Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 | Date: September 16, 2012 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

If you would, turn in God’s word with me, please, to 1 Corinthians, chapter 6. 1 Corinthians, chapter 6. We continue to work our way through this letter of the Apostle Paul, given by inspiration of the Spirit. And today, in chapter 6, verses 1 through 11, we come to a topic that you didn’t know was such a burning issue: the case against Christians in court.

1 Corinthians 6, beginning with verse 1: “When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more then matters pertaining to this life? So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud even your own brothers. 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. You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we have mentioned today some from our church body and some from our church acquaintance who are ill. Our hearts go out to them and we ask your blessing on them. For Addie, who suffered the stroke, I pray your comfort for her and strength in her body. We pray that you will give doctors wisdom and encouragement to the family as well. For Jane, who has been ill so much, been in such discomfort so often, now in the hospital, we pray that you will be with her in a very important and special way. We pray that you’ll give her encouragement. We pray that you will make her know your loving presence with her. We pray for both Jane and Joe, that you will give them every encouragement in Christ. May they know of your eternal love for them. We thank you for this dear brother and sister, and we ask your richest blessing on them at this time. Give them encouragement, and we pray that you will give her help. And now, Lord, for our time together, we pray that you will give us ears to hear your word, and we pray that you would transform us, your people, by it. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I remember reading in the newspaper some years ago that a board of deacons had taken the pastor to court to remove him from his pastoral position in the church. It was successful and then the pastor countersued the church to force the church to pay back salary. I remember about 20 years ago now, in a little town where I was pastoring at the time, a church did similarly. They had taken the pastor to court to remove him from office. He, in turn, sued the church to get back into the pastoral position. And all of this, in both cases, of course, was in the newspapers. And I think we might say it was not Christianity’s finest moment.

That’s the problem here in Corinth. The specific issue was not removing the pastor, but the issue was suing one another because of whatever different kinds of grievances. Christians airing their dirty laundry before the world. That then in turn gives us two links, if you can remember this far back, two links to the previous chapter. In chapter 5, there was the problem of sin in the church. Specifically in chapter 5, the problem was that of immorality on the part of one of the church members. And then the other link to chapter 5 is not only the sin on the part of someone in the church, but the sin of the church body itself in its failure to deal with that sin. And Paul, you’ll remember throughout chapter five, takes the church to task. His issue is not with the sinning brother so much as it is with the congregation, who allows that sin to fester in the congregation and not deal with it in a disciplinary way. And so he tells them in chapter five, you put him out, you render your decision. And you clean out the church in that sense. And it’s a very important issue for Paul, both for the sake of the sinning individual and also for the testimony of the congregation and also for the health of the congregation that the gospel has these necessary implications. And it may be difficult to confront in that sense, but it is nonetheless required of us.

Now we come to chapter six. And Paul expands on that theme just a bit more. And here the problem is not of outright immorality in a sexual sense like it was in chapter five, but problems between church members. We’ve never heard of that before, have we? I have a friend who pastored for a time a very prominent church. It was a sort of a flagship church of the denomination in the country where he lived. At the time, the church was riddled with different kinds of troubles, and people would say to him at times, “We are so surprised to hear that there are troubles at,” and they would name the church where he was pastor. And his response, I thought, was very insightful. He would say, “Why are you surprised? Have you never read your New Testament?” This is nothing new.

The issue here in Chapter 6, however, is not only that there is a dispute between members in the church, but members are taking one another to court over it. We’ll settle this issue in the courts. In Corinth, as in Athens, much like it in Greece, litigation was just a part of everyday life. One Athenian writer said that every Athenian was a lawyer, and in Corinth it was much the same. When a dispute would arise between two citizens and it could not be settled between them, it would go to court. The first step in resolving the dispute was for it to go to arbitration. In that case, then each of the persons in the dispute would choose an arbitrator to negotiate the deal, and then a third neutral party would be appointed also to the dispute, and they would try to work out the matter. That was the first step in their legal recourse with disputes against one another.

If that failed, reaching a dispute, it could go to the next step. In that case, then a court of 40 would appoint an arbitrator to oversee the dispute from those two people, and they would try to work it out on their own. Every Athenian citizen was required to serve as one of those arbitrators in his 60th year. If that failed to bring resolve to the dispute, then it went to jury court. And that was composed of anywhere from 100 jurors, depending on how big the case, to several thousand jurors could be involved in it. Every citizen 30 years of age and older was required to serve in that capacity as an arbitrator or a juror. And so this became a way of everyday life. And you can see then why it was written that every Athenian was a lawyer. In one way or another, this became a part of everyday life to be involved in settling these disputes between fellow citizens.

