"Leaven, License & Law," 1 Cor 5:1-6:8, Jacob Rodriguez

My name is Jacob Rodriguez. I used to be a pastor here at

Church of the Resurrection from 2021 to 2023.

For the past two years I have been teaching New Testament at

Trinity Anglican Seminary in the Pittsburgh area and my 5 year

old, whom the Feinbergs gave a Pittsburgh Steelers hat to, has

decided she's going to be all things Pittsburgh.

She saw this Black Hat with a yellow pea on it and she said

daddy I want one of those and I said if you want to learn the

problem of evil at an early age then be a Pirates fan.

It is a joy to be here with you this morning.

My family and I will be here for the next 5 Sundays and I get to

serve alongside the wonderful staff and pastors that we have

here at Rez and fellowship with you all.

Please pray with me before we dive into our text for today.

Heavenly Father, let your word be our guide, your Spirit our

teacher, and your greater glory our supreme concern through

Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Now here at Church of the Resurrection, we've been going

through First Corinthians and today we've arrived at chapter

5. They gave me an easy one for

today. You can find this passage on

page 897 in your Pew Bibles. Go ahead and turn there now if

you have one. Now, this is one of Paul's

letters to the church in Corinth, a church that he

planted and with whom he lived for about 18 months.

And as we've discussed in recent weeks that Corinth was not an

easy place to plant a church, and it was not an easy place to

be a Jesus follower. Shortly after Paul left Corinth,

he received news that the church had more than a few problems.

They were plagued with disunity, arrogance, sexual immorality,

greed, idolatry, and even denials of the resurrection.

And to make matters worse, they were taking one another to

court, giving Christ a bad name among the pagans.

Paul responds not just by telling them what to do, but by

telling them a compelling story. He re narrates their world by

reminding them of the gospel. He reminds them of Christ's

victory over sin, over death, and over the devil.

He reminds them what they have been set free from so that they

could learn what they have been set free for.

Brothers and sisters, we never should move beyond the gospel.

That is our solid foundation. It is the grammar of our life.

It shows us what Christ has done to win US, and it shows us the

people that we are to be if we're called by His name.

Now perhaps the central question of First Corinthians is this.

With Christ's victory over sin and death and the devil, how

shall we then live? With Christ's victory as a

given, how shall we live at First Corinthians?

Chapter 5 gives us a vital answer to this urgent question.

How shall we then live now? This past Thursday, our country

commemorated 165 years since slavery was officially abolished

in the United States of America. That was on June 19th, 1865, and

for nearly 250 long years prior to that day, men, women and

children of African descent were bought, sold and mistreated on

American soil. Then, at long last,

emancipation. Freedom.

But anyone who has even had a cursory reading of the

subsequent history of Reconstruction knows that the

road after emancipation was not has not been easy.

In the struggle of Reconstruction all the way to

civil rights, the African American community consistently

appealed to the story of Moses and the exodus from Egypt to

shape their new identity. We have been set free from

enslavement, so how shall we now live?

The Apostle Paul appeals to the same Israelite history in his

first letter to the Corinthians. The Corinthians have been set

free, so how should they then live?

And Paul answers as follows. We, the church, as the temple of

the living God, are called to corporate holiness.

And this corporate holiness is, first of all, grounded in the

law of God. Secondly, it's accomplished or

sorry. Secondly, it's to be protected

with vigilance. And 3rd, it's accomplished by

the sacrifice of Christ. Our corporate holiness to which

we are called, is grounded in the love of God, the law of God.

It is protected with vigilance. And thirdly, it is accomplished

by the sacrifice of Christ the Church as the temple of the

living God. We're called to corporate

holiness, Paul said back in chapter 3.

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of

God dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple,

God will destroy him, for God's temple is holy, and you are that

temple. As Father Dan recently showed

us, the apostle Paul was not only a tent maker by trade, he

was a spiritual tent maker, building God's holy Tabernacle

wherever he's sojourned, whether in Ephesus, whether in Philippi,

Thessalonica, or even Corinth, he took his work very seriously.

And even as Israel was called to keep the Tabernacle holy in the

wilderness after their deliverance from slavery in

Egypt, so the Corinthians were called to keep their corporate

Tabernacle holy. How were they to do this?

Again, first of all, by being grounded in the law of God.

Look at verse 1 of chapter 5. Paul introduces the specific

problem he is addressing. He says it is actually reported

that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is

not even tolerated among pagans, for a man has his father's wife.

