FORNICATION WITHIN THE CHURCH

  This is a tough subject on which to write because all Christians are guilty of some offense. It is just a matter whether the sinning continues or not. Sinning Christians get puffed up as if they had never sinned. Justification is NOT as if you have never sinned, but that Jesus the Just redeemed your imperfections. He "forgets" that; Christians must never!

  A friend of mine asked about the Christians in her church that "shacked up" and what was my "take" on that. Like Paul, my "take" is not what is important but God's Will.  I merely pointed out to her that paper marriage is not Holy Matrimony. The latter is a Covenant of three: the husband, wife, and God. "Marriage" on the other hand is an agreement between man, woman, and the government. 

  My point is that the marriage license is not what is important, but the Marriage Covenant with God. Marriage is fidelity to the governor, but Holy Matrimony fidelity to God. If both individuals in a marriage Covenant with God, they will not merely "shack up" but pledge to have fidelity forthwith.  My guess is that unmarried couples in church who shack up have made no such Covenant!

  Paul, absent in body, but there in spirit, wrote to the Corinthian Church about sin within the Church. I have written before that the Church is a “threshing floor” wherein to thresh and winnow out the brethren. “Brethren” are brothers in Christ. They are those born in the Spirit. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he was judging another Christian, but by fair standards.

  Sinners justify their actions. It is false "justification," or as such, “rationalization.” The first rationalization ever was with regard to the Tree of Knowledge. The rationalization was like this: Eating of the forbidden fruit is a mere physical thing. It is only the mechanics of taking fruit and chewing it. What wrong is there in that? God surely will not condemn me to death for such an innocent thing! Thus, Jews rightfully call it the “Wisdom Tree” but it had both the wisdom of God and the foolishness of men. Carnal knowledge is foolishness, and Paul addressed that issue first. Then an obviously carnal thing was addressed — incestuous fornication by a Christian brother.

  But before that, consider the Spiritual side of eating of the Wisdom Tree. It made Adam and Eve superior to God in their own eyes. They were what Paul called, “puffed up.” (1 Cor 5:2). Puffed up means holding oneself in high esteem, even higher than God. That was the essence of original sin. Paul said of himself, “I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.” (1 Cor 4:4). Judging oneself leads to rationalizing sin, but only God can justify by judging.

  Adam and Eve judged wrongly that their sin would be right in God’s eyes. He had already commanded that they were not to eat, but they willfully continued to eat of the forbidden fruit, Eve by deception, and Adam willfully knowing full-well what God had told him alone. As such they were puffed up knowing better than God what is safe and what is harmful. They sinned against God and themselves because without reprieve, they were condemned to die.

  “Justify” is the pronounce as righteous (Strong’s Dictionary). Only God can do that as Paul rightfully pointed out. Adam and Eve endeavored to “justify,” or to pronounce their sin as right. The same thing occurred in the Church at Corinth. Both the fornicator and the Church turned a blind eye to incestuous fornication. God does the judging, not the sinner nor the brethren (Mat 7:1). God is the sole judge.

  Nothing has changed over the years. Many Christian brothers in the Church self-justify their actions. God has already determined that sexual sins are grievous to Him, and he does not need our opinions on that. Sexual sins are much more than mechanical functions of physical bodies in motion, but sins against God and the self. Why the self? Because sexual disobedience punishes the person, “He that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body” (1 Cor 6:18). Because God judges, the person, when they are judged guilty, essentially murder their own souls. Obviously, they have regulations of which they are aware, and Satan does not damn them, but they damn themselves.

  Christians credit Satan with more power than he has. Christians who knowingly sin puff themselves up when they rationalize that they know better than God. Satan warned them of that (Gen 3:5). By continuing in sin, they not only puff up themselves but Satan as well. By fornicating with each other, they fornicate against God with Satan. They live by Satan’s rules, and not the Will of God. That Christian brother in the Corinthian Church was about to be threshed and winnowed out, not by Paul but by God. Christians can forfeit their safety and are not “saved” until they endure to the end (Mat 24:13) of tribulation. Life is tribulation. Satan’s legions need not commence their commerce in sin until the sinner turns away from Satan toward Jesus.

