The Dais
Chapter Four
Revealed by Fire
IN THE Corinthian epistles, the dais is brought before
us in connection with our work (3:12-15), especially the administration of God’s
secrets (4:1-5) and our good and bad practices (2 Cor.5: 10). Corinth is a good background
for all these aspects, as the saints there specialized in failure to live up to the truth.
and needed to be reminded of the future test which will; be applied to it. It is
especially helpful today when false motives and incentives and wrong standards are used in
God’s work, so that the most of it is only fit for the flames.
Paul used a fine figure in
setting forth the work of the Corinthian ecclesia, especially the part played by, himself
and those who succeeded him there. It is represented as a building of which he laid the
foundation and left the superstructure to others. The quality of the work is figured by
materials of various value, but rated especially according to their fire-resistant
qualities. Most of the monuments of antiquity which still remain are built of costly
stones. Very little else is left of the temples on Mount Moriah but the large, expensive
stones in the foundation. The gold and silver doubtless would still be there also if it
had not been carried away. The work which will abide that day is figured by the mineral
kingdom.
THE FIGURE OF THE FARMER
The work
of God’s servants will earn wages at the dais of our Lord, even though He
provides the very vigor with which it is accomplished. This is shown to us in the figure
of the farmer. He plants and irrigates, but what would that avail if God did not make it
grow? Without the life He stored in the seed and the warmth He sends from the sun, the
seed would rot and the labor bestowed upon it would be in vain. Yet the farmer does not
hesitate to harvest the crop. Too often he deems it his due, the product of his own toil,
and forgets to give thanks to Him Whose beneficence it is (1 Cor. 3:5-9).
Paul transfers this to
himself and Apollos in a figure in order that the saints should not be puffed up for one
or the other. In reality the farmer plays a very small part in the production of his
crops, and so it is in the Lord’s service. Paul, as an evangelist, may lead the
Corinthians to believe, and Apollos may foster their faith, but all would have been in
vain without the vital power of God. Paul was only calling those whom God had already
chosen. Before Paul preached, God assured him that He had many of His own in the city
(Acts 18:17). Why, then, should they set these men up as if they had produced the
crop? Neither one is to get the credit, but praise and thanksgiving should go to God,
for He it was who had even provided them with the ability to do their part.
The enlightened servant of
God will not lay claim to anything at the dais of Christ. Without His life, His strength,
His faith, His zeal, he would never have been able to lift his hand in the Lord’s
service. All of these were gifts from God, none inherent in himself. If an earthly master
had made an automatic machine and it performed the part planned for it, does he pay it
wages? But we are not machines, and God is not a man. He will get His heart’s desire
in the love engendered by His operations. And to further fan this affection, He pays wages
where little has actually been earned or deserved. His servants will be rewarded according
to their toil (1 Cor.3:8).
THE FIGURE OF THE BUILDER
But the
amount of work done by anyone is not necessarily an index of its value in God’s
sight. In order to illuminate this aspect of service, Paul uses a different figure, that
of a building. The growing of a crop is a seasonal effort and produces no permanent
results. A building is erected to last indefinitely, depending upon the materials
used. There is going to be a fire in the future which will consume our whole building
except that which will stand the flames. We should, therefore, be very choice in our
materials, and use only such as will abide the conflagration.
The two classes of
materials will seem very strange to us at first glance. We do not erect buildings out of
gold and silver and precious stones. If we did, they would be very small! We do use wood,
grass, and straw, and with these we can make a marvelous show. Aside from the value of the
materials, the principal difference is that the former are fireproof, the latter
inflammable. The true servant of God will seek to use nothing in edifying the saints that
will not stand the fire! Apollos was the builder in Corinth, after Paul had laid the
foundation, hence the figure is to be explained by his ministry there. He was their
teacher.
We are introduced to
Apollos as follows (Acts 18:24) “Now a certain Jew, named Apollos, a native
Alexandrian, a scholarly man, arrives at Ephesus, being able in the Scriptures. He was
instructed in the way of the Lord, and fervent in spirit. He spoke and taught accurately
what concerns Jesus, being versed only in the baptism of John. Besides he begins to speak
boldly in the synagogue. Now, hearing him, Priscilla and Aquila took him to themselves and
expounded the way of God to him more accurately.” The material, then,
consisted of the teaching which he imparted to the Corinthians. And it is the accuracy
of his doctrines that leads us to think that Apollos used a good deal of gold and silver
in his construction, which will remain to his credit in that day.
THE BUILDING MATERIALS
We may
rest assured that neither Paul nor Apollos erected a church building in Corinth,
especially not of literal gold and silver and precious stones. Yet there is ample evidence
in the epistle itself that these are the materials they used, in contrast to the wood,
grass and straw, which is so freely used today, not, indeed, in the literal buildings, but
in the spiritual edification of the saints. In this passage Paul and Apollos are teachers,
and we should consider their doctrine if we wish to recognize what each material
represents. Yet this letter is not a systematic statement of their teaching, so it is not
so easy to identify the materials as in Romans, which sets forth their message in clearly
defined aspects. Corinthians is more of a laboratory than a text book. So we turn to
Romans and its three great themes, justification, reconciliation, and the deity of God, to
explain the figure.
