacked self-discipline, and who fell due to their
self-indulgence. In verses 6-10, Paul will identify those
specific sins that plagued the ancient Israelites, resulting
in their failure to please God and to possess the land of
Canaan. Each of these failures is a sin of self-indulgence,
and each point to a sin that is prominent in the Corinthian
church of Paul’s day, as well as in our church today.
In verse 1, Paul speaks of the Israelites as “our
forefather,” stressing the continuity of the people of God,
Old Testament and New. Paul stresses the importance of these
Old Testament stories as they directly bear on our lives.
The lesson taught in Israel’s wilderness wandering is that
we should not crave evil things. Craving evil things is that
self-indulgence which keeps us from “winning the race” and
which kept the Israelites from entering the land of Canaan.
Self-control is the discipline we impose upon ourselves so
that we can win the race. In verses 6-10, Paul links the
experience of the ancient Israelites directly to the
experience of the Corinthians and us. They lacked
self-control, and they craved evil things. Each of the
failures Paul highlights from the history of the first
generation of Israelites is a failure of self-indulgence.
Each of the failures is associated with eating and drinking,
with food. Food, that is, meat offered to idols, is still
the issue at hand, and Paul now shows us what we can learn
about food and self-indulgence from the Israelites of old.
The first offense of the Israelites, is craving evil things.
The second offense is idolatry. What is interesting about
Paul’s words in reference to idolatry is that when he refers
to the incident described in Exodus 32:1-6, he does not
mention the fashioning of the golden calf, but only the fact
of Israel’s sitting down “to eat and drink, and then their
rising up “to play.” The idolatry of the Israelites was
clearly prohibited, and it was a most evil thing that they
did. Paul seems intent upon pointing out not only their
idolatry, but also what accompanied it. Their idolatry was
associated with eating and drinking. They offered sacrifices
to the idol, and then they sat down to eat and to drink of
these foods, which were a part of the pagan sacrificial
service. Following this meal they arose to “play,” the play
referred to here is sexual in nature. Therefore, both the
eating and drinking of things involved with idol worship and
immorality were a part of Israel’s idolatry. One further
note, concerning this idol worship of the Israelites, which
Moses described in Exodus 32:25; in their worship, the
Israelites had cast aside all self-control. Their worship
was not only pagan in nature it was unrestrained indulgence.
There was no self-discipline.
The third offense of the Israelites is immorality. The
important thing to note here is that, once again, immorality
is viewed as a part of idolatry.
The fourth offense of the Israelites, according to Paul, was
that of “trying the Lord” or “putting the Lord to the test.”
There were at least ten such occasions when the Israelites
put the Lord to the test (Numbers 14:22). Putting God to the
test was demanding that God meet their perceived needs, in
the way that they demanded. The way the Israelites
determined God’s presence among them was by “counting their
blessings.” If they were thirsty, they demanded that God
satisfy that thirst, or they threatened not to believe He
was with them. According to the psalmist, they demanded that
God supply them with the food they craved to prove He was
among them. The specific instance Paul has in mind is
recorded in the Book of Numbers;
“And the people spoke against God and Moses, ‘Why have you
brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For
there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable
food.’ And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and
they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So
the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, because
we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the
Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us.’ And Moses
interceded for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses,
‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it
shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks
at it, he shall live.’ And Moses made a bronze serpent and
set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent
bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived
(Numbers 21:5-9).
Satan’s first temptation of our Lord was an effort to entice
Him to cause stones to become bread. God had led Him into
the wilderness to be without food or water. Satan’s
assumption was the same as the Israelites, if God was really
with someone, they would not lack anything they needed or
desired. Consequently, Satan sought to persuade our Lord to
make stones into bread. Later on in His wilderness testing,
Satan sought to convince our Lord to jump from the pinnacle
of the temple, reminding Him of the biblical assurance of
angelic protection. Jesus, still dealing with Satan from the
context of the early chapters of Deuteronomy, reminded Satan
of the evil of putting God to the test, of trying to make
God jump through our hoops. Once again, Israel’s sin of
putting God to the test was closely associated with eating
and drinking.
Finally, the offense of the Israelites is grumbling. In
Exodus 16, the grumbling of the Israelites was about food.
