Curse Redux? 1 Corinthians 5:13, Deuteronomy, And Identity In Corinth

By Guy Prentiss Waters

[Guy Prentiss Waters is the James M. Baird Jr. Professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS.]

At first glance, 1 Cor 5:1–13 seems to have little to do either with Scripture or identity formation. For one thing, the chapter lacks a citation formula of any kind.[1] Furthermore, the “two-fold” “problem” of a heinous and public instance of πορνεία (v. 1) and of the Corinthian community’s response to this circumstance (v. 2) dominates this chapter.[2] Such concerns seem far-removed from the project of identity confirmation.[3]

On further consideration, however, this portion of Paul’s letter evidences not only an example of Paul’s sophisticated engagement with Scripture, but also illustrates the way in which Paul was engaged in confirming the Christian identity of believers in Corinth. These two concerns, far from running in parallel and non-intersecting lines in 1 Cor 5, are intersecting, even mutually reinforcing. In this chapter, “Paul employs Scripture to foster the conversion of the imagination.”[4] This apostolic objective, furthermore, far from lying at the periphery of the argument in 1 Cor 5, sits comfortably at its center.

We will undertake to demonstrate this point along three lines. First, we will observe that in v. 13, the conclusion to Paul’s argument, he is explicitly referencing an “expulsion formula” drawn from LXX Deuteronomy.[5] Carefully following the work of both Brian S. Rosner and Richard B. Hays along these lines, we will explore the purposes for which Paul has so engaged this portion of Scripture.[6]

Second, we will address a problem posed by Rosner’s and Hays’s work but unaddressed by it. To be sure, Paul’s citation of Deuteronomy is indicative of Paul’s conviction that “his Gentile Corinthian readers” have “been taken up into Israel in such a way that they now share in Israel’s covenant privileges and obligations.”[7] This citation is furthermore indicative of Paul’s conviction that the immoral offender was guilty of “covenant disloyalty.”[8] But, given Paul’s understanding of Jesus’ death as eschatologically curse-bearing (Gal 3:13; cf. 1 Cor 5:7b), what does it mean that an individual is to be removed from the eschatological community (10:11b, εἰς οὓς τὰ τέλη τῶν αἰώνων κατήντηκεν) on behalf of which Jesus bore covenant and eschatological curse? In light of Paul’s understanding of all that had transpired in redemptive history, how are we to understand this individual’s transfer back into the realm of curse?

Third, we will argue that in v. 5, recognized by many to stand in close relationship with v. 13, Paul provides an answer to this complex of questions.[9] Verse 5 answers these questions not directly but indirectly. Here Paul is forming the Corinthians’ eschatological sensibilities.[10] He is providing an answer to the question, What is the significance and import of the removal of an offender from the eschatological covenant community? More broadly, he is helping the Corinthians to understand what it means to live, as that eschatological covenant community, between the death and resurrection of Christ and what Paul calls in v. 5 “the day of the Lord” (τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ κυρίου).

I. Verse 13—Deuteronomic Exkommunikationsformel

Such recent critical editions of the GNT as NA28 and UBS4 acknowledge a precise verbal correspondence between Paul’s words in 1 Cor 5:13b and LXX Deut 17:7. Scholars recognize that other Deuteronomic texts correspond verbally to those of Paul in v. 13b.[11] At least six texts have been proposed as candidates: LXX Deut 17:7 (ἐξαρεῖς τὸν πονηρὸν ἐξ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν), 19:19 (ἐξαρεῖς τὸν πονηρὸν ἐξ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν), 21:21 (ἐξαρεῖς τὸν πονηρὸν ἐξ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν), 22:21 (ἐξαρεῖς τὸν πονηρὸν ἐξ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν), 22:24 (ἐξαρεῖς τὸν πονηρὸν ἐξ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν), and 24:7 (ἐξαρεῖς τὸν πονηρὸν ἐξ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν).[12] Within Deuteronomy, a variant of this phrase appears in LXX Deut 13:6 (ἀφανιεῖς τὸν πονηρὸν ἐξ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν).

Two observations emerge from a consideration of these six Deuteronomic texts. First, each is identical to the other; there are no variations of word choice, word order, number, or tense. Second, with respect to these particular phrases, the LXX manuscript tradition is remarkably stable.[13]

With the exception of a contextually mandated change of number (ἐξάρατε), 1 Cor 5:13c (ἐξάρατε τὸν πονηρὸν ἐξ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν) is verbally identical with these six Deuteronomic commands.[14] Notwithstanding the absence of an introductory citation formula, Rosner has convincingly argued that v. 13c is a citation and not merely an “allusion” or “parallel.”[15] Both the precision of the verbal correspondence, and the fact that the Greek verb ἐξαίρω “is a New Testament hapax legomenon” commend this verse as “Paul’s intentional and explicit use of the formula from Deuteronomy.”[16]

To recognize this relationship raises two further questions. First, how widely has Paul cast his net within Deuteronomy? Is he engaging one, some, or all of these texts? Second, for what purpose(s) has Paul chosen this particular Deuteronomic text at this important, concluding juncture of his argument?

