The Daily Word of Righteousness

Holiness Unto the Lord, #11

It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. (I Corinthians 5:1)

The teachers of today, in order to prove that God does not see the sins Christians commit, will claim the man never was a Christian or he would not have done such a thing. Incorrect on two counts. First, the context of First and Second Corinthians establishes the fact that the man was a member of the assembly, considered to be a brother in the Lord. Second, numerous Christians commit moral sins. This does not signify they never have accepted the Lord, only that they are bound in sin.

But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. (I Corinthians 5:11)

These words are addressed to Christians.

Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. (I Corinthians 6:15)

These words are addressed to Christian people.

Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. (I Corinthians 10:12)

These words are addressed to Christians.

We could go on and on, keeping well within the unforced interpretation of the exhortations of the Apostles of the early Church.

The following is the manner in which God responds to sin in the Christian:

But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. (I Corinthians 11:32)

God indeed does bring the Christian to strict account for all of his motives, thoughts, words, and deeds. If the Christian is living in the Spirit he will judge himself (I Corinthians 11:13).

The Holy Spirit will lead the Christian in a successful program of putting to death the deeds of his body (Romans 8:13,14). The Christian will be baptized with fire from time to time in order to make him "fireproof" in preparation for the coming of the Lord Jesus in the blazing fire of Divine wrath.

The Christian is made "fireproof" by having all the sin of his personality burned out of him in advance. When the fireproofing has been completed, the Christian will be ready to stand and minister before God in that Day (Isaiah 33:14). This is one way in which we are "delivered from the wrath to come."

And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. (I Thessalonians 1:10)

To be continued.