1 Cor No.10 Purity and separation

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans. A man has his father's wife and you are proud. Shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit and I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present.

When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast as you really are.

For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed, therefore let us keep the festival not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth. I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters. In that case, you would have had to leave this world, but now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother, but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler.

With such a man do not even eat. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. Expel the wicked man from among you.

Now I'd be glad if you'd have your Bible open at 1 Corinthians 5, and that you really rise to the challenge of disciplining your concentration, and following the melody from the pulpit, as much as the melody from outside. In fact, I think we've got a break to start with. Would you like to read through that chapter again, just for a moment, until this band's gone by? Well, let's come to the content of this particular passage of Scripture.

I want to preach to you on the twin concepts of purity, the purity that there should be in the local church, and separation, that the Bible teaches we should apply in certain circumstances to specific individuals. Now, as I mentioned before, this is not the easiest passage. One of the benefits of expository preaching and working our way through passages of Scripture is that you have to deal with matters which, at the human level, you would probably duck, simply because they seem to be so sensitive, and sometimes, perhaps, because the teaching of the Word of God does seem to be very harsh.

But God has prescribed His Word for us in its entirety, and we are not to shelve, we're not to vault over any particular passage, simply because it might our own sensitivities. Here, we're going to be looking at immorality, as was exampled in some areas. One area in particular, in the church at Corinth, we're going to be thinking about the whole business of excommunication, and then, as I intimated a moment or so ago, we have to look at the teaching of the Bible as to when and how we should separate ourselves from certain individuals.

Well, I'm breaking this up into five specific sections. I'll give you a little title when we come to each section, which will help you to have the whole precede and summarize. Maybe, if you take notes, that you'd like just to jot down the headings, which will be a skeleton for you, if you want to come back and consider the outline afresh later on today.

In the first two verses of this chapter, there is what I would call a concession to be corrected. A concession to be corrected. Here is the Apostle, and he is reviewing the situation from a distance that has fallen out amongst Christian people in this Greek city of Corinth.

And, alas, some of the reports that he has heard fills him with a sense of alarm. It is actually reported, he says in the opening verse, that there is sexual immorality among you. And, as the authorized version of the Bible indicates, that report was common.

It was held all over Corinth. The Christians had become, if you please, can you believe this, the talk of the town. You remember there were certain servants from the household of Chloe, to whom references is made in the earlier chapter.

I referred to them some weeks ago, who had met up with Paul at Ephesus. And, doubtless, it was they who had reported, though they weren't Christian people, just what was happening, at least in one area of the Christian assembly at Corinth. And Paul is very, very alarmed indeed.

The talk of the town. A particular sin had broken out. And, if you could credit it, some of the believers at any rate there had made concession regarding that sin.

You are proud, says the Apostle in the second verse. You are arrogant. You are puffed up.

You believe that when this sin was evidenced, when it was seen amongst you, when you heard report of it, that somehow or another, because of a liberty that you claim for yourself, which I never taught, you can overlook it. One of the slogans apparently that was going around Corinth at this time was, everything is permissible for me. You get it in the twelfth verse of the sixth chapter.

It's repeated again in the twenty-third verse of the tenth chapter. Here are these Christians at Corinth, and they've gone beyond the simple ethical statement and standards of the Apostle, and confronted with a sin, a pretty awful sin, in arrogance. They decide not to do anything about it.

Their liberty is such that they can live alongside such a manifestation of evil. Why, says the Apostle, this particular malpractice is of a kind that does not even occur among pagans. He doesn't go into any specific detail as to the nature of the sin.

We're told in the end of the first verse that a man has his father's wife, but we don't know whether this refers to the man's stepmother. We don't know whether she was as old as the man concerned who had engaged in an immoral act. We don't know whether the father was dead or not, but what we are aware of, and it's sufficient to say this, here was a sin of grievous proportions, and the church at Corinth had not taken the offending man to task.

