CORINTHIAN ISSUES – MESSAGE 6
July 20, 2003

“Sin in the Church”

1 Corinthians 5

We are continuing our study through the letter Paul the Apostle wrote to the church in Corinth.  Today, we’ll look at 1 Corinthians Chapter 5. 

Here in our church, we have some core values, very basic commitments we have identified and made as a church that direct the ministries that go on here – things we feel are so important and so basic that we are committed to them and let them drive us as a church family.  We committed ourselves to 13 core values.  Number 3 on the list is a high standard of holiness. 

High standard of holiness

What is that high standard of holiness?  It is God’s standard, as revealed in His Word.  In 1 Peter 1:14 – 16, God tells us, “Be holy in all your behavior.  Be holy, for I am holy.”  In 2 Corinthians 7:1 we are told to cleanse ourselves from all that would contaminate us in spirit and body, and to perfect holiness out of reverence for God.  From Ephesians 5:25 – 27 we learn that Jesus loves us so much that He does everything He can to see that some day His church will stand before God, holy and blameless.  And then in Romans 8:29, we are told that God’s plan for those who belong to Him is that they be conformed to the image of His son, Jesus.  Being in Christ’s likeness is holiness.  If I am like Jesus, I am holy. 

Holiness is a series of right choices.  It is not some mystical thing that, if you pray long enough, this cloud of holiness will enshroud you, and you’ll be a holy person.  Holiness is more practical than that; it is simply making the right choices.  Whenever you choose not to sin, you are making a right choice, and you are holy.  Whenever you choose to do the Godly thing, you are holy.  We are not talking about being perfect, but we are talking about being noticeably different, which is what “holy” means – different, set apart.  We believe that, not only for God’s people individually, but for His people corporately as a church, God’s desire is that we be visibly different from the world – that there would be a clear distinction between God’s people and the people of the world; a clear distinction between His church and those who aren’t a part of His church.  Developing that clear distinction is holiness. 

The problem

With that in mind, consider what would happen if brothers or sisters in the Lord and in the church choose to involve themselves persistently in a certain sinful practice, and their involvement becomes damaging to their own spiritual life and to their family.  Eventually it begins to affect the entire church body negatively, and pretty soon their practice of this sin becomes publicly known.  We begin to hear people even outside the church talking about it as common knowledge, and making negative remarks about the church, Christianity, and even Jesus Christ in connection with what they see in these people’s lives. 

What does a church committed to a high standard of holiness do in that situation?  Maybe we’ll get an answer and some insight by looking at 1 Corinthians Chapter 5.  It involves Paul addressing the second issue in his letter to the Corinthians.  (The first issue, you will recall, was the division over spiritual leaders and teachers.) 

“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. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.  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.  In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 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 Jesus.  Your boasting is not good.  Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?

“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. 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.

“I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; 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.  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.  For what have I to do with judging outsiders?  Do you not judge those who are within the church?  But those who are outside, God judges.  Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.” 

At this point, we are beginning to feel uncomfortable.  This kind of Scripture arouses a feeling of discomfort in us when we read it, and it probably should.  If you don’t feel at all uncomfortable reading 1 Corinthians 5, you should be asking why.  I think we should feel uncomfortable, because Paul was talking about something that isn’t comfortable.   Apparently a man in the church was committing a sexual sin that was so distasteful that even the unbelievers outside the church were having a hard time with it.  That’s interesting, because this church was in one of the most immoral cities in that time.  Sexual immorality was commonplace in Corinth, and yet the man’s sin – incest – made it distasteful even to the unbelievers.  Apparently he was having sexual relations with his stepmother. 

Paul said the problem was “actually reported.”  People in the community were talking about it and it was public knowledge.  The Greek word for “reported” is “noised abroad.”  What the man in the church was doing was being “noised abroad.” 

How had this church responded to what was going on?  You get some idea from verse 2:  “You have become arrogant.”  When you read on, you find that the people in the church had done nothing.  This man was committing sexual sin with his stepmother, it was publicly known, and it was a sin distasteful to even the unbelievers around them.  Yet, the people in the church were arrogantly letting it go on. 

Why would a group of believers become arrogant (which means puffed up and bigheaded) about a man among them living in this sinful situation?  We can only guess, but knowing the context of the Book of 1 Corinthians, it’s possible that they were proud of their tolerance, and that they had gotten to the point where they called this tolerance “love.”  Or maybe they saw this as Christian liberty – allowing one another to live free in Christ.  Whatever it was, the people in this church had become arrogant and had done nothing at all about it. 

Paul’s view

Paul wasn’t happy about it, and he said so in verse 2:  “You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead.”  Paul’s view was that instead of being arrogant, these people should have been grieving and mourning the fact that a brother was involved in a very sinful practice.  He said that, in addition to mourning and grieving, they should have removed the man from their church fellowship.  That’s the part that makes people uncomfortable.  He went on to say that they should deliver the man to Satan, another way of telling them to remove him from their fellowship. 

