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,
Paul has been rebuking the Corinthians for dragging each other into the world's courts. Now he turns to a harder question: who belongs to God's kingdom, and what such a warning means for people who already call themselves Christians.
The Question Grows Out of the Lawsuits
The verse is not a stray warning dropped into the letter. It answers the previous verses, where believers took their disputes to unbelieving judges.
Leslie M. GrantVerse 9 is no doubt intended to cut two ways. First, they had been taking their cases to the unrighteous. But the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God themselves. In that kingdom, authority rests on true righteousness. Second, the Corinthians should judge themselves. Their own actions had begun to look like the actions of the unrighteous.
Why the Kingdom Shuts Such People Out
The shut door is not arbitrary. It follows from what the kingdom is, and from the part believers themselves will take in judging.
J. N. DarbyThe assembly — all believers together — is united to Christ. When He judges the world and passes sentence on the angels, she will stand with Him and share in His judgment, because she has His Spirit and His mind. But nothing unrighteous will ever enter that kingdom. How could anyone who takes pleasure in evil judge it?
Who Is Being Warned
The point is too plain in Scripture to argue with.
Frederick W GrantAnyone who questions this would have to deny some of the plainest passages of Scripture. Take 1 Cor. 6:9-10, for example: what can be plainer? "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived" — and note, Paul writes this to people who call themselves Christians — "neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers," and so on, "will inherit the kingdom of God."
Falling Into Sin, or Living In It
Commentators draw a careful line here between an act and a character. A true believer's failure is real, but it is not what defines him.
F. B. HoleA true believer may fall into any of the terrible evils listed in verses 9 and 10. But none of them describes his character. He repents, and in time God restores him. Those characterized by these things have no part in the kingdom of God, either here or hereafter. So they stand completely outside the fellowship of God's assembly.
The same distinction is put positively elsewhere: such statements are not meant to unsettle believers, but to expose empty claims.
W. W. FeredayEven the truest believer can grow careless and fall into the worst sins. But you could not say he lives in them. They do not shape his life. The Spirit of God works on the believer's conscience. He admits and confesses his sin, and receives forgiveness and cleansing. Statements like this are not meant to fill believers with doubt. They test whether a person's claim to be a Christian is real.
Why the List Is So Blunt
Paul names sins that were ordinary in the city where these believers lived. He is aiming at habits, not describing far-off crimes.
William KellyClearly the apostle does not stop at the one case in front of him. He lays bare the habits so common in Corinth — corruption far more than violence. He is not swinging at empty air, nor attacking sins found only somewhere else. If no one judges it, letting the body and the world have their way ends in shocking excess. Playing with a little evil is the straight road to more and worse — and nowhere more surely than in someone who calls himself a Christian.
The Coming Kingdom Shapes Present Conduct
If certain things can never enter that kingdom, they have a claim on how an heir lives now.
H Forbes WitherbyThe kingdom will take its character from the King. So God's heirs should live now in a way that fits the kingdom that is coming. Whatever can never enter that glory should have no place in our lives on earth. The future should govern the present; the future is secure in God; the present is our responsibility.
Grace Does Not Excuse What It Removes
The warning does not contradict the gospel. It shows what the gospel actually does when it is truly received.
Frederick W GrantIt makes it quite plain that the gospel is not intended to be an allowance of sin, but salvation from it. Where a person truly receives it, it takes him out of the sins it found him in and sets him on the path of holiness. As the apostle goes on here: "And such were some of you; but you were washed, you were sanctified"... The grace which saves makes holy.
Summary
- Context — The warning answers the lawsuits. The judges they ran to have no share in the kingdom, and the Corinthians were starting to look like them.
- Character — Nothing unrighteous enters that kingdom, because evil cannot be judged by those who enjoy it.
- Caution — "Do not be deceived" is addressed to people who profess Christ, not to outsiders only.
- Clarity — A believer may fall into these sins; he is not marked by them, and repentance restores him. Those marked by them have no part in the kingdom.
- Consequence — The kingdom takes its character from the King. What can never enter that glory should have no place in life now. Grace that saves makes holy.