Well, it’s simply a way of life for them and it’s something about it that’s not too distant. “I must have my rights, and we’re going to settle this, and we’ll go to court if we need to.” And evidently, that kind of thinking and that spirit had begun to come into the church. People had come to Christ, but after all, God wasn’t done with them yet, and they still needed transformation. And the same thinking was brought into the church, and now we have two members of a congregation in dispute with one another, and off to court they go to settle their dispute. There’s a ring to all of this that is not entirely distant, right? And Paul addresses this head on. And if you can stay awake long enough to work through verse one, you’ll get the gist of the whole passage. This is what Paul is after where he addresses this in a very confrontive kind of way. “When one of you has a grievance against one another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?” You can see his indignation with it all. Do you dare do this? Of all the audacity, the gall you have, you actually are taking a dispute with a fellow believer to a pagan court? All right, what’s the problem? Why is that so wrong? And Paul spends the rest of the passage really answering that question.

You’ve Forgotten Who You Are

The first part of the answer is given to us, and really the basic issue is given to us already in verse 1—the complaint that he’s raising here. Notice the contrast that he makes. “When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?” Notice the contrast: the unrighteous or the unjust on the one hand, and the saints on the other. Who are the unrighteous? Well, it’s tough to know exactly what Paul means by this word because it can have a range of meanings. It can refer to people who in their moral status are unrighteous. Of course it refers to people who are unsaved, not justified, unrighteous in that sense. But it also might mean that being in that state, they’re not fair, they’re not just. And as a broad characterization of the world without Christ, they’re not just people. They’re not righteous.

And on the other hand, we have the saints. Now it might shock you to know that if you are saved, you are a saint. Your wife may not have called you that recently, but we who are in Christ are saints. Now, of course, in Roman Catholic theology, sainthood is something you get after you die, and you’ve been canonized, and if you perform two miracles that have been verified, and you’ve done this, that, and the other, then you can become a saint at the decision of the church. And that has absolutely nothing to do with what sainthood is in the scriptures. You might notice it, if you want to turn back, look at chapter one as an example. In Paul’s greeting, notice what he says in verses one and two: “Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.”

Notice how he defines the church. The church is those who are sanctified. The church is those who have been called to be saints. What is a saint? It’s a sanctified person. That’s the redundancy here almost—those sanctified in Christ Jesus. Now when we think of the word sanctified, we generally think in terms of progressively becoming more and more godly in practical ways. The Bible does use it that way. But this term sanctified overwhelmingly in the scripture is used in another sense, and that is the sense used here: sanctified in Christ Jesus. That is, it refers to a status, a consecrated status that we have in belonging to Christ.

In the Old Testament, over and again, you read of holy things. We have holy days—days set apart to God and consecrated to Him in that sense, consecrated to God for His use. You have holy places—a place that’s set apart to God, consecrated over to Him and holy because it is set apart to Him. You have holy people—the priests, set apart to God, consecrated to Him and holy because they belong to Him. They’re in that status of belonging to God and to be used by God. You have holy utensils used in the temple because they are set aside for holy use, consecrated over to God, given to him.

We come to the New Testament and we find this radical shift that God’s people, by virtue of their union with Christ, are themselves consecrated over to God, belonging to Christ, set apart to him, and rendered holy because of their association with Jesus Christ. So there’s a sense in which we have to say, and we want to keep in front of our minds, my holiness is in Christ. Christ is my sanctification. Christ is my holiness. And that’s why over and again in the scriptures, we find in the New Testament, the Christians referred to as saints, holy ones. Paul greets them in Colossians chapter three as “holy and beloved.” And here as saints or sanctified ones, we find this again at the end of chapter one, where in verse 30, the apostle says, “He, that is Christ, is the source of your life. God is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made to be our wisdom.” That is, and notice how he describes it, “our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption.” Where is my righteousness? What’s the gospel here? Where is my righteousness? It is in Christ, right? Where is my sanctification? It is in Christ. Where is my redemption? It’s in Christ. And Paul is simply emphasizing that with his terminology, that we are saints because we belong to Jesus. And in that sense, we are set apart and consecrated over to God’s use in Christ. That has massive implications with regard to practical godliness and the outworking of it all. But first and foundationally, it means we have been set apart in Christ, consecrated to God, rendered His, and in that sense then we are holy.