They had made concessions, and that concession, says the Apostle Paul, must be corrected. Instead of being proud, verse two, you should have been filled with grief. You should be in a state of mourning.

You should have put out of your fellowship the man who did this. Well, that's all that I want to really say about the nature of this sin. The principle is what is important.

They had made concessions at Corinth. There had been an erosion of standards, and they believed that somehow they had a liberty which gave them greater degree of flexibility in ethics, as opposed to what the Apostle Paul had humbly taught them when he'd been present, bringing that church together from infancy. Now, when you move on from the third verse right up to the fifth, having been confronted with the thought of a concession to be corrected, here, I say, is a decision to be applied, a decision to be applied.

Here is the Apostle Paul miles away from the scene. He tells us that, doesn't he, in the third verse, though I am not physically present. He already knows, however, what he would do, what his decision is on this particular matter.

He tells us later on in the third verse, I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, as though I were present. What authority, what right had Paul to make judgment in such a case? Well, you remember, he was the founder of the church. He was absent from them, but nonetheless he was president of the church, so to speak, at Corinth.

He was the Apostle who, under God's authority, had brought these people into a living relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, says the Apostle, though I'm not with you physically, I'm still with you in spirit. But what does he mean by that? Well, he doesn't mean the same sort of excuse that's sometimes put up in evangelical circles today, to excuse absence at a meeting.

You know, I'll not be with you, brother, but I will be with you in spirit. No, Paul is not as facile. He's not as shallow as that.

What he means is that the very testimony that he maintained at Corinth during the months that he was in that Greek city, it lives on. They know what his own reaction would have been to this sort of situation. My presence is still with you.

You know what my convictions are. And he gives them this particular decision, which seems to be a very, very strict one indeed. He tells them later on in the fifth verse, hand this man over to Satan.

Hand this man over to Satan. Here is a brother who'd been involved at least in some form of an incestuous relationship. He was unrepentant.

And so the Apostle, having first corrected the concession that the elders and the people in authority had had made towards this brother, he gives them a decision which has to be applied. Hand over this man to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed, and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. What are we to make of this? Well, let my first comment about this particular decision that Paul arrived at be this.

It was not novel. It was not new. It was not something that Paul had contrived himself.

We are told by our Lord Jesus Christ in the 18th chapter of Matthew's Gospel about certain acts which do require disciplining in the kingdom of God. We're told about men who might harm another's faith. And Jesus said, it would be better if that man had not been born.

Let me read to you from the sixth verse of the 18th of Matthew's Gospel. If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin.

Such things must come through, but woe to the man through whom they come. If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled, than to have two hands or two feet, and be thrown into eternal fire.

When our Lord continues in this tremendously somber teaching about sin, and stimulating sin in the lives of others, he goes on in the 15th verse and says, if your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you've won your brother. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

Now listen, verse 17. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan, or a tax collector.

I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and so forth. You see the point? I read at length from the teaching of our Lord Jesus, to demonstrate the fact that when Paul here deals in a very stern fashion with this situation at Corinth, it is nothing new, it is nothing novel. Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, well that may be the way that children address our Savior, and in some respects there is right so to do.

But don't overemphasize his gentleness and his meekness to the degree that you feel that Jesus Christ will never discipline anyone. And that goes for his body in the 20th century, the Christian church. It is called upon sometimes to exercise discipline.

This was nothing new. Well what does it mean, hand this man over to Satan? Well if you were to read from Colossians chapter 1 and 13, you would discover that the church, and there are many other references I could give you, the church is referred to as the kingdom of light. The world is referred to as the kingdom of darkness.

A man who is not a Christian, spiritually speaking, is in darkness. That's why we sometimes refer to conversion, not just in terms of being born again, but seeing the light. Well here is a brother who has sinned grievously, he's not dependent, and so Paul says, hand him back to Satan, withdraw from him the privileges of the redeemed community, be to him as though he was still a stranger outside of the church, handed over to Satan.

