Sinners or Saints?

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 AV

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, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

Although it’s true that all discipline hurts (it has to in order to be effective), church discipline hurts the most of all. It’s not just because we love those who receive the Lord’s discipline, although that’s true. And it’s not because we hate to see them trapped in sins that have taken their souls captive. No, it’s because we understand what church discipline really is.

When I read the form for excommunication a few minutes ago, I hope that you all paid attention to certain key phrases like “cut … off from the membership of the Church,” “excommunicated from the Church of God,” “cut off from the communion of the saints,” and “separation from the Church of Christ.” What this means is that when the church excommunicates someone, not only is that person’s connection to the local church severed, so also is his relationship to the body of Christ. He is declared to be outside the kingdom of God. In other words, the judgment of the elders is, insofar as it agrees with the Word of God, the judgment of God himself. That’s what Jesus said to his disciples after his resurrection: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained (John 20:23).

Serving as an elder is a huge responsibility, and discipline cases only magnify that responsibility even more. That’s why when the Spiritual Council convened to hear one of the recent cases, I mentioned to the elders that I tremble when I have to deal with such things. But let’s also remember that the Lord can give real repentance to those who sin grievously. They are “cut off” only “so long as they continue without repentance.” We hope and pray for their repentance.

The few verses that I’ve chosen for today’s text speak to both points, viz., that sin excludes sinners from the kingdom of God, and that God shows mercy to his people by giving us a great and wonderful salvation.

Not Inherit the Kingdom?

Verse 9 begins with a question that goes right to the heart of our discussion. It asks, Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Now, if this means that no one who is unrighteous can ever possess God’s kingdom, then we would all in trouble because Romans 3:10 says, There is none righteous, no, not one. But that’s not really what Paul meant. Rather, by putting this before us as a question, he wanted each of us to consider for ourselves what we really deserve. We deserve to remain aliens from God’s blessings forever. Is there anyone here today who thinks otherwise? Anyone who believes that he has a right to the kingdom of God?

I would hope that no professing Christian would say such a thing. The Bible says, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.… If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us (1 John 1:8, 10). That is, we cannot be true Christians if we deny that we sin and deserve God’s condemnation.

But Paul approached his question from a different angle. He chose to provide us with a list of sinners who have no inheritance in God’s kingdom, i.e., individuals who have no legal right to the promises of God. Look again at what he wrote in verses 9 and 10: Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

The first thing you should consider is how Paul introduced this list. He said, Be not deceived. He said this because sinners are often deceived. We deceive ourselves. In fact, our self-deception often runs so deep that we can’t even admit that we’ve been deceived. We deceive themselves into thinking that our sins can’t possibly be bad enough to deserve never-ending torment of body and soul, or that we can somehow compensate for our evil deeds by by helping little old ladies cross the street, or that God is so kind that he doesn’t really care what we do so long as we’re sorry for it afterward. But if we’re going to be faithful to the Lord and exalt his supreme holiness, it seems to me that we must accept the fact that unrepentant sinners cannot inherit the kingdom of God. The lack of repentance in an individual affirms that he has not really trusted the shed blood of Jesus Christ for salvation.

The sinners that Paul mentioned in our text were probably men and women that he had seen with his own eyes during his eighteen months in Corinth. As he walked down the city’s streets, he met people caught up in the most outrageous sins and called them to faith in Jesus Christ. Perhaps he had even heard or suspected that some of those sins had crept into the church. Yet, Paul’s experiences were not unique. Today we see people living in and delighting in horrible sin too. Our society is filled with fornicators, thieves, drunkards, and so forth.

There doesn’t seem to be much organization to this list, even though Paul was a master organizer. One commentator noted that Paul probably didn’t think it was worth cataloging sins. He then went on to say that if the devil wanted to waste his time doing so, he could do it. Whether Paul organized his list or not, what he meant is crystal clear. Look at his list with me. Fornicators are those who engage in any kind of sexual perversity, including premarital sex, self-pleasure, bestiality, prostitution, and so on. The Greek word is πόρνοι, from which we get our word pornography. Idolaters are those who worship any god other than the God of the Bible. Their gods are not necessarily three-dimensional images of wood or stone, but can be mental and spiritual. According to Colossians 3:5, covetousness is a form of idolatry because whatever a person craves unlawfully is his god. Adulterers are those who trash the marriage covenant. The effeminate are the passive, feminine-like partners in a homosexual relationship, while the abusers of themselves with mankind are the more aggressive, domineering homosexuals. In the Greek these words are very specific. Thieves steal, the covetous refuse to submit to God’s law and providence, drunkards are habitually intoxicated with alcohol or some other substance, revilers are those whose mouths spew forth an endless stream of unjust criticism, and extortioners are swindlers or rogues.

All of the behaviors that I’ve just mentioned are obviously violations of God’s law, so it’s not hard to understand why someone whose life is dominated by them, and who refuses to repent and accept the gift of salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ cannot inherit God’s kingdom.

