Verse 5 To deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh. Some suppose that this expression refers to a miraculous power with which the apostles were invested, and which Paul here intended to authorize the Corinthian church, to employ, for the punishment of this criminal, by subjecting him to bodily disease and suffering, through the agency of Satan, in judgment for his sin. Others suppose that the phrase delivering him to Satan, is a figurative expression, meaning his excommunication from the church, which would be removing him from the kingdom of Christ, into the visible kingdom of Satan; and that by the destruction of the flesh, is meant the subduing and eradicating of those fleshly lusts, which had causeD him to sin.