Starting in chapter 5, Paul begins addressing specific issues in the Corinthian church. Some of these issues have been reported to him by members of the church. Other issues are questions that the church has brought to him.
And so Paul works his way through the questions, one at a time.
In chapter 5, Paul appears to address a problem in the church that was reported to him. There's no evidence that this was an issue that the church was wrestling with, or uncertain of what to do about. But the church, quite simply, is handling this completely wrong. And so Paul has to address it.
Now, this was a very adult problem. I will do my best to handle this tactfully. But there is only so much I can do.
Paul begins in verse 1 by raising the issue:
(1) Everywhere it is reported that there is sexual immorality among you,
and of such a type of sexual immorality
which isn't even among the Gentiles,
so that the wife of his father someone has,
There is a man in the church who "has" the wife of his father. This woman is not herself part of the church, or Paul would've addressed her as well. She is "outside" the church; the man, though, is "inside."
Who is the woman? Paul calls her, "the wife of his father." This woman isn't the man's mom. It's his step-mother.
So what exactly is the situation? There's really only two possibilities. The first, is that his father has died, and after his father died, at some point he and his stepmother became a thing. The second possibility is that his father divorced his second wife, and it's at that point, that the man and his stepmother became a thing.
Now, I'm guessing-- hoping-- that most of us find ourselves cringing. This is icky. We instinctively find ourselves thinking, this is gross. Ew.
And this reaction is normal. Paul says, "This type of sexual immorality isn't even found among the... who?
This type of sexual immorality isn't found, even among the Gentiles."
When a Jew looks at the world, he sees two different types of people. The world is a very simple place, really. There are Jews, and there are Gentiles. And Paul is a messianic Jew.
But the Corinthian church is not made up of people who were all Jews by birth. Most of the church would have been Gentile by birth (Acts 18:6). This is a church made up of people who used to worship idols. Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 6:9-10:
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous[b] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,[c] 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
First century Jews committed many sins-- just like Gentiles-- but idolatry and homosexuality were not two of them. Those sins were unthinkable abominations. And chapter 6 is just one of the proofs that the Corinthians are a mix of Jew and Gentile.
So when Paul talks about people outside the church as Gentiles, and makes it sound like no one inside the church is a Gentile, what is he doing?
Paul doesn't unpack this language here, probably because he's already taught the Corinthians this. But the answer is found in Romans 2:
28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.
The true Jew is one who has received the inward circumcision of the heart, through the Holy Spirit. Christians are the true Jews. You are the true Jews. Gentiles are outsiders-- people who haven't received the circumcision of the heart that comes through the Holy Spirit.
And so what Paul says here is that even the Gentiles-- people who have hard, calloused, sinful hearts, and aren't part of God's family, and don't have the Holy Spirit-- even the Gentiles know that this is wrong.
Paul continues, in verse 2:
(2) and you, puffed up you are, ["puffed up" is focused in the Greek by fronting it]
and shouldn't you rather have mourned? ,
in order that the one doing this work would be removed from your midst?
How have the Corinthians responded to this sin? They boast. They are puffed up, proud. They brag that they have this kind of person in their midst, as part of their body.
Why do they boast? Why would they brag about this?
Paul doesn't answer that question here. I'm tempted to try to answer it, but I'm not sure I'd get it right this week.
Paul's focus, instead, is on how they, as a church, should've responded. This is a church issue. This is not a personal issue.
The correct response to this sin on the part of the church, has two parts. The first is mourning. Paul says, "and shouldn't you rather have mourned?"
Now, why should the Corinthians have mourned? We hear this, and our (my) first reaction to this, is to assume that the Corinthians should mourn because it's a sad thing when you see a brother or sister fall into sin. It's hard when you see someone turn from God, and in a very obvious and open ways, disobey Him. Our hearts ache for them. And when we look at them, we mourn-- we don't look at them as though we are better than them. We don't criticize them, or gossip about them. We see them, knowing that we are vulnerable to sin. We know what it's like to stumble, and our hearts go out to them.
