RPM, Volume 13, Number 5, January 30 to February 5, 2011

1 Corinthians 5:6-13

A Sermon

By Scott Lindsay

We are continuing this week with our study of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, picking up at verse 6 of chapter 5 and continuing through to the end of the chapter. If you were with us last week then you will remember how in verses 1-5 Paul was challenging the church in Corinth to uphold its responsibility to model biblical patterns of sexuality before a watching world. In particular Paul urged the Corinthians to deal with a specific instance of sexual sin that was being carried out by a member of their congregation, in the full knowledge of everyone there, including people who were not associated with the church in any way.

In the passage before us this morning, Paul finishes addressing them on this specific issue, explaining to them why they need to take action against the man in question and clarifying a misunderstanding that apparently had arisen regarding this whole matter. That is what we'll be looking at in our time together, before we do so, let's pray...

(Read passage 5:-13)

Now in order to make some sense of what Paul is talking about here, with all the language about yeast and dough in verse 6 and following, we need to think about two things: firstly, we need to think about the craft of baking, oddly enough, at least as it was practiced in early Palestine, and then secondly, we need to remember some things about the Passover celebration in Israel.

Let us think about some of the essentials of baking in Paul's day. Now, if you have an NIV translation, it will read "yeast" instead of "leaven" in verses 6 and following and, unfortunately, that is not as accurate as it needs to be because, while "yeast" and "leaven" are related to one another - they are not the same thing. Now, to be sure, the Greek word here can be translated either way (zume) but, to use "yeast" instead of "leaven", in the opinion of many scholars, is to miss the point of Paul's imagery. Let me try and explain that.

Yeast, as I am sure you know, is a kind of fungus and when it is introduced into bread dough sets off a kind of controlled fermentation process that, as one of its effects, makes the dough lighter and fuller. Now the yeast itself is fine. It is "fresh and wholesome", as Gordon Fee describes it. However, yeast was not that easy to come by in the ancient world and so what most people did, to make it last longer and to save on the difficulty of obtaining it, was to set aside a little bit of the previous week's dough, letting it ferment, and then adding it to next week's batch. This little bit that was kept back each week was the "leaven".

So, this would continue, week after week. Well, as you might imagine, since you are dealing with fungus and fermentation, you could only do this kind of thing for so long before the "leaven" would become so fermented that it actually went off with the result that, over time, the danger of bacterial infection would become quite pronounced.

Thus, there was a need, every so often, to completely get rid of all the old leaven, to sweep the kitchen clean "so to speak" and start over with some fresh yeast, which would then lead to a new batch of leaven.

Now as one scholar has noted, and although the Old Testament does not expressly say this, it is reasonable to think that the Feast of Unleavened Bread, in addition to being a religious celebration for Israel, also served as a kind of health provision for them precisely because part of observing this Feast involved purging your house of all leaven (Ex. 12:14-20).

All of this, then, leads us to think about the Passover celebration - which as I said at the beginning, is the other thing which will help us to understand what Paul is getting at here. If you remember, in the Passover, which took place in the days of Moses, the people of Israel sacrificed a lamb and spread its blood on the doorposts of their houses. This action marked them out as a distinct people, under God's protection. Further, it spared them from the power of death and destruction that was going on just outside their doors as God was inflicting the final plague upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians.

One historical consequence of this event was that, due to the need to make a hasty departure from Egypt the next day, the people had to eat bread which time did not allow to be "leavened". This reality was to be remembered each subsequent year, when the people of Israel celebrated the Passover, in at least two distinct ways.

First, they were to, as we have already seen, purge their houses clean of all leaven, prior to observing the Passover meal. Then they were to observe the meal together, taking care to only eat and serve "unleavened" bread, for a certain period of time - thus the name, the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Now the interesting twist in all this is that, while in the Old Testament the purging of the leaven happened BEFORE the sacrificing of the Passover Lamb - Paul, in applying this imagery to the people of God in Corinth, reverses the order - and with good reason. Paul says to the Corinthians in verse 7, "...get rid of the old leaven..." because Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed for us. Paul wants to make sure that the Corinthians don't get the wrong message here. He wants them to purge the old leaven from their community, not because this will cause them to be the people of God but rather, he wants them to do this because they already are the people of God, distinctively set apart by the blood of Christ, sacrificed on their behalf.

In other words, Paul wants them to show their distinctiveness in the world because they already are distinct in Christ. He wants them to BE what they ARE. The man described in verses 1-5, then, is like a batch of leaven that has gone "off' and so is in danger of affecting the whole community and Paul wants them to deal with him appropriately. He wants them to keep the bad leaven out of the good dough.

Now it is important to be clear on what Paul does and does not mean by all of this. Paul is not saying that sinful people have no place in the church. Far from it. Paul, who describes himself as "the chief of sinners", who wrote Romans 6-8, and other such passages is under no illusions about the human heart, especially his own. Paul understands that the church is the place for forgiven sinners. He knows that the only kind of person that can be found in the church is a sinful person. What is precisely the point here? The man described in verses 1-5 is one who DOES not and WILL not see, or own up to, his sin. What is evil, he calls good or, at the very least, considers it to be of no account.

A man like that, says Paul, must be disciplined and, as we saw last week, Paul's strong words about casting out this man and "handing him over to Satan" are simply an echo of Jesus' own teaching in Matthew 18. And so, what we see here is a man who is at the end of that kind of disciplinary process - a process that starts small and private and which becomes more involved and more public until it reaches the stage where the church has no choice but to make "official" that which has already been unofficially declared by the person in question: That is, he/she is living like an unbeliever and so the church confirms this person in that state, until it is given reason to believe otherwise.

