“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
The Basket Case Chronicles #44
“In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:4-5).
Paul requires the Corinthian church to gather together in order to expel the wicked man from their midst. Later he calls this not “keeping company” (v. 11), and he says that they are to “put away” such a wicked person (v. 13). This is called a purgation (v. 7). In the verses to come we will consider why Paul had to exhort them this way, but for now, we need to simply look at what he tells them to do.
He says that they are to declare this sentence of discipline in the assembly, when they are gathered together. Church discipline, when it gets to this point, should be public. He says that it is to be done in the name of the Lord Jesus which, in this instance, Paul equates with being done with the power of the Lord Jesus. His name and His power accompany one another.
The discipline has the eventual salvation of the one disciplined in view, but recognizes that it will go hard with him in the meantime. His flesh (that which he was serving idolatrously) was going to be destroyed, and it was going to be destroyed by Satan, the accuser. Satan is nothing if not a prosecutor. After he has enticed a man with his father’s wife, suggesting that it would be a fine opportunity, there is nothing to keep him from turning immediately to accusation once the deed is done. And when a man is put out of the church, this removes him from the availability of our Advocate, our Defense Attorney (1 John 2:1). A man outside the church has to fend off the accusations all by himself, which is impossible to do.