HOW TO HANDLE A SCANDAL
1 CORINTHIANS 5:1-13
NASB
1 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. 2[a]You have become [b]arrogant and [a]have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
3 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. 4 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and [a]I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5 I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord [a]Jesus.
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? 7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us celebrate 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 you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; 10 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. 11 But [a]actually, I wrote to you not to associate [b]with any so-called brother if he is 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. 12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? 13 But those who are outside, God [a]judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.
5:2 [a]Or have you...? [b]Lit puffed up 5:4 [a]Lit my spirit, with the power 5:5 [a]Two early mss do not contain Jesus 5:11 [a]Lit now [b]Lit together if any man called a brother is 5:13 [a]Or will judge
NLT
1 I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you —something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother.[*] 2 You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame. And you should remove this man from your fellowship.
3 Even though I am not with you in person, I am with you in the Spirit.[*] And as though I were there, I have already passed judgment on this man 4 in the name of the Lord Jesus. You must call a meeting of the church.[*] I will be present with you in spirit, and so will the power of our Lord Jesus. 5 Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed[*] and he himself[*] will be saved on the day the Lord[*] returns.
6 Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us.[*] 8 So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread[*] of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread[*] of sincerity and truth.
9 When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. 10 But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. 11 I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer[*] yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people.
12 It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. 13 God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.”[*]
[5:1] Greek his father’s wife. [5:3] Or in spirit. [5:4] Or In the name of the Lord Jesus, you must call a meeting of the church. [5:5a] Or so that his body will be destroyed; Greek reads for the destruction of the flesh. [5:5b] Greek and the spirit. [5:5c] Other manuscripts read the Lord Jesus; still others read our Lord Jesus Christ. [5:7] Greek has been sacrificed. [5:8a] Greek not with old leaven. [5:8b] Greek but with unleavened [bread]. [5:11] Greek a brother. [5:13] Deut 17:7.
As Christians living in a lost and fallen world, we often act like we’re living on tiny Christian islands surrounded by a polluted sea beating upon our shores. Or we feel like we dwell in airtight spiritual ecosystems inside a Bible bubble, shielded and protected from the outside world. Yet this kind of isolationist mentality presents a problem for biblical Christianity. Jesus called us to be “in the world” but not “of the world” (John 17:11, 14-16). In other words, we should be insulated from the morally corrupting influences of our times but not isolated from the people of the world.
All of us can appreciate the tension this creates as we feel ourselves stuck in the center of a tug-of-war between running from the world and falling into it. Yes, some believers relieve the tension by building social walls around their holy huddle to keep them and their communities safe. Too many believers, however, have given in to the other extreme. They have let go of the purity of life presented in Scripture and provided by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, only to slide into the cesspool of moral depravity.
In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul addresses the problem of a member of the church who had done just that. He had surrendered to corruption’s seductive call and steered his ship into the jagged rocks of scandalous sin. Yet it may initially strike us as odd that Paul rebukes not only the sinner’s repugnant acts but also the church’s tolerant attitude toward the sin. Like modern-day liberal Christians who carry about the name of Christ but tolerate lifestyles and behaviors in direct conflict with the Bible’s standards, the Corinthian church was proud of its hands-off approach to the sins of others. Paul shows them the seriousness of this complacency and teaches them how churches are to handle a scandal through church discipline.
— 5:1-3 —
Like poisonous pollution seeping into a city’s water supply, moral pollution had crept into the Corinthian church and threatened to poison the entire congregation. Without cushioning his readers for the sudden impact of the subject at the forefront of his mind, Paul directs attention to the terribly destructive situation at Corinth. We can make three significant observations (5:1) regarding this sin.
First, the sin was well known. Paul says that the sin was “actually reported.” We can almost hear the disgust in Paul’s tone. Nobody should hear the kind of report he had heard about a church whose members professed to be followers of Christ. Yet the most troubling part of this sin was that it was being broadcast far and wide. This was no secret sin, concealed with a cover-up to keep people from discovering the truth. Rather, the news had come easily to Paul, perhaps through members of Chloe’s household (1:11) or through other men who had come to him (16:17-18). Or maybe it was so scandalous that the bad news had swept like a raging forest fire from church to church until it reached the ears of Paul from a number of sources.
