13Immorality in the  Church (5:1-13)

It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. And you have become arrogant, and have not mourned instead, in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst. For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters; for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he should be an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves. (5:1-13)

The city of Corinth in Paul’s day was like much of western society today. People were strongly intent on having their own ways. In no regard were they more intent than in regard to fulfilling physical lust. Sexual permissiveness was rampant; and then, as now, the church was not unaffected.

All of 1 Corinthians 5 is devoted to the problem of immorality in the church, much of it specifically to sexual immorality. As serious as the immorality itself was the church’s tolerance of it. Probably because of their philosophical orientation and their love of human wisdom they rationalized the immoral behavior of their fellow believers. In any case they were not inclined to take corrective measures. Even those who were not involved in immorality had become arrogant about the matter (v. 2), possibly citing their “freedom in Christ,” as do many believers today. Apparently there were many who arrogantly flaunted their vice in the church.

The chapter is not directed at the believers, or “so-called” believers (v. 11), who were committing the sins but at the rest of the church who stood by doing nothing about it—in fact, arrogantly refusing to do anything about it.

From 1:10 through 4:21 Paul has been dealing with the more philosophical and psychological types of sin, the sins of intellect and attitude. The division in the church was primarily caused by party spirit, seen in its numerous exclusive groups, with each group considering itself to have the inside track on spirituality.

Chapter 5, however, focuses primarily on sins of the flesh. But those sins are not unrelated to those of the mind or heart, because all sin is related. Sin in one area always makes us more susceptible to sin in other areas. In our own day, the rise in sexual sins and sins of violence closely parallel the rise in humanistic education and amoral philosophy, and correspond to an increase in pride and self-satisfaction, and a decreased concern for the things of God.

Paul’s thrust in this chapter is for discipline of persistently sinning church members. He presents the need, the method, the reason, and the sphere of the discipline that should be imposed.

THE NEED FOR DISCIPLINE

It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. And you have become arrogant, and have not mourned instead.

The first things the Corinthians needed to see was the need for discipline. Because they apparently had rationalized or minimized the immorality in their midst, they saw no need for discipline. Paul’s first step was to show them that the immorality was immorality and that it was serious and should not be tolerated—something they already should have known. The fact that it was actually reported that there is immorality among you, indicates it was common information and should have been as shocking to them as it was to Paul.

The church had been carefully taught by Paul and other ministers. The Corinthian believers were well grounded in Christian doctrine and morals. They also had been told, in a previous, nonbiblical epistle from Paul, of the need for discipline of believers who persisted in sin. “I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people” (v. 9). But sadly, the problems Paul addresses in this chapter were not new to the Corinthians, and were being tolerated by them.

The Corinthian church had a general reputation for immorality, and word of it had come to Paul more than once. As just mentioned, he had written them about it previously. But the particular problem he mentions first was immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife.

Immorality is the Greek porneia, from which we get pornography, and refers to any illicit sexual activity. In this case it was a form of incest, because a man was living with his father’s wife, that is, his stepmother. The term father’s wife indicates that the woman was not his natural mother but had married his father after his mother had died or been divorced.

That God considers such a relationship incestuous is clear from the Old Testament. Sexual relations between a man and his stepmother was in the same category as relations between him and his natural mother. Anyone guilty of those or other sexual “abominations” was to be cut off from his people (Lev 18:7-8, 29; cf. Deut. 22:30), a reference to capital punishment. From Cicero and others we know that such incest was also strictly forbidden under Roman law As Paul observes, it did not exist even among the Gentiles. A church member in Corinth was guilty of a sin that even his pagan neighbors did not practice or tolerate. The testimony of the church in Corinth was thereby severely hindered.

Three things about that particular relationship seem evident. First, the present tense has indicates that the sinful activity had been going on for some time and was still going on. It was not a one-time or short-term affair but was continuous and open. They may have been living together as if man and wife. Second, since adultery is not charged, the relationship between the son and his stepmother probably had caused her to be divorced from the father. At that time neither of them was legally married. Third, because Paul calls for no discipline of the woman, perhaps she was not a Christian. The man, therefore, being a believer, not only was immorally but unequally related to the woman (2 Cor. 6:14).

