Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 6:9
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,
9. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? ] The Apostle in this verse sums up what he has been saying in this chapter and the last. First generally, the unjust, wrong-doers, shall not inherit the kingdom of God, that is, His final kingdom in the ‘restitution of all things,’ for which we daily pray. He then proceeds to particulars, and declares that all who lived for themselves, whether set upon sensual indulgence or upon gain, would deprive themselves of the inheritance obtained through faith in Christ.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Know ye not … – The apostle introduces the declaration in this verse to show the evil of their course, and especially of the injustice which they did one to another, and their attempt to enforce and maintain the evil by an appeal to the pagan tribunals. He assures them, therefore, that the unjust could not be saved.
The unrighteous – The unjust adikoi – such as he had just mentioned – they who did injustice to others, and attempted to do it under the sanction of the courts.
Shall not inherit – Shall not possess; shall not enter into. The kingdom of heaven is often represented as an inheritance; Mat 19:29; Mat 25:34; Mar 10:17; Luk 10:25; Luk 18:18; 1Co 15:50; Eph 1:11, Eph 1:14; Eph 5:5.
The kingdom of God – Cannot be saved; cannot enter into heaven; see the note at Mat 3:2. This may refer either to the kingdom of God in heaven; or to the church on earth – most probably the former. But the sense is the same essentially, whichever is meant. The man who is not fit to enter into the one is not fit to enter into the other. The man who is fit to enter the kingdom of God on earth, shall also enter into that in heaven.
Be not deceived – A most important direction to be given to all. It implies:
(1) That they were in danger of being deceived:
- Their own hearts might have deceived them.
- They might be deceived by their false opinions on these subjects.
- They might be in danger of being deceived by their leaders, who perhaps held the opinion that some of the persons who practiced these things could be saved.
(2) It implies, that there was no necessity of their being deceived. They might know the truth. They might easily understand these matters. It might be plain to them that those who indulged in these things could not be saved.
(3) It implies that it was of high importance that they should not be deceived. For:
- The soul is of infinite value.
- To lose heaven – to be disappointed in regard to that, will be a tremendous loss.
- To inherit hell and its woes will be a tremendous curse. O how anxious should all be that they he not deceived, and that while they hope for life they do not sink down to everlasting death!
Neither fornicators – See Gal 5:19-21; Eph 5:4-5; Heb 12:14; Heb 13:4. See the note at Rom 1:29.
Nor effeminate – malakoi. This word occurs in Mat 11:8, and Luk 7:25, where it is applied to clothing, and translated soft raiment; that is, the light, thin garments worn by the rich and great. It occurs no where else in the New Testament except here. Applied to morals, as it is here, it denotes those who give themselves up to a soft, luxurious, and indolent way of living; who make self-indulgence the grand object of life; who can endure no hardship, and practice no self-denial in the cause of duty and of God. The word is applied in the classic writers to the Cinaedi, the Pathics, or Catamites; those who are given up to wantonness and sensual pleasures, or who are kept to be prostituted to others. Diog. Laer. Luk 7:5, Luk 7:4. Xenoph. Mem. Luk 3:7. 1. Ovid Fast. 4:342. The connection here seems to demand such an interpretation, as it occurs in the description of vices of the same class – sensual and corrupt indulgences – It is well known that this vice was common among the Greeks – and particularly prevailed at Corinth.
Abusers of themselves with mankind – arsenokoitoi. Paederastae or Sodomites. Those who indulged in a vice that was common among all the pagan; see the notes at Rom 1:27.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Co 6:9-11
Know ye not Shall the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?
Persistent self-deception
Sometimes we persistently deceive ourselves. We insist upon pursuing a policy for our benefit which all but ourselves clearly see to be absurd and useless. We cling to a pet project and nurse a worthless conceit long after the folly of both is recognised by everybody else. But we are not altogether to be blamed. For instinct itself is sometimes at fault, and its powers are uselessly applied. A hen will sit with the greatest tenacity on rounded pieces of chalk; and the Hamster rat breaks the wings of dead birds as well as of living ones before it devours them. Insects also occasionally err on the same principle, as when the blow-fly lays its eggs on the flower of the stapelia, deceived by its carrion-like odour. A spider, deprived of its egg-bag, will cherish with the same fondness a little pellet of cotton thrown to it. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)
Who shall enter into the kingdom of God
1. The kingdom.
2. The danger of delusion in reference to it.
3. The certain exclusion of all unrighteousness.
4. The necessity of a change in those who enter it.
5. The means by which this change is effected. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
Our inheritance in peril
I. What our inheritance is–the kingdom of God, present, but chiefly future (2Pe 3:13). Heaven is rest, joy, purity, vision. This inheritance is in a sense the inheritance of all, since Christ died for the sins of the world. We disinherit ourselves.
II. The hindrances to it.
1. Sins of sensuality.
2. Idolatry. If we serve false gods how can we expect a reward from the true? Some have keen eyes for injuries done to men; idolatry is a pre-eminent sin against God. What is it that occupies the throne of our heart?
3. Theft, covetousness, extortion. These are much upon a par. Yet many a man who would be horrified at the thought of being a thief thinks nothing of covetousness or extortion. But what is covetousness but theft in the bud? and extortion but theft in the blossom! A man who steals mentally is as guilty as if he stole actually; for nothing but the restraints of society and the dock keep his hands still. Many a theft is committed in a court of justice with the assistance of counsel: e.g., when a man is striving to get more than his due.
4. Drunkenness. The curse of our land. What men lose by it–health, respect, friends, wealth, and the kingdom of God.
5. Foul language. Reviling, railing, sins of the tongue. Foul lips speak a foul heart. Plainly we are here taught that a nominal faith cannot save us. All the profession in the world will not secure our inheritance.
III. These hindrances may be removed. Here is consolation for great sinners–and who are small ones? When a man is deeply convinced of sin he is often tempted to despair. Can I, the unclean, &c., enter the holy heaven? It seems impossible. But the apostle turns upon his converts and says–And such were some of you. Of greatest sinners God has sometimes made the greatest saints. The barriers insuperable to man may be cast down by the might of God. No sickness is beyond the skill of the great Physician.
IV. The manner of removal. Paul speaks of washing in its twofold character.
1. Justification, which we receive through Christ (1Co 6:11).
2. Sanctification, which we receive through the operation of the Spirit of our Lord (1Co 6:11).
V. A caution implied–And such were some of you. Are ye becoming so again? Our great inheritance may be lost after all, and will be unless we endure to the end. (W. E. Hurndall, M. A.)
Genuine reformation
Reformation is an object most earnestly pursued by all who are alive to the wrongs of life. Some, however, are of questionable utility, and none of much value but that of the text. This reformation is–
I. Of the moral character of mankind. Sin which may be defined as self-gratification is here presented in a variety of forms. The principle of sin, like holiness, is one and simple, but the forms are multifarious. These morally corrupt Corinthians were changed in the very root and fountain of their character.
II. Indispensable to a happy destiny. The kingdom of God–the reign of truth, purity, love. To inherit that empire, to be in it, not as occasional visitors, but as permanent citizens, is our high destiny. For this we were made. Hence Christ urges us to seek it first. There is no getting into it without this moral reformation.
III. Effected by the redemptive agency of Christ. They had been cleansed from their moral foulness, washed; consecrated to holiness, sanctified; made right in their being and relationships, justified. And this in the name, &c. Nothing on earth will effect this moral change but the gospel; not legislative enactments, or scientific systems. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Nor drunkards.
Drunkenness
1. No pestilence has ever wrought as much devastation and misery as the pestilence of drunkenness. Even its physical destructions are simply terrific. It is the origin of many of the worst forms of disease. Nor are the moral and social devastations of drunkenness less terrific than its physical devastations. Drunkenness extinguishes the fires of shame, profanes the shrines of self-respect, enfeebles the forces of resistance to evil; stifles conscience. And what shall we say of drunkenness in its ravages upon religion? And what is true of Christian work in foreign lands is not less true of Christian work at home. Drunkenness is a fearful hindrance to Christian enterprise. It counteracts, if it does not overweigh, all Christian endeavour to ameliorate the moral and social condition of the people.
2. The causes of drunkenness, it seems to me, are seldom sufficiently inquired into and considered. Some races of mankind, e.g., are constitutionally more temperate than others; and some climates foster intoxication more than others. Both the race and climate of Sweden, e.g., are eminently favourable to drunkenness. The Swedes are Goths, and the Goths are a proverbially drunken race. The long, cold, dark winter of Sweden are also calculated to encourage habits of intoxication. On the other hand, in many southern climates, where the people, under the genial influences of the radiant sun, feel little natural desire for stimulants, a strong artificial desire has been created by the facilities with which ardent spirits have been commercially introduced. There are also two other causes of drunkenness which, although in themselves irremovable, are yet capable of being brought under favourable control. These two causes are–
(1) An hereditary disposition to drink; and–
(2) A highly wrought nervous constitution. In both cases alike total abstinence is, I believe, essential, and moderate drinking impossible. And when I speak of total abstinence, I speak of it not as an irksome restraint but as a charter of freedom. But the cause of temperance is not exclusively the cause of total abstinence. Total abstainers need all the co-operation they can receive from non-abstainers in their crusade against drunkenness, and particularly in removing the causes of drunkenness wherever those causes are removable. It is said that people cannot be made sober by Act of Parliament. Whether this be so or not it is certainly true that multitudes are made drunk by the unnecessary and over-numerous temptations which are permitted by Act of Parliament. But the Licensing Laws are not the only removable cause of drunkenness. The most fruitful of all causes of drunkenness is, I believe, wretchedness; wretchedness social, moral, and personal. Look at the way our poor are herded together in our crowded towns, without air or light, with no comforts or recreations! Can you wonder they are drunken? Drunkenness is the Nemesis, the avenging punishment, of the utter selfishness of modern civilisation, which cares so little for the overcrowded poor. In other cases, also, wretchedness is the cause of drunkenness. Think of the wretched, empty, stagnant condition of many human lives. Think of the long, dreary hours which some operatives have to work; hours which leave no time for self-improvement or recreation. Can you wonder that such persons drink? Nor is the guilt of the sin wholly theirs. It is partly yours and mine for allowing such a frightful state of things to continue to exist. Three other causes of drunkenness only will I mention; viz., selfishness, the stings of an uneasy conscience, and the wretchedness of many homes–homes capable of comfort, peace, and joy, but homes made utterly miserable by indolence, stubbornness, evil tempers, artificial worries, and want of love.
3. These are, I think, the principal causes of drunkenness; and in most instances the remedies suggest themselves. We need great and fundamental reforms in our Licensing Laws. We need to Christianise our civilisation in the direction of ameliorating the lives of the multitudinous poor. We need less rush and more repose in daily life. We need a sounder and more indignant public opinion concerning drunkenness. We need also a great revival of the Christian ideals of marriage and domestic life–ideals which, when wrought in practice, make home the mirror of heaven on earth. We need, lastly, and above all things, to inculcate the eternal truth that wilful and deliberate drunkenness is sin; sin which brutalises every part of mans nature; sin which, if unforsaken, shuts the door of heaven against the drunkard. (Canon Diggle.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 9. The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom] The unrighteous, , those who act contrary to right, cannot inherit, for the inheritance is by right. He who is not a child of God has no right to the family inheritance, for that inheritance is for the children. If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, Ro 8:17. There are here ten classes of transgressors which the apostle excludes from the kingdom of God; and any man who is guilty of any one of the evils mentioned above is thereby excluded from this kingdom, whether it imply the Church of Christ here below, or the state of glory hereafter.
Several of the evils here enumerated will not bear to be particularly explained; they are, however, sufficiently plain of themselves, and show us what abominations were commonly practised among the Corinthians.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
That by the kingdom of God is here meant the kingdom of glory, the happiness of another life, is plain, because he speaketh in the future tense; this kingdom, he saith,
the unrighteous, that is, those who so live and die,
shall not inherit. If we take the term unrighteous here to be a generical term, the species, or some of the principal species, of which are afterwards enumerated, it signifieth here the same with notoriously wicked men. But if we take it to signify persons guilty of acts of injustice towards themselves or others, it cannot be here understood as a general term, relating to all those species of sinners after enumerated; for so idolaters cannot properly be called unrighteous, but ungodly men.
Be not deceived, ( saith the apostle), either by any false teachers, or by the many ill examples of such sinners that you daily have, nor by magistrates connivance at these sins.
Neither fornicators; neither such as, being single persons, commit uncleanness with others (for here the apostle distinguisheth these sinners from adulterers, whom he mentioneth afterward).
Nor idolaters; nor such as either worship the creature instead of God, or worship the true God before images.
Nor adulterers; nor such as, being married persons, break their marriage covenant, and commit uncleanness with such as are not their yokefellows.
Nor effeminate persons; nor persons that give up themselves to lasciviousness, burning continually in lusts.
Nor abusers of themselves with mankind; nor such as are guilty of the sin of Sodom, a sin not to be named amongst Christians or men.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
9. unrighteousTranslate,”Doers of wrong”: referring to 1Co6:8 (compare Ga 5:21).
kingdom of Godwhich isa kingdom of righteousness (Ro14:17).
fornicatorsalluding to1Co 5:1-13; also below,1Co 6:12-18.
effeminateself-polluters,who submit to unnatural lusts.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?…. A way of speaking much like that in the Talmud, “know thou, that the world to come is not made but for the righteous?” h Without a righteousness there will be no entrance into the world of bliss and happiness hereafter; and this must be a better righteousness than what a sinful creature is capable of working out, and no other than the righteousness of Christ. It was a loss and want of righteousness that cast the angels down from heaven, and turned Adam out of paradise; and whoever of his posterity: are destitute of one, will fall short of enjoying the glory of God; for it is not agreeable to the holy nature of God, to his infinite justice and righteous law, to admit any into heaven without a righteousness: hence a judgment seat is erected, before which all must stand; and those that will be found without a righteousness, will be for ever excluded the kingdom of heaven; and could any unrighteous persons be received there, it would spoil the pleasure and happiness of the saints. Now this is said, partly to dissuade the Corinthians from going to law with each other before unrighteous persons, who have no right to the kingdom of God, and living and dying as they are, will have no share in it; and therefore since they are not to be fellow heirs and companions with them in another world, they should not bring their causes before them in this; and partly to reprove them for their injurious and unrighteous actions among themselves, their tricking and defrauding of one another, with other sins they were guilty of; which, if not repented of, would show, that notwithstanding their profession, they were destitute of the grace of God, were unfit to be in the kingdom of God, in a Gospel church state here below, and would be shut out of the kingdom of heaven hereafter.
Be not deceived imagining, that through your knowledge and profession you shall be saved, live as you will:
neither fornicators, such as are guilty of uncleanness with persons in a single state:
nor idolaters; who worship more gods than one, and not the true God; who do service to them that are not gods, and perform what the Jews call “strange service”: and not only fall down to stocks and stones, but serve divers lusts and pleasures, the idols of their own hearts:
nor adulterers: such as have criminal conversation with persons in a married state:
nor effeminate; or “soft”, or, as the Syriac renders it, , “corrupters”; that is, of themselves, by voluntary pollution, such as are guilty of the sin of Onan, Ge 38:8.
Nor abusers of themselves with mankind; sodomites.
h T. Bab. Yebamot, fol 47. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Solemn Warnings. | A. D. 57. |
9 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, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 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.
