Judge those Inside
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Transcript
The passage today is 1 Corinthians 5. I must confess that I struggled in preparing the message for today. I want to be faithful to preach through the text as we study this book. I also want to be sure that the lesson is timely and timeless. Timely in that we can find application for our lives today. Timeless in that it is a faithful truth from God’s word.
The passage today is dealing with a situation which I hope is not timely for our church family. It is dealing with a believer who is in unrepetant sin. And, actually, the emphasis is on Paul’s reprimand to the church for not dealing with this.
The main thrust of the passage is that we need to judge and deal with people who are in blatant sin and unrepentant.
I do not see that as timely for our church family. Praise the Lord!
So, the struggle I had was what in this passage is timely and timeless for us?
I believe the verses that we need to focus on today at at the end of the chapter, verses 12-13.
What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?
God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”
From these verses I chose the title, the theme, for the message, “Judge those inside.”
Let’s look at the whole passage, get a quick summary, and then focus on how these verses apply to us today.
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.
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?
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.
So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present,
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.
Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?
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.
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.
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—
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.
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.
What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?
God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”
Prayer
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.
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?
Verses 1 and 2 are the setting, the background to the point that Paul wants to make. He has already been dealing with the issue of pride in the Corinthians. Now, he points on a specific way that pride is manifesting itself. There is a man in blatant sin; a sin that even the culture at large would consider shameful. What was the church’s response? Pride.
Why would they be proud? What could they be proud about?
At this time, and later, there was a sect of Christianity referred to as Nicolaitans. We find them referenced in Revelation 2:6, and Revelation 2:15.
Nicolaitans taught that since we were saved by grace, we were free from moral laws. Therefore, one could engage in all sorts of evil practices and still be a Christian, because we are saved by grace.
The Corinthians were proud. They thought they had arrived, and were the Christians to whom everyone else should look. They were saved by grace. They could accept this man in his sin because we are saved by grace and free from law. Those old standards of morality no longer apply. They were proud of their progressive thinking, their progressive Christianity.
Were they right?
No. Which is why Paul writes to them so bluntly, “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?”
Paul goes on to say,
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.
Paul passed judgment on this man. How could Paul pass judgment on this man? Didn’t Jesus say that we are not to judge others?
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
If we rip that verse out of context, yes, Jesus did say that. However, we need to look at the full context to get what Jesus was saying.
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
When we look at the full context, we are not to judge others based upon our own self-righteousness. We need to rightly judge ourselves by God’s standards (He is the One, True Judge), and then we can judge others by God’s standards to help them where they are not seeing things clearly. Judging not to condemn, but the help.
To summarize, “We judge ourselves first, and then others by God’s righteous standard to help, not to simply condemn.”
This is what Paul did. As we saw in 1 Corinthians 4:3-4,
I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.
My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.
Paul was always concerned about God’s judgment of himself first. Then, he was able to judge others, like this man and the rest of the Corinthian church by God’s standards. And by God’s standards, they were in the wrong. So, Paul judged them to help them see clearly. This is why he wrote to them. He did not just condemn them to others. He wrote to them, to help them.
We judge ourselves first, and then others, by God’s righteous standard to help, not to simply condemn.
How did Paul try to help?
He gave the church specific instructions of what they should do next, and the instructions were what should be done to help this man see the error of his ways.
So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present,
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.
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,
We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.
What does Paul mean by “Hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh?”
I believe Paul means that the church needs to disassociate from this man (something Paul makes clear in just a bit), and ask the Lord to allow Satan to have his way with this man to bring him to his senses.
What is Satan’s goal, and MO (method of operation). He comes to seek, kill and destroy. He sent a messenger to torment Paul in his flesh. God allowed it so Paul would not be proud, but would rather continue to rely on the Lord.
We can also look at Job, and see how he operates. God allowed him to try Job, attacking him physically. This was ultimately for Job’s good, as he was ultimately humbled and grew in his awe and reverence for the Lord.
In the same way, Paul wants the church give this man over to Satan. To allow Satan to have his way with this man physically so bring him around. To humble him. To give him a proper awe and reverence for our Holy God.
