NATURE BEFORE CONDUCT

Friday 21 March

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 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 and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:19-21 (NKJV)

I’m sure we would all agree, that is some list! Apostle Paul makes it clear in the beginning that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. He then goes on with all kinds of behaviours that seemingly exclude such people from salvation; or did he?

Before we answer this, let’s use the example of a pig. Did you know that pigs do not have sweat glands and so they roll around in the mud to keep cool? This is why you can clean up a pig and take it out of its dirty pig pen and even dress it up in nice clothes but sooner or later it’s going to jump back in the mud again. Why? It’s in its nature to do so.

When you try to deal with external behaviour and don’t fix the internal nature, there is no real change. This is what religion is like. Man trying to fix man from the outside rather than God replacing his nature from the inside. Religion is from the outside in. Christianity is from the inside out.

So come back to 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 for a moment. Question do you think the emphasis is on the nature or the previous conduct? If you think he is speaking about everyone when he uses the word unrighteous you will be mistaken. So what is the basis for righteousness? Nature or conduct?

Romans 5:17 says ‘they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness’. So we know the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God because they have not received the gift of righteousness. But what about the righteous? Have they inherited the kingdom of God? If so, how did they achieve it? 2 Corinthians 5:21 holds the key;

‘For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.’

Righteousness came in salvation.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast’.

What is this righteousness? Being made right with God through salvation.

In our text verse we see a long list and then we are told that they will not inherit the kingdom. Why? Because they of their unrighteous state not their conduct even though it was not right. To take it further, someone could receive the gift of righteousness in salvation and continue to sin after being saved and still be righteous, despite the wrong behaviours. That being said, I am not advocating that we should.

If you know that you are righteous by nature and that is reinforced in your thinking then you will start to adjust your behaviours to align with the new person you have become. Apostle Paul knew this and this in essence is ‘grace reigning through righteousness.’ The phrase ‘such WERE some of you,’ tells us that he was not basing their former practices on whether or not they were righteous. He knew if they were in Christ they had a new nature and therefore they would change their outward, misguided actions and replace them with the right ones.

He goes on to give the reason why he said and such WERE some of you. Because you WERE washed, sanctified and justified.This was Paul’s undeniable proof that there would be a process of conforming into the image of Christ for these Corinthian believers by the work of the Spirit. He was confident in the renewing of their minds through the Word. Paul even encourages them in Romans 12:1 to ‘present your bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God’. Notice all these things Paul declares about their salvation are in past tense. Now you ARE washed, you ARE sanctified and you ARE justified. There is no process involved here in any of them.So, a righteous nature or right conduct.

Which one do you think is more important?

APPLICATION

Thank the Lord for the gift of righteousness that you received in salvation in Christ and recognise that it is the work of grace and faith to bring inward and outward transformation.