Sunday Sermons
Delivered to Satan
1 Corinthians Chapter 5
The abruptness with which this subject is introduced suggests that the report has just reached Paul's ears. 5:1 “It is actually reported”: Wholly, altogether, generally or everywhere. This was a common report in the church, “’the word is going around', says Paul, 'that fornication is going on among you!'” (McGuiggan p. 61). “Everybody is talking about it” (Tay). “In case any are wondering whether I might need to come with rod in hand” (4:21), Paul is suggesting, ‘listen to what else has been reported to me about you’” (Fee p. 199). “Immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles”: “So wicked that even the heathen don’t do it” (Tay). Immorality that even the pagans condemned. “That someone has his father’s wife”: “Such incest was of course condemned by the Jewish law (Lev. 18:8; Deut. 27:20). But even Corinth, moral cesspool that is was, would be scandalized by such a crime, for it was condemned alike by Greeks and Romans”. “Roman attitude to a similar relationship, cf. Cicero's Pro Cluentio 14, where a marriage between son-in-law and mother-in-law is denounced as ‘incredible and, apart from this one instance, unheard of’” (F.F. Bruce p. 53). “Hath”: “The verb ‘to have’, when used in sexual or marital contexts, is a euphemism for an enduring sexual relationship, not just a passing fancy or a ‘one-night stand’. By his ‘having’ her, Paul means that the brother is ‘living with’ her sexually” (Fee p. 200). Since the woman is left out of the discipline that follows, she must have been a non-Christian. 5:2 “You have become arrogant”: “And you can still be proud of yourselves?” (NEB). “The word ‘puffed up’ is a perfect verb which describes a condition which began in the past and continues” (Willis p. 161). “And are you (still) puffed up?” (Gr. Ex. N.T. p. 807). Many feel that the Corinthians were actually "proud" about what the man was doing. “Some have conjectured that the sinner was a rich man to whom the church showed respect of persons”(Willis p. 161). “Were they smirking about the case? At the nerve of the fellow? Were they just amused by the whole thing?”(McGuiggan p. 61). Or did some in the church have a misunderstanding of Christian liberty? ”That this was rather a fine assertion of Christian liberty, of emancipation from Jewish law and Gentile convention alike” (F.F. Bruce p. 54). Pride does blind a person or a congregation to reality (Proverbs 16:18; 29:23). “Whatever the actual relationship of their pride to the incest, it has blinded them both to the fallen brother’s true condition and to their own” (Fee p. 202). “And have not mourned instead”: Mourning is the proper response toward sin (Matthew 5:4; James 4:9). “Rather than being tolerant of the evil or Stoictoward the loss of a brother or sister, the church should be mourning over what has happened. However, this grief is not a passive grief; it leads to a corresponding action” (Willis p. 161). “Would be removed”: “They should have withdrawn from him! Confess that his sin was horrible. Admit that it was outrageous” (McGuiggan p. 62). “Might”: This infers that the church in Corinth was not ignorant concerning how to exercise church discipline, they knew the truth, but had simply refused to act. “An easy-going attitude to sin is always dangerous. It has been said that our own security against sin lies in our being shocked at it. When we cease to take a serious view of sin we are in a perilous position. It is not a question of being critical and condemnatory. It is a question of being wounded and shocked and hurt. It was sin that crucified Jesus Christ” (Barclay p. 49)
5:3 “Have already as though I were present judged him”: “And my judgment is already given” (NEB). “Paul did not need to be present to make a judgment on this matter. This lets us know that reliable evidence is equivalent, for assessment purposes, to personal experience. The reliable word of reliable witnesses puts the jury in possession of what the eye-witness saw”(McGuiggan p. 62). Paul now describes "how" such judgment is to be executed. 5:4 “In the name of our Lord Jesus”: The authority for this action does not originate with Paul. Jesus Himself commands that the following action be taken (2 Thess. 3:6; Matthew 18:17). “When you are assembled”: This is community action. “Church discipline, therefore, must be done in the full assembly of the church. Several reasons are given for this, such as that the rest may fear (1 Tim. 5:19), that the sinner might be publicly exposed, that is, all the congregation knows where he stands (Romans 16:17-18), and the whole church might put forth an effort to restore him (Matthew 18:17)” (Willis p. 164). “With the power of our Lord Jesus”: “Therefore, church discipline should not be lightly scoffed at as if it were the presumptive act of a group of arrogant people” (Willis p. 164). Church discipline rightly administered, has the full approval of heaven behind it!
5:5 “Deliver such a one unto Satan”: “What a terrifying phrase. Withdrawal is simply the formal declaration by the visible community of what has already taken place in the invisible realm, withdrawal suggests our stepping back and leaving the man alone” (McGuiggan p. 62). Withdrawal is the acceptance of the "reality" of the case. This man, because of his selfishness belongs to Satan's kingdom, and not God's. Act like it. Treat him as such. “For the destruction of the flesh”: “That what is sensual in him may be destroyed” (TCNT). Many commentators take this phrase to refer to some physical sickness or disease that Satan is allowed to inflict upon the withdrawn from. Even to the point of physical death. Job, Ananias and Sapphira and Paul's thorn in the flesh are all cited as examples, but neither Job nor Paul were being withdrawn from, and “that the spirit may be saved”, was not the end result of the punishment visited upon Ananias and Sapphira, not to mention God brought that judgment, not Satan. Some of the "once saved always saved" school of thinking, believe that this passage is teaching that if a child of God is going to go into sin, God will cause that person to be killed before they have a chance to forfeit their salvation. Yet how does a person’s own death "save their spirit"? Or, does one's blood also atone for one's own sins? The Bible teaches that only the blood of Christ can atone for sins (John 1:29). Secondly, the man in this chapter does not fit the above scenario, because he "hath" his father's wife (he's past the stage of merely thinking about it), this man is already "lost". The only path to salvation that I find in the Bible, runs directly through repentance (2 Peter 3:9; Romans 2:4-5; Acts 8:22; 1 John 1:9-10). Such would also teach that God saves some people "against their will".
