FIRSTBORN
This word "firstborn" (prōtotokos) is used in the Bible in several distinct senses.
1. its OT background refers to
a. the firstborn belongs to YHWH (BDB 114, KB 131, cf. Exod. 13:2,12; 22:29; 34:19; Num. 3:13)
b. the pre-imminence of the firstborn son of the family (cf. Deut. 21:17; Ps. 89:27; Luke 2:7; Rom. 8:29; Heb. 11:28)
2. its use in Col. 1:15 speaks of Jesus as the first of creation which is a possible OT allusion to Pro. 8:22-31, or God's agent of creation (cf. John 1:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:15-16; Heb. 1:2)
3. its use in Col. 1:15,18; 1 Cor. 15:20,23; Rev. 1:5 refers to Jesus as the firstborn from the dead
4. it is an OT title used of the Messiah (cf. Ps. 89:27; Heb. 1:6; 12:23); it is a title which combines several aspects of the primacy and centrality of Jesus.
1Co 10:1 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
1Co 10:2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
1Co 10:3 And did all eat the same spiritual meat;
1Co 10:4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
1Co 10:5 But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
1Co 10:6 Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
Christ. . As the source of their supply, He is called the Rock. Compare Deu_32:4, Deu_32:15, Deu_32:18, Deu_32:30, Deu_32:31, Deu_32:37. Psa_19:14; &c.
ἐκ πνευματ. ἀκολ. πέτρας· ἡ δὲ πέτρα ἦν ὁ Χ.] from a spiritual rock that followed them; the Rock, however (which we speak of here), was Christ. Πνευματικῆς has the emphasis; it corresponds to the preceding πνευματικόν, and is explained more specifically by ἡ δὲ π. ἦν ὁ Χ. The relation denoted by ἀκολουθούσης, again, is assumed to be self-evident, and therefore no further explanation is given of the word. The thoughts, to which Paul here gives expression, are the following:—(1) To guard and help the Israelites in their journey through the wilderness, Christ accompanied them, namely, in His pre-existent divine nature, and consequently as the Son of God (= the Λόγος of John),
who afterwards appeared as man (comp Wis_10:15 ff.). (2) The rock, from which the water that they drank flowed, was not an ordinary natural rock, but a πέτρα πνευματική; not the mere appearance or phantasm of a rock, but an actual one, although of supernatural and heavenly origin, inasmuch as it was the real self-revelation and manifestation of the Son of God, who invisibly accompanied the host on its march; it was, in other words, the very Christ from heaven, as being His own substantial and efficient presentation of Himself to men (comp Targ. Isa_16:1, and Philo’s view, p. 1103 A, that the rock was the σοφία).
(3) Such being the state of the case as to the rock, it must of necessity be a rock that followed, that accompanied and went with the children of Israel in their way through the desert; for Christ in His pre-existent condition, the heavenly “substratum,” so to speak, of this rock, went constantly with them, so that everywhere in the wilderness His essential presence could manifest itself in their actual experience through the rock with its abundant water; and, in point of fact, did so manifest itself again and again. In drinking from the rock, they had their thirst quenched by Christ, who, making the rock His form of manifestation, supplied the water from Himself, although this marvellous speciality about the way in which their thirst was met remained hidden from the Israelites.
