Atonement Texture in 1 Corinthians 5.5

Abstract

The stern judgment language of 1 Cor. 5.5 is fraught with problems. How is one supposed to read Paul's dynamistic sentence of ultimate exclusion of the immoral individual from the community of faith? What factors in Paul's socio-religious make-up were likely to shape the texture of his injunction? Of all the proposals to date, none seems to fit the texture and context of 1 Corinthians 5 better than the atonement ritual text of Leviticus 16. The sense of this atonement text, triggered in Paul's mind by the immoral condition in the holy community, 'the temple of God', becomes retextured in the compressed form of I Cor. 5.5. In the new texture the one man bears away in his flesh the sin of the many in community, as the scapegoat did in Israel, so that the Spirit-in-community will be preserved/saved in the Day of the Lord.