Latest / Reformed Thinking / “Such Were Some of You”: Kingdom Warning and Gospel Transformation (1 Corinthians 6:9–11)

Transcript

“Such Were Some of You”: Kingdom Warning and Gospel Transformation (1 Corinthians 6:9–11) · Reformed Thinking

0:00
Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
0:02
I am your host and I am sitting here with a stack of source
0:05
materials that quite frankly, looks a little intimidating
0:09
today. Usually we take a broad topic
0:11
and we just see where it goes. But today we are doing the
0:13
complete opposite. We are zooming all the way in.
0:16
We have a deep dive into 3 verses on the table.
0:19
Just three First Corinthians chapter 6, verses 9 through 11.
0:23
Yeah, it is really good to be here and I think you are right
0:26
to feel a little intimidated by these specific verses I have.
0:30
I often thought of this passage as a collision.
0:34
It is sort of where the unstoppable force meets the
0:37
immovable object. That sounds pretty dramatic.
0:39
What are the forces we are looking at?
0:41
Well, the immovable object is the law of God.
0:43
It is the standard that does not bend, it does not break, and it
0:46
certainly does not grade on a curve.
0:48
That is what we see in verses 9 and 10.
0:50
And the unstoppable force is the grace of God.
0:52
That is verse 11. When those two realities
0:55
collide, you get one of the most explosive sections in the entire
0:58
New Testament. I really like that setup and
1:00
just looking at the notes we have here from our sources, it
1:03
seems like our mission today is to figure out how the Apostle
1:07
Paul uses what you know looks like a death sentence to
1:11
actually set up a rescue mission.
1:12
Because let us be honest, when you sit down and read verses 9
1:15
and 10, it does not feel good. Right.
1:18
It shouldn't feel good. It is designed to terrify.
1:21
Yeah, it lists a whole bunch of sins, some that our culture
1:23
hates, some that our culture absolutely loves.
1:25
And it just plainly says people who do this will not inherit the
1:29
Kingdom of God. That is the tension we are
1:32
living in right now. We have a world telling you that
1:34
you are the sum of your desires. If you want it, you should have
1:38
it. If you feel it, that is who you
1:40
are. And then Paul walks into the
1:41
room and says, actually, if you follow those raw desires, you
1:44
are walking off a Cliff. It is the ultimate
1:47
countercultural statement. I mean, it's it was offensive in
1:49
the 1st century and it might be even more offensive in the 21st
1:52
century. But here's the thing we have to
1:54
grasp. If we don't sit in the
1:57
discomfort of that warning, we will never fully understand the
2:00
relief of the solution. You called it the Gospel pivot
2:03
when we were chatting before the show, yes.
2:06
There is a specific word in the Greek text.
2:08
It is a tiny word, just a few letters.
2:11
Allah Allah it translates to. But in theology we often call it
2:16
the glorious adversative. It is the hinge upon which a
2:19
person's eternal destiny swings. 1 moment you are staring at a
2:24
list of reasons why you should be condemned, and then you hit
2:26
that but and suddenly the entire landscape changes.
2:29
So that is the plan for our deep dive today.
2:32
We are going to walk through the darkness of the warning so we
2:34
can really appreciate the light of the rescue.
2:38
We have two main theological breakdowns we are pulling from
2:40
today for our sources. 1 is really heavy on the sovereign
2:43
rescue, looking at the Reformed doctrine of total depravity and
2:46
how God saves us from ourselves. And the other source helps us
2:49
understand the specific cultural mess in Corinth and why modern
2:52
therapeutic versions of Christianity just cannot handle
2:55
this text. That distinction is so vital for
2:57
us today. We see so much preaching out
2:59
there right now that tries to be seeker sensitive.
3:01
The goal is to make people feel welcomed, to affirm them and
3:05
just help them with their daily life problems.
3:07
Like how to have a better marriage or maybe a how to
3:10
handle stress at work? Sure, yeah, and those are fine
3:14
things to discuss in their own right.
3:16
But if that is your entire spiritual diet, you're going to
3:19
run into a brick wall with Free Corinthian 6.
3:22
Paul isn't treating sin as a wound that needs a Band-Aid.
3:26
He treats it as high treason that requires a pardon.
3:30
If we miss that legal reality, we miss the Gospel entirely.
3:34
OK, let us get into the actual text.
3:36
But before we read the list that makes everyone so angry, we
3:40
really need to know where we are.
3:41
Why is Paul dropping this hammer right here?
3:44
What is actually going on in Corinth?
3:46
To understand Corinth, you have to imagine a city that is wildly
3:49
successful, incredibly arrogant, and completely morally loose.
3:53
It was a major port city. It was the place where people
3:56
went to make a lot of money and then spend it on pleasure.
