Bible Commentaries
1 Corinthians 5

Verses 1-20

XVII

THE RELAXATION OF MORALS

1 Corinthians 5:1-6:20.

In the last chapter we considered the revolt against apostolic authority, and now we are to take up another disorder that is a con-sequence of that one – the relaxation of morals. It is a settled principle that one sin begets another. In hunting I have sometimes thought that I saw just one quail, but when I flushed him there were two, and sometimes a covey. Longfellow in Hiawatha uses this language: Never stoops the soaring vulture On his quarry in the desert, On the sick or wounded bison, But another vulture, watching From his high aerial lockout, Sees the downward plunge and follows; And a third pursues a second, Coming from invisible ether, First a speck and then a vulture, Till the air is dark with pinions.

That illustrates how sins are gregarious – going in troops. I do not believe it is possible for any man or any church to commit a single sin. There are sure to be more than one, if we ever commence at all. It seemed a little thing that they should sin in the way of factions, or that they should sin in the way of revolt against apostolic authority, but these two sins begat this third sin that we are discussing – the relaxation of morals.

The case in point is thus referred to in 1 Corinthians 5:

It is actually reported that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even among the Gentiles, that one of you hath his father’s wife. And ye are puffed up, and did not rather mourn, that he that had done this deed might be taken away from ’among you. For I verily, being absent in the body but present in spirit, have already as though I were present judged him that hath so wrought this thing, in the name of our Lord Jesus, ye being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one unto ’Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For our Passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ: wherefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I wrote unto you in my epistle to have no company with fornicators; not at all meaning with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous and extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world; but as it is, I wrote unto you not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother be a fomicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no, not to eat. For what have I to do with judging them that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.

That is the whole of 1 Corinthians 5. It is a fine thing for preachers of this day when they have a case of discipline that they have express apostolic authority as to how to treat the case. This man’s father had doubtless married the second time, and the son by the first wife took his wife away from the father, i.e., took his stepmother. Paul says, "Ye are puffed up . . . your glorifying is not good." They had written to him saying very complimentary things about themselves – that they were doing fine. He didn’t agree with them, not with such disorder as this on hand, and the other disorders that have been discussed.

He tells what to do. He says, "This man must be taken away from among yourselves." The church must do that as a proof that it is a church action. He says, "When you are gathered together," and in the second letter we find that what was done in obedience to this letter was done by a majority vote. So that here is a case that unmistakably calls for church action. Offenses of this kind must not be committed in the church of Jesus Christ, and the injunction is peremptory that the church must withdraw fellowship in such cases.

The next thing besides this church action was apostolic action. Paul could do what the church could not do – what no other preacher except an apostle could do – that is, he could deliver such a one over to Satan. They had accused him of not exercising his apostolic power, and he proposes if they do not heed that, he will use his power. He had the power from Jesus Christ to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, but the spirit would be saved in the day of Jesus Christ.

We want to understand what that means. It shows that this sin in the church may be by a Christian, and that delivering him to Satan is not his ultimate destruction, but the destruction of his flesh, that his soul may be saved in the day of Jesus Christ. It is necessary that we understand what this means. We find in the book of Job that God turns Job over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, and grievous sores came on him, but it was not that Job might be destroyed by the devil. God says to the devil, "Touch not his life." We see the case of the apostles when Jesus says, "Simon, Satan hath obtained you apostles by asking that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." Satan came up to Christ and asked that he might deal with them as wheat, and if they were wheat the sifting would help them, and so even this remarkable case of sifting was not done to destroy the offending brother, but to gain him; and there are some cases that cannot be gained except by stern, prompt discipline.

All over the country we have churches that are suffering for the lack of just that thing, and they are injuring these church sinners. I will illustrate: Suppose in the jungles of Africa a company of people and animals were camped for the night, and they built a stockade to keep off wild beasts, and some of the animals, a cow perhaps, gets unmanageable and bellows and butts around and tries to get out. They turn her out, and let her hear the lion roar, and she wants to get back. The thought is that the one that won’t be quiet in good company should be showed that there is worse company on the outside. I heard an old Baptist preacher say, "If you put a wild hog in a pen and he goes to squealing, let him out, and he will strike for the woods and never come back, because he is a hog. But if a sheep is turned out it will bleat around the gate until you open the pen and let the sheep come back on good behavior." If a man is not a converted man he ought not to be in there; let the hog out and let him strike for the woods; if he is a sheep and hears the lion roar he will bleat around to get back, and he will behave himself next time.