That’s a strange statement.  The idea of delivering someone over to Satan is based on the premise that, when someone is involved in a local church, he or she benefits from being under its umbrella, which provides protection and support.  If the man was removed from the church – out from under that umbrella – he would not have the church’s protection and support, and would be on his own – fair game to Satan and the world. 

Some people choose to leave that protection and support on their own, and not be involved in the local church.  But sometimes, a person has to be removed, and that’s what Paul was talking about. 

Paul’s reasons

Paul spent a considerable amount of time giving his reasons for such a drastic action.  I’ll point out three reasons behind his instruction to the Corinthians.  The first reason was primary in his mind, and he spent most of his time on it, but there are two other reasons. 

The first reason behind Paul’s instruction to the church members to remove the man was that doing so would protect the church body.  That was his main concern.  This was an instance when the group was more important than the individual.  Today we live in a society where the individual is important.  We are supposed to be individuals, and we are supposed to be looking out for the individual, but here Paul said that sometimes you have to put the group ahead of the individual.  They needed to remove the man to protect the church. 

Here’s how he said it.  “Your boasting is not good.  Do you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?”  A little bit of yeast will, over time, permeate and affect the entire lump of dough.  A little bit allowed to remain will eventually work its way until it influences the whole.  So, he told the Corinthians to clean out the old leaven.  He was referring to the man involved in the sinful practice as “leaven.”  If they allowed him to stay in the church while continuing to practice his sin, eventually he would corrupt the entire church. 

Then he went on to remind the Corinthians of a letter he had previously written to them.  We don’t know what it was or where it is, but in it he reminded them that they should not associate with immoral people.  He said that when he wrote the letter, he didn’t mean that they couldn’t associate with the immoral unbelievers of the world, because then they would have to leave the world.  However, he did tell them not to mix together or keep close company with people who called themselves believers but chose to be involved in a sinful practice as a way of life.  He advised them to keep their distance from those people.  This makes us uncomfortable, doesn’t it?  

But that’s what he meant, and that’s what he was teaching here.  The first reason for this drastic action was to protect the group – the church. 

There’s another reason.  That is to promote the repentance and restoration of the individual.  Paul said to deliver ­the man over to Satan “for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”   I think that what he was driving at is that it had gotten to the place where the next step to help the man move toward repentance and restoration was to remove him from the church.  If this man lost the church’s umbrella of protection, and if he lost the church’s support for what he was doing, he would be out there on his own, vulnerable to Satan and the world.  Paul felt that this might be what it would take to drive him to repentance. 

Some people believe that later on, in 2 Corinthians, Paul suggests that this action might have worked, and maybe this man did come to repentance. 

I think the third reason for promoting the man’s removal was to preserve the testimony of the church.  It seemed as though Paul could hardly believe what the public knew and was saying – that it was actually “noised abroad.”  People outside the church were talking about what was happening in the church.  They saw that the church wasn’t doing anything about it.  And so, to preserve the testimony of the church in Corinth, Paul urged this drastic action. 

How could removing someone from the church preserve the church’s testimony?  Wouldn’t people be talking about a church that kicks people out, and wouldn’t this make its testimony worse?  Although it does not involve a local church’s action, there might be an answer to this question in Acts 5.  There, you have God’s drastic discipline of Ananias and Sapphira when they lied to Him and were struck dead.  You see in verse 11 the community’s response when they found out what had happened:  “And great fear came over the church and over all who heard of these things.” 

I would expect that to happen.  If you saw someone who was caught up in sin fall over dead, wouldn’t that scare you?  Indeed, God’s action did create great fear among the church’s members and in the community, and in the first part of verse 13 we also learn that it actually scared people outside the church into avoiding those church members and not wanting to be around them.  But look what comes next:  “…however, the people held them (the church members) in high esteem.  And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number.”   Somehow, God’s action also caused respect for the church.

When a church takes this kind of action, people of the world don’t understand it and they can say all kinds of things about it, but in the end, they have to stop and think.  They see that the people of the church are serious about the actions of a certain Christian member, and they are serious about maintaining a high standard of holiness.  They say to themselves, “They are different than we are.  Maybe there is something to it.” 

Did you notice that Paul never addressed the man who was involved in the sin?  It’s possible he was there when Paul’s letter was read, but he was never singled out or identified.  Paul’s problem was with the church, because instead of grieving over the man’s behavior and doing something about it, they were arrogant.  So, he addressed the church instead.  He said they needed to grieve the sinful action and remove the man to protect the church, to promote his move toward repentance, and to preserve the church’s testimony outside the church. 

Important questions

I want to throw out three questions that help us apply 1 Corinthians 5.  First of all, when does 1 Corinthians 5 not apply?  That’s a different way of looking at it – we would usually ask how it does apply.  My answer:  It does not apply most of the time.  The letter does not apply in trivial church matters.  Just because someone has come to church for three consecutive Sundays without a Bible, that doesn’t mean you apply 1 Corinthians 5.  Just because some young person who has gotten into body piercing attends your church, that also doesn’t mean you apply it.  It does not apply every time someone commits a sin.  There’s a big difference between committing a sin and persistently practicing a sin, being stubbornly unwilling to repent of it. 