The Roman legal system at the time suggests that the man's

father had died, and so the illicit sexual relationship was

with his widowed stepmother. In addition to the drive of his

own lust, the man was perhaps also financially motivated, and

by enmeshing his mother-in-law to himself, the man was ensuring

that he could keep his mother in law's wealth rather than have it

transferred to another man that she might later marry.

Also, given that men married women much their junior in age,

it is quite possible that his father's widow was not too far

from him in age. To make matters worse, not only

were the Corinthian believers allowing this man to continue in

this sin, they amplified their arrogant boasting rather than

showing the corporate repentance that was needed, rather than

grieving the sin that persisted in their fellowship.

Paul immense that even the pagans under the Julio Claudian

legal system had more sense than this.

In verse one, Paul condemns this man's sexual immorality and he

does so by appealing to Leviticus.

Leviticus 8 verse sorry. Leviticus 18 verse 8.

Leviticus 18:8

Deuteronomy 23 verse one, Deuteronomy 27 verse 20.

Deuteronomy 27:20

And Paul draws the phrase his father's wife directly from

these passages. Wait, hold on a second here.

The 21st century might be tempted to ask, isn't Leviticus

the book? With all the weird laws about

not eating shellfish and not sewing 2 garments together in

different fabrics, why would anybody base their code of moral

conduct on this book? Now one could teach an entire

semester course and how the Old Testament law applies today.

But for now, let's just appreciate the fact that in our

Sacred Scriptures, the Apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy

Spirit, goes right to the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,

Numbers, and Deuteronomy for his moral foundation.

For Paul and for Jesus, the law is not abolished.

The law is transformed and expanded by Christ.

The law is not abolished. It is transformed and expanded

more far reaching in Christ. Most of the moral confusions

among Christians today, I argue, are the result of us forgetting

this crucial principle that Christ did not abolish the law.

He transformed it, he expanded it, and crucially, he gave us

the power to obey it by filling us with his Holy Spirit.

Furthermore, it is in the Torah, in the first five books of the

Bible, the law, that we find the story of creation out of nothing

and the story of redemption from slavery in Egypt.

And we get this story before we even hear one commandment spoken

from the fiery mountain of Sinai.

You see, the law given on Sinai combines with the story of

creation and redemption to show us who God created us to be and

to show us the pattern of life that leads to true human

flourishing. In particular, the laws in the

Torah regard in human sexuality are like pieces of a mosaic that

when viewed as a whole, they constitute a beautiful icon of

what it means to be male and female, flourishing in God's

image. Why does Moses and why do Paul

and Jesus and all of Scripture forbid a man to have sex with

his father's wife? Because ultimately it undermines

the grammar of marriage established in Genesis chapter

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

2. A man will leave his father and

mother and hold fast to his own wife, not the wife of his

father, and the two will become one flesh.

Furthermore, it's also good to remember that in an ancient

society where women were protect particularly vulnerable to

exploitation, this law protected women from the predatory

advances of stepsons living in the same households.

God's law then and now is good. It protects the vulnerable, it

constrains wickedness, and it shows us how to live in God's

image. This is why neither Jesus nor

Paul abolish the Law of Moses as they establish an ethics for the

New Testament church, whether on the Sermon on the Mount or in

Paul's letter to the Corinthians.

And the stakes were high for Paul and the Corinthian church.

Brothers and sisters, it is an honor to be the temple of the

holy God. But it is also a sobering

calling. As in the days of Ezekiel the

prophet, when the glory of God departed from the temple because

of perpetual unrepentant sin, so the glory of God was under

threat and it could have departed from the church in

Corinth. You see, sin is not just a

personal matter, it is a corporate reality.

We and cultures of the West are prone to think of everything in

individualistic terms, but Scripture, not so.

Scripture teaches us that my sin does not just affect me.

Your sin does not just affect you.

Rather, our sin affects the corporate holiness of our

gathered church. In chapter 5, verse 6, right

here in First Corinthians, Paul uses the metaphor of leaven to

describe this reality. He says, do you not know that a

little leaven works through the whole lump of dough?

This is serious stuff. This is why we begin every

service with the corporate prayer.

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and

from you no secrets are hidden. Cleanse the thoughts of our

hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may

perfectly love you and worthily magnify Your holy name.

See, this is the prayer that invites the Holy Spirit and

opens our own hearts to receive from the Spirit the conviction

of sin as He brings to our minds the ways that we have sinned

against God and thought word and deed, by what we have done and

left undone, and how we have sinned against our neighbor.