3:59
So it's sort of like like Las Vegas meets Wall Street.
4:01
Something very much like that. There was actually a phrase in
4:04
the ancient world to Corinthianize it meant to live
4:06
utterly without moral restraint. But the problem for Paul wasn't
4:10
just the city. The problem was the church.
4:13
The church was copying the city. They were completely mimicking
4:16
it. Instead of being an outpost of
4:18
the Kingdom of God, you know, a colony of holiness in a dark
4:21
place, they were bringing the darkness right into the
4:24
sanctuary. If you look back at Chapter 5,
4:26
just one chapter prior to our text, you see the massive
4:30
scandal. Right, the incest case.
4:32
Yes, a man in the church is sleeping with his father's wife,
4:36
probably his stepmother. Now, even the Roman pagans, who
4:39
are not exactly prudes by any stretch, they thought that was
4:42
absolutely disgusting. But what was the church's
4:45
reaction in Corinth? Were they weeping?
4:47
Were they tearing their clothes in mourning?
4:48
No, the text says they were puffed up.
4:51
They were arrogant about it. They likely viewed themselves as
4:54
so sophisticated, so full of grace, that they could tolerate
4:58
this behavior. They probably thought, look how
5:00
free we are. We don't judge anyone.
5:02
That sounds incredibly modern. I mean the idea that tolerance
5:06
is the highest virtue, even if it directly contradicts what God
5:09
has said. It is the exact same spirit.
5:12
It is the desire to be applauded by the culture rather than
5:15
approved by God. So Paul has to deal with that
5:17
aggressively. In chapter 5, he tells him to
5:19
remove the man from the fellowship.
5:21
He effectively says you cannot call yourself a brother and live
5:24
like a Pagan. And then we get to chapter 6,
5:26
verses one through 8. This is the immediate setup for
5:29
our passage today. What is happening in those
5:31
verses? Lawsuits Christians are dragging
5:35
other Christians into the public courts.
5:37
Now when I read that, I tend to think, OK, maybe they had a
5:40
property dispute. Someone built a fence on the
5:43
wrong property line. Why is Paul so incredibly angry
5:46
about a civil dispute? Because it wasn't just about the
5:49
money or the property. You have to understand the Roman
5:52
legal system of that era. It was not about blind justice.
5:56
It was a tool for social climbing.
5:58
If you could drag someone to court and humiliate them with
6:01
your superior rhetoric or your bribes, you gained status.
6:05
You gained honor in the eyes of the Pagan community.
6:08
So it was basically a massive power move.
6:10
It was a dominance display. Paul looks at this and he is
6:14
just flabbergasted. He asked them, Do you not know
6:17
that the Saints will judge the world?
6:20
Do not know that we will judge angels.
6:22
That is a wild thought to just drop in there.
6:24
We will judge angels. That is what the text says.
6:27
In the age to come, the redeemed humanity will have a role in the
6:30
administration of the universe, even over the angelic realm.
6:34
So Paul's logic is staggering here.
6:36
He says if you are destined for that kind of cosmic authority,
6:39
how is it possible that you cannot settle a trivial dispute
6:42
over money without asking a Pagan judge to decide it for
6:46
you? It is like the royal family
6:47
fighting over scraps and a dumpster behind a fast food
6:49
joint. That is a very fitting image.
6:51
Is entirely beneath their dignity.
6:53
It shows they have completely forgotten who they are and that
6:56
is why verses 9 through 11 sit right here in the letter.
6:59
They are not a random change of subject.
7:01
Paul is explaining the theological reason why the
7:03
behavior in chapter 5 of the immorality and chapter 6 with
7:07
the greed and lawsuits is completely insane for a
7:10
believer. He is giving the theological
7:12
foundation for the behavior check.
7:13
Precisely. His argument is you are acting
7:16
like the unrighteous. Don't you know that the
7:18
unrighteous have no future? Let us look at the opening
7:22
phrase of verse 9. Or do you not know that the
7:25
unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God?
7:28
Do not be deceived. That phrase do not be deceived
7:31
is chilling. It implies that deception is
7:34
very possible. In fact, it implies it is highly
7:37
likely. Who is he warning here?
7:38
Is he warning the pagans outside?
7:40
No, he is writing to the church. He is warning people who think
7:44
they are totally safe. He's warning the person who
7:46
says, well, I made a profession of faith, I was baptized, I take
7:49
communion. So it really doesn't matter how
7:51
I live my private life. The sources we looked at have a
7:53
lot to say about this regarding the modern church atmosphere
7:56
today. They do.
