Forbidden Entrances

1 Corinthians 5 is one of those passages that always gets me.  It always cuts to my heart, convicts me, and frankly, makes me uncomfortable when I look at my own life.  It's a serious torch that Paul commands  us to carry, but it's one that's so white-hot that we barely touch it.  Judgment is something that, in our culture, is looked at as a heinous thing.  The very word causes us to cringe.  We live in a world that saturates itself in self-empowerment universalism.  The message of the world is, "It's okay, it's who you are."  The message of Christ is, "Your identity is in Me; live to glorify Me."  So when Christians come out against such worldly-accepted issues as homosexuality (Chick-Fil-A) the world gets infuriated and words fly. 
1 Corinthians 5 talks about calling out other Christians who are knowingly thriving in sin.  One thing that I believe very strongly is that as Christians there's a huge difference to living with sin and living in sin.  We're Christians, we're not perfect, we'll still have our struggles and we'll still battle daily with temptation.  In fact, Romans talks about struggling with sin in Paul's famous, mind-bending play on words in Romans 7.  In Romans 7:25 he even says, "Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."  As Christians, we will struggle with sin, but God always calls us to combat it.  We fight against our sinful nature.  Galatians 5 talks further about it and says that the, "Sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit...they are in conflict with each other."  (5:17)  Living in sin is completely different.  Someone's sin--who hasn't been washed in the blood of Christ--is unpaid for.  They are still carrying the weight of their sin on their own shoulders instead of accepting Christ's death and putting it on His cross.  They are literally living in sin.  The conviction isn't there because there is no law of grace and salvation residing within. 
Going back to 1 Corinthians 5, we are supposed to call out those who are within the church.  Those outside of the church live by a different standard--one that's not run by love for God.  How can we judge them if they have different standards and live different lives than we do?  We can't, which Paul says in 5:12, " What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?"  Instead, we are commanded in verse 11 to not even associate with Christians who are living in sin,

^"But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat."

With such a man do not even eat.  Wow.  Even if we go back to the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 17:7; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21, 24; and 24:7 the Old Testament law had the Israelites killing and maiming other Israelites who were living in sin!  I highly doubt that Paul is telling us to kill other brothers and sisters in Christ, but the brutal image is there.  If there is someone within the church who is knowingly living in sin and living like the rest of the world with no conviction, we need to call him out.  

There's a happy ending, though.  The point of calling out our brothers and sisters is for reconciliation.  We don't want to cast them out of the church to the streets and let the devil have his way with them.  Our purpose is to cast the conviction and love of Christ in their hearts so that they'll realize what they're doing and turn back to Jesus.  Therein we find the beautiful picture of reconciliation that Christ painted for us on the cross.  

--DyingAnOriginal