1Corinthians 6:1-8 comments: church members taking each other to court

6:1 ¶  Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? 2  Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? 3  Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? 4  If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. 5  I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? 6  But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. 7  Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? 8  Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.

Paul moves his argument from ordering them to expel a church member engaged in open, egregious sin from the congregation to lambasting them for taking each other to court. What a mess this church is.

Paul’s doctrine here is that it is better for Christians to allow themselves to be wronged by other Christians than to take their matters of this world, obviously legal matters, before secular judges. The Christian held in the lowest regard in the church is more qualified than a secular judge to determine matters between brothers and sisters. He condemns those who rob their brothers and sisters as well as those victims who take a brother to court over it.

This is part of the problem of living in a country where the government on all levels was thought to be an extension of the church, of God’s kingdom. To believe in one’s nation as a divine institution with a Constitution inspired by God, a destiny according to His purpose, and a belief that a thing is right simply because we do it and we are so in with God causes this error. The common belief in the 1800s among evangelical Christians was that America was the Redeemer Nation, the Saviour of the world acting in Christ’s place without Him physically present as Lincoln said when he called America, “the last, best hope of earth.” As such Christians gave all kinds of authority to the government even as the Johns Hopkins professor and mentor of President Woodrow Wilson, Richard Ely, defined a, “divine right of the state.”

Many of you think that a court decision, a jury verdict, or even an executive order of a president, as long as he is from your preferred party, is a right thing, a just thing, and a good thing. It is not, though, if church members take a matter that should be decided in church before unbelievers who either don’t even believe in God or regard Him as totally irrelevant to affairs of everyday life or if we seek protections from government rather than from God. Part of your idolatry is that you have placed a supposedly democratically elected government in the place of God, making most Christians not much better off than an atheist.

Better to allow oneself to be wronged than to take a matter between church members to secular court. Let the church make the judgment. Matters between believers in a church body should not be taken before a secular court.

On a side note, look at the statement in verse 3;

Know ye not that we shall judge angels?

The angels of our presence, are our representatives spiritually where our flesh is not, until we are united with a newly created body that will live forever in eternity with God.

Isa 63:9a  In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them:

Even now, our angels are seated with Christ in heaven awaiting the fulfillment of God’s will for us.

Ephesians 2:6  And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

Hebrews 12:22  But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 23  To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,

We await the redemption of our bodies transformed into something different than what they are now.

Romans 8:23  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

We will be changed in an instant.

1Corinthians 15:52  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

1Thessalonians 4:16  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Our works will be judged for our true intentions and we will face Christ for what we have done or not done.

1Corinthians 3:13  Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

Romans 14:10  But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

2Corinthians 5:10  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

This must occur when Christ returns to rule physically from earth.

Revelation 20:5  But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. 6  Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

And then we have judgments to make.

2Peter 2:4  For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

Jude 1:6  And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

It would seem that our judging of angels is in relation to the judgment God makes at the end of history on all.

Revelation 20:11 ¶  And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. 12  And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. 13  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. 14  And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15  And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

But, there are many opinions on these events and I only ask you, if you disagree with me, that you disagree based on your own study of the Scriptures rather than just parroting what your favorite Bible teacher said.