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First Corinthians Chapter Five

by Paul George  
11/18/2008 / Bible Studies

1 Corinthians 5:1-13

In the first four chapters of 1 Corinthians, Paul introduces a shameful problem in the church. The Corinthians proudly attach themselves to certain leaders, whose teaching seems to disclose a "wisdom" not known or taught by other teachers, and certainly not by Paul or his fellow-apostles. The cliques and factions in the church are undermining the unity of the church. Paul addresses two other problems in the church in chapters five and six, immorality and lawsuits.

Chapter five is not actually about the immorality of one church member, as much as it is about the response to the immorality in the church. It is not until the end of chapter six verses twelve through twenty, that Paul exposes the evil of immorality; chapter five introduces the matter of immorality and the obligation to exercise discipline, chapter six addresses the issue of Christians taking each other to law courts (verses 1-11), and then concludes with Paul's teaching on immorality.

In chapters one through four Paul addresses sin in the church that is not recognized or regarded as sin by the unsaved. These first four chapters speak of divisions that are neither biblical nor godly, those based upon leaders, pride, human wisdom, and power. Chapters five and six deal with sins practiced in public, while the world looks on in amazement. Not only those in Corinth, but others elsewhere are aware of the immorality tolerated in the Corinthian church, and even the pagans are shocked.

Paul's introductory words, "It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father's wife." The emphasis is on the fact that the immorality in the Corinthian church is common knowledge. It is bad enough that Paul hears of immorality in the Corinthian church, but what Paul has to say is even more disturbing when he said the sexual immorality condoned in the church is not condoned among the Gentiles. The specific nature of the immorality was incest, a man in the church has taken his father's wife, implies his step mother. Paul does not tell us if the father is alive or if this man is married to the woman. Paul does not say anything about disciplining the woman seems to indicate the woman was not a Christian. It is very clear that a man is living immorally with his father's wife, something forbidden by Old Testament law (Leviticus 18:8; Deuteronomy 22:30; 27:20), by the apostles (Acts 15:20, 29; 21:25), and by Roman law. While the sin of this man troubled Paul, the response of the church was a greater concern to Paul because no action has been taken to correct the situation. The last part of verse two indicates that while the Corinthians should excommunicate this man from the church, they have not done so.

In verses three through five Paul describes the discipline process.

Informed that a man has taken his father's wife Paul does not allow his absence to keep him from doing the right thing. Paul tells the Corinthians, "For I most certainly, as being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."

Although the Corinthians have not rectified the problem, Paul informs them that he has taken action. He has already acted as though he were present. He has done what he would do if he were present, and what those who are present should do. In following Paul's example, they will carry out the kind of discipline that the Scriptures require.

Matthew chapter eighteen verses five through twenty spells out the full process of church discipline, from the private rebuke of a single saint, to the collective expulsion from the congregation by the whole church. The reason Paul deals only with the last step of this process is that the willful rebellion of the sinner is evident, and his sin has become public knowledge. Discipline must be as public as the sin. The final step of discipline spelled out in Matthew eighteen verses five through twenty involves the entire church, when they have assembled.

In verse four, Paul describes the act of church discipline. Church discipline is to be done in the name and power of our Lord Jesus. In carrying out discipline, the church acts on behalf of the Lord in carrying out discipline; this is why Paul speaks of acting "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" and in "the power of our Lord Jesus Christ."

In verse six Paul asked a question, "Don't you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump?" What Paul wanted the Corinthians to understand is condoning the immorality of this one individual was having a negative effect upon the church in Corinth and flowing over into other areas.

In verse seven, Paul told the Corinthians what they must do, "Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover has been sacrificed in our place."

"Purge out the old yeast" means the wayward and unrepentant member of the church must be removed from church membership. In so doing, the sinning member not only loses the positive benefits of being a part of the church body, he becomes vulnerable to Satan's attacks. In Paul's words, the one who is disciplined is "delivered to Satan." The apostle Peter tells us Satan is a destroyer, a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). Expelling a wayward member is something any church should not take lightly. When we deliver one over to Satan, we are simply giving the unrepentant Christian what he has chosen. To remain in sin is to be in the bondage of Satan (2 Timothy 2:24-26).

In verses twelve and thirteen, Paul makes it very clear that church discipline is for those who are inside the church, and not for those who are outside. The Lord makes the same point in Matthew eighteen verse fifteen when He said if your brother sins. The outcome of church discipline is that a believer who willfully remains in sin is treated as a Gentile and a tax-gatherer (Matthew 18:17). He is not regarded as an enemy because church discipline is to be exercised for the highest good of the sinning church member. Consequently, Paul makes it very clear that "turning one over to Satan" in church discipline is not a final act of condemnation, it is an action taken with a view to the wayward church member's repentance from sin in this life.

