1 Corinthianschapter 5
13 verses · Paul · AD 54 or 55 · Paul's letters
Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
Introduction
Paul, Paul's letters, 1 Corinthians Overview.
Paul turns from the quarrels over teachers to a scandal the whole city could see. A member of the church was living in a union that even pagan law forbade, and the church had done nothing. The chapter is short and urgent. Listen for where Paul places the blame, which is on the church as much as on the man. Listen also for the picture drawn from a Jewish household's cleaning before the Passover. Read it with the question of what a church owes to God, to the sinner and to its own members.
Context
- Who
- A church proud of its tolerance in a case that horrified its pagan neighbours.
- What
- Paul rebukes the church for tolerating sexual immorality among its members and instructs it to remove the offender from its fellowship.
- Where
- Written from Ephesus to the gathered church at Corinth.
- When
- About AD 53 to 55, after an earlier letter from Paul that the Corinthians had misunderstood.
- Why
- To restore the purity of the church and to seek the man's final salvation through the church's discipline.
Historical context
The relationship described, a man with his father's wife, meaning a stepmother rather than his own mother, was forbidden in the Law of Moses and also illegal under Roman law, which treated it as incest. Paul says the case is of a kind not even found among the Gentiles, and he is stating a legal fact, not scoring a point.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The likely reason nobody acted is money and status. If the man was a wealthy patron hosting the church or funding it, expelling him carried a real cost, and in a patronage culture clients did not discipline benefactors.
The Passover language would have been explained to a Gentile congregation: before the feast, every scrap of leaven was hunted out of the house and destroyed. Paul applies the annual spring cleaning to the congregation, a little leaven works through the whole lump.
He also corrects a misreading of an earlier letter. He never told them to avoid immoral outsiders; that would mean leaving the world. The boundary he draws runs around people who claim the name and live otherwise.
Significance
For the first hearers, this was a lesson that a church's holiness is a corporate matter. Their boasting, not just the man's sin, was what Paul calls out, arrogance where there should have been mourning.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
And the aim of the discipline is stated in the same breath as the sentence: that his spirit may be saved. Exclusion was a last instrument of rescue, not a way of getting rid of someone.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A Sin the Pagans Would Blush At
1 Corinthians 5:1-2
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you: The case is a man who has his father’s wife, most likely a stepmother, a union forbidden in Leviticus 18:8. The church has boasted instead of grieving, and the Greek physioo, proud, is the word chapter 4 used.
1 Corinthians 5:1
“Fornication - The original word implies criminal conversation of any kind whatever. His father's wife - While his father was alive.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
4 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
1 Corinthians 5:1
“We learn from this that there are different kinds of immorality, some of which are more serious than others. When God judges it, he will take extenuating factors into account and vary the punishment accordingly. In this case, Paul is teaching us that even when there has been a legal marriage ceremony, if it goes against the law of God, it is immoral and will be condemned accordingly.”
Origen of Alexandria · written before 253 · Commentary on 1 Corinthians 2.23.15-20patristic
1 Corinthians 5:1
“It is reported - Greek It is heard. There is a rumor. That rumor had been brought to Paul, probably by the members of the family of Chloe, 1Co 1:11. Commonly - Ὅλως Holōs. Everywhere. It is a matter of common fame. It is so public that it cannot be concealed; and so certain that it cannot be denied.”
1 Corinthians 5:1
“She was perhaps a heathen, for which reason he does not direct his rebuke against her (compare 1Co 5:12, 13). ALFORD thinks "have" means have in marriage: but the connection is called "fornication," and neither Christian nor Gentile law would have sanctioned such a marriage, however Corinth's notorious profligacy might wink at the concubinage.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Corinthians 5:1
“It was told in all places, to their dishonour, and the reproach of Christians. And it was the more reproachful because it could not be denied. Note, The heinous sins of professed Christians are quickly noted and noised abroad.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
stricken with grief: The church stayed proud in spite of the sin, as Barnes reads it, pleased with its own wisdom and purity. Theophylact says they ought to have wept, for the shame touched every member.
