5:1-6:20. THINGS HEARD BY PAUL.
C  X¹  5:1-13. Fornication. Declaration.
   X²  6:1-11. Litigation.
   X³  6:12-20. Fornication. Application.

5:1-13. FORNICATION.
X¹  Y¹  r1  1. Crimination.
         s¹  2-. Remonstrance.
          t¹  -2. Purgation.
    Y²  r²  3-5. Judgment.
         s²  6. Remonstrance.
          t²  7,8. Purgation.
    Y³  r³  9-11. Injunction.
         s³  12,13-. Remonstrance.
          t³  -13. Purgation.

1 Corinthians 5)

1 It is heard altogether that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even [found] as named among the Gentiles (not even done by them), that a certain one should have his father's wife. (Incest. Lev. 20:11; 18:8)
2 And you have been puffed up (they will do anything to gather a crowd), and did not rather mourn (they allow it to continue on), in order that he that did this deed might be taken away out of the midst of you. (Had they mourned and humbled themselves for such a scandal in their midst they must have taken action [v.13])
3 For I indeed, as absent in body, but present in spirit (absent bodily, he was present with them in thought and feeling. Cp. Col. 2:5), have judged already (he has discerned already), as though I were present, him that has so (i.e. so daringly) done this deed,
4 Having been gathered together In the name of our Lord Jesus, you and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 To deliver (see John 19:30) such an one to Satan (cp. 1 Tim. 1:20. Satan is regarded as inflicting bodily suffering. See Luke 13:16. 2 Cor. 12:17) for destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day (the day of resurrection, when the spirit which returns to God at death is restored) of the Lord Jesus. (Let him go to the devil until he learns to stand up.)
6 Your boasting (see Rom. 4:2) is not good. Know you not that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? (See Matt. 13:33. Cp. Gal. 5:9. A little sin or lie in the body soon spreads throughout the body. A little truth also spreads throughout the whole body. Focus you attention on spreading the truth.)
7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even Christ our passover was sacrificed on behalf of us: (Therefore we can be sinners, as we are, and upon repentance we are clean and pure, because He paid price. Christ became our passover.)
8 So then let us keep the feast (he means, the Passover being past we are living in the days of unleavened bread), not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (The Word of God. See John 6:48. The word "sincerity" in the Greek means "let the sunshine judge". Let the sunshine judge what is being taught.)

9 I wrote to you in the epistle (i.e. the present one) not to company (mix together) with fornicators:
10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world (Gr. kosmos), or with the covetous (Eph. 5:5), or extortioners (Matt. 7:15. Luke 18:11), or with idolaters (Rev. 21:8; 22:15); for then you ought to go out of the world.
11 But now I have written to you not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one not even to eat with. (See Acts 10:41)
12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not you judge them that are within?
13 But them that are without God judges. Put away from among yourselves the wicked [one].

(With this chapter should be compared the Lord's words in Matt. 1815-17, and Paul's injunctions in 1 Thess. 2:6-15. The aim in every case was to bring the offender to repentance. Note also that this was a moral offense, and no sanction is given by these injunctions to the separation so common now on the ground of differing interpretations of Scripture statements.)

Next page

Home