Transcription
We want to look at chapter five in First Corinthians. But before we do that, as is often the case, there are those things that I'd like to play a little catch-up with before we get to the chapter, and hope that we can still do justice. The reason I keep having to do catch-up is that I keep getting too many things crowded over from one to the next. But we at least ought to just say a word about the conclusion of chapter three, and maybe a note about chapter four at the end of the chapter, after where we were this morning. The great paragraph 16 and 17, which calls our attention to the church as God's alternative to Corinth. Paul brings the argument to a summation in verses 18 to 23. Now, what he's going to do in chapter 4 is to apply all of this to his own personal relationship to this matter. And it's going to become quite clear as you read chapter 4 that there has been this anti-Pauline sentiment. And he's calling their attention to the fact that it matters not to him whether he's judged by them or any other human court. The only judgment is his faithfulness. In any case, it makes no difference whether they judge him because he belongs to the Lord, and only the Lord is going to judge him. And then, in the process of that, he really zeros in on them and their stance, especially this thing we have called the "over-realized eschatology," especially beginning at verse 7. "Who sees anything different in you?" Very difficult text to translate. But the second question makes it clear. Question is, "What have you that you have not received?" A very devastating question if you sit and listen to that. "What have you that you have not received?" And the answer, of course, to that is nothing. That everything, every last thing on the face of God's earth and beyond, is His grace to us. And if it's as gift of grace, and if you stand as recipients in all that there is and all that you are and have, then why are you going around acting as if it weren't a gift? As if it were some, as if you were somebody important? And then in verse 8, "Already you are filled, already you've become rich without us, you have become kings." Oh, he says, "Would to God that you did reign, so that we, we apostles, might reign with you." But to show you that the eschaton has not yet arrived, the end has not yet been fully realized, he reminds them of what a, what a spectacle the apostle really is. And he's a spectacle precisely because he is following his Lord. "We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise. We are weak, but you are strong. You were held in honor, but we..." Undisputed to the present hour. "We hunger and thirst, we were ill-clad and buffeted and homeless. We labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless. When persecuted, we endure. When slandered, we try to conciliate. We have become and are now as the refuse of the world, the offscouring of all things." So he says, "Come down from this reigning position of yours and get back into the end of the struggle now, you know, get with being Christians." It's only from your high and haughty position that you have allowed yourselves to fall into this awful, devastating trap of saying, "I belong to Paul," and "I belong to Apollos." But once you're down there, back at the cross, and see, those kinds of things can no longer happen.
But at the end of chapter 3, where he brings that argument to to its conclusion, before he applies that business we just went through in chapter 4, he does a most remarkable thing. Remember, their catch slogan is, "I belong to Apollos. I belong to Paul." Now, he says, he's already told them that's dumb. Now, what then is Paul? What then is Apollos? Servants through whom you believe. Now, given that context, he says, verse 18 and following, "Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age..." And that's back to that thing we've been, you know, it's me, he's been harping on right along. "...and let him become a fool that he might become wise." Then down in verse 21, so Paul says, "Let no one boast of men." Why? Because, and here he takes their slogan, their slogan that says, "I belong to Paul," and "I belong to Apollos," and he turns it in fur. And he just simply flip-flops their slogan and says, instead of you belonging to Paul, he says, "The real truth is that Paul belongs to you, and Apollos belongs to you, and Cephas belongs to you." In fact, he says, "All things are yours." And in the process of this, his mind just sort of blows, and he's reminded that of his, of his, of his and their place in Christ Jesus. That since all things are His, and we are His, all things are ours. Not only Apollos and Paul and Cephas, but life is ours, and death is ours. It's ours precisely because He has come and overcome it. And therefore, one has no fear of it. Death is our possession. Life is our possession. The things present belong to us. The future belongs to us. Everything belongs to us. Those mountains, they're ours because they're His. And it doesn't mean I have personal ownership. It simply means that the whole world has now become my possession because it's all His. He has overcome the world and made it, it's not made His own.
Now, the implications of this, of course, in the context here are really large. You see, we suggested this morning, you remember, that they have taken natural preferences and made them into exclusive ones. They have told God, in effect, that they're smart enough to determine who's going to minister to them. "Thank you. You know, I know what I need, and I know through whom I shall receive what I need. Paul? Yes. Apollos? No. Loren Cunningham? No. Gordon Fee? Yes." Bah, humbug! "All things are yours." And one of the great things that we have to learn is that, though, is that although not necessarily all of God's teachers necessarily minister richly unto each one of us in the same way, they all minister to the church, and therefore they belong to us, and we should affirm them and give praise and thanksgiving and not shut our minds from ourselves receiving from them. I think the time that I began to learn this, and I haven't fully learned it, you understand. It's very easy for me to cut off from my life people that I don't expect anything from. And that's a great danger. You don't expect much from that quarter, so you just don't open yourself up. Somewhere along the way, you and I are going to have to learn that God is full of surprises as to how and when He's going to minister His grace to our lives.