First, which of these six Deuteronomic texts is Paul referencing in 1 Cor 5:13c? One way to answer this question is by comparing the Deuteronomic contexts of each of these imperatives with the Pauline context of v. 13c. Two of the Deuteronomic imperatives (22:21; 22:24) entail the expulsion of a sexual offender from the community of Israel, and it is precisely such an offense that is in view in 1 Cor 5.[17] A further clue emerges from the offender’s sin that Paul specifies in v. 1.[18] This instance of πορνεία is one in which γυναῖκά τινα τοῦ πατρὸς ἔχειν (v. 1). Commentators have noted several Pentateuchal texts that verbally approximate Paul’s words in 1 Cor 5:1, indicating that these texts have informed Paul’s moral assessment of this situation in Corinth—Lev 18:18; 20:11; Deut 22:30 (=LXX 23:1), 27:20.[19] As Rosner has noted, these two Deuteronomic references are especially compelling.[20] The Deuteronomic prohibition (Deut 22:30; cf. 1 Cor 5:1) is contextually proximate to the Deuteronomic imperatives to expel the offender (Deut 22:21; 22:24; cf. 1 Cor 5:13c). The offense in view, furthermore, subjects one to “curse” (Deut 27:20); this is “perhaps the reason Paul ‘curses’ the sinner in 1 Corinthians 5.”[21]

Thus, it appears that Paul in this chapter is certainly engaging texts in Deut 22, and perhaps Deut 27:20. That Paul is not merely engaging this one chapter is evident from his vice list in v. 11 (πόρνος ἢ πλεονέκτης ἢ εἰδωλολάτρης ἢ λοίδορος ἢ μέθυσος ἢ ἅρπαξ).[22] This list is important for our consideration of the Scripture text cited in v. 13c. Five of these vices not only find a parallel in Deuteronomy, but also, according to Deuteronomy, “warrant exclusion” from the covenant community.[23] Fornication corresponds to Deut 22:20–22, 30. While greed has “no parallel” in Deuteronomy, it is “paired with ‘robbers’ in 1 Cor 5:9.”[24] Greed may find conceptual pairing, then, with the final item in this list, theft, which corresponds to Deut 24:7. Idolatry corresponds to Deut 17:2–7. Reviling corresponds to Deut 19:15–19. Drunkenness corresponds to Deut 21:20–21.

Whether or not Paul has crafted his vice list both to echo the argumentative structure of this portion of the epistle and to “follow the canonical order of [these vices’] occurrence in Deuteronomy,” two matters are clear.[25] First, Paul signals in v. 11 what we have argued is evident on other grounds—that Paul is self-consciously citing Deuteronomy in v. 13c.[26] Second, and perhaps more importantly, v. 11 indicates that Paul’s engagement of Deuteronomy in this chapter is not confined to an isolated verse. Paul’s argument is thick with Deuteronomic references that bear out the apostle’s sustained engagement with that book of Scripture throughout 1 Cor 5 (vv. 5:1, 11, 13). This is not necessarily to deny the presence in this chapter of other influences from elsewhere within Scripture, or even from outside Scripture. It is to say that the form of Paul’s argument in 1 Cor 5 compels us to reflect further on what ways Deuteronomy has provided Paul both the vocabulary and categories with which he reasons in this chapter.

Our second and final question is, For what purpose(s) has Paul chosen these particular Deuteronomic texts at the important, concluding juncture of his argument (v. 13c)? To put the question another way in light of our conclusions above, Why are the Deuteronomic expulsion texts important to Paul in 1 Cor 5? As both Rosner and Hays have observed, Paul’s argument surely assumes an identity between Israel and the Corinthian church as covenant community.[27] Paul will formally articulate this identity in 1 Cor 10, but it is palpably present already in 1 Cor 5. Paul here is transferring elements of Israel’s identity to that of the Corinthian church. Like Israel, these Gentile believers are in covenant with God, under obligation to God to pursue holiness, and subject to exclusion from the covenant community for gross and scandalous immoral behavior.

That Paul is reflecting along these lines is corroborated by the way in which he addresses the situation in Corinth. The occasion for Paul’s argument, to be sure, is the behavior of a single Corinthian offender (v.1, τινα; v. 2, ὁ τὸ ἔργον τοῦτο πράξας; v. 3, τὸν οὕτως τοῦτο κατεργασάμενον). At the same time, Paul’s interest in the matter is broader than either a single person or even a single offense.[28] This fact is apparent from the movement in this chapter from specificity to generality. Paul speaks in v. 5 of handing over to Satan “such a one” (τοιοῦτον). Paul warns the Corinthians not to associate with “immoral people” (πόρνοις), before broadening this list to include the greedy, thieves, and idolaters (v. 10), that is, “anyone who is called a brother” (ἐάν τις ἀδελφὸς ὀνομαζόμενος) and nevertheless is sexually immoral, greedy, an idolater, a reviler, a drunkard, or a thief (v. 11). The closing imperative of v. 13, therefore, can be restricted neither to this particular offender nor to this particular class of sexual offenders. It applies to a whole range of persons and offenses within the community. That Paul has this concern for the Corinthian community as a whole corroborates our findings above: Paul identifies the church in Corinth with Israel—God’s covenant people called not only to maintain certain moral standards but also to expel notorious violators of the same.

