1 Corinthians 6:9–11

Verse 9 is no doubt intended to cut two ways. First, they had been taking their cases to the unrighteous. But the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God themselves. In that kingdom, authority rests on true righteousness. Second, the Corinthians should judge themselves. Their own actions had begun to look like the actions of the unrighteous.

The assembly — all believers together — is united to Christ. When He judges the world and passes sentence on the angels, she will stand with Him and share in His judgment, because she has His Spirit and His mind. But nothing unrighteous will ever enter that kingdom. How could anyone who takes pleasure in evil judge it?

Anyone who questions this would have to deny some of the plainest passages of Scripture. Take 1 Cor. 6:9-10, for example: what can be plainer? "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived" — and note, Paul writes this to people who call themselves Christians — "neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers," and so on, "will inherit the kingdom of God."

A true believer may fall into any of the terrible evils listed in verses 9 and 10. But none of them describes his character. He repents, and in time God restores him. Those characterized by these things have no part in the kingdom of God, either here or hereafter. So they stand completely outside the fellowship of God's assembly.

Even the truest believer can grow careless and fall into the worst sins. But you could not say he lives in them. They do not shape his life. The Spirit of God works on the believer's conscience. He admits and confesses his sin, and receives forgiveness and cleansing. Statements like this are not meant to fill believers with doubt. They test whether a person's claim to be a Christian is real.

Clearly the apostle does not stop at the one case in front of him. He lays bare the habits so common in Corinth — corruption far more than violence. He is not swinging at empty air, nor attacking sins found only somewhere else. If no one judges it, letting the body and the world have their way ends in shocking excess. Playing with a little evil is the straight road to more and worse — and nowhere more surely than in someone who calls himself a Christian.

The kingdom will take its character from the King. So God's heirs should live now in a way that fits the kingdom that is coming. Whatever can never enter that glory should have no place in our lives on earth. The future should govern the present; the future is secure in God; the present is our responsibility.

It makes it quite plain that the gospel is not intended to be an allowance of sin, but salvation from it. Where a person truly receives it, it takes him out of the sins it found him in and sets him on the path of holiness. As the apostle goes on here: "And such were some of you; but you were washed, you were sanctified"... The grace which saves makes holy.

The apostle does not limit himself to the actual case. He is exposing in strong terms the habits so common at Corinth — corruption much more than violence. He is speaking for profit and for solemn warning, as the Holy Spirit always does when He touches sin at all. He is not wasting words, and he is not condemning sins found only elsewhere. If fleshly and worldly licence goes unjudged, it will surely end in revolting excesses. Tampering with a little evil is the straight road to more and worse, and in no one so certainly as the professing Christian.

Verse 9 is no doubt meant to cut two ways. First, the Corinthians had been appealing to the judgment of the unrighteous. Those judges will not even inherit the kingdom of God themselves, a kingdom where God maintains authority in true righteousness. Second, let the Corinthians judge themselves, since their own actions made them resemble the unrighteous.

Scripture often presses the holy character of the kingdom. Evil works and fleshly activity will find no place in it… The kingdom will match the character of the King. The heirs of God should now walk worthy of the coming kingdom. What may never enter the glory should be kept out of our lives on earth. The future should govern the present; the future is secure in God; the present is our responsibility.

Covetousness. This is the selfish greed inside a person's heart. It wants to take hold of things other than those God has given him, and only what God gives is rightly his. The covetous man is called an idolater (Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5), because he sets up another god inside himself, and serves that god with his whole heart.

This is a serious evil. If somebody keeps at it, it will end in their exclusion, for a reviler must be put away from among us as a wicked person (1 Cor. 5:11-13). Such a person is counted among "those outside."

A true believer may fall into any of the terrible evils listed in verses 9 and 10. But he is not characterized by any of them, and repentance restores him in the end. Those characterized by these things have no part in the kingdom of God, either here or hereafter. They are therefore completely outside the fellowship of the assembly of God.

How can anyone taught of God allow that a person born of the Spirit is to be classed among the unrighteous? Compare the rest of this verse and the verses that follow. The issue there is not failure in a believer. Paul is denouncing wholly wicked characters. Set that against his very different statement: "And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

Wonderful grace, that can take us up from the lowest place of degradation in the far country and give us a place with Christ in the highest glory of the Father's house! Having lived in such conditions, these saints were in special danger of slipping back into old habits unless they kept clinging to Christ.

This is most plain and most weighty. It makes it quite clear that the gospel is not a permission to sin, but salvation from it. Where a man truly receives it, it brings him out of the things it finds him in and sets him in the way of holiness… The grace that saves makes holy.

What a striking contrast between the two sides of the apostle's "but"! On one side is all the moral degradation of man's condition. On the other side is all the absolute perfectness of the believer's standing before God. It is a marvellous contrast. Remember: the soul passes from one side of this "but" to the other in the twinkling of an eye. "Such were some of you" — but you are now something quite different. The moment they received Paul's gospel, they were "washed, sanctified, and justified." They were fit for heaven; and if they had not been, it would have been a slur on God's own work.

When he says they are washed, the apostle is not speaking of our constant need for the word to remove the daily defilements that put us out of touch with Christ. The washing of feet pictures that daily cleansing. He means the work of the Spirit in new birth. God does this work once for all, and it gives a new nature that shrinks from the filth of the flesh.

It is very possible there is some allusion to their baptism as an outward sign of it. I am not discussing that here. But washing is not the same thing as sanctifying, and sanctifying, as all admit, is a different thing from justifying. The Corinthian believers are called "washed" because the word of God acts first on a guilty soul to deal with his impurity. It detects, judges, and removes the evil that defiles. "Sanctifying" is taken up only with the good to which the soul is set apart, and it deals with that good positively. There is an object that draws the affections and sets us apart. It is not just a cleansing from our natural evil.

Sanctification here applies from the start of an effective inward work, even before a soul knows pardon and peace. But there is also room for the practical power of the Holy Spirit. He works later in heart and conscience, separating us more and more by the truth to the Lord. So there are two distinct senses of sanctification. One is absolute: the Holy Spirit separates a person once for all from the world to God at conversion. The other is relative: it is practical, it admits of degrees, and so it differs in measure over each Christian's later life.

Washing means the deep, basic work of moral renewal that the new birth accomplishes. Sanctification is a setting apart for God, now to be for His use and pleasure. Justification clears every charge that would otherwise stand against us. It is a judicial setting right, so that we stand in righteousness before God. All three are ours in the Name of the Lord Jesus — that is, because of His sacrificial work. They are also ours by the Spirit of our God — that is, by His effective work in our hearts. We might have tied the washing only to the work of the Spirit, and justification only to the work of Christ. But that is not what Scripture says here.

These are striking statements, for the Corinthian Christians were in many ways very blameworthy. They had not gone far in practical sanctification. Yet the apostle does not hesitate to remind them: in the name of the Lord Jesus and by God's Spirit, God had sanctified them as truly as He had washed and justified them. They had been set apart for God.

"And such were some of you." This would give Satan an advantage if they looked away from Christ. Old habits then regain their power, and bad company corrupts good manners. He reminds them of the gracious power of God in Christ, in whom they believed through the action of His Spirit. He will not allow that this could all be in vain.