A couple of illustrations, and then we'll get to chapter five. But they're illustrations in the 20th century of exactly the point of this text. When I taught at Wheaton College, we had at the college a mandatory chapel four days a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. All of the students were required to be in chapel, although they were given a certain limited number of cuts. But basically, you could expect to 80, 90 percent of the student body always in chapel. And I think that I tended to be pretty sensitive to where the students were and what students' needs were. And for the most part, chapel that weekend was a very good experience for everybody. And I used to have a class right after chapel and would often remind them, "Isn't it wonderful that you had to go to chapel today? Just think if you didn't have to go, you might have missed that." Because some really great things happen in the process of the chapel. But because it's mandatory, there are always those, you know. But in my thinking, that I'm sensitive to where the students are, I can remember one morning when this fellow was preaching. And I'm one of those that has a difficult time not having a mirror all over my face and person how I am responding to what's going on. And I, I, that the chapel, that unfortunately the faculty, they have to sit where you could be exposed to everybody. You're just sitting in the chapel with others down in a section all reserved for faculty. But I simply scrunched down in my seat, took my glasses off. I have this thing that if I take my glasses off and I can't see him, that I'm not going to be embarrassed for him. Because, you know, he's out of my. But he wasn't embarrassed for himself. I mean, from where I sat, it was just bad news. I think that this man realized that he's speaking to a college, you know. I just, it was just really. And walked out of chapel that day. And a student friend of mine sidled up beside me and he said, "Doc, wasn't that wonderful?" And I thought to myself, you know, that man didn't minister to me at all, partly because I closed him out. But also, I had, I had made myself the thermometer of the whole. And instead of thanking God for a man who was in fact ministering to at least one brother in that community, I had, in effect, isolated him and wiped him out. Now, all things are yours. And what I needed to learn in that hour was, even that brother, he is mine too. And to affirm his ministry because he is ministering to a brother whom I loved. And in the process of realizing he's ministering to a brother whom I loved, he is going to also be ministering to me in the midst of that.
Now, I happen to be teaching 1st Corinthians in the same year at a local church, just a few Sundays. And one of the passages we dealt with was this one. And I can remember my teaching this so strongly about cutting people out of our lives and not letting them minister to us. Well, there was another member of the faculty from Wheaton who taught psychology, and he was doing a course at this same church. It was a 45-minute drive. And I have this thing about ecology. I'm not going to drive my car if two of us are going the same direction at the same time. And so we drove in together. And, you know, I, I just, this wasn't, this wasn't what I, where it was for me. And, you know, we talked about the weather and, you know. And then I began to listen to myself in the process of the teaching, and I was reminded by the Holy Spirit that I had cooked this brother out of my life. And I asked the Lord to help me on the way home just to let this brother minister to my life. And it was one of the most beautiful times that I had had in ages. Began to find out about him and where he was and where his concerns were, and found out that it was a very warm human being whom I had just isolated because I didn't expect anything from.
Now, one of the great truths of our faith is that we belong to one another. And we belong to one another whether we like it or not. So we'd better like it. Never always said this morning, the great word in the New Testament is "each other." They discover that word. We do everything in the Christian community in terms of one another and each other. And God has His richest treasures and His richest gifts to our lives are His people. Those are the richest gifts that we have. And if you haven't opened to that yet, I encourage you to do so. I want you to notice when Paul writes his letters, he begins always by saying, "I thank my God for you." Doesn't thank God for things. Doesn't thank God for even the gifts. He thanks God for the people. And that's a genuine thanksgiving on the part of the Apostle Paul. "I thank my God for you all." All I have to do, if I want a good cry, and every once in a while it doesn't do me bad to have a good cry, is to just sit down and begin to think of the people whom God has brought into my life as His gift. And I just begin to cry and cry and cry out of gratitude. All things are yours. All things are yours. Paul, Paul, Cephas, Loren Cunningham, Don Steven, Gordon Fee. One another. Oh, when you begin to start thinking, "I am of Paul," you see what you're going to just, just make yourself a little shriveled-up nothing. So I thought we should say something about that before we went on to chapter five and started talking about somebody's getting isolated out of this community.
