1 Corinthians 3:21

All things are yours The categories which follow form an inventory of the possessions of the Church and of the individual Christian. This includes: the christian teachers with different gifts; the world, life, and things present; death and things to come. In Christ, death becomes a possession, as the right of way between things present and things to come.

1 Corinthians 3:21-23 . Therefore — Upon the whole, considering all that has been advanced, and especially considering in what view the great God regards these things which we are so ready to value ourselves upon; let no man glory in men — So as to divide into parties on their account; for all things are yours — And we in particular. We are not your lords, but rather your servants: whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas — We are all equally yours, to serve you for Christ’s sake: or the world — This leap, from Peter to the world, greatly enlarges the thought, and argues a kind of impatience of enumerating the rest. Peter, and every one in the whole world, however excellent in gifts, or grace, or office, are also your servants for Christ’s sake; or life or death — These, with all their various circumstances, are disposed as will be most for your advantage; or things present — On earth, or things to come — In heaven. Contend therefore no more about these little things, but be ye united in love as ye are in blessings. And ye are Christ’s — His property, his subjects, his members; and Christ is God’s — As Mediator, he acted as his Father’s servant, and referred all his services to his Father’s glory. Others understand the passage thus: “All things are appointed for your good, and ye are appointed for Christ’s honour, and Christ for God’s glory.”

1 Corinthians SERVANTS AND LORDS DEATH, THE FRIEND1 Corinthians 3:21 - 1 Corinthians 3:22 . What Jesus Christ is to a man settles what everything else is to Him. Our relation to Jesus determines our relation to the universe. If we belong to Him, everything belongs to us. If we are His servants, all things are our servants. The household of Jesus, which is the whole Creation, is not divided against itself, and the fellow-servants do not beat one another. Two bodies moving in the same direction, and under the impulse of the same force, cannot come into collision, and since ‘all things work together,’ according to the counsel of His will, ‘all things work together for good’ to His lovers. The triumphant words of my text are no piece of empty rhetoric, but the plain result of two facts-Christ’s rule and the Christian’s submission. ‘All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s,’ so the stars in their courses fight against those who fight against Him, and if we are at peace with Him we shall ‘make a league with the beasts of the field, and the stones of the field,’ which otherwise would be hindrances and stumbling-blocks, ‘shall be at peace with’ us.

The Apostle carries his confidence in the subservience of all things to Christ’s servants very far, and the words of my text, in which he dares to suggest that ‘the Shadow feared of man’ is, after all, a veiled friend, are hard to believe, when we are brought face to face with death, either when we meditate on our own end, or when our hearts are sore and our hands are empty. Then the question comes, and often is asked with tears of blood, Is it true that this awful force, which we cannot command, does indeed serve us? Did it serve those whom it dragged from our sides; and in serving them, did it serve us? Paul rings out his ‘Yes’; and if we have as firm a hold of Paul’s Lord as Paul had, our answer will be the same. Let me, then, deal with this great thought that lies here, of the conversion of the last enemy into a friend, the assurance that we may all have that death is ours, though not in the sense that we can command it, yet in the sense that it ministers to our highest good. That thought may be true about ourselves when it comes to our turn to die, and, thank God, has been true about all those who have departed in His faith and fear. Some of you may have seen two very striking engravings by a great, though somewhat unknown artist, representing Death as the Destroyer, and Death as the Friend.