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1 Corinthians 6:1-11 - Judgment, Inheritance, and Cleansing

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This narration is from a previous version of the study. The text on this page is current.

The Corinthians want a verdict, but Paul first asks what their lawsuits have already revealed. Brother is trying to defeat brother before a public tribunal while both claim to belong to Christ. After chapter 5 called the Church to truthful judgment within her own life, Paul now tests whether that judgment can serve reconciliation rather than rivalry. His argument then widens: the same unrighteousness displayed in their disputes belongs to a whole old way of life that cannot inherit the Kingdom. Yet the final word is not the vice list. It is God’s action: “you were washed,” “you were sanctified,” “you were justified.”

Corinth’s concern for public standing, described in the Overview, sharpens the scandal of believers prosecuting one another. Paul addresses their rivalries, not a universal claim that civil authority is evil.

Saints, Judgment, and Public Witness (1 Corinthians 6:1-6)

1 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? 2 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? 3 Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? 4 If then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge? 5 I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you, not even one, who will be able to judge between his brethren? 6 But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers!

Paul’s word “shame” does not cancel what he said in 4:14: “I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you.” Humiliation is not his pastoral goal. He exposes the contradiction between their claimed wisdom and their failed reconciliation because a truthful wound to pride can awaken repentance and restore communion.

Paul repeats “Do you not know?” because the Corinthians’ conduct contradicts knowledge they already claim to possess. They call themselves saints, people consecrated to God, yet they act as though the Church has no wisdom capable of addressing an ordinary dispute between brothers. Their failure is therefore deeper than poor procedure. A community entrusted with the life of the coming Kingdom cannot find one wise person able to seek truth and peace between its own members.

The words “the unrighteous” in verse 1 belong to that contrast. Paul is not overturning his recognition elsewhere that civil authority can serve public order. He is exposing the absurdity of Christians who confess God’s righteous Kingdom yet ask outsiders to referee their rivalry. The public case tells Corinth that the Gospel of reconciliation has not reconciled the people bringing the suit.

These chapters distinguish different acts of judgment. In 4:5, Paul forbids premature final claims about hidden motives, which the Lord alone will disclose. In 5:3 and 5:12, he requires discernment of known public conduct within the Church; in 6:1-6, he asks for wise, reconciliatory judgment in ordinary disputes. The saints’ future share in Christ’s judgment humbles the Church. It does not place the Church above the Lord whose judgment she will share.

Language insight

The repeated Greek family built on κρίνω (krinō) binds the passage together. Verse 1 uses it for going to law or having a case decided. Verse 2 uses the same family for the saints judging the world, the world being judged, and the “smallest matters” requiring judgment.1 Paul is not rejecting discernment. He is asking what kind of discernment belongs to people who will share in Christ’s judgment. The answer cannot be proud control. It must be truth governed by holiness, wisdom, mercy, and accountability to the Lord.

The statement that the saints will judge the world and angels must therefore humble the Church. Their holy life is a witness against the falsehood they once shared, not a reason to enjoy authority over others. Paul’s question is not, “Why do you possess so little power?” It is, “Why does your conduct bear so little resemblance to the Kingdom?”

The Defeat Hidden Inside Winning (1 Corinthians 6:7-8)

7 Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? 8 No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren!

Paul gives his verdict before any court does: “it is already an utter failure for you.” One litigant may win property, money, reputation, or public vindication, yet the Church has already lost something more precious. Brotherhood has become competition, grievance has become permission to strike back, and the desire to be declared right has displaced the desire to become righteous.

Language insight

“Utter failure” translates ἥττημα (hēttēma), a defeat, loss, or failure, not a minor procedural fault.2 The next two verbs preserve the reality of the injury. Ἀδικεῖσθε (adikeisthe) means to be wronged or injured, while ἀποστερεῖσθε (apostereisthe) means to be deprived or defrauded.2 Paul does not pretend that nothing was taken. He asks whether the person who has truly suffered an ordinary loss can refuse to let that loss produce another act of injustice.

That question brings the dispute under the Cross. Christ does not teach us to call evil good. He frees us from the compulsion to avenge every slight, collect every debt of honor, or preserve our status at any cost. In family conflict, parish disagreement, business tension, or an argument over possessions, I may be factually right and spiritually ruled by the need to win. Paul asks whether communion with Christ has made me free enough to absorb a limited loss for the sake of peace.

