1Brothers, I couldn’t speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshly, as to babies in Christ. 2I fed you with milk, not with solid food, for you weren’t yet ready. Indeed, you aren’t ready even now, 3for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men? 4For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you fleshly?
5Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave to him? 6I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase. 7So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. 8Now he who plants and he who waters are the same, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. 9For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s farming, God’s building.
10According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each man be careful how he builds on it. 11For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, 13each man’s work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man’s work is. 14If any man’s work remains which he built on it, he will receive a reward. 15If any man’s work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but as through fire.
16Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? 17If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, which you are.
18Let no one deceive himself. If anyone thinks that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He has taken the wise in their craftiness.” 20And again, “The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise, that it is worthless.” 21Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. All are yours, 23and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
John returns to his first term of endearment to continue his discussion of abiding. He begins with the imperative for them to keep abiding in Christ. This is the sense of the present-tense imperative he uses to address his readers. The purpose of abiding follows. By abiding, we are prepared to meet Jesus whenever He appears. This is communicated through the same term (ἐὰν) translated “if” earlier, but carrying the sense of “whenever it is that He should appear.” It makes clear that there is no guarantee that Jesus will appear in their or our lifetime, just that He is coming sooner or later. So, the idea John is communicating is that of preparedness and anticipation. We should be living each day conscious of the possibility that Jesus will come “today.”
The purpose of abiding, and thereby being prepared, is that we can know we will stand before Jesus confidently when the day of His appearing for us arrives. The confidence John speaks of here is not confidence that we will be ready, but confidence while we are standing in His presence. Those who are not prepared will experience shame of such a degree that they will “shrink back” from Jesus in humiliation. They will have been caught unprepared for Jesus’ return. This shame is not a loss of salvation, but the response of a saved person who is caught in sin before their sinless Lord. The reason for this shame is made clear in 3:2. Further, this looks at the Bema Seat judgment of Christ when each of us will give an account of our lives to Him. His judgment will be like fire, according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15. All believers will survive it. The foundation of their salvation is Jesus. Not all believers will receive a reward from Jesus because nothing of value will have been done by them. They will be the ones shrinking back in shame as they see their works being “burned up” in Jesus’ “burning” judgment.
John includes himself with his readers by his change from the second-person plural command, “you abide in Him,” to the first-person plural, “we may have confidence.” The apostles had to abide in Christ as much as any other saint and would need that same confidence when each of them met Jesus in heaven at the ends of their lives on earth. Why should this concern every believer? That is answered by what John says next.