They recalled the “meat” they had eaten in Egypt and
grumbled against Moses and God for leading them into the
desert to starve them to death. The incident Paul seems to
have in mind is recorded in the 16th chapter of Numbers.
Korah, Dathan, Abiram and 250 others from among the leaders
of Israel rose up against Moses, protesting against his
prominence and authority. In the events that followed, the
earth swallowed up alive these rebels and their families
(16:28-35). God’s act of discipline, performed at the hand
of Moses, did not strike fear into the hearts of the people,
who on the following day grumbled against Moses, blaming him
for the deaths of those who had perished for their rebellion
(16:41). Only the intervention of Moses and Aaron stopped
the plague that commenced against the grumblers, but not
until after 14,700 perished (16:49).
The grumbling of the Israelites was occasioned by the
exercise of divine discipline. The Israelites blamed Moses
for the deaths of those who rebelled against God. In the
church at Corinth, a man is known to be guilty of living in
sin with his father’s wife, yet the Corinthians do nothing
about it. Rather than mourn over this sin, they are proud of
it (1 Corinthians 5:1-5). Paul, even though at a distance
from them, exercises discipline on his own, and urges the
church to follow his example. If the church at Corinth is
anything like the people of God in Moses’ day, they will
grumble over Paul’s response to sin in the church. Thus, the
Corinthians find yet another point of contact with the
ancient Israelites.
The real issue is not really about what is right, or even
about one’s rights; the issue is self-indulgence. All of the
problems exposed in the Corinthian church are really matters
of self-indulgence. The kind of legalistic self-abuse that
the ascetics and legalists impose does not really deal with
the flesh. In the first place, many practice a form of
“self-denial,” which is but a mere outward appearance. They
do it to appear spiritual and thus win the applause of their
peers, thereby indulging themselves in man’s praises. While
the outward appearance is that of self-control, the old
lusts are not dealt with, for they are still deeply imbedded
on the inside.
While self-abasement is futile and fraudulent, Paul is
consistent with the rest of the Bible in calling us to a
life of discipline. Discipleship is founded on discipline,
not only in its terminology, but also in its essence and
expression. When Jesus preached, He did not offer an easy
path nor did He promise earthly prosperity. He spoke of
taking up one’s cross and of selling one’s possessions and
hating one’s family. He was careful never to give the
impression that following Him was going to be easy. He did
not conceal the “cost of discipleship.” Jesus Himself
practiced the self-discipline and self-denial that He
advocated, and which Paul requires of the Corinthians. From
the very beginning, Jesus knew that He had come to this
earth to serve, rather than to be served, and He gave His
life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). He consistently
purposed to fulfill His calling and to carry out the will of
His Father.
Our Lord’s temptation in the wilderness, described by both
Matthew (4:1-11) and Luke (4:1-12), is best understood in
the light of those Old Testament events which Paul calls to
our remembrance. Throughout that 40-year period, the
Israelites were constantly stiff-necked and rebellious. They
continually sought to indulge their fleshly appetites, and
as a result, they often rebelled against God and were
stricken with various disciplinary plagues. Except for two
men, Joshua and Caleb, the entire generation that crossed
through the Red Sea failed to enter the land of Canaan.
Our Lord’s temptation in the wilderness was a deliberate
“replay of that period of time. As Israel was brought forth
from Egypt, so was our Lord (Matthew 2:13-15; Hosea 11:1).
As Israel was tested in the wilderness for forty years
(Deuteronomy 8:2), so was our Lord. However, where Israel
failed, our Lord triumphed. It is not by virtue of Israel’s
faithfulness that we have hope, but by virtue of our Lord’s
faithfulness. Israel was allowed to hunger and thirst
(Deuteronomy 8:3), but they craved evil things and demanded
that God give them what their fleshly appetites desired,
loathing His provision of manna and water. Jesus was content
to be hungry and to thirst, refusing to turn stones into
bread. Our Lord succeeded where Israel failed. His success
is the basis for our salvation, and thus for our
successfully finishing our course.
Our Lord and Paul not only call us to a life of
self-discipline and self-denial, they model it for us. Let
us purpose to win the race, to finish the course that God
has set for us. Let us deny ourselves and discipline our
bodies, for our own good, for the good of our brethren, and
for the advancement of the gospel.