Second, the sin was revolting. This isn’t to say that some sins are beautiful or acceptable, but in this particular case, Paul emphasizes that the kind of sin reported “does not exist even among the Gentiles” (5:1). In other words, even non-Christian pagans would be shocked at the type of sexual immorality (porneia [4202]) being tolerated by the Corinthian Christians. What was that sin? A believing member of their church —presumably a young man —was engaged in sexual immorality with his stepmother. Apparently his father was still married to her since Paul refers to the woman as “a wife,” not a “widow.” This was an incestuous relationship between what amounted to a son and his mother!
Third, the sin was ongoing. Paul wasn’t merely expressing his surprise that some young adolescent had fallen head-over-heels for his father’s new, younger bride and caused a bit of an embarrassing uproar in the church. Rather, Paul describes the sin as a permanent fixture among the church. It was a case of immorality “among” the church —in their midst, right before their eyes, under their noses. In other words, the church knew all about the relationship yet did nothing at all about it!
This last point brings the greatest rebuke from Paul. As John White and Ken Blue note, “Unless someone in the church decides to go lovingly to the person involved in the scandal with the object of establishing the truth, effecting righteousness and seeking to bring about reconciliation, every single member in the church who is aware of the situation is sinning every moment —is in fact a participator in the sin of the ‘identified sinner’ in one way or another. The church is sinning by avoiding corrective church discipline.”[28] Every church must deal with sin among its members. Therefore, no church should shirk its responsibility to confront it. But the Corinthians were doing just that.
— 5:2-3 —
Surprisingly, not only did the Corinthians fail to confront the sin of incestuous immorality in the church, but they even went to the other extreme: They became arrogant about it, as if the grace of Christ made them exempt from obeying His commands. Put bluntly, they sinned that grace might abound (see Rom. 6:1-2). They had been wading in the stagnant waters of pride for so long that it blinded them to the filth of the situation. In response to their “I’m okay, you’re okay” approach to sin, Paul confronts them for their passivity, corrects their attitude toward the sin, and then instructs them about the proper approach to the situation.
First, Paul rebukes the Corinthians with blunt honesty. He says, “You have become arrogant” (1 Cor. 5:2). The “you” here in Greek is in the plural, showing that Paul is holding the entire Corinthian congregation responsible for the individual engaged in the sin. The Greek word (physioō [5448]) translated “arrogant” literally means “puffed up.” It’s used seven times in the New Testament, six of them in 1 Corinthians alone.[29] They had been inflated with a destructive view of grace. Salvation in Christ, they thought, permitted believers to do whatever they wanted. Instead of this arrogant approach to sin, they should rather have “mourned,” as one might mourn at a funeral over the death of a loved one. Here the loss is not of a person’s life, but of the church’s purity.
Sadly, the Corinthian church had succumbed to a false teaching about grace that is growing fast in our own day. Some believe that once a person is justified before God and saved freely apart from any good works, that person may then do whatever is desirable, because saving grace covers everything. Yet Romans 6:1 says, “Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?” Romans 6:2 answers it with as strong a negative as you can find anywhere in the Scriptures: “May it never be!” Salvation by grace through faith alone does not logically lead to an “anything goes” lifestyle. In fact, if we have a full understanding of the work of God in salvation, we’ll remember that the Holy Spirit not only permanently seals us freely by His grace (Eph. 1:13; 2:8-9; 2 Cor. 1:22), but He also indwells us, moving us from the inside out to submit to His will and obey His commands. This means that the indwelling Spirit, by His grace alone, continues to work in us both to desire and to perform good works —not to earn salvation, but as an outworking of salvation (Eph. 2:10; Phil. 2:12-13). The result is a holy life.
The Corinthians, puffed up by an aberrant view of grace that gave license for immorality, tolerated even gross sin. They should have removed the perpetrator from the church (1 Cor. 5:2). This would have marked not only their abhorrence of the sinful acts, but also their concern for the purity of the church and their desire to move the sinner toward repentance and restoration (Gal. 6:1-2). Instead, the church remained polluted and the individual unrepentant.
