5:1 ¶ It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you,
and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one
should have his father’s wife. 2 And ye
are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed
might be taken away from among you. 3
For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged
already, as though I were present, concerning
him that hath so done this deed, 4 In
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my
spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 5 To deliver such an
one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved
in the day of the Lord Jesus. 6 Your
glorying is not good. Know ye
not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
Paul has criticized the Corinthians for following celebrity rather
than Christ and for being full of themselves, bloated with their own
self-importance and self-righteousness. Now, he is going at them for permitting
open sin in the congregation. There are several points that need to be made
here.
In the Old Testament writings of Moses, to uncover someone’s
nakedness implied a sexual act or even an assault as we view it today.
Leviticus 18:6 None of you shall approach to any that is
near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am
the LORD.
This incestuous relationship was forbidden as under the culture a
man’s wife’s body was as his own.
Leviticus 18:8 The nakedness
of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover:
it is thy father’s nakedness.
Notice how Paul relates the ownership of a wife or a husband.
1Corinthians 7:1 ¶ Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote
unto me: It is good for a man
not to touch a woman. 2 Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man
have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. 3 Let the husband render unto the wife due
benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 4 The wife hath not power of her own body, but
the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but
the wife. 5 Defraud ye not one the other,
except it be with consent for a
time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together
again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. 6 But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment. 7 For I would
that all men were even as I
myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and
another after that. 8 I say therefore to
the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. 9 But if they cannot contain, let them marry:
for it is better to marry than to burn.
We will discuss that passage more later but it is clear under
Christian doctrine that the husband and wife make an offering of their bodies
to each other and should not deny their bodies to each other. Someone in the
Corinthian church has committed an egregious sin here, probably we imagine,
with his step-mother although we cannot rule out an even more abominable sin.
The Latin word incestum from
which we get the word incest was any
act that violated religious purity in the pagan Roman world. Incestuous unions
were frowned upon in the Roman world as acts against the gods and man,
according to some authors. Perhaps Paul is referring to a fact that a man
having relations with his father’s wife fell into those categories and was
considered wrong even to the pagans, the Gentiles.
Like a modern church the Corinthians were so high on their
spirituality and sense of self-righteousness that this sin in the congregation
was being accommodated in a perverted kind of Christian liberty. There was
someone in the congregation openly committing a sin that was even condemned in
the pagan world. This was not to be tolerated.
Paul says that even though he is not there that he has judged the
situation and now he calls for some severe church discipline.
To deliver such an one unto Satan
for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of
the Lord Jesus.
There is a similar sentiment expressed in Paul’s first letter to
Timothy.
1Timothy 1:20 Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I
have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.
Remember that Satan is the god
of this world. This was not the consumer church of today where if you got
caught in adultery you could just get in your car and drive to a church in the
next town where they might not know you. The Christian community was close-knit
then and people knew each other. To exclude a member from this community tossed
them back into a world of paganism, emperor-worship, and fear of the power and
influence of demonic so-called gods.
For a true believer to be ejected from the church body would be
devastating. In college I was taught about an African tribe, the name of which
I do not remember, that exiled members for serious crimes. The tribal member
typically could not survive outside of the protection and care of the community
and exile was often a death sentence. For this Corinthian, if he was truly a
Christian, and we all know that Christians are capable physically, in their
flesh, of committing any sin an unbeliever commits, it would have been a
heart-breaking event to be castaway, delivered to Satan for the destruction of
the flesh.
We know from the book of Job that God can give Satan sometimes
authority over violent weather and the actions of wicked men, that he has power
over death as per Hebrews 2:14, and that Satan is the god of this world system.
Unfortunately, today the church offers little more than a social club so it is
no big deal to leave one to go to another since there is little real spiritual
power in it.
Paul, in this passage, finishes off with noting that it only takes
a little corruption to pollute all or, as we say, ‘one bad apple spoils the
bunch.’ Solomon wrote in;
Ecclesiastes 10:1 Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in
reputation for wisdom and
honour.
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