1 Corinthians 5:2
“Ye are puffed up - Ye are full of strife and contention relative to your parties and favourite teachers, and neglect the discipline of the Church. Had you considered the greatness of this crime, ye would have rather mourned, and have put away this flagrant transgressor from among you. Taken away from among you - Ἱνα εξαρθη εκ μεσου υμων. This is supposed by some to refer to the punishment of death, by others to excommunication. The Christian Church was at this time too young to have those forms of excommunication which were practised in succeeding centuries.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 Corinthians 5:2
“Note, It is a very wicked thing to glory over the miscarriages and sins of others. We should lay them to heart, and mourn for them, not be puffed up with them. Probably this was one effect of the divisions among them.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Corinthians 5:2
“Excommunication in the Christian Church corresponded to that in the Jewish synagogue, in there being a lighter and heavier form: the latter an utter separation from church fellowship and the Lord's house, the former exclusion from the Lord's Supper only but not from the Church.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Corinthians 5:3-5
Although I am absent from you in body: Paul passes sentence absent in body yet present in spirit, with the church assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus. Handing the man over to Satan puts him outside the church's shelter, so that his spirit may be saved on the Day of the Lord.
1 Corinthians 5:3
“For I verily - But I, whatever it may cost me; however you may esteem my interference; and whatever personal ill-will may be the result toward me, have adjudged this case to be so flagrant as to demand the exercise of discipline, and since the church to whom it belongs have neglected it, I use the authority of an apostle, and of a spiritual father, in directing it to take place.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Corinthians 5:3
“Perhaps he was a minister, a teacher, or a principal man among them. By this means the church and their profession were more reproached. Note, In dealing with scandalous sinners, not only are they to be charged with the fact, but the aggravating circumstances of it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
assembled in the name of: The sentence belongs to the gathered church, and Chrysostom notes that Paul makes the Corinthians partners in it so that it cannot sound self-willed. Barnes reads the name as the Lord's authority and commission.
1 Corinthians 5:4
“This power of infallible judgment was limited to the apostles; for they alone had the power of working miracles as their credentials to attest their infallibility.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
hand this man over to Satan: Wesley and Theophylact read the destruction of the flesh as bodily suffering that Satan was allowed to inflict. Theodore of Mopsuestia reads it as expulsion into the world Satan rules, where the man might learn to fear God.
1 Corinthians 5:5
“To deliver - This is the sentence which is to be executed. You are to deliver him to Satan, etc. Unto Satan - Beza, and the Latin fathers, suppose that this is only an expression of excommunication. They say, that in the Scriptures there are but two kingdoms recognized - the kingdom of God, or the church, and the kingdom of the world, which is regarded as under the control of Satan; and that to exclude a man from one is to subject him to the dominion of the other.”
3 more voices on this verse
1 Corinthians 5:5
“To deliver such an one - This was the highest degree of punishment in the Christian church; and we may observe, the passing this sentence was the act of the apostle, not of the Corinthians. To Satan - Who was usually permitted, in such cases, to inflict pain or sickness on the offender.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
1 Corinthians 5:5
“Satan, the "accuser of the brethren" (Re 12:10) and the "adversary" (1Pe 5:8), demands the sinner for punishment on account of sin (Zec 3:1). When God lets Satan have his way, He is said to "deliver the sinner unto Satan" (compare Ps 109:6).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Corinthians 5:5
“Christ and Satan divide the world: and those that live in sin, when they profess relation to Christ, belong to another master, and by excommunication should be delivered up to him; and this in the name of Christ. Note, Church-censures are Christ's ordinances, and should be dispensed in his name. It was to be done also when they were gathered together, in full assembly.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
A Little Leaven and the Feast of Sincerity
Your boasting is not good: Paul answers the boasting with a proverb: a little leaven works through the whole batch of dough. A household searched out all leaven before Passover, so one sin left alone works through the whole congregation.