In Romans we have three
distinct divisions of the doctrine which Paul dispensed in Corinth. Justification is the
great basic truth on which all is built. This may well be figured by the great stones, the
precious stones, such as were used in erecting the temple. This is the manward side of the
evangel. Then comes conciliation and reconciliation, figured by the silver. This is mutual
because both man and God must be conciliated before there can be reconciliation. Then
there is the gold, God’s sovereignty, the Deity as Disposer, the divine aspect of our
evangel, the most glorious of all. All of these doctrines are eternal, everlasting.
They will abide, even after the consummation, when all mankind will be justified and all
creation reconciled, and God becomes All in all. No fire will ever destroy these eternal
verities.
THE GOLD
The gold
is God’s glory as the great Disposer. It is most deplorable to see even intelligent
saints shrink from giving the Deity His proper place as God, and deny the plainest
declarations of Holy Writ. The golden All is out of Him, is degraded into the
wooden “man’s free moral agency.” Or, it may be that all good is
acknowledged to be out of Him, or all essential to His plan, or some other of many
desperate restrictions which would leave man a share in divine glory. How can God be All
in all until all of this has been burned up? Let us take heed that, above all else, we
do not infringe on the glory that is God’s alone, for we may rest assured that the
fire will eagerly devour all that hinders Him from taking His place supreme in the
beginning as well as at the consummation. All is out of Him! All is through Him! All is
for Him!
THE SILVER
The true
relationship between God and man at the present time is practically unknown, hence is not
preached from our pulpits. The silver doctrine that the death of God’s Son has
conciliated Him to mankind is not only ignored, but strenuously opposed by both priests
and people. Instead we have the grass of fear and threats of purgatory and hell, of law
keeping and religion, all of which is fit only for the fire and cannot last in the coming
eons or the consummation, when God wipes all tears away in the last eon and reconciles the
whole universe at the consummation. Let us burn up all such futile and inflammable
doctrine now rather than wait until the dais. Then we will be thankful to see it feed the
flames.
THE PRECIOUS STONES
In
English idiom the word “precious” as applied to stones is limited to small gems
or jewels of great beauty or rarity, but in the Scriptures it is also used of large, hewn
building-stones. Some of these were much more expensive than the average gem, because of
the great labor involved in quarrying and cutting and transporting them. The order of the
word—gold, silver, precious stones—suggests that jewels are not in view, for
they are more precious than gold. Besides, few would care to test them by fire. A close
friend of mine had a process of making small commercial jewels by means of a retort. In a
figure such as this there should be no question of their fire-resistance.
In the Orient one often
sees buildings that have been ravaged by fire and tested by the tooth of time. In the
great temples at Athens and Baalbek and Jerusalem there is not much left of their ancient
architecture except stones, many of them tremendous in size and great in cost. Their lasting
quality is most striking in the midst of magnificent ruins. As the figure here is in
contrast with straw, which was often used for fuel and seldom survives a single
year, such stones as these are most impressive when used to suggest a doctrine.
In Romans it would stand
for justification. Again we sigh at the almost total lack of teaching, on this
tremendous theme. Even when the word is used, the sense is diluted to pardon or
forgiveness of sins, such as belongs to the kingdom administration. In the land of Luther
I attended meetings in his own house, along with several hundred other editors of
Protestant religious publications, and I found no evidence that any of them, with perhaps
one exception, really grasped its vital significance. Some of them were excessively
zealous, and ready for any sacrifice for the cause of their Lord, yet they were engaged in
teaching that which would be food for the flames at the dais. The pardon of sins is a
temporary measure, limited to the kingdom heralding, which will be obsolete when all men
are justified at the consummation.
It will be seen from this
that the teaching which will come through the fire and call for wages has two distinctive
features, which may help us to identify it and avoid that figured by the wood, the grass
and the straw. The picture of houses built of wood, grass and straw is not put before us
because these are not good building material. Many a shelter from the elements is built
entirely of them. The house in which this is written is built mostly of wood, the outside
being an, almost rot-proof siding and shingles of so-called “redwood.” It has
lasted about thirty years and is still good. But it certainly will not stand a test by
fire! So it is with much of the teaching in Christendom today. Salvation is brought to men
by some of it, and the saints are helped. But most of the teaching belongs to the kingdom.
It is not only out of place now, but it will not pass the fiery inspection of the dais.
Not only must our teaching
be Paul’s rather than Peter’s, but it must be fireproof. It must be such that it
will never be destroyed or replaced. That is the special characteristic of the evangel for
today. It is everlasting. It is not only true of the saints now, but will be
expanded to include all at the consummation. We are justified now, and all mankind
will enjoy it after the eons. We are reconciled now, and all creation will be
included when God is All in all. God is All in us now. He will be All in all at the
consummation.
