1 Corinthians 5:3-8

Butler's Comments

SECTION 2

Apostolic Summons (1 Corinthians 5:3-8)

3 For though absent in body I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment 4in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled, and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. 8Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Corinthians 5:3-5 Chastening: This advice that the immoral man should be expelled from the church comes with full apostolic authority. It is advice from the Holy Spirit of God speaking through the instrumentality of an apostle. There is no human guesswork involved here. Christ's bride (the church) is to keep herself sanctified, cleansed, in splendor, without spot or wrinkle, that she might be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:21-27). Immorality and all impurity must not even be named among the saints (Ephesians 5:3). The church is to take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is a shame even to speak of the things that they do in secret (Ephesians 5:11-12).

Although the apostle was absent from their presence, and could not be there to speak with them face to face, he had already made judgment from the moment he received the report (Gr. kekrika, perfect tense verb), and his judgment continued to be, deliver such a one to Satan. Note the qualifying statements Paul makes about his judgment:

a.

It is in the name of (by the authority of) the Lord Jesus.

b.

It is by apostolic epistlethe apostle being absent in body.

c.

It is to be done by the assembled church.

d.

It is for the purpose of putting to death worldly-mindedness in the guilty man in order to save his spirit for God.

Paul's bodily absence from these brethren did not mean his spirit (will) could not be present among them. His spirit would be actualized among them through his letter to them. His letter expressed his willhis spirithis personality. As a matter of fact, it is through the written word of the Holy Spirit (the Bible) that God actualizes the Spirit of Christ in the heart and soul of every believer (see John 14:21; John 14:23; John 15:7; John 15:10-11; 1 John 2:5-6; 1 John 2:24; 1 John 3:24). And, of course, Paul's written word carried with it the power of our Lord Jesus.

The apostolic order is to deliver this man to Satan. The Greek word is paradounai, which means, give over, abandon, deliver up. What is it to abandon someone to Satan? It is the same as, Let him become to you as a Gentile and a publican (Matthew 18:17); it is the same as having nothing to do with him (2 Thessalonians 3:6; 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15). To deliver, or abandon, a church member to Satan is to declare him a non-covenant person. Those of the Old Testament dispensation who were cut off from the congregation were to be considered no longer members of Israel and severed from all rights and privileges of the covenant! They could not offer sacrifices at the temple, they could not associate with God's people, and they were considered unclean. They were no longer able to be reconciled to God. The same is true in the case of a Christian excommunicated from the church. Such a one is unreconciled to God, a rebel, and not a member of God's redeemed community until he repents and seeks forgiveness. Delivering an immoral impenitent to Satan is really only an acknowledgment by the church of that which the sinner has already done to himself! It gets the church's position straightened out on sin as much as it gets the sinner's attitude straightened out on it!

Excommunication does not mean that the church has given up on the sinner and wishes him to be lost forever. In fact, it means just the opposite. It means the church really cares that the sinner is jeopardizing his eternal salvation by continuing in his sin, and the church is jealous for his salvation and fellowship, but the church must also fear God and keep his commandments concerning sin in the camp.
This is precisely why Paul qualified his order to deliver the man to Satan with the words, ... for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. The church was not to destroy the man, but to reclaim the man for Christ. As he was, living in contemptuous rebellion against Christ's rule over him, he was giving allegiance to Satan. The church must understand this is where the man is, admit the man belongs to Satan and not to Christ, and take unpleasant but affirmative action that might move the man to return to Christ's lordship in his life.

Satan, of course, would not personally offer any assistance to the guilty man to destroy his carnal-mindedness. Satan would use every opportunity and circumstance to deceive the man into involving himself ever deeper into carnality, God alone, through his word and Spirit in our hearts, destroys fleshly-mindedness, Paul did not mean the physical body of the man was to be destroyedhe meant the destruction of an attitude! The apostle wanted to slay a certain mindset, a philosophy of life, which the man had accepted and allowed to turn him away from godliness. Paul himself had to fight and conquer (by God's grace) this same mind-set (cf. Romans 7:13-25; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27). There is this same struggle in every Christian (see Galatians 5:17).

