The Third Sunday in Lent, 23 March 2025

A Sermon on 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 by Samuel David Zumwalt

1 Corinthians 10:1-13 English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles 

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, ² and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, ³ and all ate the same spiritual food, ⁴ and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. ⁵ Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. ⁶ Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. ⁷ Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” ⁸ We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.⁹ We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, ¹⁰ nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.¹¹ Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. ¹² Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. ¹³ No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. The Word of the Lord.

ENDURE! 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

τύποι, τυπικῶς (typoi, typikos)

The Greek words “typoi” and “typikos” in vv. 6 and 11 are different forms of the noun translated as “types” or “example.” Other uses of the same word in the New Testament are translated “imprint” (as in the mark of the nails in Risen Jesus’ hands and feet in John 20:25) or “pattern” or “form.” Think of a die used to stamp a precision part out of a sheet of metal. Think of how we use the word “typical” to refer to a repeated pattern or habit.

Now, as we have often noted, what Christians call the Old Testament is the only Bible of the early Church. When St. Paul sent letters to the Church in various places and quoted or alluded to Scripture, his letters were not yet considered part of a New Testament. Read in worship, they would have been considered sermons. So, when the apostle speaks of “types” or “examples” in what we call the Old Testament, he refers to events or activities that prefigure what the Father does in the sending of His Son Jesus. This is called typology, where the Old Testament points to the New, where what happened in the Old anticipates what God the Father does in Christ Jesus. Indeed, it makes the point that the God of the Old is the same as the God of the New. The people of God by ethnicity in the Old anticipate the whole people of God by Baptism in the New.

When God graciously brought Israel safely through the sea and to Himself at Sinai where He made covenant with them by grace, St. Paul says this was a type of Baptism. The rescue through the sea anticipated the rescue through the washing of Holy Baptism. When God graciously gave food and drink to Israel in the wilderness, St. Paul says this was a type of Holy Communion. When God gave Israel manna and water to keep them alive in the wilderness, St. Paul says this was an anticipation of the spiritual food God graciously gives to His Church as He feeds us with His Son’s true Body and most precious Blood to sustain us through our own wilderness journey.

But St. Paul’s use of “typoi” and “typikos” is not just one of those cool trivial facts that can help us win on Jeopardy. The apostle sets out a warning to the Church at Corinth. If God graciously washed and fed His people of old in the days of Moses and, then, destroyed them for their sin, don’t think that you can be baptized and receive Holy Communion and, then, persist in evil. Look at the example in the days of Moses, the central event of the entire Old Testament, and, then, look at what is going on in the Church at Corinth and, yes, the Church in our town. We aren’t dealing with one God in Exodus and Numbers and a different God in 1 Corinthians.

τὰ τέλη τῶν αἰώνων (ta telē tōn aiōnōn)

St. Paul’s use in v. 11 of this phrase translated “the end of the ages” reminds his hearers that they (and we) are living in the last days, the time after the revealing of God’s Son Jesus Christ in flesh and blood. Christ is coming again soon. Having had a profoundly life-changing encounter with the Risen Jesus on the road to Damascus (see Acts 9; 21; 26), St. Paul speaks with a kind of urgency that few of us cradle Christians understand. Those of us who were brought up in a Christian home and received Baptism as an infant will not have the same sense of disconnect from the world as one who, like John Newton, had almost died apart from Christ and had been graciously rescued to live a life of continuous repentance. You may remember Newton was a slave trader near death and later a pastor who famously wrote “Was blind but now I see” (“Amazing Grace”).

Some of those in the Church at Corinth were ethnic Jews, who had been circumcised on the eighth day after birth and had that sense that they had always been God’s Chosen People. Some may have believed that Christianity was simply another way of being Jewish, a more open and relaxed way that could now include Gentiles. On the other hand, Gentile Christians had a history of idolatry and sexual immorality and still lived, worked, and fellowshipped with those outside the Church, yes, even their own relatives, who were unbaptized and did not practice their faith.

To those who may have taken great pride in being ethnic Jews, St. Paul gives five types or examples from the Old Testament. Those who still craved and complained about not having the foods they once had when they were Egyptian slaves were buried in the wilderness (Numbers 11:4ff). Three thousand Israelites worshiped the golden calf and were wiped out (Exodus 32:6). Thousands more who joined in the practices of Baalism died from the plague (Numbers 25: 1ff). Israel spoke against God and Moses in the wilderness, and many died from snakebite (Numbers 21:4ff). And, finally, Israel grumbled for forty years in the wilderness, and the avenging angel destroyed all of them except for Joshua and Caleb (Numbers 14; 16; also Wisdom 18:25).

