Saints of the Inheritance

But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient.  Therefore do not be partners with them. (Ephesians 5:3-7) Something needs to be cleared up in this section before we can hear the whole.  In our present moment, it has been claimed—usually based more on 1 Corinthians 6:8-11 than this text of similar language—that indeed, those guilty of sins of a certain sort (especially of the deviant sexual kinds) will not inherit the kingdom of God.   So we must be careful here to unite the text before us with the wider interpretive framework of the scriptures that we hold to from our Reformed tradition.  In the first portion of this text, Paul is speaking of particular sinful acts, like sexual immorality, greed, and coarse joking.  But in the middle of the text, he pivots to talking about people who are defined by nothing more than these acts.   So, here's the important corrective note to keep in mind when you read the "will not inherit the kingdom" texts like this one: for those who are in Christ—no sinful act can ever again define them.  What defines us now is Christ: his salvation, his cross, his love, his grace, his life.  Though our acts still be as filthy rags, stained daily by sin until the day we die, even so, as Christians, we are declared righteous in the eyes of God.  Saints.  Not because of what we have done—but purely because of what Christ has done for us.   Remember yesterday's text that sets up the text before us today where Paul says we are "dearly loved children."  Or again from the opening verse of this text where it reads "God's holy people"—this word that Paul has used throughout Ephesians shows up here once again: Saints.  The name for "holy people" is "Saints."  This, in Christ, is who you are.  It is the only thing that can now define you.  Sin cannot.  And while God's wrath does indeed come on those who are disobedient, thanks be to God: we are covered by the obedience of Christ who bore God's wrath for us—as if we "had never sinned nor been a sinner" (HC A 60).  We are safe from God's wrath now—we are saved—because we are God's holy people, his children, his saints.       OK then, so why does Paul set up this contrast in a letter to the "Saints in Ephesus" if "idolator" and "immoral" are no longer descriptors that fit their case?  Well, because Paul is inviting the Ephesians, who themselves used to be defined by these things and who still living amidst a sin-broken culture that is defined by these things, to live like the new creations—the saints—that they have become!   It is not a command that says: "stop being who you are."  It is a command that says: "do not partner with the world around you."  It is a command that invites the Ephesian saints to become more fully who they already have become in Christ.  And in Christ's own life: was there any hint of sexual immorality, impurity, greed, obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking?  Of course not!  Neither should there be any hint of these among those who are called to be imitators of Christ—because he didn't do that sort of thing.   If we are to inherit the kingdom of God—and as God's dearly loved children, you had better believe that we are—then we ought to aspire to act like it.  The models for our imitation are no longer to be the immoral, impure, greedy, or idolatrous people around us who aren't inheriting the Kingdom.  No, we are now princes and princesses of the King, we are set apart—of royal blood—and so we are to imitate Christ who is the King, and live like our family name of "Christian" calls us to.  Let the way of the Kingdom begin to shape us into the people of the Kingdom that in Christ we already are.   Is this a simple task?  Not at all.  Will we do it perfectly?  Of course not.  But we press on, because Christ goes before us—defines us—and it is to him that we belong.  And so our prayer:  Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:17-21).