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The Problem of Remembering Identity and Destiny - 1 Corinthians 6:1-19

The Weekend, July 11 –
Welcome to the weekend in our reading. We have two days to read and take this all in, so I hope you can read and catch up if you need to on other passages we’ve covered. This weekend’s reading is from 1 Corinthians 6:1 – 19. After you’ve finished reading the Scripture, come back, and we’ll take a more extended look on how to apply this to our lives today.

We might find it strange to think that the next subject Paul took up with the Corinthian church was the issue of Lawsuits. It seems clear that Paul is against lawsuits, and that creates both a question and a need for understanding concerning what this means. The background is that Paul heard that people in the Church, Christians, had taken other Christians to court by filing a lawsuit against them. It is something we are familiar with in our own culture, and I would say that most people who file lawsuits do not first inquire as to whether the person they are suing is a Christian or not.

Yet, we need to ask the question: Is this the same thing that we have in our courts today? The answer is No! We need to get rid of the idea of a lawyer, a judge, a courtroom that we’re used to thinking makes up our court system. Instead, we must imagine an outdoor setting, a raised platform made out of stones, and an open-air public crowd assembled to watch. The difference is important. In our modern context, we can easily be confused with this rebuke from Paul. We either dismiss Paul outright (which would be a dangerous thing to do, no matter what the subject) or begin to legalistically hold that a Christian is always wrong if they sue someone.

The Greek/Roman world was not a democracy but an Aristocracy. The democracy politic of Greece opened the world to the idea of the citizenry. Still, it limited the people who could be considered citizens and restricted it to land-owners (the Aristocracy) and some middle-class tradesmen. In Corinth, as in all of the Roman world, taking a person to court was a regular habit and considered to be a form of entertainment in the general population. The Corinthians saw a lawsuit as a “right.” They became obsessed to the point that judgments were usually made along class-like privileges to keep the various classes separate, but not equal. Paul argued that this “rights” orientation has no place in the church. It is not just “washing your dirty linen in public,” it was taking the church into the pagan world and allowing them to make judgments on church life. In other words, filing a lawsuit and taking it before a judge who is not a Christian is inconsistent with a belief in the Church as the body of Christ.

“When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?” (6:1). The language is, again, stark. Both terms, the “unrighteous” (ton adikon) and the “Saints” (ton hagion), should remind us of the previous issue in chapter 5 when they needed to “judge” the case of incest. The “unrighteous” judge has by inclination and nature no concern for the Scriptures or the application of God’s moral law. He might be wise, understanding, and even a just judge, but he is not a Christian under the authority of Jesus Christ. The “Saint” is holy, given to God, consecrated to God’s will and God’s purposes – or at least should be. Are Christians smart? Legal experts? Astute legal lawyers? No! Yet the fact is that the “Saints” will judge the world when Christ returns (6:2) and will judge Angels too (6:4). Paul refers to the lawsuits in two ways: “trivial cases” (6:2b), which is what a vast majority of the Roman world’s love of suits was all about, and does not compare them to the critical life issues that fellow Christians can help solve (6:3b).

Think about what Paul is saying to them. The primary issue is not the lawsuits, but it is the failure of the church (think again of chapter 5) to remember their identity and their destiny. We are “saints,” ones called out by God to be holy, to be consecrated to His purposes, to model and demonstrate the life of Christ to the world that so desperately needs Him. We are leaving this world to live eternally with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We will reign with Christ as judges in both the material earthly realm (“judge the world”) and in the eternal kingdom (“judge angels”). Put it all together, and we realize that Paul wants them to understand that because they are entrusted – by God – with this judgment, surely they can be much more effective in settling matters of dispute within the church than taking them to a court that ignores God’s word and ways.

Is Paul’s admonition a rejection of Christians ever going to court? Obviously not. Paul himself was subject to the Roman government’s justice system. If a Christian is taken to court by someone who is outside of the church, they will need to defend themselves against unjust charges. I think it best to understand that Paul was arguing against the “trivial cases” that arose, not serious crimes, or significant injustices. The issue is between law and grace. In the world, we are bound by the law as a citizen. In the church, the law does not leave, but the Grace of God is the binding principle for how we live with one another. Think back to chapter 5 and realize, Grace is no push-over, easy “what difference does it make” kind of thinking. Paul is commanding them to stop the trivial stuff and live both according to their identity as “God’s called-out people” and their destiny as “God’s eternal family.”