Next, Paul reminds his readers of the feast of unleavened bread, which was to begin immediately after the sacrificing of the Passover lamb. After the celebration of the Passover the Feast of Unleavened Bread began. The Israelites were to go throughout their dwellings, seeking to find any leaven and remove it. They were to eat unleavened bread. Leaven is a symbol of sin, and the Passover lamb was a prophetic foreshadowing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul calls Him "Christ our Passover" (v 7) and reminds us that He has been sacrificed. If Christ is our Passover and sacrificed, we are not to harbor sin in our lives, but to seek to identify sin and remove it. When we celebrate the Lord's Table, we are commemorating the fulfillment of Passover. This is no mere ritual; it is a reminder of what should follow the sacrifice of the Lamb, cleansing in the camp. The leaven in the Corinthian church, the camp, is this sinner. He must be removed.

In verse eight, Paul broadens the application, indicating other forms of leaven that are evident in the church. The "old leaven," this sinner who needs to be removed, and the "new leaven," that of malice and wickedness, must be put away. Malice and wickedness refers to that whole spectrum of sins harbored and even nurtured in the church. They must go, and in their place there should be the "unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." We are to put off the hypocrisy and the false wisdom we have embraced and return to purity of motivation and of doctrine.

In verse nine, Paul reminds the Corinthians he told them not to associate with immoral people. Paul's previous instructions include unbelieving sinners of all kinds, those who are immoral, those who are covetous, those who swindle, and those who are idolaters. The Corinthians either misunderstood or twisted Paul's words to mean something other than what Paul intends. They, like the Jews of Jesus' day, equate holiness with separation from unbelievers. When he writes to the Corinthians, Paul is not instructing them to avoid contact with unbelievers. There is no way to avoid contact with unsaved sinners, other than by means of death. The only way to avoid "the world" is not to live in the world. Our duty in this world is not to avoid sinners, but to live among them in such a way as to reveal Christ to them. We must live in the world and rub shoulders with it in order to be a witness to the lost. What we cannot do is participate with the world in sin. We are to be in the world but we are to be unlike the world, living out the life of Christ as lights in a dark place.

Contrary to the mind-set twenty-first Christianity, church discipline is a form of judging, a form that is not only permitted but also required. Outsiders are not a proper sphere of judgment, but those who profess Christ are to be examined as far as their conduct is concerned. God will judge unbelievers at the proper time. Some unbelievers will be saved by the grace of God and escape the wrath of God through faith in Christ. Others will be judged of God, but this is not our responsibility. The bottom line for the Corinthians is that they must put this immoral man out of their church.

Paul closes chapter five with a command, "Put away the wicked man from among yourselves," a quote from Deuteronomy chapter seventeen verses two through seven.

What Paul calls for in the New Testament church is not different from what Moses told the nation Israel. After all, in the Old Testament, God dwelt in the midst of His people, and thus the Israelites were required to remove sin and sinners from their midst. In the New Testament, Paul informs the Corinthians that God now indwells His temple, the church. They too must remove sin from their midst, because a holy God indwells them. In both cases, it is recognized that removing the sinner may include death. This is a most serious step, one that we will take only when we take sin and God's commandments seriously.
First Corinthians chapter five raises a number of issues.
Whatever became of sin? Sin is no longer the knowingly, willful rejection of God's law. Under today's standards for evaluating the man living with his father's wife, we look for some sort of abuse to excuse his violation of Old Testament law, New Testament law and Roman law. Others would argue that his conduct is the result of some genetic disposition. Others would argue his conduct is normal, and that the problem in the church is with narrow-minded church members. The cure for this man's immoral behavior is intensive and expensive therapy. Others claim the man's problem is "poor self-esteem." The cure is for him to "feel better about himself." This would certainly mean church discipline is harmful, rather than helpful. For Paul, the diagnosis is simple, and so is the prescription. The problem is the sin of immorality, and the prescription is to remove him from the church. When the Bible is the standard for conduct, and used for defining sin and righteousness, the diagnosis of this man's problem is not that difficult.
Whatever happened to discipline in the modern world we live in? The exercising of discipline is an acknowledgment that we have done all that we can, and have failed. In our arrogance, we sometimes convince ourselves that, given enough time, we can rectify all the problems in the world and the church. The altar has given way to the counseling couch. There is a place for counsel, but we often give our system of counseling too much credit. In our arrogance, we refuse to take that final step of "removing the wicked person from ourselves." Just a little more time, we suppose, and we can correct this person's thinking. Church discipline is based upon the recognition that we have done what we can in the context of the church, and that God can turn that wayward person to repentance apart from us and apart from our ministry.
Unconsciously we think of the church as a "support group." While the church does function as a support group, the support group mentality is a very dangerous one. Support groups can cause individuals to put their trust in the group rather than in God. Support groups often pride themselves for being there, no matter what the wayward one has done, or will do while the church requires a turn from willful sin, something men and women reject. The term "unconditional acceptance" or "unconditional love" assumes we must love one another unconditionally. There is a sense in which this is true; however, we are not to love others unconditionally in terms of the way they wish to define acceptance and love. To exercise discipline on a wayward saint is to love that person and to seek their highest good.
There is only one "unconditional love" in the world, God's love. Regarding "unconditional acceptance" God has set conditions for acceptance into the kingdom of God, the first is repentance. Jesus said, "unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5).