1 Corinthians 5:6
“Your glorying is not good - You are triumphing in your superior knowledge, and busily employed in setting up and supporting your respective teachers, while the Church is left under the most scandalous corruptions - corruptions which threaten its very existence if not purged away. Know ye not - With all your boasted wisdom, do you not know and acknowledge the truth of a common maxim, a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
1 Corinthians 5:6
“Your glorying - Either in your gifts or prosperity, at such a time as this, is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven - One sin, or one sinner. Leaveneth the whole lump - Diffuses guilt and infection through the whole congregation.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
1 Corinthians 5:6
“To this the best answer is found in the godly, honest, and sober lives of the men who are most zealous for the Gospel of the Grace of God. On the other hand, there have been others of Antinomian spirit who have dared to say that because they are saved, and Christ has finished His work for them so that nothing is left undone by way of merit, therefore, from now on they may act as they please, seeing that they are not under Law, but under Grace.”
Get rid of the old leaven: The command to get rid of the old leaven follows the proverb, as a household prepares for the feast. The Greek pascha names Christ, our Passover lamb, whose sacrifice cleanses the household and calls it to stay clean.
1 Corinthians 5:7
“Purge out therefore the old leaven,.... Meaning either the incestuous person, whose crime might well be compared to sour "leaven", and be called old because of his long continuance in it; whom the apostle would have removed from them; this is properly the act of excommunication, which that church was to perform, as a quite distinct thing from what the apostle himself determined to do.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Corinthians 5:7
“So Christians are continually to search and purify their hearts (Ps 139:23, 24). as ye are unleavened--normally, and as far as your Christian calling is concerned: free from the leaven of sin and death (1Co 6:11). Paul often grounds exhortations on the assumption of Christian professors' normal state as realized (Ro 6:3, 4) [ALFORD].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Therefore let us keep the feast: The feast is the whole Christian life kept under the meaning of Passover. Its bread is sincerity and truth, eilikrineia meaning literally judged pure in sunlight, a character with nothing to hide.
1 Corinthians 5:8
“The Greek for "malice" means the evil habit of mind; "wickedness," the outcoming of the same in word and deed. The Greek for "sincerity" expresses literally, a thing which, when examined by the sun's light, is found pure and unadulterated.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
1 Corinthians 5:8
“Therefore let us keep the feast - Let us feed on him by faith. Here is a plain allusion to the Lord's supper, which was instituted in the room of the passover.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
Put the Wicked Man Out
1 Corinthians 5:9-10
I wrote you in my letter: Paul refers to an earlier letter, not preserved, that the church read as a call to leave society. Verse 10 corrects the reading, since contact with the world's sin cannot be avoided, while tolerating it inside the church can.
1 Corinthians 5:9
“I wrote unto you - I have written ἔγραψα egrapsa. This word may either refer to this Epistle, or to some former epistle. It simply denotes that he had written to them, but whether in the former part of this, or in some former epistle which is now lost, cannot be determined by the use of this word. In an epistle - ἐν τῇ ἐπιστολῇ en tē epistolē. There has been considerable diversity of opinion in regard to this expression.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Corinthians 5:9
“Note, Christians are to avoid the familiar conversation of fellow-christians that are notoriously wicked, and under just censure for their flagitious practices. Such disgrace the Christian name. They may call themselves brethren in Christ, but they are not Christian brethren.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
have to leave this world: Wesley sorts the list into sins against oneself, against one's neighbour and against God. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that in Corinth a full ban would have cut believers off from nearly everyone. Origen adds that outsiders cannot corrupt the church from within.
1 Corinthians 5:10
“For then must ye needs go out of the world - What an awful picture of the general corruption of manners does this exhibit! The Christians at Corinth could not transact the ordinary affairs of life with any others than with fornicators, covetous persons, extortioners, railers, drunkards, and idolaters, because there were none others in the place! How necessary was Christianity in that city!”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Corinthians 5:10
“But I did not mean that you should altogether refrain from conversing with heathens, though they are guilty in some of these respects. Covetous, rapacious, idolaters - Sinners against themselves, their neighbour, God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
But now I am writing you not to associate with anyone: Paul narrows the command to anyone who claims to be a brother living in open sin. With such a man do not even eat probably reaches past the Lord's Table to ordinary meals, the plainest sign of fellowship in that culture.
