1 Corinthians 5 Explained: Church Discipline & Christ Our Passover | J. Dan Gill & Anthony Buzzard

21st Century Reformation: Chapter five, verse one, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you. And of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans. For a man has his father's wife. my goodness. Verse 2. And you were arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. Very sharp. Wow. That's the point. Yeah. Verse three, for though absent in body I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment. On the one who did such a thing. Yes. Wow. Verse four. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. Wow, it's it's really a it's very direct, very very sharp, very strong. take this to be that he will be crippled by some terrible disease and this will bring him to his senses something ultimately get saved. That's right. It's interesting that you ought to hand this man over to I the apostle, but you people had better hand this man over to Satan. Wow. It's certain that he cannot serve Satan and carry on in the congregation as though nothing was wrong. This is a not only is it unacceptable for the congregation Others may then be disturbed as they should. Others will be upset, others will follow his example and think it doesn't matter, how they conduct themselves. What will the world say about the church? Yes, and what will the world say? What sort of impression are you getting? Well even Gentiles don't get up to this sort of thing mostly, right? That's right, that's right. my lamb the ordination of homosexuals and all of that. Which would be parallel things which are tolerated and Paul I think would be aghast for some of the things that go on. Totally unacceptable. And and not just things that relate to a particular era and time as people often say well that was Paul but it's about the human condition. That's it. And it's about our relationship with what's acceptable in the sight of God. That's that hasn't changed. That hasn't changed. It never changes. So I think you're right too and it's going to become evident this was also the appropriate thing for the man who was involved in this wrongdoing. This is a way in which he w actually would be helped. Yes. apparently he was very strident in in his conduct in his ill conduct. And so the way that Paul directs that the the church congregation should handle this matter is to set him out from among them. It's not impro acceptable that he would continue. We don't know now how the story ended. Yeah. We'll find out one day whether that effect was was brought about. I like to think about being present in the spirit and not present in the body. It's nothing to do with be with being dead, by the way. See, they've transferred this to the state of death. It's nothing to do with that. But Paul is there thinking about them and yet not there physically. That's fine. We can deal with that, but it's nothing to do with him dying and going to heaven. More than more than the mind of Paul. Absolutely which is the mind of Christ. If they we have the mind of Christ, we have the spirit of Christ, you Paul then by extension might say my spirit is with you. Absolutely. Meaning his mind is wisdom and which is the wisdom of the world. His children, right. Yeah. So they might do those things that he's saying and count it as though Paul were actually present with them. That's how firm and solid this is obviously right. Yeah. Very clear. It's not difficult material. No, no, it's actually very strong. Also shows though how important it is that wrongdoing not be accepted as the norm in churches. And nowadays that isn't I mean we see that happening I think a lot, even in evangelical churches. We unfortunately, where we decide to e accept error wrongdoing as the norm. And this is totally unacceptable according to the Bible. How would we say that the Bible is the word of God and then ignore nor these areas of that. Very bad. One ought to say the system doesn't work. When you look at the divorce rate apparently in the evangelical church, it's more or less the same as outside the church. Yes. Yes. Anybody with half an inch of intelligence would have to say, listen, this system doesn't work. Yes. So let's sit down on Monday and say, what's going wrong here? Yes. It doesn't happen. It tends to grind on. Yeah. But that's a very telling statistic if it's anywhere near right. I like the the statement Paul made about how that we should not grieve the spirit of God. Absolutely. we can do we can actually grieve God by our conduct in such inappropriate ways. Glad you mentioned that because the spirit is clearly not impersonal. Yes. It's one of those things I I've tried to correct, you know. We tend to go from one extreme to the other. Well the spirit is not a third person. I see that. Yes, no but is the spirit impersonal? Yes, yes. Very personal 'cause you can't grieve an impersonal thing. Right, right. The spirit is God or Jesus in person operating. That makes good sense of that doctrine. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Verse six. