The fifth chapter is the beginning of the second section of the Epistle, in which divine light is shed upon personal conduct in a variety of circumstances. The subject of this chapter is sin, and sin of such character that the guilty must be put away from among the gathered saints. We have already had some preparation for this in the third chapter, 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; and in our consideration of the second chapter reference was made to Ephesians 2:22: “In Whom (Christ) ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”
From these and other passages it is plain that God views His children, not only in their individual responsibilities, but also in a collective or corporate responsibility; the Church or Assembly of God as seen in the Scriptures is not a voluntary banding together of professed followers of Christ, and its rules are not left to the wisdom of man; they are set forth in the Word of God. There is much ignorance, but the whole order and discipline of the Church are to be found plainly written in God’s Book, and to it alone should believers go for direction.
The Christians at Corinth had not long been delivered from the gross darkness of idolatry and its attendant evils, but the instruction they had received from the Apostle during his long stay there, with the priceless boon of the new nature conferred by God on all believers, should have kept them from the spiritual condition here revealed, if there had been an exercised conscience present. We learn from the Second Epistle, chapters 2 and 7, that through this First Epistle the consciences of the many were reached, and deep exercise followed, with resultant blessing.
“It is universally reported that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even among the nations, so that one should have his father’s wife. And ye are puffed up, and ye have not rather mourned, in order that he that has done this deed might be taken away out of the midst of you” (1 Cor. 5:1-2 JnD). The charge was indeed a grave one, and its gravity was increased by the attitude of the saints toward the wickedness in their midst.
Instead of being puffed up with pride, which seems to have been the general state in the Corinthian Assembly (for this is the fourth time that the term has been applied in the Epistle) there should have been the deepest mourning. It is evident that they lacked instructions for dealing with sin in the Assembly, but regard for God and their own sense of what is wrong, should have led to earnest prayer that the guilty person might be taken away from among them. He would have answered their prayers either by removing the man, or giving the directions here laid before the saints by the Apostle. If a believer does not know what he should do when a problem arises, and the Word of God does not appear to afford an answer, let him pray; earnest prayer for guidance is certain to be answered.
Paul, absent in body, but present in spirit, had already judged as present, to deliver in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Corinthian saints and his spirit being gathered together with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ) the guilty man to Satan for destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 5:3-4). How solemn the decision! Here is an example of apostolic power added to the authority given to the Church (Assembly) of God by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 18:18-20:
“Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven....For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.”
It is the duty of the local Assembly to clear itself by putting away evil, but the power to deliver to Satan is not committed to it, though the Apostle and the Assembly are joined together in the action called for in the 4th and 5th verses.
In 1 Timothy 1:20 the apostle writes of Hymenaeus and Alexander whom he had delivered unto Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme. What is meant by deliverance to Satan? We can form some idea of it from the first two chapters of the book of Job, where all that that saint had, was put in the adversary’s hand (Job 1:12), and afterward he himself was given into Satan’s power, except for his life (Job 2:6). It was for Job’s blessing, in removing from him pride and self-righteousness, that God acted as He did in the scenes spread out for us in the book.
The man of 1 Corinthians 5 was to be delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that he might learn in the breaking down of his health, even to death, what sin is in God’s sight. And does God now deliver wayward children of His to Satan for their good? We may judge that He does, and pray that we may never be wayward. “That the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus”, at the close of the fifth verse shows that the putting of the sinning saint in Satan’s hands was for his ultimate blessing; God will never forego His purpose to bless His children, though He may have to chasten them sorely.
The Corinthian boasting was not good. Did they not know that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? The same expression is used in Galatians 5:9 in connection with bad teaching, as here in connection with conduct. Leaven is an unvarying symbol of evil in the Scriptures. We find it first mentioned in the 12Th and 13th chapters of Exodus, and it is referred to in seven passages in the New Testament. These seven passages are, Matt. 13 and 16; Mark 8; Luke 12 and 13; 1 Cor. 5, and Gal. 5; a profitable hour can be spent in examining them for the truth they unfold as to the secret working of evil in what God ordained. Sin is in the nature of man; and though believers have a new nature in which there is no sin, they retain the old nature while here on earth; but it is to be kept in the place of death; its operations never to be allowed.
Direction to the Corinthian Church or Assembly to “purge out the old leaven” follows, that they may be a “new lump”, according “as ye are unleavened.” No compromise could be made with sin, the “old leaven” of the old nature, which had found expression in the man here to be dealt with. The assembly was in its position before God as an unleavened lump; for He sees it in the new nature in Christ. It ought to be an unleavened lump practically, and by the power of the Holy Spirit; and it will be, so long as evil is refused, purged out when it is found to have entered. The result of persisting in the allowance of sin, after it has become known, and after all efforts to reach the consciences, of the saints have proved unavailing, must be that the local gathering is no longer recognized as an Assembly of God.
The last sentence of the 7th verse is more exactly rendered, “For also our pass-over, Christ, has been sacrificed.” There is in this and the following verse a reference to the passover appointed in Exodus 12 to be kept by the children of Israel. We do not look back as they to a sacrificial offering made in Egypt, whereby God passed over the Israelites when He executed judgment upon what represented the world of that day; instead, we look to Calvary, beholding there the Lamb of God dying for our sins. Israel could not unite the celebration of the passover in Egypt with leavened bread, because it typified sin. Nor can we “keep the feast”-unite in partaking of the bread and wine of the Lord’s supper-acceptably to Himself, if there be unjudged sin; it is to be accompanied with the “unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” This “keeping the feast,” it is plain, must necessarily include the constant practice in life and associations, of those who partake of the emblems, just as in the directions given to Israel in Exodus 12:15 for the passover period, “even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses,” and this was to continue for “seven days”-the whole week, signifying to faith that it must be continually before one’s soul that sin in all its branches and connections is judged.
1 Cor. 5:9. Not a previous epistle or letter is meant, but the present one. An exact translation would be, “I have written unto you in the epistle,” as in the eleventh verse it is said, “But now I have written unto you, etc.” It is a Greek form of expression, referring to what the writer is now presenting for the guidance of those to whom he is writing.
The saints of God should not keep company with fornicators; not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners or idolaters, since to do that they must go out of the world. It would not be possible to avoid mingling with persons in the world whose character is such. But for Christian associations, the line is drawn sharply in the 11Th verse: “But now I have written to you, if anyone called brother be fornicator, or avaricious, or idolater, or abusive, or a drunkard, or rapacious, not to mix with him; with such a one not even to eat” (1 Cor. 5:11 JnD).
This is very plain, and it is binding upon “all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:2); so that a company of professed Christians which does not enforce the rule here laid down, cannot be considered an Assembly of God. They thereby connect the name of the Lord with allowed sin. The list of sins, given in the 11Th verse is plainly not complete, but must be viewed as indicative; otherwise, for example, a murderer or a thief might be in the company of the gathered saints.
The last two verses of the chapter leave those outside to God. The Christian’s path is apart from the world, which he leaves as he finds it. God will judge and condemn the world bye and bye. But as to those within the Assembly, the Word is explicit: “Do not ye judge them that are within?” The saints may not be able to deliver wicked persons to Satan, but they are bound by the Word of God to put out from among themselves those who are found to be such in the light of His Word.