And so Paul is saying here back to chapter 6 and verse 1, “What’s wrong with this picture? You dare go to court with a brother where you must appear before the unrighteous? Saints? Saints appearing before the unrighteous? Do you see something wrong with this?” Now, I don’t think that Paul is saying here necessarily that it’s impossible to gain justice in a pagan court. I don’t think he’s saying that in such a broad sweeping statement, and nor is he suggesting that Christians are infallible in their judgments. God knows we’re not. But he’s at least saying that you are not behaving in keeping with your status and who you are in Christ. For two of you in the congregation, two of you, both saints in a congregation of saints, sanctified in Christ Jesus, for you two now to take your grievance out to the world and settle it before a pagan court, before unrighteous judges—do you see something wrong with this? At the very least, Paul is saying, you’re not living up to who you are in Christ.

And that’s why he says in verses 9 through 11, this long statement of what has happened to us: “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, or homosexuals, or thieves, or greedy drunkards, revilers, swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God, and such were some of you. But you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of Jesus Christ, and by the spirit of our God.” Don’t you see a gaping difference between you and the world? And you have a dispute. That’s bad enough. But you’ve got to take it to them for help. Do you see that you’re not living up to who you are?

Now understand in this, Paul is not forbidding Christians from all legal recourse. He’s not saying that to be in court is itself sinful or to use the legal process that we have is necessarily sinful. Paul himself appealed to Caesar and things like that; we find there’s nothing wrong with that. But what he is criticizing, as he did in chapter five, was the inability of the church to handle and settle disputes among its own members. Now I suspect that the Apostle Paul has, at least in the back of his mind here, a passage in Matthew chapter 18. And I’d like you to turn to that just so it’s fresh in our minds as well.

Matthew chapter 18, beginning with verse 15: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

All right, Jesus gives us here the prescription, the procedure to follow. It’s awful that there ought to be disputes among God’s people. But fallen as we are, it’s going to come. But when it comes, here’s how you deal with it. You go to the man, you talk to him, you work it out. And if you find that he is still being stubbornly sinful in the matter and won’t be fair, take some others with you from the congregation, work it out, deal with it. And if you still don’t find a resolution, take it to the whole church and let the church function as a court. And the court renders its decision and live with it. And if the man who is sinful in the matter and been judged sinful in the matter by the church still persists in his sin and will not bring this to resolution, church, consider him as a heathen, put him out. We won’t have that in Christ’s church. I suspect, as I say, that Paul has that passage in the back of his mind while he’s writing here in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. And Paul’s point here is not simply “this is what you ought to do, here is the procedure.” Paul’s point here is that the reason you follow this procedure is because of who you are in Christ. Verse one: you are saints, they are unjust. Surely you can settle this matter yourselves.

He continues on this line in verses two through four, only with a little bit different angle. Again, his point here overall is what is wrong with this matter of believers taking each other to a pagan court. Answer number one he’s giving is you’ve forgotten who you are. And he says that in verse one, and now again in verses two and following: “Do you not know that the saints, that’s us, the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more than matters pertaining to this life? So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church?”

Now notice the contrast that Paul is doing here. Again, he’s working from the same direction. There’s us and there’s them, and you ought to be able to render judgment because of who you are. And who you are now in verses two to four is not only saints, but you are judges. Did you know that you will one day judge the world? It’s one of those Bible teachings that we just don’t have a lot of detail on. We’re told, for example, in Matthew chapter 19, the disciples ask, after the incident with the rich young ruler, who wasn’t willing to give up for Christ, “We’ve given up everything for you, Jesus, what do we get out of it?” Remember how Jesus answered? You might think he’d answer, “Peter, you gotta ask me that?” No. “Peter, here’s what you get out of it. In the regeneration, when everything is made new, you, the 12, will sit on thrones judging the world.” And of course, he says, he expands it, everyone who has given up for me will receive a hundredfold in this life and in the life to come, in the age to come, eternal life as well. But there it is, they will judge.

We find hints of it in Revelation chapter 2—that you who are faithful will sit on thrones with me, ruling the nations with a rod of iron. Revelation 2 and Revelation 3 tell us about that. We don’t have a lot of detail on that, but the implications evidently are that somehow because of our union with Jesus Christ, to whom the Father has committed all judgment—all judgment’s been committed to the Son—because of our union with Christ, who is the world’s judge, we will share in his coming glory and share in his reign and even share in the judging of it. I don’t know how all that fleshes out. I suspect it has something to do with the millennial age to come after the return of Jesus Christ. We’re just not given lots of details.