7:57
There was a strong critique in our source material of a certain
8:01
type of modern evangelicalism that is absolutely terrified of
8:04
negative emotions. We don't want to talk about
8:06
rafts. We don't want to talk about
8:08
exclusion. We want everyone to feel
8:09
included all the time, but the source argues that the most
8:12
dangerous thing you can do for a Sinner is to comfort them and
8:15
their rebellion. You are basically helping them
8:18
deceive themselves. You are acting as an
8:20
anesthesiologist for a dying man.
8:22
You are numbing the pain that might actually drive him to seek
8:25
a cure. Paul loves these people too much
8:28
to let them sleep through the fire alarm, so he says do not be
8:31
deceived. And then he talks about
8:33
inheriting the Kingdom. Let us drill down on that for a
8:36
second. What does it mean to inherit the
8:38
Kingdom? Is this just going to heaven
8:40
when you die? It includes that, but it is much
8:43
bigger than just floating on a cloud.
8:45
The Kingdom of God in Paul's theology, is the future
8:48
renovated creation. It is the age to come where
8:51
Christ reigns supreme. To inherit it means to possess
8:55
it, to enjoy its massive benefits, to be a full citizen
8:58
of it. One of our sources is written
9:00
from a dispensationalist perspective, and they made a
9:02
specific point here about the millennial Kingdom.
9:05
Yes, that is right. They would distinguish between
9:07
the current church age and the literal thousand year reign of
9:11
Christ on earth in the future. Their argument in the commentary
9:15
is that Paul is warning these believers that they might miss
9:18
out on the reward or the joy of that specific coming Kingdom
9:21
era. But regardless of your specific
9:24
eschatological timeline, the core warning is the same for all
9:28
reformed types. You cannot belong to the King
9:31
and live like his enemy. The two are completely
9:33
incompatible. Oil and water, light and
9:35
darkness. You cannot claim the inheritance
9:37
if you openly despise the testator.
9:39
OK, now we have to face the music, the list itself.
9:42
This is the uncompromising mirror you talked about at the
9:43
beginning. Paul lists 10 categories of
9:46
people who will not inherit the Kingdom, and he starts right out
9:49
of the gate with the sexual stuff.
9:50
He does, and we really have to remember he is writing to a
9:53
Corinthian culture that was absolutely obsessed with sex, so
9:57
he hits them right where they live.
9:59
The 1st 2 words in the Greek are pornoi and waichuai.
10:02
Pornoi is the root for our modern word pornography.
10:07
In the 1st century it was a very broad catch all term.
10:09
It meant fornicators or the sexually immoral.
10:12
It covers basically any sexual activity outside the covenant of
10:15
marriage between a man and a woman.
10:17
If you were sleeping with your girlfriend, you were a pornos.
10:20
If you were visiting a temple prostitute, you were a pornos.
10:23
So that casts a very wide net. A massively wide net.
10:27
And then Moi Choi is more specific.
10:29
Adulterers, those who break the formal marriage vow.
10:32
Those two are clear enough, but then we hit the 2 terms that
10:35
cause the absolute most friction in our modern world today,
10:38
Malikoi and Arsenal Koitai. Yes, if you open 5 different
10:42
English Bible translations today, you might see five
10:44
different phrases here. But the Greek is the standard we
10:47
have to look at. Let's look at malikoi first.
10:49
The literal translation is soft. Correct.
10:51
It means soft to the touch. It was often used to describe
10:54
fine clothing like silk garments.
10:56
But what applied to people, specifically men in the ancient
11:00
world, it had a very derogatory meaning.
11:02
It referred to effeminacy. Now, we need to be careful here
11:06
to define our term is based on the source material.
11:08
What does effeminate mean in that historical context?
11:11
We aren't just talking about a guy who likes poetry or the
11:13
arts. No, not at all.
11:15
In the context of sexual ethics, and looking at how other Greek
11:18
writers of the time use the term, our sources point out that
11:22
it almost certainly refers to the passive partner in a
11:25
homosexual act, the man who takes the role of a female.
11:29
It implies A willful rejection of 1's God-given masculinity to
11:33
serve sexual pleasure. And the sources note that while
11:36
liberal theological commentaries often try to soften this term to
11:40
mean something like laziness or general moral softness, the
11:44
linguistic context of a vice list regarding sexual sin points
11:47
heavily to this specific meaning.
11:49
And then the next word arsenicoitai.
11:51
This is a fascinating 1 linguistically.
11:53
It really is, as far as scholars can tell.
11:56
Paul might have coined this word himself.
11:58
You do not find it anywhere in Greek literature before Paul
12:00
writes this letter. So where did he get it?
12:02
He didn't just pull random letters out of a hat.
12:04
He went straight to his Bible. He went to the Septuagint.