Our Lord God has saved us by grace through faith, not so we can be free from His moral standards, but so that we could be free within God’s moral, holy standards, and be truly free-holy as He is holy. This man needs to recognize God’s holiness, and call to holiness for his people. As Peter and Moses wrote through the Holy Spirit:
But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;
for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
God saves us by grace through faith. From what does he save us? He saves us from the punishment and power of sin. He saves us out of the dominion of Satan and sin, and to the dominion of Christ and righteousness. He saves us from sin (unholiness and unrightesouness), to be like Him, as we were created to be: Holy and Righteous.
Paul wants this man, he wants the church to remember these things. This is why he goes on to say,
Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?
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.
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.
A little sin will spread through the church like leaven spreads through dough. It spreads rapidly, and infects the whole loaf.
Paul wants to church as a whole to be holy and righteous. They cannot be holy and righteous when they are excusing sin, and they were doing it knowingly. Paul had already written to them about this in a previous letter.
Unfortunately, in their pride, they had logically disregarded what Paul said.
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—
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.
In their pride, when they received Paul’s previous letter, they logically got around it, by saying there is no way we could live in this world and not have associations with immoral, or greedy, or idolatrous people. So, Paul doesn’t know what he is talking about.
So, in this letter, Paul makes it clear,
But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
Note: verse 9 and 11 have the exact same word, in the exact same tense (aorist - a previous action). Verse 11, does have the word generally translated, “Now.” So, the NIV translators made the decision to translate this as, “Now I am writing to you.” However, in other verses, they recognize the area of meaning for this word includes, “As it is.” I think that is the sense in which Paul is using that word here in this context, with the same word for he wrote a letter previously.
“As it is, I wrote to you...” Or as the NASB reads, “But actually, I wrote to you.”
The point is, when Paul wrote to them about not associating with immoral people, he was talking about this situation where they were keeping this immoral man in their church.
They are not to associate with Christians who are acting in these ways. They are not even to eat with such people. The point of disassociating is to help them see the error of their ways. If we don’t disassociate, they will not think there is anything wrong.
Paul used this same kind of language in 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15.
Take special note of anyone who does not obey our instruction in this letter. Do not associate with them, in order that they may feel ashamed.
Yet do not regard them as an enemy, but warn them as you would a fellow believer.
I like this passage, because it does clarify, that while we are disassociating from them, we are not treating them as an enemy! We are warning them as a fellow believer!! This is important.
John also wrote about this in his 2nd letter.
If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not take them into your house or welcome them.
This is important for us to take note. The Holy Spirit, through both Paul and John, on separate occasions told us to do this. Also, through Peter and Jude, he warned us of these people that are blemishes, that disrupt the unity, fellowship and holiness of the church. We need to guard against, and disassociate as the Lord warns, so that we will be pure and unleavened. Why would we want that unholy influence in our lives?
Finally, Paul concludes with the verses, upon which we need to focus our lives today.
What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?
God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”
We are not to busy ourselves with judging those who are outside the church.
The world is certainly immoral, greedy, full of swindlers, and idolatrous. We know that. We do not need to go about judging them. God already has. Instead, what is our attitude toward them? The attitude of Christ.
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
We should not live judgmentally toward the unsaved. We should be like Jesus, seeking the lost. We should be a friend. We should be associating with them in hope of sharing Christ with them.
That is our attitude toward the world.
What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?
We are not to judge those outside the church and disassociate from them.
We are to judge those inside the church, and disassociate from them for their own good.
While our attitude toward the world is not one of judgment, but rather seeking to save, our attitude toward one another as believers is to properly judge so as to spur one another on to love and good deeds!!
We judge ourselves first, and then others, by God’s righteous standard to help, not to simply condemn.
For God has saved us by grace through faith from sin, and to righteousness and holiness. He has saved us from the dominion of Satan, and to the dominion of the Son! From the kingdom of darkness, to the kingdom of light.
Let us walk as children of the light, and walk with one another, judging properly. Judging ourselves first, and then out brothers and sisters that we might help one another, so that none of us is blinded by the deceitfulness of sin. For we all have logs and specks in our eyes, don’t we!?! And, we need one another to help us see things, before we are too far gone down the road, and needing to be handed over Satan for the destruction of our flesh.
Let’s stop judging the world, and start looking at ourselves and those within the Christian church.
Let’s judge properly:
We judge ourselves first, and then others, by God’s righteous standard to help, not to simply condemn.