Dare any one of you, having a matter against another, prosecute his suit before the unjust, and not before the saints?
In Corinth, believers were taking each other to the public courts. Paul's question sets two groups side by side — "the saints" and "the unrighteous" — and says a Christian who sues another has forgotten what God calls each of them.
The wording is not mild rebuke but astonishment. One writer sets today's easy conscience against the outrage the Holy Spirit felt.
Here modern practice, or even thought, differs greatly from apostolic principle. Christians today have little conscience about appealing to a worldly tribunal. It is clear that the Holy Spirit felt it to be an outrage. No Christian who walks rightly could think of taking another believer to court before the world. It makes no difference how wrong that believer might be. He must have forgotten what God counts each to be. The world has rejected His Son. The saints are those whom grace has separated from the world to God.
The word covers more than the men on the bench. It is a title for the whole world outside, and the reverse of what God calls the believer. Older translations use "unjust" here.
Notice first how the word "unjust" works as a title that marks out those the previous chapter calls "outside." The believer is justified by his faith. The world he was called out of, the Spirit leaves under the stigma of unrighteousness. "The saints" and "the unjust" are his two opposite labels. One covers the church of the living God. The other covers the world that the church was called out of.
That title does not shut down the courts. God still uses them, and the world has nowhere else to go.
It is remarkable that the apostle Paul brands the judges of the law in his day as unjust. Yet for all that, God employed them. There were magistrates and judges. God called them unjust when His own people were involved, because His people had a far higher standard of righteousness. They knew Christ. The Corinthians should have settled all these disputes among themselves. So they were badly wrong to carry on like the world. The world must go to the law-court. What else could it do? It cannot settle things itself, and it does not have the authority the court has. But the children of God have quite another tribunal.
Paul answers the lawsuit with a future fact, used as a present measure.
The apostle brings the light of the coming day to bear on present matters… In the kingdom of our Lord there will be a judgment of the living. That future reality acts on the apostle now. He uses it to judge the conduct of every day. How can it be a living truth if it does not work like that? Even the Corinthians did not doubt the future fact. But like all unspiritual people, they let it slip in the present, where they ought to have remembered it.
Timing matters. The believer's share in judging is real, but it belongs to a day that has not yet come.
Why, then, is it pressed on the believer as an almost self-evident principle? Because the believer is not of the world. He belongs to Christ. True, he will judge the world, and judge angels, but this will be with Christ. If Christ waits for that time, so must he.
These disputes are small. Settling them needs no unusual gift.
The saints are going to judge the world and angels. So they must be able to settle the far smaller affairs of everyday life. If matters about this life come up between brothers, the least esteemed in the assembly can settle them. Such matters call for no great spirituality or gift, only common sense and honesty.
One writer points to a better option than winning: taking the loss.
He tells them they should suffer wrong rather than take each other to court before unbelievers… His aim is to avoid lawsuits between brothers. The Lord says we are not to resist evil. It is a question of grace, though righteousness is in it. If I can keep Christ's character, I would rather do that than keep my cloak. It is more sorrowful for the heart to lose Christ's character than to lose the cloak.
The harm does not stop with the two believers.
It was also a wrong done to the world itself. What power is there in a testimony that contradicts itself, preaching the cross and yet fighting in the flesh?
- Forgetting — the lawsuit begins when a believer forgets what God calls the world and what He calls the saints.
- Standing — God calls the world "unjust" and calls believers saints. The courts are still God's provision for the world, but not the believer's tribunal.
- Prospect — saints will judge the world and angels. That coming day should settle today's small quarrels.
- Provision — everyday matters need only common sense and honesty. Even the least esteemed in the assembly can decide them.
- Preference — better to lose the cloak than to win the case and lose Christ's character.
Do ye not then know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world is judged by you, are ye unworthy of [the] smallest judgments?
Paul has just dealt with open sin in the church at Corinth. Now he turns to believers taking each other to the public courts, and he answers by reminding them of the office they will hold one day.
One writer contrasts today's habits with the apostle's principle:
Christian practice today, and even Christian thinking, differs greatly from the apostle's principle. Christians now have little conscience about appealing to a worldly court. It is clear that the Holy Spirit felt this to be an outrage. No Christian who is walking rightly could think of taking another to court before the world, however wrong that other may be. He must be forgetting what God counts each to be. The world has rejected His Son. The saints are those whom grace has separated from the world to God.
Paul reasons from what is coming to how they should act now:
Here the apostle bases his reproof on how strange it is to seek judgment from the very people we shall judge at Christ's coming... The future judgment of the living in the kingdom of our Lord is a reality that acts on the apostle now. He uses it to judge the conduct of every day. How can it be a living truth if it does not work like this? Even the Corinthians did not doubt the fact about the future. But like all unspiritual people, they had let it slip in the very place where they should have remembered it... In the eyes of faith it was a glaring inconsistency. If the world is judged by the saints, are they unfit to judge the smallest matters? Such were and still are the questions people take to court.
The word "judge" here means ruling, not just giving verdicts.
"Judgment was given to them." That is, these saints receive royal authority to rule. It is the fulfilment of that grand and unqualified statement, "Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?" (1 Cor. 6:2).
Paul assumes they already know this, and one writer traces where they could have learned it:
They really ought to have known that "the saints will judge the world." This fact had been stated in the Old Testament. "The Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom" (Dan. 7:22; older translations read "judgment was given to the saints"). Had they really known it, they would not have dragged one another into pagan law courts. If we really knew it, we would perhaps avoid certain things that we do.