II. Curse Redux?

This identification between Israel and the Corinthian community, however, raises a problem. We may begin to understand the problem by considering what the import was, according to Deuteronomy, of community expulsion. As Deut 27:20 indicates, the offense of 1 Cor 5:1 was one that not only subjected the offender to community removal (as Deut 22:21) but also to covenant “curse.” In this instance, to be removed from the community meant to be placed outside the realm within which divine blessing was operative, and to be consigned to the realm of covenantal curse.

In light of the identity that Paul has established between Israel and the Corinthian community in 1 Cor 5, we are bound to understand the removal of the Corinthian offender along the same lines. This particular removal entails placement under covenant curse. Given Paul’s categorical application of the Deuteronomic covenant-removal formula to a wide range of offenses, one may conclude that to be removed from the New Covenant community in the fashion delineated in 1 Cor 5 is to be consigned to covenant curse.

Paul’s own argument in 1 Cor 5, perhaps unintentionally, raises a significant problem in connection with this line of reasoning. In v. 6a, Paul admonishes the Corinthians for their “boasting” (καύχημα).[29] He warns them in v. 6b using either “a maxim or proverb” or “a standard metaphor”—that of a little leaven leavening the whole lump.[30] In light of this state of affairs, Paul exhorts the community in v. 7a to “cleanse out the old leaven, in order that you may be a new lump, just as you are unleavened.” This command evokes the Feast of Unleavened Bread which, in turn, naturally evokes the immediately preceding Feast of Passover (Exod 12:18–20; 13:7).[31]

It is Passover that Paul explicitly evokes in v. 7b (γὰρ τὸ πάσχα ἡμῶν ἐτύθη Χριστός). In the context of Paul’s argument, Christ as Passover provides a further ground for the preceding imperative.[32] Paul’s immediate interest in conjoining Christ and Passover is in the promotion of the moral purification of the Corinthian community.[33] Paul does so in the way in which he represents Christ as the Passover sacrifice, as the verb ἐτύθη surely indicates (cf. LXX Exod 12:22). Associating the death of Christ on the cross with the Passover lamb in this fashion introduces at this juncture not only the “idea” of “sacrifice,” but also of “covenant” (cf. 11:25, τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη ἐστὶν ἐν τῷ ἐμῷ αἵματι).[34] Paul therefore once again identifies the Corinthian Christians with the covenant community, Israel, and here relates Christ to the Passover sacrifice as antitype to type.[35] That Paul is reasoning typologically is evident not only from the way in which other NT writers reason similarly concerning the Passover (cf. John 1:29; Mark 14:24), but also from the immediate context of Paul’s argument. Paul’s statement about Christ as Passover sacrifice logically grounds the prior exhortation to “cleanse out the old [παλαιάν] leaven, in order that you may be a new [νέον] lump, just as you are unleavened” (5:7a). The contrast between “old” and “new,” as R. A. Harrisville has persuasively argued, is decidedly an eschatological contrast of aeonic proportions.[36] The “newness” of the community is on the order of the “new creation” that the Corinthian Christians are in Christ (2 Cor 5:17; cf. Gal 6:15).[37] Also telling is the way in which Paul prefaces the command to remove the “old leaven” in the preceding verse with an admonition regarding the Corinthians’ “boasting” (καύχημα). Boasting, as Paul has earlier argued, is characteristic of “flesh” (πᾶσα σάρξ, 1:29; cf. 3:1–3), that is, of sinful human existence in this present age (cf. 1:20, 21; 2:6). This caution regarding boasting in v. 6, then, provides an eschatological context for Paul’s command in v. 7 to “cleanse out the old leaven.”

Christ is, therefore, the eschatological Passover sacrifice. Using the possessive pronoun ἡμῶν, Paul emphasizes that this sacrifice has particular reference to the Corinthian community. Paul later in this epistle speaks of Christ’s death as “for our sins” (15:3, ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν), whether or not this particular dimension of Christ’s death is in the foreground in 1 Cor 5:7.[38] In any case, Paul understands Christ’s death here in 1 Cor 5:7 as redemptive, analogous to the redemption of Israel from bondage in Egypt, and as having particular reference to the Corinthian community.

In another epistle, Paul speaks of Christ’s death as redemptive, and proceeds to specify that redemption in terms of curse-removal; see Gal 3:13a, Χριστὸς ἡμᾶς ἐξηγόρασεν ἐκ τῆς κατάρας τοῦ νόμου γενόμενος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν κατάρα. Time prevents us from exploring all the exegetical questions occasioned by this statement, but we may draw a few observations pertinent to Paul’s argument in 1 Cor 5.[39] First, Paul speaks of his hearers as having previously been under “the curse of the law.” Second, Christ has “redeemed” them from that curse, and has done so by “becoming a curse on our behalf.” Third, as Paul goes on to say in Gal 3:13b, Christ did so precisely in accordance with the Mosaic Law itself (ὅτι γέγραπται‚ ἐπικατάρατος πᾶς ὁ κρεμάμενος ἐπὶ ξύλου). The passage that Paul cites is Deut 21:23. Christ has borne, and believers have been redeemed from, Deuteronomic curse.

