the grace of church discipline
One of the ways God graciously disciplines his children is through the local church. Tragically, church discipline has all but disappeared from many evangelical churches. For some, the very idea, shocks. This shows how far we have drifted from NT standards. There are a number of reasons why church discipline is in the doldrums. Let me mention two.
insensitivity to sin
Accommodation to our Western liberal culture has hardened our hearts. We are insensitive to sin (in belief or behaviour) and treat it lightly. There are many parallels between our culture and that of ancient Corinth. Corinth was ‘materially prosperous, intellectually alert, and morally corrupt’. Even in the pagan world Corinth had a reputation for debauchery. The Corinthian church was a young church (no elders had apparently been appointed) but even given this they were inexcusably influenced by their culture and as a result allowed behaviour to exist among them that every spiritual instinct ought to have abhorred and rejected. Paul writes,
1Cor 5:1-2 (ESV)
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
The church considered itself to have attained no mean level of spirituality (in knowledge, gift and experience) yet it had little moral sense or conscience. It tolerated behaviour that even many in debauched Corinth would find shameful. The Corinthian church is a mirror for contemporary Western churches. All too often we tolerate or treat lightly what our renewed hearts ought to tell us is shameful and deeply sinful. This may be, as it was in Corinth, sexual sin, or it may be other forms of unacceptable behaviour. Paul cites a few in this chapter:
1Cor 5:11 (ESV)
But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler-not even to eat with such a one.
Elsewhere false teachers (teachers who deny the basics of the gospel) are another group who must be disciplined (1 Tim 1:20; Rev 2:14-16). Notice that those who are disciplined in these instances are excommunicated from fellowship. This means they are not free to come to the gatherings of the church,
1Cor 5:2,7, 13 (ESV)
Let him who has done this be removed from among you… Cleanse out the old leaven… “Purge the evil person from among you.”
but it also means that the Christians in the church should not befriend the disciplined member socially. Paul is clear,
1Cor 5:9-11 (ESV)
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people- not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler-not even to eat with such a one.
‘Eating’ is not (as some bizarrely suggest) the Lord’s Supper, it is clearly social interaction; it is mixing with the disciplined believer in the world not the church that is in view. In one sense, this exhortation should be obvious. If someone is forbidden to attend church meetings as a means of discipline then it makes little sense for Christians to meet and fraternize with him elsewhere. The excommunicated person is be avoided, even shunned (2 Thess 3:6-15). They are to be deprived of Christian company (I assume the exception of close family and those elders given specific pastoral responsibility for the person disciplined). Does this seem draconian to us? It does. Is it what the Holy Spirit teaches? It is. Why will become apparent later in this post. But reasons apart, we must assume the Holy Spirit is the best judge of how to pastor such difficult situations. Certainly his wisdom is preferable to ours, and that of Western liberal culture (which has no success rate in checking sin).
Insensitivity to sin, therefore, is a principal reason why church discipline is in decline. However, there is another reason, and an equally disturbing one, namely, an inadequate grasp of grace.
insensitivity to grace
We have, as we noted in the previous post, dangerously mistaken ideas about grace. C21 evangelical grace is too often soft and indulgent. It assumes God is easy-going and accommodating and protests that we must not judge. Bonhoeffer called it ‘cheap grace’. He defined ‘cheap grace’ as
“cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”
But cheap grace is not true grace. True grace desires the best for God’s people. It is determined that they should deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and live self-controlled, godly, upright lives. It is resolutely committed to purifying God’s people and making them a people in whom God’s rights are realized (Tit 2:11-14). If this requires rebuke, correction, discipline, even church discipline, then so be it. Grace will go to great lengths to train us in godliness for godliness is our best life now and apart from it there is no life in the future. Grace will be as tough as necessary to bring us to glory. As God says to his people in the OT, ‘You only have I known [loved and chosen] of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you’ (Amos 3:2).
Church discipline is neither loveless nor unkind, but an initiative of grace.
grace for the church
God cares deeply about his people. He is deeply protective of them. He desires their purity and godliness. Purity and holiness though hard-won are easily lost. Consequently the church must be protected from all that will corrupt it. Paul says,
1Cor 5:6-8 (ESV)
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
The feast of the Passover in Israel was a commemoration of their redemption from Egypt. Immediately following this feast of passover was the feast of unleavened bread. For seven days after Passover the nation ate only unleavened bread. Leaven was an agent of corruption and so the seven-day feast of unleavened bread symbolised their rejection and expulsion of all that was corrupting. Paul reminds them of the cost of their redemption – Christ the passover lamb – and that this redemption was that they should be a holy people – a people who would put away from them all that corrupted and destroyed. For sin among God’s people is intolerable, and if tolerated, is a corruption that spreads (Cf. Gals 5:9). What one does (or believes) others soon copy, especially if they see there is no consequence, and soon the whole church is deeply compromised (Cf. 2 Tim 2:16-18; 1 Tim 5:10). If you doubt that this is true simply look at the sin that is widespread in churches where discipline is all but non-existent. The pattern is clear. Sin that is not disciplined quickly spreads. What was initially condemned is soon condoned and finally commended; such is the ready corruption of the human heart if left unchecked and unjudged.
