1 Corinthians 3:1,2

“And I also, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ. 2. I have fed you with milk, not with meat: for hitherto ye were not strong enough, and not even yet are ye.”

The apostle, after rising to the height assigned him by the revelation which he has received, severely humbles the presumption of the Corinthians.

The κἀγώ (T. R. καὶ ἐγώ) surprises; it seems as if it should be, “But I,” instead of, And I also. “This wisdom we have, but I could not declare it to you.” Yet the And I also is easily explained. Paul does nothing more than apply to himself, in his relation to the Corinthians, what he has just said of the relation of the spiritual man to purely natural men. “And I also, as a spiritual man, judged and acted accordingly; comp. the κἀγώ absolutely parallel, 1 Corinthians 2:1.

The word ἀδελφοί, brethren, serves to soften this personal application. The I could not is an implicit answer to the disdainful charge of his enemies: “He knew not.” It was in themselves the obstacle was; his not being able was caused by theirs; comp. the “ he cannot understand,” in speaking of the natural man, 1 Corinthians 2:14.

Paul no longer uses here ψυχικός, the natural man, which would have been too strong. For he did not mean that the Corinthians were entirely destitute of the Divine breath; how could they have been in possession of the χαρίσματα (gifts), the presence of which he had recognised in them (1 Corinthians 1:5; 1 Corinthians 1:7)? Hence it is he uses the term carnal, which does not exclude the possession, to a certain degree, of the new life. The Spirit is there, but He has not yet taken a decided preponderance over the instincts of the flesh, the unregenerate nature. By these, indeed, must not be understood merely sensual inclinations. This is plain from 1 Corinthians 3:3. For what was there sensual in the divisions which were produced at Corinth? The word flesh, which denotes strictly the soft and sensitive parts of the body, denotes also by extension natural sensibility, quick, even purely moral receptivity, for agreeable or disagreeable impressions in general. Thus the man who prefers the intoxicating pleasures of speaking in tongues to the holy austerity of prophesying, or the noble simplicity of teaching, is in Paul's eyes like a yet carnal babe; comp. 1 Corinthians 14:20. Consequently those who have found in the different forms in which the preaching of the gospel has appeared in Corinth an occasion for inflating themselves or disparaging others, and thereby tearing the Church into factions, while satisfying their personal vanity, have shown how the flesh, self-complacency, still ruled the new life, and the action of the Spirit in them. Paul would not, however, have called such men psychical, as if the Spirit of God were not within them in any sense. Indeed, the psychical man may also be called carnal. But there is this difference, that if in the regenerate man the flesh hinders the action of the Spirit, in the unregenerate man, who possesses only the breath of natural life (the ψυχή), it reigns as lord (Romans 7:14-18). The T. R. with some Byz. and Greco-Lats. reads σαρκίκοις, while the Alex. with D read σαρκίνοις. The two adjectives signify carnal. But the latter refers to the substance and nature of the being so qualified (2 Corinthians 3:3; Hebrews 7:16), the former to his tendency and activity. The word σάρκινος is rare in the New Testament, while σαρκικός is pretty frequently used. Thus we are not allowed to think that the first has been substituted for the second by the copyists, the more that σαρκικός reappears in 1 Corinthians 3:3 almost without a variant. The copyists had therefore no great inclination to substitute for it σάρκινος; while the relation between 1 Corinthians 3:1; 1 Corinthians 3:3 could easily lead in 1 Corinthians 3:1 to the substitution of σαρκικοῖς for σαρκίνοις. We must therefore read σαρκίνοις in 1 Corinthians 3:1, and see in this term, which indicates the hurtful persistence of the state of nature, not so much a reproach as the statement of a fact fitted to explain Paul's conduct when he was among them. This is confirmed by the expression, babes in Christ, which he adds as an equivalent term. The word characterizes a state of transition in a sense natural in the development of the believer. Time is needed to become a πνευματικός, as in the natural life there is need of growth to pass from the infant state to that of the mature man. It is obvious how much better than the other the term σάρκινος, carnal in nature, suited the ideas expressed in 1 Corinthians 3:1; and how far Meyer is mistaken in regarding it as conveying a more emphatic rebuke than the term σαρκικός in 1 Corinthians 3:3.