Last night in Greek class with Pastor Dave Bass of New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church, we concluded our discussion on Greek prepositions with an in depth look at I Corinthians 5:5 – our focal verse of last Sunday morning. Dave wrote the Greek verse on the white board, and we zeroed in on two Greek prepositions – “eis” and “hina”.
Craig L. Blomberg writes in Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar: “Hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord” ( I Cor 5:5, NIV). So reads Pau’s command to the Christians about the man who was having an affair with his stepmother. The NIV margin notes that “sinful nature” (literally, “flesh”) could also be translated “body.” Commentators are divided as to whether Paul envisions simple excommunication or actual death here, though the former seems more probable. But either way, this command seems harsh by modern standards, particularly in the majority of our congregations that exercise little or no formal church discipline of any kind.
“An understanding of the preposition ‘eis’ can shed some light on this verse. The NIV reads as if there were two equally balanced purposes behind Paul’s command: one punitive and one remedial. But the Greek prefaces the first with an ‘eis’ and the second with the conjunction ‘hina’. ‘Eis’ can denote either result or purpose; ‘hina’ far more commonly denotes purpose. Paul’s change of language is likely deliberate–to point out that his purpose in discipline is entirely rehabilitative, even if one of the results of his action is temporary exclusion and ostracism of the persistently rebellious sinner. Or in Gordon Fee’s words, ‘What the grammar suggests, then, is that the ‘destruction of the flesh’ is the anticipated result of the man’s being put back out into Satan’s domain, while the express purpose of the action is his redemption.’
“Not every scholar agrees with this interpretation. But being able to read only a translation like the NIV would never alert us to this as an option. Growing exposure to the Greek of the New Testament brings us into frequent contact with numerous prepositions and other connective words that are often left untranslated in English versions, for the sake of literary style and fluency. But in reading only the English, we may miss altogether the originally intended relationship between sentences and clauses, and we may import motives to writers they never held. Whatever the final solution to I Cor 5:5 turns out to be, it is certainly true that in every other New Testament instance of church discipline, the purpose was exclusively remedial or rehabilitative and never punitive or vengeful. “The Lord disciplines those he loves” (Heb 12:6), and so should we.”
Jesus in Idaho Falls 
Pastor Dave is a great guy. He broadcasts his sermons through the radio station where I’m interning. great post!
Tyler, I have not heard Dave on the radio. What station? And what time?
“Whatever the final solution to I Cor 5:5 turns out to be, it is certainly true that in every other New Testament instance of church discipline, the purpose was exclusively remedial or rehabilitative and never punitive or vengeful. ”
Yup. And one doesn’t need an in-depth knowledge of New Testament Greek to know that. All one needs is exposure to the rest of the Apostolic Tradition in one or more of its four major iterations.
Greg, what are the four major iterations?
See some of my previous comments, Todd, but again, they are:
The Assyrian Church of the East (often called “Nestorian” but not really. Those from this tradition which are in communion with Rome are called “Chaldean”.)
The Oriental Orthodox Communion (Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Indian, etc. Often called “monophysite” but again, not really.)
The Byzantine Orthodox Communion (Greeks, Russian, Serbs, etc.)
The Roman Catholic Church
Each of these major iterations has jurisdictional off-shoots. My Church is a jurisdictional off-shoot of the Indo-Syriac Oriental Orthodox Church. To the extent that the Anglican Communion is not Protestant, I would consider it an off-shoot of the RCC, along with the Old Catholic Churches.
And so among the four groups are there different interpretations and hence applications to what Paul is saying in this chapter?
Todd, if there are, it would be a matter of details.
The main point, like you say, is that this discipline, like all Church discipline, is imposed to induce the man to repent, and all four would certainly agree on this.