(Chap. 5:1-13)
Verse 21, of chapter 4, properly belongs to chapter 5. The Apostle turns to deal with another problem among them. In regard to it, he asks the Corinthians whether they would like him to come to them with a rod of correction or in the spirit of love and meekness. He was referring primarily to a flagrant case of immorality that was unjudged in their midst. If they continued to do nothing about it, Paul would be forced to act with apostolic authority to judge them with “a rod.” However, if they heeded the warning and correction of the Apostle he would come to them in “love” and “the spirit of meekness.” This case among the Corinthians was “universally reported” among the saints, yet the Corinthians had done nothing about it (vs. 1). The nature of this sin was “not so much as named among the Gentiles.” Yet it was found in the Christian circle! Something had to be done.
The Proper Attitude the Assembly Should Take in Exercising Holy Discipline
Vss. 1-2—It may be argued that the Corinthians had heretofore not been given any specific instructions for such a case, and consequently, they didn’t know what to do. If that were the case, the Apostle points out that at least they could have had the moral sensibility to mourn over it. Had they “mourned,” and besought the Lord about it, He would have acted by a stroke of governmental judgment, whereby “he that hath done this deed might be taken away” from among them (vs. 2). Paul was referring to the Lord taking that person home to heaven through death. The Apostle John refers to this same governmental action, saying, “There is a sin unto death” (1 John 5:16). The Lord also spoke of it when He said, “Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He [His Father] taketh away” (John 15:2). See also James 5:19-20.
This shows that mourning is the proper attitude that should be taken when the local assembly has to deal with sin in its midst (Josh. 7:6-9; Judg. 20:26). Each individual should lay their hand upon their own heart in self-judgment realizing that they could have done that sin. They must treat the sin as their own. This is called, “Eating the sin offering” (Lev. 6:26; 2 Cor. 2:2-4). We are called to judge such in the consciousness of our own sinfulness—“considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted” (Gal. 6:1; 1 Cor. 10:12). Each person in the assembly should ask, “Have I contributed to the person’s fall in some way?” Had the erring one been properly looked after. Had he or she been shepherded? Had they been prayed for? Did we give them a godly example?
But instead of being humbled about such a thing in their midst, the Corinthians were “puffed up!” They were quite insensible about it. Their carnality had manifested itself not only in the presence of divisions among them, but also in their extreme laxity of morals. They were occupied with their gifts and glorying in them when they should have had their faces in the dust.
Three Reasons Why Evil Must Be Judged in the Assembly
The Apostle proceeds to give us three great reasons why evil must be judged in the assembly. The instructions herein given affords the Church with light as to what to do if such sins should come up in its midst.
1) The Maintenance of the Lord’s Glory
Vss. 3-4—The Lord’s name had become associated with the sin in their midst and needed to be vindicated. Hence, the assembly was enjoined to carry out an administrative judgment of excommunicating the person in question. Putting the offender out of fellowship disassociated the Lord’s name from the evil, and thereby His name would be exonerated.
In verse 4, the Apostle gives them the procedure. Even though he was not present, he knew what should be done, and laid it out for the Corinthians. When they were “gathered together” in assembly, they were to act in their administrative capacity, excommunicating the person (vs. 13). This action would have the authority of the Lord—“the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.” The action must be carried out when they were gathered together in assembly, whereby the Lord would be in their midst, thus giving His authority to the action. It is referred to in Matthew 18:18, 20, where it says, “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. ... For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.”
2) The Correction and Restoration of the Offender
Vs. 5—There is another reason why the person must be put out of fellowship—“for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” The person in question needed to be corrected and restored. His will needed to be broken down so that repentance would bring forth its fruit. Being put away from the fellowship of the saints would work to that end. Having the warmth of the Christian circle of fellowship taken from him, and being left in the coldness of the world, is calculated to produce the needed repentance. He would be delivered to Satan’s domain or sphere, which is the world.
“The destruction of the flesh” refers to the body. This shows that the most Satan can do is touch the child of God’s body. Job is an example. Ultimately it could lead to death, if repentance had not worked in the man’s soul. If it got to that, “the spirit” of the man would still be “saved,” because Satan cannot touch the Christian’s eternally secure standing in Christ.
All assembly discipline should have the correction and restoration of the offender in view. The assembly does not put such a person out of fellowship to get rid of him. The excommunication is for the breaking down of the individual’s wilful course, so that he might feel what he has done and repent. Then the assembly has the happy privilege of restoring him to its fellowship. The censure placed on the person can be “loosed” (Matt. 18:18). In the case of this individual at Corinth, that is exactly what happened. Being put in the outside place, his will was broken down, and the necessary repentance was produced, whereupon he was restored to the Lord and to the fellowship of his brethren (2 Cor. 2:6-11).
3) The Purity of the Assembly
Vss. 6-11—The Apostle mentions a third reason why excommunication was necessary. Since holiness becomes the house of God (Psa. 93:5), the assembly is responsible to maintain holiness in its midst. There are two reasons for this: firstly, so that it would be a fit place for the Lord to dwell in the midst; and secondly, so that the leavening character of evil wouldn’t permeate the whole assembly and many be affected by the evil and follow such ways.