The primary object, if a converted man, is to save him; and the second is to purify the church, and this Paul proceeds to argue. He says, "Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us." Here he uses an Old Testament illustration – the preparation for the Passover. Before the Passover was observed there was the preparation for the Passover. The houses were inspected, the walls were scraped lest there was something left, and leprosy would leave particles sticking to the wall. They were going to keep the feast, and Paul says, "Christ, our Passover Lamb, is sacrificed for us." In other words, "We have a feast to keep – the Lord’s Supper – and in order that we may keep that feast let us examine ourselves and see if we be in the faith. Let us inspect our hearts and our lives, because the law is, with the man that is living disorderly, ye must not eat." It does not refer to a common meal. It refers to the Lord’s Supper, and the one in disorder may not rightfully partake of the Lord’s Supper. Henry Ward Beecher boasted that in his church there never had been a case of discipline since it was organized. Not that it was a pure church, for it was very impure; never having discipline in it, they had no standard of doctrine and no standard of life. And the first case that ever came up was Beecher himself, and they will bring us up if we, as pastors of churches, are forever silent on the subject of discipline.

Paul now explains. He says, "I wrote you a letter." It was not preserved. It was not necessary to preserve every one of his letters. John says if everything that Jesus said and did had been preserved the world would not hold the books. But enough is preserved to form a guide for God’s people. He continues: "And in that letter I wrote you not to keep company with fornicators, and ye misunderstood me." He says, "I did not mean that with respect to the world, for that would mean for you to go out of the world; when I said to keep no company and not eat, I meant with a man who is called a brother; if such a one be a fornicator or an adulterer you are to judge those that are within. What have ye to do with those that are within? What have ye to do with those that are without?" He is showing over whom the church has authority to exercise discipline – not outsiders, but insiders.

The next disorder is in 1 Corinthians 6:1: "Dare any of you, having a matter against his neighbor, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Or know ye not that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that ye shall judge angels? how much more, things that pertain to this life? If then ye have to judge things pertaining to this life, do ye set them to judge who are of no account in the church? I say this to move you to shame. What? Cannot there be found among you a wise man who shall be able to decide between his brethren, but brother goeth to law with brother, and that before unbelievers? Nay, already it is altogether a defect in you, that ye have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather take wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? Nay, but ye yourselves do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren."

This is a remarkable declaration. I will discuss it a little in order to make an impression on the minds of young preachers, for we have almost gone astray on it in our religious life. There isn’t a country or a community in the state that some members in the church do not violate that law, and they say they are not heathen. That is not Paul’s point at all. His point is that the saints have the highest Judicatory power vested in them – that they will judge the world and the angels. It is simply a question of two courts – the church-court or the world-court. Which will we take? To which court are we going to appeal the case? That is what he is discussing. This is illustrated in my book, Baptists and Their Doctrines, which gives a view of the world-court and the church-court.

He brings up the following points on this discussion: First, that God had placed the judicatory power in the church, as our Lord says, "If any man sin, go right along and convict him of his sin. You have gained the brother." He does not say, "If any member of the church sin against you, whether it is a personal or a public offense, and you know it, you go right along and convict him of that sin. If you fail, take two of the brethren with you; if he will not hear them, tell it to the human court." No, tell it to the church. There is the judicatory court that Christ established. Here comes up a difference between two brethren on a matter of business. A says that B owes him $100. B denies it. Shall A go to law with B? A starts to go to law and a third man, G, comes to him and says, "A, you are committing an offense; you are doing wrong," and A refuses to hear C, and C goes off and gets D and E, and A won’t yield. Then if C, D and E come before the church and say, "We are not judging as to the merits in the case; we do not say A is doing wrong in going to law, but we do say A is doing wrong in the kind of court he goes to." Who shall be the arbitrator? A says that he won’t listen to the church; B may owe A that $100, we don’t deny that. Here A denies the jurisdiction of Jesus Christ. Suppose A says, "I will hear the church," and the case is put on its merits. Paul says (and the revised version puts an entirely new sense on it), "If then ye have to judge things pertaining to this life, do you set them to judge who are of no account in the church?" In other words, "Is that the way you are going to do? When the case comes up between A and B) are you going to select people that are no account? Haven’t you got some disinterested party? Are you going to select a committee of B-partisans, or of A-partisans?" The common version does not give that sense at all. It says, "Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you?"

We come now to the case that will prevent final church action: Suppose you say to A, "Are you willing to leave this matter to a disinterested committee of brethren as to what are the merits of your question? They do not want to say B robbed you, and they do not want to say you harmed B; are you willing for a third disinterested party to take it up and bring it up on the merits of the case before you get to final church action?"

There is a passage upon which I preached one sermon, "Jesus the Arbiter of the Nations." I preached it on the occasion of the meeting of The Hague Conference. It shows even in matters of diplomacy that it is better to settle the matter by arbitration than to go to war. In the millennium there will be no war because Jesus is the arbiter between the nations. If that is to take place on a scale in which nations are involved, why cannot we find in the church a small committee of wise and disinterested brethren that will look into the case and settle it without ever going to final church action? But suppose this committee does not settle the case. They say, "Brethren, we have tried to settle it, and here it is before the church. The question is, does B owe A this $100? If he does he ought to pay it; if he does not, A ought not to worry about it." If a man won’t let his brethren settle these matters for him, what is he going to do at the judgment? He presents a case; he says that rather than go to an outsider why not say, "I will just bear this wrong." Well, but suppose they defrauded him?

I have been defrauded many a time, more than once since I moved to Fort Worth. Why should I parade before outsiders my case?

