1 Corinthians 5:5

5. Unto Satan From the Church, under Christ, they are to surrender him unto the world under Satan.

Destruction of the flesh As was inflicted, with instant death, upon Ananias and Sapphira. It is not to be supposed, as some commentators would have it, that this destruction is inflicted by Satan, but by the judgment of God upon one who is handed over from Christ to Satan. By destruction of the flesh some commentators, excluding all supernaturalism, understand the destruction or correction of the carnal disposition, as the natural result of the admonition and discipline of the Church. Such would be a feeble meaning. A supernatural bodily emaciation would, indeed, tend to destroy the lust of the flesh, and so would be a very suitable discipline; just as blindness inflicted upon Elymas was a suitable penalty for his blindness of soul, and tended to open his spiritual perceptions.

Spirit may be saved The excommunication, though an act of severity, is an act of love. It is the Church’s last admonition of the guilty to win him unto repentance. And the destruction of the flesh, by illness or consumption short of death from supernatural infliction, as a divine penalty, would show the truth of Christianity, the value of the Church, and the guilt of sin; and might perhaps bring the apostate to reflection, conviction, and salvation. So St. Paul delivered Hymeneus and Alexander unto Satan, in order that, admonished by the consequent destruction of the flesh, they might learn not to blaspheme.

Upon this case St. Paul now (1 Corinthians 5:6-8) states the object of Church discipline, namely, the purity of the Church, and (9-13) the degree of separation from the wicked required, and the limitation of the Church’s discipline to its own membership.