There’s a show called Monk.  It’s about a brilliant detective who is very quirky but very smart.  He is germaphobic and likes things to be very clean.  In one episode, he hits his head and forgets who he is while on a trip.  When he stumbles up to a crazy woman’s house who is very unkempt, she tricks him into believing he is her husband and has him doing all kinds of dirty work around her home.  He is the dirtiest he’s ever been and doesn’t seem to mind. He does things and puts up with things he would not have when he was in his right mind.

Eventually, he gets his memory back.  When he does, he cleans up and returns to who he truly is.

There is an interesting passage in Scripture that reveals what I call spiritual amnesia.  It involves the Corinthians.  They were a messed up bunch of believers engaging in things they should avoid because they were not in step with who they truly were in Christ.  For that reason, Paul called them carnal.  But Paul, as an apostle, wanted those believers to know who they were and establish them in their true identity and purpose.  Look at what he says to them,

1 Corinthians 6:11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

In this case, they had forgotten who they had been made to be in Christ and were returning to who they had been before coming to Christ.

I call this spiritual amnesia.  It’s when a believer slides back into their old way of living before coming to know Jesus and being transformed into a new creation in Him.

What were they before they came to know Jesus?

1 Corinthians 6:8 No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren! 9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

Those believers in Corinth had slipped back into selfish modes of thought and practice. They were taking advantage of each other and then seeking to punish each other by means of secular law as a result. This was a bad example to unbelievers outside the church. They had forgotten who they were made to be in Christ and had slipped back into their old way of thinking—spiritual amnesia.

Paul goes on to point out how wrong self-indulgent, hedonistic thinking is.

1 Corinthians 6:13 Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not!

Paul does not threaten them that they are going to be damned forever.  He reminds them of how they had become joined to Christ and their bodies had become His temple, His dwelling place.  He is reminding them of who they are in Christ and thereby calling them to return to the kind of living that is in step with such an identity.  He is reminding them that they were sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus!  To say in the name is to say for the glory and purpose of the Lord Jesus.  Those suffering from spiritual amnesia in the church need to be reminded of who they are in Christ and what He has done for them.