Judging Sinful People: Is 1 Corinthians 5 a Model?

Last week, we looked at God’s apparent judgment on Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5. I said that such instances are rare: “It’s not something we see happening regularly; it’s an extraordinary story at an extraordinary moment in salvation history.” However, it invites the question of judgement within the church that’s initiated by church leadership on God’s behalf, for which 1 Corinthians 5 might be cited as a model.

Anyone who has read the Bible reasonably thoroughly will be aware that there are times it can seem somewhat contradictory. Perhaps not as often as a surface-level reading or ‘proof text’ approach—verses taken out of their context and read ‘stand-alone’—might suggest, but here we encounter an apparent instance of it.

In 1 Corinthians 5:12, Paul says to the Corinthians, “Are you not to judge those inside the church?” As a rhetorical question, it invites the answer “Yes!” or even “Of course!” And yet, did not Jesus himself say, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged”? (Luke 6:37 and Matt 7:1–2). Is this the New Testament contradicting itself, or is there more going on?

The background to 1 Corinthians 5 is Paul having heard feedback that “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.” That’s in the ESV. The NIV makes that final phrase explicit: “a man is sleeping with his father’s wife.”

In short, Paul strongly criticises the Corinthians for their apparent apathy in tolerating this situation. Various English words are used in different translations to describe Paul’s critique. The NLT perhaps captures the sense of it best: “You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame.”“Your boasting is not good,” says Paul. The reasoning for his particular choice of words here may be unclear (in what sense were they ‘proud of themselves’ and ‘boasting’ about it, or is it just Paul’s over-the-top attention-grabbing rhetoric?), but the basic point is not in doubt.

Paul’s conclusion is clear: this man should be expelled from the church, for an ultimately redemptive purpose: “deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord”—whatever precisely Paul means by that. His concluding command, “Purge the evil person from among you,” draws directly on a formula repeated numerous times in the Torah (Deuteronomy).

How, then, is a clear command of Jesus, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged,” consonant with Paul’s statement here that “I have already pronounced judgement” on this man (v.3)? Further complicating things, the same Greek word (krinō) is used in both instances. Is Scripture inconsistent?

We might think, “Well, maybe Paul wasn’t aware of Jesus’ command not to judge.” I think that’s highly unlikely, since he as good as quotes it in Romans 14:10 and 13: “You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister?” … “Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another.” And similarly in Romans 2:1: “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.”    

We do need to say that all of these instances need to be considered individually in the light of their particular contexts, especially because all of these statements from Paul are within the context of a letter to a particular church in particular circumstances written for particular reasons (the New Testament letters were not written as systematic theology textbooks). We don’t have space to go into that now, but some general observations might offer a roadmap for their differentiation.

Firstly, in the context of 1 Corinthians 5, there is a difference between being judgemental towards people and exercising discipline within a community context. That would be equally true today in the context of, say, safeguarding in a school, or health and safety measures in a workplace. Rules are usually there for a reason, and blatant disregard cannot be ignored, if only for others’ sakes.    

Secondly, when Jesus speaks of not judging others in Matthew 7:1, he supplements it with two contextual clues to his intentions in verses 2–3.

One of those is “in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” In other words, where you set the bar for judging others is where God will set the bar for you.

The other is in a similar vein, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” In other words, there is a principle of proportionality. It’s not the case that ‘anything goes’ in moral behaviour, or that we are never to judge anyone for anything ever, but there’s a need to distinguish between sawdust and planks. In fact, Jesus seems to suggest in verses 4–5 that ‘sawdust-focused’ Christians are likely to also be ‘plank-ignoring’ Christians!

Romans 2:1 especially seems to echo these points.

In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul is at pains to distinguish between judging (in the ‘exercising discipline’ sense) within the church versus judging those who are outside the church. Not because it doesn’t matter that people in the world do bad things, but because of whose job it is to judge them for that (answer: not ours).

In the NLT again, “It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church … God will judge those on the outside …” (verses 12 and 13). And again, “I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin … You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin” (verses 10 and 11).      

This framework seems clear enough. We may therefore wonder how it is that Christians (evangelicals especially) have such a formidable reputation amongst unchurched people for being judgemental! Opinion polls consistently find it to be a defining characteristic of how evangelicals are perceived. It may not be over the top to say that many evangelical churches are better known for what they’re against than what they’re for.

How could we get things so wrong? Is it because it’s too tempting for those in churches to take moral aim at those outside the church—as soft targets—reinforcing their own sense of moral rectitude? Is it really God asking us to make sure we “let people know where we stand” on things, or is that our idea? Do they really need to know “where we stand”?

If we really care about unchurched people and their eternal destinies, we may be going about things in precisely the wrong way.           

All of the things we’ve said already must be kept in mind when it comes to this internal disciplinary focus. For example, distinguishing between ‘sawdust’ and ‘planks’ when it comes to ‘sins’, and applying the same measure for the ‘sins’ of others that we would wish God to use as the measure for our own. These are crucial, because it’s too easy to overlook in ourselves the equivalents of things we may be minded to condemn in others. Setting the bar at the same height might make us more gracious, empathetic, and forgiving.

Paul says more on this in 1 Corinthians 5. When he discusses ‘leaven’ (i.e., yeast, in relation to dough, as a metaphor) in verses 6 to 8, he’s not changing subjects. The concern he’s pointing to is that by turning a blind eye to this kind of blatant sexual sin (which appears to be what the Corinthians have been doing—perhaps based on “it’s not for us to judge” thinking?—but who knows why) and simply accepting the illicit relationship, they are allowing ‘wickedness and evil’ to slowly permeate the whole loaf (i.e., the church). Like yeast in dough, it will spread and grow if not contained.

One final thought on the nature of the sin which is the background to 1 Corinthians 5. It seems unlikely that the phrase “a man has his father's wife” is referring to an incestuous relationship with his biological mother; the woman was probably his stepmother. However, such a relationship would still have fallen outside the accepted boundaries of both Jewish and Roman moral conventions. We’re given almost no detail—which of course would be unnecessary, in a letter to a church that was already fully familiar with the circumstances. Had the man's father died, perhaps? Did they divorce and the stepson took the stepmother’s side? Was the stepmother significantly younger than the father—not uncommon in that culture—perhaps close to the stepson’s age? What were the circumstances in which the relationship developed? We simply don't know.

The point is that none of that ultimately impacts Paul's judgement on the relationship, so we should be cautious about speculating to fill in the blanks. Paul doesn't give us enough information to reconstruct the lives and motives of the people involved.

When we bring all of these relevant texts together, I would suggest there is, after all, a coherent theology of when, how, what, and why we do—and do not—go about what we might otherwise call “judging.” It’s certainly not a case of “never judge anyone for anything”—1 Corinthians 5 makes that conclusion impossible. But neither does it offer a licence for Christians to appoint ourselves as moral judges of everybody, especially those outside the church.