Paul takes a bold stand against the majority opinion in Corinth (1 Cor. 5:3). In many ways, his disciplinary intervention from afar demonstrates just how low the Corinthian church had sunk. Whatever leadership was then present in Corinth, these leaders had neither the moral compass nor the skill to navigate what should have been a clear, open-and-shut case of church discipline. Paul realized that for the good of the sinning brother and the purity of the church, someone must take a stand. If the congregation and its leadership lacked the power to do so, Paul would have to pull rank and pass judgment himself. In fact, having sized up the situation from his remote location (he was with them only “in spirit,” but absent “in body”), Paul pronounced his apostolic judgment against the sinner, an authoritative verdict binding on the local church.
— 5:4-5 —
In the remainder of the chapter, Paul gives the Corinthians specific instructions for carrying out the judgment he issued as an apostle. By the same apostolic authority, Paul taught that God has vested the church with the authority to pass this kind of judgment, and he expected the church in Corinth to have already taken proper action against the unrepentant sinner. Only because they failed to carry out proper church discipline did Paul step in as an apostle. Today all churches, following biblical principles for church discipline, have both a responsibility and the authority to protect the purity of the church and to hold unrepentant sinners accountable with a view toward their restoration.
Paul touches on the results of the disciplinary action (5:4-5). We might describe this as Paul’s instructions on how to carry out the verdict of his judgment. First, they were to pass judgment not with their own authority —the authority of the pastor, the elders, a bishop, or the words of a church’s constitution or bylaws —but rather on the moral authority of “our Lord Jesus” (5:4). By gathering in the name of the Lord Jesus, they were to exercise His authority in obedience to His commands. Paul may very well have in mind the instructions concerning church discipline in Matthew 18. Having carried out the discipline by the proper principles, with firmness and humility, they could have full confidence that they had the Lord’s approval and were functioning with His authority.
Second, they were to carry out the discipline when they were “assembled.” The Greek verb is synagō [4863], from which the word “synagogue” is derived. It means “to gather together” and refers to the official gathering of the congregation. So, this judgment was not to take place secretly or behind closed doors. Remember, at this point the incestuous relationship had been broadcast far and wide, and from all accounts it appeared that the Corinthian congregation not only knew, but the members had approved of the immoral relationship. To reverse this perception and to communicate to the whole church the seriousness of the offense, church discipline needed to be public. This doesn’t mean, of course, that every confrontation of sin should start as a public matter. Private sin should oftentimes be dealt with privately, but the principle seems to be that the more public, prominent, and unrepentant the sin, the more public and official the discipline (1 Tim. 5:20).
Third, they were to “deliver such a one to Satan” (1 Cor. 5:5). In other words, the Corinthian church was to excommunicate the sinning Christian from the fellowship of the church. In the first-century church, this involved not only an official removal from membership so one was no longer regarded as a brother or sister in Christ (1 Cor. 5:2), but it also involved removal from the blessings of the Lord’s Table (10:16), receiving benevolent help from the church (Eph. 4:28; 1 Jn. 3:17), and the spiritual protection offered through the presence of the Holy Spirit in the congregation (2 Thes. 3:3). The excommunicated believer would be ejected into Satan’s domain, the world, where he would be outside the spiritual protection of the church and unable to repel the attacks of Satan (1 Pet. 5:8).
One of two results would follow the official excommunication of this unrepentant believer. If he continued without repentance and restoration, he could suffer physical death, either as built-in consequences of a destructive, sinful lifestyle (Rom. 1:26-27), or as the result of God’s own hand of discipline against unrepentant believers (Heb. 12:5-11; cf. 1 Cor. 11:30; 1 Jn. 5:16). But another way to understand Paul’s statement concerning “the destruction of his flesh” (1 Cor. 5:5) is that the sinning believer’s fleshly desires would be ultimately defeated after Satan pushed those passions to extremes and the sinner finally came to his senses, like the prodigal son after a fruitless and futile life of debauchery (Luke 15). In either case, the purpose of this discipline was not merely punitive, and it could not be the eternal damnation of this sinning believer. The goal of this harsh discipline was restoration, “that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5). William Barclay explains:
Always at the back of punishment and discipline in the early Church there is the conviction that they must seek not to break but to make the man who has sinned. . . . Discipline should never be exercised for the satisfaction of the person who exercises it, but always for the mending of the person who has sinned and for the sake of the Church. Discipline must never be vengeful; it must always be curative.[30]
Paul commands churches to lovingly correct, not vindictively punish, members who persist in sinning (cf. Matt. 18:15-17). Once a change of mind and heart is gained, congregations should welcome prodigals home with open arms (Luke 15:20-24; 2 Cor. 2:6-8). In this way, ultimately, the sinner, either by the Lord’s hand of discipline or by repentance before the church, would be saved from a sinful lifestyle (1 Cor. 3:15).
