MZTV 1283: The Allotment of the Kingdom CANNOT Be General Salvation

Paul is telling the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 6 that there is a way for them to miss out on "the allotment of God's kingdom." Some of us simply refuse to believe that a believer could miss out on ANYTHING, and so the hypothesis is forwarded that the career sinners listed in verses 9-10 can't be members of the body of Christ; these must be unbelievers. While it's true that unbelievers would ALSO miss out on this allotment, Paul is most definitely not talking about unbelievers in this passage, for he writes in the previous chapter:

"I write to you in the epistle not to be commingling with paramours.
And undoubtedly it is not as to the paramours of this world, or the greedy and extortionate, or idolaters, else, consequently, you ought to come out of the world. Yet now I write to you not to be commingling with anyone named a brother, if he should be a paramour, or greedy, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. With such a one you are not even to be eating (1 Corinthians 5:9-11)

The second theory forwarded then is that, well, since Paul is talking about believers, "the allotment of God's kingdom" must be general membership in the body of Christ since every believer DOES have that. If Paul is talking about believers (so the theory goes), then these sins do not describe the Corinthians as they ARE, but rather as they WERE.

The problem with THIS is that, if these sins are describing the Corinthians as they WERE, and if this allotment is general membership in the body of Christ, we must conclude that no one engaged in these sins can enjoy general membership in the body of Christ. We know THAT is not true because, again, of verse 11, where Paul assures the Corinthians that, indeed, those among them engaged in these sins were, WHILE THEY WERE SINNING, justified. Besides, we know that Christ justifies sinners, not saints.

The unavoidable conclusion is that Paul is warning BELIEVERS who are CURRENTLY (still) engaged in these sins even after being justified, that they will miss out on something ABOVE AND BEYOND general salvation. We know now that this allotment MUST be above and beyond general salvation because, again, these sins keep no one from regular salvation seeing that—I'm happy to repeat it—Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15).

The hard thing for people to swallow is that justified people still sin (it is true; we are RECKONED righteous by God but not yet CONSTITUTED righteous) and that even justified members of the Christ's body can miss out on something. And yet this truth is corroborated in 2 Timothy 2:12, where Paul writes, "If we are enduring, we shall be reigning together also." The "we" assures us that it is members of the body of Christ in view here, and the "if" assures us that even justified body of Christ members can miss out on reigning if they are not enduring.

I didn't write this stuff. Paul did. I'm just explaining it and, along with you, struggling to deal with it.

So what is it that members of Christ's body CAN miss out on by being engaged in gross misconduct AS A VOCATION? More on THAT question next week.

MP3: http://martinzender.com/MZTV/MZTV1283_The_Allotment_of_the_Kingdom_CANNOT_Be_General_Salvation.mp3

Martin's homepage: https://www.martinzender.com