Author: Rev. Lek Aik Wee

The Apostle Paul encouraged the believers in Corinth to live a life befitting of Christ in them. He urged them not to return to the way of the old man (described here as the old leaven) nor to yield to the flesh (leaven of malice and wickedness. The word “malice” means to live a life characterised by an evil habit of the mind.

There is forgiveness with God when God’s people are willing to confess and forsake their sin. Christ is the passover lamb that was slain for the remission of sins. His sacrifice on the cross is indeed effectual in taking away the dreadful disease of sin that plague His people.

The word “purge” means to “cleanse thoroughly”. Sin is to be rid, nipped in the bud. As the Apostle John exhorted God’s people in 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The new lump is rid of the old leaven.

Barnes observed well, “The apostle here takes occasion, from the mention of leaven, to exhort the Corinthians to put away vice and sin. The figure is derived from the custom of the Jews in putting away leaven at the celebration of the passover. By the old leaven he means vice and sin; and also here the person who had committed the sin in their church. As the Jews, at the celebration of the passover, gave all diligence in removing leaven from their houses–searching every part of their dwellings with candles, that they might remove every particle of leavened bread from their habitations–so the apostle exhorts them to use all diligence to search out and remove all sin.”

The Apostle Paul has sensed that pride has overtaken the Corinthian Christians. He has observed that there is a false sense of spirituality built upon self-exaltation. In so doing, they have chosen not to deal with the sin that is in the camp. He warned that choosing not to see the corruption within the body will affect the wellbeing of the entire church.

The Apostle Paul is seeking to help this errant one in the church in Corinth to repent of his sin by advising the church to discipline such a one through separating him from the congregation of God’s people – “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh”. This phrase means to discipline through excommunication. This is what Jesus described in Matthew 18:17 as a final step of discipline to “let him be unto thee as an heathen or publican”, to treat him as an outsider of the church, to Satan’s world. He loses the encouragement and support of the brethren in the church!