Homily 9 — First Corinthians 3, verses 12 to 17

“If anyone builds on this foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will be made plain. For the day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one’s is. If anyone’s work that he built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet only as through fire.” [a]

The question we are taking up is no small one. It concerns things of the first necessity, things everyone asks about: namely, whether the fire of hell has any end. That it has no end, Christ himself declared when he said, “Their fire will not be quenched, and their worm will not die” (Mark 9, verses 44, 46 and 48).

Now, I know that a chill comes over you when you hear these things. But what am I to do? This is God’s own command: to keep sounding these things in your ears, where he says, “Charge this people.” And since we have been appointed to the ministry of the word, we must cause our hearers pain — not willingly, but because we are compelled. Or rather, if you are willing, we can avoid causing you pain. For he says, “If you do what is good, do not be afraid” (Romans 13, verse 3, in substance). So it is possible for you to hear me not only without resentment, but even with pleasure.

As I said, then, Christ has declared that it has no end. Paul too, pointing to the eternity of the punishment, says that sinners “will pay the penalty of destruction, and that forever” (Second Thessalonians 1, verse 9). And again: “Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor adulterers, nor effeminate men will inherit the kingdom of God” (First Corinthians 6, verse 9). And to the Hebrews he says, “Pursue peace with all people, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12, verse 14). Christ too, to those who said, “In your name we have done many wonderful works,” says, “Depart from me; I do not know you, you who practice wrongdoing” (Matthew 7, verses 22 and 23). The virgins too, who were shut out, never got in again. And of those who gave him no food he says, “They will go away into everlasting punishment” (Matthew 25, verse 46).

And do not say to me, “Where is the rule of justice kept whole, if the punishment has no end?” Rather, when God does anything, obey his decisions, and do not submit what he says to human reasoning. But besides, how can it be anything but just that a man should suffer punishment, when he has enjoyed countless blessings from the beginning, and then has done things deserving punishment, and has not improved at all, either by threats or by kindness? If you are asking what strict justice is, then by the definition of strict justice we ought to have perished right from the beginning. Or rather, not even then would it have been by the rule of justice alone; for even if we had suffered that, there would have been kindness in it too. [d]

When someone insults a person who has done him no wrong, he is punished by the rule of justice. But when it is his benefactor — one who owed him no earlier favor and yet showered countless kindnesses on him, who alone is the source of his existence, who is God, who breathed his soul into him, who gave him ten thousand gifts of grace, whose will is to take him up into heaven — when such a one, I say, after such great blessings, is met with insult, daily insult, in the other’s conduct, how can that man be thought worthy of pardon? Don’t you see how he punished Adam for one single sin?

You will say: “Yes, but he had given him Paradise and let him enjoy great favor.” No, surely it is not all one, for a man to sin while enjoying ease and comfort, and to sin in the midst of great affliction. In fact, this is the dreadful thing: your sins are the sins of someone who is not in any Paradise, but amid the countless evils of this life. You are not sobered even by affliction — as though a man in prison should go on committing his crime there. Yet to you he has promised things even greater than Paradise. He has not given them now, so that he would not make you slack in the season of the contest; nor has he kept silent about them, so that he would not crush you completely under your labors.

As for Adam, he committed only one sin and brought certain death on himself, while we commit ten thousand wrongs every day. Now if he, by that one act, brought so great an evil on himself and brought death into the world, what will we not suffer, we who live continually in sins, and who, instead of Paradise, have the hope of heaven?

This talk is hard to bear, and it pains the hearer. I know that, if only from my own feelings. My own heart is troubled and pounding; and the more I see the teaching about hell confirmed, the more I tremble and shrink back in fear. But these things must be said, so that we do not fall into hell. What you received was not Paradise, not trees and plants, but heaven and the good things in the heavens. Now if he who had received less was condemned, and nothing exempted him, much more will we, who have sinned more abundantly and have been called to greater things, endure sufferings that have no remedy.

Think, for example, how long our race has remained under death for one single sin. Five thousand years and more have passed, and death has not yet been done away with — because of one single sin. And we cannot even say that Adam had heard prophets, or had seen others punished for their sins, so that he ought to have been frightened and corrected, if only by the example. He was at that time the first, and alone; and still he was punished. But you can put forward nothing of this kind. After so many examples you have grown worse. You have been given so excellent a Spirit, and yet you bring on yourself not one sin, nor two, nor three, but sins without number!

