152 - Inheriting, Confession, Cleansing [B]

Hebrews Lesson 152  March 19, 2009

^NKJ Proverbs 3:6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.

In our series now on Thursday nights going through Hebrews, we're focusing on Hebrews 9. We came to a key phrase related to the Doctrine of Inheritance. So you don't need to turn there because we're sort of stepping off from this one particular verse, which deals with inheritance and the role of Christ's work in terms of inheritance. In verse 15 of Hebrews 9 we read:

^NKJ Hebrews 9:15 And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called

That is, those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

So we're looking at this Doctrine of Inheritance because it is a concept, a doctrine that runs all the way through Hebrews. That is because the primary message in the book of Hebrews is to challenge these Jewish believers, and we believe that most of them were priests (Levites who came out of the priestly ministry). They have been under persecution, rejection and were threatening to fade back into living like they did before they were saved. The pressure was too much. Christians face that same pressure all the time; pressure to go with the flow, to fit in with the culture around them, to fit in with everyone that they work with and not to stand out in a distinct manner as being a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The more our culture drifts into overt paganism, the more Christians will stand out because we are different. That is going to be obvious. It'll be obvious to them than you realize. So it's incumbent upon us to be steadfast and to persevere and not to give up, and not to fade out just because things get a little bit difficult or it seems like we're under rejection or persecution. People think we're strange or odd. "There's that Jesus person over there," or whatever it may be.

We all face different kinds of negative attacks on Christianity; and we're going to see that more and more. So there is a tremendous parallel there. 

What the writer of Hebrews is doing to motivate them is to focus their attention on the end game, which is that inheritance that we're engaged in spiritual growth today in our lives not just for the sake of having a happier life today or a more meaningful life today. The 20^th century gospel became so psychologized. You hear this so much when people present Christianity: come to Jesus so that your problems will be solved, come to Jesus so that you can have a happier life, come to Jesus to solve the problems in your marriage. But the problem is that a lot of people get saved and their marriage problems don't get solved. They're not any happier in some sense because of decisions they have made in life. Their circumstances don't change. 

Many things like that don't change because Jesus isn't a cure all in that sense. He's not a psychological fixit man. He is the one who died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and so only by trusting in Him can we have eternal life - number 1. And number 2, only by growing as a believer afterwards can we have the mental tools, the mental discipline, the mental ammunition, the spiritual ammunition as it were to handle the pressures of the spiritual warfare that we're engaged in. 

If we don't keep our minds on the endgame at times (living today in the light of eternity) then it's easy to just let the circumstances of life roll over us. So as we've gone through the Doctrine of Inheritance talking about what it is, what the words mean, what inheriting means. 

Before the conference I was looking at the different phrases that we have in the New Testament. Inheriting eternal life, which is a phrase that refers I believe to phase one justification, phase one salvation. 

Then we have this other term that we find in the New Testament "inheriting the kingdom." There's a problem with this phrase because a lot of people want to read this as meaning the same thing as "inheriting eternal life": that inheriting the kingdom means entering the kingdom or going to heaven. This has caused some tremendous problems. 

Now last week when I first came down with this staff infection, or whatever it was and couldn't make it in, it was a tremendous opportunity because Dan Ingram was here. Dan did a tremendous job last week, a very well organized presentation on 1 Corinthians 6. He had done a paper on that last year at the Chafer Conference. This actually grew out of a paper that he wrote. I think it was his 3^rd year in seminary back almost 10 years ago. Maybe it was ten years ago. It was the first year or two that I was in Connecticut and mentoring him as he was going through the seminary classes. He was needing to write a paper on a problem passage in Corinthians. 

I said, "Hey Dan, this would be a great passage for you to write a paper on."

