Concept

In-House Judgment Principle (1 Cor 5)

Intro

People sometimes say: "If Christians really believed the Bible, they'd be stoning people. The Old Testament commands it." Or: "The God of the Bible commands killing."

Paul answers the underlying question directly in 1 Corinthians 5. A man in the Corinthian church was living with his father's wife. Paul tells the church to act, and then he draws a line that shapes everything after it:

For what have I to do with judging them that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Put away the wicked man from among yourselves. (1 Corinthians 5:12-13, ASV)

That is the in-house judgment principle. The church judges its own members. God judges everyone outside. And the church's strongest penalty is removal from its fellowship, not death.

The last line, "Put away the wicked man from among yourselves," is not Paul's own wording. It echoes a phrase that appears again and again in Deuteronomy, attached to the death penalty: "so shalt thou put away the evil from the midst of thee." In Israel, that phrase followed a stoning. Paul takes the same phrase and attaches it to excommunication.

That is the key move. The New Testament does not ignore the Old Testament's capital laws, and it does not carry them into the church either. It transposes them. Israel was a nation with God as king, with land, courts and a sword. The church is not a nation. It has no land, no courts of law and no sword. So the same concern, keeping God's people holy, is carried out by the means the church actually has: correction, exclusion and, when the person repents, restoration.

So the answer to "Christians should be stoning people" is that the Bible itself says otherwise, in the very passage that quotes the stoning formula.

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In full

The in-house judgment principle names the jurisdictional distinction Paul draws in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13: the church exercises judgment over those "within" (professing members), while those "without" are left to the judgment of God. The passage closes with an imperative, "Put away the wicked man from among yourselves" (5:13), which echoes the recurring purge formula of Deuteronomy (Deut 17:7; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21, 24; 24:7), the sentence that in Israel's covenant law closed a capital case. By reapplying that formula to exclusion from the fellowship, Paul transposes the Mosaic capital sanction into church discipline: the purpose (purging evil from the covenant community) carries forward, while the instrument changes from execution by a theocratic state to excommunication by a non-territorial assembly, with restoration as its stated aim (1 Cor 5:5; 2 Cor 2:5-8; Gal 6:1; Matt 18:15-17). The principle also explains why covenant Israel experienced immediate judgment while surrounding nations were often left to God's delayed judgment (Amos 3:2; 1 Pet 4:17; 2 Pet 3:9).

The text

I wrote unto you in my epistle to have no company with fornicators; not at all meaning with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous and extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world: but as it is, I wrote unto you not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no, not to eat. For what have I to do with judging them that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Put away the wicked man from among yourselves. (1 Corinthians 5:9-13, ASV)

Four things stand out.

1. The scope is "named a brother." Paul expressly says he did not mean the immoral people "of this world" (5:10). Separating from them would require leaving the world. The discipline applies to those who claim membership.
2. Two jurisdictions. "Them that are within" are the church's responsibility; "them that are without God judgeth" (5:12-13).
3. The sanction is exclusion. "Not to keep company... with such a one no, not to eat" (5:11). The harshest measure the church has is to withdraw fellowship.
4. The purpose is rescue. Earlier in the chapter Paul says the man is to be delivered "unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus" (1 Cor 5:5). The goal is the man's salvation.

The Deuteronomy purge formula

Paul's closing command echoes a refrain that recurs through Deuteronomy, almost always closing a capital case:

The closest match is Deuteronomy 17:7. In the Greek Old Testament the line reads exareis ton ponēron ex hymōn autōn, "you shall remove the evil one from among yourselves." Paul writes exarate ton ponēron ex hymōn autōn, the same words with the verb changed to a plural command: you (the whole church) remove him. The wording is borrowed; the setting is not.

In Deuteronomy the formula follows "the hand of all the people" putting the offender to death (Deut 17:7). In Corinth it follows the church, "gathered together" in the name of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor 5:4), removing the offender from its fellowship.

How the New Testament transposes the capital sanctions

The steps Jesus gave

And if your brother sin against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone: if he hear you, you have gained your brother. But if he hear you not, take with you one or two more, that at the mouth of two witnesses or three every word may be established. And if he refuse to hear them, tell it unto the church: and if he refuse to hear the church also, let him be unto you as the Gentile and the tax collector. (Matthew 18:15-17, ASV)

Jesus takes the Mosaic witness rule and builds a process of escalating, private-first correction. The final step treats the unrepentant person "as the Gentile and the tax collector": as someone outside the community, to be reached again, not as someone to be killed.

The spirit of the correction

• "Ye who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to thyself, lest thou also be tempted" (Galatians 6:1).
• "Note that man, that ye have no company with him, to the end that he may be ashamed. And yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother" (2 Thessalonians 3:14-15).
• Paul delivered Hymenaeus and Alexander "unto Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme" (1 Timothy 1:20). Even the strongest language has a teaching purpose.

