1 Corinthians 5

1. It is reported commonly, etc.** Or, perhaps, “Fornication is actually heard of among you,” of so gross a kind “that one of you hath,” etc.: see R.V.

his father’s wife. That is, his own step-mother. The term “fornication” includes all violations of the seventh commandment.

2. And ye are puffed up.** Probably a question. Instead of mourning over this scandalous sin, and excluding the offender from your fellowship, are you still elated with your fancied superiority to others? (6).

3. For I verily, etc. Vers. 3-5 form one sentence, in which the words “such an one” (5) are inserted because of its length: “For I, present in spirit though absent in body, have already determined, as if present, that he who has thus done this thing shall, in the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus, be given over to Satan,” etc.

5. Is deliver such a one unto Satan, etc. “Satan is here spoken of as the instrument of physical suffering, just as in 2 Cor. xii. 7, St. Paul’s own malady is described as ἄγγελος Σατανᾶ” (Lightfoot: Notes on Epistles).

6. Your glorying is not good (seemly). There appears here a glance backward at the high claims of the Corinthians (iv. 7-10). Such claims appeared the more unseemly in the face of this scandal.

a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. A proverb, found also in Gal. v. 9, and implied in Matt. xiii. 33. It means that moral influence is rapidly diffusive. The sense is the same in xv. 33.

7 that ye may be a new lump, etc. That you may really be what you profess. The figure alludes to the Jewish practice of carefully removing every portion of leaven before the Passover (Exod. xii. 15).

For [even]. Rather, “For also” (R.V.); introducing a new and principal reason. “Christ our paschal victim was sacrificed” to ensure our exemption from the doom of the ungodly (see Exod. xii.; John i. 29, and notes). We have therefore now to keep a perpetual festival.

9 in an epistle. Greek, “in the epistle.” Probably referring to a letter previously sent, but not now extant.

10 yet not altogether, etc. I did not refer to casual and necessary intercourse with the ungodly, but to friendly and social recognition of immoral and avaricious professors (11).

11. But now I have written unto you, etc. That is, I now tell you that the meaning of what I wrote is, etc.

12. For what have I to do, etc.? I am speaking only of your conduct towards those who profess faith in Christ. “For” it is not ours to judge the ungodly “without”: God does that; but it is ours, in the exercise of Christian discipline, to judge those “within” the Church.