Since the apostle’s words thus clearly and completely explain themselves, we have no right to ascribe to Paul, what was a later invention of the Rabbins, the notion that the rock rolled along after the marching host (Bammidbar, R. S. 1; Onkelos on Num_21:18-20; and see Wetstein and Schöttgen, also Lund, Heiligth., ed. Wolf, p. 251); such fictions as these, when compared with what the apostle actually says, should certainly be regarded as extravagant aftergrowths (in opposition to Rückert and de Wette). It is just as unwarrantable, however, to explain away, by any exegetical expedient, this rock which followed them, and which was Christ. The attempts which have been made with this view run directly counter to the plain meaning of the words; e.g. the interpretation of Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Piscator, Drusius, Grotius, Lightfoot, Billroth, al[1587] (which dates from Theodore of Mopsuestia), that the rock means here what came from it, the water (!), which, they hold, followed the people and prefigured Christ (ἦν). That ἦν denotes here significabat (so too Augustine, Vatablus, Salmasius, Bengel, Loesner, al[1588]), is a purely arbitrary assumption, seeing that Paul neither says ἐστί, nor τύπος ἦν, or the like, nor even indicates in any way in the context a typico-allegorical reference. This applies also against what Ch. F. Fritzsche has in his Nova opusc. p. 261: “The rock in the wilderness was a rock of blessing, strength, and life-giving for the Jews, and thus it prefigures Christ,” etc. Paul does not say anything of the sort; it is simply his expositors who insert it on their own authority. Baur, too, does violence to the apostle’s words (comp his neut. Theol. p. 193), by asserting that Paul speaks of Christ as the πνευμ. πέτρα only in so far as he saw a type which had reference to Christ in the rock that followed the Israelites, according to the allegoric interpretation which he put upon it.[1590] See, in opposition to this, Räbiger, Christol. Paul. p. 31 f.; Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 319. The ordinary exposition comes nearer to the truth, but fails to reach it in this respect, that it does not keep firm enough hold of the statement, that “that rock was Christ,” and so of its identity with Him, but takes Christ to be the Rock only in an ideal and figurative sense, regarding Him as different from the rock from which the water flowed, but as the author of its supply. So, in substance, Chrysostom,[1591] Oecumenius, Theophylact, Melanchthon, Cornelius a Lapide, and many others, among whom are Flatt, Kling in the Stud. und Krit. 1839, p. 835; Osiander, Neander, Hofmann.[1592]
[1583] Bengel well says: “Si plura essent N. T. sacramenta, ceteris quoque simile quiddam posuisset Paulus.” At the same time, it should be observed that the ecclesiastical notion of a sacrament does not appear in the N. T., but is an abstraction from the common characteristics of the two ordinances in question. Both, however, are equally essential and characteristic elements in the fellowship of the Christian life. Comp. Baur, neut. Theol. p. 200; Weiss, bibl. Theol. p. 353.
[1587] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
[1588] l. and others; and other passages; and other editions.
[1590] Baur is wholly unwarranted in taking πνευματικός, ver. 3 f., in the sense of typical or allegorically significant. His appeal to Rev_11:8 and Barnab. 10 is irrelevant.
[1591] οὐ γὰρ ἡ τῆς πέτρας φύσις τὸ ὕδωρ ἠφίει φησὶν οὐ γὰρ ἂν καὶ πρὸ τούτου ἀνέβλυζεν, ἀλλ ἑτέρα τις πέτρα πνευματικὴ τὸ πᾶν εἰργάζετο, τουτέστιν ὁ Χριστὸς ὁ παρὼν αὐτοῖς πανταχοῦ καὶ πάντα θαυματουργῶν.
[1592] Comp. his Schriftbew. I. p. 171: “The rock from which the water flowed was a natural one, and stood fast in its own place; but the true Rock that really gave the water was the öåÌø éÄùÒÀøÈàÅì (Isa_30:29), was Jehovah, who went with Israel.” By not calling the Rock God, but Christ, the apostle points forward, as it were (according to Hofmann), to the application which he is about to make of the words, namely, to the cup which Christ gives us to drink. But Paul’s words are so simple, clear, and definite, that it is impossible to get off by any quid pro quo. For the rest, it is to be observed that in this passage, as in the previous one, where the crossing of the sea is taken as a typical prefiguration of baptism, we have doubtless a Rabbinical process of thought on the part of the apostle, which, as such, is not to be measured by the taste of our day, so that this unvarnished exegetical conception of it might be set down as something “absurd,” as is done by Hofmann. The Rabbinical culture of his time, under which the apostle grew up, was not done away with by the fact of his becoming the vessel of divine grace, revelation, and power. Comp. Gal_4:22 ff. Our passage has nothing whatever to do with Isa_30:29, where men go up into the temple to Jehovah, the Rock of Israel. It is of importance, however, in connection with Paul’s doctrine regarding the pre-existence of Christ and its accordance with the doctrine of the Logos.
H-Meyer.
J.