Here he takes occasion to warn them against many heinous evils, to which they had been formerly addicted.
I. He puts it to them as a plain truth, of which they could not be ignorant, that such sinners should not inherit the kingdom of God. The meanest among them must know thus much, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God (v. 9), shall not be owned as true members of his church on earth, nor admitted as glorious members of the church in heaven. All unrighteousness is sin; and all reigning sin, nay, every actual sin committed deliberately, and not repented of, shuts out of the kingdom of heaven. He specifies several sorts of sins: against the first and second commandments, as idolaters; against the seventh, as adulterers, fornicators, effeminate, and Sodomites; against the eighth, as thieves and extortioners, that by force or fraud wrong their neighbours; against the ninth, as revilers; and against the tenth, as covetous and drunkards, as those who are in a fair way to break all the rest. Those who knew any thing of religion must know that heaven could never be intended for these. The scum of the earth are no ways fit to fill the heavenly mansions. Those who do the devil’s work can never receive God’s wages, at least no other than death, the just wages of sin, Rom. vi. 23.
II. Yet he warns them against deceiving themselves: Be not deceived. Those who cannot but know the fore-mentioned truth are but too apt not to attend to it. Men are very much inclined to flatter themselves that God is such a one as themselves, and that they may live in sin and yet die in Christ, may lead the life of the devil’s children and yet go to heaven with the children of God. But this is all a gross cheat. Note, It is very much the concern of mankind that they do not cheat themselves in the matters of their souls. We cannot hope to sow to the flesh and yet reap everlasting life.
III. He puts them in mind what a change the gospel and grace of God had made in them: Such were some of you (v. 11), such notorious sinners as he had been reckoning up. The Greek word is tauta—such things were some of you, very monsters rather than men. Note, Some that are eminently good after their conversion have been as remarkably wicked before. Quantum mutatus ab illo!–How glorious a change does grace make! It changes the vilest of men into saints and the children of God. Such were some of you, but you are not what you were. You are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of Christ, and by the Spirit of our God. Note, The wickedness of men before conversion is no bar to their regeneration and reconciliation to God. The blood of Christ, and the washing of regeneration, can purge away all guilt and defilement. Here is a rhetorical change of the natural order: You are sanctified, you are justified. Sanctification is mentioned before justification: and yet the name of Christ, by which we are justified, is placed before the Spirit of God, by whom we are sanctified. Our justification is owing to the merit of Christ; our sanctification to the operation of the Spirit: but both go together. Note, None are cleansed from the guilt of sin, and reconciled to God through Christ, but those who are also sanctified by his Spirit. All who are made righteous in the sight of God are made holy by the grace of God.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
The unrighteous (). To remind them of the verb just used.
The Kingdom of God ( ). Precisely, God’s kingdom.
Be not deceived ( ). Present passive imperative with negative . Do not be led astray by plausible talk to cover up sin as mere animal behaviourism. Paul has two lists in verses 1Cor 6:9; 1Cor 6:10, one with repetition of , neither (fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, or , abusers of themselves with men or or sodomites as in 1Ti 1:10 a late word for this horrid vice, thieves, covetous), the other with not (drunkards, revilers, extortioners). All these will fall short of the kingdom of God. This was plain talk to a city like Corinth. It is needed today. It is a solemn roll call of the damned even if some of their names are on the church roll in Corinth whether officers or ordinary members.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Kingdom of God. See on Luk 6:20.
Fornicators. The besetting sin of Corinth. Hence the numerous solemn and emphatic allusions to it in this epistle. See ch. 1Co 5:11; 1Co 6:15 – 18; 1Co 10:8. Effeminate [] . Luxurious and dainty. The word was used in a darker and more horrible sense, to which there may be an allusion here. 92 Abusers, etc. See on Rom 1:7.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
SANCTITY OF THE BODY AND MARRIAGE
1) Know ye not. (he ouk pidate) or, what is more, do you all not perceive or realize.
2) “That the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? (hoti adikoi) that unrighteous ones or lawless ones. (theou Basileian ou kleronomesousin) the kingdom of God will not provide an heir-setting or heir-holding right. Saints who live promiscuously, though redeemed, shall not be granted rights of ruling, reigning, and administering for God abundantly in the millennial age; Such honors they abdicate through undisciplined conduct.
3) Be not deceived. (Greek me planasthe) be not led away, deceived or deluded about this. Such immature saints shall be reigned over, not themselves rule and reign with Christ – See Gal 5:21; 2Pe 1:11; Rev 5:9-10.
a) Neither fornicators, (oute pornoi) persons committing, practicing illicit, morally illegal sex Ac in an unmarried state or relationship with each other.
b) Nor idolaters, (oute eidolatrai) nor those who bow down in worship and adoration before statues and images.
c) Nor adulterers, (oute moichoi) those married persons who engage in immoral sex relations with another married person to whom they are not married.
d) Nor effeminate, (oute malakoi) voluptuous persons, even effeminate, men posing as women, who act like, walk like a woman.
e) Nor abusers of themselves with mankind. (oute arsenokoitai) nor sodomites, sex perverts.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
9. Know ye not, etc. By unrighteousness here you may understand what is opposed to strict integrity. The unrighteous, then, that is, those who inflict injury on their brethren, who defraud or circumvent others, who, in short, are intent upon their own advantage at the expense of injuring others, will not inherit the kingdom of God That by the unrighteous here, as for example adulterers, and thieves and covetous, and revilers, he means those who do not repent of their sins, but obstinately persist in them, is too manifest to require that it should be stated. The Apostle himself, too, afterwards expresses this in the words employed by him, when he says that the Corinthians formerly were such The wicked, then, do inherit the kingdom of God, but it is only in the event of their having been first converted to the Lord in true repentance, and having in this way ceased to be wicked. For although conversion is not the ground of pardon, yet we know that none are reconciled to God but those who repent. The interrogation, however, is emphatic, for it intimates that he states nothing but what they themselves know, and is matter of common remark among all pious persons.
Be not deceived He takes occasion from one vice to speak of many. I am of opinion, however, that he has pointed out those vices chiefly which prevailed among the Corinthians. He makes use of three terms for reproving those lascivious passions which, as all historical accounts testify, reigned, nay raged, to an extraordinary height in that city. For it was a city that abounded in wealth, (as has been stated elsewhere.) It was a celebrated mart, which was frequented by merchants from many nations. Wealth has luxury as its attendant — the mother of unchastity and all kinds of lasciviousness. In addition to this, a nation which was of itself prone to wantonness, was prompted to it by many other corruptions.
The difference between fornicators and adulterers is sufficiently well known. By effeminate persons I understand those who, although they do not openly abandon themselves to impurity, discover, nevertheless, their unchastity by blandishments of speech, by lightness of gesture and apparel, and other allurements. The fourth description of crime is the most abominable of all — that monstrous pollution which was but too prevalent in Greece.
He employs three terms in reproving injustice and injuries. He gives the name of thieves to those who take the advantage of their brethren by any kind of fraud or secret artifice. By extortioners, he means those that violently seize on another’s wealth, or like harpies (340) drew to themselves from every quarter, and devour. With the view of giving his discourse a wider range, he afterwards adds all covetous persons too. Under the term drunkards you are to understand him as including those who go to excess in eating. He more particularly reproves revilers, because, in all probability, that city was full of gossip and slanders. In short, he makes mention chiefly of those vices to which, he saw, that city was addicted.
Farther, that his threatening may have more weight, he says, be not deceived; by which expression he admonishes them not to flatter themselves with a vain hope, as persons are accustomed, by extenuating their offenses, to inure themselves to contempt of God. No poison, therefore, is more dangerous than those allurements which encourage us in our sins. Let us, therefore, shun, not as the songs of the Sirens, (341) but as the deadly bites of Satan, the talk of profane persons, when turning the judgment of God and reproofs of sins into matter of jest. Lastly, we must also notice here the propriety of the word κληρονομειν — to inherit; which shows that the kingdom of heaven is the inheritance of sons, and therefore comes to us through the privilege of adoption.
(340) “ Comme bestes rauissantes;” — “Like ravenous beasts.” The harpies, it is well known, were fabulous monsters, proverbial for rapacity. It deserves to be noticed that their name ἅρπυίαι, and the term made use of by Paul to denote extortioners, ( ἅρπαγες) are both of them derived from ἅρπάζω, to seize upon, or take by violence. — Ed
(341) The Sirens were a kind of marine monsters, which were supposed to inhabit certain rocky islands on the south-west coast of Italy, and decoyed, it was alleged, by their enchanting music, mariners to their destruction. Homer in his Odyssey (8. 45) speaks of their melodious song ( λιγυρὢ ἀοιδὢ.) Our Author, it will be observed, in the connection in which he alludes to “the songs of the Sirens,” strongly expresses his belief of the reality of Satanic influence, as contrasted with what is merely fabulous. — Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE REDEMPTION OF THE HOPELESS
1Co 6:9-11
THIS theme is appropriate to the company of Corinthians described in this text. It is a remarkable passage and involves the miracle of the centuries. If one reads the ninth and tenth verses of this chapter he is ready to describe the condition of these men in one word, Lost! and to regard their estate as hopeless as is hell itself; but when one finishes with the eleventh verse he finds that they are more than saved; they are cleansed and sanctified and justified.
How can it be accomplished and how was it done? Those are questions to which we address ourselves tonight; and yet, in order to understand them one must give attention to some other things that include, and seem to preclude them as well.
THE RACE TO HELL
It is a remarkable fact that there is a harmony in Scripture, study it from whatever standpoint you will. All through the Old Testament there is a threefold temptation for man. When Christ comes He is subjected to the samethe threefold temptation, and the record of it is in Mat 4:5-12. John, in his First Epistle (1Jn 2:16), tells us what that threefold temptation isthe lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. It is claimed by naturalists that a scorpion will never use its stingof which he is always carefulunless he can find a spot on the body of his victim which promises to yield to its insertion. If he finds it not, as is sometimes the case, he will release his intended victim at once. But if it be found, then he will drive his venom to the very vitals. Satan is an expert in searching for the vulnerable points of life, and it would seem, upon the testimony of Scripture, and by observation and experience alike, that he finds them in the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
The lust of the flesh. Paul here mentions some of its outbreaksfornication, adultery, idolatry, effeminacy, Sodomy. It is an incomplete and yet a black catalogue. It sounds almost strange in these days of soft and sentimental theology. We have fallen upon the times when our pulpiteers are telling us about the natural good in man; that his heart is right, and all he requires is a little culture. How strangely apart from the sayings of Jesus, who knew man and what was in him. He said, For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man (Mat 15:19-20). How strangely unlike the catalogue Paul makes as the works of the flesh, which he declares are manifest, and which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God (Gal 5:19-21).
And yet we have said there is a harmony in Scripture. Go back as far as the Book of Genesis (Gen 8:21), and hear declared the state of the human heart. Jehovah is the spokesman; the antedeluvian period is the occasion; the judgment which had fallen upon all save Noah and his household was the immediate basis of the words, I will not again curse the ground any more for mans sake; for the imagination of mans heart is evil from his youth (Gen 8:21). Out of the heart proceed the issues of life.
Who can tell what are the lusts of the flesh? Who can keep them from trampling over the law of the Lord, ending in consuming life itself? You remember in Felix Holt, George Eliot says, regarding Mr. Jermyn, He had not especially intended to wrong people; he thought he might be able to refund, to make restoration; and she likens him to the German poet who was entrusted with a particularly fine sausage which he was to convey to a friend in Paris. In the course of his long journey he smelled the sausage; he got hungry and desired to taste it; he pared a morsel off, then another, and another, in successive moments of temptation, till at last the sauage was, humanly speaking, at an end. The offense had not been premeditated. The poet had never loved meanness, but he loved sausage, and the result was both disastrous and distressing. It is a parable of life at the point of the lust of the flesh.
The lust of the eyes. Oh, how many men are smitten here! You take the words that are employed in this text, and how many of them are temptations through the eyesfornication, idolatry, covetousness, drunkenness? The lust of the eyes! You remember Achans confession. He declared to Joshua, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, * * When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and, behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it (Jos 7:20-21). Mark the phraseologyWhen I saw among the spoils, then I coveted, and then I took. That is the law of the lust of the eyes!
Vice is a monster of such hideous mien That to be hated needs but to be seen;But seen too oft, familiar with her face,We first endure, then pity, then embrace
Read the fifty-first Psalm and see the brokenhearted saint, the man of God, and a minister of His Gospel, as well as a king from his throne, stained, undone, and in his palace crying to be delivered from blood-guiltiness, and ask yourself how this fall occurred. There is but one answerthe lust of the eyes. The sight of Bathsheba was Davids undoing, and to Gods dishonor.
The great Tolstoi, who lately passed away, in his book on, What is Art? mercilessly arraigns the most of its schools for their pandering to the lusts of the eye; and his language is as just as it is merciless. I candidly believe that the nude in art has caused more harm to the morals of men than the beauty of the same has ever accomplished for their culture. The hungriest part of the human body is the eye. If it feeds on beauty of the real sort, which not only compasses the delights of color and figure, but involves high morals, it becomes indeed a window of the soul through which it looks out into a world of culture, and up into a heaven studded with the stars of God, and even unto the throne of God Himself, and sees Him as clearly as the great Prophet saw him, high and lifted up, His train filling the heavens. But if it feed, as the carrion crows do, upon embodied immoralities, upon scenes that are as devilish as sensual, then the eye becomes a window through which the soul looks into depths too dark for words, and through which it will be destined eventually to see the burning caldron of hell itself.
One who has read Hypatia is not likely to forget Charles Kingsleys wonderful putting of the lust of the eyes. He is speaking of Philammon, the young monk, who was waging that battle of which Paul speaks in the seventh of Romanslonging to be a holy man, and in order so to live, seeking the cloister; but who, by the law of the flesh was greatly tempted by the outside world. In his walks to bring fuel to the fires before which they were accustomed to sit, he approached the heathen temple, against the entrance of which, or even the look upon of its idols, the abbot, his spiritual father, had strictly forbidden. And yet, Kingsley says, Down he went, hardly daring to raise his eyes to the alluring iniquities of the painted imagery which, gaudy in crimson and blue, still blazed out upon the desolate solitude, uninjured by that rainless air. But he was young, and youth is curious; and the devil, at least in the fifth century, was busy with young brains. Now Philammon believed most utterly in the devil, and night and day devoutly prayed to be delivered from him; so he crossed himself, and ejaculated, honestly enough, Lord, turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity! * * and looked nevertheless. How many like him are praying to have their eyes turned away, and yet at the same moment they are turning their eyes upon the evil things that are undoing the soul.
The vain glory of life. Two words here look especially in that directionrevilers and extortioners. The men or the women who seek to raise themselves in the eyes of their fellows by reviling their equals, or even their superiors, and to advance themselves by taking every possible advantage of their equals and inferiors, are here described. The more one knows of the honors and the riches of this world, the less respect he has for most of the people who possess them. Too many politicians have come into office by reviling their equals and their betters; and too many fortunes have been made by extortion and excess and all cheating, chicanery, and conscienceless conduct. One was invited to dine in a home and thought himself honored by the invitation, for he knew it represented millions. He went and was charmingly entertained in the palace on the hill. Two days later he fell in with a mana clean, wholesome, Christian manwho knew this fellow intimately, and at the mention of his name the Christian man shook his head. Tell me about him; he seems to be a financial genius! He answered sadly, Yes, so the world would pronounce, but I have lived here through the years in which his fortune has been made, and know the methods by which it has been accumulated. There are literally hundreds of wrecked men in his path. He has been a promoter of schemes and he cares not a whit for the fact that in order to accomplish riches he has taken advantage of the confidence of his intimates, and has made his riches out of their ruin.