And do not reckon that because a sin is committed in a brief moment, the punishment too must last only a moment. Don’t you see those men who, for a single theft or a single act of adultery committed in a brief moment of time, have often spent their whole lives in prisons and in the mines, struggling with constant hunger and every kind of death? And there was no one to set them free, or to say, “The offense took place in a brief moment of time; the punishment too should last only as long as the sin.”

But someone will say: “It is men who do these things. As for God, he loves humankind.” Now, first of all, not even men do these things out of cruelty, but out of kindness to others. And God himself, just as he loves humankind, punishes sins in that very same character. “For as his mercy is great, so also is his rebuke” (Sirach 16, verse 12). So when you tell me, “God loves humankind,” you are giving me all the greater reason for punishment: that we are sinning against such a Being. That is also why Paul said, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10, verse 31). [e]

Bear with the fiery force of these words, I beg you; for perhaps — perhaps — you will find some comfort in them! Who among men can punish as God has punished? He brought a flood and the complete destruction of so numerous a race; and again, a little while after, he rained fire from above and utterly destroyed them all. What punishment from men can compare with that? Don’t you see that even in this world the punishment is almost eternal? Four thousand years have passed, and the punishment of the people of Sodom still stands at its height. For as his mercy is great, so also is his punishment.

Again: if he had laid heavy or impossible things on us, one might perhaps have pleaded that the laws were hard. But if they are extremely easy, what can we say for not keeping even these?

Suppose you are unable to fast, or to live in virginity — although you are able if you want to, and those who have been able to do it are a condemnation to us. Still, God has not dealt so strictly with us. He has neither commanded these things nor laid them down as laws, but has left the choice to the hearers’ own judgment. But you are able to live chastely in marriage, and you are able to keep from drunkenness. Are you unable to strip yourself of all your possessions? No, surely you are able; those who have done it prove it. Nevertheless he has not commanded this. What he has commanded is that we not rob others, and that we help those in need out of what we have. And if someone says, “I cannot be content even with one wife,” he deceives himself and reasons falsely; those who live chastely without any wife condemn him.

But tell me, how is it that you cannot keep from abusive words? Can you not keep from cursing? Why, the effort lies in doing these things, not in refraining from them! What excuse, then, do we have for not keeping commands so easy and light? We cannot name any at all. That the punishment is eternal, then, is plain from all that has been said.

But since Paul’s saying seems to some to point the other way, come, let us bring it forward too and examine it thoroughly. Having said, “If anyone’s work that he built on it remains, he will receive a reward; and if anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss,” he adds, “but he himself will be saved, yet only as through fire.” What, then, are we to say to this? Let us first consider what “the foundation” is, and what “the gold,” and what “the precious stones,” and what “the hay,” and what “the straw.” [f]

“The foundation,” then, he has himself plainly shown to be Christ, when he says, “For no one can lay any other foundation than the one that is laid, which,” he says, “is Jesus Christ.”

Next, the building seems to me to mean actions. Some, it is true, maintain that this too is said about teachers and disciples, and about corrupt heresies; but the reasoning does not allow it. For if that were the meaning, how is it that, while “the work is destroyed,” “the builder” is “saved,” even if “through fire”? By rights the maker, of the two, ought rather to perish. But as it is, the heavier penalty will turn out to be laid on the one who was built into the work. For if the teacher was the cause of the wickedness, he deserves to suffer the heavier punishment; how then will he be “saved”? If, on the other hand, he was not the cause, but the disciples turned out as they did through their own perversity, then he does not deserve punishment at all — no, not even to suffer loss — he, I mean, who built so well. In what sense, then, does Paul say, “he will suffer loss”?

From this it is plain that the discussion is about actions. Since he means next to turn his full strength against the man who had committed sexual immorality, he begins far back and well in advance to lay the groundwork. He knew how, while discussing one subject, to prepare in the very discussion of it the ground for another he meant to move on to. So, in his rebuke over their not waiting for one another at their meals, he laid the ground for his discussion of the mysteries. And in the same way now, because he is hurrying on toward the sexually immoral man, while speaking about “the foundation” he adds, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God lives in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him.” He said these things as he was now beginning to stir the soul of the unchaste man with fear.