Now, in 5:1, Paul says, "It is actually reported that there is immorality among you." Now, the immorality is not immorality in general, but it is a very specific expression of immorality. It is a case of incest. Now, it says that a man is living with his father's wife. And here, of course, it can hardly mean his mother. Here is one of those places where an argument from silence is, is a, is a compelling argument. Usually, if somebody starts arguing for what isn't said, I'm ready to stop the music. But here is an instance where what isn't said, in fact, is compelling. If it was his mother, that would have been said. And that is the most unlike, and that is that is too unthinkable even for this kind of freedom. It's undoubtedly with a stepmother in some way. Now, the problem, of course, is that can take a variety of forms. That is, he could be cohabiting along with his father with the same woman. That seems unlikely to me. My guess is that probably there has been a divorce or separation take place, and the son has now taken up with the woman who was once his father's wife. The possibility of death is also involved, that his father has died, and the son has taken up with his, with his stepmother. In any case, it is quite clear from the text, from the Greek word to have, which is translated here in the RSV, "a man is living with," that's exactly what the text means. That's what I call good idiomatic translation. Literally, the Greek text says, "a man is having his father's wife." And what that means is he is in a continuing relationship of sexual relations with her.
Now, the woman herself is nowhere mentioned. And that makes me certain in this case that she was not a member of the community. It is almost unthinkable that this judgment would have come upon the man and not the woman, as she would have not, you know, she would have been mentioned in some way had she been a member of the Christian community. She's undoubtedly one of those who sins outside the Christian community. And here is a member of the Christian community who is living incestuously. Now, incest happens to be forbidden by all ancients, as well as most moderns. What is forbidden is the same woman cohabiting with a father and a son. Jewish law is very explicit, Leviticus 18:8, 20:11. But Roman law is very explicit. The Institutes of Gaius forbid a man to have sexual relations with his mother-in-law, stepmother, daughter-in-law, or stepdaughter. The, the Latin orator Cicero, in one of his orations, is writing about a, a marriage of a woman with her son-in-law. And in this, he says, "This is now, this is a pagan, just I'm out, pagans, Cicero, but listen to what he says about this relationship. He says, 'All to think of the woman's sin, unbelievable, unheard of in all experience, say for this single instance.'" Now, that's how totally for, and it was to the pagan mind, unheard of in all experience, except for this.
Now, that presents us, therefore, with a real problem. The problem is twofold. It's quite clear that it's twofold. The first is, how in the world could this believer have done such a thing? What was going on in his mind that brought him to a situation where he could do something that was absolutely unthinkable even to a pagan? That would have been unthinkable to him before he became a member of the Christian community. How is it that now, as a member of the Christian community, he has allowed this to happen? And you understand, that's the kind of relationship that we're talking about. We're talking about a relationship of a man who is doing something that isn't simply committing adultery. Is simply, I don't know how it's simple, you know, but do I mean, it's not, it's not what I call ordinary sexual sin. It's an unheard-of thing. And as a Christian, he's doing it. Now, that is bad enough. But the second thing is, how could the church have assumed an attitude of being puffed up, arrogant, and, you know, boasting in the midst of this situation? And that's what Paul says. Listen to it in 5:2, "And you are arrogant." "Puffed up" is the word. The same word that was used in chapter 4 about one being puffed up over against another, and is going to be used in chapter 8 about knowledge. "Knowledge puffs up." "You're puffed up, you're arrogant with regard to this thing." And then verse 6, "Your boasting is not good."
Now, how did it happen? And here we're going to make some guesses, educated guesses, but sometimes such guesses are necessary for us to have something of a feeling for what's going on in the text. Prompt, possibly. And there are two possibilities. One of the possibilities is that this man is doing this, and the church is putting its countenance upon it because there is a kind of an assertion of freedom. That is, he is doing it almost because of his understanding of freedom in Christ. "We have been set free in Christ," which means, listen to Paul in 6:12, "All things are lawful." And therefore, as a kind of an assertion of what it means to be free, he has taken the stance of freedom in this matter. Now, as far as the church is concerned, it's possible in the same way, you see, that the church could have taken a stance of arrogance or being puffed up precisely because they are so tolerant in their Christianity. You know, they are so tolerant that even this, we don't judge. You know, we're so good. Now, there are Christians who think that way and miss, it seems to me, the point of discipline and loving judgment. Now, that's a possibility, and I'm really open to that. But I think more likely what has really happened is that the church is puffed up in spite of it. That is, going back to chapters 1 to 4, they are so puffed up that they can't, they can't see what's going on. You know, they have their, their heads in the clouds to such a degree as they're living this theology of glory, this exaltation mentality, this living the end-time kind of mentality to such a degree that they simply can't even see what's going on in front of them. Not that they don't see that, you know, don't know that it's there, but they're simply oblivious to it because they're so puffed up.
