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?The Pulpit Commentaries - 1 Corinthians (Vol. 2)?(Joseph S. Exell) 06 Chapter 6 Verses 1-20
EXPOSITION
1 Corinthians 6:1-11
Litigation before heathen courts forbidden.
1 Corinthians 6:1
Dare any of you? rather, Dare any one of you? It is in St. Paul's view an
audacious defiance of Christian duties to seek from the heathen the justice
due from brother to brother. A matter; some ground of civil dispute.
Against another; i.e. against another Christian. When one of the litigants
was a heathen, Christians were allowed to go before heathen law courts,
because no other remedy was possible. Go to law before the unjust. The
"unjust" is here used for "Gentiles," because it at once suggests a reason
against the dereliction of Christian duty involved in such a step. How
"unjust" the pagans were in the special sense of the word, the Christians
of that day had daily opportunities of seeing; and in a more general sense,
the Gentiles were "sinners" (Matthew 26:45). Even the Jews were bound to
settle their civil disputes before their own tribunals. The ideal Jew was
jashar, or "the upright man," and Jews could not consistently seek
integrity from those who were not upright. A fortiori, Christians ought not
to do so. Before the saints. All Christians were ideally "saints," just as
the heathen were normally "unjust." If Christians went to law with one
another before the heathen, they belied their profession of mutual love,
caused scandal, and were almost necessarily tempted into compliance with
heathen customs, even to the extent of recognizing idols. Our Lord had
already laid down the rule that "brothers" ought to settle their quarrels
among themselves (Matthew 18:15-17).
1 Corinthians 6:2
Do ye not know? The word "or" should be supplied from ?, A, B, C, D, F,
etc. Bishop Wordsworth points out that this emphatic question occurs ten
times in these two Epistles (1 Corinthians 3:6 ; 1 Corinthians 5:6; 1
Corinthians 6:2, 1 Corinthians 6:3, 1 Corinthians 6:9, 1 Corinthians 6:15,
1 Corinthians 6:16, 1 Corinthians 6:19; 1 Corinthians 9:13, 1 Corinthians
9:24), and only twice in all the rest (Romans 6:16; Romans 11:2). It was a
fitting rebuke to those who took for knowledge their obvious ignorance. It
resembles the "Have ye not so much as read?" to Pharisees who professed
such profound familiarity with the Scriptures. That the saints shall judge
the world. So Daniel (Daniel 7:22) had said, "The Ancient of days came, and
judgment was given to the saints of the Most High." Our Lord had confirmed
this promise to his apostles, "Ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matthew 19:28). Various modes of
evading the literal sense have been adopted, but even in the Book of Wisdom
we find, "They [the righteous] shall judge the nations, and have dominion
over the people" (Wis. 3:8). All speculation as to the manner and extent in
which the saints shall share in the work of Christ as Judge of the quick
and dead, are obviously futile. Shall be judged; literally, is being judged-
the present points to the future, as though that which is inevitable is
already in course of fulfilment. To judge the smallest matters; literally,
of the smallest judgments.
1 Corinthians 6:3
That we shall judge angels. Angels, i.e. some who belong, or once did
belong, to that class. The statement furnishes no data for further
speculation. It can hardly mean "evil spirits," for where the word is
entirely unqualified it always means good angels; otherwise we might refer
it to the "angels which kept not their first estate" (Jud 1 Corinthians
1:6). It is impossible, and not straightforward, to explain away the word
"angels" as meaning Church officials, etc., or to make the word "judge"
mean "involve a condemnation of them by comparison with ourselves." All
that we can say is that "God chargeth even his angels with folly, and in
his sight the very heavens are not clean" (Job 4:18); and that "to angels
hath he not subjected the world to come" (Hebrews 2:5). We must take the
plain meaning of the apostle's words, whether we can throw any light on his
conceptions or not. The only alternative is to suppose that the word means
"those who once were good angels," but are now fallen spirits. It was so
understood by Tertullian, Chrysostom, etc. How much more; rather, to say
nothing of. The accurate rendering of these verses is a matter of some
difficulty, but not to an extent which affects the material sense, or which
can be explained without a minute knowledge of Greek.
1 Corinthians 6:4
If then ye have, etc. The verse implies that civil disputes might naturally
occur among them. What he is here reprobating is their objectionable method
of settling them. Set them to judge who are least esteemed in the Church.
