God’s Word for You
1 Corinthians 5:1 Incest in Corinth
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, December 30, 2022
5 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and a kind of sexual immorality that is not found even among Gentiles: A man has his father’s wife!
Just how pious and righteous were the lives of the Corinthians who were critical of Christ’s Apostle? Paul moves immediately to this point to show them just how unjustified their position was. They had among them a sin that was deplorable even to the pagan Gentiles. A man had his father’s wife, which is Paul’s way of saying that they were clearly having sex. We can reasonably say that the man’s father was dead, and that this woman was not his mother, but his late father’s wife (his step-mother). It is even possible that she was close to the son in age, which was probably the case when Reuben slept with his father’s concubine Bilhah (Genesis 35:19) around the time that Rachel died near Bethlehem. Whether the father was dead or not, the sin was incest, and it was forbidden by the Law of Moses: “Do not be intimate with your father by being intimate with your mother. She is your mother. Do not have sexual relations with her. Do not be intimate with your father’s wife. She is intimate with your father.” (Leviticus 18:7-8). Whether this woman in Corinth had become the young man’s mistress or had actually married him was beside the point. Their physical union was a sin; it was incest. The laws of the Gentiles did not allow this any more than the laws of the Jews. The very idea was repulsive. Amos says about the sins of Israel: “Father and son use the same girl and so profane my holy name” (Amos 2:7). This was one of the sins that Absalom compounded his rebellion with: “They pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof (of David’s palace) and he lay with his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel” (2 Samuel 16:22). David responded by placing the ten concubines in a house together. “He provided for them, but did not lie with them. They were kept in confinement until their death; living as widows” (2 Samuel 20:3). These passages show that this sin was not unknown in Israel, even though it was abhorred everywhere else. The devil’s snares are sometimes so familiar that people forget they are snares at all.
Today, we are no longer bound by the laws of Moses, even regarding marriage, except where the government forbids a union. If the government says that a woman can marry her second cousin (for example), then as long as her conscience is not troubled, she can do it. However, if the government says she can’t, then she must abide by the prohibition under the Fourth Commandment.
What terrible sins the devil ropes us with! Here was something that would have been impossible among any group in the world, and yet the Corinthians thought that it was so wonderful, so beautiful, so modern, so progressive, and they were so permissive and accepting! Who else knew about this? Did the non-Christian Corinthians have any idea that this was going on? If so, what was their attitude? What did this say about this new sect or religion in their city? Here we need to take a closer look at the word “actually” in our passage to see just what Paul means, and just how widespread this news may have been.
The word holos (ὅλως) most often means “at all,” as in “Do not swear at all (ὅλως)” (Matthew 5:34) and the humorous Church Fathers passage: “The Leviathan stretched itself out on the ground and did nothing at all (ὅλως) except to stick out its tongue” (Shepherd of Hermas Hv 4,1,9). It can also mean “in general” or “generally,” as in Job 34:8, “a road generally (ὅλως) shared with evildoers” (a Greek variant reading according to Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Venetus). But Paul is talking about a very specific thing, and something that does not seem to be well-known throughout Corinth.
A third, more rare, but evidently correct way of translating holos is “actually.” In another Church Fathers passage, we find these words: “Make me understand, for I am very foolish, and actually (ὅλως) I understand nothing” (Shepherd of Hermas, Hm 4,2,1). This might seem like a minor point, but one difference between “generally” and “actually” is the radius of the knowledge. If this were a leader of the Corinthian church or a prominent, well-known figure, and this were “generally” known, then the sin would need to be called out publicly, and the man’s name would surely have been used, as is the case with other sinners such as the deserters Phygelus and Hermogenes (2 Timothy 1:15). And if it were a widely known thing, wouldn’t the Corinthian police have become involved? This seems to be something more private; known to the church, but not to the Gentiles or the Jews of the city.
Paul is going to handle this case with a quick evaluation of the true facts, and yet great pastoral tact. Cases like this are not easy for a pastor to judge because they always involve strong emotions and strong opinions. The word of God is clear, but too often the sinner wants to keep on sinning (Psalm 78:32), and what should be a case for repentance becomes a case for discipline instead.
Guard your faith, and do not fall into the snares of the devil, even if all of your friends are already caught in them. “Such is the place of those who do not know God” (Job 18:9). Hold on to your instruction in the gospel. Don’t let go of it, and guard it well, for it is your life (Proverbs 4:13).
In the way of righteousness there is life.
Along that path there is immortality.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.