Verse 8 prevents the injured party from claiming automatic innocence. “You yourselves do wrong and cheat.” Grievance can become a hiding place where retaliation feels righteous. A person may begin with a genuine wound and then lie, humiliate, withhold what is owed, recruit allies, or damage another’s name. Paul names that turn plainly because the other person is not merely an opponent. He or she is a brother or sister for whom Christ died.

The public scandal matters, but the wound inside the brotherhood comes first. The Church’s failure is not simply that outsiders witnessed the quarrel. It is that believers chose to injure one another rather than seek a form of justice capable of repentance, restitution, and peace.

Paul’s counsel to accept wrong concerns cruciform freedom in ordinary disputes, not a demand to conceal crimes or remain in danger.

The Kingdom Warning and God’s Threefold Gift (1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

Paul now reveals why the lawsuits matter eternally. The Corinthians’ conduct is not an isolated failure of conflict management. To wrong and defraud a brother is to practice the unrighteousness that cannot inherit God’s Kingdom. “Do not be deceived” warns baptized people against presumption. Grace does not rename greed, exploitation, drunkenness, verbal cruelty, idolatry, adultery, or sexual immorality as harmless. The Kingdom is gift, but its heirs cannot make peace with the old life that contradicts the King.

The full list must be heard. Selective outrage distorts Paul’s warning. Sexual sins are named seriously, but so are theft, covetousness, drunkenness, reviling, and extortion. A person who fixates on another’s sexual struggle while excusing greed, verbal cruelty, dishonest gain, or habitual drunkenness has placed himself outside the reach of Paul’s mirror. Every item concerns practiced unrighteousness, and every hearer stands in need of repentance.

The NKJV’s “homosexuals, nor sodomites” renders two Greek words, malakoi and arsenokoitai. In receiving this passage, the Coptic Church teaches that sexual union belongs within marriage between a man and a woman and rejects same-sex sexual acts.3 Paul’s warning concerns sinful conduct, alongside greed, drunkenness and slander; it is not permission to reduce a person to a label. An enduring attraction or an unchosen temptation is not itself a sexual act. No one may use this verse for slurs, humiliation, or pressure to disclose intimate struggles publicly. The person who seeks chastity while carrying persistent temptation needs patient companionship and confidential pastoral care, not a promise that every attraction will disappear. Verse 11 announces real cleansing and a new life in Christ, not the erasure of a person’s humanity.

“And such were some of you” is not a taunt. It is the hinge on which the whole passage turns. Paul looks at a Church containing people with real moral histories and speaks of those histories in the past tense. He does not say that temptation has vanished or that repentance requires public disclosure of private wounds. He says that sin no longer possesses the right to name the baptized person. The old life is neither denied nor allowed the final word.

Language insight

Verse 11 answers the vice list with three verbs: ἀπελούσασθε (apelousasthe), “you were washed”; ἡγιάσθητε (hēgiasthēte), “you were sanctified”; and ἐδικαιώθητε (edikaiōthēte), “you were justified.”4 Paul keeps cleansing, consecration, and God’s setting-right action together. Justification is not isolated from transformation, and sanctification is not reduced to self-improvement. Salvation is God’s abundant work “in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” The Church hears the washing at the font and the Spirit’s sanctifying gift in the Holy Myron administered immediately after Baptism.5 Paul’s three verbs name God’s abundant saving action, the life every baptized Christian is called to embody.

The Lord does more than remove a penalty. He cleanses, consecrates, and sets people right. This is why the warning can be preached without despair and the promise without sentimentality. The same grace that forgives also claims the life for holiness.

Redemption does not discard the sinner’s humanity. In Christ and the Spirit, the same embodied person is cleansed and summoned into a new way of life.

Gems from the Fathers 💎

St John Chrysostom reads the saints’ judgment as the witness of a life made faithful to God: “simply by the things which we have done”.6 Holy conduct exposes unbelief more truthfully than a claim to spiritual rank. The coming judgment should make a Christian less eager to dominate an ordinary dispute.

He calls the charge twofold: believers go to law against one another, and they do so before unbelievers.7 The Church has lost more than its reputation when reconciliation gives way to victory over a brother.

On verse 11, St John Chrysostom says that God “greatly extended the benefit”.8 Deliverance is joined to cleansing, sanctification and justification. Grace gives more than release from an accusation; it brings people into a holy life they could not create for themselves.

St Irenaeus of Lyons cites 6:9-11 while defending the salvation of the same body that once served sin. We are made alive “by working the works of the Spirit”.9 The body is not discarded as the problem. Its actions are renewed through receiving the Spirit, so that the person who once practiced corruption can live faithfully in Christ.