12:07
For the listener who might not be familiar with that term, what
12:09
is the Septuagint? The Septuagint is the ancient
12:12
Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.
12:14
It was the primary Bible the early church used.
12:17
Paul goes back to the book of Leviticus, specifically
12:20
Leviticus 18.22 and Leviticus 20.13.
12:23
The specific verses that forbid homosexuality.
12:26
Right. You shall not lie with a male as
12:28
with a female. In the Greek text of Leviticus,
12:30
the word for male is arson, and the word for bed or lying is
12:34
coita. Paul takes those two distinct
12:36
words, mashes them together, and creates arsenocoitae, male
12:40
betters. That is a massive insight
12:42
because people today will frequently try to argue, oh,
12:45
Paul was only condemning pederasty, you know, older men
12:48
sleeping with young boys. Or he was only condemning
12:50
exploitative temple prostitution.
12:52
That is the standard progressive argument you will hear.
12:55
The sources note that progressive scholars try to say
12:58
Paul simply didn't know about loving, consensual same sex
13:01
relationships, so he wasn't writing about them at all.
13:04
But the linguistic evidence provided in the conservative
13:07
sources destroys that premise. By linking his new word directly
13:11
to the Septuagint translation of Leviticus, Paul is effectively
13:15
saying I am talking about exactly what Moses was talking
13:18
about. And Moses wasn't talking about
13:19
cultural exploitation, he was talking about the gender
13:22
distinction in creation itself. Precisely.
13:24
The prohibition in Leviticus is based entirely on the created
13:27
order, male and female. So Paul is not offering some
13:31
localized cultural critique of Roman sexual practices.
13:35
He is boldly reasserting the abiding moral law of God.
13:39
He is saying that this behavior, completely regardless of the
13:41
cultural context or consent, is a violation of God's design.
13:45
That is incredibly hard for our modern culture to hear.
13:47
It is impossible for our culture to hear unless the Holy Spirit
13:51
opens their ears. It strikes right at the modern
13:54
idol of identity. We desperately want to believe
13:57
our sexual desires are who we fundamentally are, Paul says.
14:01
No, those are disordered desires that will keep you out of the
14:04
Kingdom. But Paul doesn't stop with sex,
14:06
and I think this is where the people sitting comfortably in
14:09
the pews, who might be feeling pretty good about themselves
14:12
right now because they are straight and married, really
14:15
need to get ready to duck. Yes, the list continues.
14:17
Right next to the male betters comes the pleonecti, the greedy.
14:21
The greedy that feels, well, a little less severe to us, but
14:25
Paul puts it on the the exact same level.
14:28
We view greed as a respectable sin.
14:30
It essentially powers our entire economy.
14:32
We call it ambition. We call it the drive for
14:34
success. But Paul uses a word that
14:36
literally means one who desires to have more.
14:39
It is the insatiable hunger for more than God has given you and.
14:43
Remember the context of the letter?
14:44
Why were they suing each other in chapter 6?
14:46
To get more, to get that piece of property, to get that status
14:49
and money, Paul is looking at the respectable businessman who
14:54
is ruthlessly expanding his empire at the expense of others
14:57
and says you are standing in the exact same line for judgement as
15:01
the adulterer. That is the levelling effect of
15:04
the law. It just flattens the playing
15:05
field. It really does.
15:06
It strips away our ability to categorize ourselves as better
15:09
than them. If you are a worshipper of
15:12
money, you are an idolater just as much as the person who is
15:15
worshipping sex. He goes on with the list
15:17
Methusoy, which is Drinkers. Lloyd Roy.
15:20
Revilers, Harpages. Swindlers.
15:23
Lloyd Roy is incredibly interesting for our current
15:25
social media age revilers. These are people who habitually
15:30
use abusive speech. They tear others down with
15:32
their. Words like verbal assassins,
15:34
yes. If your daily habit is to
15:36
slander, to insult, to verbally destroy people online or in
15:39
person, Paul says don't be deceived.
15:41
You don't belong to the Kingdom. In harpages.
15:43
Swindlers, thieves. But specifically, it has the
15:46
connotation of rapaciousness, taking things by force or by
15:49
guile. So we have this entire list.
15:52
Sexual sinners, greedy people, drunks, verbal abusers,
15:57
scammers. It is quite a crew.
15:59
Is the basic roster of humanity and this brings us to the entire
16:03
theological point of the list. Why is he write it out like
16:07
this? Is it just to make us feel
16:09
terrible about ourselves it? Functions as a mirror.
16:12
It functions to shut our mouths completely.
16:15
This is what the Reformation recovered so beautifully, the
16:17
pedagogical use of the law. The law acts as a strict
16:21
schoolmaster to show us our sin. When you read that list,
16:25
honestly, you don't say, thank God I am not like those terrible
16:27
people, you say, Oh no, I see myself right there.
