“Don’t you realise that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NLT
Paul provided a list of sins that, although they were probably very relevant to the Corinthian society at that time, are still also very relevant to today’s society. The sexual sins Paul listed are rampant today, hidden away from public view mostly, but the outworkings are seen in displays such as the Pride parades and the occasional references to sexual harassment in the news. But we also have other sins still with us today, such as thieving. Theft from shops has reached epidemic proportions, and burglaries are mostly unsolved. Our police forces are overstretched and have to consider thieving as a minor crime, down the list of priorities. Abusive people were very obvious in Paul’s day, but in these Internet days, the abusers mostly sit behind a keyboard, tapping their vitriol into social media pages and destroying people and their reputations in the process. But the list of sins is endless, and Paul’s list is by no means exhaustive. So, perhaps an all-round list of sins would be better summarised by defining it as rebellion against God and His laws. 1 John 3:4, “Everyone who sins is breaking God’s law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God.” Of course, we might try and claim that believers don’t live under the Law anymore, instead living under God’s grace, but Paul dealt with that in Romans 7:6, “But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit”. The reality, though, is that human beings, believers or not, struggle with sin. Paul put this dilemma very well in Romans 7:14-15, “So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate“. He goes on, “I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me” (Romans 7:21-23). And he then provides the answer, “Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death” (Romans 7:24-8:2).
But back in 1 Corinthians 6:11, Paul wrote, “But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God”. The people in the Corinthian church were guilty of a long list of sins before they were saved through an encounter with Jesus, sins so bad that they would have been excused from thinking that they were beyond redemption. Imagine their wonder at being told that Jesus had forgiven them of a terrible sin of which they had been found guilty. Regardless of all the sins that they had committed, they were now children of God, cleansed, made holy, and righteous. These sinful people were deeply and fundamentally opposed to the nature of God, but through repentance and the Holy Spirit, they became children of God. In this verse, Paul immediately changed his tone to one of encouragement and love, because for the believers at Corinth, as for all Christians, something dramatic changed when they came to God through faith in Christ. He declared us righteous and welcomed us into His family as His children. He made us heirs to His glory.
The believers in Corinth were cleansed from their sins. Titus 3:4-5, “But— When God our Saviour revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit”. That process in itself has to be the best news any human being will ever hear. It is a timeless statement that has been hanging over successive generations for the last two thousand years or so. This news is so good that we pilgrims can only shake our heads in wonder and awe that the Creator of this universe would give us a new life so rich and sinless that we can be in God’s presence forever. Jesus Himself, as we know, introduced this concept of a new spiritual birth, but it wasn’t just words. It was His gift to a fallen world, and the children God has always desired.
Paul also reminded the Corinthians believers that they had been “made holy”. There is a religious word we use today to describe what being made holy is all about, and that is “sanctification”. It means that we have been set apart from the rest of sinful humanity for God’s purposes, and we are now God’s people. Earlier in this letter, we read, “I am writing to God’s church in Corinth, to you who have been called by God to be his own holy people. He made you holy by means of Christ Jesus, just as he did for all people everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2). Paul knew very well how sinful the Corinthians had been, but he started his letter to them with the reassurance that they were now being sanctified. Hebrews 10:14, “For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy”. We, of course, note that this is an ongoing process. Sanctification doesn’t happen overnight, but God is patient and works out His purposes within us day by day.
Paul finishes 1 Corinthians 6:11 by stating that the believers in Corinth “were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God”. The wonderful truth is that when we were saved, when we came to the Cross where Jesus took on the punishment for all our sins, He gave us His righteousness, and we became justified before God through our faith in Jesus.
So, in the light of all this, how should the Corinthians have behaved? Come to that, how should we behave? The answer to that always leads me to Ephesians 4:22-24, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness“. We can only do that through God’s grace and with the help of the Holy Spirit, but as we journey through life, we will find ourselves becoming more and more like the person we should be. What a wonderful God and Saviour!
Dear Heavenly Father. Thank You for Your many blessings, and Your patience with us. Your grace and loving kindness knows no bounds. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 