First Corinthians 5:1-5
1 Corinthians 5:1-5 · Mike Doyle · Sep 6, 2020
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 24
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261920107689

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So today we are moving into chapter 5 of 1 Corinthians. And basically what we've got going here is that Corinthians were pretty carnal believers. And we've seen it so far in things like they were taking good teachers and putting them up on pedestals and saying, I'm of this man and I'm of this other man. and it resulted in a lot of arrogance amongst the believers and we'll talk quite a bit about arrogance today which caused them to be judgmental and divisions within the church and so we've been talking about divisions now for quite a few days and this is a really interesting church because it had demonstrated the greatest amount of spiritual gifts of any church in the New Testament yet they were spiritually speaking, the weakest. So in dealing with this group, there's an awful lot of pride. And what we're going to see today is how pride allows somebody to sort of gloss over their sinfulness.

So I'm going to read the verses and then we'll get down and deal with them one at a time. Verse 1, it's actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality as such of a kind that 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. And as though I were present, in the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, I with you in spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus, I've decided to deliver such a one to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Well, I must say, these verses got more complicated as the weeks went on, rather than simpler, and you'll see why in a bit. The very first slide is 5.1, and it's actually reported that there is immorality, this word can be fornication among you, and immorality or fornication is such of a kind that does not exist even amongst the Gentiles.

That someone has his father's wife. Now, if you think about and know anything about the Corinthians, they were surrounded by moral filthiness and heathenism. And this is where they, that's what they came out of into the church. So they're thinking pretty lightly of some sins. But this particular sin, as the verse says, occurred in a case of worldliness that was so brazen in character that it would have shamed even the non-believers.

So in putting this together, I notice on your handouts it says News Bulletin. I envisioned in my mind somebody standing on CNN or Christian television and saying things like Newsflash, Corinthian Church Bulletin News Alert. It's actually reported. A man in a local church has moved in with his father's wife.

It has been reported that there is such sexual immorality going on among that church in Corinth, something that even we pagans don't do. It is widely reported by unnamed sources that a man in the church is living in a sinful relationship with his stepmother. It is commonly known that immorality is part of life in our city of Corinth, but for it to exist permanently in our church, one would have previously thought inconceivable. This is a rare case of immorality not tolerated among the local citizenry of unbelievers.

As we know, fornication is approved in our Roman and Greek society, but to live with one's stepmother, it's shocking. We're not told who the woman is, but she's not the offender's natural mother, but rather probably the man's father's former wife. This practice was forbidden in the Roman and Greek laws. This type of thing is a capital offense under Greek and Roman law and Hebrew law too.

A quote from Cicero referring to a similar situation that in Corinth says, O credible crime for a woman, and such has never been heard of in the world in any other than her solitary case. As far as this reporter knows, Cicero had never been to the church at Corinth. That's what went through my mind. How is Paul presenting this? It's like a news report, you know.

And I look back in Chronicles 5.1 and it says, Now the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, for he was the firstborn, but because he defiled his father's bed, he did the same thing. His birthright was given to the sons of Joseph, and the sons of Israel so that he is not enrolled in the genealogy according to the birthright. This shows you how the Jews thought about this, that Reuben, even though he was the firstborn of Jacob's family, he was taken out of the lineage of blessing because of this sin, this same sin.

So, let's talk a little bit about immorality. In the general translation in the Greek, it's the word pornea, porneaia. which means fornication. And in this case, the offense was sexual union with a woman who had previously been married to the man's father.

So who is this woman? Well, she wasn't his physical mother, I don't think, because if she was, the Greeks would have used a different word. Evidently, she was a stepmother, and she may have been close to this man in age. She was clearly not the mother of the offender, probably she was not at the time the wife of the offender's father. So, I naturally assumed years ago when I first read this verse, well, maybe the father died.

Well, not necessarily. They may have just been divorced. Because divorce was a really common thing in Corinth, according to Constable. Now, what's interesting is that you notice where it says that has or have, the verb translated to have or have when used in a sexual marital context is really a code word for the continuing relationship in contrast to what we would call a one-night stand. This was a permanent relationship. And this man and this woman were living together, as simple as we can say it.

It looks like only the man is the object of Paul's reprimand, though, not the woman. I wonder why that is. Maybe the woman didn't belong to the church there, but the man certainly did. The Greeks were undecided on what manner, on the kinds of prostitution and things like that. They didn't care if you went to visit the brothels or not. They didn't care if you had an illicit lover or not. Just keep it quiet. That's all they cared about.

So Constable says Pornia could also refer to any sexual sin specifically as it does here. That's why Pornia appears so often as the first item in the New Testament list of vices. But it wasn't because that the Christians at Corinth were hung up sexually.

