by Garrett Glende

It appears that God has decided that we need to learn more about the subject of church discipline, seeing as Patrick has begun a short series on the issue and that the current chapter of Grudem’s Systematic Theology addresses the topic as well. As Patrick stated previously – and I wholeheartedly recommend that you read his article – the idea of church discipline is not one that we like to talk about much as Christians. For most people, the thought that a church would end fellowship with a person seems unloving and archaic. But the Bible has not become irrelevant for our culture and there are very few practices of the church that are any more loving than church discipline. Because there is such strong Scriptural support for the power of the church in this matter we cannot simply ignore it, but there must be a commitment to fully understanding the issue and then practicing it faithfully.

The discussion begins under the broader topic of the power of the church. When we think of the different things that the church has the authority to do, certainly the power to preach the gospel comes to mind, for Christ has indeed commissioned His church to do so. However, what kind of authority does the church assume within its own walls (for our purposes, the following discussion is generally geared toward the local church as opposed to the universal church)? The main passages concerning this issue come from Matthew chapters 16 and 18. In chapter 16 we see that Jesus affirms Peter’s confession that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (verse 16). He says that this is the truth upon which His church will be built and proceeds to promise to give him “the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (verse 19). