Do gay people go to heaven?

If we were to question this, we should have to deny some of the plainest passages of Scripture. Taker Cor. 6:9-10, for example: what can be plainer? "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived," and this, mark, is addressed to professing Christians, "neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers," and so on, "shall inherit the kingdom of God."

This is most plain and most weighty. It makes it quite plain that the gospel is not intended to be an allowance of sin, but salvation from it. Where really received, it brings a man out of the things it finds him in, and sets him in the way of holiness. As the apostle goes on here: "And such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified," etc. And again, as in Titus 2:11-12, "the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared, … teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world." The grace which saves makes holy.

Verse 9 is no doubt intended to cut two ways. First, the unrighteous to whose judgment they had been appealing would not even themselves inherit the kingdom of God, where authority is maintained in true righteousness. But secondly, let the Corinthians judge in themselves as to the way in which they by their actions were guilty of resembling the unrighteous. For as to the list of evil characters that follows, it is positively declared they shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

If one called a Christian acts fraudulently, serious questions are raised in view of the fact that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. The first question we ask is — Is he a true Christian after all? God alone knows. We stand in doubt of him. A true believer may fall into any of the terrible evils enumerated in verses 9 and 10, but he is not characterized by any of them, and through repentance he is eventually restored. Those characterized by these things have no part in the kingdom of God, either here or hereafter. They are consequently clean outside the fellowship of the assembly of God.

Some of the Corinthians had been sinners of this type, but their conversion had involved three things — washing, sanctification, justification. Washing signifies that deep and fundamental work of moral renovation which is accomplished by the new birth. Sanctification is a setting apart for God, now to be for His use and pleasure. Justification is a clearance from every count that otherwise would lie against us; 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, in virtue of His sacrificial work; and by the Spirit of our God — that is, by His effective work in our hearts. We might have been inclined to connect the washing with the work of the Spirit exclusively, and the justification exclusively with the work of Christ. But it is not so stated here. The objective and the subjective go hand in hand.

Let every believer watch himself with earnest godly care. Flesh must be treated as a dead and judged thing, and then all is well; but if it be allowed to work, though but for a moment, any evil may follow. Those who persist in an evil course the apostle repudiates altogether here. He presses it in this place on the Galatians, as elsewhere on the Ephesians (Eph. 5:5), that those also who live thus shall not inherit God's kingdom. The truest believer may, through unwatchfulness, fall into the gravest sins; but such cannot be said to live in them — they do not characterise their lives. The believer, through the action of the Spirit of God on his conscience, owns and confesses his sin, and gets forgiveness and cleansing. Such statements are not intended to encourage doubts in the hearts of saints, but to test and sift profession. There is much of it in this day. On every hand there is boastful profession of Christianity; but in how many cases is the fruit lacking which God looks for! 2 Tim. 3:1-5 may well be pondered in this connection.

It is written, "The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God," and the Scripture cannot be broken. Read in 1 Cor. 6:9-10 a detailed list of characters who by the righteousness of God and the holiness of heaven must forever be debarred from the inheritance of the saints in light. But, all glory to the grace of God, there is salvation from this state of sin and guilt. The apostle says of the washed, sanctified and justified Corinthians, "and such were SOME OF YOU."

(Vv. 9-11). The Apostle passes on to speak of the wrongs that provoked the law suits. He gives a solemn description of evil in its corruption, rather than its violence, which was rampant at Corinth, but which has no place in the kingdom of God. Having given this terrible list of the corruptions of the flesh, he says, “Such were some of you”. Wonderful grace that can take us up from the lowest place of degradation in the far country and associate us with Christ in the highest place of glory in the Father's house! Having lived in such conditions, these saints were in special danger of lapsing into old habits unless kept cleaving to Christ.

However sad the evils that needed to be dealt with, the Apostle can still say, “But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified”. In saying they are washed, it is evident that the Apostle is not referring to the constant need of the application of the word to remove all the daily defilements that put us out of touch with Christ, and which is set forth in figure by feet-washing. He refers rather to the work of the Spirit in new birth, which is done once for all, and by which is imparted a new nature that shrinks from the filth of the flesh.

Failure in faith and hope too, I must repeat, will soon be found to involve failure in love. "Ye do wrong and defraud, and this, brethren." All through from first to last, it was a direct dishonour to God, and a false testimony to their relationship to Him, if indeed they were born of God. His sense of their failure as Christians does not lessen his horror at the dishonesty or other wrong which provoked the law-suits. "Know ye not that unjust [men] shall not inherit God's kingdom? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor abusers of themselves as women, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor rapacious, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit God's kingdom." (Vers. 9, 10.) It is clear that the apostle, without confining himself to the actual case, is exposing severely the habits so common at Corinth — corruption much more than violence. He is speaking for profit and for solemn warning as the Holy Ghost always does, if He touches sin at all. He is not beating the air, nor denouncing sins only found elsewhere. Fleshly and worldly licence would surely end, if unjudged, in revolting excesses. Tampering with a little evil is the straight road to more and worse, and in none so certainly as the professing Christian. To indulge in any evil is in works to deny Christ. The business of a Christian is to manifest Him. The Corinthian saints were in danger of slipping back into the vilest ways of human corruption.

"And these things were some of you." This would give Satan an advantage if they looked away from Christ. Old habits then resume their power, and evil communications corrupt good manners. Then he adds, "But ye were washed" [literally, "had yourselves washed"], "but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus [Christ] and by the Spirit of our God." (Ver. 11.) He reminds them of the gracious power of God in Christ on whom they believed by the action of His Spirit; and will not allow that this could be all in vain. In ἀπελούσασθε there may be an allusion to the administrative sign, as in Acts 22:16; but the connection here points rather to the reality signified. The sanctification is clearly the setting apart of the Christian to God which the Holy Spirit effects in conversion, rather than the practical holiness which He afterwards works to make good, the former being absolute as the latter is relative. This is shown conclusively by its preceding justification, which has here of course its regular sense, when the soul is not only born of God but stands acquitted of all charge before Him through the work of Christ, and is then sealed by the Spirit.

But nothing could be plainer than 1 Cor. 6:9-10, 11.

"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

“…as to which I tell you beforehand, even as I also have said before, that they who do such things shall not inherit God’s kingdom.” (5:21b)

The "everlasting kingdom" is not heaven. No one gains heaven as the result of diligence or fruitfulness; nor do some gain an abundant and others a meagre entrance there. There is no entrance into heaven save through the work of Christ — a work perfect and available alike for all who believe — so that all who enter at all enter in the same way and on the same footing without distinction.