Verse 2
The Corinthians’ attitude about this situation was even worse than the sin itself. Rather than mourning over it and disciplining the offender they took pride in it. They may have viewed it as within the bounds of Christian liberty thinking that their position in Christ made sexual morality unimportant. Another possibility is that their worldly "wisdom" encouraged them to cast off sexual restraints.
". . . Paul is not here dealing with ’church discipline’ as such; rather, out of his Jewish heritage he is expressing what should be the normal consequences of being the people of God, who are called to be his holy people (1 Corinthians 1:2). It is this lack of a sense of sin, and therefore of any ethical consequences to their life in the Spirit, that marks the Corinthian brand of spirituality as radically different from that which flows out of the gospel of Christ crucified. And it is precisely this failure to recognize the depth of their corporate sinfulness due to their arrogance that causes Paul to take such strong action as is described in the next sentence (1 Corinthians 5:3-5)." [Note: Fee, The First . . ., p. 203. See also Barrett, p. 122.]
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