Oh, and in such a glorious way, after confessing these sins

corporately, we cry out, Holy God, holy and mighty, holy

immortal One, have mercy on us, and then we receive the

absolution, the true declaration of the Gospel, that, brothers

and sisters, you have been forgiven.

Now this brings us to our second point.

This corporate holiness that is a gift to us from God, this

calling of being the holy temple of God, it must be protected

with vigilance. Now, we moved into our house

just outside the Pittsburgh area about two years ago.

And let me tell you, this house is still a fixer upper.

It's about 100 years old, and it has a few quirks.

I can call them Pittsburgh quirks.

If anybody's been to the Pittsburgh area, look up

Pittsburgh potty. I don't know why they would put

a toilet in a basement with nothing around it.

It's a Pittsburgh thing and also this is a 100 year old house and

so it has a fun history of what we might call repairs or

improvements. Each generation who has owned

this house has done something else and left their own

eccentric twist to the house. We're kind of discovering things

every week. It's it's a lot of fun.

Now, some of these things that we discover everyday, they can

be delayed by a few years if we don't have the money for it.

So for example, you know, if you see really atrociously ugly

1970s wallpaper, like that's really bad, but that can wait.

You know that can wait. If you have something like a

loose wire underneath your sink that you know just barely has a

little bit of electrical tape on it, or you know, a leaky roof

like that has to be addressed on day one, or a spot of mold in

your basement, Get rid of that the first day you recognize it.

Those cannot wait until next year.

They need to be addressed immediately.

Every day that you delay, you risk compromising the whole

structure of your house, and it might even pose a hazard for the

members of your household. When Paul hears the report of

this particular man's sexual immorality, and when he realizes

the hazard that it poses for the corporate holiness of the

Corinthian church, he calls for a drastic measure, the removal

of this man from the congregation.

Verse 2. Let him who has done this be

removed from among you. Verse three.

You are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his

sinful nature, so that his spirit may be saved on the day

of the Lord. Verse 11 Do not even eat with

such a man. Verse 13 Purge the evil person

from among you. The removal of a member from the

church is what we call excommunication, and it is

important that we clarify from Scripture what this does and

does not mean. Excommunication is not for

unbelievers outside of the church.

It is not for unbelievers who are sojourning among us,

inquiring about our faith. Rather, according to verse 11,

excommunication is for someone who calls himself a brother or a

sister, someone who calls himself or herself a Christian

and continues brazenly in habitual sin even after they've

been confronted. Excommunication happens, first

of all, out of care for the spiritual safety of the whole

church. Secondly, it happens only after

clear warnings have been given to the church member and lesser

forms of church discipline have already been attempted.

We can piece this together from what Paul tells Titus in Titus

Titus 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 and what Jesus tells the disciples in Matthew chapter

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

18. Thirdly, excommunication happens

with great care not to falsely implicate or falsely accuse the

innocent and the vulnerable. Paul would also appeal to Exodus

23 that says do not falsely accuse a brother and do not

condemn the innocent. 4th And finally, excommunication happens

pastorally with the hope of eventual restoration for the

church member. Paul says it in a kind of a

brash way here, but he gets the point across.

I think. Effectively hand the man over to

Satan. In other words, send him out of

the church to have the full ramifications of what he

actually wants, to see the consequences first hand of what

his sin will bring upon him. But it's not a full stop there.

It's so that his sinful nature, that's how I think we should

translate the word for flesh. There his sinful nature might be

destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.

And perhaps this is the brother whom Paul says in Second

Corinthians he calls for his restoration to the church.

In our context today, these measures of church discipline,

and eventually, if it calls for it, excommunication, are usually

taken in the form of barring someone, indefinitely if need

be, from partaking in the bread and wine of Eucharist until this

person has demonstrated true repentance.

It may take weeks. It may even take years, but our

earnest desire as pastors is that our brother or sister will

repent and be fully restored to our table fellowship.

Because holiness, brothers and sisters, is beautiful.

The Psalms call us to worship God in the beauty of holiness,

and when the bride of Christ is beautifully arrayed, then that

shows the world again that icon of what God has created us to

be, and that is the city on the hill.

That is the light and the darkness, that is the salt of

the earth. Now you may know that every

priest that is ordination makes a vow to quote.

Work diligently with your whole heart to bring those in your

care into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of God, and

to bring them to maturity in Christ, that there may be among

you neither error in religion nor immorality in life.