Whatever happened to church discipline? We see very little of it today. Even when such discipline is taken, all too often many church members are tempted to second-guess the church and to privately continue to fellowship with the one under discipline. This is a serious matter, for if I understand the Scriptures correctly, to do so is to become a partner with that person in his or her sin.

Church discipline is one of those very clear duties of the church and of the individual Christian. Why, then, is it not practiced more often, fear afraid to take a stand against sin because we are afraid of rejection. We may be afraid of appearing to be narrow and unloving. We may be unwilling to lose the friendship and the fellowship of those we love. Some church leaders are afraid of being sued for taking disciplinary action against a church member. It can and does happen. I suspect that it will happen more and more in the coming days.

Finally, the popular teachings and practices of the "church growth movement" whether consciously or unconsciously discourage church discipline. The church growth experts tend to measure the success of a church in terms of numerical growth. This movement seeks to attract unbelievers to the church by being "seeker-friendly," by making unbelievers feel comfortable with the church and with the Christian message. How can this possibly be in the light of Paul's teaching in chapters 1 and 2? The message of the cross is foolish. Divine truth concerning God is incomprehensible to the lost.

Men and women are not saved by getting comfortable with God, but by becoming uncomfortable by the convictions of the Holy Spirit that they are sinners, that God is righteous and that judgment awaits the sinner (John 16:7-11). When God struck Ananias and Sapphira dead for their deception, the unbelieving world was not comfortable; in fact, it caused them to stay away from the church. Nevertheless, many were being saved (Acts 5:11-16). Sinful men and women should not and cannot be comfortable in the presence of a holy God, except through the cleansing of their sins by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. No man or woman can come before a holy God without becoming uncomfortable about his or her sins and God's judgment. That is what being saved is all about, being saved from the wrath of God upon sinners.

The church's duty to discipline provides a strong incentive for preventative action. Before entering the Promised Land Moses told the Israelites, "And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. And you shall write them on the door posts of your house and on your gates" (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).

We know this command comes from the Lord, and that we, as parents, should keep it. The following command is further motivation to obey the command to teach our children the way of the Lord, "If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his home town. And they shall say to the elders of his city, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear of it and fear" (Deuteronomy 21:18-21).

If we lived in Old Testament times, and knew that we must stone our own child for being disobedient and rebellious, it would give us good reason to be diligent in performing those duties aimed at preventing such rebellion and disobedience in our children. Parents today, Christian parents, are forbidden to discipline or spank their children. Many of them are proud of this fact, as though such discipline is brutal and primitive. It does not matter that the Scriptures teach us that spanking our children is one means of dealing with sin. Spanking provides a lesson that informs our children that sin has very real, very painful consequences. Hell, my Christian friend, is not going to be a "time out." There may be occasions when a "time out" is appropriate, but there are also times when painful physical consequences are experienced. No, I do not advocate beating a child. No, I do not defend those who abuse their children. Yes, there is a time to spank, and most of us have forgotten when it is.

Here is the root of all the problems, it existed in Corinth, and it exists in churches today and in the home. Why would we discipline a disobedient child or a disobedient church member when we will not discipline ourselves, why would we expect strong family relationships and a strong church if we would discipline others and not ourselves? This discipline is not that which comes only from within us, but which comes from the Spirit of God.

God takes sin seriously. That is why the cross of Calvary was necessary. God took our sin so seriously that He sent His Son to die in our place, to suffer the punishment for our sins. The good news of the gospel is that while God takes our sin seriously, and while our sin must be judged, He has judged our sins in Christ. To enter into this forgiveness, all we need do is to receive the gift of salvation that God offers to us by faith in His Son. When we see how seriously God has taken our sins, we see how serious we must be about sin as well.

Retired pastor,Church of the Nazarene

Author of web site Exploring God's Word

www.thewordofgodonline.net

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