But the apostle goes on to tell us the reason for this particular stern advice, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed, and the spirit saved on the day of the Lord. What does that mean, the sinful nature being destroyed? Well I would have to confess it's not easy to answer the question, but I can at least give you two or three pointers wherein you might find some satisfactory explanation. You remember though the circumstances were completely contrasting, completely different.

In the old testament you are confronted with a man by the name of Job. Now to vindicate Job's faith in God, that it is a genuine one, the Lord in an extraordinary fashion allows Satan to attack the body of Job. There isn't time to go into the unpleasantness of the experience, and to to labour the point as to why the Lord let this happen.

Ultimately it was for Job's good, but the point that I'm emphasizing at this moment is, Satan had some effect upon the physical body of Job. Now I said I'd give you two or three pointers, if you were to go to the fifth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, you come across two people by the name of Ananias and Sapphira. They were guilty, at least Ananias was guilty, of lying against the Holy Ghost.

That was a very terrible sin, and one of those colossal outpourings of God's judgment occurred in the early church. Ananias and Sapphira died because of their hypocrisy. They lied against the Spirit, and they suffered in their body.

That I suggest to you is another pointer, yielding some information as to what must be at the back of the Apostle's mind when he talks about handing an individual over to Satan, so that his sinful nature may be destroyed. The third pointer I would give you would be later on, as I say, if we had time in the in this epistle, but you have memories that will bring this passage back to your mind, I'm sure. When Paul lays down instructions about coming around the Lord's table, he said that you have to eat and to drink if you're in a right relationship with the Lord.

In other words, if a hypocrite someone comes to the Lord's table and they have unconfessed sin, the penalty for that, says the Apostle Paul, might well be a sickly disposition. For this reason, says Paul, many of you are sickly and not a few sleep. Why? Because of their hypocrisy, because they haven't confessed.

They've taken the bread and the wine in an unforgiven state. Now, I suggest to you that all this is at the back of the Apostle's mind when he says, hand this man over to Satan. Let him physically deteriorate.

Let him somehow or other come up against the pressures of the devil. Now, and this is the most important factor which I want you to take home with you, even if you forgotten those pointers which I've brought to your attention. Why does Paul hand a man over to Satan? Not because Paul has a punitive nature, not because he takes great delight in the thought of someone being punished for their sins.

Completely the difference, completely the opposite, rather, is the case. Hand him over to Satan, so that on the day of the Lord, even though his body may be destroyed, even though his fleshly nature may have suffered great pressure, he will be saved. Do you remember how earlier on in this epistle, Paul has referred to those who on the day of the return of Christ will have their works tested.

They'll have nothing to offer for the Lord. They will come through the fires of testing with absolutely nothing. Yet, says the Apostle Paul, they themselves, chapter 3 and verse 15, they themselves will be saved.

It's not that they'd gone back on the benefits of their salvation. How could they? Because they're not responsible for their salvation, only the Holy God. And he will not take back what has been given.

But it is possible to be so sinful, to be such an unrepentant person, that you can be handed over to Satan, and suffer the consequences of backsliding. Well, here is the Apostle Paul, and as I say, as he writes to the Corinthians, as he thinks of their situation, he says that the concessions they've made, they have to be corrected. There is a decision that has to be applied.

This man is to be handed over to Satan. He has let the Lord down. He has, in one sense, endeavored to destroy the temple of God, to which reference is made, you remember, in the fourth chapter.

Now, you can't do that sort of thing, and get away with it. God does not play with us. If you engage in sinfulness as a Christian, and you are constantly in an unrepentant state, then I cannot impress upon you the seriousness of your disposition, of your position before a Holy God.

Well, let's move on to the sixth, and through to the eighth verses. Here is an expulsion, which has to be effected. An expulsion, which has to be effected.

If you expel something, you get rid of it. Look at the seventh verse. Get rid of the old yeast, that you may be a new batch without yeast.

