I Cor. 5:1-2 ... "It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife. And you have become arrogant, and have not mourned instead, in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst."
It is believed Paul was at Philippi in Macedonia some 350 miles by land northeast of Corinth when he wrote this epistle to the church there. But even at that distance he had received news that a most shameful situation existed among the Corinthian brethren. Actually, the situation was worse than shameful. It was scandalous! Such immorality even exceeded the depravity of the Gentiles. One of the Corinthian brethren had taken unto himself his step-mother, (the probable meaning of "his father's wife"), and was regularly committing adultery with her. The standard of Christian purity could hardly be more flagrantly violated. But to compound the sin the church had taken no action of itself to admonish the brother and seek to induce him to repent, and if he would not, to expel him from their fellowship. To the contrary, they took pride in defending the liberty of the man to have his way.
When God created the first human couple, He decreed that "a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh," (Gen. 2:24). In Matthew 19, Jesus interpreted this verse to show that it is God's will for one man to be joined to one woman for a lifetime. The only honorable release from this union is the death of one of the members, (Rom. 7:2-3). Only within the bonds of the marriage union does God sanction sexual activity between a male and a female, (I Cor. 7:2-5). Within marriage God blesses sexual intercourse, for it was He who fashioned the male and the female to perform the act in gentleness and in love. The brother in Corinth flaunted the divine will, and his brethren shielded him proudly in his sin. The apostle was appalled when he heard about this and chastised the Corinthians that they had not "mourned," declaring that their "boasting is not good," (v.6). He commanded them at once to "deliver" the man "to Satan for the destruction of his flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus," (v.5). Paul thus demonstrated a radical solution to a radical problem, for the leaven of evil had to be purged without delay to protect the church as a whole, (vs. 6b-9).
Our present society has lamentably reached the position where there is little stigma, shame, or scandal associated with the sin of fornication. At least one incidence of fornication occurs in almost every movie and in many television shows. We find entertainment in watching the dramatization of the sex act and exhibit no shame when it is luridly portrayed on the screen. A prophet in the 6th Century B.C. said of his generation, "Were they ashamed because of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all; They did not even know how to blush," (Jer. 6:15). It has come to the same thing in our society. We are no longer scandalized by fornication. Many commit it with the full knowledge of their friends, and neither they nor others blush or feel shame. In fact, we have come to accept fornication as near standard behavior for our times. It is far past time for Christians to try to raise the level of morality of our society by stressing that fornication is strictly forbidden in the Bible and by treating it as the black sin which it is. Do we have the courage to proclaim this message?