We are now in a position to appreciate the problem that Paul’s argument in 1 Cor 5 brings to the surface. The Corinthian community is one that is said to have been redeemed from Deuteronomic curse. This redemption is owing to the eschatological Passover-sacrificial death of Christ. Paul, in v. 13, however, invokes a Deuteronomic excommunication formula to remove an offender from the Corinthian community. The effect of this removal is to relegate the individual to the realm of “curse.” What are we to make of an individual who once was included within the community said to have been redeemed from curse and who now, by apostolic injunction no less, is consigned to “curse”? In light of the accomplished, eschatological, curse-bearing death of Christ for the community of believers, how are we to explain this apparently anomalous state of affairs? Furthermore, if removal from the (pre-eschatological) Israelite community meant death, then what does removal from the eschatological community entail for the offender?[40] Does Paul provide us any guidance in answering this question?

III. Another Look At Verse 5

Paul in fact does provide such guidance in v. 5. Although it does not verbally cite or allude to Deuteronomy, v. 5 constitutes what Grosheide has properly called “de geestelijke achtergrond” (“the spiritual background”) of Paul’s Deuteronomic command in v. 13.[41] Paul’s statements in v. 5, then, provide unique insight into and are integrally related to Paul’s engagement of Deuteronomy in this chapter.

The immediate context of v. 5 is a profoundly eschatological one. Leaving aside consideration of the question whether the phrase “with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ” (σὺν τῇ δυνάμει τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ, v. 4) modifies the preceding genitive absolute (“when you are gathered together”) or the following infinitive (“hand over”),[42] we may note that the Lord Jesus’ “power” in this connection is none other than the power of the Holy Spirit, so 2 Cor 13:4: καὶ γὰρ ἐσταυρώθη ἐξ ἀσθενείας, ἀλλὰ ζῇ ἐκ δυνάμεως θεοῦ.[43] This power of the Holy Spirit is, in the Corinthian correspondence, an eschatological power. Upon his resurrection, Paul later argues, Jesus assumed a “spiritual body” (σῶμα πνευματικόν, 1 Cor 15:44a), that is, a body indwelt, inhabited, and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Jesus, furthermore, as “last Adam” became “life giving Spirit” (ἐγένετο εἰς πνεῦμα ζῳοποιοῦν, 15:45b), such that “the Lord is the Spirit” (ὁ δὲ κύριος τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν, 2 Cor 3:17).[44] Whether qualifying the assembly or the assembly’s action in expelling the offender, the phrase “the power of the Lord Jesus Christ” indicates that Paul understands this ecclesiastical removal (and others of like kind, v. 11) in eschatological terms.

Paul’s statements in v. 5, then, are both integrally tied by way of v. 13 to the broader pattern of engagement with Deuteronomy in 1 Cor 5, and situated in an eschatological context. They are therefore well positioned to answer the questions we have posed above regarding the “curse” to which the offender is assigned. In the interests of answering those questions, we will take up in succession three matters relating to the interpretation of v. 5: (1) the meaning of “flesh” (σάρξ) and “S/spirit” (πνεῦμα) in v. 5 and the related question of the meaning of “body” (σῶμα) and “S/spirit” (πνεῦμα) in v. 3; (2) the meaning of the phrase “handing over such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh” (v. 5a); and (3) the meaning of the phrase “in order that [his/the] S/spirit may be saved on the Day of the Lord” (v. 5b).

First, what is the meaning of “flesh” and “S/spirit” in v. 5? There are at least three positions represented in the literature.[45] There is, first, an anthropological understanding of these two terms. “Flesh” and “spirit” correspond to the corporeal and non-corporeal dimensions or parts of the human person, the “physical flesh” and “human spirit,” respectively.[46] On this reading the “flesh” and “spirit” in view in v. 5 are those of the offender. The “destruction” is of his corporeal humanity; correspondingly, the “salvation” is of his soul, his inner self. The problem with this view is two-fold. First, this reading of “flesh” and “spirit” must supply an implied possessive (“his”) that is not present in the Greek text. That Paul does not so qualify these two nouns suggests an alternative interpretation. Second, this reading may suggest that Paul understands eschatological salvation (“on the day of the Lord,” v. 5b) to be non-corporeal in nature, an impossible proposition in view of what Paul will go on to say about the resurrection body in 1 Cor 15.[47]

A second understanding of these two terms is ecclesiological. The “flesh” and “spirit” refer, in the first instance, to the church in Corinth.[48] “Flesh” then refers to “the fleshly orientation of the church, absorbed as it is by boasting,” whereas “Spirit” is the “Holy Spirit resident in the community of faith.”[49] The absence of any possessive pronoun modifying either noun renders this view plausible. It is, nevertheless, unlikely. First, it is unclear from the text precisely how the removal of the offender will produce the desired result, “the destruction of the flesh,” that is, according to one proponent, the destruction of “the church’s sinful attitude.”[50] Second, there is the affirmation, otherwise unprecedented in Paul, that the Spirit himself will be “saved” on the Day of the Lord. Even understanding this statement in terms of the Spirit’s willingness to remain in the community and thus “keep them for the day of the Lord” does not alleviate this difficulty.[51]

A third and compelling understanding of these two terms is eschatological. The “flesh” and “Spirit” refer, in the first instance, to the two orders characterized by sin, curse, and death, on the one hand, and righteousness, blessing, and life, on the other.[52] Each corresponds to the First and Last Adams, respectively (cf. 1 Cor 15:22). When Paul pairs these two terms, they customarily bear this eschatological sense.