And he did. I thought he did a tremendous job on it. He got a good grade on it even though the professor didn't agree with his position. That's the objectivity you have to have as a good seminary professor. You grade on how well a student argues their position, documents their position (footnotes, research) writes that kind of a thing even though you may not agree with where they go with certain things or how they handle certain things. But he did a great job with it.  I had wanted him and encouraged him to tighten it up and really improve it. Hopefully he can get that published in the Chafer Journal. So he did a great job last time, but he didn't quite put some extra things in there that he didn't quite get to last time, especially related to verse 11. 

So I want to go back and pick up that part and tie some loose ends together. So if you will, open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.

If you weren't here last time, let me just read the verses for you. This is one of those set of verses. There is a similar statement in Galatians 5 that we'll also look at tonight that seems to say and that many people interpret, many pastors, theologians. Some of your study Bibles will interpret it that way in their study notes and seem to say that if Christians practice these things or these sins they're not saved.

So the verses read like this:

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 6:9 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.

So Dan did a great job getting through verses 9 and 10 and down into but I don't think he quite nailed 11. He may have, but I want to review that a little bit.

So what does it mean to "inherit the kingdom?" In terms of inheritance, we've seen that there's this word group of inheritance related to the Greek word kleronomos. We asked the question: what does it mean to be an heir? An heir is someone who's designated as an heir who receives something as a possession or beneficiary. It's not necessary we've seen for a person to die for someone to receive an inheritance. That's how we normally think of as inheritance. Somebody dies. In their will they've left certain amount of money or property, valuables to their children or grandchildren. So that's the designated heir. 

But in the Bible, the concept, the core idea in inheritance is possession. God gives Israel the land as an inheritance. Now nobody dies so that they can receive it. That's the point I'm getting to here. The core meaning isn't death and passing on something. The core idea is ownership and possession.

So an heir is one who receives the allotted possession also by right of sonship. Now that enters into one category of heirship in relationship to Christ's heirship as the Son of God. It's used of those who as sons of God, those who are born again, adopted into the royal family of God inherit the privileges of the Messianic Kingdom. So that's the idea in the noun "heir". 

Then we have the term inheritance. Inheritance again emphasizes possession, property received by a possession. When it relates to the Messianic Kingdom, the idea of the possession of the Messianic Kingdom and its blessings so that has an inheritance in the kingdom has ownership in the kingdom not just being present in the kingdom. In the Old Testament if you look at how these words are used in relation to the Promised Land, every Israelite had an ownership in the land. They had land that they would pass on from generation to generation, land that would stay within the tribal allotment. So they had that ownership. 

But there were certain groups of people who lived in the land who did not have ownership of land. The Levites had no inheritance in the land, yet they lived in the cities and they were responsible for ministering to everybody in the nation. Aliens (That is non-Jews, Gentiles) who came into the land did not have inheritance rights in the land. They could not own the land. But they could benefit from the blessings of living in Israel, blessing by association. So these are ideas that we have to keep in mind when we read inheritance terminology in the New Testament. 

Passages such as Ephesians 5:5:

^KJ Ephesians 5:5 For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

See that's that same idea that we have in the 1 Corinthians 6 passage that sin really does have consequences. As believers, sin is dealt with. It's forgiven at the cross. We've studied that; that it's wiped out. The debt is cancelled for every single person at the instant that Christ died on the cross. It wiped out the sin penalty in terms of that legal objective penalty accessed by the Supreme Court of Heaven. 

But in terms of the consequences of the sin penalty as it was enacted in Adam back when Adam first fell. When that sin penalty was enacted in him the result was that he died spiritually. He was separated from God and as a result all of his posterity, all the descendents of Adam, are born spiritually dead. He received a sin nature at the time that he died. At the time that he sinned, he died spiritually and received the sin nature. That sin nature is passed on to each subsequent generation so we not only have the problem of a legal penalty that was paid for by Christ on the cross, but we have two problems that are related to how we're born. One is that we're born with a sin nature and we're born spiritually dead, therefore unrighteous, and we're spiritually dead. Those two problems are only resolved when we trust Christ as our Savior. 