— 5:6-8 —
Paul moves from the discipline of the sinner for the purpose of repentance and restoration to the purification of the church. Even if the perpetrator does not repent, the moral purity of the church requires the expulsion of the unrepentant from its midst. Because we are all representatives of the body of Christ, we directly affect each other for good or bad. Just as yeast invades every part of a lump of dough (5:6), so one Christian’s unrepentant sin corrupts an entire congregation. Years ago a student of Greek at Dallas Seminary once tried to paraphrase this verse by reference to the old slogan for Brylcreem: “A little dab’ll do ya!” I would modify his loose translation with one word to fit the context: “A little dab’ll do ya in.” Just a small amount of sin is enough to contaminate the whole congregation. One microscopic virus can infect and cripple the whole body. One hole in a tire can stop the entire car. One “F” on a test can lower your whole GPA.
The seriousness of the offense Paul cites, however, meant that they were dealing with more than just a “dab” of sin. So Paul firmly admonishes them, “Clean out the old leaven” —his analogy for their old lifestyles characterized by impurity and immorality. Instead, they were to be in their daily practice what they were in their position before God: pure and holy —figuratively, unleavened.
In this one verse we have all the ingredients of Paul’s doctrines of justification and sanctification. As believers in Christ, the moment we believe we are “justified” —declared righteous by God, while still in our sinning state. Yet we also are called to a life of “sanctification” —becoming progressively more righteous in our daily experience, as we are gradually renewed and conformed to the image of Christ. So, when Paul tells the Corinthians that they “are in fact unleavened” (5:7), he refers to being positionally unleavened —their legal righteous standing before God (2 Cor. 5:17; Rom. 6:1-12). When he urges them to “clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump” (1 Cor. 5:7), he refers to being progressively unleavened —their practical transformation toward the spiritual reality (Rom. 12:1-2; 2 Cor. 3:18).
Neither their positional nor their progressive righteousness is of their own power, but because of the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is why Paul says, “For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). Christ’s sacrifice for their sins —past, present, and future —purchased not only freedom from the penalty of sin (justification), but also freedom from the power of sin (sanctification). By embracing Christ as their Passover sacrifice, they could find forgiveness and cleansing.
Paul further develops the Passover analogy in light of the Jewish Passover practice of ridding their homes of all leaven in preparation for the Passover feast. On the day before the Passover began, the Law said that every Jewish family must light a candle and search high and low for any leavening agent (Exod. 12:15, 19; 13:7). Every bit must be cast out in order to keep the Passover feast in purity. Paul calls the believers to do as the Jews did: hunt down every sin that might infect the church and purge it from the community through genuine repentance (1 Cor. 5:7). The Corinthians were to rid themselves of the old leaven of malice and wickedness (their former practices as unrepentant pagans) and replace it with the pure, unleavened bread of “sincerity and truth” (5:8).
— 5:9-13 —
Paul’s instructions about church discipline in 5:9-13 come as a shock to many “judge not” advocates in our culture. But these words also seem to fly in the face of many “judge the world” Christians who tend to shake their fingers at sinners on the outside while graciously overlooking the gross sins of fellow believers in their midst.
In response to these erroneous views, Paul refers to a previous letter he had sent to Corinth, one which apparently was misunderstood or misapplied. In that letter he had instructed the Corinthians not to associate with “immoral people” (5:9). They had apparently taken this as an admonition to isolate themselves from the immoral people of the world —the non-Christian heathen. To do this, they would need to literally depart from the world (5:10). Paul clarifies his intention: “But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is 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” (5:11).
To many, those words sound ultra harsh, but Paul’s point is as vital for us in the twenty-first century as it was for the Corinthians in the first. We are not called to force our biblical standards of righteousness on those outside the church who have never been taught and have never committed themselves to a life of discipleship. In fact, because they have never received the Spirit, they lack the ability to subject themselves to God’s laws (Rom. 8:7). Instead, we are called to hold one another accountable, stimulating one another to love and good deeds (Heb. 10:24).