It wasn't that. And it wasn't because that this was kind of a scarlet letter sort of a thing. I'm sure you've all seen the movie or read the scarlet letter. It is a result of the prevalence in the culture and the difficulty of the early church had experienced with its Gentile converts trying to break with their former ways, which they did not consider immoral. But this sin was considered immoral by everybody in the society. The leaders of Israel and the early churches regarded fornication of all kinds as a sin to be avoided. But the depraved, as the Greek culture was, even the pagans looked down on incest.

So, question. Verse 2 says, And you have become arrogant and not mourned instead, in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst." So the question that hit me was, was Paul more concerned about the sin of immorality or was it something else? I think that there was something else in mind here.

It's not only a gross evil in their midst, but here was the problem. They tolerated it. This was a bold sin right in their face, so to speak. And they tolerated it. And to Paul, in Paul's mind, that's a much bigger thing than the sin itself. So it's interesting, and you look around in our society today and amongst Christians, there's a lot of stuff that we tolerate, sinfulness that wouldn't have been tolerated by the Apostle Paul. Kind of shows us where, in some cases, where Christendom is today.

And then he says, look, you have become arrogant. This word, arrogant, is a really interesting word. It means to inflate or to puff up. You could use the same word to blow up a balloon. It's a display of superiority and self-importance and overbearing pride. It's making claims or pretensions to superior importance, insolently proud. The arrogance of a public official. We know all about that today. Every time you turn on the TV, there's some public official who has gotten caught doing something and their response to it is arrogance.

So what I find interesting about arrogance is that it's a mechanism, I think, where we can dismiss all criticism of our behavior or on the other hand, the lack of real genuine performance by simply showing a superior attitude. I was talking to Donna about this this week and I said, you know, as I studied this, I found that I've been guilty of that in my life. Someone would criticize me and I would just arrogantly look down my nose at them. What does it do? It dismisses them. So I can see these These Corinthians, that's how they react to the sin. Well, we're above all that.

This is not really something that we need to address. Or you've met a lot of like a young guy who just graduated from law school. They must have a class in law school about how to be arrogant. Or you could say that she was first in her class, but she was not arrogant about it. She didn't have a big head about it. Or you could say the person arrogantly dismissed their claims.

But the more I thought about this word, arrogant, it's really an interesting word. We as believers, if we tolerate any kind of sin in our own lives, or our friends' lives, or we neglect when it comes to seeking the Lord Jesus Christ, there's a certain arrogance about it. I wonder if you've noticed that. Maybe I'm the only one that notices it. This mechanism that I've described, I think when I'm not sure about my behavior or I don't want to do something that I think is expected of me spiritually and I don't do it well, rather than be humble about it, I get arrogant. I act as though Oh, it's not a big deal. Or I act as though I'm above it.

So he says to them, you've become arrogant, you've not mourned. Of all the churches who might boast, the Corinthian church was probably at the least grounds. But that doesn't stop them. This is highlighted in the emphatic pronoun you. You of all people are proud. That's what Paul was saying. You of all people are proud. This reveals an interesting characteristic of pride. It's the ability to maintain itself without any grounds. Pride defies all logic, making it a unique sin, according to Chester McCauley.

On the other hand, why didn't they mourn? What was that all about? Why didn't they exhibit humiliation, embarrassment, or why didn't they just immediately start to pray as a resource to those when they sense the wrong here? We talked a lot this morning in Sunday school about conscience.

And when a situation comes at you that you kind of have a sense that it's wrong, but you may not know quite what to do about it, I think you have one of two responses. You either get arrogant about it, or you start to mourn. And mourn about it means that, boy, I don't understand, but that really is affecting me negatively. It's true that they had not received apostolic directions as to what to do with an offender such as this, because I think this is the first time it happened. We see, though, apart from the distinct instructions involving definite responsibilities in the church, that there are moral sensibilities of the new nature which would lead us to take a certain course of action.

I've told you this before. When I first became a believer, I had what I call a Marine Corps mouth, which means I was really used to using any and every cuss word possible. And within the first week of being a believer, I was with a group of guys, and one guy took the Lord's name in vain.

And it really bothered me. And I had never had that experience before in my life. And I think that's what Paul is talking about here. There's a sensibility. What I couldn't figure out was, why would you take the Lord Jesus' name in vain if He's your Savior? A week before that it wouldn't have bothered me, but the week after I would say it made a difference because I had moral sensibility, I had the life of the Lord Jesus in me. Now with these believers cases could arise where a person's behavior would be such that they would have to remove them out of their church. As far as I've ever been at Holly Hills, well I guess it has happened a couple of times, but it's been voluntary.

