The Church's Jurisdiction: Judging Insiders, Not Outsiders Text: 1 Corinthians 5:9-13
Introduction: The Great Inversion
We live in an age of profound confusion, and nowhere is this confusion more evident than in the modern evangelical church's understanding of judgment. We have been catechized by the spirit of the age to believe that the most heinous sin is the sin of being judgmental. The world's one, non-negotiable commandment is "Thou shalt not judge," which, when you think about it, is a judgment. As a result, the church has become terrified of its God-given duty to judge, and has simultaneously become quite proficient at the very thing God has forbidden it to do.
What we have done is this: we have inverted the apostle Paul's command in our text. Paul draws a bright, sharp line between the church and the world. He tells us that we are absolutely required to judge those inside the church, and we are absolutely forbidden from judging those outside the church. The modern church, in its wisdom, has decided to do the precise opposite. We refuse to discipline our own members for the most flagrant and public sins, waving it away with limp-wristed platitudes about grace. At the same time, we spend an inordinate amount of time issuing toothless moral pronouncements against the world, acting shocked and appalled when unbelievers act like, well, unbelievers. We are a courtroom that lets the criminals in our own house run rampant while shouting out the window at the criminals down the street.
This is not just a tactical error; it is a fundamental disobedience that guts the church of its power and corrupts its witness. A church that will not discipline its own is a church that does not love its own. It is a church that does not love Christ, because it allows His holy name to be dragged through the mud by the very people who claim to represent Him. A holy church is a powerful church. A compromised church is a laughingstock. In this passage, Paul is not giving us a friendly suggestion. He is issuing a command that is essential for the health, purity, and mission of the church of Jesus Christ.
The Text
I wrote you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people; I did not at all mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the greedy and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is a sexually immoral person, or greedy, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Are you not to judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God will judge. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.
(1 Corinthians 5:9-13 LSB)
Clarifying the Mission Field (v. 9-10)
Paul begins by clarifying a previous instruction that the Corinthians had either misunderstood or were pretending to misunderstand.
"I wrote you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people; I did not at all mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the greedy and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world." (1 Corinthians 5:9-10)
Apparently, in a letter we no longer possess, Paul had given them a command to separate from the sexually immoral. The Corinthians, perhaps looking for a pious-sounding excuse to ignore the festering sin in their own congregation, took this to mean they should withdraw from the world entirely. They were playing at being monks.
Paul slams the brakes on this. He says, in effect, "That is not at all what I meant." His command was not a call for monastic isolation but for covenantal purity. We are not called to get out of the world; we are sent into the world. Jesus prayed, "I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one" (John 17:15). We are to be salt and light. Salt doesn't do any good in the saltshaker, and light doesn't do any good under a basket.
Our mission field is the world, and the world is full of worldly people. Paul lists the standard sins of a fallen world: sexual immorality, greed, swindling, idolatry. This is the spiritual air the world breathes. If we were to have no contact with such people, we would have to, as Paul says, "go out of the world." We couldn't hold a job, buy groceries, or speak to our neighbors. This is pietistic nonsense. We are to be in the midst of the lost, doing business with them, being kind to them, and holding out the word of life to them. We should not be surprised when sinners sin. That is what they do. Our calling is not to retreat from them, but to evangelize them.
The Line of Fellowship (v. 11)
Having clarified what he did not mean, Paul now states with razor-sharp precision what he absolutely does mean.
"But now I am writing to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is a sexually immoral person, or greedy, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler not even to eat with such a one." (1 Corinthians 5:11)
Here is the pivot. The line is not drawn between the church and the pagan on the street. The line is drawn between the faithful church and the man who calls himself a brother but lives like a pagan. The issue is not the behavior of the unbeliever; it is the scandalous hypocrisy of the professing believer whose life is a constant, unrepentant contradiction of his profession.
Notice the phrase "so-called brother." This is a man who claims the name of Christ, who takes communion, who sings the hymns, but whose life is characterized by the very sins of the world the church is supposed to have left behind. Paul expands the list here: sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, and adds reviling (malicious, abusive speech), drunkenness, and swindling. This is not about a momentary lapse or a struggle with sin. This is about a settled, defining pattern of life that is impenitent.