Restoration

Sufficient to such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the many; so that contrariwise ye should rather forgive him and comfort him, lest by any means such a one should be swallowed up with his overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you to confirm your love toward him. (2 Corinthians 2:6-8, ASV)

Interpreters differ on whether the man in 2 Corinthians 2 is the same man as in 1 Corinthians 5; many older commentators thought so, many modern ones think it is a different offender. Either way, the principle is the same: discipline that has done its work ends in forgiveness, comfort and reaffirmed love. A Deuteronomic stoning had no second chapter. Church discipline is designed to have one.

Harder, not softer

The transposition does not mean God takes sin less seriously under the new covenant. Hebrews argues the opposite:

A man that hath set at nought Moses law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? (Hebrews 10:28-29, ASV)

The penalty is moved from the human sword to the judgment of God. That is a change in who executes judgment, not in how seriously God regards sin.

Why Israel was judged immediately and the nations were not

The same principle explains a tension objectors often raise: why did God tell Israel to stone its own offenders while letting pagan nations flourish for centuries?

1. Judgment begins with those nearest to God. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2). "For the time is come for judgment to begin at the house of God" (1 Peter 4:17). Covenant closeness brings stricter accountability, not looser.
2. Outsiders are not ignored; their judgment is delayed. "Them that are without God judgeth" (1 Cor 5:13). The delay is mercy: "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).
3. The delay has an end. "He hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained" (Acts 17:31).

What looks like a double standard is a single standard applied at different times. God holds his own people to account now, inside the community; he holds the world to account on the appointed day.

Apologetic use

Against "If Christians believed the Bible, they'd stone people"

• The Bible itself transposes the penalty. The passage that tells the church how to deal with sexual sin quotes the Deuteronomic stoning formula and attaches it to exclusion, not execution (1 Cor 5:13). The objector is asking Christians to disobey the New Testament in order to obey the Old Testament as the objector reads it.
• The church has no sword. Paul assigns the sword to civil government (Rom 13:4), and Jesus says his kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). "The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh" (2 Cor 10:4). When James and John wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan village, Jesus "turned, and rebuked them" (Luke 9:54-55).
• The penalties belonged to a nation that no longer exists. See Theocratic Context of Mosaic Law and Christians Not Under Mosaic Law.

Against "The Bible commands killing"

• Distinguish who was addressed. The Mosaic capital laws were addressed to the courts of covenant Israel, not to individuals and not to the church. Personal vengeance is forbidden in both Testaments: "Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto the wrath of God" (Romans 12:19).
• Due process was built in. No death sentence on one witness (Deut 17:6); false witnesses received the penalty they sought (Deut 19:19). See Mosaic Capital Punishment.
• No New Testament text commands a Christian to kill anyone for sin. The heaviest command given to the church regarding a sinning member is "put away the wicked man from among yourselves," and it is followed in the second letter by "forgive him and comfort him."

Against "Christians can't judge anyone"

• The principle cuts the other way here. Paul commands in-house judgment ("Do not ye judge them that are within?"). What he forbids is the church acting as judge over outsiders. See Christians Cannot Judge Objection Defeater.

Where Christians differ

• Nearly all Christian traditions agree that the church as a church does not execute anyone and that its discipline is spiritual.
• A minority view known as theonomy (Christian Reconstructionism) argues that civil governments today should adopt the Mosaic civil penalties. Even on that view, the penalties would belong to the state, not the church, and the theonomist position is rejected by most Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Pentecostal teachers, including Oneness Pentecostals, who read the New Testament as the governing covenant for the church.
• Traditions also differ on the form of discipline (formal excommunication, withholding communion, removal from membership or ministry), but agree on its aim: repentance and restoration.

Tensions

• "Deliver unto Satan." The phrase in 1 Cor 5:5 is debated. Most read it as putting the man outside the church into the sphere where Satan rules, with "destruction of the flesh" meaning the sinful nature or physical suffering that leads to repentance. No reading makes it an instruction to kill him.
• Abuse of discipline. Church discipline has been misused as control or shunning without love. The texts that authorize it also set its limits: private first (Matt 18:15), gentleness (Gal 6:1), "count him not as an enemy" (2 Thess 3:15), and restoration (2 Cor 2:7-8).
• Neglect of discipline. The opposite failure is also real. Paul's rebuke to Corinth was that they were "puffed up" and did nothing (1 Cor 5:2).

See also

• Theocratic Context of Mosaic Law, why the civil penalties governed a nation that no longer exists
• Mosaic Capital Punishment, the capital laws in detail
• Mosaic Law, Old Covenant, New Covenant, the covenant frame
• Christians Not Under Mosaic Law, the argument that the church is not under the Mosaic administration
• Theocracy, Israel's unique political form
• Sabbath Breaking Stoning Objection Defeater, a specific capital case
• Christians Cannot Judge Objection Defeater, where 1 Corinthians 5:12 is the decisive text
• Religion Causes Violence Objection Defeater, the broader charge
• Jerusalem Council, where the church ruled that Gentile believers are not under the law of Moses