1 Corinthians 5:13

Vv. 13 justifies by a remark, and moreover by a Scriptural quotation, the distinction laid down in 1 Corinthians 5:12. There are two domains, each subject to a different jurisdiction: the Christian judges the Christian; the man of the world is judged by God. It is needless to say that this contrast is only relative. The unfaithful Christian is also judged by God (1 Corinthians 11:30-32); but he has at the same time to do with another judge, the Christian community to which he belongs; while the non-Christian can sin without being subjected to any judgment of the latter kind. It seems at the first glance as if this saying were in contradiction to that of our Lord: “Judge not....Why seest thou the mote in thy brother's eye?” (Matthew 7:1-3). But when Jesus speaks thus, the judgment which He would exclude is that of secret malevolence, which condemns precipitately, on simple presumptions, or putting a malignant construction on motives. St. Paul is equally averse to such judging, 1 Corinthians 13:7. The judgment he lays on the Christian as a duty is that of charity, which, in view of notorious facts, seeks the best means to bring a brother back to himself who is self-deceived as to his spiritual state, and to save him (1 Corinthians 5:5). The former of these judgments is accompanied with a haughty joy, the other is an act of self-humiliation and mourning (1 Corinthians 5:2). The first proposition of 1 Corinthians 5:13 might be made the continuation of the second question of 1 Corinthians 5:12: “Do not ye judge...and does not God judge?” But the affirmative meaning seems simpler.

The verb κρινει might be a future (κρινεῖ): “God shall judge; ” the words would then refer to the last judgment. But, after the presents κρίνειν, κρίνετε, the verb is rather a present (κρίνει), the present of the idea and competency: “It is God who is their Judge.”

The final proposition, containing a Scripture quotation, is usually separated from what immediately precedes, to form, as it were, a last peremptory order summing up the whole chapter. It is clear that in this sense the καί, and (before the imperative ἐξάρατε or the future ἐξαρεῖτε), is out of place. It is omitted therefore in the Alex. and Greco-Latin readings, which evidently proceed on this interpretation. But what is overlooked in adopting this sense is the close connection established by the last words: ἐξ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν, from among yourselves, with what immediately precedes (1 Corinthians 5:12-13 a): “Thou shalt take away the wicked, not from human society, as if thou hadst to judge also them that are without, but from the midst of thyself, from those that are within.” Such then is the Scriptural justification of the distinction laid down by Paul, 1 Corinthians 5:10-13 a, between the judgment of those without and of those within. As Israel was bound to cut off the malefactor, not from heathen nations, but from its own midst, so with the Church. From this point of view we cannot but adopt the καί, and, of the T. R. and of the Byzantines, to which must be added the support of the Peschito, a support by no means to be despised, notwithstanding all that Westcott and Hort say: “ And finally, you remember the Bible rule...!” This is the final proof.

The same reason which led to the suppression of the καί, and, no doubt led also to the change of the future ἐξαρεῖτε, ye shall take away, into the aor. imperative ἐξάρατε, take away! Once this last word was held to be the summary of the chapter, it is evident the imperative alone was suitable. If, on the contrary, the explanation here proposed is the true one, the future ought to be preserved, as giving more literally the formula quoted; comp. Deuteronomy 17:7-12; Deuteronomy 22:21; Deuteronomy 24:7. It has been suspected that the reading ἐξαρεῖτε, ye shall take away, was borrowed from these passages; but the text of the LXX. has in all these sentences the sing. ἐξαρεῖς, thou shalt take away. Why should the Byzantine copyists have transformed it into a plural?

The term take away, like that of judge (1 Corinthians 5:12), should be determined by what precedes. The means of execution, of which the apostle is thinking, can only be the two indicated by himself, that of mourning, 1 Corinthians 5:2, which appeals to the intervention of God (with or without the παραδιδόναι), and that of the personal rupture, indicated 1 Corinthians 5:11, which plunges the sinner into isolation. Such are the weapons of Christian discipline, which correspond to Israelitish stoning; Paul knows no others, when once the first warnings have failed. The very act of delivering to Satan, which he does as an apostle, not without the co-operation of the Church, is not essentially different from the judgment which it should itself have carried out according to 1 Corinthians 5:2.

Rückert, who always takes a very close grip of questions, does not think that the term τὸν πονηρόν, the wicked, can possibly designate any other than the incestuous person. These last words would thus be the summary of chap. 5: “Exclude that guilty one!” But then, how explain the two passages, 1 Corinthians 5:6-13 a, which seem to deviate from the subject properly so called? The first, according to him, is intended to prove the necessity of the exclusion; the second, its possibility; then, lastly, would come the final order, as an abrupt conclusion. This is able, but inadmissible. The passage 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 has a wholly different meaning, as we have seen. The passage 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 is introduced, not by a logical connection, but by an accidental circumstance, the misunderstanding on the part of the Corinthians. The τὸν πονηρόν, the wicked, does not therefore refer in the least to the incestuous man personally, but, as in the precepts of Deuteronomy, to the whole category of the vicious who are within. Paul does not return to the case of the incestuous man, but continues to treat the general subject of discipline to which he had passed from 1 Corinthians 5:6.

