How are Christians called to respond to those who profess Christ, but are living in open sin against God, willfully and publicly disobeying the clear commands of scripture?

As a child of the 60s, I’ve had a front-row seat to the dramatic shift in practice and attitude toward sinners. Growing up, a brother or sister in Christ who was caught in a sin, especially immorality, experienced a sense of shame. This was combined with strong teaching on what sin is…they named it from the pulpit, urging the sinner to repent and calling out for God to send the Holy Spirit in conviction upon the body.

Things have changed.

For a time, the change was gradual, but in the last ten to twenty years, the attitude of many churches and denominations toward open sin has gone from preaching the power of God to transform repentant sinners into holy worshippers, to acceptance of immorality in the name of tolerance and love, often in fear of offending or driving away the unrepentant transgressor.

Paul addresses this issue in 1 Corinthians 5. To be clear, he is giving instructions for the church – the body of Christ who gathers regularly to be taught in God’s Word and worship our Savior. This teaching, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and therefore, given to us from God, is addressed towards those who proclaim faith in Jesus Christ – not to the world.

In a nutshell, those members of the body who persist in remaining in their sinful lifestyles without repentance or turning away from it are to be excommunicated: Remove the wicked man from among yourselves (1 Corinthians 5:13).

There are two strong reasons for this, found in 1 Corinthians 5:6-8:

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

First, allowing sin to continue in the church makes light of and dishonors the sacrifice Christ made to cleanse us from sin and make us acceptable to God. Christ was the fulfillment of the Passover lamb, the sacrifice for the sins of the world. Our salvation was bought at great cost – the life of God’s Son. To ignore sin among those who profess love and loyalty to the Savior is to illustrate a poor understanding of the gospel.

Matthew Henry says it this way:

The reason with which this advice is enforced: For Christ our passover is sacrificed for us, v 7. This is the great doctrine of the gospel. The Jews, after they had killed the passover, kept the feast of unleavened bread. So must we; not for seven days only, but all our days. We should die with our Saviour to sin, be planted into the likeness of his death by mortifying sin, and into the likeness of his resurrection by rising again to newness of life, and that internal and external. We must have new hearts and new lives. Note, The whole life of a Christian must be a feast of unleavened bread. His common conversation and his religious performances must be holy. He must purge out the old leaven, and keep the feast of unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. He must be without guilt in his conduct towards God and man. And the more there is of sincerity in our own profession, the less shall we censure that of others. On the whole, the sacrifice of our Redeemer is the strongest argument with a gracious heart for purity and sincerity. How sincere a regard did he show to our welfare, in dying for us! and how terrible a proof was his death of the detestable nature of sin, and God’s displeasure against it! Heinous evil, that could not be expiated but with the blood of the Son of God! And shall a Christian love the murderer of his Lord? God forbid.

The second reason is also contained in this same passage. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Sin is contagious, especially so when it is affirmed and welcomed within the body of Christ.

Christians must have gone out of the world to avoid the company of loose heathens. But this was impossible, as long as they had business in the world. While they are minding their duty, and doing their proper business, God can and will preserve them from contagion. Besides, they carry an antidote against the infection of their bad example, and are naturally upon their guard. They are apt to have a horror at their wicked practices. But the dread of sin wears off by familiar converse with wicked Christians. Our own safety and preservation are a reason of this difference.  (Matthew Henry)

As followers of Jesus still walking in fleshly, physical bodies, we all sin. While I believe we have the power of Christ in us to avoid all sin, we are living out our salvation in this process called sanctification. We are made holy and righteous in God’s eyes, in Christ, but we are becoming holy in practice as we daily die to ourselves, take up our cross, and follow our Savior. Paul is not teaching us to have a petty, judgmental attitude towards one another, pointing out the speck in our brother while we can’t see the plank in our own eyes. He is calling us to live in the light of what we proclaim has happened in our souls.

Is this a hard teaching, especially in today’s culture? Yes, it is. But it is true, nonetheless. Those who profess faith in Christ but refuse to repent and turn away from their sin, according to God’s Word, should be asked to leave the fellowship of the church until they come to terms with what God says about their sin. May God give our pastors and elders the courage and spiritual wisdom to obey God’s Word, and may all of us examine our lives for any sin that could infect and spread among the body for which Christ gave His life.

1 John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Ephesians 4:17-24 – So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.