CRITICAL NOTES
Two SECTIONS; Two TOPICS.— 1 Corinthians 6:1-20
1 Corinthians 6:1-8.—Canon Evans (Speaker’s Commentary) thus exhibits the verbal connection: “Deigneth any one of you (you emphatic), having a matter anent the other (party), to seek for judgment before the wrong-doers and not before the saints? (Are ye so besotted), or do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if in your presence the world is to be judged, unmeet are ye to hold judge-courts of the lowest sort? Do ye not know that angels we shall judge—angels! Speak not of secular things! Nay, rather (that I may unmask your folly by a reductio ad absurdum), if secular judge-courts ye should perchance hold (a measure how unworthy of your kingly calling and of your future judicial status!), take men of utterly no account in the Church and set them on the bench! (Them, I say, for such nonentities are equal to the settlement of such trivialities.) To put you to shame I speak it (this last sentence serious, not satirical). So! is there not among you (wise men as you flaunt yourselves) not even one wise man who shall be competent to arbitrate (give’a decision) on the part of his brother? But brother with brother goes to law (which is a breach of charity) and sues for judgment at the bar of unbelievers (which is preposterous). Nay, verily (let alone the absurd length of appealing to heathen men), it is so far quite a defeat to you that you have cause for legal judgments between yourselves.… Why do ye not rather take wrong (than allow or give cause for this ratio ultima of legal judgment)? Why not submit to being defrauded? Nay, but (the very reverse, so far from taking wrong dealt) you deal wrong yourselves, and (what makes it worse) deal wrong to brethren! (Is this possible?) or do ye (with all your boasted knowledge) not know that wrong-doers (of any sort) shall not inherit God’s kingdom?” To this may be added:—
1 Corinthians 6:1. Dare.—Q.d. “What is this that I hear of you? Is it really possible?” Bengel: “Grandi verbo notatur læsa majestas Christianorum.” Connect with the “judging” at end of chap. 5: “I do not yet, as a Christian, judge the world; I shall do some day, and even judge angels. I understand a Christian, and can judge him (1 Corinthians 6:12); I do not yet always understand the man of the world; God does, and shall judge him.” Unjust.—Not necessarily meaning doing injustice on the bench. (Cf. the fair character of Gallio.) Perhaps not more than unrighteous, as opposed to “saints” (in a half-technical sense, like “sinners of the Gentiles,” Galatians 2:15).
1 Corinthians 6:2.—Observe the estimate of secular things: “the smallest matters.” Cf. “that which is least” (Luke 16:10, expounded by 1 Corinthians 6:8; 1 Corinthians 6:11) = worldly wealth and honour, in many cases. By you.—Lit. in you; as, “in that Man” (Acts 17:31).
1 Corinthians 6:3. (Evil) angels.—No hint that the good need to submit to a “judgment.” (See Jude 1:6-8; also the saints glorifying God’s judgments, Revelation 19:3.)
1 Corinthians 6:4.—Choose between (a) “set” (imperative) and (b) “ye set” (indicative). Also between two meanings of “them … least esteemed in the Church”; (c) “the ‘nobodies’ of your membership”; or (d) “the secular judges, who, being secular, men of the world, are, in the eyes of the members of the Church, and in comparison with themselves, of no account.” (d) Highly improbable. Adopt (a) and (c); half-ironical counsel.
1 Corinthians 6:5.—As usual meaning “to your shaming,” “that I may arouse your sense of shame.”
1 Corinthians 6:7. Fault.—A falling away from the ideal of the dignity of being Christians, and from the ideal of brotherly love, essential to the character.
HOMILETIC ANALYSIS.— 1 Corinthians 6:1-8
The Christian and Litigation.
I. Some limitations to an absolute prohibition of Christian appeal to secular courts to be noted.—
1. The State and the Law were not then Christian, but heathen. Case of Corinthian Church not to be compared with condition of things where government, legislation, justice, are affected by, or based on, great principles of Christianity. The parallel case is rather that of two Christians at issue, of whom one, or both, is inclined to drag the matter before a mocking Mahometan kadi, or before an idolatrous, perhaps persecuting, Hindoo prince. In Christendom, at its lowest worth, the “secular” court is, in a sense, an outer Court of the Church, or at least an annexe. Persecuted English Nonconformists have appealed to English judges, often Christian men.