And all of that's true. But there's something far more fundamental-- core-- that Paul thinks they should mourn about. And this is far more grievous.
Let's reread verse 2:
(2) and you puffed up you are,
and shouldn't you rather have mourned?,
in order that the one doing this work would be removed from your midst?
Somehow, when the Corinthians mourn, it leads to the removal of the man who has his mother-in-law. The mourning produces the removal. And so we (I) find ourselves stopping. Paul can't mean by "mourning" what we thought he meant. Feeling sorry for a fallen brother, doesn't leave to their removal. That doesn't make sense.
How does mourning leave to removal?
For Jews, I'm guessing that the holiest place in the entire world is In the city of Jerusalem, at what is often called the Wailing Wall. This wall is all that's left of the second temple destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. And every Jew traveling to Jerusalem, is going to stop at the Wailing Wall. And every Jew, when they arrive at that wall, is going to get on their knees, and they will weep over what's been lost. They can't help themselves. The temple used to be this beautiful, great building. It used to be the place where Yahweh placed his Name, where you could go to worship Yahweh and pray to Him. But now? All that's left is a single wall. And so you weep, at what was lost.
This is why the Corinthians should weep. What this man has done, because he has refused to repent from his sin, and instead persists in it openly, and publicly-- what he's done, is damage God's temple very badly. God's temple, today, is the church. We, collectively, are the temple. We, collectively, are where God's Holy Spirit dwells. This is also true of each believer, but the focus in 1 Corinthians is on us, as a whole, being God's temple.
All of us will sin. And when we sin, we know how we are supposed to respond. We confess our sin-- we admit to God that what we did was wrong. It was disobedience. And, possibly (?), we confess our sins to each other (James 5:16). And we don't just confess-- we repent. We don't get caught as slaves to a sin. We turn from it. We are ruthless in dealing with it.
But sometimes when we sin, we know that we don't really repent. We get caught in it, and it becomes part of our lives. If we persist in this sin long enough, our hearts become hardened. We tell ourselves, "My sin isn't that bad."
And eventually, we tell ourselves, "I'm not even sure this is sin."
When Christians do this, and begin to openly live in sin, they do terrible damage to the church.
And so Paul says what the Corinthians ought to have done, is mourned, knowing the damage that this man has done to the church. And this mourning leads to the removal of the man from the church. He cannot remain part of the church-- part of Christ's body-- so long as he lives like this.
This brings us to verses 3-5. In these verses, Paul strengthens his argument using a "for" statement:
(3) For I-- on the one hand, being absent in the body,
now, on the other hand, being present in the spirit--
Already I have judged, as one being present, the one in this way producing this (4) in the name of our Lord Jesus, while you and my spirit are being assembled, together with the power of our Lord Jesus, (5) to hand over such a person to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, in order that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
I'm going to try to explain this, without really explaining it. And we'll see if you catch me.
Each of us is made up of three different parts. We have a body, a spirit, and a soul.
The reason Paul is writing the letter is because he is absent in body. He isn't physically there. He can't be, right now. On the other hand, he is present in his spirit. I don't think Paul is talking about the Holy Spirit here. Paul is present in his own spirit. And I'm pretty sure every commentator agrees with me on this-- I'm not being fringe.
How does Paul do this? How can Paul send his spirit to Corinth to judge this person? I'm not sure.
But Paul, in his spirit, is assembled together with the Corinthians. And Paul, present with them in his spirit, has already done what the Corinthians should've known to do themselves. He has judged this person-- note that Paul doesn't call him a brother-- in the power of our Lord Jesus, and handed this person over to Satan.
And when Paul does this, everyone is better off. The church is better off, having this man removed from the church. And the man is better off, being removed from the church. I'm not sure what exactly Paul thinks Satan will do to this man, but whatever he does, will somehow result in the man's spirit being saved on the day of judgment.
