The Wicked Will Be Judged

6 When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? ² Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? ³ Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! ⁴ So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? ⁵ I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, ⁶ but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? ⁷ To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? ⁸ But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers! ⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:1-11, ESV).

Introduction

It seems that the world’s favorite Bible verse is Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” (KJV). They will say things like, “I don’t like Christians because they are so judgmental.” Or “Don’t judge me, you don’t know me. Don’t be a bigot” Christians in response will say things like “I don’t want to judge anyone.” So, they will not confront sin. This leads to severe leadership problems in the church. Two years ago, a church in the SBC got in trouble for covering up over 700 sex offenders in the name of not judging and covering up scandal. This led to a lot of distrust in the church with unbelievers pointing out we are hypocrites for saying “repent of your sin” then turn around and cover it up. Yet, with the “Me Too” movement, it is popular to accuse men, pastors, and other leaders of sexual misconduct when there is either nothing going on or things are taken out of context. Many times, this is taken to the police, it is made public, and if it is proved false or unprovable, the man’s character and reputation is destroyed anyways in public opinion. In context to Jesus’s parable and statement in Matthew, he said to judge with right judgement. As a church, it is our responsibility to confront sin confidentially, call to repentance, and report to the police is something grossly illegal has happened so we avoid scandals like this and the gospel is not tarnished. We must be unified in our response against sin whether it is sexual immorality or slander.

Context

Paul wrote to the Corinthians four times. Only two are recorded as Scripture. He founded the church on his second missionary journey. Paul lived in Corinth for a year and a half and made many converts to Christ from the surrounding pagan community. Their next known pastor was Apollos, a Hellenistic Jew who came to repentance and faith in Jesus, who was trained by the husband-and-wife team Pricilla and Aquilla. There were also people trying to mix Christianity with Greek philosophies, ideologies, and mysticism arising in the church. It was so divided that they began to develop factions in the church where one would say “I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ.” (1:12). Those trying to merge the culture into Christianity were having orgies, drunkenness at communion, eating food sacrificed to idols, and one man sleeping with wither his mother or stepmother, and they denied the resurrection! Paul had a lot to deal with in this letter. He founds it all on being unified in the gospel, the crucifixion of Christ for the atonement of our sin. Then he brings all these other matters under submission of this truth and the truth of Scripture. Just before this passage, Paul addressed the one sleeping with his stepmother and calls for him to be cast out so that he may repent. The passage after these addresses sexual immorality and fleeing form any temptation of it. Here Paul addresses the frivolous lawsuits between believers in court cases saying the church should try these cases.

Thesis

Believers, not the world, must judge cases because they will judge the angels and have been cleansed by Christ.

Outline

This will be seen in three movements: I. The Charge, II. The Call, and III. The Challenge.

I.                The Charge

1. “When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?” (1 Corinthians 6:1, ESV).
2. One of the favorite pass times of the wealthy Corinthians was to sue each other. Corinth was a greedy port culture with all kinds of wealth and vices. Those who had wanted more and they would sue people poorer than them to get their money. Other times, an actual injustice was done and would sue to get compensation. The judges who tried these cases would make more money for tier services. Court cases were also many times tried before a jury ranging from 200 to 6,000 jurors to decide a case.
3. The problem with these judges in not they are corrupt, but that they are unrighteous. They are not saved and do not know how to deal with matters according to God’s Law. The large amount of jurors would also destroy the credibility of anyone accused of misconduct.
4. The Tyndale Commentary says,

Paul recognizes that disputes will occur, but these should be settled within the brotherhood. He uses a strong word for dare (cf. Héring, ‘has the audacity’); it is far from the conduct looked for in believers. Dispute (pragma) is common in the papyri in the sense ‘lawsuit’ (MM). The ungodly (adikoi, the ‘unjust’ or ‘unjustified’) means those outside the church. Paul is not saying that the secular courts in Corinth were corrupt, but that they were composed of unbelievers. Such courts did not regulate their thinking or actions by the law of God. He is not complaining that believers would not obtain justice in heathen courts, but saying that they had no business being there at all. This was a principle to which the Jews adhered firmly. We read in the Talmud, ‘R. Tarfon used to say: In any place where you find heathen law courts, even though their law is the same as the Israelite law, you must not resort to them’ (Gitt. 88b; the Qumran community had a similar law, Millar Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls [Secker & Warburg, 1956], p. 235). Paul says Christians should do no less.^[1] 

• The Corinthian church had to realize they needed to be different from the greedy elite. They had to think about the gospel, the glory of God, and the character of the church. Not be self-absorbed and into themselves.
• We have seen the charge. Now we look to the call.