  This commentary is not about falling away, but self-justifying one’s own sin as right. Those who fornicate have been known to make it alright (justify) by considering it strictly a physical action. The Church is right now full of Christian brothers and sisters shacking up or having coitus with a mate one day and communion with God the next. How long will God tolerate that? No one knows how long or how many times, but sooner or later, the Christian brother and sister will forget God and live for each other’s lust. In the beginning, they fornicate more against each other, but in the end, they fornicate against God. They have become as God as they puff themselves up!

  Everyone judges themselves when they choose sin over righteous, but the Law is there because God judged right and wrong long before people ever came along. Hence, sinners do not judge but condemn themselves. They end up the causation of their own demise! God is just; people are foolish, and by their own folly they perish.

  Christians do not find it pleasant but a loving God, Jesus, is also punisher. The point to this commentary, is that Satan can only destroy the body, but Jesus can destroy both the body and soul:

  In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. (1 Cor 5:4-5)

  Satan, as Paul noted, can only destroy the flesh. It is known from the Book of Job that Satan need not do that himself. Those encounters with Satan was for Job to destroy himself according to the will of Satan. Satan need only to persuade him to abandon God and Job would have committed spiritual suicide. He would have forfeited God’s safety if he had done his own will rather than God’s. Hence, Satan destroys the flesh, and the flesh is his weapon of self-destruction. It is like a person killing themselves with their Satan’s “gun” but the person pulls the trigger himself.

  The flesh is temporal; its purpose is to interface with the tribulations in the world. God had generated Adam and eve with perfect flesh, but when it became tainted with sin, it would perish someday. With the first sin, Adam-kind when from immortal to mortal and from imperishable flesh to perishable. In the interim, ever since, people have endeavored to ignore the tribulation and enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, not even knowing that lusts are poisonous. Like Adam who saw Eve eat long ago, and did not die, then sinned, the incestuous fornicator in the Corinthian Church seemed to get along just fine in that Church.

  That is the same as it is in modern times. Many Christians fornicate one day and praise God with the same body and spirit the following Sunday. No one seems to mind nor reprove them, so they continue on as if they are justified (right) in God’s eyes. That is a cunning ploy of Satan. A Christian who serves Satan cannot serve God! How many infractions are too many? One. How many times did Adam and Eve sin before they felt ashamed? One time!

  Christians are pledged to the will of God. “Regeneration” for sinners is just like the “generation” for Adam. He was to “dress and keep” God’s Garden of Souls (Gen 2:5) and Christians are to serve and preserve the flesh and souls of people. Eve endangered Adam, and the goodly woman in the Corinthian Church endangered the brother. If they felt guilty and repent, then God would have grace as He did for Adam and Eve. They needed to discard their provocative ways — “their self-justifying fig leaves” — and put back on the Flesh of the Lamb for their cloak as God did for Adam and Eve (Gen 3:21). As long as the fornicators discard their fig leaves for Jesus, then God would justify them. Paul could not do that for them,and they could not do so themselves. They would need to turn to Jesus for he has already redeemed them.

  In the end, Satan can destroy the flesh, but Jesus has more power: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mat 10:28). The woman would assist the fornicator in killing his flesh, but those who tolerated fornication in the Church could kill both the body and soul. God has already judged sin; it is true that Christians “judge not,” but Christians are called to admonish, correct, and reprove (2 Cor 3:16). How long should fornication be tolerated in the Church? Not one time and not ever. By ignoring sins in Christians is damning their flesh and soul to perishing.

  Of course, unlike Satan who cannot touch the soul, Jesus is the judge of the body and soul. He decides who are saved and who is not. He threshes and winnows the brethren in His House and decides who goes beneath the threshing stone and who rises above it. That is why the first Church House was built in Ornan’s threshing floor. As Paul pointed out, sinners cannot be judged by the Law because they have no allegiance to it, but the Law is for Christians. The Law is not for condemnation but a means of knowing what God prescribes for the eternal health of both the body and the soul.

  Preachers avoid preaching on sin because sinning Christians are offended. Offense is conviction. Christians can either live with guilt or with the Lord. Unless preachers are offending, preaching is in vain. The preacher is just the messenger. Christians should not be angry with the preacher but submissive to God.

(picture credit: Orthodox Church)