Monday, September 07, 2020

Expel The Immoral Brother!

 "You have become news, with, a case of immorality, and such a case, that is not even found among pagans.  Yes, one of you has taken, as wife, his own stepmother.  And you feel proud!  Should you not be in mourning, instead, and expel the one who did such a thing?  For my part, although I am physically absent, my spirit is with you and, as if present, I have already passed sentence on the man who committed such a sin.  Let us meet together, you and my spirit, and in the name of our LORD JESUS, and with HIS power, you shall deliver him to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit be saved in the day of Judgment.

This is not the time to praise yourselves.  Do you not know that a little yeast makes the whole mass of dough rise?  Throw out, then, the old yeast and be new dough.  If CHRIST became our Passover, you should be unleavened bread.  Let us celebrate, therefore, the Passover, no longer with old yeast, which is sin and perversity; let us have unleavened bread, that is purity and sincerity." - 1 Corinthians 5:1-8 

(Paul knows that such a sinner cannot be brought to repentance unless he experiences the bitterness of his treachery.  So the community must ask that he suffer in health and belongings [Paul says "delivered to Satan for the ruin of the flesh:" see in Job 1:12 and 2:6 for the meaning of delivered to Satan].  This excommunication is not merely a human gesture.  What the Church binds on earth is bound in heaven [Matthew 18:18].  GOD is committed to send trials that may be at the same time warning to the Church and a way of repentance for the sinner.

You should be unleavened bread.  The believers have been spiritually raised with CHRIST.  As the Jews used unleavened bread to celebrate the Passover, in the same way the Christians have to be, in a figurative sense unleavened bread, that is, they must lead a sinless life before GOD, and so worthily celebrate their Passover, which is the Resurrection of CHRIST.  JESUS compared the kingdom of heaven to yeast that leavens the whole mass.  Here Paul uses the same comparison to show how evil spreads everywhere.)

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