“Immorality in the Church:
A Biblical Response—Part III”
(1 Corinthians 5:9-13)
Series: Chaos & Correction (1 Corinthians)
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson
•Take your Bibles and join me in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 (page 769; YouVersion).
We are continuing our series of messages through the book of 1 Corinthians, verse-by-verse, a series entitled “Chaos & Correction.” And today we conclude our study of chapter 5. We’ve slowed down in chapter 5 in order to study carefully the matter of church discipline and so we’ve done a “Pt.1, Pt. 2, and this morning Pt. 3” on immorality in the church and a biblical response.
The specific problem Paul addresses here in chapter 5 is the public sin that the church is tolerating among its members. There is a man in the congregation who is considered a Christian by the church and yet this man is living in open, public, and unrepentant sin, living with his stepmother, involved with her intimately. As the founder of the church in Corinth, Paul is angry with the church for their tolerating such wickedness and, in chapter 5, tells the church to correct, to discipline, this man by removing him from the membership. Let’s review the situation now by reading all of chapter 5.
•Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife!
2 And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.
3 For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed.
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6 Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.
10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
11 But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.
12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside?
13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.”
•Pray.
Introduction:
Because of the snow some of you missed last week’s message and even if you tried to listen at home on WSON you know that the message was not broadcast. I am told there was ice on our antenna and so the signal cannot be picked up. So WSON re-broadcasted the previous week’s message.
Of course you can always catch up by simply visiting our website at fbchenderson.org and either read the sermon manuscript or listen to the audio. But I mention last week because at the end of the message I shared my belief that this church unquestionably believes in the importance of church discipline.
And to prove that statement I gave an illustration that was purely hypothetical but underscored the gravity of the need for correction and discipline. I asked you to imagine that your pastor had knowingly and publicly been unfaithful to his wife. And I said to imagine that everybody in Henderson knew about it and that I just showed up the next Sunday as though nothing had happened. And if someone were to ask me about my behavior I would just reply, “Well, nobody’s perfect and I’ve sort of ‘fallen out of love’ with my wife, anyway.”
I then asked the question, “Would you tolerate that behavior?” just leaving me in public, unrepentant sin? And of course you would not tolerate that behavior because it is unbiblical and harms so many persons.
Well, after the worship service was over last week, somebody said something to my wife, to Michele, about that illustration. What did she think about it, or what if that were to happen, or something like that. She said, “Oh he wouldn’t be disciplined—he would be dead!”
And even that response proves the seriousness with which we take these matters when we are the ones affected by the sins of others. And this is one of the points Paul makes in this passage. Public sin, left unchecked, is like a cancer that needs to be removed from the body before it harms others. Let’s review our main sermon points from the first two messages on chapter 5. We considered first:
I. Consider the Problem Reported in the Church (1)
That was verse 1, “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife!”
Paul says this sin of incest, a man having his father’s wife, is “reported,” reported “among you,” which is to say it is a sin of public knowledge. It was reported. People were talking about it. Church discipline is not administered to persons whose sin is private, a sin against the One True God to whom confession is made and repentance required. Church discipline is administered to individuals who have committed sin that is open, public, and they themselves are unrepentant.
That was the problem in the church in Corinth, the problem described both generally and particularly. The general problem in verse one is “sexual immorality,” the particular problem was incest. The general problem—sexual immorality—translates the Greek word porneia (porneia) from which we get pornography. Porneia was a general way of referring to all sexual sin. Porneia refers to any sexual activity outside of biblical marriage, the union of one man and one woman.
So porneia includes the sins of adultery, fornication (which is sex before marriage), homosexuality, other forms of sex outside of biblical marriage including lust, viewing or reading pornography in print or on a screen, texting sexually explicit words to others, and anything else other than a biblical marriage between one man and one woman, committed to one another.
Now before we get all “high and mighty” and “holier than thou” let’s remember that many of us have struggled in one or more of these areas. Just take a quick look at the following chapter, chapter 6, and read verses 9-11:
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,
10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And such were (I love that!) some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
But again, the Bible defines biblical marriage as a union between one man and one woman to each other only. This is a truth regardless of what our modern court system says. For example, less than 48 hours ago a US District Court Judge in Utah struck down part of that state’s law banning polygamy in the famous—or infamous—so-called, “Sisters Wives case.” So in Utah it is now legal to be married to one woman and also cohabit or live with another woman or with other women.
It is also legal now in 16 states to be married to someone of the same sex. Does any of this surprise us? It shouldn’t really, because we live in a fallen world. As Christians who are dual citizens, our greater citizenship says Paul in Philippians 3 is our “citizenship in heaven (Philippians 3:20).” And so we look not to the courts of our world for the definition of marriage but rather we look to the court of God’s Word and the Word of God in the Book of Genesis defines marriage as a union exclusively of one man and one woman to one another only.
Occasionally I’m asked about all the polygamy going on in the Old Testament. Well, never forget that there is a difference between what the Bible records and what the Bible requires. That polygamy was going on in the Old Testament simply illustrates that men are sinners. The Bible has always been clear that biblical marriage is exclusively that of a union between one man and one woman to each other only.