THE KIND OF WORK THAT REMAINS
Quite
often in our work we reach retired ministers and elderly servants of Christ, who have
spent most of their lives in the usual channels of service. When they learn of some of the
precious truths which we bring to them, such as the final reconciliation of all and the
conciliation of the nations now, the divine mysteries, the function of evil, etc., they
almost all exclaim, O, that I had known these things long ago! They realize that much of
the materials which they used in edifying the saints will go up in smoke at the dais, yet
they would not have it otherwise. They could not accept wages for work which must be wiped
away in that day. The amount no longer imposes them. The kind makes all the
difference.
On the other hand, we are
greatly heartened by those who are still young or in their prime, much of whose ministry
still lies before them, when they voluntarily make a bonfire of many of their past beliefs
and teach the Word more accurately for the rest of their careers. The very fact that most
of us have already thrown much to the flames should show that we will be eager in that day
to consign the rest to the fiery test. If we do not want to lose all our work in that day,
we should emulate Apollos, and teach the Scriptures accurately, and, when we learn
of the further light which has come through the apostle Paul to the nations, then we will
be able to teach it more accurately.
THE FIERY REVELATION
These
examples, which forestall the process at the dais, may also help us to understand how it
will proceed. The fire will reveal. The case of each one need not
necessarily come before the whole ecclesia and be examined and passed upon in detail.
Would that not be an interminable and intolerable trial? Even if each one took only a
minute of time, which would hardly be possible, the session would last longer than the
millennium. What a sad one that would be for us! Israel on the earth would be enjoying
peace and plenty and prosperity, and we would be concerned with our past failings and that
of all the others in the ecclesia! Would it not be a perpetual pain?
Instead of a long drawn-out
judgment session with interminable testimonies and endless evidence in order to ferret out
the facts, each case, or all together, will be revealed by fire. In the city where
this is written a case of alleged illegal picketing is being tried in which there are
hundreds of defendants. The trial has already dragged on for months. Now the unwieldy mass
has been split into groups. But quite a few have decided that the trial was already worse
than the sentence could be, and have paid their fine, in order to be relieved of further
annoyance. How much simpler and better if a flash of flame had revealed an infallible
verdict!
Few of the Lord’s
servants are sufficiently illuminated to forestall the flames. Indeed, the most
enlightened would refuse to claim infallibility, and insist that their earlier groping
among the fogs of orthodoxies made it impossible for them to build with fire-resistant
materials, no matter how clear their conscience may be as to the present. And, indeed, it
is not wise to be overly concerned as to the past, but attend to the present, that we do
not continue to build for the fire in the future.
Fire is the finest
purifier. Let us be clear that it will not be a lake of fire for the saints. Yet even if
we were cast into fire at the dais, that would not harm us. Being immortal, with spiritual
bodies, we would not feel it and it would not affect us. However, the figure of fire is
not used of the saints, but of their work as servants of Christ in building
up the saints. Paul and Apollos were teachers. They taught the Corinthians.
Literally their teaching was either truth or error, fact or fiction. Truth remains, even
in the hereafter. Error cannot. It must be destroyed. This will be done by the revelation
given to us at the dais. Even temporary truths must be replaced by eternal verities.
It goes without saying that
error must vanish in the future. The intolerable state of the church today would turn the
bliss of heaven into the horrors of an orthodox hell if infinitely protracted and
magnified. Were error corrected today it would mean untold agony for many servants of our
Lord. Their frail frames could not bear to see how little is the value of their labors and
how much is only fit for the flames. Even if the fire did not touch their persons, it
would bow down their souls and afflict their spirits. It does this to some degree even if
their illumination is gradual and the source of much joy and satisfaction. How gracious is
it that the full light does not fall upon our deeds until we are furnished with bodies so
powerful and glorious that we will only be glad to be rid of our errors once for all!
FIRE AND FORFEIT
In order
that our teaching in regard to the dais should not be destroyed in that day, we should
consider accurately the terms used. The mere mention of fire and loss is disturbing to the
infirm in faith, who think of everything in terms of their own felicity for the future. We
wish to impress on them that these words assure their permanent happiness, rather than
threaten it. The fire does not take anything that will contribute to our welfare in the
future, but rather removes the hindrances to perfect bliss.
Paul himself has already
“suffered the loss of all things” (Phil.3:8), because of the superiority of the
knowledge of Christ. He has already, in spirit, burned up his wooden doctrines. He had
taken great pride in his race and religion. Judaism was everything to him. His own
law-righteousness was his most prized possession. But when He learned the truth as it is
in Christ Jesus, he forfeited all this. He could not have both. Did he regret it?
By no means! He considered it no better than refuse to be rid of. So will it be with us at
the dais. Much may be forfeited, but nothing of lasting value will be lost. All the
transitory error which clings to us now will be permanently removed and replaced by
eternal truth at the dais, and prepare us for felicity everlasting.
A. E. Knoch