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Verse eight, let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, but The leaven of malice evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and proof. Wow. Very important to my Armstrong friends, you see, we said, let's keep be keeping feasts, so in other words we've got to keep it that pass over week. And we missed the point entirely because the verb there to be technical is is a progressive present tense. So let us be keeping the festival continuously. Continuously, yeah. And then as if that's not enough, he talks about the unleavened bread of genuineness, not literally. were busy vacuuming our cars and our houses, you know, for that one week in the year. How very misguided that was. Yes, we were trying to get it right, but we got it terribly wrong. Well intended but but very mistaken. Off the mark. Off the mark. Completely, yeah that's right. Yes. Well I think it this isn't hard to see in context that they're going to keep this this feast in a spiritual sense. Spiritual why not? And They're going to clear out the leaven, not literal leaven like they did under moses' law. But they're going to clear out the leaven of insincerity and clear out the leaven of of untruth. Absolutely. And and then celebrate continually, daily. Absolutely. On a daily basis. The the the feast In the in the spiritual sense. And Christ is our Passover. He is our Passover Lamb, for goodness sake. So that's certainly spiritual. And people to this day are still insisting on obedience to the letter. He is the letter of the law of Moses, as you say, from the spirit of the law of Messiah. Yes, yes. There is actually a rabbinical saying which says that when Messiah comes, keeping the Torah of Messiah, they use that phrase, Rabbi Summon. Yes. It will be as though keeping the Torah of Moses was nothing. That's a very interesting thing. They recognise that when Messiah's Torah comes, it will be as if you never even bothered to keep any Torah. I mean they're trying to make the point that Messiah's Torah that comes in rabbinical writings, that phrase. That all by the way is in a Billabek. That's a commentary on the New Testament from the Midrash and the and the Torah f from the Jewish writings in Talmud. It's a only in German, unfortunately. But it's an absolute treasure because it shows how much of this is reflected in Jewish circles, you know? Wow. The Torah of Messiah in the spirit. it's it's the law in the spirit, but not the law in the letter. Right. That's very clear to me. And not to mention also this, I think it's unfortunate to see Gentile folks. who maybe again well intended but very misguided thinking, well we're going to keep yes the Passover. Yes. Well, if you mean we're gonna keep it in the spiritual sense, with Christ as your Passover lamb and with this bread of sincerity and truth and and so on. Then great, yes we all do that and as you say, regularly, all all the time. All time. but on the other hand, yes if you as a Gentile say, I'm really going to keep the Passover in a literal sense, not spiritually, but in a literal sense. Then Gentiles, it seems to me, are actually forbidden from participating in that feast. Unless they want to be full proselyte. They're going to have to become an absolute proselyte, cross over to to Judaism. That's a great point in order to be able to do That's why Paul is so radical. There's only one commentator I know, Jim Tabor, who was formerly in the Armstrong movement, now he's teaching with Jews, I think. Yes. He's bold enough to say that Paul says to all of them Jew and Gentile don't get circumcised. Most commentators don't want to quite risk that but then you divide the church. Well, the Jews should still be circumcised, but not the Gentile. That's not quite radical enough. So Jim Taber points out that Paul says, I'm telling all of you now in Galatians, do not get physically circumcised. That's the exact opposite of Genesis seventeen. Yes, yes. Isn't that radical? That that is tremendous. So if we say, well, the Gentiles certainly shouldn't do that, but well, we can let the Jews keep the new moons and the Sabbath. I don't think Paul was in favor of that because then you've divided the church. Of course, that's right. Which is the problem that they had at Antioch then in Galatians, where that we have certain brethren from James coming and then the problem between but it was all about That very clear issue. It took a while to work through that, yeah. Sure it did. James was I think a little slower. Peter, you know, went back on on where he was. Paul is leading the flock there. Yeah. This was his this was his thing, right there. Unity at all costs. Isn't that fascinating? So we see in the New Testament then some growth and and some errors in a way. We're not they're not errors in the absolute sense, but we can see them fumbling along until they all get it clear of the lesson for us. Exactly. Well and the the fifteenth chapter banks of course was a landmark moment in in all of this and and tremendous it is. And that's a big subject because keeping the new moons. I I say to people, if you really want to keep the Sabbath and the holy days, you must keep the new moons. It's all part of the same trio in Colossians two that and I wish you luck, you know, teaching your neighbor to keep the new moons. What are you gonna do? Stare at the moon every first day of the month? I I don't think this helps the cause at all. Yeah, that's right. Wow. Verse nine. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Not at all, meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. Absolutely. But now I'm r writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother. If he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater or reviler or drunkard or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. Wow. Verse twelve. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among you. my goodness. I I like that a lot. So we are we are to judge, but Paul's domain of judgment is strictly the Christian fellowship. Heaven forbid we should try to judge the world now. We are going to judge the world. Get to that in chapter six. Right. But right now, you'd have to leave the world entirely, would you not? Yes. And and this kind of judgment, judgment in the best sense, judgment in the right sense of the word, has a essential role to play in the conduct of the church. And here we find an example of that. Discrimination, right? Obviously. Discernment. Right. Otherwise you're approving sin and that's Disaster if you say, well it doesn't matter what you do. Exactly. That's a terrible appro approval of error. So then then the whole the whole s program collapses. It really does. Yeah, that's right. Then you're gonna get the extreme of that is that people want to judge us if we keep a birthday or a wedding anniversary, or the length of hair exactly to the inch. So that's carrying that judgment principle far too far in in and none of which do you have direct scripture that forbids those things or directs those matters. Here we do have though. Sexual immorality is addressed head on, very clearly. There's no question as and that it's inappropriate and unexcepted. Absolutely, because you're going to lose your salvation if you continue unrepentant in the area of adultery, drunkenness, homosexuality and so on. He listened you're not going to be in the kingdom, so you might as well forget about being a Christian. Forget any venture is vain. Paul speaks of that in in other locations. Those who are of such a conduct of life and he's talking about Christians, he said they will not inherit not the kingdom of God. So these things are very important but and appropriate, proper judgment absolutely is also very appropriate. I think necessary. Yes. That was a short chapter. It was. But some important principles laid out there. Yes, very compelling actually, I think, as you get used to Paul, you know, over these many years. I find him very convincing. That's right, yeah. I don't know how you would successfully sit down and and refute Paul. It just people People don't really refute him today. Those who are his o opposition today want to wave him off. Yes. They they don't really want to say, here's where he's wrong and here's where instead they just say, he's not an apostle. He's false or something like that. This is ridiculous. I believe in Jesus but not in Paul. That's a disaster. Yeah, a terrible idea. And then there are books, even commentaries, who try to undermine what Paul obviously said. And and I was Paul was pro Mosaic laws. In the spirit, he certainly is in favour of every Jart and Tittle, as was Jesus. However, fulfilling the law doesn't mean keeping it all in the letter. That's right, that's right. If it did, then everybody wanting to be part of the program has to be physically circumcised. We know Paul's saying. So the text that's so powerful in Galatians, he says, let me tell you, all of you. If you get physically circumcised, brackets don't do it. And you will be obliged to keep the whole law, don't do it. So tell me what is this whole law which you shouldn't keep? You know what's interesting there too, Anthony, just earlier in the same book of Galatians, Paul has pointed out that you do not have the option of choosing picking and choosing what you will do with the law. This is an all or nothing right program. Exactly right. That so if you're going to keep the law then and and mean and literally keep the law then you are bound then to keep the entire law. The law itself requires that so isn't it much better to celebrate the spirit The things of the Spirit of God, which the law foreshadowed, but now we participate in. Let's rejoice in that. And let's let's keep that feast, not literally like they did, but let's keep it with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. my goodness. And put away the the leaven, you know, in this case It's the evil working in this particular man for goodness sake. Put that away. And if you keep the Day of Atonement literally now, you are actually denying the sufficiency of what Christ did. Yes. That's the danger. my goodness, yes. Paul says do not go into these shadows because you're implying you're not saying it of course, but you're implying I don't think Jesus is enough. Yes, yes. That's a very serious error. Well and that was a key issue for Paul in much of his writings. That's what he was fighting for, the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. And and if we said we need Jesus plus Moses or Jesus plus the law, then to Paul you're not recognizing the all sufficiency of our master, leader, teacher, rabbi, Jesus who is the Messiah. Now if you turn that on the issue of the Trinity, we are saying that the unity of God, the unitary monotheistic creed of Jesus is absolutely sufficient. Yes. There's nothing in scripture at all to say, now we're going to move on to something greater, expanding the Shema to include Paul as Paul is supposed to have said. That's simply wrong. Yes. You have to have a whole set of books on that, not one half verse. That's right. We're not very good at getting this right. That's right. Give the human race half an inch and they'll take a mile. That's right, that's right. Predictably, I I sometimes think you know, we're we're bound to get it wrong. Yes. Unless you've got a very strong corpus of people saying stop it, you Prophetic voices saying no. Don't go there. Well this is a sharp Teaching by Paul. I mean he's dealing with a very difficult circumstance. Absolutely. But nevertheless, what he was saying was right and important. And He's not finished with sexual matters too in chapter six. We can come back to that. yes, that's right. Yes. In that area. And as we said, not anything to do with the moment and time in which they were living. It is the human condition that is being dealt with in these things. Yeah. Yes.