Apparently Paul believed this man would learn something by being excommunicated and given over to some realm where Satan is allowed by God to function which might motivate the man to draw near to Christ. Paul delivered to Satan two of his co-workers, Hymenaeus and Alexander, that they might learn not to blaspheme. How did he expect them to learn this? How did God teach Job to depend more on God's grace than on his own self-righteousness? God delivered Job to Satan (see Job 2:6-7). How was Paul, the apostle, taught that he should not boast in having received revelations from God that no other human had received? How did Paul learn that God's grace was sufficient and that he should not rely on himself? God delivered Paul to Satan and sent Paul through the school of affliction (see 2 Corinthians 12:1-10; 2 Corinthians 1:3-11, respectively). Jesus delivered Peter to Satan to be sifted as wheat (Luke 22:31-32). Evidently Paul believed that when this man was cast out of the brotherhood of believers, he would suffer affliction (which the devil would gladly inflict because the devil's total ambition is to hurt both God and man) which God would allow the devil to inflict, and this might produce repentance in the man. Since Satan is the great accuser, the man's torment might be such a burden of guilt he would be moved to shame (see 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15) and turn to Christ for grace and forgiveness which would demand that he put to death the deeds done in the body. When God gave up the heathen society Paul wrote about in chapter one of Romans, to whom and to what did he give them up? He gave them up to the prince of darkness! When God allowed a strong delusion to come upon those who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness, to whom did he deliver them? He delivered them to the activity of Satan (2 Thessalonians 2:1-15). We must always remember, however, that Biblical religion is not a form of dualism like the religions of ancient Babylon and Persia. God's word never presents a picture of two kingdoms (light and darkness; good and evil) with equal power! In the Bible we learn that Jehovah is without beginning and end and is all powerful forever. Satan has only such power as is relegated to him and is constantly subject to the control of Almighty God (see our comments on Revelation, ch. 20, in Twenty-Six Lessons on Revelation, Part Two, pgs. 95-121, pub. College Press).

If this guilty man, delivered to Satan, puts to death his attitude that this world and physical things are man's ultimate purpose and goal, his spirit will be saved. Paul, of course, does not mean to infer that man is only spirit and that the physical body is evil, per se. That was the deception taught by the Gnostics to justify their depravities. Paul was well aware that at the resurrection man will be raised with a new body. But it will be a body different from the one he inhabits in this cosmic order. Man's new body will be celestial, immortal and incorruptible (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:35-58). Therefore, what Paul means by the saving of man's spirit is the saving of the whole man. Man is not whole until he is spiritual. It is the holy spiritual essence of man that is eternal and if controlled by the love of Christ (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18; 2 Corinthians 5:1-21), will be clothed with immortality at Christ's day (his second coming). Scandalous and impenitent immorality in any congregation must be dealt with. There is no option except discipline. It is the Lord's command. However, in view of the awesome responsibility of having to deliver. a man (or woman) to Satan for the destruction of the flesh it must be done with compassionate love, with strict adherence to the divine guidelines of the New Testament, and with reclamation of a penitent brother as its only goal. When such a case demands attention by the congregation and its leadership, it must be done with firmness, without partiality and as quickly as love allows. Because sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the sons of men is fully set to do evil (Ecclesiastes 8:11; see also Isaiah 26:9-10). The action of delivering a member of a congregation to Satan (or excommunication) must never be done on the basis of hearsay. The evidence of immorality must be clear and actualnot merely rumored.

1 Corinthians 5:6-8 Cleansing: It seems incredible that the Corinthian Christians would be boasting about such an abhorrent sin in their midst. Perhaps they were boasting about their graciousness and tolerance in not having judged the man (see comments on 1 Corinthians 5:2). Whatever the case, the apostle is as appalled at their attitude as he is at the sin. By their tolerance of this perversion they are leaving the whole congregation to be infected with sin. Leaven (yeast) is commonly used in the Bible to symbolize the penetrating power of a small matter so as to permeate and influence the greater, for either good or evil. The context always determines how the symbol is being used, It is clear that Paul is using leaven here as a figure of evil influence. Every one knows that just a little leaven will reproduce itself in a large lump of bread-dough. It is also true that one sin may infect a whole congregation, reproducing evil throughout the whole body. And how much more deadly would be the influence of such sin if the congregation was proud of its toleration of the evil.

Paul commands the church to cleanse itself. The Greek text has the word ekkatharate (aorist imperative). This is an order, not a suggestion. The Greek word is a compound word with a prepositional prefix meaning, clean out, purge out, eliminate. It is the word from which we have the English word catharsis which means to purify.