More shocking to Paul than the sin itself was the church’s toleration of it. And you have become arrogant, and have not mourned instead. Nothing seemed to break through their pride and boasting (cf. 1:12; 3:3, 21; 4:6-7, 18). They were so self-satisfied and self-confident that they excused or rationalized the most wicked behavior within the congregation. Perhaps they looked on the incest as an expression of their Christian liberty, or perhaps they looked on their toleration of it as an expression of Christian love. In any case their arrogance blinded them to the clear truth of God’s standards. Perhaps they felt so secure as members of a party attached to a great spiritual leader (Paul, Apollos, or Peter; see 1:12) that they thought they could sin without consequence.

They should have mourned instead. A church that does not mourn over sin, especially sin within its own fellowship, is on the edge of spiritual disaster. When we cease to be shocked by sin we lose a strong defense against it. Alexander Pope wrote:

That was the pattern followed by the church in Corinth. She arrogantly followed her own feelings and rationalizations rather than God’s Word, and found herself ignoring, and perhaps even justifying, flagrant sin in her midst.

The church at Thyatira in many ways was a model church. It was strong in “love and faith and service and perseverance” and was growing in good deeds. But it was tolerating “the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality” (Rev 2:19-20). Someone in the church, claiming to speak for God, was actually leading the believers into immoral practices. Though rebuked, she refused to repent. Consequently she, and all who participated in immorality with her, became subject to God’s severe judgment. The punishment was to be a warning to all Christians and a reminder of God’s righteous standards for His people and of His knowing their minds and hearts (vv. 21-23). God takes the purity of His church seriously, and He commands His children to take it equally seriously.

Whenever sin is not repented of and cleansed, it increases and spreads its infection. When Paul wrote his next epistle to the church at Corinth he was still deeply concerned about its spiritual and moral condition. “I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced” (2 Cor. 12:21). Because the Corinthians refused to mourn, they caused Paul to mourn and the Holy Spirit to grieve (Eph. 4:30).

Christians are not to tolerate sin within the church any more than they are to tolerate it within their own lives. “But do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you, as is proper among saints…. And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them” (Eph. 5:3, 11). It is the responsibility of all church members, not simply the pastor and other leaders, to expose sinful practices in the fellowship. Without being self-righteous or prying, we are required to be continually on the lookout for any sort of immorality or sin that threatens the purity of our Lord’s body, the church. We must recognize the need for identifying and cleansing sin within the church. When it is found we should be in spiritual mourning until it is cleansed.

THE METHOD OF DISCIPLINE

in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst. For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit maybe saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. (5:2b-5)

Paul makes clear the action that should have been taken to discipline the man who refused to repent of and forsake his blatant immorality. He should have been excommunicated, removed from your midst.

Jesus set forth the basic method of church discipline:

Discipline is not inconsistent with love. It is lack of discipline, in fact, that is inconsistent with love. “Those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives” (Heb. 12:6). The Lord disciplines his children because he loves them, and we will discipline our brothers and sisters in the Lord if we truly love Him and truly love them.

For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. Paul called on the Corinthian church to acknowledge with him the seriousness of the offense, to recognize the need for discipline, and to take appropriate action—as Paul had already done as if he were there. He is saying that he had in his inner spirit passed judgment on the sinning person and had affirmed the mandatory consequences.

The church was to come together in the name of our Lord Jesus and with the power of our Lord Jesus. That is, they were come together to do what they knew to be Christ’s will in the matter, to do what He would do if He were there. They were aware of the principles Jesus had taught (Matt. 18), and the apostle calls on the people to apply those principles. As the Lord had instructed, the local congregation was responsible for die discipline. And when a local church acts in Jesus’ name, that is according to His Word, they can be sure they are acting in His power. It is in the context of His teaching about church discipline that the Lord said, “Whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” and “If two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst” (Matt. 18:18-20). The Lord will always bless and empower what we truly do in His name. If we have followed His instruction to be sure that “every fact may be confirmed” (v. 16), we know that our decision about guilt or innocence (binding or loosing) will be in accordance with heaven’s. When we meet in His name He is always with us—doing the discipline Himself (cf. Eph. 5:25-27). Never is the church more in harmony with heaven and operating in perfect accord with her Lord than when dealing with sin to maintain purity.

