Scandalous
1 Corinthians: The Gospel for the Church • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 37:00
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One of the best-written and most critically-acclaimed dramas on television in the last several years was a show about power and politics, relationships and retribution. It chalk-full of deception and coercion, power-plays and lawsuits, affairs and immorality.
Every episode heaps scandal on top of scandal. It is appropriately named: ‘Scandal’. As I’ve been reading and studying and meditating upon 1 Corinthians 5, the word that has come to mind again and again is: scandal. Sometimes, the way the Church tends to behave is downright scandalous. A television drama based on the Corinthian church would be very successful.
The Corinthian church is embroiled in all kinds of scandalous behavior (as we’re about to see in chapters 5-6). Christians today, upon hearing about the behavior of some of the Corinthians, should shudder and recoil in disgust.
Even the non-religious and idolatrous Corinthians in that day would have looked at the Corinthian Christians and thought, “Well, they’re no different than us! They’re acting just like us, even worse maybe!”
For the Church to act and look just like the world is, according to Paul, absolutely bonkers (I think he would have used that word if he’d known it, but it’s only 60-some years old, so there you go).
For the Church to act, behave, appear no different from the lost and dying world in which it finds itself is unbearable to Paul and so it should be for us.
The Church has to stand out as an example to the community around it. The Church must not treat one another the way the world treats one another. We are not another business or just some non-profit organization that doesn’t pay any tax at Walmart. We are the called-out people of God. We do not follow our base desires. We do not gratify the sinful nature, nor do we excuse sinful behavior in our midst or amongst ourselves.
In a word, we must be different.
>If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to 1 Corinthians 5. Keep your Bible open in front of you as we make our way through this chapter in God’s Word.
1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?
What a scandalous situation! Paul can’t believe his ears; he’s horrified. His use of the word actually highlights his unbelief. It’s not just that there is sexual immorality among the Corinthians, but of a kind that even non-believers wouldn’t tolerate.
Verse 1 is enough to send shivers down my spine. It really is unbelievable.
“A man is sleeping with his father’s wife” is a paraphrase. The actual wording is “A man has his father’s wife.”
This is a continual, on-going sexual relationship. A man and his step-mom. And if that’s not bad enough (which it is; Leviticus 18:7-8 forbids this specifically). It’s bad enough already, but to compound the problem, this man is part of the church there in Corinth.
And then—worse still!—it seems the Corinthian church is tolerating this kind of behavior—behavior the pagans wouldn’t tolerate, and if the pagans in that day (the day of idols and cults and temple prostitutes) wouldn’t tolerate it, you know it rose to another level of awful.
Tolerate—that’s the key word here. I didn’t see that word in verse 1 until probably the 20th time I read this passage. You know how your brain just skims over or speeds by different words?
The pagans don’t tolerate this behavior, but the church seems to be just fine with it.
Paul says the Corinthians Christians are proud.
What are they proud of? Are they proud of this man’s blatant and public sin? I doubt it.
So what are they proud about? I think they’re proud of their tolerance. They must believe that, in their self-professed maturity and wisdom (see chapters 1-4), their tolerance and acceptance of this sinful behavior shows that they are further along than other Christians. They are arrogant about this: their progressive behavior.
It’s possible they’re lax or uncaring (“Eh. Whatever.”). They might be indifferent (“Well, that’s really none of our business.”). They might have bad theology excuses bad behavior (“Let’s go on sinning so that grace may abound!”).
All of those are options. But I tend to think they’re proud of their tolerance. Anything goes here in the Corinthian church. Tolerance is the order of the day.
Tolerance is the order of our day, isn’t it? “If it makes you happy...” “You do you, man. Have at it.” “Who are we to tell you what to do or not to do, to be or not to be, that is the question?”
Whatever it is they’re proud of, “whatever the actual relationship of their pride to the incest, their pride has blinded them both to the fallen brother’s true condition and their own.”
Rather than demonstrating pride, Paul rebukes:
2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?
They absolutely should have mourned this, and mourned this deeply. Gone into mourning probably refers to the deep anguish that’s related to true repentance.
Mourning is the proper response to such sin in their midst, not pride.
And true mourning would have resulted in removing this man from their fellowship.
An unrepentant man, continuing in his blatant sin, should be put out of the church.