Now, it seems to me that's probably what is going on. I don't know how else to explain it except one of those possibilities. But in any case, my guess is that they're being puffed up has blinded them to the moral rot that really has invaded them. And Paul says in verse 2, "Instead of being puffed up, he says, 'Ought you not rather to have mourned?'" Now, I think it's possible he just says that in passing, but I think that's a technical term. It's a technical term that has to do with going in mourning. Shouldn't you, Paul says, have observed a time of mourning with regard to this man? Instead of being puffed up and arrogant, he says, shouldn't you have taken time to mourn? Because here is a man that's, you know, has died as it were among you. In other words, it's a call to sackcloth and ashes, to use the older figure of mourning. It's a call for the church to be humbled by what has happened. And that should be always the stance of the church. And when sin happens in our midst, it's a time of humbling to all of us. All of us are humbled together by the sin of any one of us, and especially by the sin of any one of us that becomes a sin that is exposed so that the world can see. It's a heavy responsibility we bear when we bear the family name and when we cause the family name to be hurt grossly. The whole body is humbled by it. I think that's the intense.
Now, what's going on? Now, Paul's answer to this problem is easy enough. No less than four times he says, "Put him out. Put him out. Put him out. Put him out." Verse 2, "Let him who has done this be removed from among you." Verses 4 and 5, "Deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh." Verse 7, "Cleanse out the old leaven." And verse 13, where he cites Deuteronomy 17:7, "Drive out the wicked one from among you." Now, that is clear. That is what he is calling the church to do. And I'll use an old term. Don't let it, you know, bring all kinds of connotations to your mind, but what he's calling the church to do is to excommunicate this man. I think, in fact, that's probably what's going on. You see, down in 4, at the University, 11, not even just to eat with such a one. And probably eating doesn't mean just eating, but eating in the context of Corinth is the eating of the community together. He's not even allowed to sit at table with the community when they have their feast of love and the table of the Lord. Not even to eat with such a one. He's to be put outside the community. As I say, that's easy enough. But the nature of that excommunication and its illustration in verses 6 to 8 are not as easy. That brings us to verses 3 to 5. By the way, one of the reasons that I take this chapter and spend time with it is that partly because I think I know what's going on here. I know that sounds very bold, but this is one of those few places where, in the process of a difficult text, I really think I know what's happening. And the other is that, as a person 42 years old, I must confess to you, I've never heard anyone preach from 1st Corinthians 5. Now, I think there are good reasons for that, which we'll mention at the end, but I've never heard anybody preach from this text. It's not what I would call one of those texts that jumps off the page and says, "Preach me." Well, maybe in a circus way, I'll even preach this text before we're through this evening.
Now, chapter 5, verses 3 to 5, presents us with the act, or if you will, the nature of the communication. It just so happens, however, that there are two problems in the text in terms of those content questions that we talked about. One of the questions that is really difficult, one of the problems is really difficult, is the, the Greek sentence is very elaborate and difficult, and in the process, it's very difficult to figure out precisely where all the pieces fit together. And I'll mention the two places where that's difficult, and here's a place again where some translations would have brought some of this to your, to your attention. The other thing is the meaning of the word "destruction of the flesh." Now, I think I understand what "deliver this man to Satan" means, but we'll, and we'll talk about that. But the "destruction of his flesh," and there is a great debate in scholarship here. And I, this was one of those places where I really leaned on the fence. One year when I teach First Corinthians, I go one way, and the next year I tend to lean the other way, and then I lean back because it's a really difficult one. And we can all talk about that one first, and then we'll get it out of the way because I simply, you know, I'm so much on the fence, I really don't know. But here's the possibilities. What Paul is arguing for is that by putting this man outside the community of faith, putting him over into Satan's sphere, you know, delivering him back over to Satan, that the destruction of his flesh, he actually expects some kind of physical thing to happen to the man. Now, that's not unusual for a man like Paul to think, especially when many times he sees a physical thing happening in terms of God's judgment. First Corinthians 11:27 and following is the clearest evidence of this. "For this reason many are sick among you." That is, the judgment of God has come in the form of sickness precisely because they're eating and drinking damnation to themselves as to the way they're handling the Lord's table. There is a real strong possibility, a possible, like I say, everyone, so I just really lean this way, that what Paul expects to happen is to deliver this man over to Satan, that something is going to happen to his literal flesh, that he's somehow going to be consumed in some way that will bring him to salvation.
