1 Corinthians 6:1-8 - Homiletics

The ideal Church a tribunal.

"Dare any of you, having a matter against another," etc.? In our sketch on the preceding verses we looked on the true Church as a feast. Here we have to look on it as a tribunal, a court of judicature, where disputes are to be settled and grievances redressed. It would appear that questions arose among the Corinthian Christians that required settlement—questions of wrong done to persons or to property, and that too the litigious spirit was so rife in their midst that they took their grievances to the heathen courts. For this the apostle reproves them. "Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?" Three remarks about the ideal Church as a tribunal.

I. IT IS SUPERIOR TO OTHER TRIBUNALS ON THE EARTH .

1. It is a court formed of morally righteous men. This is implied in the words, "Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?" Saints, or just men, form the tribunal. In worldly courts of judicature men are judged by legislative enactments or judicial decisions. Not so in this court. It is a court of equity, a court that tries cases not by statutory precepts, nor by ecclesiastical laws, but by scriptural principles, and these principles as they arc embodied in the teaching of him who delivered the Sermon on the mount. The true Church is his representative and administrator.

2. It is a court whose jurisdiction is universal. "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?" In many ways men of Christly lives are judging the world now. Their ideas of right and wrong, between man and man, and man and God, form that standard of character to which the consciences of men are constantly appealing, and to which they are forced to bow. All men at last wilt be judged by the character of Christ, and the Church is the representative of that character. "The words I say unto you, they shall judge you in the last day." Not only does this Church tribunal judge the world, but judges angels also. "Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" Redeemed humanity is in some respects higher than angelic natures. It has passed through greater changes and is brought into closer connection with the Divine. They who have in them the spirit of absolute justice in the highest measure are the best judges of character. In modern courts this spirit is often very feeble, and in some cases extinct. Hence the sad blunderings about the interpretation of statutes and the decisions of judges. But the spirit of absolute justice reigns in the true Church.

II. IT IS A TRIBUNAL FOR THE SETTLEMENT OF ALL DISPUTES . Paul intimates that it is to judge disputes on the "smallest matters," and of "things pertaining to this life." These expressions seem to comprehend all disputes—not merely religious, but secular; not only disputes on great subjects, but disputes on minor subjects as well. The instinct of Christly justice which inspires it peers into the heart of all moral conduct. It has an "anointing from the Holy One, by which it knows all things." The more spiritually pure a man is the more readily will he detect the wrong. Only a few years ago some of our judges occupied twelve mouths or more, at an enormous expense to the nation, in order to find out whether a man was an impostor or not. To a mind full of moral justice an impostor is detected instinctively and at once. No logic can read the hidden principles of a man's heart. Christ knew "what was in man," and those highly imbued with his Spirit are to some extent gifted with the same insight.

III. DISPUTANTS WHO WILL NOT HAVE THEIR CASES SETTLED IN THIS COURT ARE JUSTLY LIABLE TO REPROACH .

1. Reference to another court is unwise. "If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the Church." The meaning is that any other court to which the case is taken is of no account in the estimation of the Church it is a morally inferior institution. The tribunal of man in comparison to Christ's tribunal is a truly contemptible thing. You Christians degrade yourselves by taking disputes to such tribunals. "I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wine man among you?" It is a shame to you to have your disputes carried to such tribunals, a shame that you cannot settle your disputes among yourselves, that "brother should go to law with brother, before the unbelievers."

2. Reference to another court is wrong. "Now therefore, there is utterly a fault [a defect] among you, because ye go to law one with another." Better than to do this, better than in go to a worldly tribunal to settle your disputes, better you should suffer wrong than take your grievance into the worldly courts. "The Church has principles," says Robertson, "according to which all such matters may be set at rest. And the difference between the worldly court of justice and the Christian court of arbitration is a difference of diametrical opposition. Law says, 'You shall have your rights;' the spirit of the true Church says, 'Defraud not your neighbour of his rights.' Law says, 'You must not be wronged;' the Church says, 'It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.'"