1 Corinthians 5:11
And we have the precept: "If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an one no not to eat." And again does the apostle say, "Let no man deceive you with vain words; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of mistrust. Be not ye therefore partakers with them."
Irenaeus · written before 202 · Against Heresies Book 4patristic
2 more voices on this verse
1 Corinthians 5:11
“Who is named a brother - That is, a Christian; especially if a member of the same congregation. Rapacious - Guilty of oppression, extortion, or any open injustice. No, not to eat with him - Which is the lowest degree of familiarity.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
1 Corinthians 5:11
“There is less danger in associating with open worldlings than with carnal professors. Here, as in Eph 5:3, 5, "covetousness" is joined with "fornication": the common fount of both being "the fierce and ever fiercer longing of the creature, which has turned from God, to fill itself with the inferior objects of sense" [TRENCH, Greek Synonyms of the New Testament].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Corinthians 5:12-13
What business of mine is it to judge those outside the church?: The church judges those inside, and God will judge those outside. The chapter closes with the command Expel the wicked man from among you, the step verse 2 should already have taken.
1 Corinthians 5:12
“For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? - The term without, τους εξω, signifies those who were not members of the Church, and in this sense its correspondent term: החיצונים hachitsonim, those that are without, is generally understood in the Jewish writers, where it frequently occurs. The word και also, which greatly disturbs the sense here, is wanting in ABCFG, and several others, with the Syriac, Coptic, Slavonic, Vulgate, and the Itala; together with several of the fathers.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Corinthians 5:12
“Rather, Is it not your duty to judge them that are within? God shall judge them that are without: do you look at home [GROTIUS]. God is the Judge of the salvation of the heathen, not we (Ro 2:12-16).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
God will judge those outside: The closing command echoes Deuteronomy 13:5 and 17:7. Chrysostom says Paul borrowed it to show that such discipline was as old as the law itself. Wesley divides the work, the judgment of outsiders to God and the removal of the offender to the church.
1 Corinthians 5:13
“Them that are without God will judge - The passing sentence on these he hath reserved to himself. And ye will take away that wicked person - This properly belongs to you.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Corinthians 5:13
“But, as to members of the church, they are within, are professedly bound by the laws and rules of Christianity, and not only liable to the judgment of God, but to the censures of those who are set over them, and the fellow-members of the same body, when they transgress those rules. Every Christian is bound to judge them unfit for communion and familiar converse.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Cross references
1 Corinthians 5:13
- QuotingDeuteronomy 17:7“The hands of the witnesses shall be the first in putting him to death, and after that, the hands of all the people. So you must purge the evil from among you.”