So, we have considered the problem in the church. Secondly, we considered:
II. Consider the Prideful Reaction of the Church (2)
Verse 2, “And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.”
Paul had said that this sin of incest was a sin “not even named among the Gentiles,” among the pagans, the unbelieving Romans living in Corinth. Even they were like, “Man, you Christians tolerate some strange behavior.”
So Paul, the founder of the church, is beside himself with disgust for the way the church has ruined her witness by allowing this sin to go unchecked. He says you guys are “puffed up” about this. You seem proud of your so-called tolerance. He’s like, “Look, there’s a time when intolerance is biblical and you should not tolerate this sin in your church. Verse 2, “He who has done this deed (should) be taken away from among you.” Excommunicate this unrepentant so-called brother.
And that’s precisely what Paul calls for and spells out in the following verses as the church responds to the sin in the correct manner. Point three:
III. Consider the Proper Response by the Church (3-5)
Verses 3-5:
3 For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed.
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
When a person’s sin is public knowledge to all in the community and the offender is unrepentant, unwilling to listen to the correction brought by his brothers and sisters (cf. Matthew 18), that person should be removed from the church; he is no longer to be a member of the church body.
That’s what Paul is talking about here in these verses. He says in verse 5, “Deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved…”
An unrepentant church member is removed from the church and delivered back to the realm of Satan, that is, outside the church, back into the realm of “those who are perishing (1 Corinthians 1:18).” And one reason for his removal is for his own good, “for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved.” He is removed from the church “for the destruction of the flesh,” the destruction of his sin-bent fleshly orientation.
He is removed from the church in the hopes that he may wake up and see where his sin has taken him. And the hope is that he will repent and thus be safe on the “day of the Lord Jesus,” on Judgment Day.
Now Paul continues to talk about this proper response of the church in the verses we looked at last time, verses 6-8, where we considered:
IV. Consider the Purging Required for the Church (6-8)
In verses 6-8 Paul refers to the removal of this man as a necessary purging, removal, just as the faithful Jewish Christians removed or purged leaven from their cupboards in preparation to celebrate the Passover, to “keep the feast.”
Leaven—or yeast—had become a symbol of that which was considered unclean. To be unleavened was to be clean and pure, to live in “sincerity and truth.” And so if leaven were not removed from a batch of dough that leaven—or yeast—would spread to the entire loaf and make the whole loaf unclean. Paul says the church is to be unleavened, pure and clean. So the church must take care to remove, to purge, the old leaven from among them.
He is speaking figuratively here, describing the church as unleavened, but dangerously tolerating some “leaven” in their midst, the leaven being the sinning, unrepentant church member. And that’s what we looked at last time, verses 6-8:
6 Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
So Paul uses the Old Testament Passover teaching about leaven to illustrate the harmful influence and spread of sin throughout the church body. Just as “a little leaven leavens” or spreads throughout “the whole lump” of dough, so a little sin spreads throughout the whole body of Christ. The only way to prevent the spread of such sin is to remove its influence from the church the same way a Jew removed leaven from his cupboard in preparation for the Passover feast.
Now before we look at verses 9-13 it is helpful to pause again and review the three reminders about church discipline:
Reminder Number One: Church discipline is not for those who are struggling with sin and are working through it in biblical ways.
Christians who are repentant and are actively working through their struggles, whatever they be— alcohol, drugs, pornography, marital issues and so forth—these persons don’t need to be removed from the church; they need the church. They need those who will embrace them as a parent embraces a child in love and in a spirit of gentleness.
Again the man about whom Paul is writing here is a man who is in continual, unrepentant, and public sin. Church discipline is for those who are unrepentant and living in open rebellion.
Reminder Number Two: No Christian is without sin.
Every one has private battles. When we confess our sin, repent of our sin, and work through our sin, it leads to forgiveness and reconciliation. And when we confess our sin to those whom we have hurt, we are on the way to healing and church discipline is unnecessary.
Church discipline is required only when our sinful behavior becomes public and only when there is no confession and no repentance.
Reminder Number Three: The whole point of church discipline is not punishment, but reconciliation and restoration. Church discipline is more redemptive than punitive.
So having reviewed these previous considerations, these four previous points, we add to them now number five:
V. Consider the Proper Relationships among the Church (9-13)
In verses 9 and following Paul outlines the proper relationships of the Corinthian church members.
You will recall from our introductory message on 1 Corinthians that I mentioned there are actually at least four letters that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, only two of which were preserved by God for inclusion in the New Testament canon or corpus of Scripture.