As the people of God, we must not only forsake these sins ourselves but we must also avoid giving the impression that they’re no big deal. In the chapter preceding our text, Paul instructed the Corinthians not even to eat with professing Christians who practice the same kinds of sins found in this morning’s passage. He wrote in verse 11, But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. Note that this applies only to a man that is called a brother and yet lives in sin. We must not fellowship with such a person as a Christian or have “Christian fellowship” with him, as if he were a son of God and an heir of the kingdom. We must make it clear that his continued sin denies him these benefits. However, this does not prohibit other kinds of interaction in which this wouldn’t be an issue, such as family gatherings. After all, a person who has been disfellowshipped from the church is a mission field. He needs the gospel of grace.

The point is that unrepented sin bars individuals from fellowship with God and the believing church community. The kind of sin doesn’t really matter. They’re all evil and worthy of everlasting punishment. And thankfully, none of the sins that Paul listed is unforgivable, if those who are dominated by them turn to the Lord and embrace the finished work of Jesus Christ. Our job is to call sinners to faith in him. We must show them the same compassion that God showed us.

Washed, Sanctified and Justified

Let’s not forget how much compassion God has shown us. Look at verse 11: And such were some of you. These words hit really hard, don’t they? Yes, among the people of God there will be individuals who had delighted in the grossest and vilest sins before the Lord had mercy on them. Had not Paul himself persecuted the church, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord (Acts 9:1)? Likewise, Augustine lived with a woman not his wife for over fifteen years. Zwingli also acknowledged an illicit relationship with a certain barber’s daughter. And John Newton bought and sold human beings as if they were cattle.

What kinds of sins were you guilty of in your pre-Christian days? Were you a thief, a fornicator, an adulterer or a murderer? And have you continued to cling to these old sins after professing faith in Jesus Christ, or have you successfully put them to death?

And what about those here today who grew up in Christian homes or are still young? I don’t suppose that any of you children have murdered your next-door neighbors lately or stolen their cars. So, does this have anything to say to to you? You bet it does. Do you know why? Because you were conceived with the same sinful nature as everyone else. Psalm 58 says, The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely (vv. 3–5). So, unless you take refuge in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are just as much in the throes of death and hell as vilest person who ever lived.

But two words stand out here. One is the word some. Although no one is born righteous and deserving God’s favor, not everyone lives in the sewer, so to speak. The Jews would not have tolerated the sins that Paul listed in our text, and Acts 18:4 says very clearly that Paul had persuaded some Corinthian Jews to believe. Perhaps there were even a few Gentiles who had decent reputations in the community and weren’t childmolesters or wifebeaters. And the other word to note is were. This is important because of its tense. Some, but maybe not all, of Corinthians once lived in horrible sin, but that was no longer true. God’s grace had conquered their stubborn and rebellious hearts.

And that’s where verse 11 picks up: But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. In this verse the repetition of the word but is like a hammer that drives the nail deeper into the board with each powerful blow. So, look at what we have here. Such were some of you; yet, we’re all condemned and ruined by sin. But those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ have been washed. Your sins have been forgiven. There is nothing standing between you and your God. And not only have you been washed, you have also been sanctified. In fact, God’s sanctifying grace is still at work in you, and it will not let go until you have been made perfectly after the image of your Savior in glory. As if that’s not enough, the Lord has also given you a double justification in a sense. You were justified by the name of Jesus when you believed. And you have been justified by the Spirit of God, as he applied the saving grace of God to your otherwise lost and miserable soul. Your justification means that the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ has been imputed to you, so that you are accounted as perfectly righteous in the sight of God. It is as if you had never sinned but had kept all of God’s commandments perfectly. Forgiveness removes the debt; justification assures you of the full reward. That’s what God has done for you.

Verse 11 is a promise to every soul for whom Jesus died: And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. Sin has no place in your lives. God himself is at work to destroy it. You must do the same. If you were once upon a time an adulterer or effeminate or a swindler, you can’t be that any longer. It’s not what you are, if you truly belong to Jesus!

Our text for today puts one big question before us. Are you a sinner or a saint? Or to use the words found in our text, are you unrighteous or an heir of the kingdom of God? Do you revel in various and sundry sins that rage in your heart and sometimes finds outward expression in your life, or have you been washed, sanctified and justified?

Truth is, you can’t avoid answering this question. You can either answer it honestly today and beg God for mercy, or you can answer it in the day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts will be fully revealed. Either way, you will answer it, and there will be no deception. The God of the Bible doesn’t wear blinders. You can’t hide from his all-seeing gaze. Even the deepest thoughts of your heart are known to him before you even think them. As Hebrews 4:13 says, all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

As painful and difficult as church discipline is, it gives every one of us an opportunity to reevaluate or standing before the Lord? Do you really believe? Do you trust the shed blood of Jesus Christ alone for your salvation? Are you trusting Jesus to do his work in you every day? Do you live every day relying solely upon his grace?

So, you see, everything hinges on that one question: are you a sinner in the sight of God or one of his precious saints? Amen.