Verse 12: “If anyone builds on this foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, straw.” [h]

For after faith there is need of building up. That is why he says elsewhere, “Build one another up with these words” (perhaps First Thessalonians 5, verse 11, or First Thessalonians 4, verse 18). For both the craftsman and the learner contribute to the building up. That is why he says, “But let each one take care how he builds on it” (First Corinthians 3, verse 10). But if these sayings were about faith, what is said would not be reasonable. In faith all must be equal, since “there is but one faith” (Ephesians 4, verse 5); but in goodness of life it is not possible for all to be the same. Faith is not lesser in one person and more excellent in another; it is the same in all who truly believe. But in life there is room for some to be more diligent and others more sluggish; some stricter and others more ordinary; some to have done well in greater things, others in lesser; the faults of some to have been more serious, and those of others less noticeable.

On this account he says, “Gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, straw — each one’s work will be made plain”: his conduct, that is what he is speaking of here. “If anyone’s work that he built on it remains, he will receive a reward; if anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss.” Whereas if the saying were about disciples and teachers, the teacher ought not to “suffer loss” because his disciples refused to listen. That is why he says, “Each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor” — not according to the result, but according to “the labor.” For what if the hearers paid no attention? So this passage too proves that the saying is about actions.

Now his meaning is this: if someone lives a bad life with a right faith, his faith will not shelter him from punishment when his work is burned up. The phrase “will be burned up” means “will not withstand the force of the fire.” Imagine a man wearing golden armor who passes through a river of fire: he comes out of the crossing all the brighter. But if he passes through it with hay, far from gaining anything, he destroys himself as well. So it is with people’s works. For Paul does not say this as though he were discussing material things being burned up, but to make their fear more intense, and to show how naked of all defense a person is who remains in wickedness. That is why he said, “He will suffer loss” — there, you see, is one punishment — “but he himself will be saved, yet only as through fire” — there, again, is a second. And his meaning is: “He himself will not perish the way his works do, passing into nothing; but he will remain in the fire.”

You will say: “But he calls it salvation.” Why, that is exactly why he added, “as through fire.” We too are used to saying, “It is preserved in the fire,” when we speak of materials that do not immediately burn up and turn to ashes. So when you hear the word “fire,” do not imagine that those who are burning pass into nothingness. And do not be astonished if he calls such a punishment salvation. It is his habit to use fair-sounding words for things that sound bad, and the opposite for good things. [i]

For example, the word “captivity” seems to be the name of something bad, yet Paul has used it in a good sense when he says, “Bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (Second Corinthians 10, verse 5). And again, he has applied a good word to a bad thing when he says, “Sin reigned” (Romans 5, verse 21); surely the word “reigning” has a rather favorable sound. So here too, in saying “he will be saved,” he has only hinted darkly at how severe the penalty is, as if he had said, “But he himself will remain forever in punishment.”

He then draws a conclusion, saying:

Verse 16: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God?”

In the section before, he had been speaking about those who were dividing the church. From this point on he attacks the man who had been guilty of uncleanness as well — not yet in plain terms, but in a general way, hinting at his corrupt way of life and making the sin weigh heavier by pointing to the gift that had already been given to him. Then he also puts all the rest to shame, arguing from the very blessings they already had. For this is what he is always doing: arguing either from the future or from the past, whether from what is grievous or from what is encouraging. First, from things to come: “For the day will declare it, because it is revealed by fire.” Again, from things that have already happened:

“Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you?”

Verse 17: “If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him.” Do you notice the sweeping force of his words? And yet, as long as the person is not named, what is said does not give so much offense, since everyone shares out the fear of the rebuke among themselves.

“God will destroy him” — that is, will cause him to perish. And these are not the words of someone calling down a curse, but of someone prophesying.

“For the temple of God is holy”; but the man who has committed sexual immorality is unholy.

Then, so that he would not seem to spend all his earnestness on that one man, after saying, “for the temple of God is holy,” he adds, “which you are.”

Verse 18: “Let no one deceive himself.” [j]

This too refers to that man, as one who thought himself to be something and flattered himself on his wisdom. But so that he would not seem to press on him at great length in what was only a digression, he first throws him into a kind of anguish and hands him over to fear, and then brings his discussion back to the fault they all shared, saying, “If anyone among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, so that he may become wise.” And this he does afterward with great frankness, having beaten them down enough, and having shaken with that fear the mind not of the unclean man only, but of all the hearers as well — so exactly does he measure the reach of what he has to say.

For what if a man is rich? What if he is nobly born? He is viler than all the vile once he has been taken captive by sin. Just as a king who became a slave to barbarians would be the most wretched of all men, so it is with sin. For sin is a barbarian: the soul she has once taken captive she does not know how to spare, but she rules it as a tyrant, to the ruin of all who let her in.

