Paul reports the scandalous sexual immorality present among them, a kind not tolerated even among the Gentiles, and rebukes the church for arrogance rather than grief and decisive action.
1 Corinthians 5:1-5
1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father’s wife.
2 You are arrogant, and didn’t mourn instead, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you.
Though absent physically, Paul pronounces judgment on the offender and commands the gathered church, in the name and power of the Lord Jesus, to hand the man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
3 For I most certainly, as being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing.
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Paul warns that their boasting is not good and uses leaven imagery to show that tolerated sin spreads. Because Christ our Passover has been sacrificed, the church must purge the old leaven and keep the feast in sincerity and truth.
1 Corinthians 5:6-8
6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump?
7 Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place.
8 Therefore let’s keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Paul clarifies his earlier instruction. Believers are not to withdraw from immoral people in the world absolutely, but they must not associate with anyone claiming to be a brother who persists in scandalous sin. The church is responsible to judge those inside, while God judges those outside.
1 Corinthians 5:9-13
9 I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual sinners;
10 yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or with the covetous and extortionists, or with idolaters; for then you would have to leave the world.
11 But as it is, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortionist. Don’t even eat with such a person.
12 For what do I have to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within?
13 But those who are outside, God judges. “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.”