1 Corinthians 6:10,11

1 Corinthians 6:10. nor thieves, etc.

1 Corinthians 6:11. And such were some of you. Not all but only “some” of his converts are thus spoken of; and when he says of them that “such” they were, he simply means to describe morally the sink of vice “he horrible pit, the miry clay” out of which they had been raised through the Gospel.

but ye were washed, [1] ye were sanctified, ye were justified. These are not to be viewed as three distinct things experienced by the Corinthians; for then “sanctification” would naturally have been placed after “justification” (as in chap. 1 Corinthians 1:30), not before it; and besides there is no real distinction between being “washed” and being “justified.” For though some take “washing” to represent the whole change wrought in conversion, and “sanctifying” and “justifying” to mean two subdivisions of it, this seems very artificial; and it is far best to take the whole as simply a varied expression trebly emphasized of the same great change. And the triumphant “but,” with which each clause starts, confirms this, as if exulting in the wondrous change from the lowest to the highest moral state, expressed in the first clause he had been borne along to reiterate it in a second, and yet again in a third: ‘Yes, time was when ye lay in all that is foul, but now ye have got “washed;” deeply stained was your whole nature then, but now ye are “sanctified;” and then ye stood before a righteous God all condemned, but now ye are “justified.” The rest of the verse almost fixes this as the true sense of the statement in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ [2] that is, by virtue of His saving work, as the Divine Channel, and in (or ‘by') the Spirit of our God as the Divine Agent of all that flows from the Infinite Fountain of purity into the soul. But not so much to awaken their gratitude are the Corinthians reminded of this here; it is rather to warn them of the danger in which they stood of returning like the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. True, indeed, it is that the deepest and most inveterate depravity, provided only it be radically cured, will exclude none from the kingdom of heaven; but it is no less true that none shall inherit the kingdom of God under the final mastery of any one sin.

[1] Not “ye washed them off, ” as some excellent critics having respect to the middle voice here used would translate. For though “ye had yourselves washed” would convey the strict sense, the real meaning of this statement is, ‘Ye got washed;' and thus rendered, it best harmonizes with the strictly passiv e sense of the two next verbs.

[2] So the true text would seem to read.