We ended last time with 4:18–21 where Paul threatens the Corinthians with stern discipline if they do not acknowledge his authority. And now he uses that authority to address a big problem in the church. Church Discipline, or rather the lack thereof.
It is something that we don’t always like talking about. But something we must be talking about. There have been questions in this church if we are truly exercising biblical church discipline. But church discipline is about more than church discipline. It is the future judgement of God breaking into the present. It is about the presence of Christ. it is about the identity of the church. So church discipline is important. Because if we do not understand and practice it, it means we do not have a full understanding of Christ work, or identity and the purpose of the church. This chapter will hopefully help us to see that. Another thing is that acceptance of sin in the church is not a sign of progressiveness but of pride.
Stand firmly against Sin
- A rebuke to the church for inaction (v. 1-2)
- Reasons to act! (v. 3-8)
A rebuke for not acting
Verse 1, “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not even tolerated among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife.” A report had reached Paul’s ears, and he is not impressed! He can barely believe it! It is “Actually being reported…” he says!
The specific kind of sexual immorality is incest - A man is sleeping with his step mother. This is wicked. We might ask why just the man is singled out and not the woman in this passage. Most commentators believe this is because the woman was not part of the church, and the man was. Judgement begins with the household of God. It was not the churches job to judge those outsides, but inside their community. The woman most likely was not claiming to be part of the church, but the man was.
But I want you to notice something. The focus is not the man’s sin, but that there is sexual immortality being tolerated “among” them! Paul is not just disappointed in him , as much as the church! Only verse one deals with the sinning person, the other 12 with the fault of the church. The main point of this chapter is not the sin of the man, but the reaction of the church. He is shocked that they would tolerate something that is not even tolerated among the pagans. Its crazy! These people had been set apart from the gentiles and should act like it.
Now it may be easy to look at this and say, “wow I cant believe they did that!” And I thank God that we think that way. But it made me prayerfully consider if there is any sin in our midst that we tolerate that we think is not such a big deal…. Maybe gossip, or slander, or drunkenness or greed. These are all sins Paul includes in verse 11.
He says in verse 2, “And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.” Ought we not rather to mourn. Mourn the spiritual death of someone. We mourn death, how much do we really mourn sin among. It is heartbreaking- why? Because it is a rejection of the cross of Christ – the lamb who was slain. It is a rejection of our family relationship – which is one founded in the Spirit of holiness.
Instead of mourning they were arrogant! Thinking this was sign of their spiritual maturity! That they were not affected by this man’s sin. But Allowing sin to flourish in the church is nothing but bold and dangerous arrogance – considering that this is the temple of a holy God. Considering we are the body of Christ! It is to think we can allow something in the body of Christ that he would never allow!
Let him who has done this be removed from among you. This is dangerous to the whole church, and they should be radical in dealing with sin. Just as Jesus taught us to be radical in dealing with individual sin when he says, “if your hand causes you to sin cut it off,” so we must be radical with sin in the church. We see throughout covenant history that God often judged the whole nation for the sin of a few within them. Why? Because when the nation allows the sins of the few to flourish without addressing them, they are pouring gas on the fire of sin. It is like when our catechism says that we share in the sin of blasphemy by being “silent bystanders (Q&A 99).” The best possible thing that you can do for sin is address it and bring it out in the open. Sin must be addressed immediately, consistently, and firmly.
It must be addressed immediately. The longer you wait to address anything the harder it becomes to address it. Because the sinner will say, “I have been doing this for years, and you never said anything, why are you all of a sudden saying something now.” You also show then that you never had a truly open and honest relationship with that person, because you were afraid to bring up a certain subject.
If that is the case, and you feel like you have not addressed sin, now is the time. Use this sermon as an excuse. And say, “I have not addressed because I did not realize how much it hurt you and the whole body. It is not only you who are being hurt by the sin, but it damages the integrity of the whole body. it all about who you love most, and whose you are. Is Christ everything, and identity in him everything. Only believing that will give us the courage to live this way.
It must be addressed consistently. No matter where such a sin raises its ugly head it must never become normalized. Or argued away. In every culture this can easily happen. After a while we get tired of tackling some sins. Maybe like drunkenness, or gossip. And we just stay quiet. And slowly it becomes a respectable sin. The culture back then was very sexual, not unlike today. It was normal for people to sleep with others outside and inside of marriage. They thought the Christians were crazy for saying that sexual relationship was only to be enjoyed within marriage. Do people in the world still think we are crazy for our sexual ethic? Or is this something that we have come to accept.
It must be addressed firmly. Sin in ourselves or in the community ought to be wept over, and removed. “Let him who has done this be removed from among you,” says Paul. Which brings us to our second point. Why exactly are we to act in this way?