II.              The Call

1.  ² Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? ³ Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! ⁴ So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? ⁵ I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, ⁶ but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? ⁷ To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? (1 Corinthians 6:2-7, ESV).
2. Christians are called to a higher calling than to be put under unbelievers. As opposed to us being judged by the world, we will judge the world with Christ when He returns to set all things right. This is an argument from the greater to the lesser. If we will judge the whole world in Christ, we can judge minor disputes in the church.
3. The second greater to lesser argument is the church in the final judgement will judge angels. Believers are going to receive the inheritance with Christ in the new heavens and the new earth. In the final judgement believers will be in that judgement.
4. Jesus told the twelve apostles, “²⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28, ESV).
5. Daniel 7:22 promises in the final day, “²² until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.” (ESV).
6. 2 Peter 2:4 says of angels, “⁴ For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment” (ESV).
7. And finally, Revelation 20:4-6 says, Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. ⁵ The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. ⁶ Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. (ESV).

• Therefore, believers judging the world, condemning fallen angels and ruling over holy angels was a common Christian teaching in both the Old and New Testaments. They should be able to handle minor matters in the church.
• In fact, Christ calls the church to judge matters in the church,

¹⁵ “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. ¹⁶ But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. ¹⁷ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. ¹⁸ Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. ¹⁹ Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. ²⁰ For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (ESV).

• The fact that the Corinthian church ignored these truths was appalling to Paul due to his Jewish heritage of the synagogue judging its own cases, as allowed by Roman law and the fact these believers were saved from sin by Christ. The Tyndale Commentary says,

To go to law with a brother is a defeat in itself, whatever the outcome of the legal process. You have lawsuits might be translated ‘you get judgments (krimata)’. The gaining of the verdict matters little. The cause is already lost when a Christian institutes a lawsuit. The injurious effects are implied in the expression ‘among yourselves’; the injury is to the body of Christ, not to outsiders. More biting questions drive home the point that a real victory might be obtained rather by choosing to be wronged, to be cheated. Jesus taught his followers to turn the other cheek, and, when sued at law for their tunic, to yield up their cloak as well (Matt. 5:39–40), and he set them an example (1 Pet. 2:23). But the Corinthians were far from basic Christian principles. Indeed, they were far behind the best Greek thought, for Plato can say that it is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong (Gorgias 509C).^[2]

• These Corinthians who loved wisdom, were themselves not wise. They needed to be reminded of basic Christian truths.
• We have seen the charge and the call. Now we look at the challenge.

III.            The Challenge

1. ⁸ But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers! ⁹ Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:8-11, ESV).
2. This church was going back into the gross sin of lies and theft. They forgot they were saved from sin so they could be righteous before God. Only those who have clean hands and a pure heart can enter the presence of God. We are defiled by nature. Yet, Christ in His mercy died on the cross in our place to give us His righteousness. Forgiveness is not a call to sin more, but to fight sin, flee sin, and forsake sin with the free gift we have been given.
3. He says those who are unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom and he lists ten sins which keep people from the kingdom of heaven. These are common vices in the community of Corinth, as it was a port city, it was self-centered to the core, and most of the ancient world thought it was a vile Sin city. One commentator said,

The ideal of the Corinthian was the reckless development of the individual. The merchant who made his gain by all and every means, the man of pleasure surrendering himself to every lust, the athlete steeled to every bodily exercise and proud in his physical strength, are the true Corinthian types: in a word the man who recognised no superior and no law but his own desires.^[3]

