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Glorifying God In Holiness - 1Cor 5
Glorifying God In Holiness - 1Cor 5
As I read 1Corinthians 5, I am reminded of the phrase that is coming in 10:31: “ Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Many of the problems in Corinth are problems that do NOT glorify God. Particularly here in chapter 5, when a brother can indulge in immoral behavior that is even unacceptable by the ungodly!
Holy, Holy, Holy – that is the praise offered continually to God (see Isa. 6 and Rev. 4). We as God’s people, are to be perfecting holiness (2Cor. 7:1). We are to pursue holiness, (sanctification) without which no man will see God (Heb. 12:14). We are to be holy, even as He is holy (1Peter 1:15-16). As God’s people, we are a holy priesthood, a holy nation (1Pet. 2:5, 9). The book of Ezekiel records that one of the foremost reasons for Israel’s captive was their profaning the holy name of God: 39 "As for you, O house of Israel," thus says the Lord God, "Go, serve everyone his idols; but later you will surely listen to Me, and My holy name you will profane no longer with your gifts and with your idols” (Ezekiel 20:39). In fact, Ezekiel will use the word holy some 55 times.
The church is the collective of SAINTS. The Corinthians were those who had been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling” (1Cor. 1:2). They HAD been involved in all manner of ungodliness, but NOW they have been washed, justified, and sanctified (1Cor. 6:11). They are warned that they are the temple of God and as such, the temple is to be holy (1Cor. 3:17). Their body was a temple of the Holy Spirit (1Cor. 6:19). They had seen the example that Paul had set before them: “For our proud confidence is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you” (2 Corinthians 1:12)
God disciplines us ‘so that we may share His holiness” (Heb. 12:10). That process of discipline involves the instructions on how to live as revealed in the New Testament writings. It also involves God’s people teaching, reproving, correcting each other in accordance with the Word of God (2Tim. 3:15-17). Part of this correction is now presented in chapter 5: when a brother chooses rather to live an unholy lifestyle, the church must not be guilty of accepting such. We are instructed to ‘deliver such a one to Satan’ (vs. 5), clean out the old leaven (vs. 7), not associate with (vs. 11), and remove the wicked man from among yourselves (vs. 13).
We need to also remember when involved in such discipline of a brother that even in this we are to so to glorify God and show forth His holiness. Of course, you realize that if everyone would take personal responsibility for their own holiness before God, there would not be a need for the instructions here in 1 Cor. 5. YOU are responsible for living a holy life to the glory of God. What are people seeing when they observe your living?
Hugh DeLong
