The Grace Commentary – Award-winning Bible commentary 1 Corinthians 5

1 Corinthians 5:1

It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife.

(a) It is actually reported. Of all the Corinthians’ misdeeds, the incestuous case of the man who was sleeping with his stepmother is the most infamous.

(b) Someone has his father’s wife. Such a deed was both unlawful to the Jews (see Lev. 18:8) and offensive to the Gentiles.

1 Corinthians 5:2

You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.

(a) You have become arrogant. Instead of rebuking the incestuous man for his unlawful behavior, the Corinthians were applauding themselves for their tolerance, and even boasting about it (1 Cor. 5:6). Paul was horrified.

(b) Have not mourned. A proper response to sin is to be grieved. We don’t grieve because sin is wrong or because it breaks some law. We grieve because sin destroys people and marriages. Just as we would mourn when others get sick and die, we ought to mourn sin. See entry for 2 Cor. 7:10.

(c) Removed from your midst. Instead of tolerating the sin, the Corinthians should have confronted it. Since they had not done that, Paul deals with it (see entry for 1 Cor. 5:5).

1 Corinthians 5:5

I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

(a) Deliver such a one to Satan. In other words, remove him from the church (see 1 Cor. 5:2). Since the man refuses to listen to the Spirit, let sin be his teacher. Let him learn the hard way that sin has consequences, and maybe then he will see his need for a Savior.

(b) The destruction of his flesh. Let him reap what he has sown.

Sow to the flesh and you will reap destruction (Gal. 6:8). This has nothing to do with divine punishment and everything to do with the destructiveness of sin (Rom. 6:23). The implication is not that the man will die, but that he will experience the destructive consequences of his sin in some way.

(c) So that his spirit may be saved. This man was not a believer but Paul hoped that he would become one. Not everyone who goes to church is saved. This man was “among them,” but he was not one of them.

1 Corinthians 5:6

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?

(a) Do you not know? See entry for 1 Cor. 3:16.

(b) Leaven is influence. Jesus warned the disciples to beware the leaven of the Pharisees (religious power) and the leaven of Herod (political power; Mark 8:15). In those examples, leaven was portrayed a corrupting influence, as it is here. The shameless sinner was a corrupting influence. However, in the parable of the leaven, the leaven represents the transforming influence of the kingdom upon the world (Matt. 13:33).

1 Corinthians 5:7

Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.

(a) Old leaven. Your old sinful way of life (Eph. 4:22).

Leaven was not forbidden in Jewish households, but once a year the Jews would clear out the old leaven in time for Passover. Paul draws on that practice to illustrate what needs to be done. “Clean your house.”

(b) Unleavened. In Christ, you are a holy and new creation, free from the leaven of sin. Be who you are and stop indulging in old habits.

1 Corinthians 5:8

Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

(a) The feast. The new life we have in Christ, our Passover lamb.

(b) Old leaven; see previous verse.

1 Corinthians 5:9

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people;

My letter. The letter we know as First Corinthians was not the first letter Paul sent to the church in Corinth.

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1 Corinthians 5