1 Corinthians 5:1-5 “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles--that a man has his father's wife! (2) And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. (3) For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed. (4) In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, (5) deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
In the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit gives us a clear account of a believer being judged with early death because they chose to continue practicing sin. In this account the believer in question was living in the unrepentant sin of adultery, and the apostle Paul pronounced judgement on this individual by handing him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh (i.e. physical death). There were two reasons that this was done. The one reason was to remove the contaminating influence of sin from the church. The second reason that this was done, and this is the point I want to concentrate on in this teaching, was so that this believer’s salvation would still be intact on the day of the Lord Jesus. And so what the Holy Spirit reveals to us in this passage is that if this believer had not been taken to be with the Lord, then he would have eventually reached the point of committing the sin to death and he would have lost his salvation. And so we see that even though this believer would die while practicing the sin of adultery, his salvation was still assured and he would not be condemned with the world. The reason for that was because his spirit was still alive unto God at that time, and it therefore remained unaffected by the sin of adultery that he was practicing. Eternity is far more important to God than this life, and as we have already seen in the previous section, the Lord will do whatever is necessary to ensure that all of His children spend eternity with Him. And so if needed, our Lord Jesus judges His church in this life, and He does this so that we can be kept from the judgement of condemnation which will be incurred by the unbelievers on their day of judgement.
1 Corinthians 11:30-32 “For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. (31) For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. (32) But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.”
We have already established that in the passage of scripture quoted above that the Holy Spirit is writing to believers, not unbelievers. The judgement that He is referring to in this passage is the judgement that believers can expect in this life, if they refuse to repent of sin in their lives. And so we see that in order to keep them from being condemned with the world, there are numerous ways in which the Lord Jesus judges His saints in this life. One of those ways is to take the believer to be with Him earlier than God originally intended for their lives, and He does this if He sees that the path that the believer is on will ultimately result in their committing the sin to death. And so we can clearly see in this section that even though believers may die in unrepentant sin they will not be condemned with the world, the reason being that they are born-again with the nature and life of God in their spirits, and their spirits remain unaffected by sin.
Michael E.B. Maher
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