But they didn't come and sit down and pray about this and spread the matter out before the Lord. They didn't feel any grief or sorrow about what was going on here. They didn't have an assurance that the Lord, if you go before Him with problems like this, sometimes He'll take care of it. You won't have to do it.

He'll do it Himself. The Lord in such a case does Himself what we ourselves may have to do in a clear case. We may well note the connection of take away here denotes it might be removed from your midst. And we'll talk in a minute more about what removal and all of that's about.

Humiliation and prayer are the resources of those who feel wrong and know not yet what the remedy is, according to Hamilton Smith. There are times that there's a wrong, and I think, how am I going to figure this out? talk to somebody, somebody spiritually that I trust, or I need to spend time in God's Word because this doesn't just sit right.

But the Corinthians' attitude about this situation was even worse than the sin itself. Rather than mourning over it and disciplining the offender, they took pride in it. They may have viewed it within the bounds of Christian liberty. thinking that their position in Christ made sexual immorality unimportant. Another possibility is that their worldly wisdom encouraged them to cast off any sexual restraints.

I remember another story. Young Christian. I'm in a Bible study at Cherry Hills Country Club. It's a men's Bible study. and usually you'd have a good Bible study for an hour and then some guys would go into the what they call the men's grill and have breakfast and sit around and talk about the Bible study and I didn't know I was probably the newest member of this group and these were all fairly well-to-do maybe more worldly than they were believers but they were there every Friday so And there was a guy sitting there who was a single man, about 40.

And the discussion, we got talking about immorality, and he started talking about the fact that he was in a sexual relationship with someone he wasn't married to. And half of these people at the table said, oh, well, you know, that's okay with God. He does, you know. being a young guy in a group, I said, wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense to me. Can you explain to me why it's not a problem?

The Bible is very clear about fornication. And, you know, discussion, discussion, and I left there thinking, gee, I hope Christianity is more certain than this. I hope that there is a real abhorrence for any kind of a sin. And here's what we need to understand.

Paul's not here dealing with the church discipline, but rather he's expressing what should be a normal consequence of being of the people of God who are called to be holy people. Chester McAuley says that when Paul says they are arrogant, he doesn't mean that the Corinthians were proud of the sin. They were proud of the presence of the sin. They were okay with it. in 1 Corinthians 4, 6, and 7, which Roger was covering.

Now those things, brethren, I have figured to apply to myself and Apollos for your sake, so that in us you may learn not to exceed what is written, so that no one will become arrogant on behalf of one against another. For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? If you did not receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

So Paul was saying my conviction in this matter is really, really important because it makes a difference as to what you do in response to sin. It is the lack of the sense of sin and therefore of any ethical consequences to their life in the spirit that marks the Corinthian brand of spirituality. It's different from that which flows out of the gospel of a crucified Christ. The contrast in the actions of the Corinthians and Paul's reaction are very simple. Paul, who was absent from the Corinthians, is going to do something about it. The Corinthians weren't going to do anything. They were just going to let it go. They were going to tolerate it.

So, I want to talk a little bit more about verse 3, 4, and 5, because this is where it gets really interesting. Paul says to them, For I am on my part, though I am absent, in the body, I'm present in spirit." And by saying that, he says, I'm really with you. And I have already judged him who has so committed this as though I were present with you. So he's saying what? My convictions in this manner are far different than yours. And I just explain why. The contrast is, I'm, even though I'm absent, I'm really there.

Well, what is he saying to them? Have you thought about, do we as a church in 2020 have the right to kick somebody out of the church for gross sexual behavior? We do have that right. What we don't have is the right to turn them over to Satan. And there's a big difference here. And so the case, in this case, it was so clear that he didn't even need to be to know that this man was guilty because he read the bulletin. He knew this guy was guilty because he must have been in the church for a while. And it was a serious offense and it required strong treatment.

And so he says to them, in the name of the Lord Jesus, when you're assembled and I'm with you in spirit and the power of the Lord Jesus, I've decided to deliver such a one to Satan now. It's really interesting. He gives them criteria. He says, here's the action I want you to take. I, with apostolic authority, I want you to come together when you're assembled and I'm with you in spirit and with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he says. He gives them these instructions.

But The fact that he is not there, he still has already made a judgment. He's decided, even though the church hasn't decided. Well, what if someone here, what if Roger and I decided something and you thought, oh, we don't want to do what you've decided. Well, the difference between Roger and I and Paul is that Paul is an apostle. And apostles are special men with special powers. And when an apostle makes a decision about something, it's, we would say it's gospel. It's in concrete. That's the kind of power that these men had.