But his point here is easy enough. You’ve been given this great status in Christ. You’re joined to Christ who is the judge. You will judge and rule with him over the whole world, and now you can’t even judge a minor dispute between two of you in your congregation? Is there something wrong with this picture? And then in verse three, he says, “Don’t you know? You’ll judge angels?” To which we respond, “No, I didn’t know that. What is that all about?” I’ve got a speech prepared for that. What is this all about, we will judge angels? My answer is, I don’t know. I have no real clue except to say that we’re joined to Christ and we’ll be in sharing with his reign and his judgment over all things and perhaps we will be with him in his pronouncing judgment over fallen angels and whatnot.

Again, Paul’s point here is notice who you are. Look at the status you have in Christ. Notice the privileges that you have in Christ. And now you have to go to court with one another before the unrighteous. Now follow his thinking. In verses two and three, he gives some contrasts. On the one hand, verse two: “Do you not know that saints will judge the world?” And then he makes the contrast: “And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?” Then again, he asks the question: “Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” And then makes the contrast: “How much more then matters pertaining to this life?” Then he draws this conclusion, verse four: “So, if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church?”

You are people who will one day judge the world. You are people who will one day judge angels. You are people who are joined to Christ and in his glory and his coming, you will be associated with him in his glory. You will reign with him. You will judge with him. You have these awesome privileges and this awesome status in Christ. Can you not handle your own disputes in a congregation? Do you really think it’s better to go to a pagan court and be judged by people who bow down to wood and stone and really don’t have the concept of justice and righteousness that you have? What are you thinking? Or verse one, “How would you dare do that?”

And if you think that’s harsh, look at the way he talks in verses five and six. It gets worse: “I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between brothers? A brother goes to law against brother and that before unbelievers?” You ought to be ashamed, he says. Surely in your congregation, there’s gotta be one person who’s wise enough, just enough to be objective and impartial. So here you are, you’ve been wronged by someone else in the church. What do you do? Get on the phone, start calling everybody, raise the support, right? No. Start an email campaign. Raise the support, right? No. Just go to court. Let the judge decide, right? No. Work it out. Go to the man. Tell him his fault. Settle it. And if he won’t hear you, find another one from the congregation. Get two or three witnesses. Go along and do it. And if that won’t settle the matter, then take it to the whole church. That’s the prescription. What a shameful thing, Paul says, you have forgotten who you are.

You Have Forgotten The Bigger Picture

And he gives another answer in verses seven and eight. Not only have you forgotten who you are when you do this, verses seven and eight tell us you have forgotten the bigger picture. “To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud even your own brothers.”

Now, this is an interesting line of thought, and he doesn’t chase it into real detail. But what he’s saying here in essence is that just to show up in court together, one brother against another, just to show up in court is already to have lost. In what sense? What does he mean by that? So Steve Rosner takes John Egan to court. And Steve is upset because John has cheated him. And so Steve takes him to court and sues him. And Paul says, both you guys, you’ve already lost. Why? In what sense have you already lost? Well, at the very least, Paul is saying your failure of both of you to recognize who you are. That’s what he’s been saying in the context.

But it seems that his thought is going further in these two verses as well. And it seems that Paul has his eye to the bigger picture here: the cause of the gospel, testimony for Christ. Look at it again. “To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud even your own brothers?” That is to say, it’s bad enough for you that you have not recognized who you are in Christ. It’s bad enough that you haven’t gotten along better than you’ve gotten along. But what does this going to the court in front of the world, what does this say about the gospel that you both profess? Here you both profess that this gospel has real life-transforming power and it can shape a life and make it so unlike the world that you’re gonna see Jesus in us. And then you not only have a dispute, but you can’t settle it yourselves and you take it before the world. What does that say about this gospel you profess? And Paul asks the question simply, “Wouldn’t you rather suffer wrong?”

Now that’s a tough question. Would you rather be cheated out of some money, let’s say, than drag the church’s dirty laundry in front of the world? Which do you value more? I think that’s what Paul is getting at here. Now, one practical question that comes up at this point often is, “All right, I want to do that. I’ve taken my brother. I’ve gone to my brother, I’ve taken witnesses to my brother, he’s still in here, what can we do?” And that I think is part of the importance of the church itself being committed to the process of Matthew chapter 18, and we see it also in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 here as well. And that is if the offending party is found to be guilty and offending, and he persists in it, and he won’t hear the admonition of the church court, and he won’t make things right, and this can’t come to a resolution, the church now has an obligation. The church has an obligation, and that is to render judgment against that man. If he’s going to behave that way, he’s a heathen. He’s not one of us. Put him out. Now that doesn’t fix the whole problem. And if you have to go to court, you still have to go to court, but it has mitigated the problem significantly. The church has made its statement. He’s not one of us. He’s not one of us. And that helps the testimony of the gospel significantly.