Gentile Christians became the people of God by Baptism. In the Church, regardless of ethnic background, we share a common story with Israel. That is why we hear a reading from the Old Testament almost every Sunday and always speak or sing from the Psalms, the prayer book of the Bible. The Holy Trinity (the one God in three persons) is found in the Old Testament and is revealed in the New. If the God who saved Israel from death by the blood of the Passover lamb in the Old Testament could, nevertheless, destroy those who put God to the test. So, then, the same God who saves those who are washed in the Blood of the Lamb of God in Baptism and eat His Body and Blood in the Holy Communion, can and will destroy those who persist in idolatry, immorality, and rebellion against the Lord God today. The time is later than anyone thinks. We only have now, today, and we dare not pretend that we can persist in sin now but repent later.

ὑπενεγκεῖν (hypenenkein) 

St. Paul’s last word in v. 13 which is translated “endure,” means literally to carry under, as in the sense of undertow, to be carried away by an undercurrent. What a marvelously baptismal figure the apostle gives us! When we die with Christ, when we are buried with Him in Holy Baptism, the Spirit of the Living God carries us away from the old life of sin, death, and the devil. That’s not a onetime thing. That’s a way of life that begins now and comes to completion at the last.

Can a person be saved from a life of addiction, from a life of sleeping around, from a life of being possessed by her or his possessions? Is it possible to take a persistent complainer and turn that one into a joyful Christian? Can someone be drawn from being precariously caught straddling the barbed wire fence of life and be freed to leave behind the past for a life oriented towards what he or she will be in the new creation when Christ shall come with trumpet sound?

Israel in the wilderness was trapped by their past. They remained enslaved in their minds, always looking backward to what they had been rather than looking forward to what they would be. When God met their physical needs with manna and water, all they could think about was what they used to eat. When Moses was receiving instruction from God, they worshiped a golden calf and were swept away by passion. When the Moabites invited them to worship Baal with all the sexual immorality that implied, thousands gave themselves over to mindless pleasure. Indeed, they so grumbled, moaned, and kvetched about where God and Moses had taken them, that they could not imagine the Promised Land to which they were headed. They yielded to temptation and were destroyed by it. Could they have had a future with God beyond their wildest dreams? Yes!

Holy Baptism is not a onetime event, not a meaningless or empty ritual, not a mere outward sign of an inward action. Holy Baptism means to be “Kadosh, Holy” set apart for God’s use and purposes. Holy Baptism means to be drafted and not enlisted into God’s service. Those born dead in their trespasses can do nothing (Ephesians 2:1-10). Holy Baptism means daily dying with Christ. It means daily drowning, being carried under and away from the past by the Holy Spirit. The old you and me, the old Adam or Eve, the old sinner that yields habitually, again and again, to Satan’s temptation must be destroyed, because it cannot enter into eternity with the Holy God. In Christ, there is no other identity than to be His own, to be washed in the Blood of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Those who think they can do it on their own will fall. “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).

Only the Holy Spirit can carry us under and away from the old life of sin. That’s daily living our Baptism. Only the Holy Spirit can create the kind of saving trust in what the Lord Jesus has done for us on the cross. Only the Holy Spirit can provide the escape from persistent temptation that will always come when we are weakest and most vulnerable. Our old enemy, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. When we think we can’t escape where we are and that we are still trapped in our sinful past, that’s the old liar talking. Tell him to go to hell. We can escape, yes, we can endure as a child of God, because the Holy Spirit can carry us away to a forward-looking present that can see beyond death to the new heaven and the new earth where sin, suffering, pain, and death are no more. The Risen Jesus, the Lamb who was slain who has begun His reign, will make you, me, and all things new when the old heaven and the old earth have passed away (Revelation 21:1-7). Believe it. Trust it. Be carried away by it.

We are bound for the Promised Land. Don’t keep on being enslaved by your old life. Don’t keep on being deceived by your old thoughts and your old memories. Don’t keep on staying in the Egypt of your sins as if you cannot escape. No, it’s not easy. Yes, temptations will come. Yes, the Egyptians from your past will chase after you to try to drag you back in chains. And, if you think you can handle it by yourself. If you think you have conquered your past on your own. Just when you think you have gotten yourself out, the devil and his minions will pick off the stragglers one by one. But that’s not your story! That’s not my story! We have a different story.

God’s baptized children, marked with the cross of Christ, sealed with the Holy Spirit, washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and fed with His true Body and most precious Blood can not only escape, we can endure. The Holy Spirit can carry us away from the old life one day at a time and raise us one day at time into the new. He can draft the dead like the dry bones of the house of Israel in Ezekiel 37 and make us alive. On our own, all we have to offer God is our sin and our death. In Christ, we are somebody. We are God’s precious children for Jesus’ sake. Don’t listen to the devil’s taunts and lies or give in. Christ has already won the victory. Don’t be anyone’s slave!

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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©Samuel David Zumwalt

   szumwalt54@gmail.com

   St. Matthew’s Ev. Lutheran Church (AALC)

   Wilmington, North Carolina USA