2. The matter in dispute is supposed to be one wholly between Christian parties. “A family business;” the family’s “dirty linen, to be washed at home.” Paul himself carried the case, between him and the Sanhedrin, before the court of the Emperor Nero. “I ought to be judged … at Cæsar’s judgment seat,” viz. before Festus, Cæsar’s representative (Acts 25:10). The wrong suffered by a Christian at the hands of a non-Christian may not be merely a personal hardship, beginning and ending with the man and the particular case. [In this latter case the Christian had better suffer, especially if the wrong be put upon him because he is a Christian. 1 Peter 4:19 then applies: “Commit … unto a faithful Creator.” “The Lord is at hand.” Also Matthew 5:38-45: “Resist not evil.” “Turn other cheek.” “Let … have cloke also.”] But Christians may happen to represent society. Vindication of his own purely civil right may be needful for sake of social order. [This rule is to be very reluctantly applied, with earnest prayer and great watchfulness over his spirit, lest self, or anger, or pride, or revenge, insinuate themselves into the public spirit of his appeal to law. Matthew 5:44 very earnestly then to be remembered: “Love … enemies. Pray for them that despitefully use you.”]
3. Matthew 5:34-37 (“Swear not at all.… Your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay”) applies to an ideal society within an ideal kingdom of God. In practice, in the real, complex, actual social order, Christ (silent before, Matthew 26:63) and Paul (2 Corinthians 1:23) did speak upon a confirmatory oath. One general rule explains and justifies: “Whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil”; Christians have to do with fallen men and an evil world. In dealing with these, abatement from the ideal is forced upon them in use of litigation in secular courts. But, within the Church, keep to the ideal. So here, in this section.
II. Between Christian and Christian, and in “biotics” merely (1 Corinthians 6:4), litigation before secular tribunals is to be discouraged [unless as last resort].
1. It is an insult to the dignity of the Church and its Lord. “Dare you?”—The thing is treasonable [as when, in the Middle Ages, English law forbade causes to be taken from the King’s courts to that of the Pope]. What jurisdiction have the “unjust” and their courts within the kingdom of Christ? And shall it be a Christian who seeks to introduce the foreign jurisdiction? Does Christ’s law need confirming or superseding, that you appeal to secular? He has given directions for procedure (Matthew 18:15-20). First, “thee and him alone.” That failing, a court of first instance; “two or three witnesses.” That failing, the supreme court, the Full “Church,” presided over by the Lord Himself: “there am I in the midst.” They “agree to ask” His guidance; their decisions—“binding” or “loosing”—are His, “bound” or “loosed” “in heaven.”
2. It is unworthy of your own dignity who are resorting to the secular judge.—You seek, and bow to, his decisions, who shall one day stand before you and have to bow to your judgment? [An obscure topic as yet. See Beet’s note appended.
(1) Generally it is the last link of a series of identifications of the saints with their Lord. They “shall be glorified together” (Romans 8:17). Crucified, buried, risen, ascended, hid (as He is) in God, enthroned already with Him (Colossians 3:3; Ephesians 2:6), in like manner they are to be brought forth with Him (1 Thessalonians 4:14), and to be assessors with Him in judgment.
(2) Further, as impossible yet to draw up a coherent, consistent programme of the sub-final Age preceding the Parousia and the General Judgment (and even to adjust all the relations between these two last), as it would have been in Old Testament days to draw up a programme of the First Advent of Christ. Yet collate, tentatively (Daniel 7:22-27), “Judgment was given to the saints”; Matthew 19:28 (Luke 22:30), “Ye shall sit … judging the twelve tribes.” In Matthew 25 the faithful servant is made “ruler”; in Luke 19:12 sqq. (Pounds, not Talents) the faithful servant has “authority over … cities.” Revelation 21:24-26 distinguishes between the nations and their kings (outside) and the New Jerusalem and its citizens (within). Also in Matthew 25 it is expressly “all the nations” that are arrayed before the Son of Man, and even those set on the right hand are distinguished from “these” to whom their good offices have been rendered. Are “these” the assessor-saints sitting in judgment with their Lord?] Whatever may be behind all these mysterious intimations, this is clear: The little Church in Gorinth is invested with a dignity elevating it above all earthly greatness. As seen from heaven, the little nuclei here and there in the Roman world, of artisans, slaves, Jews, “not many noble,” etc., are the distinguished factors in human society. Heaven’s eye singles out the Churches as the all-important facts of earth. The Christian man is to disdain outside help and vindication. What can he want higher, better, more authoritative, than a Church tribunal? Moreover, why should he, a peer of the kingdom, submit himself to the nobody, the commoner, outside its pale and honour—perhaps its enemy? Cannot a Christian trust the competency, or at least the brotherly fairness or love, of his brethren? Do not say you cannot have a Church court; nobody to constitute one. [Extreme case on record: an Independent Church died down to three members; two of them, women, expelled for drunkenness, the third, a man.] Brother and brother should submit to brethren. Not secular litigation, but Church arbitration, the first, the favourite, method whenever possible. Respect the brethren, respect yourselves, ye judges of angels! [“All that statesmen, as such, have to do with religion is to be themselves under its power; all that Christians, as such, have to do with the State is to be good citizens” (Dr. Brown, Horœ Subs., Second Series, p. 52).]