'Put away from among yourselves that wicked person'
How this psalm is built
The form: The first of the moral reports of chapters 5 and 6, turning from the schisms over ministers to an immorality the church had let stand, as Gill classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| A little leaven | Verse 6 asks Do you not know and answers with a saying about a little leaven working through the whole batch. It is the only question of that form in the chapter. John Wesley reads the little leaven as one sin or one sinner, spreading guilt and infection through the whole congregation.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, 1755, on 1 Corinthians 5:6. | 1 Corinthians 5:6 |
| The Passover lamb | Verses 7 and 8 read the church's duty through the Passover: the old leaven cleared out, a new unleavened batch, the lamb sacrificed and the feast kept. Words built on leaven stand five times in verses 6 to 8. Adam Clarke sets the verses beside the Jewish search of the house for leaven before the feast and reads the command as a charge to deal the same way with the offender.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, on 1 Corinthians 5:7. | 1 Corinthians 5:7, 1 Corinthians 5:8 |
| Two lists of sins | Verse 10 names four kinds of people in the world, the sexually immoral, the greedy, swindlers and idolaters. Verse 11 repeats the list for anyone who claims to be a brother and adds the verbal abuser and the drunkard, six in all. Clement of Alexandria draws from verse 11 a rule for the table, joining such a person neither in talk nor in food.Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor Book 2, 215, on 1 Corinthians 5:11. | 1 Corinthians 5:10, 1 Corinthians 5:11 |
| Inside and outside | Verses 12 and 13 set those outside the church against those inside, with two questions and a closing sentence that God will judge the outsiders. The chapter ends on a command from the Law of Moses set down with no citation formula, and Theophylact of Ohrid traces it to Deuteronomy 13:5, where the lawgiver already wished the impious cut off from the community.Theophylact of Ohrid, Commentary on 1 Corinthians, 1107, on 1 Corinthians 5:13. | 1 Corinthians 5:12, 1 Corinthians 5:13 |
Where the chapter stands
11 more paragraphs on the patterns
Chapter 5 opens the moral reports that run through chapters 5 and 6, after the section on divisions from 1:10 to 4:21. John Gill marks the turn from the schisms about ministers to immoralities the church had overlooked. John Chrysostom notes that Paul opened the divisions gently and here strikes at once, making the charge common to all. The chapter before ended with a choice between a rod and a gentle spirit, and this chapter shows the rod. The arrogance named at 4:18 comes back as pride at verse 2.
Who speaks and to whom
Paul speaks in his own voice and pronounces judgment in verse 3 though absent in body. The church is the one addressed, and the man appears only in the third person. Theophylact of Ohrid observes that Paul nowhere turns his word to the offender himself. Jamieson, Fausset & Brown hold that the woman may have been a pagan, which would explain why no rebuke falls on her.
The unit across the seam
The question of judging runs from 5:1 into chapter 6. Verses 12 and 13 ask what business Paul has judging outsiders, and 6:1 opens on believers taking one another to court before the unrighteous. So 5:1 to 6:20 reads as one section on the holiness of the church, with the lawsuits set between two cases of sexual sin.
The Old Testament behind it
Leviticus 18:8 forbids a man his father's wife, and the site's exposition of verse 1 cites it. The picture of verses 7 and 8 comes from the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread, and Adam Clarke sends the reader to Exodus 12. Verse 13 closes with the command that Theophylact of Ohrid traces to Deuteronomy 13:5.
The debated readings
Handing over to Satan in verse 5. Albert Barnes records that Beza and the Latin fathers take it as excommunication, a man put out of the church into the kingdom of the world under Satan's control, and Theodore of Mopsuestia reads it the same way. Adam Clarke answers that no such form of excommunication is known among Jews or Christians and takes it as a punishment of body and mind for extraordinary cases. Theophylact of Ohrid reads it as illness sent on the body so that the soul may be saved.
The earlier letter of verse 9. John Wesley and Ambrosiaster take it as a former letter, now lost. Theodoret of Cyrus holds that Paul means this letter itself.
The feast of verse 8. John Wesley hears a plain allusion to the Lord's Supper, and Adam Clarke thinks the Passover season was near when Paul wrote.
Keep studying
Studies19
- Bread
- Discipline and Lawsuits
- The Hebrew Feasts
- How Scripture Shapes Christian Ethics
- In the World, Not of It
- Passover
Show the next 6 titles
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
John Chrysostom, Homily on 1 Corinthians 15, 407, on 1 Corinthians 5:1; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament, 1746 to 1748, on 1 Corinthians 5:1 and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on 1 Corinthians, 1274, on 1 Corinthians 5:1.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Ambrosiaster, COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES; Charles Hodge, An Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians; Frederic Godet, Commentary on First Corinthians; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians; John Chrysostom; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Origen of Alexandria, COMMENTARY ON 1 CORINTHIANS 2.26.23-26; Theodore of Mopsuestia, PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH and Theophylact of Ohrid, Commentary on 1 Corinthians.