1 Corinthians 5

Subdivision 2. (1 Corinthians 5:1-13; 1 Corinthians 6:1-20; 1 Corinthians 7:1-40.)The flesh’s lusts: separation from, and remedies. The apostle now turns his attention to that which necessarily went with all this world-wisdom which was manifesting itself among them. It all favored the flesh, that worst enemy of the believer, from the very fact that it is that which still dwells in him and without which no power of the enemy could prevail against him. There is another thing which increases the difficulty of dealing with it, that we have to separate between flesh in its evil sense, and the body with which it is most intimately connected, and through which it is constantly manifesting itself; and then again we have to separate it from what is proper to human nature as such, as God created it, apart from any question of the fall. This remains; and while it remains in a fallen condition, we are not by this permitted simply to ignore it. Man is still man, even though Christian, and God’s appointments for man have necessarily a wise respect to his whole being as such, which it would not be safe for him to ignore. There are sins, of course, of the spirit as well as of the flesh, and we cannot identify the flesh, therefore, simply with the body; but even here, flesh, as we have seen already, characterizes the fallen condition and prompts the very sins of the spirit themselves. Thus then, while the lusts of the flesh have to be met and controlled in God’s own way, we must be guided by the word of God itself, which alone can give us the true means of meeting them, the divine remedies for a fallen condition.

1 Corinthians 5:1-13

Section 1. (1 Corinthians 5:1-13.)Unity to be maintained in righteousness. We have now the question of how the unity which plainly exists in the Church as the body of Christ is to be maintained in righteousness. Righteousness is, in fact, before all things necessary to be maintained. The apostle puts it first for us where he tells us that grace, if it reigns, yet itself reigns through righteousness, not setting it aside; and that we are to follow, first of all, righteousness, then “faith, love, peace, with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” Righteousness is rooted, of necessity, in the very nature of God Himself, and therefore the moment it is a question of going on with what is unrighteous, we have not to think of ecclesiastical rules or of the very relationships which God has established amongst us, so far as they interfere, or may be thought to interfere with the working out of this. God must always have maintained that which suits Himself; and thus, while there are many things besides to be considered in respect to our communion with other Christians, the very fist point for us is righteousness.

1. A most solemn thing is shown us in the first place here, and that is, that if Christians fall into sin, we need not be surprised if they fall lower than the men of the world themselves. At Corinth there was already among them that which could not be found even among the Gentiles; the lawlessness was complete, unique. It was the violation of nature, and of what was God’s principle as to the creation itself apart from Christianity, and yet such was the state at Corinth that they were not only going on with it, but there was no sign of mourning over it at all. “Ye are puffed up,” he says, “and have not rather mourned, in order that he that hath done this deed might be taken out of your midst.” They might surely, if they did not know bow to deal with it, have cried to God in their sorrow, and would have been heard by Him. We have always this resource, but;hey were puffed up instead. How soon can the Christian forget, perhaps in the very thought of that grace which breaks the dominion of sin, the very principles which nature itself should teach him!
2. But here we come to a remarkable sample of God’s power over the evil, nay of His use of it to fulfil His own holy purposes. The man is to be delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. He is put into the hands of the adversary, who can now show himself plainly as the adversary that he always is. He can serve himself no longer by the sin of one who has been expelled from the Christian assembly. He has, therefore, nothing that he can do except to manifest his enmity against one who has borne the name of Christ, perhaps with the thought of driving him to despair by that which falls upon him, or, as in Job’s case (one, of course, so different in himself from the person before us now), urge him into railing against God Himself.