We find ourselves again, with all sorts of questions. We want to rabbit trail really badly. But I'm going to try to just stay focused on Paul's main point (partly because I don't have any answers).
Paul then continues, in verse 6, by talking about the Passover. We are going to struggle to keep up with Paul here. We are going to feel like Gentiles, very strongly (I will capitalize the focused sections in Greek here):
(6) NOT GOOD, your boasting [is]. Don't you know that a little leaven, THE WHOLE BATCH OF DOUGH, it leavens?
(7) Clean out the old leaven,
in order that you may be a new batch,
just as you are unleavened.
For also our Passover lamb was sacrificed-- Christ,
(8) so that we may celebrate a feast,
not with old leaven
nor with bad/wicked and evil leaven,
but with unleavened purity and truth.
The Passover is one of the most widely celebrated festivals of Jews (Exodus 12; Numbers 9). At the start of the book of Exodus, the Israelites lived as slaves to Egypt. They cried out to God, and God determined to save them. He did signs and wonders among the Egyptians, but the Egyptians refused to acknowledge God's power. Finally, God determined to kill the first-born son of every Egyptian. He would go through the nation, house by house, at night, and kill them all. Israelite families were spared from this, through their celebration of the Passover. Each Israelite family killed a lamb, and scattered the blood from the lamb on the doorframe of their house. Yahweh, when He arrived at the house that night, saw the blood, and passed over that house.
And it was this night that marks the turning point-- the decisive moment of victory-- in Yahweh's freeing of Israel from Egyptian slavery.
Every Jew had to keep the Passover. You can't simply ignore, or forget, this decisive moment when Yahweh saved his people. Let's read Numbers 9:9-14:
9 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If any one of you or of your descendants is unclean through touching a dead body, or is on a long journey, he shall still keep the Passover to the LORD. 11 In the second month on the fourteenth day at twilight they shall keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 12 They shall leave none of it until the morning, nor break any of its bones; according to all the statute for the Passover they shall keep it. 13 But if anyone who is clean and is not on a journey fails to keep the Passover, that person shall be cut off from his people because he did not bring the LORD's offering at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin. 14 And if a stranger sojourns among you and would keep the Passover to the LORD, according to the statute of the Passover and according to its rule, so shall he do. You shall have one statute, both for the sojourner and for the native.”
But there's something else important about the Passover we need to know to understand 1 Corinthians. We also read this, in Exodus 12:14:
14 “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. 15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.
Skipping down to verse 19:
19 For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. 20 You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”
Part of how Jews remember the Passover is by removing all leaven from their houses. "Leaven" is any old dough that can used to make leavened bread. It's not yeast. It's old dough. And Yahweh took this very seriously. There could not be the tiniest bit of old, leavened bread, anywhere in the house. Houses had to be entirely clean of old dough, and people had to eat only unleavened bread. Part of how Jews remember, and keep, the Passover, is by reenacting the rushed fleeing from the land of Egypt.
So what does all of this have to do with Paul's argument? Let's reread Paul's words:
(6) Not good your boasting [is]. Don't you know that a little leaven the whole batch of dough leavens?
(7) Clean out the old leaven,
in order that you may be a new batch,
just as you are unleavened.
For also our Passover lamb was sacrificed-- Christ,
(8) so that we may celebrate a feast,
not with old leaven
nor with bad/wicked and evil leaven,
but with unleavened purity and truth.
The Christian life is lived in perpetual celebration of our Passover lamb, Jesus Christ. Our Passover lamb died so that we would live. He took our place; by his blood we were saved. And so we live every day, knowing what God did for us, and celebrating His power, and love, and faithfulness to his people.