Ecclesiastical Discipline.

Let us briefly study the few passages of the New Testament which bear on this subject.

Matthew 5:22. Jesus here distinguishes three judicial stages: the judgment (κρίσις), the Sanhedrim, and the Gehenna of fire. These phrases are borrowed from the Israelitish order of things, in which they denote the district tribunal, the superior court, and, finally, the immediate judgment of God. If we apply these terms to the new surroundings which are formed about Jesus, and regard the first as brotherly admonition, the second as that of the heads of the future community of which the little existing flock is the germ, the third as God's judgment falling on the incorrigible sinner, we shall have a gradation of punishments corresponding, on the one hand, to the received Israelitish forms, and, on the other, to the passages of the New Testament, including that which we are explaining.

Matthew 18:15-20. Here is the fullest passage. Jesus begins with admonition; there are three degrees of it: 1. personal, as it is a private offence which is in question, the offended man takes the initiative; then 2. it takes a graver character by the addition of two witnesses; 3. it is the whole assembly together which admonishes the culprit. In the second place, admonition is followed by judgment; the dealing of the Church having failed, the offended person and every member of the congregation regard the brother, now recognised to be guilty, as a heathen or publican, which, in Jewish language, signifies that they break off all personal connection with him. Finally, the Church does not yet abandon the guilty man; it prays that he may repent, or, if not, that God may punish him visibly. Two or three brethren are sufficient to carry out this appeal to God effectually. The last stage, final perdition, is not here mentioned by Jesus; but it had been indicated by Him in the saying Matthew 5.

2 Thessalonians 3:6; 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15. The first stage, that of warning, is here satisfied by the apostle's own letters; comp. 1 Thessalonians 4:11; 1Th 4:2 and 1 Thessalonians 3:6-12. The second stage, that of judgment, begins at 1 Thessalonians 5:14. It is the σημείωσις, the public declaration, probably a communication from the rulers of the flock regarding what has taken place, and the invitation to the congregation to break off private relations with the culprit, without however ceasing to love him, and to act accordingly by praying for him and seeking to bring him back. The apostle stops here, like Jesus, in the second passage of Matthew.

Revelation 2:19-22. A false prophetess, whom the bishop has not checked, is to be punished by a disease sent by the Lord. This threat corresponds to the judgment whereby Paul gives over the incestuous person to Satan; and John's position in delivering this message is not without analogy to Paul's in our chapter. With this punishment coming directly from the Lord might be compared the punishment drawn down by profane communions, of which mention is made in chap. 11 of our Epistle. But we would not anticipate the explanation of the passage.

It is clear that the means of excommunication cannot be supported by any passage of the New Testament, but that the Church is not for all that defenceless against the scandals which arise within it. After admonitions, if they are useless, it has two arms: 1st. humiliation, with prayer to God to Acts, 2 nd. private rupture. The use of these means depends on individual believers, and may dispense with all decision by way of a numerical majority. And how much ought we to admire the Lord's wisdom, who took care not to confide the exercise of discipline to such uncertain hands as those of the half plus one of the members of the Church. To be convinced of this, it is enough to cast our eyes on the use which the Church has made of excommunication. There is not on the earth at this hour a Christian who is not excommunicated: Protestants are so by the Roman Church; the Roman Church by the Greek Church, and vice versa; the Reformed by the Lutherans, who refuse to admit them to their Holy Supper; the Darbyites by one another. Is there not then enough here to cure the Church of the use of this means? “The weapons of our warfare,” says St. Paul, 2 Corinthians 10:4, “are not carnal, but are powerful by God.” It is certainly probable that the incestuous member of the Corinthian Church, visited with judgment from above, and abandoned for the time by all his brethren, did not present himself at the love-feast and the Holy Supper. And even at this hour it is hard to believe that a scandalous sinner, with whom the most of his brethren have broken, and for whom they besiege the throne of God, would have the audacity to present himself with them at the holy table; but if he chooses, he should have it in his power as Judas had. If the Church lives, the Lord will show that He also is living. Excommunication may have been a measure pedagogically useful at a time when the whole Church was under a system of legality. Now the Church has recovered consciousness of its spirituality; ought not its mode of discipline to follow this impulse, and return to the order of primitive spiritual discipline?