And when our Bishop asked me, Underoath, whether I would be

faithful to this task, brothers and sisters, I answered, I will,

the Lord being my helper. And the Bishop commended to me

this truth, that if I fail in that and am unfaithful to this

task, judgment will come upon me and all the shepherds who have

unfaithfully LED. So if I am your priest and I

give you the body and blood of Christ at Eucharist, knowing

that while you call yourself a Christian, you are living an

unrepentant sin, and that in your sin you are leading others

in the congregation to go astray, then I am breaking my

vows that I made before God and my Bishop, and I'm failing to

protect the flock that God has put under my care.

Furthermore, I am a man under authority, the authority of my

rector, the authority of our Bishop, and ultimately under the

authority of God. And so I too am subject to the

same calling, the same standard of holiness, and I have other

souls under my care for which I am accountable.

Bishops and rectors and head pastors, as the head shepherds

of our flocks, they have been entrusted with this sacred

responsibility of excommunication to protect the

holiness of the temple of God, to guard the flock that is

vulnerable, and in the Lord's grace, to work toward the

repentance and restoration of the excommunicated member.

OK, anybody ready for a deep breath?

This has been weighty stuff and you and I, we may well ask, how

can any of us live up to the standards of holiness that God

demands? Who among us does not fall short

every single day? Is corporate holiness a fantasy

for the self-righteous? This brings us to our third and

final point. This corporate holiness is

accomplished only by the sacrifice of Christ, our

Passover lamb. Look at verses 7 through 8.

Paul says, cleanse out the old leaven, that you may be a new

lump of dough, as you've really already are unleavened.

For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.

Let us therefore celebrate the festival not with the old

leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened

bread of sincerity and truth. Now, these two verses are

literally, rhetorically and theologically right at the

center of this passage. And many of the passages in

First Corinthians, and one might argue First Corinthians as a

whole, Paul is doing this, what we call a chiastic reasoning.

He's putting one point at the beginning, one point at the end.

They kind of mirror image each other.

And right at the center is his main point.

Right at the center of this passage is, I believe, his main

point. He has the implications about

what they have to do for this unrepentant brother, but he has

the main point, grounding and all, and that is Christ, our

Passover lamb has been sacrificed.

We have the imperative, the what we must do to cleanse out the

old leaven. And this is a reference to the

Israelite law in Exodus that once a year the people were to

prepare for the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

But the Feast of Unleavened Bread does not begin until

Passover is finished. The Passover feast happens first

on the month of Nissan 15, and then 16 to 21 of that same month

is the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

So, in other words, the Feast of Unleavened Bread does not begin

until the Passover lamb has been sacrificed, until the blood has

been put on the door, until we have been covered with all of

our sin, with the blood of Christ our Passover lamb.

As the hymn the hymn writer once said, not the labor of my hands

can fulfill Thy law's demands. Could my zeal no respite, no

could my tears forever flow all for sin could not atone.

Thou must save and Thou alone. Paul calls us to the standard of

holiness and shows us that our only hope is in Jesus Christ,

who pay the penalty for our sin, who has filled us with His Holy

Spirit, has sealed us so that no one can mount an accusation for

those against those who are in Christ.

And with that, as our fundamental identity, we are to

live into this reality that Christ has already created in

US. And as the corporate body of

Christ, this is where we found, where we find our strength, our

wisdom to live in this way. Today's sermon has touched on

some weighty matters, but the worth of something corresponds

to how much it costs. What does it cost to be the

church? On the one hand, it cost a price

that we can never pay, the sacrifice of Christ, our

Passover lamb. On the other hand, if through

our baptism into Christ we have joined this covenant community

of the Church, then this will cost us our entire life lived

for Christ and in community one with another.

The cost of being the Church means nothing less than the full

allegiance to our King Jesus and the uncompromising pursuit of

corporate holiness. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has

been sacrificed for us. Therefore, with joy, with

gratitude, with vigilance, let us celebrate this festival.

Walking in light, walking in truth, spurring one another on

toward love and good deeds, Receiving the discipline of the

Lord through His Word as it is preached to our own hearts.

Coming to Him every day for forgiveness, and receiving the

Gospel as it is proclaimed over you that your sins have been

forgiven. As brothers and sisters, as the

family of God set free from slavery to sin, death and the

devil, let us pursue this holiness together, celebrating

the Feast of our King Jesus with sincerity and truth, in the name

of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.