God uses him, on the other hand, that in the destruction of the flesh the spirit may yet be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. This is a principle which we find afterwards noted in His dealings with the Corinthians themselves, of whom, for the dishonor of the Lord’s table, there were many who were weak and sickly, and many who slept. The apostle adds: “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged; but when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” God must manifest Himself against the sin; and if it is not to be eternally, it must be now in time; except indeed self-judgment come in, as he tells us here: “If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.” A solemn principle this is of divine government, and as we see, it is grounded in the divine nature. If His people will not maintain righteousness, He must maintain His own righteousness as to them, while at the same time He cannot, of course, and will not, forget the grace that He is showing in Christ. The apostle tells them, therefore, that he has already pronounced, as it were, with regard to the man in question, and bids them carry out his decision, which their own consciences must need respond to, in the name of Christ their Lord, as solemnly gathered together and himself in spirit, if not in body, with them, to deliver this man to Satan. This was apostolic power, no doubt. He speaks elsewhere of his delivering the promulgators of false doctrine to Satan without any question of the assembly at all; but although with us there may lack this element of authority, God will not fail to maintain the decisions of His people when according to truth and His own nature. Thus, while the Church may perhaps not be able formally to deliver to Satan, yet the principle remains untouched in integrity for us. 3. The apostle turns now to consider the influence of this evil, permitted among them, upon the whole assembly, and the necessity of their complete separation from it, not only for the Lord’s sake and for the person’s sake who had sinned, but for their own sake also. He speaks of that which characterizes the Christian’s life as it were a feast upon a sacrifice. “Christ our Passover,” he says, “has been sacrificed for us.” We are living, so to speak, upon the fruits of that sacrifice. If God has bidden us to His feast, what must be the character of such a feast? The Old Testament has already shown us in its types that leaven was to be purged away before ever men ventured to sit down to partake of the passover. (1) How sorrowful was their glorying then! Had they not received instruction from these types of the Old Testament, with which, as we see, they were certainly familiar, and familiar too in their application to Christianity? Did they not know that a little leaven leavened the whole lump? Little it might be in the speech of men. When the apostle speaks thus, it is evident that every atom of leaven must be purged out in order to satisfy die mind of God. Leaven is not simply evil, but evil allowed; the ferment, as the thought is, of wills that are not subject to God. If such leaven be permitted in a man’s own life and ways, it will of necessity characterize him as a whole. He cannot be subject to God up to a certain limit.

The moment we urge a limit to obedience, we urge what is in fact disobedience, and there is no such thing with God as the allowance of such a line as this. Unleavened bread, as the apostle says here, is that of sincerity and truth. There must be whole-hearted devotedness. If we refuse obedience anywhere, we are disobedient. If we refuse it in one thing, this will necessarily by degrees influence all other things. So it is individually, and so it is collectively. There must be hearts that can truly desire God to search them and see whether there be any way of wickedness in them; or else there is not, as is plain, sincerity and truth. The lump with leaven in it is a leavened lump, except it be as we find it in the meat-offering of the first-fruits.

In this case the action of the fire has destroyed the leaven as leaven. It is there in a sense, but not there. There is no activity of it permitted or allowed. The fire necessarily stops that completely; and it cannot be too earnestly insisted upon that such a spirit of whole-hearted devotedness of which we are speaking is necessary to the true judgment of any single thing. Otherwise, first of all, the eye by which we see is obscured, or, as the Lord would say, made evil, and: “If thine eye be evil, the whole body will be full of darkness.” We cannot shut out God’s light without, as far as depends upon us, shutting it out altogether. If we shut our eyes, we shut ourselves into darkness; nay, the Lord has said: “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” They were, therefore, to purge out the old leaven that they might be a new lump, even as in God’s sight in Christ they were in fact unleavened. Yet they would by this be a new lump. Thus they were not that, in the condition in which they stood. What they were before God was one thing. Their lives and ways did not answer to it. “Wherefore,” he says, “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.” (2) Another principle is now shown us, that in case of sin amongst the people of the Lord there is to be a more complete separation from those going on with it than there would be from the world itself, -in which, of course, this sin was everywhere. This ought not to be strange as a principle to us, for it is plain that it is the profession of the name of Christ along with it that gives the evil in this case a character all its own. Thus, he had written to theta that they were not to mingle with men of this class; and yet he is not speaking of the world, whatever their various characters of sin might be, for in fact if they were to attempt this, the world was such that they would. have to go out of it altogether. There would be no possibility, even, of discerning the character of those with whom they were being brought in contact. The same difficulty of application is found today with the world, which is so largely a professing world. The principle remains untouched, but the application is more difficult.

We cannot treat the professing mass according to their profession, it is so merely that; but still, when there is a manifest dishonor being done to the Lord by great opposition between profession and practice, we must, as far as lies in us, clear the Lord’s name from this dishonor. In the closer circle of actual communion, of course the apostle’s words have their full force.

The wicked one is to be put away, not, merely from the table, but from among ourselves and this is to extend to the very matter of eating and drinking in such a case. We are not to mingle with them in any way. The more truly the heart goes after them, as it surely must, -God’s own heart goes after them -the more closely will the divine rule be observed, which is that upon which alone there can be His blessing. As for discipline, it is always with the thought finally of the restoration of the offender. We see in what is before us here how thoroughly this was the case even after the extreme point had been reached and he had been put away from fellowship. God used this putting away to break him down, and thus for his restoration.

It would not be to be with God at all to leave out of our thoughts or hearts those whom we may have had to put away from our fellowship. God’s heart never gives up His people, and our hearts should never do so; and this will give the spirit of love in all our dealings with them, while it will not make the testimony we give against their ways less decisive, but much more.