16:30
Maybe. Not all of them, but definitely
16:32
enough of them. One is enough to disqualify you.
16:34
If you break a heavy chain at just one link, the whole chain
16:36
is broken. This Florida State proves the
16:38
Reformed doctrine of total depravity.
16:40
Define that for us again, just so we are all on the same page.
16:43
Total depravity doesn't mean we are as thoroughly bad as we
16:47
could possibly be. It means every single part of us
16:50
is affected and tainted by sin. Our mind, our will, our
16:54
emotions, our body. And it means we are utterly
16:57
unable to fix it ourselves. We are dead in trespasses and
17:00
sins. The people on this list cannot
17:02
just decide to stop being these things in their own willpower.
17:05
They are enslaved. So if the letter ended at verse
17:08
10, we would be in a massive tragedy.
17:10
Here is the glorious Kingdom, and you cannot come in.
17:13
It'll be a locked door with absolutely no key.
17:15
But then we get to verse 11, and this is where the sun finally
17:18
comes out. And such were some of you.
17:21
That specific sentence is the pivot point of history for every
17:24
believer. Let us look closely at the
17:26
grammar, because we believe the Holy Spirit inspired the grammar
17:29
too. And such were some of you.
17:32
The Greek verb there is 8. It is the imperfect tense.
17:35
I was terrible at foreign languages in school.
17:37
What does the imperfect tense tell us here?
17:39
It describes A continuous, ongoing state in the past.
17:43
He isn't just saying some of you tried greed once or twice.
17:46
He's saying greed was your habitat, you lived there.
17:49
It was your fundamental identity.
17:51
So he is fully acknowledging the dark reality of their past.
17:54
He isn't whitewashing it at all. No, he is looking at the ex
17:58
thieves, the ex adulterers, the ex homosexual sitting in the
18:01
congregation and saying that is what you were.
18:04
Some of you. That phrase cuts two ways.
18:08
First, it completely humbles the proud, The respectable people in
18:12
Corinth had to look around the room and realize they were
18:14
sitting next to people with a very dark past.
18:17
But second, it incredibly comforts the broken because it
18:21
tells them they aren't unique in their failure.
18:24
If you're sitting there listening to this and thinking,
18:26
I have done too much, God could never want me.
18:28
My sin is too weird, it is too gross, it is too ingrained.
18:32
Paul says look around the room. The early church was full of
18:35
people just like you. The church is not a museum for
18:37
shiny Saints. It is a hospital for severely
18:40
sick sinners who have been rescued.
18:41
And then comes the word we teased at the beginning, the
18:43
glorious adversative. Hello, but.
18:47
It just stops the train in its tracks.
18:49
You were greedy, but you're an adulterer.
18:51
But. This is the rupture of grace.
18:54
It is a divine interruption. The natural trajectory of a
18:58
drunkard is death. The natural trajectory of a
19:01
reviler is judgement. God steps in and severs the link
19:05
between the person and their inevitable fate.
19:08
I want to connect this to the idea of monarchism, that is a
19:11
big theological term from our source material.
19:14
It is, but it is simple to understand.
19:16
Mono means one. Ergon means work.
19:20
Modernism means one working. It is the belief that in
19:23
salvation, God is the only active agent in raising the dead
19:27
Sinner to life. As opposed to synergism, where
19:29
we work together with God. Correct.
19:31
Armenian theology, which is very popular in broad evangelicalism
19:34
today, is synergistic. It says God holds out the hand
19:37
of rescue, but you have to have the good sense to grab it.
19:40
You have to cooperate. But look closely at this text.
19:43
But you are washed, but you are sanctified.
19:45
Notice it does not say, but you decided to change your ways.
19:48
It highlights God's action breaking in.
19:50
The Corinthians didn't clean themselves up to get God to love
19:52
them. God loved them and forcefully
19:54
invaded their lives while they were still in the mess.
19:56
That is irresistible grace. It is when God decides to rescue
20:01
a swindler. The swindler gets rescued.
20:03
God changes the heart from stone to flesh.
20:06
So this but signifies a complete change of dominion.
20:09
Yes, you have changed kingdoms. You were in the Kingdom of
20:12
darkness, now you were in the Kingdom of the sun.
20:14
And this brings up a huge pastoral point about identity.
20:18
This is crucial for today. We hear people identified by
20:21
their sins all the time in our culture.
20:23
I am a blank. Paul challenges that completely.
20:26
He says Such were some of you past tense.
20:29
He does not let them carry their old labels into their new life
20:31
in Christ. So I shouldn't walk around
20:33
saying I am a greedy man trying to be a Christian?