Commentators place this judging in Christ's coming reign over the earth. They keep it apart from the final judgment.
The saints are to judge as well as reign... This refers only to the earthly judgments connected with the kingdom. Where eternal issues are in question, we read of one "throne," not "thrones" (contrast Rev. 20:4 and 11). Still, the position is a wonderful one for us. Once we dreaded the judgment of God on ourselves, because of our many sins. Now all that dread has gone. We look forward to sitting on the judge's bench ourselves in the coming day when the earth is ruled in glory.
One writer corrects a common misreading:
It simply means that the saints of God were going to law before the unjust instead of before the church of God. They were told to let the saints settle the matter. Why? Because the saints are going to judge the world. Many Christians think the saints will be judged along with the world. But they will be there as judges — quite a different thing. What a wonderful honour. It is most solemn. Think of Christ coming to take His saints to glory, and coming back with us to judge the world... All saved people in this present age are saints.
Their coming office makes today's disputes look small.
He asks them whether they do not know that the saints will judge the world. That is, of course, in the coming day of the Lord's rule over it; but it is for this that we are being trained and educated now. How could those who are on their way to such a place be unfit or unworthy to judge these small matters? In the apostle's estimate they count for very little.
- Known — Paul argues from a truth they already believed. Their fault was letting it slip in the one place where it applied.
- Given — to judge here means royal authority to rule, promised long before in Daniel's vision of the kingdom passing to the saints.
- Coming — this belongs to Christ's reign over the earth. The kingdom has thrones for the saints; the final judgment has one throne.
- Judges — in that day believers sit on the bench, not among the accused. The honour is real, and it is solemn.
- Now — God is training us for that day. Those set to judge the world are not too small for today's quarrels.
Do ye not know that we shall judge angels? and not then matters of this life?
Believers in Corinth were dragging each other into public courts. Paul stops them with a fact about their future, not a rule about their conduct. If people who will one day judge angels cannot settle a dispute over money, something is deeply wrong.
The word does not mean acting as the final Judge of men. It means sharing the rule Christ will exercise in that day.
Paul, in 1 Cor. 6:3, says that the saints will judge angels. They will judge the world too, and that is a truth revealed elsewhere; but this passage says plainly that they are to judge angels... Scripture does assure us that the earth we live on will be put under the Lord Jesus in that day, and the saints are to reign with Him. The risen saints will share His royal authority, for that is what "judging" means here. It has nothing at all to do with Christ's final award of man. It is no small mistake to think that the saints will carry out the final judgment on men or angels. All such judgment belongs to the Son of Man alone (John 5:22, 27; Rev. 20).
Believers come into this because the Lord Jesus holds the authority as Man.
The Lord Jesus receives authority to carry out judgment as Man, and this includes the judgment of angels (John 5:22, 27). Redeemed people will be fully identified with Him in this judgment. If that is so, how much more should a believer be able to judge the things of this life. Remember that "the spiritual person judges [or discerns] all things" (ch. 2:16).
The verse does not say how this will happen. Commentators give more than one answer.
There are two ways in which this Scripture may be fulfilled. "The world to come" will be put under the rule of the Son of Man, and believers will share their Lord's earthly rule. So it is quite possible that angels will be under the direction of the saints in that day. Or, as someone has said, "when Christ judges the world and pronounces the doom of the [fallen] angels, the church will be joined with Him and take part in His judgment, for she has His Spirit and His mind." Paul mentions that we are to judge angels to shame the Corinthian believers, who were going to court before the unjust.
This is the only place in Scripture that says it. Some treat a statement made only once as doubtful. But other weighty truths also appear only once.
If it were true that the reign of the saints with Christ had been revealed only once, is our judging angels any less credible or important because we have it in this single passage? Christ handing the kingdom over to the Father is recorded only in 1 Cor. 15:24. Is that truth therefore of doubtful meaning or of little value?
Commentators differ on how wide the "we" reaches. One notes the wording shifts from the earlier verse:
Verse 3 brings before us a still more astonishing fact. But here the change from "the saints" to "we" may show that only the apostles will judge angels.
The point of the verse is not curiosity about angels. It is that the cases waiting for these believers are of a completely different order from the ones they were filing in court.
What strong reasons we are given here for having no lawsuits among brothers! What a case for stopping the proceedings! Cases are pending; trials wait for the great judgment day. But they are not the cases of the saints. They are those of the world and of angels, and in them we will be the judges together with Christ!
The coming day settles today's quarrels, and it settles them toward grace, not winning.
He tells them they should suffer wrong rather than go to court before unbelievers. They were in a terrible state; they lacked no gift, and they showed no grace... The Lord says we are not to resist evil. It is a question of grace, though righteousness is in it. If I can keep Christ's character, I would rather do so than keep my cloak. It is more sorrowful for the heart to lose Christ's character than to lose the cloak.
- Authority. Here "judging" means sharing Christ's royal rule in His kingdom. The final award on men and angels belongs to the Son of Man alone.
- Association. Believers share in it because the Lord Jesus judges as Man, and redeemed people are fully identified with Him.
- Certainty. This promise appears only here. A truth stated once is as sure as one repeated, like Christ handing the kingdom to the Father.
- Scope. Commentators differ. Angels may come under the saints' direction in that day. Or the church may be joined to Christ when He sentences the fallen angels. One writer limits the "we" to the apostles.
- Consequence. If the world and angels are the cases waiting for us, a lawsuit between believers is beneath us. Better to lose the cloak than Christ's character.