Now, the other possibility, of course, is that "flesh" ordinarily, and Paul does not mean the physical body. It means the nature of man that has turned sour, sinful. It means that self-centered sinfulness of ours, the flesh that is over against the Spirit. The clearest evidence that Paul doesn't mean body when he says flesh is that the works of the flesh, I have nothing to do with a body. That is, you might try to locate jealousy and anger and envy somewhere. I can't quite put my finger, you know. Those things are, those are the dispositions of the spirits that are self-centered and filled with pride. That's the flesh. The only problem I have with that possibility, of course, is that is that Satan is the refiner of the few. You know, that just, it just seems odd that Paul would think to putting back out there for this destruction of his sinfulness, unless, of course, he's simply using language. This is one of those places where I would suggest we need to take Paul for what he means and not necessarily for what he says. And then I know that's, want us to be very careful in saying a thing like that. Is an exigent? There really are those moments when you know good and well what the Apostle means, but if you analyze his language too closely, you'll find him, you know, saying things that in fact you're sure he doesn't mean. That is, he says, for example, you know, "And doesn't nature teach you?" Well, you know, he doesn't mean nature in the ordinary sense of the word nature. He's got to mean something else, because nature teaches us that men would have long hair. So he's got to mean something like culture. Other words, the word it's got. So we got to take him for what he means and what means. In other words, words have meaning in context to you, remember. And therefore, it's very possible that he's simply using language, "Turned him over to Satan," with the idea that not that Satan himself is going to be the refiner, but that simply the action, the whole total action, will become a means to bring the end to his flesh and salvation again to his life in the Spirit. Now, that's a possibility. We'll let go for that. It's, it's hard to know exactly what Paul intended, but one of those two, certainly.
Now, the real problems, excuse me, the real problems in the text lie in the structures of the Greek grammar. And here we'll simply have to just do a little Greek for you. There are two problems in the text. One has to do with the object of the, the verb. It's actually an infinitive in English that is translated in the RSV in verse 5, "to deliver this man to Satan." Now, the RSV has made a choice here. It says that you are to deliver this man to Satan. Now, the other possibility is that Paul himself has already delivered this man to Satan. That is, it's possible that what Paul meant was, "I have pronounced judgment upon this man and I have delivered him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh." Now, one of the reasons that's very possible is that the only other place that this turning a man over to Satan occurs is in what, 1st or 2nd Timothy 1:20. And in that text, Paul says, "I have delivered him over to Satan." So that indeed is a possibility. But I personally am convinced that the whole structure here demands that Paul says, "I have resolved not personally to deliver him over, but I have pronounced judgment upon this thing, and when you are assembled, you are to take care of this matter." Now, what that says, if that is the correct construction, and I'm personally totally convinced that it is, is that excommunication is not an individual matter. It is a community affair. It is not something that Paul can do in isolation out there by himself in Ephesus. He has, in fact, already pronounced judgment, but the actual proceedings have to take place in community. It is the community that is to deliver this man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit might be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.