For nothing is so thoughtless as sin; nothing so senseless, so utterly foolish and outrageous. Wherever it lands, it overturns everything, throws everything into confusion, and destroys it. It is ugly to look at, disgusting and painful. If a painter were to draw her picture, I think he would not go wrong in shaping her like this: a woman with the form of a beast, savage, breathing flames, hideous, black, the way the pagan poets depict their Scyllas. For with ten thousand hands she seizes our thoughts, comes on us unexpectedly, and tears everything to pieces, like those dogs that bite on the sly. [k]

But why do we need the painter’s art, when we can instead bring forward those who are made in sin’s likeness?

Whom, then, do you want us to portray first? The greedy man, the robber? What is more shameless than those eyes? What is more immodest, more like a greedy dog? No dog stands its ground with such shameless impudence as he does when he grabs at everyone’s goods. What is more defiled than those hands? What is bolder than that mouth, swallowing everything down and never satisfied? No, do not look on that face and those eyes as a man’s; such looks do not belong to human eyes. He does not see people as people; he does not see heaven as heaven. He does not even lift up his head to the Lord; everything is money in his reckoning.

Human eyes, when they look on poor people in distress, usually soften; but the robber’s eyes, at the sight of the poor, glare like a wild beast’s. Human eyes do not look on other people’s goods as their own, but rather on their own as belonging to others; they do not covet what has been given to others, but rather spend their own means on others. But these eyes are not content unless they take everyone’s property. It is not a man’s eye they have, but a wild beast’s. Human eyes cannot bear to see their own body stripped of clothing — and another’s body is their own, even though it belongs to another person — but these eyes are never satisfied unless they strip everyone and store everyone’s property in their own house; or rather, they never have enough.

So one might say that their hands are not only a wild beast’s, but even far more savage and cruel. Bears and wolves, when they have had their fill, stop eating; but these men know no fill. And yet God made our hands for this purpose: to help others, not to plot against them. If we were going to use them for that, it would have been better to have them cut off and be left without them. When a wild beast tears a sheep, you are grieved; but when you do the same to someone of your own flesh and blood, do you think your deed is nothing monstrous? How, then, can you be a man?

Don’t you see that we call a thing “humane” when it is full of mercy and kindness, but when someone does something cruel or savage, the name we give him is “inhuman”? You see, then, that the mark of a human being, as we portray one, is showing mercy, and the mark of a beast is the opposite — as the common saying goes, “What, is a man a wild beast, or a dog?” (see Second Kings 8, verse 13). For human beings relieve poverty; they do not make it worse. Again, these men’s mouths are the mouths of wild beasts — or rather, they are the fiercer of the two. For the words they utter give off poison worse than a wild beast’s teeth, and work slaughter. And if one were to go through every detail, one would see clearly how inhumanity turns those who practice it from human beings into beasts.

But if one were to search out the mind of people like this as well, he would no longer call them beasts only, but demons. First, they are full of great cruelty and hatred toward their “fellow servant” (Matthew 18, verse 33). There is no love of the kingdom in them, no fear of hell; no respect for people, no pity, no sympathy, but shamelessness and brazenness and contempt for everything to come. The words of God about punishment seem to them a fable, and his threats a joke. That is the mind of the greedy man. [l]

Since, then, within they are demons, and outside wild beasts — or rather, worse than wild beasts — where are we to place such people? That they are worse even than wild beasts is plain from this: the beasts are what they are by nature, but these men, whom nature endowed with gentleness, strain against nature to train themselves into savagery. The demons, too, have the plotters among men to help them, so much so that if they had no such help, most of their schemes against us would come to nothing. But these men, even when those they have mistreated are vying with them, still try to be more spiteful than they are. Again, the devil wages war with human beings, not with the demons of his own kind; but the man we are speaking of presses in every way to harm his own kin and family, and does not even respect nature.

I know that many hate us for these words. But I feel no hatred toward them; rather, I pity and weep over those who are so disposed. Even if they choose to strike me, I would gladly bear it, if only they would give up this savage mind of theirs. For it is not I alone, but the prophet too along with me, who banishes all such people from the family of human beings, when he says, “Man, being in honor, has no understanding, but is like the senseless beasts” (Psalm 49, verse 20).

Let us, then, become human beings at last. Let us look up to heaven, and let us take up and recover what is according to his image (Colossians 3, verse 10), so that we may also obtain the blessings to come, by the grace and love for humankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom to the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory, power and honor, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.