If there is not a hell for such, God would either have to create one or abdicate His throne. Justice is a Judge who cannot be set aside; nor can his pronouncements be despised, or disregarded.
Alexander Maclaren reminds us that there is an old story in the book of Ezekiel about how the Prophet once was led to a place where, through a hole in a broken wall, there was showed him an inner chamber, on the walls of which were painted the hideous idols of the heathen. And there in the presence of the foul shapes stood venerable priests and official dignitaries of Israel, with their censers in their hands, and their backs to the oracles of God. And he adds, There is a chamber like that in our hearts; and it would be a great deal better that you and I should go down, through the hole in the wall and see it, than that we should live, as so many of us do, in this fools paradise of ignorance of our own sin. The pirates on the stormy coast begin their operations by taking the tongue out of the bell that hangs on the buoy, and extinguishing the light that beams from the beacon. So Satan, when he would utterly undo a man, extinguishes the warning voice of conscience and puts out the light of Gods truth. I have known a saint to be tortured with agonies of remorse for a slight sin, at the very mention of which many of your sleek, well-dressed and prosperous sinners would only laugh. This illustrates the fact that the closer to hell a man goes, through the lust of the eyes, the less fear of sin he has, and the less alarm he feels over his own soul. His mind is bribed, his conscience is darkened, and his heart is ossified, and hell is his portion.
Now listen; Paul, writing to the Corinthians, a company who had been godless, lustful, greedy, thieving, murderers, says, Such were some of you.
It is a past tense; it hints a change that has been accomplished; it tells the story of a turn in their practice.
THE UNEXPECTED RETURN
Now let us go back to our original proposition. How is it accomplished? As there is a threefold temptation, so there is a threefold redemption, washing, sanctification, justification.
Ye are washed. How? On one occasion Jesus explained the how. Addressing His disciples, who had been recovered from the world of sin and Satan, He said, Now ye are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you. On another occasion, the same marvelous Man said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth My Word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. It was Jesus also who said of His disciples, They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy Word is Truth (Joh 17:16-17). And it was He who expressed the same thought on another occasion, Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free, and the whole Church of God is an illustration. Do you remember what Paul wrote to the Ephesians,
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it;
That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word,
That He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should he holy and without blemish (Eph 5:25-27).
Ernest Gordon, in the Life of his father, tells the story of a Chinaman, Chin Tong, who came into the Gordon Training School. He was uncouth and irresponsive, and unlike most of his fellows, unclean and unsavory. For months the teacher was hopeless. One Sunday he gave to the Chinaman this text, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1Jn 1:9). When he turned up the following Sabbath he had read that verse so often as to almost wear out the leaf of the Bible. One word puzzled himcleanse, but as he was a laundryman it was easy to make it plain. When the next Sunday arrived and the teacher took his seat in the accustomed place a man in Occidental dress entered and sat down beside him. He seemed a stranger and the teacher asked his name. He answered Chin Tong. His cue was off, his long finger-nails pared, his face clean, his clothes in perfect condition. The text had done its work. You know a me not? Yesus Christ, He make a me clean, inside, outside! Such is the washing of the water in the Word.
Sanctified; by the same Truth. Sanctify them through Thy Truth. There is a vast deal of nonsense suggested regarding sanctification. There are people who do not want you to use the term at all, who think that no such an experience is possible to this life; that, struggle as we may, we will be a stained crowd to the end, and that while holiness is a Biblical term, it has no correspondence in human life. Let it be understood that such as believe after that manner know not the Word. There are others who say that sanctification means eradicationthe old nature is killed at once and never revived, and that the struggle is at an end, and that sinlessness is the abiding estate of the sanctified. They also are at fault in their reading of the Scriptures. Sanctification means set apart for holy uses, and is the experience of many of Gods people, and ought to be of them all. Sanctification is not a completed act, but a process in which the Spirit of God is perfecting that which He began in us, and the end of it is holiness, and no man or woman has the right to sit down content in conscious sin, nor has any man or woman a right to tramp the world around preaching holiness and practicing uncleanness. There is a lot of hypocrisy in the world. Sam Jones said he knew a lot of people who were sanctified, but he did not know exactly what portion of them had been set apart; he did know that their pocket-books had escaped. They could talk eloquently on sanctification, but they took occasion either to be absent or to feel as poor as church mice when the collection plate came. And, furthermore, he said, I know a lot of old sisters who kneel down and pray, Oh, Lord, send the fire, and if God should drop a coal as big as your finger, not one of you but would cry, Ouch; I cant stand it! And it is fairly difficult to find a better illustration of what Sam really means than that which he gives, reciting the incident of what had occurred at a prayer meeting in Atlanta, saying that the church should be regarded as an engine, and every man be permitted to select the part of the work he would prefer to do. One fellow said he would like to be the drive-wheel, the secret of speed. Another said, I would like to be the cowcatcher, and run ahead and keep the track clear. Another wanted to be the whistle, and sound the praises of God all over the land; to which Sam replied, Beloved, we have too many whistles now. We dont want any more whistles. The church reminds me of a steamboat with a little engine about four feet long, and every time the whistle blows the boat stops. Another got up and told Jones he would like to be the throttle lever, so that he could make things move. Then a young merchant, a truly noble man, got up and said, Brother Jones, I would prefer to be the coal and then I can be consumed in Gods service. Jones looked at him and said, Yes, sir, there is a man who means something. Although he is worth only about $20,000, when the offering for foreign missions was made he put down $500; and last year he gave $1,500 to Gods cause, while the big old rich fellows, who had $100,000 and $150,000 were lying about their poverty and were making donations of $10 and $15 apiece. Sanctification is not so much a theory, a term; it is being set apart, and your very life being consumed on the altar of God.
Justification by the same Word. No man has ever been justified by his own merit. It is only because God has pronounced him justified that any man can ever stand at all. Not because we were well born from a social or political standpoint; not because we were well dressed; not because we were the children of noble fathers and mothersthat which is born of the flesh is flesh. We are justified by the will of God and that alone. But so gracious is that will, and so mighty is that word, if a man has sunk to the depths of hell itself, Gods will will lift him out and His Word will set his feet upon a rock, and then the angels of heaven will look upon him who but yesterday was stained and soiled. They will see him clothed in garments of light and righteousness.
When Mr. Martin and I were in a Southern city we met a minister at our boarding house table. He was a great and mighty man, and his fame was in all the churches. One day he opened his heart to me, and taking me aside told me the story of his boy. He had reached the point where liquor no longer satisfied his appetite and he had resorted to stronger drugs. His father said, I want you to meet him; and I want you to pray for him, and I want you to preach to him. The boy was brought. Boy, did I say? He was thirty years of age. He was fine looking except for the marks of dissipation on his faceintelligent, clean. I took him aside and talked with him. He said to me, I would like to be a man, but I cant. I said, Will you come to church to-night? He walked in that night, and that night the Word did its work. When the invitation was given he came to the front seat, looking to heaven with strong crying and tears. Two nights later he was bearing his testimony washed, sanctified, justified. Months later I passed through that city again and met the same minister and asked after the boy. He said, He is doing well, Mr. Riley, and is living a beautiful life. Praise God for such a Gospel!
In the past ye were fornicators, adulterers, effeminate, Sodomites, thieving, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortionershell-doomed souls every one. To-night you may be washed, sanctified, justified.
THE WONDER EXPLAINED
First in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and second, by the Spirit of our God. If you will run the Scriptures through you will find that everything worth the Christians while comes to him in the Name of Jesus Christ, and then power, making victory possible, is bestowed by the Spirit of God. In these two we have our sanctification and our justification. In His Name and by His Spirit we are lifted out of hell and into Heaven, and our lost estate gives place to salvation.
Father Ryan, a Catholic priest, knew much precious truth, and he understood this. His poem entitled, Out of the Depths, is a voicing of it. It is the souls passage not from life to death, but from death to life instead; it is the sinners salvation of which he speaks:
Lost! Lost! Lost!The cry went up from a seaThe waves were wild with an awful wrath,Not a light shone down off the lone ships path;The clouds hung low:Lost! Lost! Lost!Rose wild from the hearts of the tempest-tossed.
Lost! Lost! Lost!The cry floated over the wavesFar over the pitiless waves;It smote on the dark and it rended the clouds:The billows below them were weaving white shrouds Out of the foam of the surge,And the wind-voices chanted a dirge:Lost! Lost! Lost!Wailed wilder the lips of the tempest-tossed.
Lost! Lost! Lost!Not the sign of a hope was nigh,In the sea, in the air or the sky;And the lifted faces were wan and white,There was nothing without them but storm and night,And nothing within but fear;But far to a Fathers ear,Lost! Lost! Lost!Floated the wail of the tempest-tossed.
Lost! Lost! Lost!Out of the depths of the seaOut of the night and the sea;And the waves and the winds of the storm were hushed And the sky with the gleams of the stars was flushed. Saved! Saved! Saved!And a calm and a joyous cry Floated up through the starry sky,In the darkin the stormOur Father is nigh.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL NOTES
TRANSITIONAL SECTION.1Co. 6:9-11
1Co. 6:9.Query, is the particular wrong and defrauding in 1Co. 6:8-9 connected with 2Co. 7:12, the case of the incestuous person? Had the father been ready to appeal to a secular court for redress? Some such connection would explain the transition in this verse from litigation to fornication. [In 2Co. 7:2 Paul uses in negatived connection with himself wrong and defraud.] N.B., like Rom. 1:24 usque ad fincm, this chapter gives a significant glimpse of the every-day corruption of the heathen world, with all the civilization of Greece and Rome. Effeminate.Euphemistic.
1Co. 6:10.Note in what company we find covetousness. Stanley suggests a connection between thieves and the lawsuits (but query?). Revilers.Virulent, foul abuse; generally, not always. Joh. 9:28; Act. 23:4; 1Co. 4:12; 1Pe. 2:13; 1Ti. 5:14; 1Pe. 3:9; 1Co. 5:11; and here. Inherit.Cf. Mat. 25:34; Jas. 2:5, heirs of the kingdom.
1Co. 6:11.Observe were were were. Partly historical, partly ideal. In ideal, Faith, Baptism, Renewal, Separation from sins of old character and life, coincide in time; in fact, Baptism may be pre- or post-dated in regard to Faith and Renewal; Separation may very imperfectly accompany the rest. Justified.Protestantism rightly lays stress upon the relative change involved in pardon of sin; makes this its definition of Justification (Act. 13:38-39). Yet (e.g. Wesley, Sermons) some rare instances may be found wherein the terms justified and justification are used in so wide a sense as to include sanctification also; yet in general use they are sufficiently distinguished from each other both by St. Paul and the other inspired writers. Also, cf. Rom. 8:30, where attention is not so much fixed upon the initial act of God as upon the continuously accorded and maintained status of the justified man, covering the whole interval from pardon to glory. Also, no careful adherence here to the ordo salutis (Calvin, in Ellicott). Observe in in. Observe our God.
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.1Co. 6:9-11
I. The kingdom of God.
1. Observe how the phrase and idea had got cleared in Pauls mind from all the foolish and ridiculous Rabbinical accretions and anticipations of a great temporal monarchy under Messiah, in which, freed from the Roman or other yoke, Israel should be the nation, and the Gentile world exist for the sake of the Jew.
2. We have here a case of the true Evolution.
(1) Israel had been the kingdom of God on earth. As Babylon was Nebuchadnezzars, or Egypt was Pharaohs, or Damascus Rezins or Hazaels. Jehovah was the only, the real, King of the realm. David, Solomon, etc., were understood to be only viceroys under Jehovah. Jehovahs law was State law. Idolatry was treason. Citizens were born into the citizenship [cf. in contrast, Joh. 1:13]; Israel, in the midst of the nations, stood distinguished as the nation of God in the land of God. But it never perfectly realised the idea. The land never was cleared of enemies for Jehovah. The people never did perfectly keep Jehovahs law. They were not satisfied with, or mindful of, the true King Jehovah. At last, when the mob howled wildly around Pilates judgment seat, We have no king but Csar, came the beginning of the end of even this imperfect embodiment of Gods idea.
(2) Next, the Church of Christ is made to exhibit Gods kingdom. Again there is a separate people, Gods peculiar people, but of no one nation, located in no one land. The kingdom is wherever a heart is in which Christ is accepted as Gods anointed King of His new Israel. Kingdom of God within you. Every heart won is a new piece of territory added to Gods realm on earth. Gods royal, perfect, law of liberty (Jas. 1:25; Jas. 2:8) is the State law, and rules the hearts of the citizens of this better setting forth of the kingdom of God.
(3) Better, but not perfect, or ideal. For that we look to Eternity. Heaven is at last the idea of God realised. A people all holy, all happy, in a land without sin or curse; every heart beating pulse and pulse in communion with the King; love to the King the one sufficient, all-embracing law for every subject, written in the heart; God ruling over a race, all His people, dwelling in a world [perhaps a new earth] undisputedly His dominion. Thus, as Israel, the Church, the inner Experience of believers, HeavenGods recovered idea of a kingdom of God has progressively been exhibited in many parts and in many manners (Heb. 1:1); each illustration traced on the same lines as its predecessor, with additions, modifications, added detail.
II. Its citizens.Not the unrighteous.
1. Only an absolute exclusion when the kingdom of God is Heaven. Separation made (Mat. 25:33; Mat. 25:46). Impossible to conceive of the Holy City admitting what defileth, etc. (Rev. 21:27; Rev. 22:15); cannot pass the gates.
2. Very imperfectly attempted in Israel. Levitical law had many enactments whose sanction was, That soul shall be cut off from among the People. But thosenever actually enforced to any great extentmissed nearly all forms of unrighteousness which did not culminate in overt action.
3. Only partially to be accomplished in the Christian Church. In the sub-Pentecostal, almost ideal, days of the Church, the King vindicated the principle by the cutting off of Ananias and Sapphira [the New Testament analogue of the death of Achan]. But God is not perpetually stepping forth in acts of holy self-vindication against sin in His world or in the Church of His Son. All Church discipline, and forms (or tests) of Church membership, are so many humanly devised, often God honoured, methods of endeavouring to keep out the unrighteous, or to exclude them when in. But they never can secure more than an approximation to the idea of a kingdom in which no unrighteous are found. No method, actual or proposed, ever gets worked with perfect intelligence, or perfect faithfulness; no method of human administration can deal with heart-unrighteousness.
4. There is a perfect, self-acting, discipline of exclusion; a Divine excommunication. Sin means real incapacity for understanding, seeing, entering, the kingdom here; an utter unfitness for heaven, a moral impossibility, hereafter. Sin forfeits justification; the blood no longer cleanses (1Jn. 1:7); it negatives the possession of the holiness without some degree of which no man is really regenerate or sanctified, nor can be a child in the family or a citizen of the kingdom. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away; the Vine-dressers knife executes its sentence of excommunication. The Church must often leave the dead branch still attached to the Vine; or must be ignorant of the fulness of its death. Be not deceived.
