1 Cor. 5.1-13
What kind of sinners did Christ die for? What kind of sinners do we have in the Church? Are we like the Christian camp facility with signs posted saying that the nearest known sin is at least seven miles away? Or maybe we're like the churches in the towns which have city ordinances requiring that bars and strip clubs be located more than 500 feet away from any church building? We want to keep sin far away. Farther is better. There are no sinners in this church, only saints. But then someone arrives on a Sunday morning, unlocks the door, enters the building, and there's a sinner in the church building. Someone else arrives, and there are multiple sinners. People keep arriving and sooner or later we have filled the whole building with sinners.
What are we going to do about sin in the local church? We confess sin, receive absolution, rejoice in forgiveness, try to live a life that is pleasing to God, and then we confess sin all over again. But what about those people who are entrapped in sin (Gal. 6.1-2)? What about the person we read about here in 1 Corinthians 5? He has entered into a sinful relationship, one which even the pagans do not tolerate. And it appears the local church is accepting of this man in his present relationship. After all, aren't we all sinners? His response should be just the same as the response the rest of us have. We see our sin, we confess, receive absolution, rejoice in forgiveness. But what about living a life that is pleasing to God? "Well," we might say, "after all, none of us can actually live according to God's commands, so it's all right that he doesn't live according to God's commands either. Jesus is really big and his forgiveness exceeds the scope of all our sins."
Jesus' forgiveness does exceed the scope of all our sins, but he has set us free to obey, not to disobey. He has set us free to live a life which brings him honor and glory, not a life which he has absolutely forbidden. Jesus has borne the penalty for my sin in his body. My response is not to go out and sin more. My right response is to live a life of gratefull attempts at obedience, trusting in his righteousness rather than my own.
What does Paul say? Turn the man over to Satan. Let him live according to his desire. Tell him that the Lord judges sin. We do not have a God who loves the sinner but hates the sin. The sinner who dies in his sin dies. It's sinners who inhabit hell, not just their disembodied sins. It's sinners who receive God's wrath and his full measure of eternal punishment, since they are the ones who insisted they would be able to stand before God in the day of judgment. It's sinners who are judged apart from Christ because they refused to trust him him.
Lest we misunderstand and become like the Christian camp which is miles away from the nearest known sin, let us observe that we are in fact in the world. We are among immoral people of all sorts, people who do not believe on Christ and do not have his righteousness imputed to them. And we need to associate with them. How otherwise are people going to hear about forgiveness in Christ? How else do we expect the Gospel to be revealed to people if we are not the agents of God's revelation of forgiveness through faith in Christ's death on their behalf? So we are in the world. We associate with sinners. Like Christ, who was called a friend of sinners, we also live in the world and associate with all manner of sinners. But within the bounds of the church we do exercise judgment. We do not tolerate ongoing sinful patterns which fly in the face of biblical Christianity. We call those people to repentance, and we call them forcefully.
As we look at ourselves, let us first call ourselves individually very forcefully to repentance. The soul who sins will die! Repent and believe the Gospel! And as we repent, believe, and receive forgiveness, let us thank the Lord together that he will change our lives more and more into the lives he desires for his people.
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