With such an one no not to eat. This does not refer to the Lord's supper, which is never designated as a meal. The meaning is, that we are not to recognize such a man in any way as a Christian, even by eating with him. It is not the act of eating with such persons that is forbidden. Our Lord eat with publicans and sinners, but he did not thereby recognize them as his followers. So we may eat with such persons as are here described, provided we do not thereby recognize their Christian character. This is not a command to enforce the sentence of excommunication pronounced by the church, by a denial of all social intercourse with the excommunicated. The command is simply that we are not, in any way, to recog- nize openly wicked men as Christians. This passage, there- fore, affords no plea for the tyranny of Romanists in refusing all the necessaries of life to those whom they cast out of the church.
12. Por what have I to do to judge them also that are without ? do not ye judge them that are within ?
Those icithout y' those out of the church. Mark 4, II. Col. 4, 5. 1 Thess. 4, 12. The command of the apostle had reference only to those within the church, for it was not his prerogative to judge those that are without. The Corinthians acted on the same princijile. They confined church discipline to church members, and therefore should not have understood his injunction not to company with the wicked to apply to others than to those within the church.
13. But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
God, and not the church, is the judge of those who are without. The verb may be accented so as to express either the present or the future. God judges (/cptVct) ; or, God will judge (/cpivet). The present gives the better sense, as express- ing the divine prerogative, and not merely the assurance of a future judgment. Therefore put away^ literally, according to the common text {kox i^apuri), and ye shall put aioay ; which seems to have been borrowed from Deut. 24, 7. The better reading is (claparc) pitt away. It is a simple imperative in- junction, or necessary application of the principle of Christian