There was a letter written before this letter, before what we refer to as 1 Corinthians. There was a letter before 1 Corinthians, a “- 1” Corinthians, if you like. And there was also a letter written in-between 1 and 2 Corinthians. I suppose you could call that letter “1.5 Corinthians.” In any case, it is very clear here in our text this morning that a previous letter had been written by Paul because he says so explicitly in verse 9, “I wrote to you in my epistle.” Paul had written a previous epistle, a previous letter, to the Corinthian Church that he references now in our text. So look again at verses 9-10:
9 I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people.
10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
Paul clarifies that in his previous letter he had instructed the church to be mindful of their relationships among those who claimed to be Christians. He’s like, “When I wrote to you in my previous letter I told you guys not to hang out with people who are obvious hypocrites, people who claim to be Christians but are sexually immoral, covetous, extortioners, and idolaters. Don’t fraternize with these persons who claim to be brothers in Christ. Don’t hang out with them.”
And the reason for separating themselves from these persons was that it kept the Christians from appearing to endorse the sinful behavior of these hypocritical Christians. Separation drew attention to the public sins of these professing Christians and was more likely to lead them to change their behavior. So Paul is like, “Don’t hang out with them.”
But the Corinthians apparently had misunderstood Paul’s previous letter and some thought he meant that they were to remove themselves totally from lost people. They thought he meant that they were not ever to be around non-Christians. So Paul clarifies, he says in verse 10:
10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
That is, the only way to avoid all persons who are sexually immoral, covetous, and so forth is to leave the world entirely, to blast into outer space and “go out of this world.”
Paul is like, “That’s not what I meant!” Verse 11:
11 But now I have written to you (better translated, “I wrote to you,” or, “What I meant when I wrote was,”) not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.
So Paul clarifies: “When I wrote to you in my previous letter, I wasn’t telling you to avoid all contact with lost people, I was talking proper relationships among the church, about avoiding contact with so-called ‘brothers,’ hypocrites who claim to be Christians, but are living like non-Christians, hypocrites like this man who has his father’s wife. That’s who I was talking about.”
Paul continues in verse 12:
12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside (outside the church; i.e., lost people)? Do you not judge those who are inside (inside the church; i.e., Christians)?
13 But those who are outside (lost people) God judges…
Paul is saying, “I wasn’t talking about the church’s judging the behavior of those outside the church, but judging the behavior of those inside the church.” Verse 13, “But those who are outside (non-Christians), God judges, but those who are inside—those who are Christians—you as the church judge.”
That’s what he’s saying in verse 13:
13 But those who are outside (lost people) God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.” Judge the one who claims to be a brother, judge the one named a brother who is inside the church. Render a judgment upon him and “put away from yourselves the evil person,” a quote from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy (see Deuteronomy 17:7; Deuteronomy 19:19; Deuteronomy 22:21, Deuteronomy 22:24; Deuteronomy 24:7).
So as we’ve noted previously, this notion that “Christians are not supposed to judge” is a false notion. It is precisely the church’s failure to judge that is the very problem Paul is addressing here in chapter 5. He says Christians are supposed to judge, not those outside the church, as though we could force non-Christians to behave as Christians, but rather we are supposed to judge Christians, those inside the church.
And when there is in our midst a person who is “named a brother” or named a sister, who continues in open, flagrant, public, and unrepentant sin, it is the church’s responsibility to remove such a person from the church membership. If the church fails to remove such a person the church loses both the purity of her health and the power of her witness.
This is especially true when the offending person is a staff member or a church leader of some kind, a deacon, or a Sunday school teacher, a person choosing for example to divorce his or her spouse for no biblical reason but simply because they have “fallen out of love” with their spouse. What message does that behavior send to others?
In the words of biblical scholar and commentator David Garland:
Paul’s grievance is that [the church] cannot witness to an unbelieving world when one of their own members is guilty of a sin that causes even the heathens to blush…Expelling the man rids [the church] of a moral cancer that will spread throughout the church if left untreated, a moral stigma that repulses their society, and the impending threat of divine judgment for their toleration of evil.
Paul had said earlier in chapter 3 that the church was the temple of God and that the Holy Spirit of God dwelt with them (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). So if the church tolerates the presence of public sin in the church, then the church loses the purity of her health and the power of her witness. Church discipline protects the church and preserves God’s honor and good name in the community.
See there are implications in this passage for evangelism. Paul had said, “When I told you about separating yourselves from the sexually immoral and the covetous, and so forth, verse 10: I certainly did not mean…the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, and so forth, “since then you would need to go out of the world.”
In other words, Christians are in the world, but not of the world, nor are they to go “out of the world,” in the sense of escaping the presence of lost persons who desperately need the saving power of the Gospel.
Christians are to witness to this world. As followers of the Light, we too are light-bearers. We are to shine the light of the Gospel in the darkness of our world.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:13-14 that we are the “salt of the earth.” Salt is supposed to influence. Just sitting inside the shaker, salt is no more doing what it is supposed to do than is a Christian’s just sitting inside a church building.
We’ve got to shake out our influence! We’ve got to season the world this week with the flavor of the Gospel.
And Jesus said we are also “the light of the world.” A light hidden under a basket does no good. We’ve got to let our light shine among the lost this week, shining the light of the Gospel, pointing people to Jesus Christ.
We are not to retreat from the world, we’re to engage the world—and all for the glory of God.
•Stand for prayer.
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