Now, that brings me to the other place of difficulty. And here is the one that we're going to spend some time with. It has to do with where we put the prepositional phrase, "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," or "in the name of our Lord Jesus," as the text says. Now, it just so happens that there are three really good options. This is not one of those kinds of places where the thing just tilts real easily. There are three possibilities as to where you put the phrase "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Now, one of them, the one that you'll find no translation taking, but one which is really a good option, is go something like this: Paul says, "I have pronounced judgment," or "I have already pronounced judgment upon the man who has done this thing in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." Now, that's the one that strikes us as the least possible, but that's usually because we're so 20th century bound, it's hard for us to imagine that somebody would have done this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But there are so many indications in that in the Corinthian letter that there are people, people who argue, for example, the way they do in chapter 6:12-20, could have easily argued for doing incest in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Anybody that's going to argue, "All things are possible for me. Food for the body, the body for food, food, you know, the body for sex, sex for the body," is going to easily be able to argue that I am, I have been set free. And it's a kind of a Gnostic argument that has divided the world into matter and spirit, and the spirit is saved, so it doesn't really matter what we do in the body. And therefore, to demonstrate my true freedom in the spirit, I'll practice incest in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. "Crawl somebody in that community is saying, 'Yes, is anathema, Jesus be cursed by the Spirit.'" Now, my guess is that the person that is crying, "Jesus be cursed," would have never said, "Christ be cursed," because he could make a distinction between Jesus meaning the earthly human life, and Christ as the expression of the spiritual life that Jesus had. And he would never say, "Christ be cursed," but he could say, "Jesus be cursed," because the Christ is the Spirit that has come in Jesus and has revealed the truth of the gospel. It's a purely Gnostic phenomenon. It happens all the way through the New Testament. That is, the, this, this incipient Gnosticism that has divided the world in, in a, in a Greek dualistic way between matter and spirit. Listen especially to 1 John. "What is the spirit of the Antichrist except the one who comes and said, 'Who, who denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh?' That's the Antichrist." And then he goes on in chapter 5 and says, "This is the one we proclaim who has come by the water and the spirit." I'm sorry, "by the water and the blood, not by the water alone, but by the water and the blood." Now, that is being spoken to a group of people who call themselves Christians, who believe that the Spirit came on Jesus at his baptism but abandoned Jesus just before he went to the cross. So that when Jesus cried out on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" it is Jesus who was crying that out, but the Christ who came upon Jesus at baptism has now left him. And therefore, they are proclaiming their proclaiming the water, namely baptism, but they're denying that he came in the blood, namely the cross. And anybody that denies that Jesus has come in the flesh is the Antichrist. And the point is, it's very possible that that's what this man was doing in the name of the Lord Jesus. He was doing this. I'm attracted to that possibility, but I don't think it's the right one.
The second possibility is the one in the RSV. "I have pronounced judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ upon this man." And if that's the case, then what we have here is a kind of curse formula. That is, that Paul has pronounced a kind of curse in the name of the Lord, just like you baptize in the name of the Lord. If you pronounce a curse upon the man in the name of the Lord Jesus, that is, it is a kind of a curse formula that expects something to happen to the person because now he has come under the judgment of God by the very pronouncement over him in the name of the Lord Jesus. Now, there's evidence of such things in the New Testament that make that a possibility, and that's the way the RSV has gone. But there's a third possibility. It's the one that's found in the New English Bible and in the New International Version, and I'm convinced is the correct one. "In the name of the Lord Jesus" goes with the verb, or with the phrase, "When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus." And "I am present in spirit and the power of the Lord Jesus is present in that context." You are to turn this man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. Now, why that choice? Well, mostly because in the word, the, the verb that is translated "when you are assembled" is a word that occurs regularly in the New Testament as a technical term for the church gathered, as a gathered assembly. It is a term that occurs in Jesus' language when he says, "When two or three of you are gathered." Now, I want you to notice how often we take that and talk about two or three people standing out here in the hall talking about Jesus. Now, okay, by extended application, perhaps that's okay. But what Jesus was talking about was that technical thing when you have assembled, namely, when you have that special time when you have assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Now, that leads me to suggest to you that the real clue to this action lies right here. And it is, it isn't until we come to grips with the real nature of this action in terms of the, the almost certain possibility in tasting, in my case, almost certain possibility, that "in the name of the Lord Jesus" goes with this verb. What Paul says is, "I have pronounced judgment upon this man." Now, "when you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus," that means when you have that special moment when you gather as the church. Now, that leads me to say some things in a more contemporary way for a, see if we can help to understand the kind of, you know, the kind of thinking that goes on here. One of the great tragedies of 20th century Christianity is that people go to church. If I could get people to stop going to church, I would be halfway down the road to triumph in the church. To go to church, I defy you to find that in the New Testament anywhere. Remember, I suggested this morning in one of the lectures that our language betrays us. And here is one of those cases where our language really does betray us. When you start talking about "going to church," you're completely missing the biblical language. The biblical language is "when you assemble as a church." And the difference between "going to church" and "assembling as a church" is the difference between any group of people simply gathered together for a common purpose and the special gathering which is the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ where the power of God is present. I go, I happen to be a baseball, or you name it, sports fan. People go to church. And only you Americans in the last year will understand this particular metaphor. But people go to church with about the same expectancy as Bostonians went, went to see the Red Sox play last year. They hoped, but they really didn't expect much. I go to see the Red Sox. I go to the soccer game. I go to the basketball game. I go to the town meeting. But I don't go to church. We assemble as the church. We are already the church. We're out there in the world being the church. But there are those special times when we gather out of the world into the common corporate community. And the language of the New Testament is to assemble as the church. People who go to church go as spectators, and they don't expect anything. They hope, but they don't expect. And they hope not in a biblical sense of that word, but in the more contemporary English sense of that word. And when you go to church, you spend a lot of time in front of the mirror because you're going to be seen by others, and you're conscious of what you're going to look like. But when you assemble as a church, you have already been the church in the world, and you know that you're the church in the world, and you know that your brothers and sisters have been out there slugging it out in the trenches and are hurting and bleeding. And you come together in the name of the Lord Jesus expecting the power of the Lord Jesus to be present to heal and to minister and to and to make lives whole again. And you're going to be a part of the process, not the preacher, not a paid song leader, not some special leader, but the whole church assembles to minister to one another in the name of the Lord Jesus.
