What does "Be not deceived" mean in 1 Corinthians 6:9?
In 1 Corinthians 6:9, “Be not deceived” means do not imagine that God’s love, grace, and mercy will permit the unrighteous to enter His heaven apart from salvation. Paul warns that fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, thieves, drunkards, and similar people will not inherit the kingdom of God unless washed, sanctified, and justified.
Les explains that Paul writes to Corinthian believers who had recently been converted out of a pagan, grossly immoral city. In verse 9 Paul says, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived.” Les says this means don’t think for a minute that just because God is love, gracious, and merciful, He will let these kinds of people into His heaven short of their salvation. Paul lists fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, the effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, thieves, the covetous, drunkards, revilers, and extortioners, and says none of those will inherit the kingdom of God. They are in the hands of Satan and will be where Satan will be for all eternity, but they don’t have to be. In the next verse Paul says, “And such were some of you,” but now they are washed, sanctified, and justified. Les connects justification to Romans: it is God’s judicial act declaring the sinner just as if they had never sinned.
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,