Let’s read that passage: “But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. There ‘put away from yourselves the evil person’” (NKJV).

I have often heard someone say, “God tells us not to judge anyone” and then they will quote Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” In their minds we are NEVER TO JUDGE ANYONE FOR ANY REASON. It is true that we are not to one’s MOTIVES, for only God can read someone’s HEART and their MOTIVE behind their actions (see 1 Corinthians 4:3-5). We are also not to judge one’s CONSCIENCE who may have certain scruples about things that are not fundamentally “right or wrong” (Romans 14:15). But it is obvious from our passage that we are to JUDGE PROFESSING CHRISTIAN’S ACTIONS that are sinful. The Apostle Paul mentioned six sins as examples of behavior that calls for judgment and discipline. We mentioned we should not judge “what we cannot see” (the heart and conscience), but we are to judge “what we can see,” things that are manifested that are sinful and that bring dishonor to the Lord.

In verse one of this chapter we read, “It is actually reported that there is SEXUAL IMMORALITY among you, and such immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife.” Here was a man in the church at Corinth who was professing to be a “brother in Christ” and yet was living in open sin; he was having sex with his stepmother! Yet as we read on in verse 2, we see that the local church was “puffed up” and had “not mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from you.” How sad! The church (assembly) should have been filled with sorrow and outraged by this wicked act and desire to remove the sin from among them by removing the man himself. Instead, they were proud, and no doubt boasted of their TOLERANCE of this act and how they weren’t affected by something they weren’t personally guilty of.

What were they to do? Paul calls upon them to have an “assembly meeting” to officially JUDGE the matter by putting him out of fellowship. “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (verses 4-5) We see here that the local assembly not only has the responsibility to judge the sin of one in fellowship, but they also have the AUTHORITY TO DO SO because of the Lord Jesus Christ being in their midst. The Lord Jesus spoke of this “meeting for discipline” in Matthew 18:15-20 where the church is “gathered to His Name.” It is an official act where a sinning brother or sister is “excommunicated from the church.”. If a church refuses to judge the sin, the whole assembly is DEFILED. Paul wrote of this in verses 6-7a, “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that A LITTLE LEAVEN LEAVENS THE WHOLE LUMP? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump.”

When we are called upon to judge a brother or sister who is guilty of sin and not repenting of it, we should have THREE GOALS before us. 1) To bring GLORY TO GOD (by not having sin attached to His Name in the local church). 2) To bring the SINNING SAINT to judge his/her sin resulting in their RESTORATION with the Lord and with the local church. When they are “put out of fellowship” they are in Satan’s realm where they will hopefully learn to “hate their sin” and to “miss the fellowship of the saints.” I would encourage you to read 2 Corinthians 2:3-11 where Paul writes of the man who was put out of fellowship repenting of his sin and thus he encourages the saints to forgive him and restore him back into the fellowship of the local church. 3) To CLEAR THE ASSEMBLY of any blame caused by the sinning saint. Again, had the church at Corinth not excommunicated him, the testimony of the church would have been marred (by them being defiled). Paul was able to write of them “being cleared in this matter” in 2 Corinthians 7:8-11.  (DO)  (623.1)