So he tells them, I've already made a judgment about this, whether you have or not, when you're gathered together according to the directions, With my apostolic authority and the power of the Lord Jesus, in other words, to act in the name of the Lord Jesus, you deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. So, put away from among yourself this wicked person. The result may be that the wicked person comes under the power of Satan, but that's not all that's going on here.

So, envision this situation. He says, when you normally get together, if you normally get together on Sunday, don't have a special meeting, here's what I want you to do, and he lays it out to them. Now, he said, I've decided to deliver such a one, when you're assembled, I've decided to deliver such a one to Satan. I think I'm a slide behind. No, I'm not. This is probably a reference, I've said this, the offender may have behaved in such a way that he had proved himself unfit for the presence of the Lord. Even so, he was not looked at as an unbeliever, he's looked at as a believer.

For it was for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. So he's telling the assembly to take this action in the name of the Lord Jesus. Does this mean that the church acted on behalf of the Lord Jesus? The action to be taken is with the power of the Lord Jesus, which Macaulay says has two ideas.

The action is taken with, first, it emphasizes the effectiveness and a successful accomplishment. And second, the word with denotes that the presence, it denotes a cooperation and action. But I want you to notice that Paul is the one who has made the decision. I'm getting ahead of myself. Roger, I'm doing what you do. Now, did I? Or maybe you did. What I do is I send my slides over to Roger so we can put them together. So every time they get mixed up, I blame him.

What do you think goes on outside the assembly, outside the church? It's a world dominated by Satan, isn't it? So is that what he's telling them to do? Is he just saying put him out in the world and so you can deliver him over to Satan's sphere of influence? And then he says, and why is he doing it? Why are you putting it out there? Why are you going to put him out there?

Well, so that his flesh may be destroyed. Well, when you look at the word destroyed, it means destroyed. It's not put out of business necessarily. It's not the same word that you see in Romans chapter six. But the destruction of the flesh in this case refers to the mortification of the desires of the flesh. So Paul had done this before. This was not the first time.

You know, he had passed similar judgment on I can't pronounce this man's name, Hymenaeus and Alexander in 1st Corinthians 1.20 when he said, Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander whom I have handed over to Satan so that they will be taught not to blaspheme. Here's the point I'm trying to make.

Only Paul has the power to hand somebody over to Satan. The church doesn't have that power. Only he does because he's an apostle. And you think, well, who else would have this power? Well, how about Peter? How about Peter with Ananias and Sapphira? Not only did he hand them over, but they died right there because they lied about their giving money to the church.

In 1 Corinthians 11.30, Paul says, for this reason, what's going on there is that people within the assembly or within the church are not conducting the Lord's table correctly. So Paul says, well, for this reason, many of you are weak and sick and a number of you sleep. Sleep means they left the planet.

It shows the kind of authority that these apostles had in terms of the church. But here's the interesting thing about this man. The destruction of the flesh is something that we all are involved in to one degree or another. And I'll read part of A Hungry Heart from yesterday that will talk a lot about that. But the purpose of Paul's discipline was to save this man's spirit in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. That was the purpose. That's why he did it. And the day of the Lord Jesus Christ is pretty simple. It's the day in which Christ returns.

Now, there are commentators I read that said that delivering a man to Satan is for him to die. Well, that didn't make a lot of sense to me because Peter didn't need to deliver Ananias and Sapphira to Satan. They just died right there. So some say the church has the power to deliver someone to Satan.

I don't think they do, because Paul says, I'm the one that's doing this. So there's no indication in scripture that what Paul did here is normal for church leaders in the case of discipline. Paul's purpose was to save the man in the day of Christ, the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's interesting, no other Scripture passages in which the Lord instructed church leaders to turn sinners over to Satan.

There's no other passage in this one. And you and I couldn't deliver someone to Satan anyway. We could not deliver such a one. We could eliminate them from our body of believers, but turning them over to Satan is another thing altogether. Only, John Darby says, only an apostle has that power.

And that's why Paul says, I've already judged this thing to deliver such a one. I've already made that decision. And here's how you're going to do it. Here's what I'm going to do through you. This was his own act. He didn't tell him to deliver such a one. He said, I'm going to do it, but here's how you do it.

It's interesting with we as believers. Hamilton Smith made an interesting comment about this. The Christian, after every fresh victory, must be aware of the manifestation of the flesh and unhesitatingly refuse it on the basis of the finished work of the cross. He says this is the first stage of the journey. and its importance cannot be overestimated. If we are to represent the man, the man is the Lord Jesus Christ, who has gone to heaven, how necessary that every manifestation of the flesh should be absolutely judged and refused. One of the cool things we did in Sunday school this morning, we were talking about conscience and how conscience plays its role in a Christian's life.

It's interesting going back to the Garden of Eden. In the Garden of Eden there were two trees there. One was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the other was the tree of life. Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That meant that her frame of reference then became good versus evil. That was her whole frame of reference. And she was given, she had a conscience along with that frame of reference for good and evil.

The other tree in the Garden of Eden was the Tree of Life. The Tree of the Resurrected Christ. He is the Tree of Life. He claimed to be the Tree of Life. Well, notice, in the Tree of Life, there isn't any contrast between good and evil. Because in the Tree of Life, there's only holiness. There's only righteousness. And that life doesn't have to make a decision. It is holy by the virtue of the fact that it is the resurrected life of Christ.

So we as believers, we as human beings, are born with a sin nature, with a conscience, with trying to do good and avoid evil. And we rely on our conscience, but your conscience can be persuaded and trained to accept certain things like I mentioned in class.

Chester McCauley said one day, he was raised in a church where it was a sin to have your Bible on the floor. Couldn't put it on the floor. He said all through his life, even though he grew spiritually and realized that it didn't matter, if his Bible went on the floor, he felt bad about it. His conscience triggered him. Well, the point is here is that A growing believer's conscience will be persuaded, not about good and evil, but will be persuaded about what is of the Lord Jesus Christ and what isn't of Him.

What belongs to this new resurrected life that I have and what doesn't belong? What belongs to my life in Christ and what belongs to the goodness of the world? One of the big problems I see in Christianity is that Christians are just too good, but they're not holy. There's a big difference between being good and being holy. And to be conformed to the image of Christ is to become holy conditionally in your life.

So, in the none but the hungry heart from yesterday, I thought this was really appropriate. Our Father has better thoughts for us than our portion here, than our whatever we can obtain here. He is educating us for a blessed and eternal rest, free from evil and all that could cause it. And He is bent on blessing His children. And moreover, He is bound by His holiness to purge us suitably, though most graciously, for the place He has called us to. What's the place He's called us to? heaven. In heaven there's no good and evil, there's just holiness.

We are being taught now about holiness and how it works and how this resurrected life of Christ works. It's much more important for me and you as a believer to be so intimate with the Lord Jesus Christ that we know our behavior, we're so sensitive to Him that our behavior would be determined by whether it would please him or not, not whether it was good or evil. What pleases the Lord Jesus? And I won't go over here because I just know, because I've been persuaded through his word, that this is not of him. This over here is. He loves this part. Well, what is the hungry heart talking about?

That it is God who is teaching us about this holiness and preparing us to live that life when we get there. It isn't going to be strange to us. We have already had experience about how do you live a heavenly life. We're learning now. Now, here's the interesting thing he says.

How often he lets Satan do this painful work to try to sift us as Job. but the Father's hand and will are behind it all. He gives up his saints to Satan's hand to a certain point, but only so far as to bring the heart fully to a bearing before himself. Have you ever thought in your mind, boy, if I was standing before Satan, I would be running away. Miles used to say, When Christ died on the cross, he defeated Satan. And Satan is now a defeated foe. So if you're the victor, what do you do with your enemies? Well, you put them to work for you. That's what you do. Our Lord has taken Satan and put him to work to enhance and grow up believers.

It's like we get up to the edge of walking in the Spirit and right at the edge you can look out on the other side and here's Satan with a big bad attack dog growling and snarling. How do we react to that? We turn around and run back inside away from him into Christ. That's the metaphor that I see in my mind where God is using the world system to do what? To drive me closer to Christ.

That's why he's there. He's not there to defeat us. He's there to be used as a defeated enemy. He gives his saints up to Satan's hand to a certain point, but only so far as to bring the heart fully to a bearing before himself, that I feel comfortable before him, and I rest in the fact that I have his life. It's a wonderful thing to see the way in which Through the overruling power of the Father, the efforts of Satan against his people only bring them out the more distinctly in their own place of blessing. Satan is used by God to bless us, to drive us closer to Christ, because we are his, we belong to him.

He paid for us, he bought us, and he has wonderful, wonderful things in mind for us as he begins the process, the minute you're saved, he begins the process of making us aware of what it is to be a heavenly person and not to be an earthly one anymore.

So let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you. How we thank you for the work that you do, that you cause us to continually grow in the knowledge and grace of your dear Son, the Lord Jesus. And that we might, through that process, Just be able to sit and relax in your presence to behold your glory and allow your spirit to conform us to his very image. And we thank you. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.