It does not apply in the case of “sin struggles.”  When Christians are struggling with a certain sin that keeps besetting them and they have struggled with it for a long time, sometimes seeing victory, sometimes defeat, they are not persistently practicing a sin.  The fact that it is a struggle means they are sensitive to it.  They are not doggedly involving themselves in that sin – they want to beat it. 

The chapter applies, I believe, when a believer is openly and repeatedly practicing a sin, but is unrepentant and refuses to do anything about it.  Then, as a last resort, 1 Corinthians 5, along with some other Scriptures, must go into effect. 

Second question:  How do we prevent situations where we must apply 1 Corinthians 5?  We’re all uncomfortable with what Paul is teaching in this chapter and in other New Testament Scriptures that say something similar.  If we want to prevent those situations, how do we do it? 

The church body as a whole can help prevent them.  Matthew 18, starting in verse 15, says you should go one-on-one to a person who is sinning, and privately minister to that person.  If he or she doesn’t listen to you, Jesus suggested finding a few other people to go with you to help.  Galatians 6:1 tells us that, if a brother is overtaken with a sin, those who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness and respect – help him.

In Romans 15 and 1 Thessalonians 5 there are instructions to the body of Christ to admonish each other, warn each other, and let each other know if you see something that isn’t right.  And Hebrews 3:13 tells us to encourage one another in order to prevent someone from getting caught up in a sin.  Just by having a ministry of encouraging each other, we can actually prevent this from happening.  So, there’s a role we, as a body, can play that can prevent the last-resort step that 1 Corinthians 5 talks about. 

There are also things we can do as individuals.  If each one of us pursues holiness in our own life and makes it a goal to become more like Jesus, and if each of us is personally committed to a high standard of holiness for ourselves, we could prevent the action in Chapter 5 from ever taking place in the church body.  We should practice prompt repentance as a habit of life, being so sensitive to sin that whenever it comes into our lives, we quickly deal with it.  Finally, we should permit correction and willingly open ourselves to the concern of our brothers and sisters when they see something we don’t see. 

If those three things – pursuing holiness, practicing prompt repentance, and permitting correction – were going on in our lives, the teaching of 1 Corinthians 5 and other Scriptures like it would never come into play. 

Here’s the third question:  Are we willing to practice 1 Corinthians 5 when it does apply?   There aren’t many churches that can answer this question affirmatively.  We live in a pretty tolerant society, and any church willing to practice this type of church discipline is most likely seen as an intolerant group.  I’ll tell you what: Practicing this does mean you are intolerant of sin and what it can do.  It’s an intolerance that is okay.  If I’m intolerant of sin and what it can do to my brothers and sisters who continue to practice it, if I’m intolerant of what sin can do to the church body if it isn’t dealt with, and if I’m intolerant of what it will do to the testimony for Christ in our community, then call me intolerant.  I believe that God is also intolerant of sin. 

I’d like to read something from a book called “Your God is Too Safe’ by Mark Buchanan.  He wrote, “I have never been involved in a church discipline action that has come out well.  When it was all said and done, everyone, including me, seemed soured by the business.  Those who received the discipline felt they were misunderstood, mistreated, and the church acted without grace or love.  Those who have been hurt by the offender felt the church had tiptoed, kid-gloved, pampered the wrongdoer, and had insufficiently upheld their cause.  Many watching from the sidelines have thought that we have either soft-pedaled righteousness or trampled grace.  They think we have acted too harshly or too cautiously.  We have been legalistic, or we have failed to take sin and holiness seriously.  We’re Pharisees, arrogant and accusing and rigid, or we’re Sadducees, arrogant and accommodating and soft.  Almost everyone is angry about the outcome.  Some, in their anger, withdraw their services; some stop giving; some stop coming.  I have yet to lead the church through a disciplinary action where all of the above in some measure did not happen.”  That’s not much of a promotion for this concept, is it? 

So, what is the conclusion?  What’s a church to do?  Mark Buchanan’s conclusion:  Do what is right.  If a brother or sister has become persistently and stubbornly involved in a sinful practice, and although people have expressed concern, offered help, given warnings, challenged, and attempted correction but the person has refused to accept any of them, why would a church be willing to practice this last resort?  It’s because we are committed to a high standard of holiness.  It’s because we love the church and want to protect it.  It’s because we want to preserve the testimony of Christ in the world, and maintain a clear distinction between the world and Christ’s church.  It’s because we love the individuals so much that we’ll do anything to bring them to the place of repentance.  It’s because we want to follow God’s Word and do the right thing, even though we seldom see it turn out the way we would really like it to turn out. 

But it’s right.  May it never happen.  May we be a body of individuals who are pursuing holiness, practicing prompt repentance, and permitting correction from our brothers and sisters, so that it will never come to using the last resort.  That’s our prayer. 

Please close this window to return to Main website.