This is beyond unpopular. Can you imagine what would happen or what would be said if we removed a person from the membership of this church for their unrepentant sinful behavior? We’d be labeled with all kinds of fun terms: legalists, hypocrites, holier-than-thou, high and mighty. And those are only the few church-appropriate phrases.
Just imagine what would happen. The very thought of doing something like that rubs some of you the wrong way—and yet God tells His people to do this over and over.
19 then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party. You must purge the evil from among you.
21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
7 If someone is caught kidnapping a fellow Israelite and treating or selling them as a slave, the kidnapper must die. You must purge the evil from among you.
28 And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.
You might say, “Ah, well, Barrett. That’s all Old Testament stuff.”
But remember, friends, Jesus told us to do this very thing when dealing with sin the church:
17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
How do we deal with sin in the church? How do we deal with a scandalous, sinful situation?
We mourn, we grieve. And we discipline the offending party—for the good of the church and the restoration of the offending party.
You might see this as harsh or even unloving. But when we appreciate the biblical view of God’s holiness and His deep revulsion to sin, we will see this as the only logical behavior of His people.
Really and truly, more than proper church discipline, Paul is calling for and expressing what should be the normal consequences of their being the people of God.
3 For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. 4 So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, 5 hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.
Through this letter that Paul is writing to the church, as it is read aloud in their gathering, Paul is communicating his own prophetic word to them.
Paul’s letter to them—inspired by the Spirit—would be heard audibly by the entire assembly. It’s as if Paul is there with them as his words are read out loud. And all of this with the recognition of his authority and the Spirit’s presence.
The Christian community there in Corinth is to act as a community, Paul being there with them in spirit, and they are to hand this man over to Satan.
Imagine, for a moment, what it would be like to be called out by Paul via this letter while sitting in the public gathering. Awk-ward! And then to hear Paul say: “Hand this man over to Satan...” That’s uncomfortable...
The language means to turn him back out into Satan’s sphere. In contrast to the gathered community of believers who experience the Spirit and power of the Lord in the building up of one another and loving concern for one another, this man is to be put back out into the world where Satan and his principalities and powers hold sway over people’s lives to destroy them.
By putting this man outside the believing community, the desire is that which is carnal, fleshly, sinful in him would be destroyed, so that he might be saved on the day of the Lord.
The intent of this action is the man’s salvation. The goal of church discipline is always, always, always restoration and redemption. Let this man be turned over, put outside, so that he would put aside his sins, repent, and out of a desire for fellowship and love and community, once again join the gathering of the redeemed.
That’s what Paul is urging the Corinthians to do, because:
Toleration of sin transgresses the holy calling of the Church.
Toleration of sin transgresses the holy calling of the Church.
The behavior of this man is scandalous, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Even more scandalous is that the church would tolerate it, excuse it, sweep it under the rug.
God is Holy. The Church must likewise be holy.
>Paul illustrates the issue at hand with two striking images:
6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
The sin of this one man has infected the whole community, which as a community must be God’s temple in Corinth.
The metaphor Paul chooses is not illness, but one of leaven.
It’s not yeast; yeast was uncommon in the ancient world. It’s leaven, fermented dough, a little of which would be left from the previous week to be added to a new lump of dough.
A little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough.
Speaking of leaven would lead naturally into imagery from the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover.
They are to get rid of the old leaven—that is, the incestuous man—so that they might become what they really are: a new unleavened batch of dough.
What made them unleavened bread? The sacrifice of God’s Passover Lamb.
If you’ve ever done any baking, you know that a very little bit of yeast (leaven) works through a lot of dough. 1 package of yeast (2 and 1/4 teaspoons of yeast) for 5-6 cups of flour will do the trick. It doesn’t take much. And that’s the point. One man’s incestuous relationship with his father’s wife has really, really destructive consequences for the whole fellowship. It spreads and works through the whole batch.
If I offered you this ice cold cup of water, you might take it and drink it. If I told you that I got some of the water out of the urinal in the men’s restroom, you’d absolutely not take it or drink it. Even though there’s only a small chance of there being urine in this water, the whole cup is tainted.
So it is with sin in the church. A little affects the whole. One person’s sin, not subjected to church discipline will silently spread throughout the whole fellowship.
Paul instructs the Corinthian church to do the difficult thing: get rid of the old yeast.
