Immorality In The Church
IMMORALITY IN THE CHURCH
1 CORINTHIANS 5:1-5
Paul takes a stand against open persistent sin.
Paul can hardly credit it, but reports have confirmed that the church at Corinth has lost all sense of moral responsibility and is actually condoning a glaring case of incest. Indeed, the matter is aggravated not only by a failure to deal with the offender (even the Gentile world condemned such) (5:1), but by the church’s attitude of continued arrogance. This may imply that what to Paul should have been an occasion of discipline had been treated as a matter of some self-congratulation (5:2). This interpretation, if correct, would confirm the idea that some Corinthian Christians had accepted Gnostic teaching which sat loosely to moral standards, particularly in matters of sexual relations.
At all events, Paul knows what must be done. The “new morality” at Corinth must be strongly rejected (5:2b).
A church meeting is to be called when, with Paul’s presence among the members, a solemn excommunication of the offender is to be carried out—a severe judgment on a severe moral transgression (5:3-4). Yet the spirit of the church’s united act is not to be vindictive, but remedial (5:5). Expulsion from the church, which may seem to be unduly harsh and likely to arouse resentment, will (in the end) serve the higher end of the man’s spiritual good (5:5b).
Notes 5:1: incest was forbidden by Roman law and the Levitical code (Leviticus 18:8). If the man’s father were still living, adultery would be added to incest and so the case would be aggravated in its moral perversion. 5:2: the penalty for this immoral union, according to Jewish tradition in the Mishnah, was death by stoning. The Pauline prescription is less severe, namely excommunication from the church’s fellowship. 5:5: the plain sense is the meaning given above, ie expulsion from the church to the domain of Satan outside, from which believers had been delivered (Colossians 1:13; Acts 26:18). But as this expelling was treated as serious, the shock may well have led to physical death: hence “destruction of the flesh,” or at least to the suffering of physical consequences (as in Acts 5:1-11; 13:11; 1 Timothy 1:20).
To think over This proceeding may seem to have little compatibility with the spirit of the incident in John 8:1-11, but is there not a vital difference between a penitent and an arrogant sinner?