3. It is to degrade the Church and the brother in the eyes of the world. “Before the unbelievers!”—Bad enough that brother sues brother at all. Even the world has its proverb, “Dog does not eat dog” (cf. Galatians 5:15). It is a sad “come down” (1 Corinthians 6:6) from what your spirit ought to be. But it is a sadder, deeper descent when the brotherhood, showing its worst side, is dragged into the eye of an unfriendly, cold world; when passions which ought not to be known within the Body are obtruded upon the notice of the world,—selfishness defending itself against, or overreaching, selfishness; jealousy, covetousness, partisan feeling, a too eager grasp at the things of a temporal world, and the like. Have no such feelings at all; but if ye do have cases arising (1 Corinthians 6:4), at least, for shame, keep them from the men of the world.
4. It is an exaggeration of the importance of the matters at issue.—Mere “things pertaining to this life,” “the smallest matters,” are they worth dividing the brotherhood over, and, much more, of dishonouring it before the outside world? If you will have the matter out, I had almost said, find some poor, humble, simple members, and let them judge; they are good enough judges for such business! But there is a better thing still: do not insist on “having it out”! Let it go. [This the meaning of Philippians 4:5: “Your moderation.” “Do not stand too stiffly upon your rights. Yield something of what, in the abstract, is really your due. If there cannot be ‘give and take,’ better that you do all the ‘giving,’ than hurt, by an insistence which may become obstinacy, and may lead to estrangement, strife, and division, the peace of the Church.”] Take wrong; be defrauded. The Lord will see your interests safe. “The meek shall inherit the earth.” Why, you are the wrong-doers, the defrauders—brethren!
APPENDED NOTES
1 Corinthians 6:2.—“… In the great Day the saints will intelligently and cordially approve and endorse the sentence pronounced by Christ on the millions of earth. Possibly this approval may be a divinely appointed and essential condition, without which sentence would not be pronounced. For it may enter into God’s plan that sentence be pronounced not only by Man upon men, but by men, themselves redeemed from their own sins, upon those who have chosen death rather than life.… It may be that final sentence cannot, according to the principles of the Divine Government of the Universe, be pronounced upon the lost without the concurrence of the saved, i.e. without a revelation of the justice of the sentence so clear as to secure the full approbation of the saved. If so, the concurrence of the saved is an essential element in the final judgment; and they may truly be said to judge both men and angels. That the sentence which the saints will pronounce is put into their lips by Christ does not make their part in the judgment less real; for even the Son says (John 5:30), ‘I cannot of Myself do anything; as I hear I judge.’ ” Also, further, on 1 Corinthians 6:3: “Thus man and men will pronounce sentence on those mighty powers which have seduced men, but from whose grasp the saints have been saved.… All this reveals a mysterious and wonderful connection (cf. Colossians 1:20) between the moral destiny of our race and that of other races.”—Beet, in loc.
APPENDED NOTES
1 Corinthians 6:2.—“… In the great Day the saints will intelligently and cordially approve and endorse the sentence pronounced by Christ on the millions of earth. Possibly this approval may be a divinely appointed and essential condition, without which sentence would not be pronounced. For it may enter into God’s plan that sentence be pronounced not only by Man upon men, but by men, themselves redeemed from their own sins, upon those who have chosen death rather than life.… It may be that final sentence cannot, according to the principles of the Divine Government of the Universe, be pronounced upon the lost without the concurrence of the saved, i.e. without a revelation of the justice of the sentence so clear as to secure the full approbation of the saved. If so, the concurrence of the saved is an essential element in the final judgment; and they may truly be said to judge both men and angels. That the sentence which the saints will pronounce is put into their lips by Christ does not make their part in the judgment less real; for even the Son says (John 5:30), ‘I cannot of Myself do anything; as I hear I judge.’ ” Also, further, on 1 Corinthians 6:3: “Thus man and men will pronounce sentence on those mighty powers which have seduced men, but from whose grasp the saints have been saved.… All this reveals a mysterious and wonderful connection (cf. Colossians 1:20) between the moral destiny of our race and that of other races.”—Beet, in loc.