Love Jesus 13

By Adolfo TM

Audio Transcript of this Post:

The First Epistle of Clement was written in a time of crisis in the church in Corinth, so I don’t want to leave Clement where I left off yesterday, i.e., only discussing his commentary on the phoenix. That would be akin to the Corinthians focusing on issues that were non-essential, as Clement argues in his letter.  

And while the letter is more than 2,000 years old, it’s surprisingly very relevant to our day. Imagine you’re attending a church that is so divided, there’s an actual “sedition against the leadership of their church.” 1Clem 47:5-6. That was the issue confronting Clement. However, it was more than that, because this wasn’t a case of good laypeople throwing out bad leaders. This was a “detestable and unholy sedition,” (IClem 1:1) which had ruined the reputation of the local church, according to Clement.

Clement described the incident as “righteous persons have been thrust out by holy men,” (1Clem 45:4), an action he pointed out, for which there is no precedent in Scripture.

From Clement’s assessment, at the root of the problem was pride, the sin that’s as old as time itself, and jealousy. The party responsible for the division needed to repent and submit to leadership, he wrote.

One of the fascinating aspects of this letter is that modern readers who’ve attended a church for any length of time will be all-too familiar with internal divisions, power struggles, and hurt within the local church. In this case, Clement tells his audience they didn’t always have these problems. Given Paul’s previous two letters to the Corinthian church, one wonders if perhaps they cleaned up their act, albeit momentarily, following the apostle’s New Testament letters? Clement noted that the church in Corinth used to be marked by “.. a profound and rich peace,” that “was given to all, and an insatiable desire of doing good. An abundant outpouring also of the Holy Spirit fell upon all,” I Clem 2:2. This was so evident that they used to be “free from malice one towards another,” I Clem 2:5

(This raises theological questions about the role of the Holy Spirit in Corinth’s current predicament, but that’s a subject for a different discussion).

Consider how this church conflict differed from any you may have experienced in your lifetime. Some of these church members were contemporaries of Jesus Christ and eyewitnesses to the Crucifixion! They were complimented by Clement for “…giving heed unto His words, ye laid them up diligently in your hearts, and His sufferings were before your eyes,” I Clem 2:1

And in this way he complimented their former spiritual state: “you were all lowly in mind and free from arrogance, yielding rather than claiming submission, more glad to give than to receive, and content with the provisions which God supplied,” I Clem 2:2. Then came a day when that wasn’t enough. They just weren’t satisfied.

Their downfall—pride and a turning away from God—came after they experienced some prosperity, according to Clement (I Clem 3:1-3). How little human nature has changed since then, eh? When money and things become an idol, we reject the Savior who owns it all—does that make sense?

Clement’s letter is written with much pastoral care! He reminds them that God “desires not the death of the sinner, so much as his repentance,” and, in His mercy, God told his people to repent, “wash and be clean,” IClem 8:3-5 

It’s actually rather encouraging from our perspective today looking back at an early church leader, saddened by the deep divisions in the local church, who pleaded and admonished them to end their squabble and be the church. The letter was clearly written by someone who had close proximity to Paul and/or his writings, and who was also a man with (not surprisingly) deep familiarity with the Hebrew scriptures. He gives many examples of people in the Bible who serve as examples for us, either in their humility or in their failures, including Cain and Abel, Noah, Moses, Rahab, Judith, Esther and David.

Since we’ve been saved by the riches of God’s grace, and not our works, Clement wrote, we ought to seek to live in unity and love with the brethren, 1Clem 57:1-2. “Let us therefore root this [conflict] out quickly, and let us fall down before the Master and entreat Him with tears, that He may show Himself propitious and be reconciled unto us, and may restore us to the seemly and pure conduct which belongeth to our love of the brethren.” 1Clem 48:1

“Love joineth us unto God; love covereth a multitude of sins; love endureth all things, is long-suffering in all things. There is nothing coarse, nothing arrogant in love. Love hath no divisions, love maketh no seditions, love doeth all things in concord. In love were all the elect of God made perfect; without love nothing is well pleasing to God,” 1Clem 49:5

I’m reminded of Jesus’ words in John 13:35: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Based on the internal evidence of the letter, the First Epistle of Clement was written before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD (it mentions ongoing temple sacrifices) and it also mentions the gospel. Compare this gospel in I Clement to the one you’re familiar with in the New Testament:

“Let us fix our eyes on the blood of Christ and understand how precious it is unto His Father, because being shed for our salvation, it won for the whole world the grace of repentance,” 1Clem 7:4

“And so we, having been called through His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works which we wrought in holiness of heart, but through faith, whereby the Almighty God justified all men that have been from the beginning; to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen,” 1Clem 32:4

“In love the Master took us unto Himself; for the love which He had toward us, Jesus Christ our Lord hath given His blood for us by the will of God, and His flesh for our flesh and His life for our lives,” 1Clem 49:6

“Ye see, dearly beloved, how great and marvelous a thing is love, and there is no declaring its perfection,” 1Clem 50:1

There’s much here that resonates with Paul’s writings but, ultimately, this letter was rejected as part of the cannon, and no doubt Clement’s decision to include the story of the Phoenix which I wrote about last time played a major role in doubting it’s in divine inspiration. However, the church in Corinth did resolve this matter eventually. And Clement, according to tradition, died a martyr.

I Clemente
https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/1clement-lightfoot.html