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A warning to the immoral Christians:
v. 9. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom, of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
v. 10. nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
v. 11. And such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
The apostle had just told the Corinthians that they were far from showing the mind of Christ, that they were rather doing wrong, that they were exhibiting a vindictive, unrighteous disposition in bringing suits against their brethren before the Gentile courts. He now enlarges upon this thought: Or do you not know that the wrong-doers will not inherit the kingdom of God, will not realize the consummation of all Christian hopes? Their conduct, even though it be due to ignorance, places them on a level with the heathen. And so Paul adds a warning: Be not deceived; do not let foolish ideas take possession of your minds. His readers were not to make the mistake that the liberty of the Gospel was equivalent to libertinism and license; free grace does not imply the right to sin. On the contrary, the sins which were so widely prevalent at Corinth and to which some of the church-members had been addicted, absolutely excluded the transgressor from the inheritance of the kingdom of God. To these flagrant violators of the holy will of God belonged the fornicators, those that sought the gratification of their lust outside of the marriage-bond; the idolaters, that worshiped strange gods; the adulterers, that broke the marriage-tie;—these three sins were openly practiced in Corinth in the cult of the heathen goddess;—the voluptuous, that were addicted to all forms of sensuality; the sodomites, that were guilty of the unnatural vices as practiced by the Greeks in such a shameless manner; the thieves, the covetous persons, the drunkards, the revilers, the plunderers or extortioners. Mark how the repetition of the negation emphasizes the fact of their absolute exclusion from the blessings which God has reserved for the believers.
And now the apostle, after his usual manner, reminds the Corinthian Christians of the glorious gifts of mercy which they have received, contrasting their present state with that before their conversion: And these things some of you were. Such stuff, such a set, such abominations they had been, that is, some of them; the majority of them had fortunately not been guilty of such extremes of vice. But these things are now a thing of the past, for they were washed clean in Baptism, the power of God in the Sacrament took away all their uncleanness, Tit_3:5; Act_22:16; Col_2:11-12; Eph_5:26-27. They were sanctified; they were separated from the world and consecrated to God by that same sacred act, they were translated into fellowship with God. They were justified; they had entered into that state in which God looks upon them as just and righteous, in which He imputes to them the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And all this was done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all gifts of grace have been made possible, and in the Spirit of our God, through whose power regeneration is effected. The believers are the sacred and living property of Christ, because the Spirit of God lives in them. Thus the entrance of the Christians into their state of grace is brought out in all its glorious contrast to the vile condition of the unregenerate, in order that the remembrance of these privileges may always incite them to a life that agrees with their heavenly calling.