You say, what on earth has that got to do with the argument that you've just been bringing to our attention? Well, Paul is a homely man. Some reckon he's a bachelor, some reckon that he's a widower. But whatever the accuracy of that may or may not be, he certainly understands a little bit about cooking, which makes him in advance of me, not only theologically, but also domestically.

He is in the kitchen, and the idea is of dough, and yeast, and the baking of bread. Now, why does he particularly latch onto this illustration? Well, if you put yeast into dough, it will leaven the whole thing. It will swell up.

A little bit of yeast affects the whole mass of the dough. Now, says Paul, what you have done in Corrin is this. You've kept on to the old yeast.

Here is this sinful man. He's not been reprimanded. He's not been disciplined at all.

You've conceded the case. And as a result, the influence of his life can impregnate the whole of the church community. There was an expression by Gamaliel, a proverb that's traced back to Gamaliel, who was a professor of theology under whom Paul sat in Jerusalem.

And the proverb was, don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Paul will use that proverb again in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 9, but the point is this. Paul has learned the lesson that a man who continues in a state of sinfulness within the redeemed community might affect everyone. To put it in more colloquial, more modern terms, it's a bad apple that makes the whole box go rotten.

But there may be another reason why he's referring to yeast. You see, the fact of the matter is that Paul, when he's writing this letter, is in Ephesus, some distance from these Christians at Corrin. And it does seem, again for factors, for reasons I've no time to go into, that when Paul was at Ephesus, he was there preparing for the Passover.

Now you might know from your knowledge of Old Testament scriptures that before the Passover meal was celebrated, and indeed is celebrated today by the Jews, they get rid of any yeast in the kitchen, because yeast stood for that which was evil. If you were to read the relevant chapter in Exodus, Exodus chapter 12, you would discover that God's specific injunctions to the imprisoned Hebrews before they left Egypt was, get rid of the yeast before you have the Passover meal. The paschal lamb was about to be sacrificed in remembrance of that great deliverance from the bondage of the pharaohs when the Hebrews were in Egypt.

Paul is going to make reference to this, isn't he? Look, drop down to the seventh verse, for Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth. Oh, you say you're going too quick, I don't understand what you mean. Well, listen to this very carefully.

If before the Jews could take the Passover meal, they had to get rid of all the old yeast, how much more should Christians get rid of the evil that's in their lives, the evil that's in the community with which they fellowship before they come around the Lord's table? I repeat, before the Old Testament Hebrews could eat of the Passover lamb, they had to get rid of the evil, the yeast from their household. Now here is a phenomenon, if you please, here are Christian people, the Passover lamb has been sacrificed, Jesus has shed his blood, but there's still the old yeast occurring, there's still the old yeast in the hearts of Christian individuals. This is a nonsense, says the Apostle Paul, it just cannot continue.

Expel the old yeast and become as a new batch, as potentially in Jesus you really are. He'll express it again in the second letter that he writes, at least in the second letter which is still with us today to refer to, when he says that if any man is in Christ Jesus, he's a new creation, old things are passed away, old immoralities, old habits, they should be dead. And if we do fall, then we come back and we repent, but we never maintain that old sinful attitude, that's the old yeast, it needs to be rejected.

Rather, says the Apostle, in the Christian festival, verse 8, which lasts the whole of our lives while we're down here on this earth, not just the seven days, the festival of unleavened bread, which the Jews used to keep, the Christian festival from the moment you follow Jesus as Savior, up to the time that he takes you into his presence, don't produce the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth, with sincere hearts, with truthfulness in the way that we relate to one another, with purity in our lifestyle, let's serve the living Christ. So what have we discovered? Paul has corrected a concession that's been made, there's a decision that he has arrived at that needs to be applied, there's an expulsion that requires to be effected, but there is a distinction that needs to be observed. A distinction from verse 9 to 11 is drawn between the unbeliever and the believer who has gone back on the profession of faith.