20:36
You should say I am a Christian who is actively struggling to
20:39
kill the remnants of greed. There was a massive difference
20:42
between those two statements. One says the sin defines your
20:45
core, the other says Christ defines your core.
20:48
The devil really hates that distinction.
20:50
Of course he does. He's the accuser of the
20:52
brethren. He wants to walk into the
20:53
courtroom every day and say look at him.
20:54
He is a drunk. He is a liar and the gospel says
20:58
he was those things. Now he is something entirely
21:02
else. What is he now?
21:04
That leads us to the three words Paul uses to describe the new
21:07
state Washed. Sanctified.
21:11
Justified. This is the celestial mechanics
21:13
of salvation. How did God get us from
21:15
unrighteous to an heir of the Kingdom?
21:17
He did these three specific things and again, notice the
21:20
grammar. They are all erist passive
21:22
verbs. Passive means it happened to
21:24
you. You didn't do it.
21:25
You were washed. You were sanctified.
21:27
You were justified. As one of our sources put it
21:30
beautifully, we contributed nothing to our salvation but the
21:32
sin that made it necessary. Let us take them one by one,
21:36
washed apelousas. This is vivid imagery.
21:40
It brings us back to the Old Testament, specifically to
21:43
Ezekiel 36.25. I will sprinkle clean water on
21:47
you and you shall be clean. So this is about cleaning off
21:49
the moral filth. It refers to regeneration, the
21:52
new birth when the Holy Spirit comes in and gives you a brand
21:54
new nature. It is also conceptually linked
21:57
to baptism, which is the outward sign of that inward washing.
22:00
Think of the feeling of being dirty, morally dirty.
22:03
That deep shame of the feeling that you can never be clean
22:06
again, no matter what you do. Sort of like Lady Macbeth trying
22:08
to wash the spot of blood off her hand.
22:10
That is a great comparison out damn spot.
22:14
She scrubs and scrubs but she cannot get it out.
22:17
The gill remains but God says I washed you.
22:20
The stain is totally gone. The shame is completely removed.
22:24
Next on the list is Sanctified Haji Ashavit.
22:28
Now, usually in Reformed circles, when we hear the word
22:30
sanctification, we tend to think of a slow, grueling process.
22:34
I get a little better every day. I send a little less every year.
22:37
That is progressive sanctification, and that is a
22:40
very real biblical doctrine. But that isn't what Paul's
22:43
talking about here in this specific verse.
22:45
How do we know that? Because of the AOR is tense, it
22:48
points to a completed action in the past.
22:51
This is definitive sanctification.
22:52
So what does that actually mean for the believer?
22:55
It means set apart. It is the idea of taking a
22:58
common cup and putting it into the temple.
23:00
It is now a holy vessel. It doesn't mean the cup changed
23:02
his physical molecular structure.
23:04
It means its ownership and its purpose change completely.
23:07
So even if I still really struggle with sin today, I am
23:10
sanctified. You are God's property.
23:13
You have been consecrated. The Westminster Confession
23:16
speaks directly to this in chapter 13.
23:18
There is an immediate, definitive change in our status
23:21
before God. We are no longer common use.
23:24
We are holy unto the Lord. That is a huge comfort.
23:27
It means my basic holiness isn't just about how well I performed
23:30
in my quiet time this morning. Right, you are holy because God
23:33
grabbed you out of the world and said mine.
23:36
And the third one in the triad justified a coyote.
23:40
This is really the heavyweight champion of reformed theology.
23:43
It is the article upon which the Church stands or falls.
23:47
Justification is a legal term. It comes straight from the law
23:49
court. So we are back in front of the
23:51
judge. Yes, the list in verses 9 and 10
23:53
was the formal indictment. Guilty of greed, guilty of
23:56
adultery, Guilty of reviling. The required punishment is
24:00
death, but justified means the judge brings down the gavel and
24:03
declares not guilty, righteous. How can he legally do that if I
24:08
actually did the crime? Doesn't that make him a crooked
24:10
judge? It absolutely would, if it
24:13
weren't for the glorious doctrine of imputation.
24:15
Explain imputation like we are five years old.
24:17
OK, imagine a massive bank Ledger, a huge book on your
24:21
page. It lists all your debts,
24:23
billions and billions of dollars of moral debt.
24:26
You are completely bankrupt. On Christ's page it lists all
24:29
his assets, infinite righteousness, perfect obedience
24:33
to the law. Because he never sinned.
24:35
Never. Not once.
24:36
In justification, God takes your massive debt and moves it over
24:40
to Christ's page. That transaction happened on the
24:43
cross. He paid it in full.
24:45
And then this is the truly amazing part.