The imputation of His righteousness solves the problem of our lack of righteousness. Then we are made alive again in Christ. We're regenerated. That solves the second problem. This is the way in which salvation is applied to all of us. 

So we all have certain things held equally as believers. We'll all die. We will receive a resurrection body. We'll spend eternity with the Lord with no more sorrow, no more tears, no more pain. The old things have passed away. 

But there are also going to be some differences. Those differences indicate that we're all given the same opportunities. (This is a great application for capitalism) We're all given the same opportunities at the point of salvation. We're all given the same spiritual assets. Every one of us is blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. We are given the completed canon of Scripture, the indwelling Holy Spirit, the filling of the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts.  We're given all of these assets. But it is up to us to decide how we're going to use them.

So God gives us equal opportunity, but what we choose to do with it means that there are going to be different results. There are some who are going to come to the Judgment Seat of Christ; and because they have walked by the Spirit, been obedient to the Lord, studied the Word, applied the Word, God the Holy Spirit is going to produce tremendous works in them and they are going to reap tremendous rewards. Others are not going to use their volition to study the Word and to grow spiritually and they're going to have different results. There are some that are going to appear at the Judgment Seat of Christ, according to 1 Corinthians 3, and they are going to lose rewards. These rewards are not going to be distributed. They're not going to be given to them. So they're not going to have those rewards. Eventually as we'll see those rewards that are not distributed are going to be destroyed. God gives everybody equal opportunity, but your volition determines what the outcome is going to be. 

See that's what's true of a free enterprise system. In capitalism the idea is that everybody under law should have the freedom not being restrained by government interference so that they have the freedom to make the most out of everything that they've been given. But there are always going to be inequalities in terms of results. Now when people come in and try to guarantee equality of results, which is what happens in Marxism and socialism, you end up destroying individual responsibility and individual accountability and individual incentive to do anything. That is what is so evil about socialism and Marxism is it destroys motivation and it destroys incentive. 

When you come to the Scriptures and look at the whole doctrine of rewards and inheritance, you realize that what God is laying out here is a tremendous incentive plan for us. 

Don't just sit back and say, "Oh, I'm just glad that I'm going to end up in heaven." 

And I've heard people say that, and I just cringe. They say, "I'd rather be in the ghettos of heaven - as long as I'm there."

No, that's not how you're going to feel if you end up with nothing at the Judgment Seat of Christ and you're just living down in the ghettos of heaven. That's not going to work. You'll be there. That's right. But there will be differences because you failed to utilize the assets that God gave you. 

Colossian 3:23-5 states the same kind of principle. 

^NKJ Colossians 3:23 And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,

See, the command is addressed to our volition. It's based on knowledge of something – because you know. Most your English translations will translate that as a participle – just knowing. But it is a causal adverbial participle there. 

^NKJ Colossians 3:24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance;

See it's a reward. A reward is given for what you do. A gift is given that is unrelated to what you do. Salvation is a gift, but inheritance is a reward.

for you serve the Lord Christ.

^NKJ Colossians 3:25 But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality.

There's that word adikeo. I picked up the last part of Dan's slides, and he didn't have the English in here. That word adikeo is a key word for understanding 1 Corinthians 6. We'll go back and review that in just a minute. Remember it's those who practice…

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 6:9 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,

The noun unrighteous is adike. The verb form is adikeo. So it's important. That's a key word for understanding 1 Corinthians 6. So the one who is doing wrong is the same as the unrighteous. It's an unrighteous believer. As he explained last week, that is an adjective over there in 1 Corinthians 6 whereas here we have the verb form. 

^NKJ Colossians 3:25 But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality.

See there will be consequences at the Judgment Seat of Christ for sin in the life of the believer. Now this really helps us understand something that has plagued Christianity ever since the beginning, probably from the Day of Pentecost. Christians haven't known what to do with sin after they're saved. We get this idealism that comes in that somehow if you were really regenerated, you wouldn't act like that. And we've all run into people like that. We've maybe even said stuff like that: "How in the world can that person be a Christian? Look at what they've done." 

