Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Corinthians · About this commentary
Sin Tolerated in the Assembly
1 Corinthians 5:1-5
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 one has his father’s wife. · WEB
A case of incest the pagans would not have tolerated is being tolerated proudly, and Paul's concern is the congregation's arrogance as much as the man's sin.
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father's wife 1 Corinthians 5:1.
The relationship is with a stepmother — his father's wife, not his mother — a union the law of Moses forbade explicitly Leviticus 18:8 Deuteronomy 22:30 and which Roman law also prohibited. That is the force of not even named among the Gentiles: the surrounding pagan culture, whose morals Corinth was famous for, drew a line here that the church had not. When a congregation's conduct is worse than the standard of the city it is trying to evangelize, the argument is over before it starts.
You are arrogant, and didn't mourn instead, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you 1 Corinthians 5:2.
And here is what Paul is actually angry about. Not one man's sin, which he addresses in a sentence, but the church's arrogance — they were still puffed up 1 Corinthians 4:18 with this going on among them. Whether they were proud of their tolerance, of their freedom, or simply of themselves in general, the text does not say. What it names is the response that should have come and did not: mourn. The proper reaction to sin in the community is grief, and grief is what makes discipline bearable and honest. A church that can neither mourn nor act has lost the capacity to be a church to that man.
For I most certainly, as being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing 1 Corinthians 5:3.
He has reached a verdict, and he had said two chapters earlier to judge nothing before the time 1 Corinthians 4:5. The two are not in conflict, and the difference is instructive: there he forbade assessing the hidden motives and relative worth of servants; here the facts are public, reported, and undisputed. Scripture never asks a church to be unable to recognize what is in front of it.
You are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus 1 Corinthians 5:5.
The action is corporate — when you are gathered together 1 Corinthians 5:4 — and severe: to be put outside the community's protection is to be handed over to the domain the congregation had been rescued from. But the purpose clause governs everything. The aim is that the spirit may be saved, which makes this the most redemptive-sounding harsh sentence in the New Testament, and the pattern holds elsewhere: discipline is designed to produce the sorrow that leads to repentance 2 Corinthians 2:6–8 1 Timothy 1:20 Matthew 18:15–17. The second letter to Corinth appears to record the outcome — a man who repented, and a church now told to forgive and comfort him lest he be overwhelmed. Discipline in Scripture is aimed at a reunion.
held with reason What this mark means