God is jealous for the well-being of his people. And so he graciously protects them from all that will destroy them. This is why church discipline is so important. When the church disciplines it is protecting God’s people from harm and spiritual danger. Indeed it is simply preserving what they really are – ‘a new lump, as you really are unleavened’, a holy people. The church is God’s distinctive counter-culture. It is a people distinct from Egypt and Corinth and all other cultures intended by its very holiness and distinctiveness to praise the excellencies of God. Peter writes,
1Pet 2:9-12 (ESV)
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light… Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Incidentally, the danger of embracing these ‘passions… which war against the soul‘ is why those who belong to the church ought to have as little to do as possible with the person expelled. Their own spiritual safety is at stake… we must avoid people who are dangerously compromised spiritually. On more than one occasion Paul urges avoidance. The first two references below clearly refers to those who persist in teaching what is contrary to apostolic teaching, those who preach a false gospel. The third text includes false teachers but goes much further – it embraces belief and behaviour that is contrary to the gospel.
Rom 16:17 (ESV)
I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.Titus 3:9-11 (ESV)
But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.2Tim 3:1-5 (ESV)
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
Is Paul an extremist? The question itself is blasphemous. For if he is then so was Christ for Paul’s teaching is simply an echo of what Jesus taught.
Matt 18:15-20 (ESV)
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
The context is narrower (it is an offence against an individual) the audience is not quite the same (Jewish followers before local NT churches existed) but the principle is made clear. There are situations (in this case a hard, self-justifying, self-willed spirit that will listen to none) where someone must be avoided; ‘And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector’. Jews shunned and avoided tax collectors and gentiles. Cf. 2 Thess 3:6-15
Moreover, notice that this discipline is imposed not simply by the elders but by the whole church. It is the church who ‘bind and loose’. That is, the church has authority to accept or reject, to bring in or put out. The church may consist only of a few (two or three) but these people have the authority of Christ to receive or expel. This is why, while it may be elders or spiritual leaders who are principally involved with the offender, if discipline must take place then the reason must be clear to all, for it is the whole church that disciplines (and bears responsibility for it) and not merely the elders. 1 Cor 5 corroborates this. Paul writes to the church,
1Cor 5:3-5 (ESV)
When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
Equally, when someone is received into fellowship the whole church should be informed about their faith and spiritual journey. The church receives and rejects (Cf 2 Cor 2:6).
Thus the case for not associating with the disciplined person appears to me to be overwhelming. Paul’s language bears repeating:
1Cor 5:9-13 (ESV)
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people- not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler-not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
However, Paul’s comment ‘a little leaven leavens the whole lump’ probably is even more forceful than stressing the spreading nature of sin. It is probably saying that the presence of even a little leaven constitutes the whole as leavened. Even if sin doesn’t spread, its presence taints and compromises the whole – consider Achan’s sin (Josh 7). Certainly it takes only one tolerated sin to bring shame and dishonour on the whole church and so upon the name of God himself. We must remember, we are the temple of God and God’s temple is holy. So holy in fact that if someone destroys this temple God will destroy him, a warning given by Paul to false teachers in the first instance (1 Cor 3: 16,17).
Church discipline, then, is God acting in grace to preserve the purity of his people and the glory of his own name.
grace for the disciplined
When your child behaves abominably what do you do? Do you simply ignore their behaviour and hope it will improve? If you do you are stoking up trouble for you and the child. You are doing him no favour. Proverbs wisely observes, ‘Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him (Prov 22:15). It is neither wise nor loving to allow a child’s self-will to be indulged. Proverbs reminds us that ‘Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him’ (Prov 13:24). Discipline, appropriately administered, is a response of love. In the words of Proverbs, yet again, ‘in the reproofs of discipline is the way of life’ (Prov 6:23). The same is of course true of the children of God.