What's implicit in that kind of a statement is the idea that somehow if we're born again or regenerated that does something to limit the production of the sin nature so Christians just can't do certain things after salvation that unbelievers do. But that's just not true. The Scripture is filled with examples of that. We looked at David and his adultery and murder. We go to Saul and all of his deceptiveness. We looked at his attempts to murder David. We looked at Abraham and the way he lied and many of the other sins committed in Abraham's life. We see that believers throughout the ages are presented in Scripture warts and all. We still sin. So there has been this problem. The solution has been, as we'll see in a minute, is we either say that somebody is not really saved (because if they were, they wouldn't act like that) or they lost their salvation. The third option is the one we hold to and that is you can still act like an unbeliever; but if you do there are consequences both in time (God will discipline you.) or in eternity there will be a loss of rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ. 

Now Paul uses inheritance in 5 different passages in the New Testament. Three of these refer to salvation. In Galatians 3:18 and Ephesians 1:14, 18 where he talks about the Holy Spirit being given to us as a pledge or seal of our salvation. Then two of these refer to rewards. These are 5 other passages than the Corinthian one - Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:24 where it's based on the actions of the individual. 

Now when we get to the concept of inheriting the kingdom. Notice that we haven't found any where in any of these descriptions of the verb that has definition to enter. Nowhere does inheriting mean to enter. It means possession. It means to acquire. It means to own, but it doesn't mean to enter or to receive. 

The phrase inheriting the kingdom is used 4 times in the New Testament and we'll look at these – Galatians 5: 16-21, I Corinthians 15:50 and I Corinthians 6:9-11 where it's used twice.

In I Corinthians 15:35, 50 we read:

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:35 But someone will say, "How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?"

The answer is given in verse 50.

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption.

In this passage it's talking about the fact that mortal life (mortal bodies) cannot have ownership in the kingdom of God. So there has to be a resurrection body before there's going to be that inheritance of the kingdom. 

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, the adjective adikos refers to unrighteous believers. Now I've got some slides I'm going to go to in a minute that are mine that are going to make this a little more clear in terms of our review. But this is really important to understand. This is an adjective. 

Now an adjective does what? It describes the quality of a noun. Actually originally adjectives were nouns. Sometimes these get misidentified as nouns and they have the same ending. The Greeks originated our categories for understanding grammar by the way. Their definition was an adjective was a noun that described the quality of another noun. So when we look at this passage in 1 Corinthians 6:1 where Paul writes:

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 6:1 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?

That's an adjective again. The unrighteous what? Unrighteous judges, unrighteous leaders of the community, unrighteous believers, unrighteous unbelievers? What are they? It just says unrighteous. It doesn't give a noun that it modifies. There it becomes obvious that the unrighteous are unbelievers because of what is stated down in verse 6. 

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 6:6 But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers!

There you use the term apistoi, which is the word that Paul always uses for unbelievers. So unrighteous is not a term that necessarily means unbelievers. 

Then when you get down in verse 9:

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 6:9 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,

The unrighteous what? There you also have a problem with the article. I'll get to that in a minute. So to inherit one must be an heir. That means there has to be sonship there, adoption. Inheritance is a possession received as a share or an allotment. 

Last, to inherit means to receive a portion or allotment. It's just summarizing what said so far. We also know:

1. That inheritance can refer to salvation, but when it does the context addresses the actions of God. 
2. When inheritance refers to the rewards of the believers in the kingdom, the context addresses the action or the conduct of believers. 

Now the problem that we run into in all these passages is simply the problem of post-salvation sin. 

People handle this passage by saying, "Well, he's talking about unbelievers here who aren't saved." Actually what is here is that these would describe people who thought they were believers; but it's obvious because they continue in these sins that they're not really saved. So it's not that they loose salvation; they just never had it. 

