Washed, Sanctified, Justified

Paul warns that the unrighteous will not inherit God's kingdom, then gives a list of patterns that contradict the kingdom's life: sexual immorality, idolatry, adultery, men who submit to or perform homosexual acts, theft, greed, drunkenness, verbal abuse, and swindling. He is not giving the church a weapon for ranking sinners. He is naming conduct that contradicts the holiness God gives and harms the community.

Paul says some of the Corinthians lived this way. The sentence is important because he does not describe sin as a category belonging only to “those people.” The church is made up of people who have been rescued from real patterns of harm and disorder, not people who have always been morally impressive.

The contrast is God’s work: they were washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. Washed speaks of cleansing, sanctified of being set apart for God, and justified of a new standing before Him. These gifts do not make ongoing repentance unnecessary; they make repentance possible without pretending that the old life is still the believer's identity.

The warning is therefore serious and hopeful at once. A church must not bless exploitation, violence, or deceit while calling that tolerance. It must also not tell a repentant person that their past is stronger than Christ's mercy. The gospel changes both the community's boundaries and the sinner's future.

Families can talk about behavior honestly while keeping grace in view. We are not saved by a clean record, but being saved gives us a new relationship to the record we are making now.