Can Forgiveness Go To Far?

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1 Corinthians 5:1-5

5 I can hardly believe the report about the sexual immorality going on among you—something that even pagans don’t do. I am told that a man in your church is living in sin with his stepmother. 2 You are so proud of yourselves, but you should be mourning in sorrow and shame. And you should remove this man from your fellowship. 3 Even though I am not with you in person, I am with you in the Spirit.And as though I were there, I have already passed judgment on this man 4 in the name of the Lord Jesus. You must call a meeting of the church. I will be present with you in spirit, and so will the power of our Lord Jesus. 5 Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns.

Yesterday Paul addressed the church at Corinth pointed out that they were pridefully becoming dependant on a person rather than God. Some said, "I follow Paul", and some said, "I follow Peter". Today he reveals another kind of pride which we might call "spiritual pride". 

Apparently a man in the church was having sex with his father's wife, his stepmother. Instead of correcting this man and calling him to change his behavior, they tolerated his sin. They were proud of being so "permissive". We might equate this with the tolerance movement we see today, which can also become a perversion of God's grace. Paul would have expected this in the Corinthian culture with its rampant sexual immorality, but he expected the church to be different. He held Christians to a higher standard than those in the world. He expected more of them as children of God and ambassadors for Christ. But the reality was their behavior was even worse than things the pagan culture was doing.  

So he rebuked the church for not addressing this man's sin, even it was in the name of "forgiveness". Forgiveness is always a result of repentance, and in this case it appears as if the man and the church didn't feel repentance was necessary. The man was forgiven, so he could do just do about anything he wanted, including having sex with his father's wife. 

Paul asked the church to remove this person from the church, so that this cancer would not spread throughout the church, especially if members of the church started thinking this was an okay thing to do. Importantly, note that the purpose of this was so that the man might recognize his immoral behavior, turn from it and become right with God before Jesus returned. We call this "tough love". Not ever easy to do, but always the most loving thing to do. 

So the question is how is the church today guilty of the same thing the Corinthian church was doing? When do we become so "tolerant" of sin that we begin to look more like people who don't know God, rather Christ followers.  We must remember that we all need to rely on the grace of God in Christ, as none of us are perfect. If not for the grace of God, there go I. 

The church needs to be a place of acceptance, forgtiveness, and love, but also a place where God's Word is taught and is the only guide to a life pleasing to God. It is a place where we are becoming more like Christ, not more like those in the world. This is only possible as we put to death our old ways and become renewed in the image of our Creator. For our lives are now hidden with God in Christ, and when Jesus appears we will appear with him.