Then the second position that's taken is the Arminian position, the position that you can loose your salvation if you commit certain sins. To me the basic logic problem with that is that this is saying that God's grace is not big enough to handle certain sins or that God didn't know that your were going to commit certain sins so Christ wasn't judged for them. Somehow He didn't pay it all on the cross; He only paid some of it. There are a number of passages that we can go to on eternal security, but we can do that another time. 

The third position is that of believers loosing rewards in eternity. Then there are some people that come along and try to say that this passage is written to believers about unbelievers, but that really doesn't work.

Now I'm going to skip ahead here to get into the passage directly. "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?" We have to identify the unrighteous before we can understand the concept of inheriting the kingdom. So who are the unrighteous? That's the first question. The second question is going to be "to inherit the kingdom." 

Now we have to remember the Paul is writing to the Corinthians. There's a map showing you where Corinth was located – right there on the Isthmus of Corinth going from the Peloponnese to Achaia in Greece. This was a major seaport city so it had all of the detritus from the Greek and Roman Empires ending up there.  It was a place of retirement for soldiers. You could find almost every kind of perverted fertility religion in the neighborhood: for example, just north in Delphi across the peninsula and much other behavior. So the people who were saved there came out of a pretty rank, immoral context where the virtues of the Christian life were not embedded within the culture at all. There's a picture taken from Corinth looking north, across the isthmus over toward Achaia. You can see these mountain over here. This is where the Oracle of Delphi was located. 

Even within the epistle we see that the Corinthians were divisive; they were fractious – 1 Corinthians 1. They are totally enthralled by Greek pagan philosophers rather than the wisdom of the Word of God. Paul talks to them as carnal. They are filled with jealousy and strife – 1 Corinthians 3. They were filled with their own self-importance in chapter 4. He accused them of boasting in chapter 1, chapter 3, and chapter 4. They are arrogant in chapter 3, chapter 4. They are licentious and morally permissive. They are sexually immoral - chapter 7. They are gluttonous drunkards in chapter 11. They are self-absorbed and pagan in view of the spiritual gifts in chapters 12 through 14. This is a lovely lot of people. Okay? This is the poster church for doing everything wrong. 

We have to understand that because when Paul talks to them about this kind of behavior, it's there in the church. That's what he's talking to them about. He's going to tell them that if they continue, then they're going to forfeit their inheritance. So the concept of adikos as we'll see doesn't mean unsaved which is what some people want it to mean. It simply means unrighteousness, not behaving according to the righteous standard of God.

Now we looked at this word. This is critical to understand the passage. Dan did a great job with this last week. 

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 6:1 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?

The article is there in the Greek. Now that's an important point to understand because when you get to verse 9 we read:

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 6:9 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,

Notice how I italicized the "the" – because the article's not there in the original. Now in Greek the article doesn't function like an English article does. When you take out the article, it doesn't mean the noun's not definite. But it means you are emphasizing the quality of the noun. So what we're emphasizing here is quality and behavior. 

When you look at verse 9 in context, what Paul is saying is, "Do you not know that unrighteous something will not inherit the kingdom of God?" Unrighteous behavior, unrighteous acts – something like that is what he is talking about, not unsaved people, but people who continue in unrighteous deeds. 

You have to interpret verse 9 in light of its preceding verse where Paul says: 

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 6:8 No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat,

This is the verb form adikeo, which is the cognate to the adjective unrighteous, adikos.

and you do these things to your brethren!

So, that's showing that Paul is accusing them all of doing this. That's a plural "you" there. Now that's another thing that's important here. He's talking to the congregation as a whole. When he does, he uses that plural. 