But we also understand that part of living as Passover people, is that we have to remove any leaven from our lives. When we were Gentiles-- non-Christians-- our lives were filled with wicked and evil leaven. We sinned very badly against God, and against people. But when we became part of God's people, we threw out all of this old sin. This old leaven-- this old way of life-- we rooted out of our lives. There was no trace. Instead, we are a new batch.
We celebrate the Passover lamb, as a people who live in purity and truth.
So when you see this sexually immoral person in the church, how should you view him? What he has become, really, is old dough. He is leaven. And if you tolerate him-- let alone brag about him-- that little bit of leaven is going to spread through the whole church, and ruin everything. He will leaven the entire church. People will see that leaven, and they will think it's okay to sin. They will think you can celebrate our Passover lamb, Jesus Christ, while still living wickedly. While still keeping the old dough-- the old way of life. They will see that old way of life, and they will miss it. They will find themselves getting pulled back into it. They will stop seeing it as a danger to be ruthlessly dealt with. And so the leaven will spread through the church.
And once that happens, how can you celebrate the Passover lamb? How can you be an unleavened people? You can't.
Paul continues, in verse 9-13:
(9) I wrote to you in the letter not to associate with the sexually immoral ones-- by no means, not the sexually immoral ones of this world or the greedy ones and robbers or idolaters, since you would be obligated then to leave the world.
(11) Now, I now have written to you not to associate with anyone being called a "brother", if he is sexually immoral, or greedy or an idolater or an insulting person or drunkard or robber-- with such a person don't even eat.
(12) For what is it to me, the ones outside to judge? Is it not the ones inside that you judge?
(13) Now, the ones outside, doesn't God judge? Remove the evil one from among you yourselves.
Paul ends this section by making sure you understand he is talking about how to treat people within the church who are openly living in sin. If people aren't non-Christians, they are going to be caught in these sins. They are going to be slaves. And there is nothing wrong with spending time with people who live this way-- obviously, don't join them in their sins. But it's a good thing to be friends with sinners (Mark 2). Our job isn't to judge people on the outside. Our job is to love them, and tell them the good news about Jesus.
But when we look inside the church, and see those sins in our midst, it is our job to judge that. We are supposed to judge people inside the church. God has made that our responsibility.
The other thing we need to see in these verses, is that living as unleavened bread isn't only about sexual sins, and about removing people from the church who persist in them without repenting. Sexual immorality is only one of the sins for which we are supposed to remove people called "brothers," if they don't repent. Anyone who is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or an insulting person, or a drunkard, or a robber, must be removed.
You can't even eat with someone like that. They will leaven you. And so don't get the idea that we should have this fixation on sexual immorality, at the expense of other deadly sins.
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As a church, the easiest, and cheapest, way for preachers to get "amens" from congregations is to rail against the moral decay of the U.S. Preachers go off about how this nation is falling away from its Christian roots, and it's Judeo-Christian values, and becoming not simply non-Christian-- but anti-Christian.
And churches mourn this. They spend a lot of time trying to fight this. They try to judge this, and legislate morality.
And in the meantime, they don't want to talk about what's happening in their own churches. They are worried about outsiders, when that's God's responsibility. But they ignore the leavening that's happening within the church-- when that's our responsibility.
Maybe, they focus on outsiders because that's safer. Railing against liberal politics is like throwing red meat to wolves-- it's a crowd-pleaser, and gives the illusion that you're tough on sin, and committed to holiness toward God. All while being careful to avoid offending someone in the congregation.
Or maybe, they focus on outsiders because they are trying very hard to be a seeker-friendly church. In many churches, the Sunday morning service is not really for members, or for Christians at all. Everything is designed for seekers-- people on the edges of the church, who find themselves drawn to Jesus, and to Christianity-- but who remain on the fringe. The worship songs are carefully picked to be positive, and upbeat, and fun. The sermons are carefully written to be short, amusing, interesting, and-- above all else-- safe and non-confrontational. You could attend seeker-friendly churches for your entire life, and never find yourselves on your knees, begging God for mercy, seeking forgiveness. Or never find yourselves riled up, because there are things in your life that are offensive to God that you are hanging on to, and the teacher very matter of factly calls sin "sin," and tells you that you need to repent.