III. Candidates for citizenship.
1. Who but the unrighteous? What a catalogue! Thieves, effeminate, drunkards, cannibals, murderers, sinners of every type, degree, age, race! From such the citizens are recruited! No citizen who was not an alien once. [No quarry from which stones cannot be got fit for Christs building. No stone which cannot be utilised by Him. There is really no other stone than such as this in the building.] (Eph. 2:1-3; Eph. 2:11-13.) The life-history of every citizen follows the formula, Such were you, but ye were washed. Ye are citizens.
2. To such the kingdom comes by inheritance. (True now, and true when the Son of Man shall come in His glory, ut supra.) Such became joint-heirs with Christ in the possession of the kingdom. By inheritance; a concomitant of the new status, the new life; so certainly as they are washed, etc., do they inherit. The washing, etc., brings with it, ipso facto, an entering into possession. And as certainly by-and-by, with an unbroken sequence, does the washing, etc., go with the inheriting. There is no other final goal and resting-place congruous with, and possible for, the renewed citizen life. No entering without a change preceding; no change without the inheritance following.
IV. The initiation.Washing, sanctifying justifying. (See Critical Notes, above) Paul not speaking with any theological precision of order. Yet if sanctification be only the relative holiness, completed by a separating act (cf. 1Co. 1:2), no necessary difficulty to find it followed by justification in the ordinary sense of pardon,the (forensic) discharge from all liability to penalty on account of a broken law; the two acts of Gods grace, separable in thought. coincide in time. Or, better, remember that the status of a justified man is a perpetually renewed grace; underlying all after-developments of the gracious life; assumed as the foundation on which all the superstructure of holiness is reared. Even in heaven, the saint will be there, and will remain there, only as a sinner justified, accepted, for the sake of that Lamb in whose blood he has trusted for salvation. The basis of all is the objective work of that Christ, who is revealed in His name as exactly what He is to, and for, us. On this rests, and rises, the (subjective) work of the Spirit of God. As the eruption of the leprosy falls off when the new health courses through the system, so these old, foul sins fall away from the life, when the spiritual health is renewed and becomes full, by the entering and indwelling of the Spirit of God.
SEPARATE HOMILIES
1Co. 6:11. Perpetual Miracles.
I. Changed men a patent evidence of the supernatural.
1. Age of miracles past? Yes, in the technical sense. Miracles [and Inspiration] by definition coterminous, in time and extent of distribution, with the progressive impartation of Revelation. Outside that process they are not found; Revelation complete, they cease. Revelation and Christ its Centre and Subject are a standing miracle. [The miracles were credentials of the agents and messengers and message; but, still more, themselves parts of the Revelation.]
2. In lower sense, No. God always (and not only in miracles) was in closest touch with the visible, material, natural order; is still. The converted man, at Corinth or anywhere else, knows that a power has come upon him from without, and that not human, or creaturely, but Divine. Conversion meant the point when the unseen broke in effectively upon him and changed whole current of thought and will and life. The process has its natural analogies. I live by the faith of [this truth, and in this Person] a Son of God, who loved me, etc. (Gal. 2:20). I.e. a new ruling idea has taken possession and revolutionised life. A new affection is expelling all old evil affections. And this new idea, the new affection, has come with the demonstration of the Spirit (1Co. 2:4; cf. 1Th. 1:5-7). No man can say that Jesus is Lord [nor my Lord] but by the Spirit (1Co. 12:3).
3. The man is an evidence to himself, and to others also. Men look at, observe, wonder at, the man whom they knew, who was yesterday such as they are; who is now pure, washed, sanctified, who has evidently laid hold of a power to do, and be, right which they do not possess; and of the secret of a life, for which no interest, or force of will, or ordinary human motives, can account. God has touched that man! A compendious evidence, and striking, appealing to all.
II. Vindication of universality of power and applicability of Gospel.No case it cannot touch, etc. (as in Homiletic Analysis). Workers need this. Temptation in mission-fields, and at home, when evangelistic work is at a discount and conversions are few, to look at the difficulties in the way of producing conviction, and of inducing open confession even where conviction is secured; to adjust expectations to ones narrower success; to acquiesce in meagre success with the cultured or rich; our hope is with the poor [and much Scripture can be quoted!]; to give up hope of the adults: must not expect much from the generation of to-day, brought up in heathenism, with habits, training, etc., set; our hope is in the children; educate them Christianly. [Good work, but not to leave other undone.] Every now and again, at home and in mission-fields, God does some such wonders as these at Corinth, and rebukes little faith, and too ready acquiescence in the hopelessness of the adult generation. Pauls success everywhere was mainly with adult heathen, adult Jews. The Evangelical revival of eighteenth century in England began amongst adults, thieves, pugilists, unclean, worldlings, fashionables, every type. Every such case rebukes unfaithful thinkers and workers, and reassures and heartens all faithful but despondent ones. Again and again the Gospel matches itself against adult heathenism, adult sin, and wins. Such were some of you, but. It can touch and save all ages, classes, types.
III. Happy Paul, happy anybody who can appeal to such personal verifications of the truth of the message he preaches!How confidently he makes his next appeal, when he can recall a dozen instances where his formula of the spiritual life was verified. How conclusive his appeals and arguments, to the men whom he can claim as evidences of the truth of what he advances. I knowyou knowhow true is all I say. Ye were ye are, etc. Happy the man who has his quiver full of such spiritual children (Psa. 127:5). With such arrows he can meet in the gate his own doubts about his call or the denial of it by others. Good letters of ordination are such plain and unmistakable converts as these. The healed sick are the best diploma of a true physician.
HOMILETIC SUGGESTIONS
1Co. 6:9-11.
I. Delusion.Its danger. Its folly. Its sourceignorance, from a blinded heart: the deceitfulness of sin. All in danger. The worst hope for impunity.
II. Inclusion.Even for such sinners. All may hope for mercy. Its method: ye were washed, etc. Into a kingdom, and that of God.
III. Exclusion.The real excommunication. What? Who? Why? How?
1Co. 6:9-11. Soul, remember.
I. What thou wert, with a gracious sadness.
II. What thou art, with a sober gladness.
III. How the change was wrought, with a hallowed thankfulness.
1Co. 6:11. The Great Contrast.
1. With skill of an artist, Paul represents two portraits of same persons: Corinthians,wretched, polluted, in rags, enslaved by sin;then, morally changed, cleansed, robed in righteousness, enjoying high Christian privileges.
2. Not to discourage, to wound feelings; to impress two thoughts(a) impossibility for impure man to partake the blessings of kingdom; (b) obligation laid on them to renounce sin, live holy life.
3. Therefore, examine both portraits; mark contrast.
I. Past state of redeemed.Applicable to all redeemed, everywhere; all sinners, by nature governed and influenced by same principles. Heart impure. Four things true of their past unregenerate state:
1. Void of moral rectitude. Conscience burdened with guilt. Hearts throne occupied by intruder; they enslaved by sin.
2. Subject to impure influences. Affections defiled. If conscience loses authority, nothing to prevent most debasing slavery. Love of self, of pleasure, of the worldthree mighty powers control soul. Every thought, emotion, feeling, under power of one of these. In usin appearance better than Corinthiansthese more successfully checked in outward development.
3. Slaves of wrong habits. Deeds evil. Conscience and affections wrong, deeds must be inconsistent with truth and righteousness.
4. Incapable of spiritual enjoyment. No capacity, no taste, no fitness, for the exalted pleasures of religion, the pure joys of the heavenly world. New creatures alone adapted to new heaven. A foul, old portrait.
II. The present state of the redeemed.
1. The change.
(1) An initiatory act. Washed; allusion to baptism, striking emblem of moral cleansing. But evidently also reference to another washing, which alone can take away sin,work of Holy Spirit on heart. The commencement of wonderful change in believers soul: opening of understanding, impressing of heart, moving of affections, enkindling of new thoughts and desires. Separation from world, conversion to God.
(2) Progressive development. Sanctified. No faultless perfection. A process of spiritual cleansing. An ascent by slow, gradual, continued progress.
(3) Beautiful completion. Justified. Mentioned last, considered first. Three great causes at work in Justification. Illustrate by drowning man saved by rope; the friend who throws the rope, the grasp of the hand, parallel to the Spirits exhibition of Christ, Saviours work, penitents own faith.
2. The means. The name, etc. No other could have moved depraved hearts of Corinthians; no other can change a heart
3. The agency. The Spirit, etc. Giving effect to the word preached; appealing to conscience, subduing enmity, gaining heart.
Application.Need of calm and solemn reflection. Will produce humility, gratitude, deep, lively sense of mercy of God. Also, evidently no sinner need despair.Condensed from J. H. Hughes, Homilist, New Series, i. 125.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Butlers Comments
SECTION 2
Debauched Are Not Brothers (1Co. 6:9-11)
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor sexual perverts, 10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
1Co. 6:9-10 Reprobation: Clearly, Paul is classifying those who are taking brotherhood grievances to civil courts as some of the unrighteous who shall not inherit the kingdom of God! The Greek word adikoi may be translated either unrighteous or unjustthe two English words mean the same. It is frightening to contemplate that those who would rather defraud a brother than be defrauded are categorized with the debauched but that is precisely what Paul is doing here.
Those who defraud are as abominable to God as the immoral, the idolater, the homosexual, the effeminate, the thief, the greedy, the drunkard, the reviler, and the robber. All these unrighteous ones (except the homosexual and the effeminate) are listed earlier by Paul as alien to the kingdom of God and unacceptable as citizens (1Co. 5:9-13). The Greek word arsenokoites is a combination of arsen, male, and koite (Eng. coitus), sexual intercourse, and is translated homosexual. The Greek text here includes the word malakoi, literally meaning, soft to the touch, but used metaphorically in the New Testament to mean male effeminacy in a practicing homosexual. The word malakoi was used by classical Greek writers near the first century A.D. to denote catamites (men and boys who allowed themselves to be misused homosexually). Homosexual behavior is not sicknessit is sin! Why would the act of suing a Christian brother in a heathen court be counted such a serious crime by the apostle? Because it is a deliberate rejection of the very essence of Gods kingdom. It is a refusal of the principle of self-denial. Anyone who refuses to put self to death, allowing Christ to live in him, is not worthy of the kingdom (see Luk. 12:13-31; Luk. 14:25-33; Luk. 16:10-15; Joh. 12:20-25; Joh. 15:12-14; Gal. 2:20; Gal. 5:13; Gal. 5:24-26, etc.). It is the love of Christ which is to control every Christian. Christians are never to consider one another from the worlds point of view (2Co. 5:14-21). When Christians are unwilling to settle any grievance they have with one another, even if it means being defrauded, it means they are unwilling to surrender to the sovereign will of Christ and are not fit to inherit His kingdom. Paul told these Corinthian brethren they were being led astray (Gr. planasthe, wandering stars, planets), in their unmerciful, non-Christian actions of suing one another in heathen courts.
1Co. 6:11 Regeneration: These straying Christians, in their present shameful, defeating, unrighteous behavior unfit for the kingdom, are reminded they do not have to remain disinherited. Some of them were once before living debauched and ungodly lives. Paul is warning them not to continue in this fallen condition, lest they be lost. It is possible to fall from grace after having once been washed, sanctified and justified (see Gal. 5:1-26). Paul considers them, in their present conditions, as unrighteous and not heirs of the kingdom. But he exhorts them (by inference) to repent and return to the state of being sanctified and justified.
It is well to note here that the order of the regenerative process harmonizes with what the rest of the New Testament says about it. First, the Corinthians believed and were baptized (washed), then they were pronounced sanctified and justified, (see Act. 2:38; Act. 18:8; Act. 22:16; Rom. 6:5 ff.; Gal. 3:26-27; Col. 2:12-13; 1Pe. 1:22-25). The Greek verb apelousasthe is 2nd plural aorist middle, and might be literally translated you were washed clean. The word is a combination of two Greek words, apo (from) and louo (washed). The verb louo and its various forms are often used metaphorically for baptism (see Act. 22:16; Eph. 5:26; Tit. 3:5; Heb. 10:22). The believers obedience to Christs command to be baptized (see Mat. 28:18-20) is the initial and fundamental act of faith through which God has chosen to judicially declare a believer both sanctified and justified. It is at this point in the believers calling upon God that he has his sins washed away (Act. 22:16), is saved (1Pe. 3:21; Tit. 3:5), is made a member of Christs church (Eph. 5:26), is joined to Christ and justified (Gal. 3:23-29), is sanctified (Eph. 5:26). Without surrender to the command of Christ and the Holy Spirit (through the apostles) to baptism there is no promise of cleansing, salvation, justification or sanctification.
While these Corinthian Christians had previously been baptized, sanctified and justified, they were not presently considered in a sanctified and justified state of the apostle. One who is aware that he is sinning, after having been once baptized, must appeal to the grace of God by repentance and prayer (Heb. 10:19-25; 1Jn. 1:8-10; 1Jn. 2:1-6). To be an heir of the kingdom of God after initial admittance through belief and baptism, one must continue in sanctification and justification, which is done through daily repentance and prayer. Repentance is from the Greek word metanoeo which means changing the mind and actions. Sanctification is from the Greek word hagiasmos which means, set apart unto God, or dedicated to God. Justification is from the Greek word dikaiosis and means, to declare right, to declare innocent, to acquit of guilt. God is able to declare sinners innocent of guilt because Christ vicariously atoned for all sin upon the cross. This is established as a fact by the historical resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. But God cannot declare any sinner innocent who will not accept that declaration of grace. God has decreed that any sinner who wishes this free gift of grace (declaration of innocence from all guilt) must do so by believing Christs death paid for his sin and by submitting to the ordinance of baptism. When the sinner accepts Gods offer, on Gods terms, he is set apart to Gods will in his life. Of course, a washed, justified, sanctified person may renounce his inheritance and return to the former state of alienation and impenitence (2Pe. 2:20-22). That, says Paul, is what these Corinthians were doing by refusing to settle their grievances with one another on Christian principles.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God simply means these Corinthians had been previously washed, justified and sanctified under the authority of and by the agency of Christ and the Holy Spirit. That authority and that agency is the word of Christ in the apostolic message. There is no indication in the New Testament that the Holy Spirit operates or leads in any extra-Biblical manifestation in the matter of salvation, justification and/or sanctification. The Holy Spirits will in these matters is contained in and operates through His revealed Word. That Word is the Biblenothing less and nothing more! The oral teachings of Christ and the apostles were the first revelations of the Holy Spirits will for salvation, justification and sanctification. Later, their spoken doctrines were committed to writing. These apostolic documents have the same authority and power as their oral teachings did. These written words of the apostles (and the Old Testament before them) form the completed, canonized Word of Godthe will of the Spirit of Truth. They are all the world needs for salvation, justification and sanctification. Nothing must be taken away from these writings and nothing must be added to them. All things that pertain to life and godliness are in his precious promises (2Pe. 1:3-5).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(9) Know ye not that the unrighteous . . .?The force of this question comes out more strikingly in the original, where the word rendered unrighteous is the same as ye do wrong of 1Co. 6:8. You do wrong, apparently forgetting that no wrongdoers shall inherit Gods kingdom.