The saddest case in the Texas affairs of our denomination illustrates that. Here we had a brother, very prominent, who kept bringing cases before the General Convention of Texas, and every time he would bring it they decided against him. He would not let it stay undecided. Finally, he took the case into court, and if any man was ever present one day when that case was on trial and heard the infidel lawyers and the lawyers of other denominations gloat over the Baptist trouble, he would never forget it. Suppose that man had had the sounds preserved in a graphophone, and had that in his family, and when any one would come to see him he would have that instrument to reproduce those vile sentences against our very best men? Oh, it was infamous! Of course it ruined that man. It didn’t ultimately hurt the other men, but it surely killed the man that resorted to it.

Paul then announces a fundamental principle. He is discussing the point whether a fornicator or adulterer should be retained in the church, and he says, "Know ye not that a fornicator, an adulterer, a covetous man shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven?" He will be excluded there certainly; he will never get in; the gates will be barred. In other words, Christianity is designed to be a maker of character. If it does not make a man better than he was before, it is not worth anything; ’if it does not make a father a better father, a mother a better mother, a sister a better sister, a brother a better brother, a child a better child – if there is no improvement in the character of the man, then we may be sure that he has never been born again, because the Spirit does not produce that kind of fruit. And Paul says that the fruits of the flesh are manifest. Then he tells what they are and says that the fruits of the Spirit are manifest. "By their fruits ye shall know them," says Jesus.

And then again they were liable to misunderstand. He says, "I don’t mean that the murderer never gets to heaven; I don’t mean that men who were fornicators never get to heaven, for such were some of you. You belonged to that very crowd, but ye were washed; the Holy Spirit took you in charge; you desired to obey God, not to disobey him."

In other words, the Holy Spirit is greater than total depravity. It can overcome total depravity, because total depravity is of the first birth; but this being born again by the power of the Holy Spirit makes one of another seed, of the word of God, that liveth and abideth forever.

And the murderer can be saved, as thousands of them have been saved. It was the greatest triumph of Christianity to look upon that Corinthian crowd. All the depths of infamy through which some of them had passed could not be named in a mixed audience, but by the power of God they were washed, and they lived, and one of the most remarkable cases as bearing upon it, is the case of the celebrated Augustine. His mother was a saint, and she loved her wild, wayward boy. It seemed that the bridle had been taken off, and the devil was riding him "bareback" down to hell. He, after his conversion, often referred to the shameless infamies he committed. This is a case worthy of consideration. Everyone ought to read Augustine’s confessions. He did not keep on living that life after he was converted; he was one of the greatest preachers that ever lived. What we call Calvinism is the doctrine of Augustine. He saved the church for 300 years from going astray. So Paul says, "Such were some of you; but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified."

He comes now to something more difficult. He is discussing this debasing sin of fornication, and says, "Every sin that a man doeth is without the body (except this one)." Now instead of sin’s residing in the body and corrupting the spirit, it is the spirit that sins and corrupts the body. Envy, that is not a bodily sin; hate, that is not a bodily sin; malice, that is not a bodily sin; pride, presumption, every sin that a man commits is apart from his body except fornication. There the body is made the instrument of the sin. And Paul brings up this argument, "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you?" Generally when he refers to the temple, he refers to a church, as he says to this church, "Ye are God’s building, ye are the temple of God," and where he says, "Every separate congregation groweth up into the holy temple of God, a habitation of the Spirit," but in this particular case he makes the body of the Christian a temple of the Spirit, because the Holy Spirit enters into him and dwells in him, and if he dwells in him, then the body is the temple in which he dwells.

QUESTIONS

1. What is the relation between the revolt against apostolic authority and the relaxation of morals?

2. Illustrate how sins are gregarious.

3. What is the case of discipline discussed in 1 Corinthians 5?

4. What relation did this man sustain to the woman whom he took?

5. What church action did Paul prescribe?

6. What apostolic action in this case, what illustration from the Old Testament, and what one also from the New Testament?

7. What is the object of correction discipline in the church member, and what illustration given?

8. What is the object relative to the church, what Paul’s argument, what Old Testament illustration, and what the New Testament application?

9. What is the meaning and application of 1 Corinthians 5:11?

10. What is the meaning and application of 1 Corinthians 5:12-13?

11. What is the fourth ecclesiastical disorder, and where discussed?

12. What of the prevalence of this sin?

13. What is Paul’s argument against this disorder?

14. What is Christ’s direction in such cases?

15. Describe a typical case of "going to law" scripturally.

16. In case a proper adjustment cannot be made, what does Paul recommend?

18. What fundamental principle does Paul enunciate in this connection?

19. What is the design of Christianity?

20. What Paul’s teaching elsewhere on this point, and what does Christ say also?

21. What is the character of the Corinthians before hearing the gospel, and what their character afterwards?

22. What remarkable case of this transformation cited, and what is Calvinism.?

23. What is the meaning of "Every sin that a man doeth is without the body . . .” and what the application?