1 Corinthians, Chapter 5
© Copyright
2002 Darroll Evans, all rights reserved
Paul begins this section by scolding the
Corinthians in manner that is not used any with any other Church.
Bad news travels fast!
The news of this Church moved at light
speed!
It was reported as common knowledge that the
Church was condoning sexual immorality.
Pagan societies considered that sin so vulgar
that even the heathen Gentiles did not practice that form of sexual immorality.
It is said by some that God cannot "look
on sin."
That teaching comes from Habbakkuk
1:13a---"Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not
look on iniquity [gross sin]" (KJV).
However, the phrase "canst not look
upon" is an idiom.
It means that God "cannot condone"
sin.
God looks on sin every moment of every day
when he looks on the earth. He saw your sins before he called you to His Son
Christ Jesus.
He called you "in" your sins and
then, through Christ Jesus, cleansed you "from" your sins.
The sexual sin among the Corinthians was
fornication between a son and his stepmother.
Even today it is not condoned by our vulgar,
sin filled, heathen societies.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians---Are you so
puffed up, so arrogant that you can so easily over look this matter?
It should bring you to tears!
The one that has done this should be
"removed from" fellowship.
However, as we shall see later in Second
Corinthians, Paul is not talking about the ungodly practice of excommunication.
He was recommending a form of discipline.
Though Paul was not on the scene, he had
spiritually judged the situation.
Every drug dealer in your hometown knows one
portion of Scripture, "Judge not."
Every crook trying to distort Christianity
uses, "Judge not".
We are well within our Christian rights and
responsibilities to judge situations, and this situation was rotten to the
core!
Paul’s remedy seems harsh, but it was in the
best long-term interest of the offender.
It was to deliver the young man to Satan so
that his offending flesh might be destroyed.
But in doing that, his spirit would be
saved.
That was Paul’s way of dealing with common
everyday works of the flesh that had brought on this situation.
Galatians 5:19-21a
19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lewdness,
20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath,
selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,
21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; (NKJV)
Satan does not need to work hard to make us
fall into sin.
We can quite readily get there on our own!
The Corinthians were actually glorying in,
rejoicing in and/or boasting about this situation.
Talk about the lowest common
denominator!
Just a little sin goes a long way!
Adam had only one sin when he was tossed out
of the garden.
Let me give you my version of Paul’s further
advice.
"Clean up your act!"
That is not a literal translation.
I would not have slit verses 7 and 8 in the
usual manner.
Seven (b) should be part of verse eight.
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old
leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Paul loudly proclaims that Christ is our
Passover!
He has been sacrificed for us.
Because Christ is our Passover, we should
observe it.
That teaching is far from most Church teachings.
Almost all Churches observe Easter, but how
many observe Passover?
Due to anti-Semitism in the early Church
Passover had been passed over as a Holy Day.
Christ’s death and crucifixion focuses on the
Passover.
Paul told the Corinthians not to associate
with fornicators (i.e. sexually immoral people).
However, he adds a condition to that.
In advising them not associate with the
sexually immoral, Paul clarified his statement.
Paul was not telling them to limit their
non-Church associations.
That is impractical and would kill any
evangelical effort.
However, there are crooks within the Church.
The Roman Church has gone through a period in
which far too many leaders were found to be sexual predator priests and/or
suffered from pedophilia.
Because they are pretenders and not true
brothers we are not to associate with them.
Pedophilia may be a scourge on the Roman
Church worldwide, but due to the
Then Paul says something that most pass by
quickly.
He says, "for then must ye needs go out
of the world."
Apparently Paul considered leaving the Earth
was not an option or the plan of God.
Paul goes on to say that if a
"brother" is open sin we should not keep company with him.
Those that use the freedom of Christ as
license to live as they please in sin are not actual brothers-in-Christ.
They are pretenders!
They are pseudo-Christians!
Paul gives us a partial list of
pretenders.
Please keep in mind that, be they Presidents
or Popes, those who live in habitual sin do not belong to Christ.
Repentance is a sign of a Christian. Habitual
sin is the sign of an unrepentant heart!
In Verses twelve and thirteen, Paul makes
something very clear that Satan has tried to pervert for centuries.
Christians are not to judge those outside the
Church.
However, if any person comes among us
claiming to be a brother or sister we have the right and responsibility to
judge them.
If God has chosen us, He shall cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.
If we not in the cleansing process, we are
none of His and should not receive the blessings of the Church.
I know of one man that was living in open
fornication.
He came forward to be accepted into the
Church.
The Church received him that night.
After the service, he went back to his home
and his open fornication.
Later he was baptized, got up out of the
water and went back to his sin without any sign of repentance.
When the woman was caught in adultery, Christ
told her to go and "sin nor more."
He did not say, "Just go
back to your old life."
Another Church had leaders that were divorced.
They wanted to remarry, but the Pastor
refused to perform the ceremony.
No problem!
They fired the Pastor!
The newly appointed pastor got the message,
if he wanted a job---do what we want.
Paul ends this chapter by saying,
"Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person."
Will the Church be strong enough to put away
sin from the camp of God?