When the Corinthians were assembled to take disciplinary action Paul would be with them in spirit. The apostle had taught them as a pastor, was now writing them for the second time (1 Cor. 5:9), and intended to continue to give them his counsel and encouragement in doing the Lord’s will—even when he could not be with them in person.

To put the professed believer out of their fellowship, to excommunicate him, would be to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. Satan is the ruler of this world, and turning a believer over to Satan, therefore, thrusts the believer back into the world on his own, apart from the care and support of Christian fellowship. That person has forfeited his right to participation in the church of Jesus Christ, which He intends to keep pure at all costs. The word deliver (paradidōmi) is a strong term indicating the judicial act of sentencing, of handing over for punishment. The sentence passed on a sinning believer is to be given to Satan. Paul excommunicated Hymenaeus and Alexander because of their continued and unrepented blasphemy. They were pastors with a false gospel; he “delivered [them] over to Satan that they may be taught not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. 1:20).

The result of such discipline is the destruction of the flesh. Destruction (olethros) may refer even to death. It is used frequently in connection with divine judgment on sin. But Satan has no power over the spirits of believers. When Satan attacked Job, he was only allowed to harm that man of God physically. He could destroy his possessions and afflict his body, but he could not destroy his soul. The inner believer belongs entirely to Christ and we have the absolute assurance that he will be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. But in the meanwhile the unrepentant believer may be turned over to suffer greatly at the hands of Satan.

Jesus made it clear that all suffering and affliction is not the direct result of sin—just as Job’s was not. When the disciples assumed that the man born blind was being punished because of sin, Jesus replied, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:2-3). Scripture is just as clear, however, that sickness may be the direct result of sin. Because some of the Corinthian Christians had abused and unworthily participated in the Lord’s Supper, Paul told them, “For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep” (1 Cor. 11:30). Physical weakness, sickness, and even death can result from persistent sinning. When Ananias and Saphira lied to the church about the proceeds from the sale of their property, they also lied to the Holy Spirit. Their wickedness caused them to die on the spot, “And great fear came upon the whole church, and upon all who heard of these things” (Acts 5:1-11). Because they were believers, the Lord took them to be with Himself, but He could not allow such wickedness to corrupt the church.

The destruction of the flesh indicates that the incestuous man in Corinth would eventually die unless he repented of his sin. We are not told of the specific affliction, disease, or circumstances, but his body was on the way to destruction in a special disciplinary way. If he kept sinning, his life would end before he otherwise would have died. He would go to heaven, if he was truly a believer; but he would go before he should have gone. To protect His church, the Lord would have to take him early. Since some believers hold so tightly to this life because they have such limited vision of heaven, such deadly discipline acts as a warning of what might happen to them because of sin.

Perhaps the man did repent. He may be the one spoken of in 2 Corinthians, whom Paul said should be forgiven and comforted and for whom they should reaffirm their love, “in order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his schemes” (2:5-11). A disciplined brother is still a brother and is never to be despised, even when unrepentant (2 Thess. 3:14-15). And if he repents, he is to be forgiven and restored in love (Gal. 6:1-2).

THE REASON FOR DISCIPLINE

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (5:6-8)

Discipline sometimes must be severe because the consequences of not disciplining are much worse. Sin is a spiritual malignancy and it will not long stay isolated. Unless removed it will spread its infection until the whole fellowship of believers is diseased.

The Corinthians could not face that truth, although they had been taught it long before. Their pride caused them to be forgetful and neglectful, and Paul tells them, Your boasting is not good. “Look where your arrogance and your boasting have brought you. Because you still love human wisdom and human recognition and the things of this world, you are completely blinded to the blatant sin that will destroy your church if you don’t remove it.” Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? In a more modern figure he was saying, “Don’t you know that one rotten apple can spoil the whole barrel?”