“It is especially difficult to see how an expected result of death can be understood as remedial” (Fee p. 210). “The further instruction in verse 11, that they are not to associate with this man, not even to eat with him, implies that no immediate death is in purview” (Fee p. 212). Clearly the term flesh here does not refer to the destruction of the physical body. “May”: The "destruction of the flesh" and the "spirit being saved", are hoped for results. This is a key word to understanding the whole verse. Withdrawal can take place and neither result happen. Since the "spirit being saved" depends upon the attitude of the sinner, therefore, the "destruction of the flesh", must be something that the sinner being withdrawn from must allow to happen in their life. I think Barclay has a good grasp of this verse, “it was to humiliate the man, to bring about the taming and the eradication of his lusts so that in the end his spirit should be saved. It was to bring him to his senses, to make him see the enormity of the thing that he had done” (p. 50). “The hope is that he will feel the loneliness of isolation, recognize the heinousness of his wrong, repent and return” (McGuiggan p. 63).
Right now, the man in this chapter has a problem, his "lust" for his father's wife. Withdrawal "tests" a persons love for a certain sin or lifestyle. Do you love it to the point that you would give up your brethren for it? Their association and encouragement? Withdrawal visibly reminds the sinner, "this sin is costing you your soul"! An eternity in hell is the price you are paying for this pleasure. How appealing does it look now? The hope is that such a withdrawal by the whole congregation will "force" the man to seriously evaluate the "price" he is paying for his pleasure. Many Christians, turned from the world in the first place, when they finally realized the "high price" of sin (Romans 6:23). Sin can lose its attractiveness when it really starts to demand sacrifices of us, such as our health, family, children, and spouses. Fornication loses its attractiveness when you catch a sexually transmitted disease; drugs and alcohol lose their appeal when they're about to cost you your family or job, but sadly, not for everyone. You must allow such to happen.
Before we move on, Fee in his commentary gives us an insight to the frustration that the denominational world has with the application of these verses:
“In a day when the church tolerates every kind of sin (‘because we who are sinners must not be judgmental’), the need for discipline is perhaps greater than ever. Finally, the great problem with such discipline in most Christian communities in the Western world is that one can simply go down the street to another church. Not only does that say something about the fragmented condition of the church at large, but it also says something about those who would quickly welcome one who is under discipline in another community” (p. 214).
5:6 “Your boasting is not good”: “Your pride in your church is lamentably out of place” (Phi); “a church exposed to corruption would do well to sing in a lower key” (Fee p. 215). “Do you not know”: “The Corinthians might reply that the offence, however shameful, was the sin of one man and therefore a little thing” (Gr. Ex. N.T. p. 809). “That a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?”: Sin practiced and tolerated among members threatens to contaminate the whole church, because toleration can be viewed as "giving our approval", hence we encourage people to sin by our inaction. Once one sin is tolerated, others will voice "their rights" to exist in the church. Remember this in the homosexual debate. Once homosexuality gains acceptance in the church, pedophiles will (and are) arguing for their "rights" to be fellowshipped. 5:7 “For our Passover also hath been sacrificed’: Paul begins a figure of speech which is based on the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread. The argument is that Christ is our Passover lamb in the New Covenant, but all the leaven had to be purged out before the lamb was sacrificed. The Corinthians have a big problem, Christ has already been sacrificed and they still have a house full of leaven! 5:8 “Unleavened bread of sincerity and truth”: “The purity of heart to which all sympathy with evil is completely foreign” (Willis p. 171). “In an age in which ethics is too often modified to fit one's present cultural existence--these words need once more to be heard distinctly in the church. Christ has died for us not simply to give us passage to heaven but re-create us in His own image, so that both individually and corporately we may express the character of God by the way we live in a world whose behavior is ‘polished nice’ but which lacks the purity and truth of the gospel. It is extremely unfortunate when God's own people, as in this case, look more like their surroundings than they do their Lord himself” (Fee pp. 219-220). 5:9 “I wrote you”: The failure on the part of this congregation to exercise discipline was not due to ignorance. 5:10 “I did not at all mean the immoral people of this world”: The Corinthians had either misunderstood or deliberately twisted what Paul had taught in order to cover their inaction on this point. I can just hear some in Corinth arguing, "Paul said we cannot associate with fornicators, but if that is true, then we cannot even go shopping in the market, or even go back to our jobs, why, such advice would force me to leave this world, how unworkable! Some might have been trying to justify the incestuous man by an argument that would run something like, "If we are supposed to withdraw from this fornicator, then what about our associations with ‘all’ fornicators (Christian and non-Christian, and since withdrawing from the world is unworkable, therefore we can't withdraw from our brother either."
Point to note: God has an "imperfect" church (3:1-3) withdraw from a member. This proves that the church does not have to be "spotless" to exercise church discipline. You see, this incestuous man could have argued, "Well those brethren in Corinth aren't exactly spotless themselves, why they are divided, carnal, full of pride and are even taking each other to court. What right do they have in withdrawing from me?" God's answer: Heaven gave them the right! (5:4).
5:13 “Remove the wicked man”: Calling sin by it's proper name or designation, always helps in the fight against it (Genesis 39:9) From a human viewpoint, some might have called the incestuous man, “lonely, confused, or in love.” God looked at the same man, and saw nothing but "wickedness".