The Church’s Voice in Worship ⛪

The First Sunday of Amshir reads 1 Corinthians 5:11-13 and 6:1-11. Acts 9:3-9 places Saul on the Damascus road, stopped by the Lord whom he persecutes.10 The man who writes of cleansing first had to receive mercy himself. His later account recalls the summons to Baptism and washing in Acts 22:16: divine grace interrupts a life and gives it a new direction.

Second Peter 3:14-18 urges a life of peace and blamelessness while acknowledging the difficulty of some things in Paul’s letters. John 6:22-27 calls the crowd away from laboring only for perishable food. Heard beside believers fighting over temporary possessions, the Gospel asks what hunger is directing their lives. The Liturgy Psalm 96:4, 6 (LXX 95:4, 6) places praise, beauty and holiness before the Lord.10, 11 A church formed for His sanctuary cannot treat a brother’s defeat as its food.

The Monday of the third week of Great Lent reads 5:9-6:5; its call to confession in the light is developed in 5:1-13, A Little Leaven: Discipline and Holiness. Baptism’s wilderness warning is developed in 10:1-13, and the body’s anointing as the Spirit’s dwelling in 6:12-20, Your Body Is a Temple of the Holy Spirit.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

Examine the need to win. Some conflicts remain alive because being vindicated has become more important than communion. Before I send the message, repeat the accusation, recruit another ally, or insist on the last word, I can ask whether I am seeking truth and repair or feeding the pleasure of defeating someone. Where the loss is limited and safety is not at stake, I can bring the grievance to prayer, seek wise mediation, and surrender the demand to be repaid in pride.

Refuse grievance as permission to sin. A genuine wrong does not sanctify retaliation. I may have been cheated and still become a reviler. I may have been misrepresented and still answer with a lie. Repentance begins when I name both the injury done to me and the injustice now growing in me, then seek confession, truthful speech, restitution where needed, and freedom from resentment.

Let the whole vice list judge the heart. It is easy to condemn the sin that does not tempt me. Paul places covetousness, drunkenness, reviling, theft, extortion, idolatry, adultery, and sexual immorality under one Kingdom warning. A useful examination is concrete: where do appetite, money, contemptuous speech, dishonest advantage, or the need for control contradict the life I receive at the altar?

Return to the name God has given. Shame says, “This is what you are.” Paul says, “And such were some of you.” When an old pattern returns, the answer is neither denial nor despair. Return to Christ in repentance, confession, prayer, and the life of the Church. Remember the whole gift: washed, sanctified, justified. God’s grace does not excuse the old life; it makes a new life possible.

Footnotes

  1. BibleHub, “1 Corinthians 6:1 Greek Interlinear”, “1 Corinthians 6:2 Greek Interlinear”, and “Strong’s Greek 2919, κρίνω”. ↩

  2. BibleHub, “1 Corinthians 6:7 Greek Interlinear”, “Strong’s Greek 2275, ἥττημα”, “Strong’s Greek 91, ἀδικέω”, and “Strong’s Greek 650, ἀποστερέω”. ↩ ↩2

  3. Coptic Orthodox Church, press release of the clergy convention presided over by Pope Shenouda III, 26 August 2003, points 1-2 on 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and marriage, cdn.suscopts.org. ↩

  4. BibleHub, “1 Corinthians 6:11 Greek Interlinear”, “Strong’s Greek 628, ἀπολούω”, “Strong’s Greek 37, ἁγιάζω”, and “Strong’s Greek 1344, δικαιόω”. ↩

  5. Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States, Q&A 694, Holy Myron, opening paragraph on Chrism immediately after Baptism, qa.suscopts.org. ↩

  6. St John Chrysostom, Homily 16 on First Corinthians, §5, on 6:2, newadvent.org. ↩

  7. St John Chrysostom, Homily 16 on First Corinthians, on 6:6-7, newadvent.org. ↩

  8. St John Chrysostom, Homily 16 on First Corinthians, §9, on 6:11, newadvent.org. ↩

  9. St Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies V.11.2, newadvent.org. ↩

  10. Coptic Katameros, First Sunday of Amshir, Liturgy, Pauline Epistle 1 Corinthians 5:11-13 and 6:1-11, 7 February 2027, copticchurch.net. ↩ ↩2

  11. Brenton, Psalm 96:4,6 (LXX 95:4,6), ebible.org. ↩

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