Paul therefore does not engage in the anthropological compartmentalization of the offender in v. 5. On the contrary, he describes the offender in relation to each of these orders.[53] As Murphy-O’Connor has aptly paraphrased, the two terms speak of “the whole person as viewed from different angles. ‘Spirit’ means the whole person as oriented towards God. ‘Flesh’ means the whole person as oriented away from God.”[54] The “destruction” and “salvation” that Paul describes therefore have reference to the one individual with respect to these aforementioned dimensions of “flesh” and “Spirit.”

One objection to this view stems from Paul’s terminology in vv. 3–4. In v. 3, Paul describes himself as one who is “absent in the body, but present in S/spirit” (ἀπὼν τῷ σώματι παρὼν δὲ τῷ πνεύματι). In v. 4, Paul mentions the presence of “my S/spirit” (τοῦ ἐμοῦ πνεύματος) in the Corinthian assembly.[55] Does this terminology not require the kind of anthropological reading of v. 5 that we have above rejected? In fact, although Paul is speaking personally, he is not speaking dualistically. In v. 3, Paul is stressing that he is physically absent from the Corinthians, but he is very much present among them in and by the Holy Spirit, who, Paul argues in 1 Cor 6, 10, and 12, indwells each believer, unites each believer to Christ, and brings these believers into relationship and communion one with another.[56] That Paul, in the very next clause, references the Spirit (“with the power of our Lord Jesus”) only confirms this reading.

Given this understanding of “flesh” and “Spirit” in v. 5, what does Paul have in mind by “handing over [the offender] to Satan for the destruction of the flesh”? The clause “for the destruction of the flesh” likely expresses the purpose of the “handing over to Satan.”[57] The “handing over to Satan” is undoubtedly Paul’s explanation of the significance of the removal of the offender from the Corinthian community. What does this particular expression communicate? The verb παραδίδωμι is one that Paul elsewhere uses of God’s judicially giving over sinners to further sin (Rom 1:24, 26, 28), and of God’s giving over Jesus to death on the cross (1 Cor 11:23; Rom 4:25; 8:32).[58] “Satan” is, Paul writes, the “god of this world” (2 Cor 4:4). To “hand over to Satan” is, in this context, to commit a person to the realm of Satan.

Some interpreters believe that committal to this realm necessarily entails not only the physical suffering but also the death of the one so committed.[59] It has also been argued that this death follows upon the “pronouncement of a curse upon the offender.”[60] Some appeal to Greco-Roman and Jewish magical “curse formulae” as providing background and lending support to this interpretation.[61] At least one interpreter has argued that the curses of Deut 27 are being invoked with the purpose or result of the death of the expelled offender.[62]

At first glance, the phrase “for the destruction of the flesh” may seem to commend this interpretation. Paul emphasizes, however, that what is destroyed is “flesh” (σάρξ). In view is not the offender’s corporeality so much as his participation and involvement in sin.[63] Paul indicates that Satan is the instrument of this destruction (ὄλεθρον; cf. 10:10). Paul does not specify the mechanism or method by which Satan brings to pass this “destruction of the flesh.” It may or may not involve physical suffering, as the conceptual parallel in 2 Cor 12:7 may suggest. It certainly seems to be corrective or instructive, as the verbal parallel in 1 Tim 1:20 indicates (οὓς παρέδωκα τῷ σατανᾷ, ἵνα παιδευθῶσιν μὴ βλασφημεῖν).[64]

That such “destruction of the flesh” is indeed a “remedial process” is also evident from the concluding part of Paul’s statement in 5:5b, ἵνα τὸ πνεῦμα σωθῇ ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ κυρίου.[65] In an admittedly difficult locution, but one that deftly expresses the eschatological contrast with “the destruction of the flesh,” Paul stresses that the ultimate purpose of handing over this individual to Satan is his salvation.[66] Paul desires that, on the Day of the Lord, this individual will be found among the number of the saved, who will be presented “blameless” on that day (1:8).[67] That day, which Paul elsewhere emphasizes is a day of ultimate judgment (4:5) and of divine wrath (Rom 2:5, 8), has not yet occurred. The position of the offender is a dire one. He is to be excluded from the eschatological community, and is no longer reckoned among the number of those for whom the crucified and risen Christ has borne curse in judgment. He is to be formally expelled through formulations drawn from the Deuteronomic curses. He will be “outside the edifying and caring environment of the church where God is at work.”[68 ]Even so, the position of the offender is not a hopeless one. His expulsion from the community is not designed to be an act of final, eschatological judgment. That judgment awaits the “Day of the Lord.” And it may be that the offender, upon repentance, will find himself among those who are “saved” on that day.[69]

IV. Conclusions

At one level, Paul’s argument in 1 Cor 5:1–13 is remarkably straightforward—a notorious and scandalous moral offender must be put out of the Corinthian community. Two factors contribute to the complexity of the argument. First, presupposing the identity of the Corinthian community with Israel, Paul proceeds to frame not only the offense (and other offenses) in Deuteronomic terms, but also the requisite sanction. Second, Paul’s argument is thoroughly eschatological, not least in his description of Christ as a typological Passover sacrifice.

These two factors raise a host of questions relating to this expulsion. What are we to make of an individual, once included in the community belonging to Christ who has borne “curse” for his people, now to be removed from that community into the domain of curse? Does Paul understand the execution of the sentence of exclusion to entail the death of the offender?