The command is severe and unambiguous: "not to associate... not even to eat with such a one." This is the practice of excommunication. It is a formal, corporate removal of an individual from the fellowship of the church. In that culture, eating together was the primary sign of fellowship, acceptance, and peace. To refuse to eat with someone was a profound social statement. Paul is telling the church to treat this unrepentant professor of faith as an outsider. They are to make his outward status match his inward reality. This is not an act of hatred; it is an act of severe mercy. It is spiritual surgery. It is intended to shock the man into recognizing the gravity of his sin, to bring him to repentance, and to protect the rest of the church from the gangrenous spread of his influence.
The Church's Courtroom (v. 12)
Paul then explains the jurisdictional logic behind this command. Why are we to judge those inside but not those outside?
"For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Are you not to judge those who are within the church?" (1 Corinthians 5:12)
Paul asks two rhetorical questions. First, "What have I to do with judging outsiders?" The church is not the world's magistrate. We do not have the authority to bring God's judicial sentence upon the unbelieving world. That is God's prerogative, and He will execute it in His time. The church's authority is limited to her own members, to those who have voluntarily placed themselves under her care and discipline by professing faith in Christ.
The second question is a rebuke. "Are you not to judge those who are within the church?" The answer is a resounding yes. The church is a courtroom. We are required to exercise judgment. We must make determinations about the credibility of a person's profession of faith based on their doctrine and life. When a man who claims to be a Christian is living in open, unrepentant sin, the church has a duty to judge that situation and act accordingly. To refuse to do so is to abdicate our responsibility. We have inverted this entirely. We have become a church that is soft on the inside and hard on the outside, when God has commanded us to be hard on the inside and soft on the outside.
God's Prerogative and Our Duty (v. 13)
The final verse seals the argument with a quotation from the Old Testament, grounding this New Covenant practice in the abiding principle of God's holiness.
"But those who are outside, God will judge. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES." (1 Corinthians 5:13)
The judgment of the world, of those outside the covenant community, is left in God's hands. "God will judge." We can rest in that. We don't have to carry that burden. Our task is not to fix the whole world, but to tend our own garden, to keep the church pure.
And how do we do that? Paul quotes directly from Deuteronomy. "REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES." This command appears repeatedly in Deuteronomy concerning capital offenses in Israel (Deut. 17:7, 19:19, 22:21, etc.). Paul is applying the central principle of covenant purity to the church. The church is the new Israel, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Just as flagrant, unrepentant sin had to be purged from the camp of Israel to avoid God's judgment, so flagrant, unrepentant sin must be purged from the church. The presence of such sin, if tolerated, is a "leaven" that will corrupt the entire community. It defiles the Lord's Table, mocks the gospel, hardens the sinner, and destroys the church's witness before a watching world.
Conclusion: A Loving Fence
We must recover this biblical understanding of church discipline. We have been lied to. We have been told that discipline is unloving, harsh, and Pharisaical. The truth is that the failure to discipline is what is unloving. It is unloving to the sinner, whom you allow to persist in a soul-destroying rebellion without a sharp, pastoral warning. It is unloving to the flock, which you expose to the contagion of sin. It is unloving to a lost world, to whom you present a compromised and hypocritical picture of Christianity. And it is profoundly unloving to the Lord Jesus Christ, whose bride you allow to be defiled.
Church discipline is the fence around the flock that keeps the wolves out. It is the immune system of the body of Christ that identifies and deals with spiritual disease. It is the loving, firm hand of a father who disciplines his son for his own good.
Our mission is to the world. We go out with the free offer of the gospel to every drunkard, reviler, and swindler we can find. We invite them to come to Christ and be cleansed. Our arms should be wide open to any and all who will repent and believe. But when someone comes in, professes the name of Christ, and then insists on living like the world he supposedly left behind, our duty is clear. We must judge. We must act. We must, for the sake of his soul and for the glory of God, remove the wicked man from among us, praying that this severe mercy will lead him to the repentance that leads to life.