Be not deceived.There was great danger of their being led to think lightly of sins which were daily committed by those amongst whom they lived, hence these words of warning with which the sentence opens, as in 1Co. 15:33. The mention of gross sensual sins in connection with idolaters points to the fact that they were practically associated in the ritual of the heathen, which, of course, intensified the danger against which the Apostle warns the Corinthians. The prevalence of such scandalous crimes in the heathen world is constantly referred to in the Epistles to Gentile churches (Rom. 13:13; Gal. 5:19-20; 1Ti. 1:9-10; Tit. 1:12).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
b. Sensualities and other vices exclude from the kingdom of God, 1Co 6:9-11 .
St. Paul has just been holding up the highest ideal of the kingdom of God the glorious judgeship [rulership] of the saints as reason why his Corinthians should not humble each other before pagan courts. Their tendency to do so directs his thoughts to that cluster of vices, especially sensuality, by which, amid the dissoluteness of Corinth, they were in imminent danger of forfeiting their title to God’s glorious kingdom. Hence these words of earnest warning are pervaded throughout with a secret reference to their easy remissness in regard to the fornicator.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
9. Kingdom of God In which the holy do, through Christ, overrule the unholy.
Be not deceived Middle voice, Deceive not yourselves. Neither your past rich experience nor your membership in Christ’s Church can save you in your sensuality and other vices.
Idolaters A large share of whose ritual is sensual indulgence.
Effeminate Pathics.
Abusers Sodomites. Rom 1:26-27.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingly Rule of God?’
Do they not realise in all this that those who behave unjustly or wrongly thereby reveal that they are disqualified from the coming Kingly Rule of God? Paul is always quite firm in his view that those who continually fail to reveal Christian virtues, those who do not seek to ‘put on the new man’, thereby reveal that they are not really truly Christian at all. Those who are at ease in Zion may well discover that they are subject to God’s woes (Amo 6:1). For whom God loves He chastens (Heb 12:6). Whom Christ saves He gradually transforms (2Co 3:18). So to be without chastening from God in some way, to be without some evidence of improvement as a Christian, is a sure sign that someone is not Christ’s. So when they win their unfair court case let them recognise that the verdict may eventually also exclude them from the Kingly Rule of God, for it has shown that they are not willing to be subject to that Kingly Rule in the church, and that simply for the purpose of obtaining unjust gain. Thus they will be known by their fruits.
The Contrast Between Sinners and Those In Christ (6:9b-11).
Paul now expands on the idea that those who are unjust in their dealings will not inherit the Kingly Rule of God by pointing out that this is true of all sinful men and women, whether professing but not practising believer or pagan. He then contrasts the majority of the Corinthian church with those who face this dreadful prospect, brought about because of what Christ has done for them in delivering them from sin.
‘Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who offer homosexual sex for money, nor abusers of themselves with men (those who engage in homosexual sex for lust), nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, will inherit the Kingly Rule of God.’
‘Do not be deceived.’ Compare Gal 6:7. Paul has no truck with those who water down God’s judgments. It is so easy for a man to convince himself that he need not be too strict about sin because there is always a way of cleansing. So Paul warns such not to be deceived. If they behave like those doomed to judgment, they will be doomed to judgment whatever claim they make.
The list of sins and sinners is expanded from 1Co 5:11. They are to recognise that such people as practise these things will not only be expelled from the church and its fellowship in this life, but will certainly be excluded from life under the Kingly Rule of God in Heaven. They will have no inheritance in the future blessings of God. Those who continue blatantly in sin cannot expect mercy.
For the details of the list see on 1Co 5:11. But here there is an increase in the emphasis on sexual sin, in that practising homosexuality and those who allow themselves to be so used for money (rent boys or rich men’s favourites), behaving in a way contrary to the general natural order of things, are also condemned, as is the specific act of heterosexual adultery, the leading astray of another person’s marital partner. There are some for whom, sadly, life is more difficult because of various tendencies, which men try to justify by calling them natural, but they must be fought against just as men must fight against the natural tendency to free and unbridled sex.
But they are not condemned alone. Also condemned are thieves, fraudsters and deceivers, greedy people, those who live with their minds set on being wealthy, those who misuse alcohol, those who use false means to get money out of others. Those who practise such things will not inherit the Kingly Rule of God, because thereby they have openly rejected it (whatever their claims may be that they are ‘Christians’).
‘Will not inherit the Kingly Rule of God.’ This is because their attitudes are already set against His Kingly Rule. They are openly and deliberately refusing to obey Him now, and have no intention to do so. Thus they can have no hope of a part in His future Rule, in the blessings of the coming age. They ‘hear His word and do it not’ so that all their hopes will collapse (Mat 7:22-27 which we try to sideline at our peril). 1Co 6:11 ‘And such were some of you. But you washed yourselves, but you were sanctified, but you were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in (or ‘by’) the Spirit of our God.’
Paul has no qualms in pointing out to the Corinthians that in their sick society many of them had been exactly like that. This adequately described what they had been. But he then goes on to describe the transformation that has taken place in those who are truly in Christ, with the result that they had put all that behind them. Thus even while condemning these gross sins he indicates that even for the worst there is hope in Christ if only they will repent and believe.
‘You washed yourselves.’ It is very questionable whether this refers to baptism. Had it been so it would surely have read ‘you were baptised’. It is true that the middle voice might act as a passive (thus balancing the verbs), but it is far more likely that the middle voice draws attention to a deliberate response by them as in Isa 1:16-17. Baptism is rarely, if ever, likened to ‘washing’, as though sins could be washed off (Jer 2:22), and the verb used is never used of ritual washing. It rather has in mind the rains and snow from heaven producing inward fruitfulness (Job 9:30; compare Isa 55:10-11), as in John’s baptism and Jesus’ description of the new birth, and the dying and rising again to new life. The idea here is rather that they ‘washed themselves’ by repenting, and turning from sin, and ceasing to have dealings with it, and by availing themselves of the blood of Christ (Rev 7:14). They put aside what they were and began to live anew in Christ. They obeyed the words of Isaiah, “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek what is right –” (Isa 1:16-17 compare Jer 4:14). It is the equivalent of true repentance.
Note On ‘Washing’.
It must be remembered that ancient man did not see personal cleanliness in quite the same way as modern man with his greater facilities. While there were exceptions, this was on the whole true. Water brought to his mind fruitfulness in the fields from rain and river rather than bathing and making himself clean.
Some have suggested a connection of ‘washing’ with baptism seen as connected with the Old Testament ‘washings with water’, but quite apart from the fact that apolouo is never used of such washings, in the Old Testament ceremonial washing in itself never ‘cleanses’, and we are specifically told in every case that the Old Testament washings left the person ‘unclean until the evening’. In other words it was not efficacious in cleansing. That required the waiting before God, probably in the tent. Indeed Peter makes clear that baptism does not represent ‘the washing away of the filth of the flesh’ and relates it to the resurrection, dying and rising again (1Pe 3:21, compare 1Co 6:18 with 22-23)
This statement is repeated with monotonous regularity with respect to washing in water, and suggests that the cleansing itself actually arises through the time alone with God after the ritual washing, and the efficacy of the daily evening sacrifice on behalf of Israel. Whatever therefore the washings indicated, it was not immediate spiritual cleansing. In fact the idea was probably the removal of ‘earthiness’, of the taint of the world, prior to ‘waiting on’ a holy God for cleansing. Thus David in Psa 51:2 was not referring to ritual washing but was using his regular royal baths as a picture of cleansing. But there he is referring to God washing him, as his attendants did, not his own action.
And the same applies to Psa 51:7, although there he probably also has in mind the ‘water for impurity for the removal of sin’. The parallel ‘purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean’ in 1Co 6:7 suggests this, for hyssop was used to sprinkle water purified with the ashes of a sacrifice (Num 19:9; Numbers 17-19). This ‘water for impurity for the removal of sin’ was water containing the ashes of sacrifice, and was itself sprinkled to remove uncleanness, not in order to wash. It signified the efficacy of sacrifices for sin.
Notice in Num 19:19 how the careful distinction is made. First the person is sprinkled with the ash-connected water, then they wash their clothes and bathe themselves in water, then they wait for the evening when they ‘become clean’. The washing and bathing is carefully separated from the idea of cleansing, and seems therefore again to have more to do with becoming physically fitter to wait on God for cleansing, removing the earthiness and odours, preparatory to cleansing. Ezekiel also connects this sprinkled ‘purified’ water with the purifying of Israel in a passage connected with the coming of the Spirit (Eze 36:25-27). Notice that there God will use ‘clean water’, i.e. water that has been cleansed.
In Act 22:16 Ananias does say to Paul, (the only clear example of washing being even remotely connected with baptism), ‘Arise and be baptised, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord’. But notice that the baptism is something done to him whereas the washing is something he must do for himself as with Isa 1:16-17. Had Ananias been directly linking the two he could have demonstrated it by using a participle or by saying ‘have your sins washed away’. If he is to be seen as linking the two specifically, as some insist, it would be the only example in the New Testament, for the only other washing from sin is in the blood of Jesus (Rev 7:14). Elsewhere baptism is seen as symbolising the rain from heaven producing new life (in John’s baptism), or as a dying and rising again.
So Ananias’ statement ‘wash away your sins’ should more probably be seen as directly connected with ‘calling on the name of the Lord’, rather than specifically as directly connected with ‘be baptised’. In other words he is saying ‘firstly be baptised signifying your entry into the new age of the Spirit and secondly deal with the sins in your life by repentance, calling on the name of the Lord.’ It is significant in this regard that Ananias is shown as using ’apolouo for ‘wash’ and not louo. ’apolouo is used only once in LXX, and that is to represent washing in snow (Job 9:30 – water directly from heaven – which is connected with the going forth of new life in Isa 55:12), in contrast with louo which is used of ceremonial washing. This strongly suggests he was wanting to exclude the idea of ceremonial connections.
End of note.
So by ‘you washed yourselves’ (aorist middle) Paul is stressing how they did in the past truly repent and make a determined effort to turn their backs on sin in the name of Christ and by the power of the Spirit, something that they now needed to renew. You are now free from sin because you have washed yourselves by being born of the Spirit.
‘But you were sanctified.’ The verb is aorist passive indicating a once for all situation. God sanctified them, setting them apart as His in Christ and accepting them as holy in Him. Thus although unholy in themselves they are seen as holy in Him. That is why they could be called ‘saints’ (see on 1Co 1:2). See Heb 10:10 which declares that we have been sanctified by His fulfilling of the will of God through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. But the act of being sanctified also had an effect within them, for the Holy Spirit took up His dwelling within them (1Co 6:19), working new life and holiness within them as they commenced their life of faith. They were both set apart and regenerated.
‘But you were justified.’ Again aorist passive. They were declared righteous by God through the righteousness of Christ imputed to them and, as it were, put to their account (Rom 5:17-19; 2Co 5:21). The verb dikaioo (justify) refers to a judicial verdict by which a man is declared free of any charge against him. He is declared as being without a stain on his character.
‘In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.’ All these blessings were theirs through the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ and through His name, that is, through what He essentially is and has done, and were wrought in them by the Spirit of God Himself, working in effective power through Christ and Him crucified (1Co 1:23; 1Co 2:2). Now he is calling them to remember what they are and to begin to live appropriately.
So once again his stress on the requirement for morality is linked with the word of the cross. Sin cannot survive where the word of the cross is at work. This is what has been lacking among the Corinthians and is why they need now to turn back to the centrality of the crucified Christ Who has died for them calling them to be crucified with Him. For it was through the cross that they had come to God so that they washed themselves by repentance from sin, and were sanctified and justified once for all in God’s sight. Note his assumption that they will no longer be engaging in such sins. If they are he offers them nothing.
Thus do his current words confirm and prove what he has previously said about the word of the cross. Through ‘the word of the cross’ sin is excluded and dealt with, unlike the effect of ‘the wisdom of words’ of his opponents which had resulted in the acceptance of such sins by the church as allowable.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
A warning to the immoral Christians:
v. 9. 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,
v. 10. nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
v. 11. 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. The apostle had just told the Corinthians that they were far from showing the mind of Christ, that they were rather doing wrong, that they were exhibiting a vindictive, unrighteous disposition in bringing suits against their brethren before the Gentile courts. He now enlarges upon this thought: Or do you not know that the wrong-doers will not inherit the kingdom of God, will not realize the consummation of all Christian hopes? Their conduct, even though it be due to ignorance, places them on a level with the heathen. And so Paul adds a warning: Be not deceived; do not let foolish ideas take possession of your minds. His readers were not to make the mistake that the liberty of the Gospel was equivalent to libertinism and license; free grace does not imply the right to sin. On the contrary, the sins which were so widely prevalent at Corinth and to which some of the church-members had been addicted, absolutely excluded the transgressor from the inheritance of the kingdom of God. To these flagrant violators of the holy will of God belonged the fornicators, those that sought the gratification of their lust outside of the marriage-bond; the idolaters, that worshiped strange gods; the adulterers, that broke the marriage-tie; these three sins were openly practiced in Corinth in the cult of the heathen goddess; the voluptuous, that were addicted to all forms of sensuality; the sodomites, that were guilty of the unnatural vices as practiced by the Greeks in such a shameless manner; the thieves, the covetous persons, the drunkards, the revilers, the plunderers or extortioners. Mark how the repetition of the negation emphasizes the fact of their absolute exclusion from the blessings which God has reserved for the believers.
And now the apostle, after his usual manner, reminds the Corinthian Christians of the glorious gifts of mercy which they have received, contrasting their present state with that before their conversion: And these things some of you were. Such stuff, such a set, such abominations they had been, that is, some of them; the majority of them had fortunately not been guilty of such extremes of vice. But these things are now a thing of the past, for they were washed clean in Baptism, the power of God in the Sacrament took away all their uncleanness, Tit 3:5; Act 22:16; Col 2:11-12; Eph 5:26-27. They were sanctified; they were separated from the world and consecrated to God by that same sacred act, they were translated into fellowship with God. They were justified; they had entered into that state in which God looks upon them as just and righteous, in which He imputes to them the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And all this was done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all gifts of grace have been made possible, and in the Spirit of our God, through whose power regeneration is effected. The believers are the sacred and living property of Christ, because the Spirit of God lives in them. Thus the entrance of the Christians into their state of grace is brought out in all its glorious contrast to the vile condition of the unregenerate, in order that the remembrance of these privileges may always incite them to a life that agrees with their heavenly calling.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
1Co 6:9 . ] See on 1Co 6:8 . To supply an unexpressed thought here (“Do not regard the matter lightly,” Billroth; “This is a far greater ,” Ruckert; that to the church “they could only fail to perceive, if they did not know,” etc., Hofmann) is just as arbitrary as to do so in 1Co 6:2 .
] the general conception (under which the preceding and . are included ): unrighteous, immoral . See the enumeration which follows.
.] the coming close after , and put first for emphasis (see the critical remarks). As to the truth itself, that excludes from the Messiah’s kingdom, see on Gal 5:21 ; and as regards what is implied in the Messianic , on Gal 3:18 ; Eph 1:11 .
