Again, the church came very near to being ostracized from the other churches. They would have been denounced and no longer see an apostolic visits. Instead of rejoicing with them in their victories over sin, Paul would have been obliged to cut them off if they didn’t correct the problem.
The first eleven verses are rather obscure in this chapter. Our best guess is that someone in leadership at the church at Corinth was refusing to excommunicate the fellow who had married his father’s cast-off wife. Instead, there was a substantial party defending this man. If Paul came, he would have no choice to dissolve the body.
Once again, the theme of this study is the continuity between the Old and New Covenants. Paul is most certainly enforcing the Mosaic prohibition on two men in the same family having sex with the same woman. This must be regarded as a moral absolute, something rooted in the nature of Creation itself. Among the pagan Greeks, it was simply not an issue. This reminds us that local culture cannot be the guide; we must insure we grasp how certain measures of the Law represent universal moral truth.
The man in question was certainly welcome back into the full communion once he repented. The ostracism wasn’t a life sentence. The man’s sorrow was suffering enough. Whatever position he previously held should be restored. Legalism is not a feature of any of the Covenants; legalism is just Satan exploiting human passion.
Some in the church seemed to think Paul was without any feelings about this whole mess. That would be a lie. Once ejected from Ephesus, Paul traveled up the coast to Troas. To his surprise, the Lord had opened a door there for ministry. Paul would normally have stayed much longer, but he was very antsy about Titus coming back from Corinth with good news. So, despite having such a strong response there at Troas, he crossed over to Macedonia, hoping against hope that Titus would come back soon.
Titus wasn’t supposed to leave Corinth until things were on the right path again.
To reinforce his point about how much sleep he lost over this problem with Corinth, Paul ends the chapter with effusive praise to God, celebrating that the Lord had granted a healing of the church. He was ecstatic.
There was a whole herd of hucksters whose preaching sounded like the apostles, but they were actually trying to avoid any real work. They always disappeared with things got tough like they did at Corinth. Unlike the hucksters, Paul was heavily invested personally in seeing the Corinthian church get right. To those who remained spiritually dead, there was no difference between Paul and the hucksters. To those who truly served Christ, the difference was painfully obvious.
