Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

We are a blessed people.

Wouldn’t you agree?

I’m sure many of us would admit to hardships in our lives, yet we would probably say that God has blessed us in a wonderful manner.

Let’s continue with this line of thought.

How many of you think that the many blessings you have experienced are proof or evidence towards your eternal security, to eternal life?

I have often drawn that conclusion.

I would imagine that I’m not alone in that.

Paul has just outlined, in the previous chapter, that he is willing to sacrifice everything to see others come to Christ and possess eternal life.

He as well is racing in the Christian life motivated by a desire to not be disqualified.

He then turns to the Corinthians and offers them an example of a group of people that had been greatly blessed by God and yet most of them were disqualified from the promised land.

The people of Israel had received immense blessing from God, and yet most of them displayed a heart of unbelief and as a result were destroyed.

Purpose Statement: Take heed, spiritual privileges do not guarantee spiritual success.[1]

KEATHLEY: Spiritual privilege provides the basis for success, but it never guarantees it.

Instead, spiritual privilege demands responsibility.

This is part of the warning of this passage.

But let’s not miss the context of this warning![2]

A snapshot of Israel’s spiritual privileges (10:1-4).

Divine guidance, protection, and presence.

The cloud led them.

Paul first reminds them (10:1) that “our fathers were all under the cloud.”

This cloud appeared on Mount Sinai when God met with Moses and gave the law.

It then led them through the wilderness.

Exodus 13:21–22 (ESV) And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.

The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

As they set up the Tabernacle, the cloud would hover over it.

When the cloud began to move, the people would pack up their things and follow the cloud.

It was this cloud that settled in the Temple when the Temple was built (1 Kgs 6:13; 8:10–13; 2 Chr 6:1, 2).

The cloud protected them.

In Exodus 14 :19-20, we are reminded of the story involving the Egyptian army following hard after the Israelite people.

They were caught with the sea in front of them and the army coming from behind.

It was at this point that “the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel.

And there was the cloud and the darkness.

And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.”

Not only was the protection of God revealed in the cloud, it was as well experienced in their deliverance through the sea.

Paul recalls for them another incident in which God’s favor and protection were experienced for accumulating evidence.

This accumulated evidence was to convince the Corinthians that the people of Israel had at least as much divine care, protection, and provision as they but still had chosen to reject God and embrace unbelief.

The cloud was the presence of God.

While the cloud clearly was a form of divine guidance it was as well the actual presence of God with his people.

This cloud, or what many call the Shekinah Glory, is the most frequent mode in which God appeared to His people throughout the Old Testament.

We see in this cloud, early evidence of God’s desire to dwell with His people.

God desires to dwell with his creation, specifically those created in his image.

Ever since this communion and relationship were drastically affected by the Fall, God has displayed an ongoing desire to be present with His creation.

God’s glory is of such a nature that He can’t simply reveal himself, but instead protected man from his presence by being concealed in the cloud.

What a privilege and blessing that Israel possessed in the cloud.

They were protected by this cloud.

Their path was directed by this cloud.

God himself was present with them amid this cloud.

What great privileges.

Yet, these privileges did not result in spiritual success.

Elite identification

Paul tells us that the people of Israel were “baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor 10:2).

The word baptized carries a strict meaning of “dip, immerse in water; in the NT predominately of the use of water in a religious and symbolic sense.”[3]

But, in a figurative way it is used to reference the idea of association, an act of commitment to and identification with.

In this context, Israel being baptized into Moses indicates that they were associated with and identified with Moses and also committed to Moses as their leader.

BARNES: They were devoted to Moses as a leader, they were brought under his laws, they became bound to obey him, they were placed under his protection and guidance by the miraculous interposition of God.

This was done by the fact that their passing through the sea, and under the cloud, in this manner, brought them under the authority and direction of Moses as a leader, and was a public recognition of their being his followers, and being bound to obey his laws.[4]

GARLAND: Israel's deliverance through the sea marked the beginning of their separation from Egypt and their new identity as God's covenant community, and the term "baptism" fittingly represents that experience.[5]

The exact nature of this baptism has long been debated.

Some have wondered if there was a literal type of baptism that occurred with the people.

Some have seen the cloud moving from in front of them to behind them as then encompassing them and drenching them in its movement.

Being baptized in the sea would refer to their journey through the sea with the water surrounding them on all either side.

Not only does this not match up to any definition for baptism, it likely misses the point.

While it would make for an interesting study, the point of the passage does not hinge on completely understanding the manner of baptism.

On the other hand, it is helpful, to see how the baptism into Moses is set up as a type for what would come later, that being baptism into Christ.

In the same way that Moses was Israel’s deliverer and the people followed him thus, Christ is the believer’s deliverer and we are to follow him.

GARLAND: In this case, he juxtaposes Israel's deliverer with the Christian's deliverer.

Moses was a type of Christ who led the Israelites to freedom.

Paul begins with the premise that baptism marks the beginning of the Christian life, and he applies it to the beginning of Israel's existence as God's covenant people, their deliverance from Egypt, and christens that deliverance as a baptism.[6]

Spiritual Nourishment

1 Corinthians 10:3–4 (ESV) 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.

There is little doubt that the spiritual food and spiritual drink mentioned in these two verses refers to the manna provided each morning during Israel’s wilderness wanderings and the water that was provided from the rock.

These two physical elements are spiritual in that they were supernaturally provided.

Their source was spiritual in that they were provided by the Spirit of God.

Manna was provided.

You likely recall the manna that was provided for Israel.

Israel found themselves wandering around the dessert without any provisions and God supplied their need by providing manna each morning.

Exodus 16:2–5 (ESV) And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, 3 and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” 4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.

5 On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.”

The rock supplied water.

The next chapter in Exodus outlines how God provided a rock from which water poured to supply the people with water.

A similar event is mentioned in Numbers 20, and the traditional view is that the rock in each of these instances is the same rock.

We are made aware in 1 Corinthians 10:4 that this rock followed them.

GARLAND: The clarification of some unknown interpreter became the traditional answer: "The rock of Exodus 17 and the rock of Numbers 20 are one and the same.

Hence, this rock must have accompanied the Israelites through their journey" (Enns 1996:31). . . .

The "following rock" implies God's continuing graciousness: these gifts recurring throughout their wanderings.

The source of this divine gift was always available to them. . . .

"The rock was Christ."

He is not thinking of a material rock following them, or a movable well, but of the divine source of the water that journeyed with them.

He understands the replenishing rock in a spiritual sense, not a physical sense.[7]

The rock was Christ.

The passage goes on further to tell us that the rock was Christ.

Some believe that the rock was a physical rock that physically followed them through the wilderness.

That would be quite amazing, supernatural, and a bit sensational.

It also may be true.

Others believe that there was a movable well.

There simply is no way to know and it doesn’t really matter how Christ provided their physical need for water.

What is important is that the “rock” was Christ.

Whether in the Old Testament or the New, Christ has always been the source for every spiritual gift.