• Here is a list of the definitions of those 10 vices:
• Πόρνος (Pornos): A sexually immoral person. Means all kinds of sexual immorality. It is where we get our word for pornography. It can be a person who has illicit fantasies to people who practice prostitution.
•  εἰδωλολάτρης (eidololatres): It means someone who practices idolatry. In that time it meant to worship graven images, statues, or false gods. Yet, an idol could refer to anything that one worships in place of God. Paul says those who is covetous is an idolater (Ephesians 5:5).
• Μοιχός (moichsos): An adulterer. Someone who practices sex outside of marriage. Jesus says anyone who looks with lust has already committed adultery in his heart and will be cast to Hell if one does not repent (Matthew 5:28-30).
• Μαλακός (Malakos): One who was the passive partner in a homosexual relationship. These were often weaker soldiers, vulnerable small boys, students, and temple prostitutes who were acting on a goddess’s behalf. Many times it was sought out and consensual.
• ἀρσενοκοίτης (Arsenokoiteis): The dominant male partner in a homosexual relationship. The Roman sexual ethic of the day was do whatever is weaker than you. If you can overpower it, do it. In many Roman homes, women were for bearing children and boys were for pleasure.
• Κλέπτης (kleptes): Refers to a thief. This is someone who steals things. It is where we get our word kleptomaniac from.
• Πλεονέκτης (pleonekteis): Refers to one who is greedy. He is always grasping for things.
• Μέθυσος (Methusos): His is one who is a drunkard or one who is constantly impaired in judgement.
• Λοίδορος (loidoros):  One who is a slanderer, gossip, and insulter. He murders people with words.
• ἅρπαξ (arpaks): One who swindles people from their money. The typical con artist and liar.
• None who practice those things will inherit the kingdom of heaven. Yet, this was the exact condition the other Corinthian believers were saved from. They were the ones who were not supposed to inherit the kingdom of heaven.
• However, the passage says Jesus washed them from these sins. This refers to an internal cleansing of the power and love for sin. They were cleansed from all their defilements. The repentant David asks “Have mercy on me oh God according to your steadfast love. According to your abundant mercy blot out all my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin” (Psalm 51:1-2). Jesus does just that by his death, blotting out our sin. Then giving us his righteousness, washing us thoroughly from our sin and iniquity.
• Jesus also sanctifies the believer. The word to sanctify means to cut off and separate. It is the same word as Holy in the Greek. Christ calls us out of the world by grace through faith and separates us from all its sin, vices, and desires. We now seek the glory of God and the coming of the new kingdom where there is no sin.
• Then Jesus justifies the believer in Him. Declaring him or her righteous because of what Jesus has done. Jesus makes him right no longer to be viewed as evil. Therefore, the believer must fight, flee, and forsake sin. The whole Godhead was involved in your salvation. The Father sent the Son, condemned Him on the cross, and raised Him from the dead. The Son lived a sinless life, bore your sin, was crushed for it, and defeated death. The Holy Spirit was sent from the Father and the Son, called you to repentance, drew you to Christ and the Father, sealed you upon your repentant faith in Christ, and will guarantee your salvation, preserving you from God’s wrath.
• That is why believers must judge sin in the church and call the professing believers to repentance to restore them to a relationship with Christ. Those who refuse to repent show they never belonged to Christ.

Conclusion

So, we have seen Believers, not the world, must judge cases because they will judge the angels and have been cleansed by Christ.

There are so many applications I do not have time to discuss. Yet, one thing I believe needs to be said is the church needs to start dealing with sin in the church. Christ saved us from sin, so we need to confront it privately and confidentially to not destroy the body. If an accusation is made, the deacons and myself need to investigate it calling the witnesses, especially if it is the list of sins in this chapter.

Another thing is the church, including myself is a mandatory reporter. I am required to report by law to the authorities the following: threats of suicide, sexual abuse, homicide, child abuse, and child neglect. Otherwise, we are held accountable by law and could have charges brought upon the church. This is why we take accusations against church members seriously. You cannot just be spreading gossip and slander to kill a person’s character and get away with it. If you are doing that or are planning on doing that I call you to repent and remember that Satan himself is an accuser of the brethren. It is also illegal to slander a person and you could be sued for slander. If you are doing any of those things listed above, repent and turn yourself in. It is better to be judged here on earth than it is by God.

Finally for those who do not believe. Bad News: Anyone who has ever lied, stolen anything, used God’s name in vain, and looked with lust is a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer at heart. That is just four of the Ten Commandments. It is even worse. Anyone who does not put God first in life and think of others before oneself is a lawbreaker. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23a). No one is good (Rom. 3:10-20). God is a good judge who must punish lawbreakers and send them to Hell. 

Good News: God is rich in mercy. He sent Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, to live a sinless life, and die on a cross to pay the penalty for sin. God can dismiss your case. Jesus rose from the dead three days later, defeating death. God calls you to repent (turn from sin) and have faith in Jesus (trust in His sacrifice). When you do God will unite you in Jesus’ death, forgive you of all your sins, and seal you with the Holy Spirit so you cannot lose your salvation. I hope you will come to Him. Let’s pray.

Dear God, even through we were vile, unrighteous sinners who did not deserve to inherit your kingdom, you sent Jesus to wash, sanctify, and justify us by his sacrificial death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. Lord we ask that you give us boldness and love for your holy name to confront sin. Please help guide us in our decisions and judgements. Please bring people to repentance and help us be good witnesses for Christ. It is in Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.

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^[1] Leon Morris, 1 Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 7, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 93–94.

^[2] Leon Morris, 1 Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 7, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 95–96.

^[3] R. St John Parry, The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians (Cambridge University Press, 1926; The Cambridge Greek Testament). As cited in Morris, 1 Corinthians: An Introduction and Commentary, 22.