This implies an utter scorn of trivial quarrels about personal rights.
Surely the lowliest, the most unregarded members of the Church-those of no
account-have wisdom enough to decide in such small matters. Thus when there
arose a murmuring between Hebrews and Hellenists about the daily
distribution to widows, the apostles, thinking that they had much more
important work in hand than the adjustment of such jealousies, left the
whole matter in the hands of the seven deacons. Some understand "those held
of no account in the Church" to mean heathens; but he is here forbidding
them to bring their quarrels before the heathens. Of course, ideally, none
ought to be "despised" or "held of no account" in the Church; but St. Paul
is here speaking relatively, and with reference to the views of the
Corinthians themselves, and not without irony. The perfect participle,
"those who have been set at nought," perhaps means persons of proved
inferiority of judgment.
1 Corinthians 6:5
I speak to your shame. He adds this to account for the severe irony of the
last remark. Not a wise man among you. Among you, who set yourselves up as
so specially wise! To judge; rather, to decide.
1 Corinthians 6:7
Now therefore; rather, Nay more, already. Utterly; rather, generally,
"altogether," "looking at the question as a whole." A fault. The word means
"a defect," or possibly "a loss" (Romans 11:12, "the diminishing"). Your
going to law is an inferiority or deficiency; you ought to know of "a more
excellent way." Why do ye not rather take wrong? Strange as such advice
would sound to heathens, who prided themselves on the passionate resentment
of injuries as though it were a virtue, this had been the distinct teaching
of our Lord; "Resist not evil" (Matthew 5:39).
1 Corinthians 6:8
Nay, ye do wrong and defraud. Thus they violated a rule which Paul had laid
down to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 4:6), and incurred God's anger.
1 Corinthians 6:9
Know ye not; rather, Or know ye not, as before. Are you defying God, or
does your sin arise from mere ignorance? The unrighteous; better, that
wrong doers, the verb being the same as "ye do wrong" in 1 Corinthians 6:8.
Perhaps the Corinthians thought that they would be saved by the mere fact
of having been admitted into God's kingdom (the Christian Church in all its
highest privileges) by baptism. St. Paul here lays down, as distinctly as
St. James does, that faith without works is dead, and privileges without
holiness are abrogated. The spirit of his warning is the same as that of
Jeremiah 7:4, "Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the
Lord... are these;" or that of St. John the Baptist, "Say not unto
yourselves, We be Abraham's sons." Christians have often been liable to the
temptation of underrating the peril which results from the falling asunder
of action from knowledge. There can be no greater danger than that of
talking slightingly of "mere morality." Religion is not an outward service,
but a spiritual life manifested by a holy living. Be not deceived. So our
Lord says," Let no man deceive you". St. Paul uses the warning very
solemnly again in 1 Corinthians 15:33 and Galatians 6:7, and St. James in
James 1:16. The self deception of merely verbal orthodoxy is the most
dangerous of all. Neither fornicators. The first four classes of sinners
were specially prevalent at Corinth, where, indeed, impurity formed part of
the recognized cult of the local Aphrodite. Lists of these "works of the
flesh," which were the all but universal curse and stain of heathendom,
occur also in Galatians 5:19-21; 1 Timothy 1:10, etc.; Colossians 3:5-7.
1 Corinthians 6:10
Nor thieves, etc. (see Revelation 22:15).
1 Corinthians 6:11
And such were some of you; literally, and these things some of you were. As
Gentiles, many of them had been "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians
2:1). (For a similar contrast of the change wrought by the Spirit of God,
see Titus 3:3-7.) But ye are washed. The voice and tense in the original
differ from those of the following words. This cannot be accidental. It is
better, therefore, to render, But ye washed away your sins; i.e. ye, by
your baptism, washed away those stains (Acts 22:16). The very object of
Christ's death had been that he might cleanse his Church "by the washing of
water by the Word." But ye are sanctified, but ye are justified; rather,
but ye were sanctified, but y? were justified, namely, at your conversion.
By "sanctified" is meant, not the progressive course of sanctification, but
the consecration to God by baptism (Wickliffe, "halowed"). (For what St.
Paul meant by justification, see Romans 3:24-26.) In the Name of the Lord
Jesus, etc. This clause and the next belongs to all the three previous
verbs. Of our God. In the word "our" is involved