Now Jody Dillow in his work The Reign of the Servant Kings (which is one of the best thorough studies on inheritance) writes concerning this:

The phrase in verse 9 is not the same as the term "the wicked" in verse 1. In verse 1 the adjective has the article and it is definite, referring to a class. But in verse 9, it's without the article. The articular construction emphasizes identity that the anarthrous construction emphasizes character.

…which is what I've just said. I'm just putting this up here because every now and then someone says, "Well, are you just making this up?" No, I'm not the only one out there teaching this. 

Because the same word is used twice (he says) once with the article and once without it, it may be justifiable to press for this standard grammatical distinction here.  If so, then the adikos of verse 9 are not the wicked or the unsaved or wicked unbelievers of verse 1.  They are not of the definite class of people who are non-Christians. Rather as to their behavior traits; they are behaving in an unrighteous manner or character. 

In other words the use of the wicked in verse 1 signifies being; but the use of wicked in verse 9 (unrighteous) signifies not being, but doing. And that was their problem.

Christians who are who are born into the family of God can still be disobedient children. If you're disobedient children, it's going to have an impact and a consequence on inheritance. 

So what Paul is saying is (to give a corrected translation):

Do you not know that unrighteous behavior will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't be deceived, neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexuals…

That's like the big 4 overt sins.

  Nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous.

Now you get down to thieves and a lot of people sit rather smugly in church thinking, "Well I'm not doing any of those." 

But covetous is a different matter. Remember it was that Tenth Commandment (Thou shalt not covet) that is what really convicted the Apostle Paul. Here he was trying so hard to keep al the Mosaic Law and in Romans 7 he describes the fact that when he came to the particular Tenth Commandment (Thou shall not covet.), he realized he could not stop coveting on his own. It was impossible. This mental attitude sin of wanting that which is not ours, wanting something that's not our right to have is just something that runs through every single one of us. He knew at that point that he could never completely fulfill the Mosaic Law.

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 6:10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

Then verse 11:

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 6:11 And such were some of you.

Now I like this passage because this is a fun verse to deal with. Most people mistranslate this. The way you've been taught to read this verse is wrong. So when I get into this you might have to turn your head sideways to reorient your thinking just a little bit. 

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.

Now the way most people read verse 11 is they say, "Paul is saying to this group of Corinthians, 'Such were some of you.'" What he's saying is: Some of you were good people, but some of you were pretty perverse in behavior. So some of you were perverse in your behavior, but some of you were fairly moral. But remember what he said about all these Corinthians? What he said about all these Corinthians is they're all perverted and immoral and arrogant and boastful and carnal. He's not saying that some of them are bad and the rest of them are really good. He's saying, "No, they were all carnal."

Now he says:

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 6:11 And such were some of you.

Past tense on the verb. 

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.

Now it's important to look at this phrase "some of you." Now you don't see this in the English, but that "you" is a plural. Paul was from south Turkey down there in Tarsus so he liked to use y'all. He's talking to you all: such were some of you all. So "you all" includes the whole congregation all the way through 1 Corinthians. From chapter 1 up through this point he talks to the congregation with a plural pronoun. 

He says, "You all are the temple of God." 

That's not saying that the congregation as a whole is a temple. He's talking about individuals, but he addressing every individual within the corporate body. So the "you all" always refers to all the individuals within the corporate body. But then he says there are some. "Some of you" describes a subset. Some of you were like this – past tense. The rest of you still are. Isn't that what he said in verse 8? No.

^NKJ 1 Corinthians 6:8 No, you yourselves do wrong

…present tense

and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren!

… present tense. See, what he's saying is some of you were perverted, the rest of you still are perverted. He not saying, "Some of you were good, and some of you were bad. Most you were pretty moral." 

He's saying, "No, you are all immoral or you are all perverse. But some of you have grown spiritually out of that. But most of you are still acting just like you did when you were an unbeliever." 

Now the way most people look at this is that "you all" are the unbelievers and some simply refers to believers. But what I'm saying is the "you all" are the believers and the some are the spiritually growing believers. 