You see, the old geometry breaks down when the church gathers. The old geometry says the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. That means count up the faces, the bodies, and that's the whole. Well, it's quite clear from this text that that's not true. The whole is equal to more than the sum of its parts. And the reason for that is that the presence of the Lord Jesus is there, and the presence of the Apostle Paul is there. And that's one of the remarkable things. That's the one we tend to leave out. That I think this is exactly what the early church meant in its creed when it says, "I believe in the communion of the saints." That somehow, in some mystical way, whenever the church is assembled, all of the church, in some way, is present in that one embryonic expression of it. That we belong to the universal Church, even when we're only one small expression of that universal Church. The whole church is assembled, and the power of the Lord Jesus is present, and we expect them.
Now, this is the text that I tend to take along with the text in 3:16 and 17. You understand, when I begin to preach, "The church is God's alternative." It is not only an alternative because of the kind of community it is that is invaded by the Spirit, but it is an alternative when it comes to worship. It is a community that assembled in the name of the Lord is so powerful that God is so present among us and so visible in His expressions and in His glory precisely because we come open. There are some of those times when we come hurting, but we know that we're going to be healing, and we know that we're going to be healed because we can't wait to get there because we know that the community is assembling in the name of the Lord, and that gives me hope. But there are going to be those other times when we go as a part of the ministry, and we go because we know that there are others who are going to be hurting, and we want to be a part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit that's going to lay hands upon somebody and see them restored into full fellowship in Christ. See the bleeding wounds that have been opened during the week healed and forgiven, made whole, strengthened.
Now, you see, the reason for spending time here is that it isn't until we hear that that we can already go on to chapter five. Because this is the kind of community that this man is being excluded from. Remember we said this morning in the lecture about the churches, the community, the Spirit, you see, the church is the only alternative God has. And once this man has been put outside the church, he has been put out into death. Because the only place for him to have life is where life is occurring, namely in the church. Now, do you hear what I'm saying? The problem we have with this, with this text in the 20th century, there's a reason we don't preach from it, is because the church doesn't look like this. So I would say, you know, leave it alone until the church looks like this. Because if we were to carry out this action in the 20th century church, that guy just goes down the street to another one. And if a man can leave your assembly and go down the church to another one, and not any has to work, take it or leave it, then the problem probably isn't with the man, you understand. The problem probably lies with the community that he can take or leave. If it's really possible that a person has been deriving his very lifeblood through the ministry of the Spirit and the community of faith where the Spirit is present in the gathered assembly, if he has been ministered to and God is affecting life in that man, he can't simply take it or leave it. And that's precisely what Paul has in mind. And that's exactly what he means when he says, "Turn him over to Satan."
Paul has a kind of a view of things. I left that open too long. But there are two spheres of God's activity. There's the activity of the Spirit, the sphere of the Spirit, and there's the sphere of Satan. And we were once in this sphere, and now Paul says that we have been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His own dear Son. We have been removed from Satan's sphere into the community of the Spirit. Now, this man is being put back out into the sphere of Satan, and he's being cut off from where God is doing His work. And it's the only place God is doing His work. I know some of you say, "Oh no, he really handles, he touches individuals." He only touches individuals to make them a part of the community, you understand. He doesn't save a man and let him sit out there in isolation. There is no such thing as a Christian sitting out there in isolation. A Christian means to become a part of the body. It can't mean anything else in the New Testament. Therefore, the very salvation of the man is to put him back out here so that he might be saved. You know what the reason for the excommunication is? It's to put him outside so that he'll repent because he'll want to come back in. Now, here's again one of those moments, you know, when I almost weep. Would to God that the church were the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ in such an atmosphere. Somebody has put outside, and if he's put outside, needs to be put out where it's death, to be cut off from the table, from the fellowship of the table, is to like lose life itself. Be the thing that will bring a man to repentance that he might be saved.