Summary Applications

All right, quickly, some summary applications from all of this, from this unusual passage of scripture. You didn’t know that you were coming to church today to learn about settling disputes outside of court. Number one, just four quick statements.

Number one, Christian cases should be tried in the church. Christian cases should be tried in the church. There’s a prescribed process to be followed, and there really in the first place shouldn’t be those kinds of disputes, but granted that we live in a fallen world and we’re all sinful, there are going to be cases, so between Christians, settle them in the church.

Number two, Christians must develop the habit of thinking through the deep implications of the gospel. This is presupposed through this whole passage. Christians must develop the habit of thinking through the deep implications of the gospel. The gospel is not just some buzzword. The gospel is not just a message for those on the way into the church. The gospel is a truth revealed from God that not only brings us in, but it shapes and transforms all of life. It determines how we think, how we talk, what we do, how we behave, how we relate to one another, and what we say to the people on the outside. The gospel shapes all of that. It really is the measuring stick of how we think and how we talk and how we behave. And what Paul presupposed through this whole passage is believers, we must think through the deep implications of the gospel. How does this shape my life? How does this determine my response or my reaction in this given case? You find that always through Paul’s teaching.

Number one, Christian cases should be tried in the church. Number two, Christians must develop the habit of thinking through the deep implications of the gospel. Closely related to that is the third one: Number three, Christians must develop gospel values. Christians must develop gospel values. That is to say, move outside your own little world, your own little self-interests, and think in terms of the gospel. Think in terms of the testimony for the gospel, the glory of Christ, the success of the gospel on the outside, and let that determine decisions that you make.

Christian cases should be tried in the church. Christians must develop the habit of thinking through the deep implications of the gospel. Number three, Christians must develop gospel values. And then finally, number four, Christians must remember that God keeps accurate books. Christians must remember that God keeps accurate books. “I’ve given up everything for you, Lord. What do I get out of it?” Everybody who’s given up for me will receive a hundred times over in this life and the age to come eternal life. And everywhere in the New Testament, we’re reminded this is not our only reason for following the Lord. It’s not our only motivation for faithfulness, but we’re reminded over and again that God keeps accurate books and he rewards his people for the faithfulness that he gives them. It’s an amazing thing.

So we read, “Whatever good thing a man does, the same shall he receive from the Lord.” Amazing teaching as far as I’m concerned. Any faithfulness I have, any good thing that I do, I cannot take the credit for it. I have to say God has enabled me to do this and then God turns around and rewards me for that faithfulness that he’s given. It’s just an amazing teaching. But we find it over and again, the parables, talking about the rewards that Christ will give for faithfulness and so on. We find it all the time. And one thing that is just built into this is that we must remember that God keeps accurate books. And if you find yourself on the losing side of this particular dispute, remember there are higher values and there’s a day coming when the report card will come in. And in that day where judgment matters, the record will be clear.

Now, why a passage like this? It’s really an unusual thing to have a passage telling us about court, these kinds of relationships that we have breaking down and disputes. It’s an unusual passage. You don’t come to church expecting to hear instruction about that. And I think a couple of things to remember in passages like this. Number one, just on the surface of it all, admit it’s instruction that we continue to need. Christians continue to have disputes and Christians continue to drag it in front of the secular courts.

But I think there’s a bigger answer to the question and that is that there’s a redemptive purpose of God in giving the scriptures. And I don’t mean by that simply that the scriptures are given only to bring us to that initial faith in Christ by which we’re saved, but there’s a redemptive purpose to the scriptures in that its function in God’s purpose is to transform the lives of his people, to make us look more and more like Christ, or to say it, to live more and more in keeping with the gospel we profess and the gospel by which we are saved. And we come to passages like this, and I think we have to say, “Lord, just shape us like that. Give us these gospel values and make us live in a way that will further the gospel of Christ.” Amen.

Let’s pray. Our Father, Your word is always relevant. It is always good for us and much needed. Shape us by it today, we pray. God keep us from these kinds of failures in the church. For your name’s sake, amen.