So we can translate it this way. 

Such were some of you all, but you all were washed. 

See some of you got passed it, and you're beginning to grow spiritually. The rest of you are a bunch of perverted arrogant carnal Christians. But all of you were washed, positional cleansing at phase 1 salvation. All of you were sanctified: positional sanctification – phase 1. You all were justified. He's addressing the whole congregation as a congregation of believers. They're all saved; they're all justified; but only some of them are living differently than they did before they were saved.

So in summary, the adikos in verse 9 doesn't refer to an unbeliever. Unrighteous doesn't mean unbeliever. It's an adjective referring to behavior. It's linked to wrong doing in verse 8. The context is addressing believers all the way through. Since only believers are heirs of God verses 9 through 10 the inheritance is based on human action. In other words after you're saved, you have a decision to make. Are you going to pursue spiritual growth and maturity so that you can have a reward at the Judgment Seat of Christ and be the kind of person the Lord saved you to be, so that you can rule and reign with Him in the coming kingdom? That provides our motivation. 

Now this isn't the only place that we have this kind of teaching in the New Testament. We have places such as Titus 3:7. 

^NKJ Titus 3:7 that having been justified

What kind of a tense is that? That's past tense – phase 1 salvation.

by His grace we should become

Process!

heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

So "heirs according to the hope of eternal life" means that we have eternal life; but we are heirs in accordance with that confident expectation of a future life. To put it in the phrase I use all the time – living today in the light of eternity so that's potential there. The subjunctive voice there indicates potentiality. That potential is going to be activated only by your volition.

^NKJ Galatians 3:18 For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise.

A passage I used earlier: 

^NKJ Ephesians 5:5 For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

^NKJ Colossians 3:23 And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,

^NKJ Colossians 3:24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.

Then verse 25:

^NKJ Colossians 3:25 But he who does wrong

Adikeo - there's that same terminology again that we have back in 1 Corinthians 6.

The wrongdoer, the one who lives unrighteously…

will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality.

This isn't Lake of Fire. This is loss of rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ. 

What is the solution? The solution is to walk by means of the Spirit. Walk by means of the Spirit Paul says in Galatians 5:16: 

^NKJ Galatians 5:16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill

Or bring to completion

the lust of the flesh.

These are mutually exclusive ways of living – either by means of the Spirit or by means of the sin nature. The way this is expressed in the Greek, the "you shall not fulfill" is the strongest way to make a negative statement. What Paul is saying is it's impossible when you're walking by the Spirit to fulfill the lusts of the flesh. If you were hindered in some way where you couldn't walk on your own, you had to use a walker or a cane. As long as you're walking with a cane, walking by the walker, you wouldn't fall down. But if you stop depending, focusing on that walker or that cane, what's going to happen? You're going to fall down as a result of that. The sin comes after you take your focus off of Christ. 

Peter could walk on the water as long as he focused on Christ. But when he took his eyes off of Christ, when he quit walking by means of focusing on Christ, what happened? The result was he began to sink. That's the idea. The default position for everyone of us is the sin nature. If we quit conscientiously focusing on Christ, then the sin nature takes over. 

Now the results of that are obvious in verses 19 and 20. 

^NKJ Galatians 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,

^NKJ Galatians 5:20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,

Have you seen a list like that before?  Same thing we had in Ephesians 5, same thing we had in 1 Corinthians 6.

^NKJ Galatians 5:21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who

What?

practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

It doesn't say they're not saved. It says that if you practice these things (prasso) – it's not just if you do them: if you lied, if you got angry, if you went out and had an incident where you got drunk, or you were jealous or lost your temper. It's not talking about individual actions. It's talking about if you've never as a believer focusing on growing and applying doctrine in your areas of weakness and your sin nature and you continue to practice and justify that sin and not deal with it; then you will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Now we have another place in the New Testament where we have a very similar list. This is over in Revelation 21:8.