It's not our job to judge those outside the church. That's God's job. He promises us, He will judge that. You will see non-Christians committing terrible sins against God and against each other. Your job is not to police that. To punish that. Your job is not to legislate morality, and imprison people for idolatry, or greed, or drunkenness, or sexual immorality. When people live according to the flesh, apart from the Holy Spirit, that's what their lives are going to look like. We don't need to mourn a world that's falling apart. We don't need to mourn over homosexuality, or incest, or idolatry, or greed, outside the church.
What we need to mourn, is that these sins are found in the church. Among us, we have sexually immoral, greedy, idolaters, and drunkards. Among us, we have people who are living with each other out of wedlock. Some of you are greedy. You live with closed fists toward God and others. You only give enough on Sunday morning, so you get to have that motion of putting something in the plate. You've hardened your hearts to the need, and you tell yourself, "We will make the church budget, so it's okay." Some of you, maybe, end every Friday night drunk.
Maybe everyone in town knows you're a drunk, except us.
And we have people who live this way, in our midst, who are comfortable in this sin. And we are comfortable having them in our midst. We tell ourselves, "We shouldn't "judge" them." We tell ourselves, "It's their right to live how they want." We tell ourselves, "Their sin doesn't affect the church." We tell ourselves, "God is still working on them." And there are more and more people who call themselves brothers in the church, who feel this way. This is the battle that churches are losing. If you're going to mourn, and you should, mourn this. Mourn the loss of holiness within the church. Mourn the lost understanding, that we are supposed to live, collectively, as a people holy/dedicated to God.
We live as a people who celebrate Jesus' death and resurrection. And part of how we celebrate our Passover lamb, is by living as unleavened people. We cannot celebrate what Jesus did for us, apart from living as a people who are dedicated to God. We live in purity and in truth. We know that sin is dangerous. We know it's deceptive. We know that sin is old leaven, and leaving open sins unchecked, leads to a leavening of the entire church.
So how should all of this work, practically speaking? On a typical Sunday morning, there are different types of people attending. Some people are committed Christians, who live as unleavened bread. Other people are here because their spouses make them, or because they think it's good for their kids. Still others are seekers. There is something about Jesus, and Christianity, that pulls them here.
How does that fit, with what Paul says about removing the evil-doers among us?
One possible solution-and I don't have anything better-- is tied to the idea of official church membership.
Everyone is welcome to attend Sunday morning services, provided that they are not disruptive. But churches are very clear that within this assembly, there are two-- and only two-- different groups of people. There are members, and there are visitors. Members are Christians who have committed both to King Jesus, and to this local body.
They have chosen to submit to the church elders; they have chosen to live in service of the body. Members, in truth, are the church. If you want to serve in the church, or be involved, or have a voice, you have to become a member. And if you aren't willing to make that commitment, you're not really part of this church. We are happy to have you here. You are welcome. But you are an outsider.
For those of us who are members, then, how does removing the unrepentant brother work?
All of us sin. And when we sin, we are supposed to confess our sin to God, and to each other, and we repent. We don't remain in the sin. We certainly don't openly live in it.
But if one of us chooses to live in these sins, and refuses to repent, what happens next? Well, the rest of us mourn because that person has damaged God's temple. We mourn, and that mourning leads to the removal of that person from membership. They are now considered outsiders. And we do that, judging people in our midst, because we have to live as a people unleavened by wickedness. We are a people who have committed to living as unleavened bread, in purity and in truth.
If you are a member, and you are practicing these sins, know that you are damaging not just yourself, but the church. And you either need to confess that sin, and repent, or you need to let an elder know you are withdrawing your membership.
We live in purity and truth, as a people dedicated to God, who celebrate Jesus as our Passover lamb.