So, when it comes to defiant believers who habitually and unrepentantly engage in a worldly lifestyle of sin, we are told to remove them from fellowship (1 Cor. 5:11). This removal includes even withdrawing the most intimate form of fellowship in the ancient world —enjoying a meal together. Here the reference may be specifically to the Lord’s Supper, which often was accompanied by a “charity meal” that provided intimate fellowship as well as provisions for the poor. In other words, believers under church discipline were removed from both the spiritual and physical sustenance the local body of believers offered to its members.
The authority and responsibility of the church to “remove the wicked man from among” the congregation (5:13) might seem brutal to our tolerance-sensitive ears. Such church discipline is necessary, though, and Paul asks a rhetorical question that grammatically, in Greek, implies an affirmative answer: “Do you not judge those who are within the church?” (5:12). In short, the church must leave the world of unbelieving sinners to the judgment of God and exercise discipline among its own members (5:12-13).
APPLICATION: 1 CORINTHIANS 5:1-13
Judge for Yourselves
Years ago, if you asked people to quote their favorite Bible verse, you might hear, “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want” (Ps. 23:1) or “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Nowadays, I think many people would respond with, “God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8) or “Do not judge so that you will not be judged” (Matt. 7:1). The biblical presentation of a God who is our Master and Shepherd and who saves believers from hell through the death of His Son used to be the common understanding of even the most nominal Christians. In the last two decades, however, the general perception of God has dramatically changed. Now He’s seen as a gentle father figure who loves people so much that He would never think of judging anybody for anything. With this picture of God comes an ideal image of the loving, tolerant church that embraces all people regardless of their beliefs and practices. “Thou shalt tolerate everybody’s lifestyle” has become the new unwritten commandment that trumps anything “negative” the Bible might say.
Paul’s brief discussion of church discipline in 1 Corinthians 5 challenges head-on the notion of unchecked tolerance for sin. In response to these vital truths, I want to share four application points to help bring clarity and balance to our understanding of this important topic.
First, overlooking serious sin is not loving but dangerous. You often will hear people say, “Well, we don’t care how the people in our fellowship live. That’s between them and God. The main thing is that we all love Jesus and love each other.” Paul’s words in 5:1-13 refute this idea. Think about it. If you have a child who reaches for a drink of poison, you don’t say, “That’s dangerous, but I’m going to be loving and let my child decide. That’s between the child and his Maker.” Never! We snatch the poison away and risk hurting the child’s feelings.
Paul said, “Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.” In this day with our loose church culture, you’ll be called a legalist if you apply this verse —I guarantee it! You could be slandered, persecuted, and sued, not only by the sinners involved, but by observers who just don’t have the stomach for doing the right thing. Waiting in the wings of many grace-preaching churches are people ready to tag a person as a legalist whenever such a person takes a stand against serious, unrepentant sin. But we must commit ourselves to doing what is right, even when it’s unpopular.
Second, confronting serious sin is not optional but essential. Of course, there are clear guidelines to follow that ensure this process conforms to God’s standards. Read Matthew 18:15-17 very carefully. Study it. Meditate upon it. Then apply it cautiously. Notice that the text makes no room for backing down from confrontation or backing out of the process. For the sake of the church’s health and the sinner’s restoration, we must all engage in the process when wisdom dictates.
Third, dealing with serious sin is not to be penal but remedial. James wrote, “He who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins” (Jas. 5:20). Invariably, there are self-proclaimed Christian “bouncers” who feel like it’s their mission to snatch sinners from churches, escort them to the door, and rough them up enough to guarantee they never show their faces in the sanctuary again. Even the Corinthians had such people, as we see in 2 Corinthians 2. Yet, the purpose of church discipline is not to humiliate, infuriate, or aggravate wandering saints. The purpose is to urge them to see the error of their ways and to shepherd them back to repentance and fellowship. Is your attitude that of a bouncer or a shepherd?
Finally, correcting serious sin is not external but internal. Church discipline is to be carried out by believers and for believers. Church correction would never even have to occur, however, if Christians kept their private worlds centered on the Lord Jesus Christ rather than themselves.
This is a perfect time to do an inventory in your life and determine if there are any secret sins that could potentially grow up or blow up into open scandals. Now is the time to turn away from those sins, repent, and save yourself from the humiliation of discipline, either from the Lord or from His people.