Now look at that ninth verse, Paul is referring to an earlier letter which is lost, we don't have reference to it today, it wasn't collected and put in the New Testament canon. I have written to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Now they read this first letter and they thought, well, we have to have nothing to do with anyone else who's not a Christian, we're to be exclusive, you know, like the old monastic idea in the third century, just to relate to one another as Christians.

No, it says, Paul, that's ridiculous, I didn't mean that. Of course the butcher or the baker, the idolater who lives next door to you, you are to live amongst such people, you are to evangelize, you're still to maintain a purity in your own lifestyle. Before you get to the celestial city, you've got to go through vanity fare.

John Bunyan got it quite correct. You're not to withdraw from the world, not physically, or else how will the world ever hear the gospel? If you're the salt of the world, how will it be savoured? If you withdraw, if you're the light of the world, how shall the world be illuminated? If you're going to a holy huddle on your own. No, it says, Paul, I don't mean that.

But there is a distinction to be observed on the part of the brother who once confessed Jesus as Lord, but maintains a position of unrepentance. Verse 11 makes it so clear I hardly need to comment on it, but now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother. He's not gone back on his profession of faith, but his acts, his lifestyle does not illustrate what he professes.

Anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler with such a man, do not even eat. Hard teaching. But you see, the apostle Paul is concerned as to the consistency of the Christian testimony, particularly in a place like Corinth.

So he draws a distinction. The unbeliever relate to him, even go and have a meal with him, try and impress the gospel upon him. Paul does this, he makes reference to it in the 10th chapter.

But the believer who has gone back in the way that he lives upon the faith that he professes, withdraw from that man. Here's the distinction to be observed. And finally, here's an action to be deferred, verse 12.

What business is it of mine to judge those who are outside the church? The unbeliever shall be judged by God on the day of judgment. But as for the insider, the committed Christian, asks Paul, it's for you, you people at Corinth, to judge those who have fallen by the wayside and are utterly undependent. Are you not to judge those inside? And he repeats the expression, the teaching in the 13th verse.

God will judge those outside, but you expel the wicked man from among you. Why is Paul so stern in his teaching? Well, you see, we discovered in the third chapter, didn't we? He looks on the church as being God's temple, verse 16. Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him.

Paul is concerned, you see, about the reputation of the believer. He's got to be, because God's reputation is involved, is intertwined with his church. The Old Testament temple, I said, was the wonder of the world.

They marveled at such an edifice that it could be erected by ordinary Hebrew people. It was a fantastic building. Now, we too, the church of Jesus Christ is to be the wonder of the world.

And if anyone drags down the testimony, then they're in a very serious situation. Look again, and with this I conclude, Paul writing in the first chapter in the second verse. Look how he described the church at Corinth, to the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called to be holy.

Could you describe the tabernacle as that? Members sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy, along with all those similarly called around the globe? Paul's teaching is somber. Paul's teaching is contemporary. We need to get rid of the old leather.

We need to be done with arrogance and compromise. Too much of it. Evangelical church, maybe within our own fellowship here, maybe within my life, maybe within yours.

Let's take this chapter at face value. Let's not duck any aspect of this teaching. And may the Holy Spirit apply it to our hearts.

And may this have stimulated you to even further consideration of this mighty, fearful, but necessary chapter from God's Word. Amen. Father, teach us more individually the exceeding sinfulness of sin.

So often we place in a minor key what in your estimate is major. So often we compromise and have some sort of excuse as we freely dip into the graciousness of your promises and apply things to our own lives without fully measuring all that is involved in your releasing us from sin, even when we have confessed faith in the living Christ. Lord, deliver us also from a critical spirit and help us to appreciate even more that the burden of Paul's heart was to bring those who had fallen back to a new relationship with yourself.

And in the area of applying discipline here in the tabernacle, may that be always our supreme objective. And this we ask, pleading the benediction of the triune God to rest upon us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and until Jesus returns. Amen.