24:47
He takes Christ's perfect assets and moves them over to your
24:50
page. The great exchange.
24:51
Yes. So when the judge looks at your
24:54
book now, he does not see your bankruptcy.
24:57
He sees Christ's immense wealth. He declares you legally
24:59
righteous not because you were behaving perfectly today, but
25:02
because you were clothed in the perfect record of Jesus.
25:05
And this is where the Protestant view drastically clashes with
25:07
the Roman Catholic view. Significantly, Rome teaches that
25:11
God infuses grace into you to make you actually internally
25:15
righteous, and then justifies you based on that reality.
25:18
But that puts the heavy burden back on you to cooperate and
25:21
maintain it through sacraments and works.
25:23
The Reformed view, which we believe is the biblical view, is
25:26
that God justifies the ungodly, as Romans 4.5 says, based solely
25:30
on Christ's work outside of us. That is really the only way a
25:33
person can sleep soundly at night.
25:35
It is. If my justification depends on
25:37
my daily progress, I am in serious trouble.
25:39
If it depends on Christ's finished work, I am completely
25:42
safe. So we have this incredible
25:44
triad, washed, sanctified, justified.
25:48
Why did Paul use the specific order?
25:50
It is not chronological, is it? No, because they all happen
25:53
simultaneously at the moment of salvation.
25:55
I like to think of it as a pastoral explosion of assurance.
25:58
Paul is systematically covering every single base for a troubled
26:01
conscience. Do you feel dirty and shameful?
26:04
You were washed. Do you feel like you still
26:06
belong to the world? You were sanctified.
26:08
Do you feel guilty and terrified of judgment?
26:10
You were justified. He is closing every possible
26:13
loophole of doubt. He is building an impenetrable
26:16
fortress of comfort for these Corinthians who are struggling
26:19
with their messy lives. And he finishes the sentence by
26:22
telling us exactly how this happened, in the name of the
26:25
Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
26:28
The agency. Notice the Trinitarian
26:30
structure. Here again you have God the
26:32
Father implied as the Architect, you have the Lord Jesus Christ,
26:35
and you have the Spirit. In the name of the Lord Jesus
26:37
Christ. What does in the name mean?
26:40
It is not a magic spell you just tack on to the end of a prayer.
26:43
No. In the Bible the name represents
26:45
the person, the authority, and the finished work.
26:48
We are saved on the basis of who Jesus is and what he
26:51
accomplished. And Paul uses the full majestic
26:53
title here. Lord days is Christ.
26:56
He doesn't just casually say Jesus.
26:58
He asserts His absolute lordship.
27:00
You cannot have Jesus as your Savior without having him as
27:03
your Master. The one who part is your treason
27:06
is the one who now commands your life.
27:07
And then by the Spirit of our God.
27:10
This is the agent of application.
27:11
The Father planned salvation in eternity past.
27:14
The Sun accomplishes it on the cross in history.
27:17
The Spirit applies it to your heart in real time.
27:19
This circles right back to our critique of therapeutic religion
27:22
earlier in the discussion. Yes, it does.
27:25
Therapy works on the mind and the emotions.
27:27
It tries to help you cope with trauma or improve your habits.
27:30
But a spiritual corpse doesn't need therapy.
27:33
A corpse needs a resurrection. Only the Spirit of God can raise
27:37
the dead. You cannot just talk yourself
27:40
out of being an Arsenocoits or a Pleon X.
27:43
You need the Spirit of God to violently break the chains.
27:46
So we have walked through the entire text.
27:49
We saw the nightmare of the warning and the glory of the
27:51
rescue. Now we really have to land this
27:54
plane. What does this mean for us
27:55
practically sitting in our cars or our kitchens listening to
27:58
this? I think we need to look at 3
28:00
ditches we can easily fall into and then address 3 specific
28:04
people who might be listening right now.
28:05
Let us do the ditches first. The first one is legalism.
28:08
Legalism says I have to wash myself.
28:12
It completely ignores the passive verbs in verse 11.
28:15
It says if I try really hard to stop sinning, then I will
28:18
inherit the Kingdom. That inevitably leads to either
28:21
crushing despair or obnoxious pride.
28:23
And the text crushes that by saying you were washed.
28:26
God did it. The second bitch is
28:28
antinomianism. That's literally means against
28:31
law. That is the crowd that says Free
28:33
Grace. I can do whatever I want now.
28:35
Right, I am justified. So it really doesn't matter if I
28:38
sleep around on the weekends or cheat on my taxes.
28:41
The text crushes that error with verses 9 and 10.
28:44
Do not be deceived. If there is no change in your
28:46
life, there is no spiritual life.