] for that moral fundamental law was more easily, it is plain, flung to the winds in frivolous Corinth than anywhere else! Possibly, too, some might even say openly: , ! Chrysostom. Hence: be not mistaken ( , passive , as also in 1Co 15:33 ; Gal 6:7 ; Luk 21:8 ; Jas 1:16 ; comp the active form in 1Jn 3:7 ), followed by the emphatic repetition of that fundamental law with a many-sided breaking up of the notion into particulars, not, however, arranged systematically, or in couples, nor reducible, save by force, to any logical scheme; [931] in this enumeration, owing to the state of matters in the place, the sins of sensuality are most amply specified.
, fornicators in general; , adulterers , Heb 13:4 .
.] see on v. 11.
] effeminates , commonly understood as qui muliebria patiuntur , but with no sufficient evidence from the usage of the language (the passages in Wetstein and Kypke, even Dion. Hal. vii. 2, do not prove the point); moreover, such catamites ( molles ) were called or . One does not see, moreover, why precisely this sin should be mentioned twice over in different aspects. Rather therefore: effeminate luxurious livers . Comp Aristotle, Eth. vii. 7 : , Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 20, also , iii. 11. 10 : , Plato, Rep. p. 590 B.
] sodomites , who defile themselves with men (1Ti 1:10 ; Eusebius, Praep. evang. p. 276 D). Regarding the wide diffusion of this vice, see the passages in Wetstein; comp on Rom 1:27 , and Hermann, Privatalterth . 29. 17 ff.
[931] Comp. Ernesti, Ursprung der Snde , II. p. 29 f.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 1958
GODS MERCY TO THE VILEST SINNERS
1Co 6:9-11. 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, 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.
AS long as men retain within them the seeds of their original corruption, so long they will be liable to (all into sin, and consequently they will need to be instigated by every motive that can be adduced, to persevere in the ways of holiness. Now there are scarcely any stronger incentives to obedience, than a recollection of the inseparable connexion which there is between sin and misery; and a view of the unspeakable mercies which we ourselves have received at Gods hands. It was by these considerations that St. Paul urged the Corinthians to abstain from some practices in which they were engaged, and from others to which they were particularly exposed. They had gone to law with each other even in the Gentile courts, instead of settling their disputes by arbitration amongst themselves. It is probable too that some among them thought but lightly of the sin of fornication; since the close of the chapter is wholly occupied with that subject. His address to them was well adapted to the occasion; in that it appealed at once to their fears and to their gratitude; and thus secured the influence of their ingenuous feelings, as well as of those which were of a more selfish nature.
His words will lead us to shew,
I.
The awful condition of the ungodly
Those who live in sin will have no part in the inheritance of the saints. Though some of the sins specified in this black catalogue are such as cannot be mentioned with delicacy, or thought of but with horror, yet far the greater part are as common in Christian lands as among the heathen themselves: but, by whatever name men call themselves, they who live in such sins shall never inherit the kingdom of God. The manner in which this declaration is made, calls for our particular attention. Mark,
1.
The Appeal
[The Apostle appeals to our own consciences; Know ye not this? However ignorant ye be, are ye not well assured in your own minds, that persons living, and dying, in the commission of any of these sins, must perish? Does not Scripture, does not reason, does not conscience tell you, that there must be a difference put between the just and unjust in the day of judgment? ]
2.
The Caution
[The Apostle next cautions us against self-deception. We are apt to extenuate these crimes, and to conceal their enormity by some specious name. Fornication and adultery are youthful indiscretions: drunkenness is conviviality: covetousness and extortion are prudence, and the common licence of trade. Thieving is confined to one species of dishonesty; whilst a defrauding of the revenue, and a neglect of paying ones debts, and many other kinds of theft, are practised without remorse. As for reviling, the conversation of many consists of little else than speaking against their neighbour; and especially when they have received from him any real or fancied injury: yet that is considered as nothing more than a proper token of their contempt for such conduct as they disapprove. And a soft, easy, indolent, effeminate manner of life, such as indicates an aversion to do any thing or suffer any thing for Christ, is reputed innocent, as though a Christian had nothing to do but to please himself. Moreover, if men be free from the grosser acts of sin, they pay no attention to the dispositions of their minds; though, in reality, dispositions are as hateful to God, and as much reprobated in the text, as overt acts. But, however they may hide from their own eyes their guilt and danger, Gods decree is irreversible, and his threatened vengeance shall assuredly be executed upon them.]
But, notwithstanding the danger to which sinners are exposed, the text informs us of,
II.
The blessed state to which they may yet be exalted by the Gospel
Many of the Corinthians had, while in their heathen state, been guilty of all the abominations mentioned in the text. But at their conversion,
1.
They were received into the Christian covenant
[The word washed seems, to refer to their initiation into the Christian Church by the ordinance of baptism; and therefore imports, that they had been admitted into the Christian covenant. We indeed, at our conversion, are not to repeat the rite of baptism; because the baptism administered to us in our infancy was in all respects as available for us as circumcision was for the Jews; yet, since we are brought only into the outward bond of the covenant in our baptism, we need to be made partakers of its saving benefits: and, however abandoned we may have been in our unregenerate state, we shall be received to a full participation of its blessings, as soon as ever we repent and believe in Christ.]
2.
They were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
[Justification includes not merely a remission of sins, but a being dealt with, by God as innocent persons, or, in other words, an exaltation to eternal happiness and glory. Now this the Corinthians enjoyed as soon as they embraced the Gospel. They were not left to expect it after death: it was already vouchsafed unto them. For the sake of Christ all their sins were blotted out as a morning cloud. And we also, as soon as we believe in him, shall, for his sake, be justified from all things, however abominable our past lives may have been, and however much we may have deserved to be abhorred both by God and man.]
3.
They were sanctified by the Spirit of our God
[The Apostle, speaking in the fulness of his heart, did not observe any particular order in the arrangement of his words; and therefore no conclusion is to be drawn from the order of them: for, in strictness of speech, our sanctification does not precede, but follows, and flows from, our justification. But what a triumph of Divine grace was here! these people, who had been sunk beneath the very beasts by their iniquities, were renewed by the Holy Ghost, and transformed into the image of their God. Surely then none of us need despair! Whatever we have been, or whatever we may yet be, we still may look to that Divine Agent, who will renew and sanctify us wholly, provided we seek his operations in the name, and for the sake, of Jesus Christ.]
Address
1.
To those who are yet living in sin
[Is there a person here, who, whether openly or in secret, gives way to uncleanness? Thou shalt never inherit the kingdom of God. Is there a person here who corresponds in any respect with those described in the text? Does not thy conscience tell thee, Thou must perish? If thou hast bribed, or silenced thy conscience, deceive not thyself; for Gods word shall stand, whether thou believe it or not. Hear this, thou whoremonger, thou adulterer, &c. &c. In the name of Almighty God I declare, Thou shalt never inherit the kingdom of God, unless thou repent, and believe in Christ. Let me entreat thee seriously to consider thy guilt and danger, while there is a way of escape yet opened to thee by the Gospel.]
2.
To those who have experienced pardon and sanctification by the Gospel
[It will be always profitable for you to bear in mind what you once were: for though your actions may not have been so abominable as those referred to in the text, none of you have any right to cast a stone at others; seeing that the seeds of all evils are in your own hearts, and nothing but the preventing grace of God has made you to differ from your more abandoned neighbour. What cause have you then to magnify and adore that grace which has so distinguished you; and to love much, from a sense of having had so much forgiven!
Well also may a recollection of the many talents that have been forgiven you, incline you readily to forgive the pence that may be owing to you by an offending brother. It is particularly in this view that the text is introduced by the Apostle, and in this view it certainly ought to be improved. Get but a just sense of the mercies vouchsafed to you in the pardon of your sins by the blood of Jesus, and the renovation of your natures by the Holy Ghost, and you will esteem nothing too much to do for God, and no forbearance too great to exercise towards the most unworthy of mankind.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
(9) 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, (10) Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. (11) 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.
What a striking passage is here? I pray the Reader to be very attentive to it. The Corinthians as a city and people were full of uncleanness, even to a proverb; so much so, that to say, a Corinthian woman; was a similar term to a woman of the town. Hence, as the Corinthians abounded in every species of luxury and uncleanness; and the Lord in his providence and grace, gathered a Church from among them; the Apostle reminds them of what they once were, that he might the more strikingly make them sensible of what they now area. 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.
I hope the Reader will allow me to enlarge a little somewhat more particularly, on this most precious portion of the word of God. For, if I do not greatly err, here is enumerated the several office-acts of all the Persons of the Godhead, and which comes in most blessedly in this place, when stating the mighty change wrought upon the hearts of the Lord’s people, in proof that every poor sinner, when saved and called with an holy calling, is indebted for this unspeakable mercy, to the united love and grace of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And this is, indeed, one of the fundamental articles of our most holy faith, 1Jn 5:7 ; 2Co 13:14 ; Mat 28:19 . It is true, that the mercies here enumerated, are not placed according to the usual order of God the Father’s choosing, God the Son’s redeeming, and God the Holy Ghost regenerating. But no objection can arise from thence. For sometimes one is spoken of first, and sometimes another. See 2Co 13:14 ; Eph 2:18 ; Col 2:2 ; 1Pe 1:2 . But each glorious Person of the Godhead, in their office character relation to the Church, is certainly referred to in this verse; and this is abundantly satisfying in proof of their grace, and love, and favor.
The Apostle begins with the work of God the Spirit. But ye are washed. And what a sweet confirmation is this of the great work of regeneration?, The same great Apostle, in his epistle to Titus, hath introduced the subject much in the same manner as in this epistle to the Corinthians; only when writing to Titus, he included himself, as being by nature in the same original uncleanness with all. For we ourselves also (said he) were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divine lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ Our Savior, Tit 3:3-6 . Now, though this office-work of God the Holy Ghost is the last spoken of, according to order in the ancient settlements of eternity, when that Covenant which is ordered in all things; and sure, is originally mentioned, (Psa 89:3 .) yet is it the first which gives a discovery to the precious child of God of the covenant of grace. For until we are washed by the washing of regeneration, the kindness and love of God toward man, hath never appeared to that individual soul, who then, for the first time, finds himself called with an holy calling, and is made willing in the day of God’s power. 2Ti 1:9 ; Psa 110:3 . Hence, therefore, though the electing love of God the Father chose that precious child of God before all worlds, (Eph 1:4 ) and marked his name in the book of life, (Rev 21:27 ; Luk 10:20 ; Phi 4:3 ) yet until God the Holy Ghost put his Almighty hand to the work, and quickened the souls, dead by nature, in trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1 ), the soul was unconscious of his high birth right, and knew nothing of the Father’s love in choosing, or the Son’s love in redeeming, to all the purposes of race and mercy. Neither is there a single blessing that we can lay claim to, or indeed have we the smallest conception of, until this sovereign act of grace hath passed upon the soul. Reader! pause, and ask your own heart, whether those blessed words of Paul to the Corinthians can be applied to you? But ye are washed!
The Apostle next saith, But ye are sanctified. Jude addresseth the Church in like manner, when he saith, To them that are sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ, and called, Jud 1:1 . I do not presume to say, that Paul had the same views concerning the being sanctified, when he told the Corinthians, ye are sanctified. Some have thought that he alluded to the sanctification of the spirit of this people. And it is possible it may be so. But I am free to think otherwise. The sanctification or setting apart in God the Father’s choice of the Church from everlasting, I humbly conceive to be here meant, agreeably to the analogy of scripture. And in this sense, it comes in very sweet, after the Apostle had told them of their being washed by regeneration. For, hereby, they were now enabled to trace their mercies to their source, in beholding themselves sanctified, or set apart by the Father, being regenerated and brought forth into spiritual life by the Holy Ghost.
The Apostle proceeds in his account, and saith: but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. And here, if I err not, is intended to set forth the justification of the Church by Christ; of whom it is expressly said, that he was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification, Rom 4:25 . And thus, on the presumption that I am correct, we have in this beautiful verse, an account of the several office-characters of the whole Persons of the Godhead: in God the Spirit’s gracious act of washing by regeneration, of God the Father’s love in sanctifying or setting apart by election; and of God the Son’s justifying his redeemed, by his blood and righteousness. It may be said indeed, and it ought to be said, as a most blessed and soul-refreshing truth, that these several acts here spoken of are in different parts of Scripture ascribed to each glorious Person indifferently. But this is but a further confirmation of the whole; and an additional testimony to the divine unity, Joh 5:17-18 . And very blessed it is, to trace the acts of each glorious Person and the united acts of all. Reader! may it be your happiness and mine, if it be the Lord’s will, to have the same sweet assurance given us, as Paul here gave to the Corinthian Church; that we are washed, and sanctified, and justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
9 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,
Ver. 9. Shall not inherit ] It is an undefiled inheritance, 1Pe 1:4 ; no dirty dog ever trampled on that golden pavement, Rev 22:15 . Heaven spewed out the angels; shall it lick up the unrighteous? The serpent could screw himself into Paradise, but no wicked could ever get into heaven. There is no happiness to be had without holiness. Let none think to break God’s chain, as Balaam, Num 23:10 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
9. ] ‘Ye commit wrong :’ this looks as if you had forgotten the rigid exclusion from the kingdom of God of all wrong-doers of every kind (included here under ); see Gal 5:21 .
] This caution would be most salutary and needful in a dissolute place like Corinth. It is similarly used, and with an express reference to , ch. 1Co 15:33 .
refers back to ch. 5, and is taken up again, 1Co 6:12 ff.
= (see in Wetst.).
, see on ch. 1Co 5:11 .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
1Co 6:9-10 . On ; see note to 1Co 6:2 . The wrongers of their brethren are surely unaware of the fact that “wrong-doers ( ) will not inherit God’s kingdom” (which nevertheless they profess to seek, 1Co 1:7 ff.) an axiom of revelation, indeed of conscience, but the over-clever sometimes forget elementary moral principles; hence the . Their conduct puts them on a level with the heathen ( , 1). (doubly anarthrous; see note on 1Co 2:5 ), “ God’s kingdom” the expression indicating the region and nature of the realm from which unrighteousness excludes; “the kingdom of God is righteousness” (Rom 14:17 ; cf. Mat 5:10 ; Mat 13:43 , Luk 14:14 , Rev 1:18 ; Rev 2:8 f., etc.). The deception taking place on this fundamental point springs from the frivolity of the Hellenic nature; it had a specific cause in the libertinism deduced from the gospel of Free Grace and the abrogation of the Mosaic Law (1Co 6:12 f., see notes; cf. Rom 6:1 ; Rom 6:15 , Gal 5:13 ). In 1Co 6:9 b , 1Co 6:10 the general warning is carried into detail. Ten classes of sinners are distinguished, uncleanness and greed furnishing the prevailing categories ( cf. 1Co 5:9-11 ): “neither fornicators (the conspicuous sin of Cor.: 1Co 5:1 , etc.; 1Co 7:2 ) neither covetous men no drunkards, no railers, no plunderers (see txtl. note) will inherit,” etc. Idolaters are ranged between fornicators and adulterers an association belonging to the cultus of Aphrodit Pandemos at Cor [953] , soft, voluptuous , appears in this connexion to signify general addiction to sins of the flesh; lexical ground is wanting for the sense of pathici , suggested to some interpreters by the following word and by the use of molles in Latin. For (cl [954] ), whose sin of Sodom was widely and shamelessly practised by the Greeks; cf. Rom 1:24 ff., written from Cor [955] The three detached classes appended by to the list were specified in 1Co 5:11 ; see notes.
[953] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
[954] classical.