Church discipline, like God’s direct discipline, is not an act of condemnation but of confrontation and correction. The discipline is intended to break self-will, impress upon the disciplined the seriousness of rebellious sinful behaviour and how unacceptable this is in God’s children. God will not indulge sons who disgrace his name. He will not simply ignore children who sin with a high hand. If they are to have a place in his family they must learn how unacceptable wilfully sinful behaviour is, and if this requires stern discipline then so be it. This is precisely Paul’s point at the beginning of 1 Cor 5, note again these words,
1Cor 5:2-5 (ESV)
Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
The purpose of discipline is plainly not retributive but remedial: it’s aim is ‘the destruction of the flesh’. This of course is the purpose of all God’s disciplining of his people. The discipline teaches the seriousness of our sin. Delivering ‘to Satan’ it seems is exile from the warmth and joy of church fellowship to the world, the theatre of Satan’s power. This exile is shock therapy for the soul. The true child of God will feel keenly the loss of blessing. His mind will contrast his past blessings among God’s people with his present exile and this will bring him to his senses.
This is why it is so wrongheaded for church members to socialize with any removed from fellowship (with such a one not even to eat). It is undermining the discipline and doing the one disciplined no favours. The child who is banished to his room for misbehaviour feels no impact if all his friends go to his room to play with him. The discipline has little effect. The banishment is intended to give time to reflect. It is intended to make him aware of love abused and so for a time forfeited. The weight of the wrongdoing is brought home by privileges withdrawn, especially the acceptance and approval of those loved. This will bring the child to his sense and produce contrition and confession of wrongdoing.
For a repentance to be deep and life-giving rather than superficial discipline must take place and the whole church must uphold it. And where it does, the true believer will respond.
Of course such discipline is drastic and severe. Language like ‘the destruction of the flesh‘ and ‘deliver to Satan’ makes this plain, but sometimes drastic surgery is vital. In the church it is vital for the well-being of the body of Christ as a whole and it is vital for the person disciplined as well. For the gracious intention is that discipline now will prevent destruction later (his spirit will be saved in the day of the Lord). Proverbs gives us its wisdom again, ‘There is severe discipline for him who forsakes the way; whoever hates reproof will die’. (Prov 15:10). We should be in no doubt that blatant wilful unchecked sin places the perpetrator outside of salvation. 1 Cor 6 (the immediately following chapter) unequivocally warns,
1Cor 6:9-10 (ESV)
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
In Galatians the same grave warning is given.
Gal 5:16-21 (ESV)
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh… Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Ungodly behaviour like those catalogued banishes not merely from the local church but from the final City of God, the New Jerusalem (Rev 22:15) and makes our final destiny the Lake of Fire (Rev 21:6-8).
Rev 21:6-8 (ESV)
And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
The issues at stake are significant, of eternal significance (Cf. Jas 5:19,20). This is why church discipline properly administered is gracious and life-giving. It teaches through present banishment the danger of eternal banishment, jolting the transgressor to his senses and repentance.
In 2 Cor we read of the success of such discipline.
2Cor 2:5-11 (ESV)
Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure-not to put it too severely-to all of you. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him… so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.
The discipline has had its desired effect. The one who has sinned has come to feel his sin and has known ‘godly sorrow that leads to repentance’ (2 Cor 7), evident in that the discipline is in danger of overwhelming him and doubtless too by the presence of changed attitudes and behaviour (Acts 26:20). The time has come for reaffirmed love and acceptance (note, the implication, that discipline involves love withheld). Discipline reveals the heart. ‘Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid’ (Prov 12:1). Where the transgressor is a true child of God, and all discipline assumes he is (1 Cor 5:11; 2 Thess 3:13-15), discipline will have its desired effect. The words of the Psalmist in Ps 118 reveal the godly response to discipline: recognition it is from the Lord; no resentment but rather thankfulness; a desire to live in the presence of God; and an awareness that this presence is a place of righteousness (Cf. Ps 15; 24).
Ps 118:18-19 (ESV)
The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.
These are simply a few reflections on church discipline. For some, they will undoubtedly seem mediaeval and monstrous. Yet only a couple of generations ago these would have been virtually unquestioned evangelical orthodoxy. But, gut-reactions aside, the question is – are they biblical?
Other aspects of church discipline have not been considered, for example, the duration of exclusion, the spirit of discipline (Gals 6:1,2), post-discipline consequences (1 Tim 3:10), and other less extreme forms of discipline (1 Tim 5:20, Tit 1:13; Gal 6:1). These were beyond the aim of the post, namely, to instil confidence in biblical discipline and to establish it for what it is, an initiative of grace.
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