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carry this out perfectly, one would have to go out of the world, which would be
impossible:
"No: what I now write you is that you should not mix with anyone known as a
Christian brother who is a fornicator, or rapacious man, or idolater, or abusive man, or
drunkard, or robber, with such a man you ought not even to eat" (5: 11 C. K. Barrett).
It is significant that Paul gives no encouragement to the monasticism that arose in the
early centuries, the idea of which is that one can escape the world and its pollution by
withdrawing into solitude or religious community life. What such people do not realize
is that they take their greatest enemy in with them, namely their sinful old nature! In the
same way the Lord Jesus prayed:
"I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest
keep them from the evil" (John 17: 15).
And if all God's children retired into monasteries, how could the testimony to His
truth spread and His light shine out to a world of darkness? Paul now goes on to instruct
the Corinthians that it is their duty to correctly assess and deal with the problem in their
midst. This is what he means by the word `judge', and this must not be done in any spirit
of censoriousness or fault finding. This type of judgment is often too prevalent, alas, and
must be avoided. Their concern should be towards `those within' (i.e. the church,
namely, believers). Those outside (unbelievers) must be left to the province of God to
judge (verses 12 and 13). Meanwhile, they must exclude from their company the wicked
person who was causing all this trouble (13).
Chapter 6: starts with another failure in the church at Corinth which had probably
been reported to him by the household of Chloe, or through Stephanas and his friends.
Believers were going to law with each other before pagan courts, and so giving a
thoroughly bad witness to an unbelieving world. This should not be necessary for
(1) they should be able to settle their own disputes among themselves and (2) these
disputes would never arise if they were walking in love and Christ-likeness. The Apostle
commences with a strong word (tolmao) as Rom. 5: 7 and 15: 18 show:
"Does any one of you dare, when he has a suit against his fellow, to go to law before
the unrighteous and not before the saints?" (6: 1 C. K. Barrett).
The `unrighteous' and the `saints' are clearly the unsaved and the saved. The N.T.
writers do not use the word `unrighteous' (adikos) for a believer in Christ. When such
slip into sin, Paul describes them as `carnal'; they are walking according to the sinful old
nature. The sin itself is of course unrighteous. One must not glamorize sin. The `unjust'
or `unrighteous' (either of these translate adikos) are those who know nothing of
righteousness imputed by God, as set forth in the epistle to the Romans. They are the
unsaved; whereas the saved are righteous in Christ, in the sense that Romans uses the
term and `holy' in Him (i.e. saints) although, like the Corinthians, they may be far from
holy or righteous in their walk day by day.
Paul now follows with an astounding statement: