Beloved, I am glad to share with you today the above theme from 1 Co 5. 1 and following. Indeed, the Apostle now addresses a very painful subject: In addition to unfortunate divisions, there was in the congregation in Corinth a grave moral sin, which, although committed by one individual, defiled the entire congregation (Jos 7:10-15). But this ferment of evil, this “leaven”, which should have plunged the Corinthians into mourning and confusion, did not prevent their “boasting”. It’s a bit like a man with leprosy pretending to ignore his illness and hid his wounds under gorgeous clothes. In the name of the Lord, the apostle claims sincerity and truth (1 Co 5:8). He does not hesitate to unceremoniously put this evil in the open.
For above all Christian service and profession, conscience must be in order. And holiness requires that believers not only abstain from evil in their own ways, but keep themselves separate from those who live in sin while adorning themselves with the title of children of God (1 Co 5:11). What is the great reason why, individually and as an assembly, we have to guard against all communion and lightness towards evil? Not our superiority over others, but the infinite value of the sacrifice that atoned for our sins (1 Co 5:7).
Let’s recall that this epistle speaks to us in these first chapters of the Church or the Assembly, as the house of God, not of the churches, as men have done, in their disobedience to the word of God. Now, although in this house, entrusted to the responsibility of man, all kinds of evil elements have been introduced, we nevertheless have to conduct ourselves in this responsible Church, of which we are a part, in a way that is to the honor of Christ and of the God of whom she is the house. There is a certain order to be observed here. On the other hand, a lot of disorder had crept in, as we have seen, in the midst of the Corinthians. Instead of considering the various gifts as being at the service of the house of God, they used them to glorify themselves: swelling “for one against another”, exalting man, forming sects. It is that they were carnal and that instead of bent, they bore witness only to disorder. But God used this very disorder to teach us all about the order that suits His home.
This chapter points to a scandal supported by the Corinthian assembly, a case of fornication such that there was no such thing among the nations. The apostle says only two words, so reluctant is he to go into detail. The Corinthians, while knowing many things, for you will continually find these words: “Don’t you know?” that always indicate Christian certainty, ignored others, and had to learn how to behave towards them. This was the case with the scandalous case that had happened among them. If you read Deut 17 to 19, you find in it a word, repeated continuously: “Take evil out of the midst of you”; but to remove evil, the assembly of Israel had to lapid such people; it therefore had to remove them by bodily death. If it was the Christian assembly, the Corinthians knew well that they could not do it; but what? One thing, above all, that they knew and did not do, because they were filled with pride: They preferred to pass evil in silence, rather than humiliate themselves; so the apostle said to them, “You are swollen with pride, and you have not rather mourned, so that he who committed this action may be removed from the midst of you” (1 Co 5:2). What they had to do was to direct themselves, not according to an acquaintance they did not yet have, but according to the one they had. They didn’t yet know how to remove the villain, but they had to humiliate themselves, so that he would be removed.
This is an important lesson for us. For when we have received from God, even the knowledge of one of His thoughts, we must conform to it without restriction, and God will teach us what we still lack. Was the humiliation in season? Didn’t the Corinthians know this? This truth applies to all cases. If we Christians all obeyed the things we have achieved, we would walk the same path, and the Lord would reveal to us what we still lack. No doubt, we would not all have the same knowledge, but never the knowledge of a truth, however incomplete it may be, will lead us, if we obey it, into a path other than that of God. With very limited knowledge, I will be able to walk the same path as my brother who has much more than me.
For if the Corinthians had acted in this way, they would have led to mourning, waiting for God to reveal to them what they had to do to cleanse themselves from evil. But their pride made them think of themselves and their reputation, and so, in the presence of the most awful evil, they could not be purified. For God was not asking them to exercise a discipline that they did not yet know, but to grieve, and they had to know that.
When it came to the exercise of this discipline, the apostle could use in their midst the special authority entrusted to him (1 Peter 5:3-5). He could have (and had already decided, if obedience to God did not manifest itself in the Corinthians) surrender such a man to Satan. For the apostle Peter, with this same power, had cut off Ananias and Sapphira who had lied to the Holy Spirit. Here it was a question of handing over the fornicator to Satan, that is, of letting the Enemy make him his prey, until the destruction of the body, so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Despite his awful sin, this man was considered to belong to the house of God, but the apostle could dispose of him. This act was entrusted to no one but an apostle; and we cannot say, when we exercise discipline to the one who has sinned, that we are surrendering him to Satan.