[955] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: 1Co 6:9-11
9Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
1Co 6:9-10 Paul is obviously concerned about the lifestyle of individual Christians (cf. 1Co 5:10-11; 1Co 6:9-10), which reflects on the church. Salvation is not only a judicial act (i.e., justification by faith), it is a changed life (i.e., sanctification or Christlikeness, cf. Gal 6:7). See SPECIAL TOPIC: NEW TESTAMENT HOLINESS/SANCTIFICATION at 1Co 1:2.
The church was, and is, being “deceived.” This is a present passive imperative with the negative particle, which usually means to stop an act in process.
1Co 6:9 “do you not know” See note at 1Co 5:6. The implication is that believers, because of their salvation and indwelling of the Spirit, should know these things! But, baby (immature), carnal believers do not!!! They are mentally dominated by this fallen world’s system and the demonic (i.e., self deceived, culturally deceived, and satanically deceived, cf. 1Co 12:2).
“that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God” Paul states this twice for emphasis (1Co 6:9-10). This brings the paradox of the gospel into sharp contrast. Salvation is free in the finished work of Christ, but covenantal salvation demands an appropriate and continuing response. Believers who are declared “right” in Christ must mature into Christlikeness. The goal of God has always been a righteous people that reflect His character. The NT is just like the OT in this regard. The radical nature of the New Covenant (cf. Jer 31:31-34; Eze 36:22-38) is that human performance for salvation has been replaced with Christ’s performance. But this does not affect God’s desire for a righteous people. It just changes the mechanism. In this gospel period, believers are motivated by gratitude, not reward.
However, the spiritual principle of “sowing and reaping” (cf. Gal 6:7) is still in effect for believers and nonbelievers (cf. chapter 3). Oh, the tragedy of fruitless Christianity (cf. John 15; Jas 2:14-26; 1 Peter; 1 John). It impacts the Kingdom, the local church, the individual, and the lost.
Can a Christian who has committed the sins listed in 1Co 6:9-10 be saved? For sure (cf. 1Co 6:11)! Can a Christian continue to commit these sins and be saved? Not without divine consequences-loss of fellowship with God, loss of the Spirit’s guidance, loss of assurance, loss of peace, loss of effective prayer, loss of true worship, loss of joy, loss of witness! What a price to pay!
There are several texts in Acts and Paul’s writings (cf. Act 20:32; Act 26:18; 1Co 6:9-10; 1Co 15:50; Gal 5:21; Eph 5:5) which reflect Jesus’ words on inheriting the Kingdom (cf. Mat 25:34).
SPECIAL TOPIC: APOSTASY (APHISTMI)
SPECIAL TOPIC: BELIEVERS’ INHERITANCE
“Do not be deceived” This is a present passive imperative (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 10, p. 223, says it is present middle, i.e., “Stop deceiving yourselves”) with the negative particle, which usually means “stop an act in process.” This is an asyndeton like 1Co 6:18, which was a Koine Greek grammatical form of emphasis which brought it to the attention of the reader or hearer.
NASB, NKJV,
NRSV”fornicators”
TEV”people who are immoral”
NJB”the sexually immoral”
This is the general term for sexual immorality (cf. 1Co 5:1 [twice],9,10; 1Co 6:9; 1Co 6:11; 1Co 6:13; 1Co 6:18; 1Co 7:2; 1Co 10:8; 2Co 12:21). 1Co 6:9-10 list the sins related to first century pagan worship practices (cf. 1Co 5:9-11), which regularly involved promiscuous sexual activity in the name of the fertility god.
“idolaters” For a believer with an OT perspective, there is nothing worse than this. The use of this term in the list of sins confirms that this is a list of pagan worship practices. All the Gentile believers at Corinth had come out of this background (cf. 1Co 6:11). Paul uses this concept (i.e., the worship of and service to false gods) often in his Corinthian letters (cf. 1Co 5:10-11; 1Co 6:9; 1Co 8:4; 1Co 8:7; 1Co 8:10; 1Co 10:7; 1Co 10:14; 1Co 10:19; 1Co 10:28; 1Co 12:2; 2Co 6:16).
“adulterers” This is the Greek term moichos, which refers to extramarital sexual unfaithfulness. This is the only place it is used in the Corinthian letters.
NASB”effeminate”
NKJV, NJB”sodomites”
NRSV”male prostitutes”
TEV”homosexual perverts”
NJB”self-indulgent”
This term (malakos) literally means soft. It could be used of clothing (cf. Mat 11:8). When applied metaphorically of persons it referred to male prostitutes, usually young men. For a good article on homosexuality see Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, pp. 413-414.
NASB”homosexuals”
NKJV, NRSV,
NJB”sodomites”
TEV”(both terms translated together as ‘homosexual perverts’)”
This term (arsenokoits, from arsn, a male, and keit, one who lies with) refers to a male homosexual (cf. 1Ti 1:10; Rom 1:27). This was a major problem in Roman society (cf. Rom 1:26-27; 1Ti 1:10) as it was in the ancient Near East (cf. Lev 18:22; Lev 20:13; Deu 23:18). These two related terms in 1Co 6:9 for homosexual activity may refer to the active (arsenokoitai) and passive (malakoi) aspects of this sexual sin.
There is much modern cultural pressure to accept homosexuality as an appropriate alternate lifestyle. The Bible condemns it as a destructive lifestyle, out of the will of God for His creation.
1. it violates the command of Genesis 1 to be fruitful and multiply
2. it characterizes pagan worship and culture (cf. Lev 18:22; Lev 20:13; Rom 1:26-27; and Jud 1:7)
3. it reveals a self-centered independence from God (cf. 1Co 6:9-10)
However, before I leave this topic let me assert God’s love and forgiveness to all rebellious human beings. Christians have no right to act hatefully and arrogantly towards this particular sin, especially when it is obvious that all of us sin. Prayer, concern, testimony, and compassion do far more in this area than vehement condemnation. God’s Word and His Spirit will do the condemning if we let them. All sexual sins, not just this one, are an abomination to God and lead to judgment. Sexuality is a gift from God for mankind’s well-being, joy, and a stable society. But this powerful, God-given urge is often turned into rebellious, self-centered, pleasure-seeking, “more-for-me-at-any-cost,” living (cf. Rom 8:1-8; Gal 6:7-8).
“revilers” See note at 1Co 4:12.
1Co 6:11 “Such were some of you” This is an imperfect indicative, which expresses a continual action in past time. This shows the moral blackness of the pagan culture of Paul’s day (cf. 1Co 12:2), but it also shows the marvelous grace and changing power of the gospel of God in Christ.
The changed lives of these converted pagans were a powerful witness to the gospel. But the change must be permanent and complete, not temporary and selective. They were different now, indwelt now, informed now. They must not return as a dog to his vomit or a pig to the mud (cf. 2Pe 2:22). The lost world is watching!
“but” Notice the threefold rendition of alla in the Greek text to denote these three distinct spiritual events:
1. washing
2. sanctifying
3. justifying performed by the Son and the Spirit through our faith, repentant response
“you were washed” This is an aorist middle indicative. This may refer to baptism as an initial, volitional, visible, symbolic act of inner cleansing (cf. Act 2:38; Act 22:16; Tit 3:5). Most translations translate this phrase as a passive voice except the Williams translation, which has “you have washed yourselves clean.” Proselytes to Judaism baptized themselves when joining the synagogue. If this word is middle voice like Act 22:16, this may be a theological allusion to the covenant responsibility discussion in Eze 18:31 combined with God’s initiating sovereignty (cf. Eze 36:25-27). This could be a metaphor for cleansing (cf. Tit 3:15).
“you were sanctified” This is an aorist passive indicative by means of Christ’s death and the Spirit’s mediation (cf. 1Co 1:2; 1Co 1:30). See SPECIAL TOPIC: NEW TESTAMENT HOLINESS/SANCTIFICATION at 1Co 1:2.
“you were justified” This is an aorist passive indicative. Believers are both justified and sanctified when they believe (cf. Rom 8:29). This positional theological standing mandates Christlike living. See SPECIAL TOPIC: RIGHTEOUSNESS at 1Co 1:30.
“in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God” This phrase probably confirms the interpretations that “washed” or “wash yourselves” in 1Co 6:11 refers to baptism (cf. Rom 10:9-13). The early church’s public profession of faith was baptism. The candidates affirm their faith by verbally saying “I believe Jesus is Lord” or a similar liturgical confession.
The second phrase mentioning “Spirit” could be an allusion or liturgical formula based on Mat 28:19, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” It is interesting how often Paul refers to “the name” in the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians (see Special Topic at 1Co 1:10).
1. a way of referring to believers (“who. . .call upon the name,” cf. 1Co 1:2)
2. a way of exhorting believers (cf. 1Co 1:10)
3. a way of asserting Paul’s authority (cf. 1Co 5:4)
4. a way of referring to believers’ initial act of calling on the name (cf. 1Co 6:11)
The name represents Jesus’ person, authority, characteristic, and status.
This is an obvious reference for the redemptive work of the Triune God (cf. 1Co 6:10-11). The term “Trinity” is not a biblical word, but the concept is. If Jesus is divine and the Spirit is a person, then the one divine essence has three eternal, personal manifestations. See SPECIAL TOPIC: THE TRINITY at 1Co 2:10.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
unrighteous. Same as unjust (1Co 6:1).
the kingdom of God. See App-114, and Compare 1Co 4:20.
not. App-105.
deceived. Greek. planao. This caution occurs three times in Paul’s epistles; here, 1Co 15:33. Gal 1:6, Gal 1:7, and once in James (1Co 1:16).
neither . . . nor. Greek. oute.
idolaters. See 1Co 5:10.
effeminate. Greek. malakos. Elsewhere transl, “soft”. Mat 11:8. Luk 7:25.
abusers, &c. Greek. arsenokoites. Only here and 1Ti 1:10. Compare Rom 1:27.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
9.] Ye commit wrong: this looks as if you had forgotten the rigid exclusion from the kingdom of God of all wrong-doers of every kind (included here under ); see Gal 5:21.
] This caution would be most salutary and needful in a dissolute place like Corinth. It is similarly used, and with an express reference to , ch. 1Co 15:33.
refers back to ch. 5, and is taken up again, 1Co 6:12 ff.
= (see in Wetst.).
, see on ch. 1Co 5:11.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Co 6:9. ) Latin an [or; the second part of a disjunctive interrogation].-, unrighteous) Comp. 1Co 5:8.- , the kingdom of God) In this kingdom righteousness flourishes.- , they shall not inherit) because they are not the sons of God.- , be not deceived) by yourselves and others.–, fornicators-extortioners) Scandalous crimes common at Corinth, 2Co 12:20-21; at Rome, Rom 13:13; in Galatia, Gal 5:19-20 : at Ephesus, 1Ti 1:9-10 : and in Crete, Tit 1:12. This remark applies to the act of fornication, etc., and much more to the habit.-, idolaters) Idolatry is placed between fornication and adultery, for, it usually had these crimes joined to it.-, effeminate) Even the hand in the deepest solitude ought to be chaste, a necessary warning to youth.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Co 6:9
1Co 6:9
Or know ye not-[Some of them acted as if the gospel gave license to live in sin, instead of being intended to deliver from its power. All such persons are warned of their fatal mistake. He assures them that one who allows himself the indulgence of any sin cannot be saved.]
that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? -Paul here, as did Jesus when he was appealed to to settle differences between two brothers (Luk 12:14), lays down principles that will remove the causes that produce the contentions about property. Those who act unrighteously in doing his brother wrong, or in going before the tribunals of unbelievers, cannot inherit the kingdom of God, that is, the heavenly kingdom. It is the heritage of these who are faithful as the sons of God in the world.
Be not deceived:-[There was great danger of their being led to think lightly of sins which were daily committed by those amongst whom they were living, hence these words of warning] lest they should think one could inherit the kingdom while practicing the sins mentioned.
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers.-Much of the idol worship consisted in most degrading forms of debauchery and licentiousness. These sins were encouraged both as acts of worship and by the examples of their idols. [Notice how he distinguishes between fornication and adultery. Though both will exclude from the inheritance, the latter is in many respects the worst crime, because through it the family is broken up, and a third person is irretrievably injured.]
nor effeminate,-[This word occurs in Mat 11:8; Luk 7:25, where it is applied to clothing, and rendered soft raiment-luxurious livers, who pamper their body. Applied to morals, it denotes those who give themselves up to a soft, and indolent way of living; who make self-indulgence the grand object of life. In the classics the word is applied to those who are given up to wantonness and sensual pleasures, or who are kept to be prostituted to others.]
nor abusers of themselves with men,-Those who lie with a male as with a female.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Know: 1Co 6:2, 1Co 6:3, 1Co 6:15, 1Co 6:16, 1Co 6:19, 1Co 3:16, 1Co 9:24
unrighteous: Exo 23:1, Lev 19:15, Lev 19:35, Lev 19:36, Deu 25:13-16, Pro 11:1, Pro 22:8, Isa 10:1, Isa 10:2, Isa 55:7, Zec 5:3, Act 24:25, Rom 1:18, 1Ti 1:9
inherit: 1Co 6:10, 1Co 15:50, Mat 19:29, Mat 25:34, Gal 5:21
fornicators: 1Co 5:1, 1Co 5:10, Gal 5:19-21, Eph 5:4, Eph 5:5, 1Ti 1:9, Heb 12:14, Heb 12:16, Heb 13:4, Rev 21:8, Rev 22:15
abusers: Gen 19:5, Lev 18:22, Lev 20:13, Deu 22:5, Deu 23:17, Jdg 19:22, Rom 1:26, Rom 1:27, 1Ti 1:10
Reciprocal: Gen 19:7 – General Gen 39:9 – how then Exo 30:19 – General Lev 6:7 – it shall be Lev 14:3 – be healed Lev 18:20 – General Num 9:10 – be unclean Deu 25:16 – all that do Deu 27:9 – this day 1Ki 14:24 – And there 1Ki 22:46 – the remnant Psa 68:13 – ye have Psa 68:18 – rebellious Pro 2:18 – General Pro 8:5 – General Isa 11:6 – General Isa 32:16 – General Isa 35:7 – the parched Isa 40:2 – that her iniquity Isa 40:28 – thou not known Isa 55:13 – of the thorn Isa 65:25 – wolf Jer 5:7 – they then Jer 7:9 – steal Jer 23:10 – full Eze 18:6 – neither hath defiled Eze 22:11 – committed Zec 14:21 – no more Mal 3:5 – the sorcerers Mat 8:11 – in Mat 9:13 – to call Mat 15:20 – which Mat 22:10 – both Mar 2:17 – I came Luk 1:17 – and the Luk 5:32 – General Luk 7:47 – which Luk 15:15 – to feed Luk 19:9 – This day Act 10:12 – General Act 15:20 – fornication Act 18:10 – for Act 24:26 – hoped Rom 3:10 – none Rom 4:5 – ungodly Rom 5:16 – but the free Rom 5:20 – But Rom 6:3 – Know Rom 6:13 – unrighteousness Rom 6:17 – that Rom 6:23 – For the wages Rom 9:30 – the Gentiles Rom 11:30 – as ye Rom 13:13 – chambering Rom 14:17 – kingdom 1Co 1:2 – sanctified 1Co 3:18 – deceive 1Co 5:8 – not 1Co 10:7 – be 1Co 10:8 – General 1Co 15:33 – Be 2Co 12:21 – and have not Gal 6:7 – not Eph 2:3 – we Eph 4:17 – that ye Eph 5:3 – fornication Phi 3:18 – I have Col 1:13 – and Col 1:21 – sometime Col 3:5 – fornication 1Th 4:3 – that 2Th 2:3 – no man Tit 2:12 – denying Tit 3:3 – we Jam 1:22 – deceiving 2Pe 2:10 – in the 1Jo 3:7 – let Rev 21:27 – there
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Co 6:9. Having dealt with the specific evil concerning going to law, the apostle broadens his teaching to consider various forms of evil. Chief among the corruptions that existed among the people of Corinth was the different forms of immorality that were practiced by many with very little concern as to right or wrong. In fact, much of that was a part of the heathen religious ceremonies of that country, which accounts for the indifferent attitude that even the professed disciples of Christ showed on the subject. The present verse, also some others in the chapter, will show us how much concern the apostle felt over it. The word effeminate and the phrase abusers of themselves with mankind both refer to sodomites. The second means a male who uses another male in the place of a female, and the first means a male who permits his body to be so used. (See the notes at Rom 1:27, volume 1 of the New Testament Commentary, on the subject in the italicized phrase.)
