When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that.
I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people.
It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.” (1 Corinthians 5:9-13, NLT)
We should first talk about what it means to “judge” someone. The word does not always mean the same thing.
Non-Christians often complain that we judge them in the sense of condemning their beliefs, actions, and lifestyles. We express a negative verdict about them. We tell them that they must repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, or face the wrath of God and endless suffering in hellfire. Non-Christians resent this, and even claim that this is contrary to the teaching and example of Christ, who commanded us not to judge. Many Christians have picked this up from unbelievers, but since “the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God,” Christians should not learn how to interpret the Bible from non-Christians. Yet this basic wisdom is so often violated that perhaps it should become an explicit teaching in introductory hermeneutics.
The Bible never teaches us not to judge in the sense of expressing a moral verdict. When Jesus says “Do not judge” (Matthew 7:1), he is referring to hypocritical judgment, and only hypocritical judgment. He says, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?…You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (v. 3, 5). The application is limited to the hypocrite, who ignores his own greater fault when he criticizes another. But not every person who criticizes another always has a greater fault in himself, and even if he has a greater fault in himself, Jesus teaches that after he has removed it, he may proceed to “remove the speck from your brother’s eye,” that is, to point out the fault in the other person.
Far from forbidding us to judge in the sense of forming an opinion about someone’s wisdom, morality, spiritual condition, and so on, Jesus teaches us to do it, and he teaches us how to do it without hypocrisy. Immediately after this, he adds, “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces” (v. 6). Thus Jesus takes it for granted that we should make moral judgments about people, but more than that, he teaches us to give them some very unflattering names. This is the real Jesus, and this is his true teaching.
We can demonstrate the same point with our passage. Paul writes that if we are to avoid “unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols,” we will have to leave this world. In other words, he thinks that the world is filled with non-Christians who are sexually immoral, who are greedy, who are swindlers and idolaters. There are so many of them, and so many of them are so evil, that we cannot avoid them. This represents the kind of harsh moral condemnations that non-Christians say we are not supposed to make. But the prophets and apostles, as well as the Lord himself, talk like this throughout the Bible.
On the other hand, how often do you hear Christians talk like this, who make such a sweeping and derogatory statement about non-Christians? The truth is that when we refer to judgment in this sense, Christians are rarely judgmental enough. How many of us measure up to the Bible’s contempt and harsh judgment against non-Christians, against all their beliefs, and all their deeds? May God forgive us for our unlicensed leniency, and for not being judgmental enough, and may he grant us the wisdom and boldness to judge unbelievers more and more, and to hold forth his damning verdict, as well as the only way of escape, to this crooked generation.
So the Bible does not forbid us to judge others, in the sense of forming a negative moral verdict about them. As long as this opinion is accurate and without hypocrisy, we are obligated to make this judgment and to declare it. In fact, this is a necessary aspect of gospel preaching. We can even address a man’s personal business, such as whom he marries, when he transgresses a divine moral precept, as when John the Baptist told Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” So when non-Christians say to us, “It is not for you to judge” and “It is none of your business,” we answer, “The Bible commands us to judge, and it is certainly our business.”
Non-Christians are afraid of judgment, not our judgment as such, but they fear the voice of God in our words. As Paul writes in Romans 1 and 2, “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” They know that they are wrong, and even if they deceive themselves, they are without excuse. But because they are wicked, they “suppress the truth,” although “God has made it plain to them.” They do not want Christians to dig up the truth and confront them with it. They oppose judgment not because they are so merciful and tolerant – for in their hypocrisy they also judge those they consider judgmental and intolerant – but because they are wicked and cannot face the truth. As the Gospel of John says, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed” (3:19-20).
In our passage, Paul is evidently referring to judgment in another sense, and it is easy to see what it is. Here to judge someone means to not associate or eat with that person (v. 9, 11), and to expel him from the community (v. 13). It does not refer to confronting and criticizing a person; in fact, the point is to stop talking to him altogether. Instead of talk, the judgment refers to actions directed against a person to discipline and to punish him. We are to judge non-Christians, to confront and to criticize them, and we should do this more and more, but it is not up to us to judge them in this other sense, that is, to discipline and to punish them. God will do this. It is impossible for us to ostracize every person and boycott every business or institution that is non-Christian. Unbelievers are everywhere, and everywhere they are perverts, cheaters, and idolaters. We will have to hide from society or even exit the planet to avoid all of them. But God himself will punish them.
Rather, Paul has in mind “anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people.” This is evidently not an exhaustive list, but a sample of the violations that would warrant such treatment. If a person says that he is a Christian but behaves like a non-Christian, then the church must warn him, and if he does not repent, then the church must judge him. This means that Christians must not associate with him, and not even eat with him. He is to be completely cut off – no meals, no conversations, no business dealings, not even a greeting card. And he is to be banned from all church gatherings: “You must remove the evil person from among you.” He must be ejected and shunned both in the individual and corporate sense. The next time a Christian is permitted to pay him any attention is when he gets on his face and repents in dust and ashes. Only then may he return to the fellowship and reintegrate himself into the lives of believers.
Sometimes when you teach the Bible, you feel like you are just talking to yourself in an empty room like an idiot, because you realize that no one is going to obey it. This is one of those cases. One can hardly find a pastor with the mind to grasp this simple passage. Then, one can hardly find a pastor with the spine to preach it. After that, one can hardly find a congregation awake enough to hear it. And after that, one can hardly find a crowd who cares enough to do it, that is, to cut off an offender from the community. And if we get to this point, one can hardly expect all the churches and believers in the area to cooperate. So the person just crosses the street to another church and lives like nothing has happened. Yet we continue to teach it because this is what the Bible teaches, and we must implement it as churches and as individuals. Corporate rebellion is no excuse for individual failure. If your church does not do it, you do it, and try to persuade others to join you.
Still, may God send a wave of faith and repentance throughout his congregations so that they will begin to take him seriously, for only then will true discipline and its full effect be restored to his people.