God diagnoses spiritual health only by the standards of His righteousness. We can be highly gifted, highly blessed, highly successful, and highly respected—and also be highly sinful. That was the condition of the Corinthian church. The believers there had been under the ministry of Paul, Apollos, and Peter. They were “enriched in [Christ], in all speech and all knowledge,” the “testimony concerning Christ was confirmed” in them, and they were “not lacking in any gift” (1:5-7). Yet they were proud, arrogant, boastful, and immoral—even tolerant of sins, including a sin that pagans condemned.

Similarly, the scribes and the Pharisees of Jesus’ day were quite satisfied with themselves. They loved “the place of honor at banquets,” the “respectful greetings in the market place,” and “being called by men, Rabbi” (Matt. 23:6-7). They thought they deserved such recognition. But Jesus pronounced on them a long series of “woes,” in which He pointed out sin after sin of which they were guilty. He characterized them as blind and hypocritical. Their unchecked pride completely blinded them to the most obvious of spiritual principles, and their arrogance caused them to live lives of continuous pretense. “You serpents, you brood of vipers,” Jesus said, “how shall you escape the sentence of hell?” (vv. 13-33). But such pride is less offensive in the case of spiritual hypocrites like the Jews to whom our Lord spoke than it is in the assembly of believers.

A large congregation, an impressive Sunday school, active witnessing and visitation and counseling, and every other sort of good program give no protection or justification to a church that is not faithful in cleansing itself. When sin is willingly, or even neglectfully, allowed to go unchallenged and undisciplined, a larger church will be in danger of a larger malignancy.

In ancient times, when bread was about to be baked, a small piece of dough was pulled off and saved. That little leaven, or yeast, would then be allowed to ferment in water, and would later be kneaded into the next batch of fresh dough to make it rise.

Leaven in Paul’s illustration, as throughout Scripture, represents influence. Usually it refers to the influence of evil, though in Matthew 13:33 it represents the good influence of the kingdom of heaven. In this case, however, evil influence is in view The whole lump of dough is here the local church. If given opportunity, sin will permeate a whole church just as leaven permeates a whole loaf. Sin’s nature is to ferment, corrupt, and spread.

For the Jews, leaven historically had also represented something bad from the past brought over into the present. When God was preparing Israel to leave Egypt He instructed His people to sprinkle lamb’s blood on their doorposts and lintels so that, in the last of the ten plagues on Egypt, the angel of death would pass over and not slay their firstborn (Ex. 12:23). And when they baked bread in preparation for the trek out of Egypt, the Israelites were not allowed to add leaven. For one thing, they did not have time to knead the leaven into the dough and wait for it to rise, since “they could not delay” (v. 39). For another, bread represented sustenance of life, and the Passover and Exodus represented deliverance from the old life (in Egypt) and entrance into the new life (in the Promised Land). The leaven represented the old life—the way of Egypt, the way of the world—which was to be left entirely behind. Consequently, while they were traveling out of Egypt and during every subsequent Passover celebration, the Lord commanded that “nothing leavened shall be seen among you” (13:3, 7). Every bit of leaven was to be thrown out.

Christians likewise are to be separated from the old life. We are to bring none of it into the new life. Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Clean out is expressed with the use of a compound word (ekkathairō, “to purge or cleanse thoroughly”) to emphasize the completeness of cleansing. As pictured in the Passover in Egypt, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God’s perfect Passover Lamb, and the placing of His blood over us, completely separates us from the dominion of sin and the penalty of judgment. We, too, are to remove everything from the old life that would taint and permeate the new As Israel was set free from Egypt as a result of the Passover and was to make a clean break with that oppressor, so the believer is to be totally separated from his old life, with its sinful attitudes, standards, and habits. Christ died to separate us from bondage to sin and give us a new bondage to righteousness (Rom. 6:19), which is the only true freedom.

