A thank you before today's devotional
Yesterday the study section went out for the first time, and the response was far beyond what I expected. Thank you.
Many of you upgraded within minutes of the email landing, and several took the founding tier, which carries the cost of the daily devotional for readers who will never pay a cent for it. I do not take that lightly.
Going Deeper is at the end of every devotional now, including this one. Today it is on the three verbs in verse 11, and why not one of them is something the Corinthians did to themselves.
Today's Verse
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 6:11
Historical Context
Paul wrote 1 Corinthians around A.D. 54 from Ephesus to a church he had planted a few years earlier on his second missionary journey. Corinth was a wealthy Roman colony, a crossroads city rebuilt by Julius Caesar, packed with traders, freedmen, and transient sailors. It was also famous for its moral chaos: pagan temples with cult prostitution, endless litigation, and a boastful, status-obsessed civic culture.
Roman Corinth loved lawsuits. For the well-off, dragging a rival before the magistrate was a normal way to advance socially, punish an enemy, or squeeze money from someone weaker. Cases were heard in the open-air bema, the same judgment seat where Paul himself had stood before Gallio (Acts 18). Verdicts often favored the wealthier, better-connected plaintiff, so lawsuits were less about justice than leverage.
Into this culture Paul had preached a crucified Messiah and gathered a congregation drawn heavily from the lower classes but including some with money and civic clout (1 Cor 1:26). Now reports have reached him, along with a letter from the church, revealing serious problems: factions, tolerated incest, and, here in chapter 6, believers taking each other to pagan courts.
The passage assumes two things the Corinthians should have grasped. First, that Christians share in Christ's coming judgment of the world and even of angels, a Jewish apocalyptic hope Paul takes as settled (Dan 7:22). Second, that the church itself is a family and a court, competent to arbitrate its own disputes. To bypass the brothers and run to unbelieving magistrates was not clever, it was a public confession that the gospel had not actually changed how they treated one another.
Reflection
Paul lands two hard blows in this passage, and both still bruise.
The first is that lawsuits between believers are already a defeat, even before the verdict comes in. The Corinthians thought winning in court was winning. Paul says the moment a Christian drags a brother before unbelievers, the gospel has already lost the argument in that man's heart. Notice what he does not say. He does not say, work out a fair settlement. He says, why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? That is not weakness. That is the shape of the cross pressed into ordinary life. The Lord who was defrauded of everything and did not open His mouth is forming a people who can absorb loss without needing to make someone pay.
The second blow is heavier. Paul lists the kinds of lives that do not inherit the kingdom of God: the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, men who practice homosexuality, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers. He is not being cruel. He is being honest, because eternity is at stake and love does not lie about eternity. Every reader is on that list somewhere. The greedy and the reviler sit beside the adulterer without embarrassment. None of us reads it and walks away clean.
Then comes the sentence that changes everything: and such were some of you. Were. Past tense. You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified. Three passive verbs, three things done to you by Someone else, in the name of Jesus and by the Spirit. The gospel does not tell sinners to clean themselves up before coming. It cleans them. If Christ has washed you, do not go back and put on the old clothes. And do not lie to a fellow sinner about what those clothes actually are.
For Reflection
Where in your life are you still wearing something Christ has already washed off you, and what would it look like to leave it in the past tense?
Prayer
Father, thank You that the gospel does not merely improve me, it washes me. Thank You that in Christ my sins are behind me in the past tense, sanctified and justified by Your Spirit. Give me courage to name sin honestly, in myself first, and mercy to bear wrong from others rather than demand my rights. Teach me the way of the cross in small offenses and large ones. Keep me faithful until I stand before You clean. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Paid subscribers get the study section below: the word behind the English, the setting, and where this thread runs through the rest of Scripture.