Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 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.
Conduct matters to God. The Evangelical believer will boast about justification by faith. They should! We are not saved by works (our performance). We are saved from sin by the performance of Christ on the cross and via His resurrection, and our faith in that performance. So, we have a righteousness by works, just not our works. But, performance does matter to God. Our performance (generated by the Holy Spirit ... another journal entry for another day) is the demonstration of the righteousness inputted to us by Christ. The list of bad conduct (all sins) in the above passage shows that this behavior is unpleasant to God and condemned by God. But, we were “washed, meaning “sanctified,” meaning declared holy by God. That is why (and Paul’s point in this section of his letter to the church at Corinth) we are not to do those things. We have been forgiven for the times we practiced these types of things and we have been set free from the power of these types of things in our lives. We are now “justified” not by our works (performance) but in the name of Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. We are now holy in God’s sight. Paul’s point is why would you go back to those things. We are set free from them.
No comments:
Post a Comment