Paul’s argument in v. 5 provides an eschatological answer to these eschatological questions. The offender is indeed being committed to the realm of sin, curse, and Satan. This committal may, but need not, entail his temporal death. Its proximate purpose is that he would be delivered from the dominion of the “flesh” (σάρξ), and that, on the Day of the Lord, the day of final, eschatological judgment, “the Spirit might be saved,” that is, that he, as an individual, might be found to be saved—one whose life exhibited the holiness befitting one indwelt by the Spirit of the risen Christ.

Paul understands the Deuteronomic curses to have found their typological fulfillment in the cursing of Christ at the cross. This likely goes some distance to explain why Paul does not insist on the temporal penalties that would have accompanied the execution of these curses in ancient Israel. Nevertheless, Paul goes out of his way to pronounce the expulsion in clear Deuteronomic terms. Why does he do this within the eschatological community? Paul will develop the answer in 1 Cor 10—like Israel of old (“our fathers,” 10:1), the church is a wilderness community, having been redeemed from bondage in Egypt, but not yet having arrived in the Promised Land. As the offender of v. 1 and the community’s response to him (vv. 2, 6) indicate, the Christian community is incompletely sanctified, and is presently in a place of danger and threat. The prospect of expulsion from the community (v. 13) and its remedial purposes (v. 5) are necessary components of this mode of eschatological existence. These are hardly the sole or even primary weapons in the apostle’s arsenal. What dominates this chapter, and what Paul hoped would dominate the minds of his readers, is an eschatological and ecclesial identity forged by Scripture.[70]