Should anyone think the apostle is too severe in his demands or his language he has only to read the Old Testament law concerning punishment for sins of seemingly lesser perversion. In the law of Moses Israelites were to be put to death for rebelling against parents, for bowing down to an image, for practicing witchcraft, and many other sins. Surely Christians are never to get the idea that God is more tolerant of sin in the New dispensation (see Hebrews 2:1-4; Matthew 5:27-30). Jesus cursed a fig tree and withered it simply because it gave signs of fruit but produced none. Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead by the Holy Spirit for lying about what they gave to the church; Elymas was struck blind by the Holy Spirit trying to turn Sergius Paulus away from faith in Jesus (Acts 13:8 ff.). God is serious about sin!

All the symbolism of Jewish history and God's redemptive program for man is applied here to the Christian experience. The Christian covenant is God's ultimate feast. Jesus spoke often (parabolically) of his new kingdom (the church) as a feast. Paul is not referring to the Lord's Supper, per se, in these verses. He is using the same figure of speech Jesus used in his parables. Paul is likening the whole Christian life to a festival or holy-day. Of course, the best symbol to illustrate that is the Jewish Passover feast. The Christian's Passover is Christ (Gr. pascha). Christ is the absolute passoverthe perfect passover. He is the fulfillment of that which all the Jewish feasts typified and prophesied. The Old Testament passover specifically celebrated God's redemption of Israel and sanctification or separation from bondage into a people called out for God's glory and purpose. All the festivals or holy-days ordained by God in the law of Moses were celebrations of righteousness, love, truth and goodness. They were holy dedications acknowledging man's reconciliation to the will of God through sacrificial, vicarious atonement.

At the Jewish passover, specifically, all Jewish homes had to be searched with minute care for leaven and any that was found was to be put out of the house (see Exodus 12:14-20). If anyone disobeyed this commandment they were to be cut off from the congregation of Israel! Leaven, in the matter of the Jewish passover, symbolized the old life of bondage in Egypt, which, in turn, symbolizes sin. In the Jewish passover the old leaven had to be thrown out before the slaying of the sacrificial lamb and the observance of the festival. In the Corinthian antitype their lamb had already been sacrificed and they were trying to celebrate the festival (the Christian's life) with the old leaven still remaining in their house.

The whole Christian experience is said to be a festival or a feast. The Old Testament prophets often predicted the messianic age in the figure of a feast (Isaiah 25:6-9; Isaiah 55:1-2; Zechariah 14:16-19, etc.). Jesus used the figure of a feast to predict his messianic kingdom (Luke 14:1 ff.; Matthew 22:1-14; Matthew 25:1-13; John 6:35-63; Luke 15:22-32). The apostles frequently spoke of the Christian life as feasting (cf. Hebrews 6:1 ff; Hebrews 12:22-23; 1 Corinthians 3:2; Hebrews 5:12-14; 1 Peter 2:2-3; Ephesians 5:18; see also John 4:34; Matthew 5:6; Isaiah 65:13). So, when Paul says here, Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival. (Gr. heortazomen, feast) he is not limiting the need for cleansing to partaking of the Lord's Supper. The church must purge itself of the sin within it in order to be considered as being a participant of the whole Christian experience!

And the sin within the church is not only the man living with his father's wife! The translation of the Greek word kakias by the English word malice is not sufficiently precise to give the clear meaning of the sentence. The word kakias means badness in quality. It may have the connotation of maliciousness if the context demands it, but that does not seem to be the case here. The word kakias refers more to disposition or attitude (bad attitude) than it does to deeds. The next word in the sentence, evil (Gr. ponerias), has to do with deeds. It would seem, therefore, that Paul was urging the Corinthian church to purge itself of its bad attitude or disposition (arrogance and worldly sophistication) as well as the incestuous relationship of the man with his father's wife.

So long as the church was of the attitude to see itself as sophisticated by allowing the sinful couple to continue in its fellowship, they could not possibly be living the Christian life (keeping the festival with the unleavened bread) of sincerity and truth. The word eilikrineias is translated sincerity and is from two Greek words which mean sun and judge. The idea is that a life lived in sincerity is a life that is not lived in darkness or shadows, but one that is lived in the undimmed, brilliance of pure truth.