When it came to blasphemy against the person of Christ, he had not hesitated for a moment, so that this man might learn not to blaspheme; but if he had resolved to do so with regard to the fornicator, he does not seem to have done it here, and here is why: if he had done so, the conscience of the Corinthians would not have been at stake, and it had to be awakened above all about evil (1 Corinthians 5:6). This lack of conscience is always the character of Christians who walk according to the flesh. Their “boasting” was not good. How many humiliations those to whom the Lord has entrusted a testimony could avoid, if they did not think of themselves and nourish by their pride; and how many times, having esteemed us something, we have been thrown into the dust, as were the Corinthians at that time.
“Don’t you know that a little sourdough makes the whole dough rise?” This passage found in Gal 5:9, about the ordinances of the law, is used here about the flesh. A sin, tolerated in the assembly, exerts its corrupting influence on the whole, and legalism does the same. So the apostle said: “Remove the old leaven, that you may be a new dough, as you are unsavened”; this is how God sees us, by virtue of Christ’s work. All this is an allusion to the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread in Exodus 12. For the blood of the Passover lamb had been placed on the poles and lintel of the gates, and when the destructive angel had passed, he had spared the sons of Israel, because God saw the blood. But it was not the Passover that was the feast; it was the starting point. You see it in Nb 28:16: “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, is the Passover to the Lord. And the fifteenth day of this month is the feast, the feast of unleavened bread. Likewise in 1 Co 5:7:8: “For also our Passover, Christ, was sacrificed: that is why let us celebrate the feast.”
It is not in this passage of the Last Supper, memorial of the death of Christ; for we find it a little further. Those who have understood the value of the blood of Christ know that by virtue of this blood they are unmined before God, and can present themselves to Him, clothed, like Christ, with perfect holiness, but they must carefully seek to correspond, in their walk here on earth, to the character they possess in his presence, and they are able to do so. They have to celebrate the seven days of unleavened bread as they pass through this world. For the number seven is always, in the Word, the number of fullness, and corresponds here to the full time of our walk here on earth.
The following verses have been compiled for your edification and grouped together for your better understanding.
- Incontinence, fornication
Mt 5:32 But I tell you that he who repudiates his wife, except because of infidelity, exposes her to adultery, and that he who marries a repudiated woman commits adultery. Acts 15:29 to know, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, blood, suffocated animals, and immodesty, things against which you will find it good to be wary. Goodbye. 1 Co 5:1 It is generally said that there is immodesty among you, and such immodesty that it is not found even among the Gentiles; it is to the point that one of you has his father’s wife. 1 Co 6:18 Flee from immodesty. Whatever other sin a man commits, that sin is out of the body; but he who indulges in immodesty sins against his own body. 1 Co 7.2 However, in order to avoid immodesty, let everyone have his wife, and every woman should have her husband. 1 Co 10:8 Let us not indulge in immodesty, as some of them indulged in it, so that twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. Eph 5:3 Let shamelessness, let no kind of impurity, and greed, not even be named among you, as besuitable for saints. Col 3:5 So kill the members who are on earth, immodesty, impurity, passions, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. 1 Thess 4:3 What God wants is your sanctification; that you abstain from immodesty;
- The duty of Separation from bad companies
Is 52:11 Go, go, get out of there! Don’t touch anything impure! Get out of the middle of her! Purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the Lord! Jn 15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love what is its; but because you are not of the world, and I have chosen you from the middle of the world, because of this the world hates you. Jn 17:16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Acts 2:40 And with many other words he conjured and exhorted them, saying: Save yourselves from this evil generation. 2 Co 6:17 Therefore, come out of the midst of them, and separate yourselves, says the Lord; Do not touch what is impure, and I will welcome you. Eph 5:11 and do not take part in the fruitless works of darkness, but rather condemn them. 2 Thess 3:6 we recommend to you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to distance yourselves from every brother who lives in disorder, and not according to the instructions you have received from us.
