The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Corinthians — Section 164

on the offender the sentence on which he ensuring his eternal rnin. We can imagine ho.d o.lready determinetl. 'fhat he coultl how awful woultl be the solemnity of these claim "the power of the Lord" resulted words when they were first read aloud to from his possession of the Holy Spirit. and the little Christian communities of Corinth. the special commission to bind and to loose, It was natural that they shoultl pwduce an to remit and to retain, on earth, which overwhelming excitement. Christ had entrusted to the apostles (Matt. Ver. 6.-Your glorying; rather, the Bitl:,ject xviii. 18, 20; John xx. 23). of your boasting, the point on which you Ver. 5.-To deliver suoh a one nnto Satan. glorify yourselves. The Greek word does Scripture nowhere defines the character and not mean the act of boasting, but the thing limits of such a sentence as this. Dy cutting of which we boa~t. Not good. The Greek off an offender from Church communion word is not agathon, but kalon, an almost (2 Thess. iii. 14, 15), that is, from all the untranslatable word, which implies all visible means of grace, he was for the time moral beauty, and resembles the English separated from spiritual influences, and was, word "fair" or "noble." ,vhen he say~ therefore, so far handed over to Satan. The that it is "not good," he uses the figure phrase is also applied to Hymenmus and called litctes; i.e. he employs an expression Alexander, in 1 Tim. i. 20. It is very intentionally too weak, that it may be cor- doubtl'ul whether it was necessarily meant rected into a stronger one by the involuntary to involve such physical inflictions as fell indignation of the reader; as when Virgil on AnaniRB, Sapphire., or Elymas. It is, calls the cannibal tyrant Busiris " un- however, important to observe that the praised." Hence the clause is equivalent intention of the sentence, like the true inten- to "the thing of which you are boasting is tion of excommunication, when exercised in detestable." Know ye not. This clnuse is 11 right spirit (see Hooker, 'Eccl. Pol.,' iii. used by St. Paul in specially solemn ap• 1, § rn ), was not wrathful, but merciful. It peals, and almost exclusively in these was, as Calvin says, "medicinale reme- Epistles (cb. iii. 16; vi. 16, 19; i:s:. 13, 2'1). dium "-" not for destruction, but for edifi. A little leaven lea.veneth the whole lump cation" (2 Cor. x. 8). Hymenreus and (Gal. v. 9). The taint alluded to is not Alexander were handed to Sat&.n, not for only the presence of the unpunished ot~ their final ruin and damnation, but with fender, but the general lo.:s:ity and impurity a kind and remedial purpose, " that they displayed by their whole benring in thi, may learn not to blaspheme" (1 Tim. i. 20), matter (comp. the line of Mennnder quoted and this offender with the express ob,iect in eh. xv. 33, and the "root of bitterness" "that his spirit may be st1ved." Had these in Heh. xii. 15). (For the word "lump," facts been more deeply studied, there would see Rom. xi. 16.) have been a very different tone t1nd spirit in Ver. 7.-Purge out therefore. The word many of the mediwval anathemas. Such a "therefore'' is o.bsent from the best manu- one (comp. 2 Cor. ii. 7). He seems to hold scripts, and the abruptness is more eruphatic aloof from the man's very name. So "such without it. No doubt the meto.phor was as she" (rus ro,ailT<U) is used of the adul- suggested by the foct that St. Paul was teress in John viii. 7. For the destruction writing t1bout the time of the Pnssover of the flesh; i.e. that all carnal influences (Acts xvi. 8). The most essential requisite in him might be destroyed. It is not his of tile Jewish regulations, with which his "body" which is to be destroyed, but the whole training ho.d made him so familiar, "flesh," the jetzer ha-ra, or "evil impulse," wus the nbeolute putting away, and even as the J ewe cnlled it. When this was destruction, of every trace of leaven, which destroyed, the body might once more become was diligently sought for the day before thB 11 temple of the Holy Ghost. That the spirit Passover begnn. The putting awt1y of ma.y be sa.ved. 'l'he destruction of the lowest leaven was t1 type of ennctification. The element of our human nature is the salva- old leaven. "Old" as belonging to their tion of the highest; it is the cutting away unregenero.to o.ntl unconvortet.l. condition; a of the dead corpse from the living soul. In remnant of the day when they had beeu the day of the Lord; when the Lord should Gentiles o.nd Jews who had not known judge the quick and the de11d. The merciful Christ. The least willing tolerance of the intention of St. Paul is clearly developecl in taint woulcl cause it to work throughout tlw 2 Cor. ii. 6-11. He looked on God's judg- whole society. As ye are unleavened. mente o.s remedial, not as solely retributive Leaven is the type of evil in its secret arnl (eh. xi. 29-32). Here, as Chryeostom corrupting workings. Ideally, Christians finely so.ye, the 11postle lo.ye down, o.e it onn only be addressecl as "unleavenetl,'" were, his lo.we to the devil, telling him how i.e. as "purged from their own old sins" far, and how fsr only, he can proceed. The (2 Pot. i. 9); 1Lnd it is the method of Scrip- object of excommunicatiou is to save the ture (indeod, it is the only possible metho,l) ofl'onder, and not to do the dovil's work by to ntltlksB Christians as being Chrietiuus 16S THE FillST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. [oH. v. 1-13.