Well, now, our time is hastening on, and I don't want to spend all of the time here because there's another thing I want to look at in this text, and that's down in the illustration. Paul says, "You're boasting isn't any good." And in the process of this, he says he affirms what is almost certainly a common proverb, since he cites it in Galatians 5:9 and he cites it in a way there that just makes it just absolutely certain that this is a proverb. That is, "This isn't something that Paul just made up on the spot. This is just common proverb." "A little leaven leavens the whole lump, don't you know that?" He says, "A little leaven leavens the whole lump." Everybody knows that. Now, the point.
Is he's going to apply it in this situation and how does he apply it? Well, the little leaven, of course, is the incestuous man, and the loaf is the community. Now, having given that, you know, that proverb, and having those particulars, that is identifying, he says, cleanse out the old leaven, namely this man, why? In order that you might be a new unleavened loaf, even as you are unleavened. Now, isn't that beautiful? One of the great troubles that we have in Christian theology is that it's got to be logical, whatever else. And that, that's that's somewhat unfortunate because the scripture deals more in, in what I call the tensions of things being held that seem paradoxical than it does resolving all of those paradoxes.
Now, I don't want to get into trouble with why, wham, but I'm not one of those who's overly concerned about resolving the paradox between the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. And the reason I'm not concerned about resolving that paradox is precisely because the New Testament doesn't. It affirms both the sovereignty of God and the freedom of man simultaneously. Now, I will admit, if I'm going to err, I'm going to err on the side of the prophet of the sovereignty of God. I would rather have my theology have God at its center rather than man. But nonetheless, it affirms that God.
Now, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Oh, no, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who was at work in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. The Christian affirms that when he is walking in the will of God and walking in the spirit and working out his salvation in the world, it is God who was at work willing in him and doing his good pleasure. Now, he affirms that great text of the New Testament affirms that there is simultaneously, as it were, God's sovereignty over our lives, predestination, and our responsibility in that.
Now, don't ask me to work all of that out. Best illustration I can give it as the outside of the door says, "Whosoever will may come." And then once you get on the inside of the door and look back, the same door says, "Chosen from the foundation of the world." Predestination, therefore, isn't something that happens before the fact. It's something that one recognizes after the fact. It is something that one looks back upon. It says, "The grace of God, in a way that I can't understand, but here I am, I'm one of his." It's a deep appreciation that somehow, even my walking through that door has somehow been something that the grace of God has effected in my life.
Now, the point of all of that is that Paul, what Paul says here, he says, "Cleanse out the old leaven because you already are an unleavened loaf." Now, how in the world? Well, I'm not gonna have time to get all of this on tape, but we're gonna get started and try to bring some conclusion to that. But here it is. The great question in Christian theology is where you put the indicative and the imperative together. Now, I know that you'd never do that, but we're gonna solve that one for you, okay? How do you wrestle with the indicative and the imperative?
Now, the indicative is a vertical line. It is God's pronouncement of our acceptance. God says, "You're mine. You're forgiven. I accept you." You know, how are you going to come into an indicative? "I accept you." Great question in Christian theology is where do you put the imperative with regard to that indicative? Now, heresy puts it out here. It says, "Do good in order that God will." In other words, it puts the imperative before the indicative, and the indicative becomes an "in order that." You do good in order that you might receive the blessing of God, in order that you might be accepted by God. And that is heresy. The entire letter to Galatians was written to condemn that forever.
But there are a lot of Christians that have taken the imperative out altogether because they've read Galatians so well, and that's not biblical either. What Paul does is he puts the imperative after the indicative. The imperative is, "Do good because I have accepted you." And Christianity, religion, is grace, and ethics is gratitude. God has graciously accepted you, and your response to that grace is to do his will. You don't do his will in order to be received. You are received, and because you're received, gratitude flows in the form of an imperative that says, "Be as the Father." What we said the other day, "Become what you are." You are the child of God. Now, become that. That's exactly what's going on in this text. Paul says, "Cleanse out the old leaven," but not in order that you might be. He says, "Because you already are." In fact, this is what you are. Get with being what you are. And that's the entire nature of the Christian imperative. The Christian imperative is not some good work you have to do in order to get God's favor. It's the very thing you're going to want to do because you're in his favor by his grace. And that's why the Christian ethic is a remarkably radically different thing than any other ethic that stands on the face of the earth. Okay, I see that hand.