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.
Verse 1
That there is fornication; that is, a case of fornication.--His father's wife; his step-mother. Such a marriage was universally considered, even among the heathen nations, as criminal.
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,
Verse 4
And my spirit; I being with you in spirit, exercising the power with which Christ has invested me.
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.
Verse 5
To deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Some suppose that this expression refers to a miraculous power with which the apostles were invested, and which Paul here intended to authorize the Corinthian church, to employ, for the punishment of this criminal, by subjecting him to bodily disease and suffering, through the agency of Satan, in judgment for his sin. Others suppose that the phrase delivering him to Satan, is a figurative expression, meaning his excommunication from the church, which would be removing him from the kingdom of Christ, into the visible kingdom of Satan; and that by the destruction of the flesh, is meant the subduing and eradicating of those fleshly lusts, which had causeD him to sin.
6.
Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
Verse 6
Your glorying; your self-complacency, and satisfaction with your condition, while such a sin remains unpunished.--Leaven. The Jews, in keeping the passover, were required to use only unleavened bread, the better to commemorate the haste and confusion in which they left Egypt, and which prevented the preparation of bread in the usual manner. From the very nature of leaven, tending, as it does, so strongly to disseminate itself, it was necessary to avoid admitting the smallest quantity into the mixture from which the bread was to be prepared. Hence leaven, as a prohibited thing which had a powerful tendency to spread from small beginnings until it pervaded the whole mass, became an apt emblem of sin, and is often so made use of by many of the sacred writers.
7.
Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
Verse 7
As ye are unleavened; required to be unleavened, that is, pure.--Christ our passover. It was only at the time of the passover that the Jews were required to abstain from the use of leaven. The sacrifice of Christ is therefore represented as a passover, to compete the figure.
8.
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9.
I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
Verse 9
In an epistle; apparently referring to, some former Epistle, now lost.
10.
Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
Verse 10
Yet not altogether, &c. The sense is, that he did not mean to cut them off from all communication with vicious men, who were of this world,--that is, who were not of the church,--and whose vices, of course, did not compromise the purity and character of the church; but only, as is explained in the 1 Corinthians 5:11, from every such one, who is called a brother; that is, who, being joined with them in name, would bring upon them the reproach of his sins. Thus it seems that special precautions are necessary to avoid countenancing the sins of those, who make pretensions to piety.
11.
But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
Verse 11
No,not to eat. By thus refusing all intercourse with him, they were to show the world that they utterly, disavowed and reprobated his doings. In those times, there Was no other mode by which so distinct and effectual a disavowal could be made.
12.
For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
Verse 12
Without; without the church.
13.
But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
Verse 13
That wicked person; viz., the person of whom he had been speaking in the former part of the chapter. What is said in 2 Corinthians 2:5-10 is generally considered as referring to this case; and, if so, it shows that the discipline here enjoined was successful in bringing the sinner to repentance and reformation.