28:48
If you are not sanctified, set apart from the world, you are
28:51
not justified. And the third ditch is the one
28:54
we have been hitting on today, therapeutic deism.
28:57
The pervasive idea that sin is just brokenness or trauma.
29:01
We treat sin as a disease we are merely victims of, rather than a
29:05
willful rebellion we are guilty of committing and that.
29:07
Robs us of the actual solution. It absolutely does.
29:10
You don't forgive a disease, you heal it.
29:13
But if sin is a crime against a holy God, you can be justified,
29:17
you can be legally pardoned. We desperately need the legal
29:20
category to get the legal peace. That is a massive distinction.
29:24
OK, let us talk directly to the listeners.
29:26
We identified three types of people this text addresses in
29:28
our notes. First, there is the complacent
29:31
professor. This is the guy sitting in the
29:33
Pew every Sunday who thinks he's totally fine.
29:36
He says the Creed, he sings the worship songs.
29:39
But on Monday through Saturday he is a swindler at his
29:41
business. Or he is sleeping with his
29:44
girlfriend and thinks God just winks at it.
29:46
What does First Corinthians 6 say to him?
29:49
It screams a warning at him. It says stop.
29:52
Look honestly at your life. If the trajectory of your life
29:55
is the exact same as the Pagan world around you, you are not in
29:58
the Kingdom. You are deceiving yourself.
30:01
Repentance is not an optional add on for the Super spiritual.
30:04
Then there is the struggling St. This is the person who reads
30:07
that vice list in verse 9 and feels a tight knot in their
30:10
stomach because they vividly remember what they used to be,
30:13
or they still feel the strong pull of those old desires.
30:16
For that person, this text is pure honey.
30:19
The main difference between the complacent professor and the
30:21
struggling St. is that the professor loves his sin, while
30:24
the Saint genuinely hates it. To the struggler, Paul says.
30:28
And such for some of you, look at the verbs.
30:31
You were washed, it is done. You're standing before God is
30:35
not a fluctuating stock market based on how well you did today
30:38
against your temptations. It is a fixed, concrete reality
30:42
based entirely on Christ. That is so incredibly freeing to
30:46
know that even on my absolute worst day, I am legally
30:48
sanctified in God's sight. Is the only thing that keeps us
30:51
going in the Christian life. And finally, the church body as
30:54
a whole. We are talking to the community
30:56
of believers. We.
30:57
Have to apply this corporately. 1st, we cannot tolerate open,
31:01
unrepentant sin in our midst. That was the lesson of chapter
31:03
5. We have to be a Holy Community
31:05
that takes sin seriously. Second, we cannot bite and
31:08
devour one another over worldly things.
31:11
That was the lesson of Chapter 6.
31:12
We are family. We shouldn't be suing each other
31:15
for status or money. But third, and most importantly,
31:18
we must be a place where such were some of you as a badge of
31:20
honor. We should be proud of our
31:22
recovery. We should be totally open about
31:24
the rescue. The church shouldn't be a
31:26
Country Club where everyone pretends they've always been
31:28
nice, moral people from birth. It should be a place where we
31:31
stand up and say, I was a complete wreck.
31:34
I was spiritually dead and God washed me.
31:37
If we try to hide our past to look good, we rob God of the
31:40
glory for the rescue operation. Exactly right.
31:43
We become a community of recovered rebels.
31:46
That is what the true Church actually is.
31:48
This passage really does offend everyone, doesn't it?
31:51
It offends the legalist who desperately wants to earn his
31:53
own salvation. It offends the liberal who wants
31:56
to redefine sin to fit the culture.
31:58
And it offends the libertine who wants to abuse grace to serve
32:02
his flesh. That is usually the absolute
32:04
mark of biblical truth. It cuts across across every
32:07
human agenda and leaves us with only Christ as our hope.
32:10
Well, this has been a heavy but incredibly hopeful discussion.
32:14
As we wrap up our deep dive today, give us one final thought
32:17
for the listener to chew on as they go about their week.
32:19
I would say this. In the Kingdom of God, the past
32:23
tense is the sweetest tense you can ever learn to speak.
32:27
The world around you tells you that you are your past.
32:30
The world tells you that you are your trauma or your failures or
32:33
your disorder desires. But the gospel gives you a
32:36
completely new grammar. When the accuser comes to you
32:39
tonight and whispers in your ear, you are filthy, you have
32:43
the authority to look him in the eye and say, I was filthy, but I
32:46
was washed. Learn to speak the past tense
32:48
over your sin and the present tense over your justification.
32:52
But you were washed. I love that it is done.
32:54
Thank you for taking us through the deep water today.
32:56
It was my privilege. And thank you for listening to
32:58
Reformed Thinking. We will see you next time.