What is the greatest commandment?
What is the second commandment?
Ok, with this in mind, after reading 1 Corinthians 6, what is wrong with this picture of the church here?
The answer: Where is the love?
We all know that this is the New Testament letter with the love chapter in it, right? Chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians is one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible. After reading chapter 6, you realize that this is the church that needs to apply chapter 13 as much as any church that we meet in the New Testament! Remember, the Bible says that the greatest thing of all is not faith or even hope, but the greatest is love. Without love, all else fails. So again, as we look at our text we have to ask, where is the love?
Looking at chapters 5-6 here is like watching Paul wade through an entire multi-sin pile up of a wrecked church and sort out the huge array of mangled morals and wrecked relationships. If all we knew of the Corinthian church of Christ was what we find here in these two chapters… well, what would be your picture of their condition?
Four things are clear, and they are all bad:
- They are proud of a man who has an immoral relationship with his father’s wife instead of putting him out of their fellowship, they are boasting about it.
- They are confused over how to distinguish between dealing with fellow Christians and dealing with those who are outside of Christ.
- They have legal battles between one another and are taking these to court.
- They don’t seem to understand the inconsistency with practicing sexual sin and being a Christian.
Earlier Paul has called them carnal because of their division, jealousy, immorality, etc. To be honest, it is a wonder this letter was ever written! I’m surprised that Paul didn’t throw in the towel and brush off the dust from his feet and go elsewhere. The real love here is in the heart of Paul for this church in the critical care unit of the Bible. He loves them. God’s love pours through Paul to a church on the ragged edges of carnal Christianity. So many things about this church are so wrong.
And do you know another thing that is amazing about this church in Corinth? This is the one church that practices speaking in tongues and miracles more than any other church mentioned in the entire Bible! But just look. Having and practicing and witnessing these signs didn’t make them mature. In fact, the very opposite seems to be the case. Even today, some of the most immoral issues arise among denominations that focus on present day miracles and works of the Holy Spirit instead of centering on the life, teaching, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Amazing isn’t it? Here they are, loaded with spiritual gifts, but undone with unspiritual immaturity.
In verses 1-11 there are three “do you not know” questions. Actually, there are 10 such questions in the first nine verses! It looks like Paul is flabbergasted. Picture him saying:
Hello? Is there anyone awake? Excuse me? Am I in the right place? Didn’t you hear anything that I told you about dealing with one another???
I want to read the text here the way he seems to be saying this. (My interpretation and take on these words).
(Read verses 1-11)
What do these words say? Can’t you just hear it?
Paul is practically shouting: Don’t you know who you really are in Christ? Don’t you know what that means???
In other words, please! Show me the changes God has made in you! You are ignoring who you are and whose you are!
It is tempting to me to look at this and say, “Well, obviously at least some of these are not real Christians!” “Real Christians don’t act like this! Real Christians love each other and treat each other with respect and live peacefully with one another. Real Christians don’t practice immorality. They have pure hearts and spiritual minds. They dress modestly and live honestly. Real Christians come to church all dressed up and they never leave a mess in the pew... Is that right?
Let me ask this question: Just what is a real Christian? Are not the people Paul is writing here “real Christians?”
Reading 1 Corinthians, it appears to me that what these real Christians ought to be and what they are acting like are not even on the same page. Now be careful here! This is not an excuse to anyone to lower your standards! If anything, this is a call from the word of God to reach out to people whose lives are wrecked and who have a long way to go. Nothing in this tells us to put up with sinful behaviors but instead to do just what Paul is doing here, get in there and go to work on it! Apply the power of Christ and the cross to it!
You see, Jesus finds us right where we are! Dead in trespasses and sins! From there he raises us up! Washes, sanctifies, and justifies us through the power of grace and the instruction of righteousness.
Lets notice three key passages in chapters 5 and 6 that help to understand how Paul sees them and how we should see them.
First: Look at 5:7-8 and notice the words “you are.”
5:7 Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, just as YOU ARE in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.
8 Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
What does he say “you are” here? Unleavened!
Why? Because Christ our Passover has been sacrificed!
So? Then celebrate with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth!
Second: Look at chapter 6:9-11 and this time notice the words “you were.”
6: 9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,
10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And SUCH 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.
What four things does he say “you were” here in verse 11?
First: Such were some of you… meaning all the sinful character of those who are not going to inherit the kingdom of God.
Second: But you were: washed
Third: But you were: sanctified
Fourth: But you were: justified
Where did this change occur, and by whose power?
See it there at the end of verse 11? …in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.
So what is expected? You have been changed! Or have you? If the washing, sanctifying, justifying power of God doesn’t show itself in your life, what happens to your inheritance?
Finally, look at how he puts both “you are” and “you were” together at the end of chapter 6:18-20.
18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and YOU ARE not your own?
20 For YOU WERE bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
What does this say “you are?” Look again at verse 19. You are not your own.
What does this say “you were?” Look again at verse 20. You were bought with a price.
What are you? You are a temple of the Holy Spirit.
Who does your body you belong to? God! He made it and he paid for it! He indwells your body, and he wants you to glorify him with it.
May God help us all to realize who we were before Jesus saved us: lost and dead in trespasses and sins we were headed for eternal condemnation. Then, also, may God help us to realize that we were washed, sanctified, and justified by his gracious sacrifice. Remember when we were saved by the blood of the Lamb of God! Now, in Christ, we are his people. Our bodies are his temple. Our lives are his. May we live in Christ and like Christ!