Reasons to act (ver. 3-8)
The first reason they are to act firmly is the church of Corinth Gathers in the name of the Lord Jesus – and the apostolic authority of Paul is present among them in the power of the Lord Jesus. Look at verse 3 and 4, “For though I am absent in the body, I am present in the spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgement on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of the Lord Jesus…”
The spirit of the one who was called by the will of God to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ has pronounced judgement! And he is present with them in Spirit. In other words, “The authority of Jesus Christ is present among you through me.” Excommunication is a sign of the last judgement in the present moment! God through Christ is already judging those inside the church. The Spirit of Christ dwells among us! As one author says, “the age to come is breaking into this present age: both the last judgment and the final vindication of God’s elect occur in a semi-realized manner, ministerially rather than magisterially. The church’s acts are not final…but they are signs and seals of the age to come. Christ’s performative speech is mediated through appointed officers.”
In other words, This judgement is no other than the judgment of Jesus. He is present through the authority of the leaders of this church. If Christ is present – and he cannot even look upon sin, how dare the church accept Open, rebellious, and unrepentant sin. What an arrogant thing that would be.
So, the first reason we are to act is because Jesus is here, acting also through the leaders. Here the divine power residing in Jesus is accessible by both Paul and the Corinthians through the Spirit, and Paul exhorts the Corinthians to use such power as he does: as authority to judge within the community. Dear church Jesus is here. Lets deal with sin like he would.
The second reason is so that the sinner may be saved. He continues in verse 5, “… you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord. When he is talking about the flesh and spirit he is not talking here about immaterial and material but about the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of God. Here the flesh refers to his sinful nature. Paul says something like this to Timothy in Ephesus, when he says, “…Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme (1 Timothy 1:20).” The whole point is so that they might know what being outside of the kingdom feels like. To put it in more direct terms, to feel what hell feels like. That is Afterall where Satan rules.
The church is gathered in the Spirit, but this man is living according to the flesh. These two are incompatible with one another. Paul says to the Galatians, “For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other…” the kingdom of God and the church has been born through the word of God in the power of the Spirit and therefore is spiritual as opposed to the fleshly. So, if the church is to thrive it must war against the flesh and anyone living according to the flesh must be “delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord.” If they do not hand the man over to Satan, then the flesh will seep into the rest of the Spiritual body.
So the second reason is so that that this man may be saved. Notice it says may be saved. Not will be saved. The judgement is redemptive even if it is not received as such. We keep praying for these people even as we deliver them over. In fact we pray all the more!
The third reason reason for Paul, is the holiness of the body. He says in verse 5:6, “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” Again, he accuses them of boasting, and asks “do you not know….” This phrase occurs ten times in 1 Corinthians and only once elsewhere in Paul. It is ironic for a church who seemed to claim a great deal of wisdom and knowledge for themselves. It is often those churches that think that they have arrived and know it all that must be most careful of falling. Pride tends to lead to blindness.
Knowledge of Christ never leads to arrogance – but always leads to humility, otherwise it is not true knowledge. And what is it that his church was supposed to know? That a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
Leaven is a little portion of a previous week’s batch of dough that had been allowed to ferment. When added to the next batch, the leaven made the bread rise. It carried with it the slight risk of infection, especially if the process was left to go on indefinitely without starting afresh with a completely new batch. Paul emphasizes (by emphatic word order in Greek) that although in only a “little” part of the church—one person in fact—the evil would inevitably, slowly but surely, spread through the whole community if left unchecked. Dear church one person among 400 can cause the whole church to be sick! It can be the smallest thing that if left unchecked can spiral out of control, and drag the whole church down.
This is why Paul encourages the church in verse 7 to “cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” One of the major occurrences at each Passover is that they were to search and throw away all the leaven. Paul tells them that they are already unleavened. They are already redeemed – for Christ the Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. HAS BEEN! You are here is what Paul is saying! You are washed. Sanctified, cleansed! When God calls you into the life of discipleship in the church you are called to more and more part with the old life and repudiate the world as you journey to glory. We can’t rejoice and boast in sin, while celebrating the festival. The identity of the redeemed community is defined by the sacrifice of Christ that has brought about a new state of affairs. That state of affairs is a reality.
Paul reads the whole Old Testament through the lens of Jesus work. One church father said, “Christ was put to death so that the preaching would produce a new kind of life.” Gods new creation - his redeemed people - are born through the death of the Passover lamb. Christ has been slain. The exodus is complete. We cannot remain in sin.
Salvation in sin is not possible, it is always salvation from sin!
Therefore says Paul in verse 8, “let us celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malic and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” At the center of this chapter on discipline is a command to celebrate! To feast! In other words, “Wake up, church! Jesus has died and has risen! The resurrection has happened! The new creation is here. The Spirit is in our midst. The Spirit which teaches us to say no to ungodliness!
The whole time from the resurrection to the return is a festival because of all that we have been given. We have been freed from death, sin, and the tyranny of Satan, and called to be in the kingdom! The Christian life is a continual Passover over feast, of liberation from death through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We live freed from the sin of malice and evil. We have our identity in Christ lived out of sincerity and truth. Or in other words life and doctrine.
We are set apart to Christ. Holy and therefore called to be holy. Lets live this way, and hold each other accountable to that standard.
Amen