So, Paul has all sorts of room in the church for Christians who recognize their sin and sinfulness and in whom God's Spirit is evidently working to produce a life of holiness. But, he says, the church must NOT accommodate those who claim to belong to the distinctive community of God's people and yet who at the same time seem to be at peace with behaviors characteristic of those outside of God's community.

As one commentator puts it, the "leaven" of the old life, that is, of "malice and evil", must find no place "in the midst" of the congregation of Christ's people. Rather, the people are always to be "bread made without [that kind of] leaven" - pure wheaten dough, as it were, characterized by sincerity and truth... " (Barnett)

Now, why does Paul say this? Why is it so important that they remove this man from among them? There are at least 2 reasons why it is important: Firstly it is important for the man himself. As we saw last week, the goal of church discipline is repentance and restoration of the person involved. But that worthy goal will never be achieved as long as the person in question is allowed to continue as they are - unhindered, un-opposed, and un-challenged. As Barnett says, "...if we simply extend the hand of fellowship to them, and treat them as if nothing has happened, then there remains no moral or spiritual motivation for them to repent..."

The second reason it is important is for the sake of the church. Right? Sin never sits still. It is the nature of sin to "diffuse itself' - as Hodge puts it. It is infectious and contagious and, when un-addressed, will have a harmful effect upon those around it. That is the other concern here. And this same concern is echoed in other places by Paul, for example in Galatians 6:1 where Paul issues a cautionary warning for Christians who are involved in a ministry of helping a brother or sister who is struggling to free themselves from a particular sin. He writes:

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted....

Paul was fully aware of the insidious nature of sin that, like some opportunistic virus, wants to replicate itself in countless different ways. So, he says, "...get rid of the old leaven..." and again, in verse 13, "...expel the wicked man from among you..."

Now, you might be saying to yourself, "...that seems awfully judgmental..." and, if so, you would be absolutely right. It is judgmental because, in fact, the church is supposed to make judgments. "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?" That is a rhetorical question, friends. The answer is "Yes, you are."

Paul's expectation was that the Corinthian Church would "pass judgment" on the man referred to in verses 1-5 and, indeed, upon any other person who was behaving in a similar fashion, with a similar disregard for God's Word - not just in the area of sexual immorality - but in other areas as well, including greed, idolatry, slander, gossip, etc.

Now this is a message we certainly need to hear today, isn't it? To be sure, as Paul has already pointed out in this letter (4:5), we cannot judge the motives and intentions of a person's heart - i.e., we cannot judge what is hidden and unseen. However we are to judge that which is external and obvious - as Paul himself illustrates here and earlier in 5:3. In a similar fashion, we are not to pass judgment on those outside the church - God is their judge. But we are to be very circumspect with one another.

Sadly, the church has often gotten this completely backwards. I remember very vividly, when I was a student at LSU, there were two people who would show up with painful regularity in front of the Union - Sister Cindy and Brother Jed. And these two characters would stand on one of the benches in front of the Union and proceed to do exactly what Paul says NOT to do - they would stand and shout out judgments upon everyone who passed. I mean, they wouldn't just make general statements about how evil the world was - no, they would point to people as they passed by, rank strangers, and accuse them of the most awful things. And it was just terrible. And the damage they did to the cause of Christ at LSU is incalculable.

Well, thankfully, that does not happen a great deal. But when it does, it is completely backwards. And not only do we sometimes get it backwards with regard to judging those outside the church, but we all too often get it backwards when it comes to judging those inside - i.e., we don't judge the kind of people that Paul says, we ought to be judging.

As Fee puts it:

In our own day, there can often be...a free association with any and everyone [inside the church] - regardless of their life or lifestyle... 'We're all sinners' we say, and, 'We must not judge'. And these become the slogans we live by and which excuse us from taking seriously the ethical implications of being a people who are indwelt by the Spirit of God.

As another unknown writer puts it:

...We have somehow deluded ourselves into believing that the caring thing to do is to be infinitely nonjudgmental and inclusive." And, I might add, tolerant. But such tolerance and inclusiveness is simply another word for moral cowardice. Paul says there is no room for such cowardice in the church. "Expel the wicked man from among you.

However, having made his point fairly strongly, Paul does not want them to take his command to be separate from unrepentant believers as a mandate for isolating themselves from unrepentant NON-believers. Paul does not want them to go that way, in the first instance because it is simply not possible, and in the second instance because it is not the pattern that the Lord Jesus Himself modeled for his people. Jesus had a reputation as being a "friend of sinners" and being in places that the so-called respectable people would not go to, and hanging out with all the fringe-dwellers and outcasts in his own society. For the Corinthians to avoid immoral unbelievers because of their immorality would mean that they could never become the salt and light that Jesus said his people were to be.

So, at the end of the day, the passage seems to be saying this: the Corinthians were to remove the bad leaven (unrepentant believer) from the good dough (the church) but they were not to remove the good leaven (the church) from the bad dough (the world). To put it another way, it's all right and even necessary for the Church to be in the world, but the world must never be allowed to gain a foothold in the Church.

This article is provided as a ministry of Third Millennium Ministries (Thirdmill). If you have a question about this article, please email our Theological Editor.

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