They need to expel this man for the good of the church.
“You really are unleavened,” Paul tells them. “Because of Christ and His sacrifice, you are pure…so start acting like it!”
Just as the Israelites in Exodus were instructed to remove all leaven from their homes--
15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel.
so the Corinthians were to remove this man from their gathering.
Through the death of Jesus, we have received forgiveness from the past and freedom for new life in Christ—His sacrifice for us is our motivation and power to do.
The Corinthians are to remove this man, which is like cleansing the house of leaven, in order that they might become what they are: a new lump of dough. God’s people are to keep an ongoing feast of the celebration of God’s forgiveness by their holy living.
What’s really and truly scandalous is allowing sin to corrupt the whole; it’s scandalous to go on living as old dough.
Removal of sin makes clear who the Church is and whose the Church is.
Removal of sin makes clear who the Church is and whose the Church is.
The Church belongs to God. The Church is pure, unleavened dough—that’s who the church is and it must act like it. The Church is what it is because of Jesus’ death. We must reflect Him and function as He would have us.
9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—10 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 to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.
12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”
Paul has to give the Corinthians some much needed clarification here: what Paul has said in a previous letter was apparently misunderstood.
[Do] not associate with sexually immoral people. Paul’s instruction is for them not to avoid sexually immoral people in general, but to not mix with people claiming to be believers all the while living a life inconsistent with their stated belief.
To avoid the sexually immoral altogether, Paul says, “Well, then you’d need to go out of the world.”
There’s some very important teaching here.
Contrary to what we sometimes sing and what we tend to believe, this world is our home. We have to figure out how to be in the world and not of the world (John 17).
We’re not escapists; we’re emissaries.
We don’t run from the world; we run to the world with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
We’re not monks cloistered away; we’re missionaries commissioned home and abroad.
We must minister to the world. We don’t separate ourselves from them.
We must get this straight. If God intended for us to not mix with the outside world, He never would have told us to make disciples of the nations.
We must associate with those who are lost, lest they remain lost. When’s the last time you had a your non-Christian neighbors over for dinner?
Church, it’s time we learn what it is to be in the world, making an impact for Christ, not avoiding the world believing they’ll come to Christ all on their own.
Paul knows there’s no way the Corinthians could live in Corinth without rubbing shoulders with people who were sexually immoral.
But for those who would call themselves “believers” and claim to be “brothers and sisters” all the while living lives of sexual immorality or greed or idolatry or drunkenness—the Church must not mix with them.
It’s oil and water, that behavior and the bearing the name of Christ.
Let’s not forget, we’re all scumbags. We are all sinners. But blatant, ongoing, unrepentant sinfulness requires the faithful church to act. The church is not to mix, not to associate with sexually immoral so-called believers.
Do not even eat with them.
Do you see the difference?
Eat with the pagan, non-Christian.
Do not associate with the sexually immoral person claiming to be a Christian.
Sinful people do scandalous things. We can’t expect Christian behavior from non-Christians.
But we must expect Christians to act like Christians. And when they don’t, there must be discipline to restore the erring brother.
Expel the wicked person from among you.
“Free association outside the church, precisely because God, not the church, judges those on the outside; but strict discipline within the church, because the church must never start living like the world.”
It doesn’t take too much observation to note that the opposite tends to prevail.
Strict separation from the world, but a willingness to ignore sin within the church. A judgment on those outside the church, but a free pass to those within the church.
>It’s a scandalous thing when the Church acts like they’re not. This man who claimed to be a Christ-follower was living a life of continuous, on-going sin. And the church tolerated it, and proudly.
Paul cautions the church to keep a close guard on their behavior.
Church, you have been made new in Christ—saved, justified, called to be holy. It only makes sense if we live in ways consistent with our identity in Him. We must take sin in our midst seriously.
Let us repent, corporately. “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” “Lord, have mercy on us; we are sinners.”
And because Jesus is our Passover Lamb, the reason we are pure, unleavened, a new batch of dough, we should strive to honor Him as we live lives of purity and holiness—this, not because we believe it earns us anything, but because we desire to please Him and show the world we are something different.
We are a different kind of people—not a people marked by scandal, but a people saved in the most scandalous fashion: God the Son, hanged on a tree to wash us white, set us free, and make us holy.