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Co 6:9. What, know ye not that the unrighteous (the wrong-doers) shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicator, nor idolaters,whose religion was itself voluptuous, particularly at Corinth,nor adulterers, nor effeminategiven to voluptuous ease, encouraging their sensual inclinations,nor abusers of themselves with menpractising the unnatural vice of Rom 1:27, but which ought not to be named among us as becometh saints. The five grosser forms of vice thus mentioned are next followed by five of a more familiar but not less soul-destroying kind.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, 1. Our apostle’s positive assertion, and categorical proposition, That the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God; where by unrighteousness, is meant injustice and injuriousness towards our neighbour, as appears by the context, which speaks of defrauding: unrighteousness will as certainly shut out of heaven, as ungodliness.
Observe next, The large catalogue of sins which the apostle reckons up, that will shut out of heaven: uncleanness, idolatry, inordinate love of this world, drunkenness, &c. For the confirmation of his proposition, he proceedeth to the enumeration of the several sins destructive of salvation: which are not to be understood copulatively, but disjunctively: not as if he only who is guilty of all these shall miss of heaven, but he that lives in any one of these unrepented of; if he doth not forsake his wicked course of life, he shall never see the kingdom of God: whoever allows and tolerates himself in any one sin, is certainly in a state of damnation.
Lord, how many thousand vain hopes are laid in the dust, and how many thousand of impenitently wicked souls are sentenced to hell, by this one scripture!
Observe lastly, The caution or cautionary direction given by St. Paul to the Corinthians, not to deceive themselves with a contrary expectation, (though one would think men could hardly be deceived in so plain a case,) as if their bare profession of Christianity would save them, whilst they allowed themselves to live in the practice of any of the aforementioned wickedness: Be not deceived.
Learn thence, That men are very prone to deceive themselves in this, that though they live wickedly, yet they shall die happily, and go to heaven gloriously. They have such unlimited apprehensions of the pardoning grace and mercy of God, that they bound it not to faith, and repentance, and an holy life; never considering whether they are qualified subjects or no for that grace and mercy. God is a merciful God, says the wicked man, therefore I shall not go to hell; God is a merciful God, says the devil, therefore I hope to come out of hell. No, say you, that doth not follow, for God has decreed and declared the contrary. And has he not decreed and determined, has he not said and sworn, That the impenitent sinner shall never enter into his rest? Be not then deceived, oh sinner; whilst thou continuest unreformed, thou canst not inherit the kingdom of God.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Becoming A Christian Means Changing Relationships
Those in the church at Corinth needed to remember that those wronging others would not see heaven. Sin will be punished ( Gal 6:7-8 ). Paul then went on to list some of the sins he had in mind. A fornicator is one who indulges in illicit sex and is involved in one of the sins that Paul said would keep one out of heaven. Idolators worship false gods. An adulterer is one who has unlawful intercourse with the spouse of another. Perhaps adultery is specified because it breaks up families and hurts a third party. The word translated “homosexuals” literally means “soft to touch.” Vine says, “metaphorically, in a bad sense,….persons in general, who are guilty of addiction to sins of the flesh.” The sin of sodomy is best described in Rom 1:26-27 .
A thief takes what belongs to someone else, while those who are covetous desire “to have more…,i.e., to have what belongs to others; hence, greedy of gain,” according to Vine. Those who become intoxicated are drunkards. Revilers are abusive and profane. Those who are excessively grasping or covetous could be described as extortioners.
Paul next said the Christians at Corinth had previously been involved in some of those very sins he had listed ( 1Co 6:9-11 ). Lipscomb says, “The threefold ‘but’ in the clause which follows emphasizes strongly the contrast between their present state and their past, and the consequent demand which their changed position makes upon them.” The apostle said they had been washed, or baptized ( Act 22:16 ; Tit 3:5 ). They had also been sanctified, or set apart to do God’s will. Further, Paul said they had been justified, or considered righteous because their sins had been remitted.
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
1Co 6:9-11. Know ye not With all your boasted knowledge; that the unrighteous That is, not only the unjust, but those destitute of true righteousness and holiness, comprehending the various classes of sinners afterward mentioned, the term unrighteous here including them all: shall not inherit the kingdom of God Namely, the kingdom of eternal glory. And can you contentedly sacrifice this great and glorious hope which the gospel gives you, for the sake of those pleasures of sin which are but for a short season? Be not deceived By a vain imagination that the Christian name and privileges will save you, while you continue in the practice of your vices. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, &c. Idolatry is here placed between fornication and adultery, because these things generally accompanied it. Indeed, among the heathen idolatry was not only a great crime in itself, but was the parent of many other crimes. For the heathen were encouraged in the commission of fornication, adultery, sodomy, drunkenness, theft, &c., by the example of their gods. Nor effeminate Who live in an easy, indolent way, taking up no cross, enduring no hardship. But how is this, that these good-natured, harmless people are ranked with idolaters and sodomites, those infamous degraders of human nature? We may learn hence, that we are never secure from the greatest sins, till we guard against those which are thought to be the least; nor indeed till we think no sin is little, since every one is a step toward hell. And such were some of you Namely, in some kind or other; but ye are washed Delivered from the guilt and power of those gross abominations. Ye are sanctified Renewed in the spirit of your minds, dedicated to, and employed in the service of God; conformed, at least in a measure, to his image, and possessed of his divine nature, and this not before, but in consequence of your being justified. Or, Ye are regenerated and purified, as well as discharged, from the condemnation to which ye were justly obnoxious. See the nature of justification explained in the notes on Rom 3:21-22; and its fruits, on Rom 5:1-5. In the name of the Lord Jesus Through his merits, or his sacrifice and intercession; and by the Spirit of our God Creating you anew, and inspiring you with all those blessed graces which are the genuine fruits of his divine influences, Gal 5:22-23. You ought therefore, as if he had said, to maintain the most grateful sense of these important blessings which God hath conferred upon you, to stand at the utmost distance from sin, and to be tender of the peace and honour of a society which God hath founded by his extraordinary interposition, and into which he hath been pleased in so wonderful a manner to bring even you, who were in a most infamous and deplorable state.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Vv. 9, 10. Or 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, 10. nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God.
The particle , or, signifies, as it usually does in this formula: Or, if you think you can act thus without danger…. The Corinthians seemed to imagine that their religious knowledge and Christian talk would suffice to open heaven to them, whatever their conduct otherwise might be. But how do they fail to understand that by falling back into sin, from which faith had rescued them, they themselves destroy the effect of their transition from heathenism to the gospel?
The unrighteous are placed first and separately named; for righteousness is the matter now in question (1Co 6:8).
The notion of the kingdom of God is here taken in the eschatological sense, that is to say, from the standpoint of the final consummation of this Divine state of things; and the verb , to inherit, is an allusion to the inheritance of Canaan given to Israel as a type of the blessedness to come.
The , do not deceive yourselves, shows clearly that seductive arguments were in circulation by which the vicious succeeded in quieting their consciences.
The warning is generalized, as in chap. 1Co 5:9-11. The first five terms in the following enumeration relate more or less directly to the vice of impurity; the following five to the spoliation of another’s goods.
Idolatry was closely connected with licentiousness in morals (see on chap. 1Co 5:11).
The effeminate, , are either those who give themselves up to some unnatural vice, or all in general who pamper their body; abusers of themselves, , are those who give themselves over to monstrous vices (Rom 1:27). There is in the latter term the idea of activity; in rather that of passivity.
Vv. 10. The apostle closes the enumeration with , extortioners; this last term leads back to the principal subject of the whole passage, the and the . In one of the last terms, for , nor, the apostle substitutes , not, as if the feeling of repulsion rose in him with the accumulation of terms: No, in spite of all your reasonings, it will be of no avail! The drunkard shall not enter…
The kingdom of God is a holy state of things, it receives none but sanctified members.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? [That glorious celestial kingdom of which the church is the earthly type.] Be not deceived [so as to think sin will not result in punishment– Gal 6:7]: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate [catamites], nor abusers of themselves with men [Rom 1:26-27],
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION
9. Do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminates (i. e., masculine harlots), nor Sodomites (i. e., the paramours of the preceding). In this verse we have four nouns, significant of different phases of that awful prevailing vice, adultery. What a wonderful emphasis laid on that peculiar scene evidently because it was so prevalent and destructive at Corinth, the Paris of the ancient world, where, instead of receiving the antagonism of the popular religion, it was especially encouraged; e. g., a thousand priestesses of Venus serving in her temples and wielding so potent an influence to corrupt society.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
1Co 6:9-10. Do you not know] This conduct, like all sin, arose from ignorance.
Unrighteousness, or unjust, refers specifically to 1Co 6:8; but includes the sin of 1Co 6:1 and all other sin. For, against all sin equally this solemn warning is valid.
Inherit God’s kingdom: 1Co 15:50; Gal 5:21; Eph 5:5 : become, in virtue of filial relation to God, citizens of the future and glorious realm over which, in a royalty which His children will share, He will reign for ever.
Be not deceived etc.: solemn repetition, and exposition in its wider sense, of 1Co 6:9 a. Cp. Gal 5:21.
Fornicators; recalls 1Co 5:1 ff.
Idolaters; see 1Co 5:11.
Fuente: Beet’s Commentary on Selected Books of the New Testament
6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? {8} Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
(8) Now he prepares himself to pass over to the fourth treatise of this epistle, which concerns other matters, concerning this matter first, how men may well use a woman or not. And this question has three parts: fornication, matrimony, and a single life. As for fornication, he utterly condemns it. And marriage he commands to some, as a good and necessary remedy for them: to others he leaves is free. And others he dissuades from it, not as unlawful, but as inconvenient, and that not without exception. As for singleness of life (under which also I comprehend virginity) he enjoins it to no man: yet he persuades men to it, but not for itself, but for another respect, neither to all men, nor without exception. And being about to speak against fornication, he begins with a general reprehension of those vices, with which that rich and riotous city most abounded: warning and teaching them earnestly, that repentance is inseparable joined with forgiveness of sins, and sanctification with justification.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Who are the "unrighteous" (NASB) or "wicked" (NIV) in view? Paul previously used this word (Gr. adikos) of the unsaved in 1Co 6:1 (cf. 1Co 6:6 where he called them unbelievers). However he also used it of the Corinthian Christians in 1Co 6:8: "you yourselves wrong [adikeo]." Christians as well as unbelievers have been guilty of unrighteous conduct, even all the offenses listed in these verses. Therefore what Paul said about the unrighteous in this verse seems to apply to anyone who is unrighteous in his or her behavior whether saved or unsaved. It does not apply just to the unrighteous in their standing before God, namely, unbelievers. Some interpreters, however, have concluded that the unrighteous refer only to unbelievers. [Note: E.g., MacArthur, pp. 127-29; and J. Dwight Pentecost, Thy Kingdom Come, p. 283.]
What will be true of the unrighteous? They will "not inherit the kingdom of God." Jesus explained who will inherit the kingdom (Mat 5:3; Mat 5:10; Mar 10:14), whereas Paul explained who will not. Elsewhere Paul used this expression to describe the consequences of the behavior of unbelievers when he compared it to the behavior of believers (cf. Gal 5:21; Eph 5:5). That appears to be its meaning here too. [Note: See René A. López, "Views on Paul’s Vice Lists and Inheriting the Kingdom," Bibliotheca Sacra 168:669 (January-March 2011)81-97.] Inheriting the kingdom and entering the kingdom are synonyms in the Gospels (cf. Mat 19:16; Mar 10:17; Luk 18:18). Paul was apparently contrasting what the Corinthians did before their conversion with their conduct after conversion (1Co 6:11). He did not mean that Christians are incapable of practicing these sins but that they typically characterize unbelievers. Paul was exhorting the Corinthian believers to live like saints. [Note: See idem, "Does the Vice List in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Describe Believers or Unbelievers?" Bibliotheca Sacra 164:653 (January-March 2007):59-73.]
Paul warned his readers about being deceived on this subject (1Co 6:9). Probably many of them failed to see that how Christians choose to live here and now will affect our eternal reward. Many Christians today fail to see this too. The fact that we are eternally secure should not lead us to conclude that it does not matter how we live now even though we will all end up in heaven.
The meanings of most of these sins are clear, but a few require some comment. "Effeminate" (NASB) or "male prostitutes" (NIV; Gr. malakoi) refers to the passive role in a homosexual union whereas "homosexuals" refers to the active role. [Note: See P. Michael Ukleja, "Homosexuality in the New Testament," Bibliotheca Sacra 140:560 (October-December 1983):350-58; and Sherwood A. Cole, "Biology, Homosexuality, and Moral Culpability," Bibliotheca Sacra 154:615 (July-September 1997):355-66.] David Malick showed that Paul was condemning all homosexual relationships, not just "abuses" in homosexual behavior. [Note: David E. Malick, "The Condemnation of Homosexuality in 1 Corinthians 6:9," Bibliotheca Sacra 150:600 (October-December 1993):479-92.]
"Bisexuality was extremely common among Greeks, especially because of the shortage of available wives, which apparently occasioned the late age of marriage for most Greek men." [Note: Keener, p. 55.]
"We can scarcely realize how riddled the ancient world was with it [homosexuality]. Even so great a man as Socrates practised [sic] it; Plato’s dialogue The Symposium is always said to be one of the greatest works on love in the world, but its subject is not natural but unnatural love. Fourteen out of the first fifteen Roman Emperors practised unnatural vice." [Note: Barclay, The Letters . . ., p. 60.]
Note the seriousness of the sin of covetousness or greed (cf. 1Co 5:10-11; 1Co 6:8). Greed may manifest itself in a desire for what one should not have (Exo 20:17; Rom 7:7) or in an excessive desire for what one may legitimately have (Eph 5:5; Col 3:5).
"The universality of wine drinking was of course due to the inadequate water-supplies. But normally the Greeks were sober people, for their drink was three parts of wine mixed with two of water." [Note: Ibid., p. 59.]
"The order of the ten kinds of offenders is unstudied. He enumerates sins which were prevalent at Corinth just as they occur to him." [Note: Robertson and Plummer, p. 119.]