Notes

1. Christopher D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture, SNTSMS 74 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 195n44. Stanley properly notes, however, that 1 Cor 5:13 offers a “nearly verbatim quotation (adapted to suit its second-person plural context) of Deut 17.7 / 19.9 / 21.21 / 22.21 / 22.24 / 24.7” (ibid). Dieter-Alex Koch includes 1 Cor 5:13 (Deut 17:7inter alia) in a table of “ungekennzeichnete Zitate,” noting that it lacks “eine Einleitungsformulierung” (Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums: Untersuchungen zur Verwendung und zum Verständnis der Schrift bei Paulus, BHT 69 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986), 23, 271.
2. See Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 196.
3. I am grateful to Bernard Aubert for his suggestion of the phrase “identity confirmation.”
4. Richard B. Hays, The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 24.
5. The phrase is that of Brian S. Rosner, Paul, Scripture, and Ethics: A Study of 1 Corinthians 5-7, AGJU 22 (Leiden: Brill, 1994; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 61.
6. In addition to Hays, Conversion of the Imagination, and Rosner, Paul, Scripture, and Ethics, see Richard B. Hays, First Corinthians, Int (Louisville: John Knox, 1997); and Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010).
7. Hays, Conversion of the Imagination, 23. It will be in 1 Cor 10 that Paul will provide extended and explicit consideration of this point; so Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 97.
8. Rosner, Paul, Scripture, and Ethics, 91; cf. Hays, Conversion of the Imagination, 24.
9. “Bij deze exegese is ook παραδοῦναι τῷ σατανᾷ zeer wel te verenigen met het ἐξαίρειν van vs 13, het eerste is de geestelijke achtergrond van het tweede” (F. W. Grosheide, De eerste Brief aan de Kerk te Korinthe, Commentaar op het Nieuwe Testament [Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1957], 144). Cf. Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, EKKNT 7/1 (Zurich: Benziger, 1991), 375, 394; Koch, Die Schrift als Zeuge, 278n2.
10. That Paul is doing so stands independently of the question whether Paul is writing this epistle, in part, to correct what has been termed the Corinthians’ over-realized eschatology; so Anthony Thiselton, “Realized Eschatology at Corinth,” NTS 24 (1978): 510-26; and Thiselton’s subsequent qualification, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 40; see also Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 12. Note the trenchant dissent of Hays, Conversion of the Imagination, 6-7; and the alternative proposed by Ciampa and Rosner, First Letter to the Corinthians, 4-5, 179. On the degree to which Paul’s reasoning in this epistle is eschatological in nature, see David Garland, 1 Corinthians, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 16-17.
11. Koch recognizes this fact, but declines to specify which other texts may be in view (Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums, 13, 18, 23, 102, 188, 271); cf. Hans Lietzmann, An die Korinther, HNT 9 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1969), 25. Identifying the relationship as one of “allusion” or “parallel,” E. Earle Ellis sees Deut 22:24 or possibly Deut 24:7 as back of Paul’s text (Paul’s Use of the Old Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957], 153).
12. See representatively Peter S. Zaas, “‘Cast Out the Evil Man from Your Midst’ (1 Cor 5:13b),” JBL 103 (1984): 259n2.
13. Koch notes that Deut 17:7c, with other LXX texts cited by Paul, “stimm[t] … mit dem überlieferten Wortlaut der LXX in seiner ältesten erreichbaren Gestalt überein” (Die Schrift als Zeuge, 102).
14. A few NT MSS render the imperative as an (imperatival) future indicative (ἐξαρεῖτε) or as a present imperative (ἐξαίρετε).
15. Rosner, Paul, Scripture, and Ethics, 61-64, responding to the proposals of E. Earle Ellis, Richard Longenecker, and Harold Ulonska.
16. Rosner, Paul, Scripture, and Ethics, 63.
17. Hays, Conversion of the Imagination, 22.
18. Zaas has argued that there is “a word-play between ‘pornos’ and ‘ponēros’” that serves to join vv. 1 and 13 by way of v. 9 (“Cast Out the Evil Man,” 259).
19. So Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, 269, 370; Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 386.
20. Rosner, Paul, Scripture, and Ethics, 82; cf. Ciampa and Rosner, First Letter to the Corinthians, 200.
21. Rosner, Paul, Scripture, and Ethics, 82.
22. On vice lists in ancient literature, see Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians, SP 7 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 218-19. On the vice lists of 1 Cor 5-6 in particular, see Zaas, “Catalogues and Context: 1 Corinthians 5 and 6, ” NTS 34 (1988): 622-29. On these vices’ respective treatments in this epistle, see Garland, 1 Corinthians, 189.
23. Rosner, Paul, Scripture, and Ethics, 70. See the tables in Garland, 1 Corinthians, 189; Hays, First Corinthians, 88.
24. Hays, First Corinthians, 88.
25. For the preceding suggestions, see Hays, First Corinthians, 88.
26. Rosner, Paul, Scripture, and Ethics, 70.
27. Ibid., 68-81; Hays, Conversion of the Imagination, 23. Ciampa and Rosner argue that “people are excluded [in Deuteronomy] because Israel is the sanctified (holiness motif), covenant (covenant motif) community (corporate responsibility motif) of the Lord, the holy God,” and that Paul has adopted these motifs and applied them to the church (First Letter to the Corinthians, 197-98). Although Ciampa and Rosner do not expressly say so, this transferal of motifs predicates Paul’s prior identification of Israel and the church as God’s covenant community.
28. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “1 Corinthians 5:3-5, ” RB 84 (1977): 244.
29. Whether the Corinthians’ boasting is confined to the man’s particular sin (as Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 215) or not (as Ciampa and Rosner, First Letter to the Corinthians, 213) is immaterial to our point. See the discussion in Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 388-90.
30. Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 400.
31. On this motif in 1 Corinthians, see James K. Howard, “‘Christ Our Passover’: A Study of the Passover-Exodus Theme in I Corinthians,” EvQ 41 (1969): 97-108. Thiselton notes how Zeph 1:12 became the basis, in subsequent Jewish interpretation, of understanding “the purging of the house of all leaven … as a symbol of moral purification” (First Epistle to the Corinthians, 400).
32. “καὶ γάρ vertalen we door want ook” (Grosheide, De eerste Brief aan de Kerk te Korinthe, 146).
33. Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, 382. On the connections between the Passover ritual of cleansing and Paul’s argument here, see Howard, “Christ Our Passover,” 100-102.
34. Hans Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, trans. James W. Leitch; Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 99. Conzelmann astutely observes that “it is presupposed that the Corinthians are familiar with Jewish Passover usage” (98n48).
35. “The antitype of the Passover lamb under the law” (Heinrich A. W. Meyer, Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Epistles to the Corinthians, trans. D. Douglas Bannerman [New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1890], 116). Pace Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 99n50.
36. Roy A. Harrisville, “The Concept of Newness in the NT,” JBL 74 (1955): 69-79, as summarized in Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 404.