^NKJ Revelation 21:8 "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

Now the way most people read that verse is to say, "Well, this is a listing of adjectives (adverbs, adjectives) describing unbelievers and unbelievers will have their role, their destiny in the lake that burns with fire which is the second death." 

That's how that's read. That's not what it's saying. That's not what that means. It's the same list we've been looking at already, isn't it? So it's saying that those who practice these things. To look at the context you have to go back to verse 6.

^NKJ Revelation 20:6 Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power,

Now what's the second death? The second death is eternity in the Lake of Fire. 

but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

Who are they? Those who have a part in the first resurrection. Now we have to figure out what the word "part" means,

It's talking about ruling and reigning as priest-kings with the Lord Jesus Christ in the Millennial Kingdom. 

Well, what does that word "part" mean? See we think of that word part like getting a part in a play, getting a part in some sort of production, having a role.  But that's not what this Greek word means. The Greek word is meros. Meros is a technical term for a share or portion of an inheritance. It was used in a will to show that share or portion that went to the heir. So when the prodigal son wants to get his inheritance and take off and spend it on whatever he wanted to spend it on, he came to his father and said, "Give me my meros. Give me my portion. Give me my inheritance. Give me my share of inheritance." 

So what Revelation 20:6 says if we retranslate it:

Blessed and holy is he who has an inheritance in the first resurrection.

When do you get that?  Judgment Seat of Christ

Over such

That is over those who have an inheritance,

The second death has no power. 

Wait a minute! If we're believers, what kind of power can the Lake of Fire have over us anyway? Am I still threatened by the Lake of Fire? No. You have to pay very close attention here. 

The second death is not something someone (an heir) should worry about.

  But they

That is the heirs.

  Shall be priests of God shall reign with Him a thousand years.

So what are we talking about in verse 6? I didn't put the slide in here for verse 7, so I'm going to turn there and read it to you because it sets the context. It is  very important to make sure we have the context. 

^NKJ Revelation 20:6 Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

Then when you go to 21 we read:

^NKJ Revelation 21:8 "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

But if you look at 21:7, 21:7 says:

^NKJ Revelation 21:7 "He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son

If you notice in your English Bible there is probably a period at the end of verse 7. Verse 7 and verse 8 are one sentence in the Greek.

^NKJ Revelation 21:8 "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

What we see is those who are not overcomers (the cowardly, unbelieving, etc.) Their inheritance goes to the Lake of Fire. That's what those two verses are saying. 

So verse 7 makes it clear we're talking about inheritance here. We're not talking about salvation. Verse 7 says: 

^NKJ Revelation 21:7 "He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son

^NKJ Revelation 21:8 "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part

…their inheritance. Think of that word part. It's not their role. It's not their destiny. It's their inheritance, that which God would have given them at the Judgment Seat of Christ is not going to be given to them; but it's just sitting there. So what's God going to do? Well, God is going to flush it into the cosmic furnace and destroy it according to this verse. Their part, their inheritance, their share of the inheritance is…

in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

That's how the Lake of Fire can have power over a failed believer's life because that's where his inheritance will end up. He won't end up there, but his inheritance will end up there. He sacrifices it forever because of living today on the basis of temporal pleasure rather than living in light of eternity. Revelation 20:8 talks about the loss of that inheritance portion. It goes to the Lake of Fire, which is the second death. 

So the inheritance is lost. But the promise that we have in Revelation 21:4: 

^NKJ Revelation 21:4 "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."

There will be shame at the Judgment Seat of Christ for those who lose rewards, but they will get passed that and be in the kingdom but not have ownership in the kingdom.

Now, what else does the Bible say about this thing called inheritance, this meros? We'll have to come back to that next time because that is very important.  We'll get into a very crucial passage that is also misunderstood and then we'll kind of wrap this up and then apply it to what the writer of Hebrews is saying in Hebrews 9.

Let's bow our heads in closing prayer.

Illustrations