David Brainerd, who spent his short adult life as a missionary to the American Indians, wrote in his diary:

One of the greatest protections from sin that we have as Christians is simply focusing on our Lord and on the sacrifice He made for us. To understand that His death for sin applied to us calls us away from sin and to a clean break with the old ways is to understand the sanctifying work of the cross (see Titus 2:11-14). It is impossible to be occupied with this truth and with sin at the same time.

The conclusion of Paul’s point is that we are to continue to celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. The Old Testament Passover was celebrated but once a year, as a reminder of the deliverance from Egypt. The Christian’s celebration should be continuous. Our every thought, every plan, every intention should be under Christ’s control. The perfect unleavened bread He desires us to eat is that of sincerity and truth. Sincerity is the attitude of genuine honesty and integrity, from which truth results. In this context, those two words are synonyms for purity, the purity of the cleansed new life in Jesus Christ—which has no place for the leaven, the impurity, of malice and wickedness. Malice speaks of an evil nature or disposition. Wickedness is the act that manifests that evil disposition. We are called to celebrate our Passover in Christ not with an annual feast but with constant life devotion to purity and rejection of sin.

Discipline in the church assists in this celebration by removing impurities that will contaminate and corrupt it. It preserves Christ’s Body from the permeation of evil.

THE SPHERE OF DISCIPLINE

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters; for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he should be an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves. (5:9-13)

The discipline God commands His church to take against the unrepentant is to be of a certain kind and should be exercised within certain bounds. These verses indicate some types of offenses that require discipline and give further explanation as to how the discipline is to be carried out.

In a previous letter (see Introduction) Paul had commanded the Corinthian Christians not to associate with immoral people. Associate with translates sunanamignumi, which literally means “to mix up with.” In this compound form it is more intense and means “to keep intimate, close company with.”

Faithful believers are not to keep close company with any fellow believers who persistently practice serious sins such as those mentioned here. If the offenders will not listen to the counsel and warning of two or three other believers and not even of the whole church, they are to be put out of the fellowship. They should not be allowed to participate in any activities of the church—worship services, Sunday school, Bible studies, or even social events. Obviously, and most importantly, they should not be allowed to have any leadership role. They should be totally cut off both from individual and corporate fellowship with other Christians, including that of eating together (v. 11; cf. 2 Thess. 3:6-15).

No exceptions are made. Even if the unrepentant person is a close friend or family member, he is to be put out. If he is a true believer he will not lose his salvation because of the sin (v. 5), but he is to lose contact with fellow believers, in order not to corrupt them with his wickedness and to suffer the consequences of his sin. The pain of such isolation may drive the person to repentance.

A church that does not discipline a sinning member is like a person who has good reason to believe he has cancer but who refuses to go to a doctor—because he either does not want to face the problem or does not want to face the treatment. If he waits too long his whole body will be permeated with the disease and it will be too late for treatment to do any good. No church is healthy enough to resist contamination from persistent sin in its midst, any more than the healthiest and most nutritious bushel of apples can withstand contamination from even a single bad one. The only solution in both cases is separation.

The Corinthians had misinterpreted Paul’s previous advice about associating with immoral people. I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters; for then you would have to go out of the world, he explained. Apparently the church had stopped having contact with unbelievers instead of with unrepentant believers. The apostle pointed out that to do so is impossible without leaving the planet. Besides, sin outside the church is not nearly as dangerous to the church as sin within its own membership. Perhaps their wrong response also reflected their wanting to tolerate sin in the church. And their treatment of the unsaved in the world may have indicated their spiritual arrogance.

It is the world to whom we are to witness, to whom we are called to bring the gospel. We are not to conform to the world (Rom. 12:2), but we must be in the world and have contact with unsaved people or we could never evangelize them. In His high priestly prayer, the Lord prayed, “I do not ask Thee to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one…. As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world” (John 17:15, 18). We are to “be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom [we] appear as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15). God intends us to be in the world so we can be its salt and light (Matt. 5:13-16) and His witnesses to it (Acts 1:8).