37. Although the word that Paul uses in both 2 Cor 5:17 and Gal 6:15 (καινός) is not identical with that which Paul uses here in 1 Cor 5:7, the two words are surely synonymous. Robertson and Plummer note the verbal connection (παλαιός) with Rom 6:6, Eph 4:22, and Col 3:9 (Archibald T. Robertson and Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, ICC; 2nd ed. [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1914], 102).
38. Some later MSS contain the preposition ὑπέρ prior to the possessive in v. 7. This fact may be indicative of an early scribal interpretation of Paul’s words in v. 7 along these lines. See the discussion in Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, 382-83.
39. On which see Guy Prentiss Waters, The End of Deuteronomy in the Epistles of Paul, WUNT 2/221 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 80-112.
40. On the death of the one removed in conjunction with the covenant curses, see Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), 131; Rosner, Paul, Scripture, and Ethics, 66.
41. Grosheide, De eerste Brief aan de Kerk te Korinthe, 144. See n. 9 above.
42. Ivan Havener, “A Curse for Salvation—1 Corinthians 5:1-5, ” in Sin, Salvation, and the Spirit: Commemorating the Fiftieth Year of the Liturgical Press, ed. Daniel Durken (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1979), 336. For the related but distinct syntactical question of the relationship of the clause “in the name of the Lord Jesus” to the clauses around it, see Ernest-Bernard Allo, Saint Paul: Première épitre aux Corinthiens, EBib (Paris: Gabalda, 1956), 121; Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 97; Murphy-O’Connor, “1 Corinthians 5:3-5, ” 239-40; Simon J. Kistemaker, “‘Deliver This Man to Satan’ (1 Cor 5:5): A Case Study in Church Discipline,” MSJ 3 (1992): 39-40; Michael D. Goulder, “Libertines? (1 Cor 5-6),” NovT 41 (1999): 339; and Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 393-94. This prepositional phrase could modify either Paul, the offender, or the Corinthian assembly. Resolution of this question is not necessary for the work we are presently undertaking.
43. Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 206. Fee, however, reaches this conclusion on other grounds, citing 2:4-5; 4:19-20.
44. See further, Richard B. Gaffin Jr., Resurrection and Redemption, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1987), 78-97.
45. For a survey of opinion, see Barth Campbell, “Flesh and Spirit in 1 Cor 5:5: An Exercise in Rhetorical Criticism of the NT,” JETS 36 (1993): 331-42.
46. So C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), 126; Kistemaker, “Deliver This Man,” 44.
47. Note the equally implausible proposal of Havener who apparently understands “spirit” to be the “spiritual body” of 1 Cor 15 (“Curse for Salvation,” 340).
48. This view dates back to Tertullian, Pud. 13, cited in Campbell, “Flesh and Spirit,” 333n14.
49. Garland, 1 Corinthians, 174.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid. Note the hybrid view of Hans von Campenhausen, who regards “Spirit” to be the Holy Spirit, but “flesh” to refer to the offender (Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969], 134-35n50, cited in Campbell, “Flesh and Spirit,” 333n13). Cf. Adela Yarbro Collins, “The Function of ‘Excommunication’ in Paul,” HTR 73 (1980): 259-61.
52. See, representatively, the discussion of Herman N. Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, trans. John R. de Witt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 64-68. For a defense of this position with respect to v. 5, see Anthony S. Thiselton, “The Meaning of SARX in I Corinthians 5.5: A Fresh Approach in the Light of Logical and Semantic Factors,” SJT 26 (1973): 204-28; Victor C. Pfitzner, “Purified Community—Purified Sinner: Expulsion from the Community According to Matthew 18:15-18 and 1 Corinthians 5:1-5, ” ABR 30 (1982): 46; N. George Joy, “Is the Body Really to Be Destroyed? (1 Corinthians 5.5),” BT 39 (1988): 433-34; Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 390-400; Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 212.
53. “In vs 3 werd een tegenstelling gemaakt tussen σῶμα en πνεῦμα, hier echter tussen σάρξ en πνεῦμα, waardoor we genoodzaakt worden onder σάρξ te verstaan het zondige vlees, de zondige natuur” (Grosheide, De eerste Brief aan de Kerk te Korinthe, 143).
54. Murphy-O’Connor, “1 Corinthians 5:3-5, ” 42, as cited in Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 212.
55. On the difficulties presented by this verse in particular and some of the positions represented in the literature with respect to this question, see Graham A. Cole, “Short Comments: 1 Cor 5:4 ‘…with my spirit,’” ExpT 98 (1987): 205.
56. See Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 204-5. Fee offers a different rationale than the one suggested above. Cf. Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 391.
57. Grosheide, De eerste Brief aan de Kerk te Korinthe, 143. Fee notes that it may express either purpose or result, expressing a preference for the latter (First Epistle to the Corinthians, 209 and n67).
58. Scholars note that the same verb is used in LXX Job 2:6 of the Lord’s “handing over” Job to Satan.
59. Havener, “Curse for Salvation,” 341; See the literature cited in Ridderbos, Paul, 471n128.
60. James T. South, “A Critique of the ‘Curse/Death’ Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 5.1-8, ” NTS 39 (1993): 540.
61. On which see further ibid., 541-43; A. Collins, “Function of ‘Excommunication,’” 255-56. Collins claims that Greco-Roman magic constitutes only a partial background to 1 Cor 5:5, and points to the Qumran literature as providing a closer parallel (pp. 261-63).
62. Göran Forkman, The Limits of the Religious Community: Expulsion from the Religious Community, within the Qumran Sect, within Rabbinic Judaism, and within Primitive Christianity, ConBNT 5 (Lund: Gleerup, 1972), 143; cf. South, “Critique of the ‘Curse/Death,’” 544.
63. Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 396; James T. South, Disciplinary Practices in Pauline Texts (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1992), 43, cited in Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 397. See here the especially illuminating explanation of Grosheide, De eerste Brief aan de Kerk te Korinthe, 143-44.
64. Pace A. Collins, “Function of ‘Excommunication,’” 258. See the discussion in George W. Knight, Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), 111-12.
65. The phrase is Fee’s (First Epistle to the Corinthians, 210); cf. Calovius’s phrase, “medicinale remedium,” cited in Meyer, Epistles to the Corinthians, 114. After all, Fee notes, “the further instruction in v. 11, that they are not to associate with this man, not even to eat with him, implies that no immediate death is in purview” (First Epistle to the Corinthians, 212). See further South, “Critique of the ‘Curse/Death,’” 556-59; Joy, “Is the Body to Be Destroyed,” 434-35.
66. The “last [of the two ‘telic statements’ in v. 5] expresses the final design of the whole measure of the” handing over (Meyer, Epistles to the Corinthians, 113).
67. As Fee notes, “Paul does not intend that he must wait until the final Day to be saved” (First Epistle to the Corinthians, 213).
68. Ciampa and Rosner, First Letter to the Corinthians, 208.
69. Leaving open the question whether 2 Cor 2:5-12 recounts the recovery of this offender, on which see Robertson and Plummer, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 100; Colin G. Kruse, “The Offender and the Offence in 2 Corinthians 2:5 and 7:12, ” EvQ 88 (1988): 129-39.
70. I am grateful to Luke B. Bert for his editorial assistance with this article.