- Warning against Hardening: Lev 26:23 If these punishments do not correct you and if you resist me; Pr 1:24 Since I call and you resist, Since I extend my hand and no one is careful;
Ec 8:11 Because a sentence against evil deeds is not carried out promptly, the hearts of the sons of man are filled in them with the desire to do evil. Jer 7:13 And now, since you have committed all these deeds, says the Lord, Since I have spoken to you in the morning and you have not listened, Since I have called you and you have not answered; Os 7:10 Israel’s pride testifies against him; They do not return to Jehovah, their God, and they do not seek Him, despite all this. Am 4:6 And I have sent you famine in all your cities, the lack of bread in all your homes. Despite this, you have not returned to me, says the Lord. Ag 2:17 I have struck you with rust and nielle, and with hail; I have hit all the work with your hands. Despite this, you have not returned to me, says the Lord. Mt 1:20 As he thought, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, and said: Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take with you Mary, your wife, for the child she conceived comes from the Holy Spirit;
- The authority of the Church
Mt 16:19 I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven: what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what you untie on earth will be untied in heaven. Mt 18:18 I tell you in truth, everything you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and everything you untie on earth will be untied in heaven. John 20:23 Those to whom you forgive sins will be forgiven; and those to whom you will hold them, they will be held away from them. Acts 16:4 As they passed through the cities, they recommended that the brethren observe the decisions of the apostles and elders of Jerusalem. Hem 13:17 Remember your drivers who have spoken God’s word to you; consider what the end of their lives was, and imitate their faith.
From all the above, we note that ifwe have understood God’s purpose, redeeming ourselves by the blood of Christ, what a thought for us, that our life be a perpetual feast, a feast of practical holiness according to God, and for God! We must therefore obey this word, understand that if someone has been cut off from the assembly, we cannot even eat “with such a man”, so that, realizing the exclusion in which he is placed, he will be forced to regain communion with the assembly. He was put out as a villain and keeps this character until his return. For it was not for the assembly to exercise a judicial judgment on this man, but to remove the leaven from the midst of it, with a view to the purity of the house of God in this world. If the Corinthians had not done so, they would have lost all right to be God’s assembly in Corinth. We are often called to exercise this discipline: let’s not exercise it as the act of a court, but for the purpose of love, so that the falling Christian may regain the communion he has lost and that, the Spirit of God acting by humiliation in his soul, he may be brought back to the place from which he had to be deprived. On the other hand, let us never act, towards the entrenched, with that false love that we so often see, maintaining fraternal relations with him, which betray our indifference to evil, and in fact prevent discipline from producing its effect on one’s conscience. This does not mean that we do not have to inquire about the effects produced by exclusion, that we should not watch with solicitude the first symptoms of a return to the good, and encourage in this way the one who has fallen, so that the work of restoration is complete. We see later that they had finally humbled themselves with their pride, and that a blessed work of restoration had been accomplished in the soul of the entrenched. Then the apostle changes his language, and exhorts the congregation to receive him again, so that he may not be consumed by too much sadness. Our prayers accompany you all, in the mighty name of Jesus of Nazareth.
PRAYER OF ACCEPTANCE OF JESUS CHRIST AS LORD AND PERSONAL SAVIOR
I now invite every person who wants to become a new creation by walking in the truth, to pray with me the following prayer:
Lord Jesus, I have long walked in the lusts of the world ignoring your love for humans. I admit to having sinned against you and ask your forgiveness for all my sins, because today I have decided to give you my life by taking you as Lord and personal Savior. I recognize that you died on the cross of Calvary and rose from the dead for me.
I am now saved and born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lead me every day to the eternal life that you give to all who obey your Word. Reveal yourself to me and strengthen my heart and faith, so that your light may be shining in my life right now.
Thank you, Lord Jesus for accepting me into your divine family, so that I may also contemplate the wonders of your kingdom.
I will now choose a nearby watering point to baptize myself by immersion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
All adoration, power and glory are yours, now and forever and ever. Amen!
I would be happy to react to any questions and comments you may have, before sharing with you tomorrow on” the trial between brothers, flee fornication.”
May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you abundantly.
David Feze, Servant of the Almighty God.