To teach this important lesson Paul uses the illustration of a lump of dough. Just as leaven in one part of a lump of dough permeates through the whole lump, so evil left unjudged in the assembly spreads. “Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” (vs. 6) This teaches the important lesson that association with evil defiles. This is true whether it is doctrinal evil (2 Tim. 2:16-18; 2 John 9-11; Gal. 5:9), moral evil (Josh. 7:11; Judg. 20:13), or ecclesiastical association (1 Cor. 10:15-23; Haggai 2:11-13).
Even though we may not do the sin, if we are in fellowship with a person who does, we are associated with it. The principle of association with evil is illustrated in the case of the sin of Achan. When he sinned, God said, “Israel hath sinned” (Josh. 7:11). Nothing more clearly condemns the false idea that sin in a person concerns only that person and does not involve the others with whom he is in fellowship. Quite to the contrary, God looks at the toleration of evil in an assembly as complicity with the evil.
The responsibility of the Corinthian assembly was to “purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.” The Apostle wanted them to bring their collective state up to their standing before God as “unleavened” (vs. 7). They needed to be in practise what they were in position. Cutting off the leaven in the assembly by putting the incestuous man out of fellowship would do this in a collective sense.
Thus, the Apostle would have them to “keep the feast,” not with an indifference to sin, but “with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (vs. 8). “The feast” is not just the eating of the Lord’s Supper but refers to the whole period of the believer’s life on earth. Our whole life should be a “feast” of fellowship with God in holy separation from sin. It is not to be kept with “old leaven,” which is a reference to pre-conversion sins that might spring up in a believer’s life.
In verses 9-10 the Apostle shows that the exercise of holy discipline can only be practised within the Christian circle. To attempt to exercise such discipline toward the man of the world would be impossible. The Christian has no business trying to set the world right. By saying “yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world,” he was making allowances for such situations where the Christian might have an obligation to eat a meal with an unsaved fornicator of this world—perhaps with an employer. He explains that to attempt to carry out discipline toward the lost of this world, one would have to “go out of the world” altogether, which is impossible.
He hastens to say that if “any man that is called a brother” were going on in such a sin, we are “not to mix with him” (vs. 11). That is, we are not to keep company with him or show any fellowship toward him—even to the eating of a common meal. Being shunned by the Christian community, the man would be made to feel the seriousness of what he has done, and repentance would begin to work in his soul.
The Apostle also mentions that the need for excommunication was not to be confined to a “fornicator” but would include a “covetous” person, or an “idolater,” or a “railer” [abusive], a “drunkard,” an “extortioner,” etc. It is not a complete list, for a murderer and a blasphemer are not named but would surely be excommunicated, as the others he mentions.
The Responsibility of the Local Assembly
Vss. 12-13—The Apostle concludes by saying that we are not responsible to judge those that are without the Christian circle—“them that are without.” God will do that in His own time. But we are responsible to judge sin in a person who is “within” the Christian circle of fellowship. “Therefore,” he says, “put away from among yourselves that wicked person.” Note that he does not call the person in question a brother, but rather a “wicked person.” This is because if a person has not judged the course of sin that they are in, it is questionable whether he is a true child of God, because normal Christianity is that every brother and sister lives a holy life for the glory of God. If someone does otherwise, there is a question as to whether he or she is truly a believer. The man in this chapter proved to be a real believer by his repentance, seen later in 2 Corinthians 2:6-11. At this point, he had not shown repentance, and therefore, was called a “wicked person.”
“Within” and “Without”
In these verses Paul indicates that there is a “within” and a “without” in connection with the fellowship of the assembly. In the days when the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, there were no other fellowships of believers besides those on the ground of the Church. The sad outward sectarian divisions in the Christian testimony had not yet developed. At that time there was “the whole church,” outside of that there were only “simple persons” or “unbelievers” (1 Cor. 14:23). Those who were “called a brother” were in the one fellowship of Christians who were gathered unto the Lord’s name (Matt. 18:20). When the assembly at Corinth acted to put away the fornicator, they acted on behalf of the whole Church. He was, therefore, outside the fellowship of the whole Church of God on earth. If anyone was outside the assembly in that day, he was in the world where he would have no Christian fellowship.
Today things are different because of the ruin of the Christian testimony. As a result, there are many man-made fellowships of Christians meeting independently of one another. Today if a person is put out from among the saints gathered to the Lord’s name, while he is universally outside the fellowship of the saints so gathered, he is not necessarily outside of Christian fellowship. He could quite easily go down the road to another group of Christians and feel welcome there. The question is, “Is that person ‘without’ in the sense that Paul spoke of in the days of the early Church?” Today, because of the ruin, we would have to say, “No.” He cannot be put into a place where there is no Christian fellowship, but the person can still be put “without” the fellowship of the saints who meet on the ground of the one body. The “within” and the “without,” whether then or now, has to do with being in or out of the fellowship of the saints gathered to the Lord’s name where He is in the midst according to Matthew 18:20.
Since the breaking of bread is the meeting wherein our fellowship at the Lord’s Table is expressed (1 Cor. 10:16-17), the “within” and the “without” should be outwardly marked so as to distinguish those who are in fellowship and those who are not. Those who are not breaking bread should sit back. This was especially needed in the early days of brethren when the meetings were very large. Without it, it would be difficult knowing who was in fellowship and who wasn’t and could lead to confusion. There is no rule as to this, but all things should be done decently and in order (1 Cor. 14:40). A. P. (Lord) Cecil said, “I have no doubt that the within and without of the assemblies should be outwardly marked and kept distinct: otherwise there is confusion.” 8