1 Corinthians 5
A man in the Corinthian church is sleeping with his father's wife. The pagans next door would blush at it; even they had a name for that kind of shame. And the church is proud. They read their tolerance as a sign of how free and mature the gospel has made them. Paul is not impressed. He is astounded. They should be on their knees grieving, and instead they are puffed up.1
His remedy turns on bread. A little leaven works through the whole lump, so the old leaven has to go. Then the image opens wide: Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us. A Lamb has been slain, a people redeemed, and that changes what the gathered church may carry. This is the chapter's living center. Everything Paul says about discipline flows from it. You keep the feast clean because of what the Lamb has already done.
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
1 Corinthians 5:1-2A Fornication Not Even Named Among the Gentiles
1It 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.
Paul opens with a scandal that defies belief. The man is not married to the woman; he has taken his father's wife - a stepmother, perhaps, or a widow. The Mosaic law forbade it (Leviticus 18:8). Pagan law forbade it. "Not even named among the Gentiles" means this act was so shameful that pagans did not even speak of it as something a man might do. Yet in Corinth, this happened. And the church knew.
2And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned; that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
The shocking word is not the sin; it is the swelling. A man is unraveling his own life in their midst, and the church has grown proud about it - inflated, self-satisfied, sure this is what maturity looks like. What is missing is grief. No ache for the brother destroying himself, no sense that anything is wrong. That is the real diagnosis. You can tell how alive a heart is by what still breaks it, and theirs had stopped breaking.
1 Corinthians 5:3-5Delivered Unto Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh
3For 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, 4In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 5To 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.
Paul commands the church to "deliver such an one unto Satan." This is not damnation. It is removal from the church - a handing over to the sphere outside God's protection, the realm where Satan reigns. The aim is redemptive: "that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." The expulsion is meant to awaken the man to his condition. Sometimes love requires removing the comfort that enables a brother to persist in sin.
1 Corinthians 5:6Your Glorying Is Not Good
6Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
They were boasting about the wrong thing. The very situation that should have bent them low had become a trophy - proof, they thought, of how broad and free and unshockable their faith had grown. Paul cuts the legs out from under it in five words. What Corinth called enlightenment was decay dressed up as virtue. Looking the other way is not maturity. It is slow death.
The question is rhetorical. Of course a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Paul is invoking a common experience - the visible, tangible truth that a small corruption spreads. If the church allows one member to persist in grave sin, that permission does not stay localized. It infects the church's standards, its witness, its moral seriousness.
1 Corinthians 5:7For Even Christ Our Passover Is Sacrificed for Us
7Purge 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:
There is a small word here that changes everything: as. Clean out the old leaven, Paul says, since you already are unleavened. He does not tell them to become pure so they can belong to Christ. He tells them to clean house because they already do. The command is not a ladder up to holiness; it is the shape of a holiness already given. Be what you are. That order is the whole gospel in miniature.
1 Corinthians 5:8Keep the Feast in Sincerity and Truth
8Therefore 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.
The word for sincerity is the loveliest in the verse. Eilikrineia means, roughly, "judged in sunlight" - the test of holding a thing up to the light to see whether it is pure or full of hidden cracks. That is the bread Paul wants on the table. Not the stale loaf of malice and old grudges, but a life you would be glad to hold up to the sun. The feast is not a single ritual you attend. It is a whole life kept honest and out in the open, where there is nothing left to hide.
1 Corinthians 5:9-10Separation From the Church, Not From the World
9I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators; 10Yet 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:
Paul refers to an earlier letter - a letter now lost to us. In it, he commanded the Corinthians not to keep company with fornicators. But the Corinthians have apparently misunderstood. They may have thought Paul meant they should withdraw from all sinful people, which would be impossible in a pagan city. Paul clarifies.
The point is subtle but essential. Christians cannot separate themselves entirely from unbelievers who live in sin. To do so would require leaving the world entirely. Christians are meant to live in the world as witnesses, as salt and light. They are called to maintain friendships, to do business, to live among pagans. The separation Paul calls for is not from the world, but from the church's own members who claim to follow Christ yet persist in grave sin.
1 Corinthians 5:11-12Judge Those Within; Leave the Rest to God
11But 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. 12For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
The phrase is precise: "if any man that is called a brother." The distinction hinges on the claim to follow Christ. If someone bears the name of Christian - a "brother" - yet lives in grave sin without repentance, the church must withdraw fellowship. This is not judgment in the sense of determining worth or destiny. It is church discipline - a boundary-setting act meant to awaken and redeem.
Paul makes a sharp distinction. "For what have I to do to judge them also that are without?" The church does not judge unbelievers. That judgment belongs to God. But "do not ye judge them that are within?" The church is responsible for its own members. This is not a contradiction of Jesus' teaching ("Judge not, that ye be not judged"). Rather, it is a clarification: the church is called to discern and maintain its own integrity. The world's judgment belongs to God alone.
1 Corinthians 5:13Put Away the Wicked Person
13But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
No more argument. The chapter lands on one plain command: act. Remove him. This is not God writing the man off; it is a holy people, bought with blood, refusing to pretend. And it is mercy in disguise. Sometimes the only thing that wakes a person up is finally being allowed to feel the weight of where they are.
Further study
- Exodus 12 - The PassoverSefariaComplete text of the first Passover with Hebrew and multiple translations - the redemption narrative Paul echoes throughout 1 Corinthians 5.
- Second-Temple regulations on unleavened bread and festival observance, showing how leaven imagery carries sacred weight in Jewish practice.
- Detailed Mosaic prohibitions on forbidden sexual relationships including incest - the Levitical backdrop for Paul's porneia language.
- Porneia in Classical GreekPerseus ScaifeClassical occurrences of porneia and related sexual terminology in Greek literature - showing Paul's word within its linguistic context.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Delivered Unto Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh
- Hebrews 12:5-11For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth… afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness.The same logic Paul uses here: discipline is the proof of sonship, aimed at fruit, not ruin.
- Revelation 3:19As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.Christ’s own words pairing rebuke with love and calling for repentance.
- 2 Corinthians 2:6-8Sufficient to such a man is this punishment… ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him.The likely sequel - the disciplined man repents, and Paul urges the church to restore him.
- 1 Timothy 1:20Whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.The same striking phrase used elsewhere, again with a corrective, not a final, aim.
For Even Christ Our Passover Is Sacrificed for Us
- John 1:29Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.The Baptist names Jesus as the Lamb; Paul assumes the church already knows it.
- Exodus 12:21-23Kill the passover… and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood… the LORD will pass over the door.The original night of blood on the doorposts that Paul is reading Christ into.
- 1 Peter 1:18-19Redeemed… with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.The lamb’s required spotlessness, now applied directly to Jesus.
- Revelation 5:9Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.The slain Lamb worshipped at the center of heaven - the same sacrifice, seen from the other side.
Put Away the Wicked Person
- Deuteronomy 17:7So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.One of several places this exact refrain falls in the law; Paul drops it straight onto the church.
- Matthew 5:29-30If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out… that one of thy members should perish, and not… the whole body.Christ’s surgeon image: cut away what destroys you so the whole self is saved.
- Matthew 18:15-17Tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man.Jesus’ own ordered process for the kind of removal Paul commands.
- Galatians 6:1Restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.The posture that keeps discipline from curdling into pride - the very pride Corinth had.