Two unusual usages of "Satan" (Σατανας) in the New Testament are:
To deliver such an
one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved
in the day of the Lord Jesus. (1 Cor 5:5)
Of whom is Hymenaeus
and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to
blaspheme. (1 Tim 1:20)
Guy Williams made the following comment
about the First Corinthian text:
1Corinthians 5.5
Here, Paul states
that an immoral person should be “handed over to Satan, for the destruction of
the flesh”. The man in question will be removed from the church. As we noted
earlier, this phrase had come continued usage beyond Paul’s death, particularly
in its repetition in 1Tim 1.20. Satan acquired a rhetorical value, and Paul’s
words were understood as conveying something important about church discipline.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this practical implementation of Satan as the marker of
punishment or excommunication resonates through early Christian life. An
interesting example of this is found with the controversy surrounding ethical
rigorism and Montanism. How unforgivable should certain sins be? Was there a
way back after expulsion from the church? In his shocked reaction to the
leniency of the bishop of Carthage, who was gentle in his treatment of
returning apostates, Tertullian evokes our text again and again (Pud. 2.9;
13.1; 14.1 etc.). He is much concerned with what Paul understood the role of
Satan to be. Tertullian emphasises that there can be no return or restoration
from the power of evil; the man in 1Cor 5.5 was delivered “not with a view to
emendation, but with a view to perdition, to Satan” (13.22). This spiritual
power, mentioned by Paul, is assumed to be of great practical relevance. (Guy
Williams, The Spirit World in the Letters of Paul the Apostle: A Critical
Examination of the Role of Spiritual Beings in the Authentic Pauline Epistles [Forschungen
zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 231; Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2009], 73)
