I Corinthians 5:1  It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.
2  And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
3  For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
4  In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5  To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6  Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

In this chapter we are introduced to a sin that was allowed to go unchecked in the church in Corinth because of the carnality of the saints in Corinth. They were so busy fighting over who they should follow, that they were actually not following any one of those names. They were saved, but they were not submissive to the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ. If they would have been submissive to the Lord Jesus Christ, they would never have allowed this sin in chapter 5.
God is warning us of a problem we still face today. There are things that the devil gets us thinking about and debating, that are a smokescreen to keep us from paying attention to the root problem. Some years ago, when Ken Ham was pretending to be a straight shooter, he had a presentation of the lies of evolution. In that presentation he showed how the evolutionists attack the foundation of Christianity by attacking the Bible and the existence of God. On the other hand he stated that the “Christians” attack the issues like abortion and sodomy, etc. rather than attacking the foundation of evolution. The issues are important but the root cause needs to be exposed. The God of Creation is not up for debate. There is only ONE TRUE GOD. There is A God and He has declared Who He is and He has revealed Who He is to mankind through His Word and through the evidence He has given us in the world.
The church in Corinth had accepted the deception of the devil in fighting over personalities and ignoring the need for holiness in their hearts and lives.
The church in Corinth had no good testimony at this point. It was commonly reported that there was fornication among them. No true church should even be known for such sin. No true church will be without sin. However, open sin like this cannot be accepted among those who are saved. Not only was there immorality being practiced in this church, but it was of such a nature as was not even named among the Gentiles. The “Gentiles” here is being used as a term for the ungodly. The apostles were all Jews. Jesus Christ came into this world as a Jew. The first church was at Jerusalem, a Jewish city. The apostles began their ministry reaching out to the Jews. The apostle Paul was told that he was to be the apostle to the Gentiles. He was reluctant to go that route and he began his ministry to the Jews. God continued to work in his heart and through opposition from the Jews, he finally turned to the Gentiles. He still addressed the Jews but he also reached out to the Gentiles. The result of that is that there were churches established among the Gentiles and there was also the understanding that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek (Galatians 3:28). When a person is truly saved, the nationality is secondary. We do not need Jewish churches and Gentile churches. We need to be in Christ and that takes away that division.
In our text not even the ungodly were allowing this kind of sin. The sin was a man who was committing immorality with his father’s wife. We do not have all the details how this was happening, but we have all the information we need to know that what was being done was wicked.
In verse 2 we read that the saints were puffed up in the midst of this sin. They were not saddened by this open sin. They seemed to just take it in stride. They were not trying to remove this man from their midst. They were turning a blind eye to this sin. There was no effort to have a true church. How could they be concerned about that, they were carnal! They were not building their lives on truth, even though they had been saved by hearing the truth. What a dire situation. There is no way that God could allow this condition to continue in any true church.
There have been many reports that there is a high rate of immorality in many churches today. Many churches have given all churches a bad name because the world does not discern between a true church and a corrupt church. Many professing Christians paint all churches with the same filthy brush. Those who are saved need to go back and look at what Jesus said about the church He was building. They need to look at what the apostles were told to write about the local church.
There are many corrupt churches. There is no argument here on that point. However, Jesus promised that He would build His church upon Himself. Jesus is not a liar. That was not a fictitious entity that could not be located. Jesus addressed the needs of 7 local churches in Revelation 2&3. They were real churches that were representative of all churches through the ages.
The church in Corinth was a true church, but very corrupt. We see that God did not allow this corruption to carry on. The apostle Paul was directed to address this. God did not give them an option on how they needed to respond to this sin. We have this record to show us how we need to deal with sin. We cannot allow sin to go unchecked in a true local church.
Jesus gave clear commands on how to deal with local church issues in Matthew 18. The local church must submit to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. The local pastor is not the final and absolute authority. The Lord Jesus Christ is the final and absolute authority. The pastor of a true local church must demonstrate his submission to that authority. He cannot turn a blind eye to sin. Jesus Christ tells us how a local church must function. A true church cannot sweep sin under the rug. A local church must be seeking to be pure.
In verse 3 the apostle Paul reminded them that he was not personally with them, but in spirit he was with them. He was acting as though he were there with them. As an apostle he had the authority from God to address this issue even though he was not present in that church. In our time, there are no apostles. The Bible does not support denominationalism. The local church is to be an independent body of believers who are under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and led by a godly pastor. If needed the pastor can appoint deacons to help with the needs of the local church. There is no outside source of human authority for the local church. Jesus Christ is the head of every true church. The pastor and all others must submit to His authority. His authority is revealed to us in the Word of God.
In verse 4 Paul stated that his authority was the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, Paul stated that he was with them in spirit. He also told them that he was acting under the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In verse 5 Paul stated that this man should be delivered over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. This sin was serious and could not continue. God was directing Paul to write this. God does allow the devil to attack people. We know that Satan was given permission to attack Job. That was not to punish Job. It was to prove that a true saint will not turn away from God. Job needed to learn some things, and he did learn them. He needed to learn to trust God even when things did not make sense to him.
In our text, God would allow Satan to attack this man’s flesh in order to get him to the place of being broken. It seems that this man and the wife are not repentant at this point. We see here that God holds the man accountable for this sin. It is not that the woman was innocent, but the man cannot conduct himself in such a manner and get away with it. He cannot hide behind the woman and blame her. As we read on in this passage, it seems this man is a saved man, but certainly not an obedient child of God.
We can see that this matter was not something to be taken lightly. This sin needed to be stopped and the local church needed to do its part in exposing this sin and putting a stop to it.
In verse 6 Paul needed to rebuke this whole church. They were glorying in this sin. The saints should have been sorrowing over this sin, not puffed up about it. You notice here that God was not writing off this church. He did not tell the saints to leave this church. He told them to repent and deal with the problem. We know that if they would not have done so, then the church would eventually crumble as the 7 churches in Revelation 2&3 did. God is longsuffering. He tells us how we must live if we are saved. We need to take God’s Word seriously.
The saints in Corinth needed to understand that this sin was affecting the entire church. Even though it was one man that was leading in this sin, it was affecting the whole body. The entire church was being smeared by this sin. In fact this open sin was seeking to bring shame to the Gospel. True saints are changed at salvation. Thus this sin cannot continue on. This is not the nature of a true saint. This is an act of defiance against what a true saint is.
Paul used a very practical illustration to bring this point to bear upon them. The women would know the power of leaven in a dough. They would know that the proportion of leaven was quite small in comparison to the flour used in the dough. In the spiritual sense, what might seem like a little sin was affecting the entire body. This was not a ‘little’, sin, but it was one man committing immorality with one woman. That one situation was bad for the entire body.
The duty of leadership in the local church is important. Sometimes there are things that must be dealt with that we would rather not deal with. However, the love of God must dominate. God shows us here that the local church is to be a light in a dark world. If the local church is condoning sin, it is not that light.
Those who are saved need to take God’s Word seriously. We need to submit to His authority and we need to walk humbly with Him. We need to pray for godly pastors and we need to encourage them to glorify God in their lives. We do not need social clubs. We need to heed what Paul wrote:

I Timothy 3:15  But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

Pastor Bartel