1 Corinthians 10:1 - Meaning and Application

To keep the Corinthians from joining with idol worshipers and from feeling safe in any sinful path, Paul points them to the Jews, the Old Testament church. They had great privileges, but they also gave in to serious sins and suffered severe judgments. In these verses, he lists their privileges, which were, in the main, the same as ours.

He begins with a careful reminder: “I do not want you to be unaware.” This history matters, and they should pay close attention to it. The religion of the Old Testament was Christianity in hidden form, wrapped in symbols and shadows. The gospel was preached to them through their ceremonies and sacrifices. What happened to them under God’s care, despite all these privileges, should warn us too.

He starts with their rescue from Egypt. “Our fathers,” meaning the ancestors of the Jews, were under the cloud and all passed through the sea. They were all under God’s guiding and protecting care. The cloud served both purposes: sometimes it became a pillar of cloud, bright on one side to guide them and dark on the other to hide them from their enemies. At other times it spread over them like a large covering, shielding them from the burning sun in the desert (Psalm 105:39).

They were also miraculously led through the Red Sea, while the Egyptians who chased them were drowned. The sea became a road for Israel and a grave for Egypt. This was a fitting picture of our rescue through Christ, who saves us by defeating and destroying his enemies and ours. God’s great miracles for them showed how dear they were to him and how fully he had taken them under his care.

They also had holy signs like ours. First, they were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea (1 Corinthians 10:2), or brought under Moses’ law and covenant, just as baptism places us under the Christian law and covenant. This was a baptism in a symbolic sense. Second, they all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink that we do. The manna they ate pointed to Christ, the bread from heaven, who gives life forever to all who receive him.

Their drink came from the rock that supplied water in the wilderness, and that rock followed them in their journey. That rock was Christ, in a sign and figure. He is the rock on which the Christian church is built, and all believers drink from the streams that flow from him and are refreshed. It is called spiritual rock because it pointed to spiritual things. These were great privileges, and one might think they would have kept them holy and pleasing to God.

But it was not so. “God was not pleased with most of them, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness” (1 Corinthians 10:5). People may enjoy many and great spiritual privileges in this world and still miss eternal life. Many who were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, meaning that these miracles confirmed his divine calling, were still overthrown in the wilderness and never entered the promised land. No one should rest on privileges or a profession of truth. These things will not secure heavenly happiness, or even keep judgments from coming in this life, unless the inward reality is there.