It is the so-called [onomazō, “to bear the name of”] brother who is a threat to the spiritual welfare of a church and with whom we are not to associate. We cannot know who is and is not a true believer, but discipline is to be administered to any who professes to be a Christian. Since we cannot tell the difference, tares must be treated like wheat. Anyone who carries the name of Christ is subject to discipline.

Paul makes it clear that excommunication is not limited only to cases of extreme sin such as that of the incestuous brother who was living with his stepmother. It should be applied to any professing believer who is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler.

Although true believers are recipients of a new nature—the divine nature, the life of God in their inner person, a new holy self—the flesh is still present and offers the potential for all kinds of sinning. The believer who refuses to appropriate the resources of his new life and yields to the flesh will fall into habitual patterns of evil such as those mentioned here. The Greek terms used here to indentify the sins are substantives, indicating patterns of behavior.

Can believers develop such patterns of sin? The answer is yes. In salvation the penalty of sin is paid and the dominion of sin is broken, so that subjection to it is not necessary but voluntary. Believers who choose sin will develop sinful patterns unless they repent. In 6:9-11 Paul says such unbelievers do not enter the kingdom (salvation), and he assures the Corinthians that they are not like those people anymore. Yet in 6:8 he says that they are acting like them. The point is that in unbelievers there is an unbroken pattern of sinning that cannot be restrained. In believers that unbroken pattern is broken, the frequency and totality of sin is changed. Righteousness and goodness find a place and the life manifests virtue. Because of our humanness, however, sin will sometimes break the pattern of righteousness. If persisted in, it establishes a sinful pattern, interrupting the manifestations of holiness coming from the new nature. That is why there are so many commands and calls to obedience and to church discipline. The believer will never become totally sinful, but may be sinful enough at certain points in his life to be characterized as an unbeliever. Paul’s thought, as we combine this text with 6:9-11, is that believers can act like unbelievers, those who are shut out of the kingdom. We cannot always tell wheat from tares, or know whether a so-called brother is genuine. Such acts of sin make a believer indistinguishable from a nonbeliever to the world, to the church, and even to himself. All assurance is forfeited (cf. 2 Pet. 1:5-10; 1 John 2:5). It is essential to realize that in a true believer the flow of sin will not be uninterrupted, as in one who is unredeemed. There will be some fruit of righteousness, for the new nature must be manifest (John 15:1-8).

The Corinthian church had members who practiced all of those sins. An immoral member is the primary subject of 1 Corinthians 5. That some were covetous is implied in 10:24; and some were involved in idolatry (10:21-22). Apparently many of them were revilers, or slanderers, running down members of other parties (3:3-4) and likely to despise Timothy when he came to minister to them (16:11). They had drunkards (11:21) and they had swindlers (6:8). The whole epistle reminds us of the sinning capability of believers. All offenders were to be put out of the congregation unless they repented and changed. The rest of the believers were to withdraw from them in any social setting that implied acceptance, and were not even to eat with such a one.

We have no responsibility for judging outsiders. We are to witness to outsiders, but not judge them. We cannot chasten them, and no remedial steps will alter the sin of the ungodly. Those who are outside, God judges. But we do have a responsibility to judge those who are within the church. We must remove the wicked man from among [our]selves.

Discipline is difficult, painful, and often heartrending. It is not that we should not love the offenders, but that we should love Christ, His church, and His Word even more. Our love to the offenders is not to be sentimental tolerance but correcting love (cf. Prov 27:6).

It is not that everyone in the church must be perfect, for that is impossible. Everyone falls into sin and has imperfections and shortcomings. The church is in some ways a hospital for those who know they are sick. They have trusted in Christ as Savior and they want to follow Him as Lord—to be what God wants them to be. It is not the ones who recognize their sin and hunger for righteousness who are to be put out of fellowship, but those who persistently and unrepentantly continue in a pattern of sin about which they have been counseled and warned. We should continue to love them and pray for them that they repent and return to a pure life. If they do repent we should gladly and joyfully “forgive and comfort” them and welcome them back into fellowship (2 Cor. 2:7).