This principle is so important that Paul says you would be better off to lose by not mounting a defense than win. “To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers”! (6:7-8). In the end, while they might win the lawsuit, they have lost their brother or sister in Christ. The “unrighteous” – those who are not only not believers, but are adamantly opposed to all things God – have no identity in the Kingdom of God (6:9).
Paul reminds them that those who live outside of the Kingdom have a morality that mirrors a selfish flesh orientation, and although the Corinthians were once like that, they have left that all behind – so, “don’t go back.” The Message interprets it excellently:
“Don't you realize that this is not the way to live? Unjust people who don't care about God will not be joining in his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don't qualify as citizens in God's kingdom. A number of you know from experience what I'm talking about, for not so long ago you were on that list.” (6:9-10).
Putting our faith in “unrighteous” judges is a sign of lost identity and a focus on the immediate at the expense of the long term eternal. Paul ends this argument by returning to the truth of a Christian’s identity: “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.” (6:11).

Let’s stop before we think about the final section of chapter 6. Paul has been pointedly sharp in his judgments about the Corinthian Church. “Fleshly,” “Wisdom of the World,” “Foolish,” “Immature,” “Immoral,” “Arrogant,” “Not acting like Saints” are the identifying traits of this church. It doesn’t sound like a church does it? We need to remember that Paul said (4:14-15) that he saw them as His Children, and himself as a Father. Was he angry with them? Yes. Was he telling them they had to change? Yes. Was he telling them, “I am washing my hands of you”? No. The church in Corinth was young, immature, and in need of mature spiritual growth. Like children, they were making mistakes and losing sight of the bigger picture. That is why Paul takes the last part of chapter 6 – verses 12 – 19 – to summarize all he has been saying.

He begins with a Spiritual principle he wants them to memorize, learn, adhere to: “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated (mastered, in the NIV) by anything”. (6:12) He lists various things that were lawful, yet needed a spiritually mature mind to govern over: Food, Sex, the Body...all are good things, and all are a gift from God. Yet, all of these represent things that can take over people’s lives in sinful ways. He is saying to them, “All things are lawful; not all are helpful, and if we let them get out of control, they can turn us into slaves and let them become our master.” (my paraphrase)
The principle he wants them to learn is that they/we can make the right choices based on God’s word. My body, food, sex, are all gifts from God and permissible in the proper context, but all can be sinful in the wrong context. Biblical scholars have pointed out that Paul places two guardrails in the pathway of the Christian’s choices. We have freedom under Christ that is not legalistic, and we have boundaries that serve to protect us in God’s word and God’s Church – both under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. The problem in Corinth is ours also – In a world that majors in individual freedom to do whatever a person might want to do, few choose self-control.

Sexual Immorality – whether incestual (chapter 5) or promiscuous prostitution (6:15-16) – are incompatible with the life of Christ inside of the believer. Paul makes it clear – Christ is in the Church (5:4), and Christ is in us (6:15). Those are twin truths that we must embrace. Sexual immorality robs us of identity (6:16). Those who choose to live in obedience to Christ Jesus become more and more like Christ (6:17). The final command to flee sexual immorality needs no explanation given these truths (6:18). Who are we? In the end, we are “temples of the living Holy Spirit of God” (6:19), so live like it...live obediently, in freedom with self-control, under the power of the Spirit, for the Glory of God (6:20). That’s all there is to say. God sent his Son, our Savior, Jesus into the world to die for our Sins. He died as a sacrifice for our Sin so that we might receive life eternal, and the downpayment of that is the gift of His Holy Spirit. We, indeed, have been bought with a price. A life lived for God is doing what it is purposed to do. It is not an extraordinary life – it is the expected life that God gives to us in Christ by His Grace for His Glory.

Peace

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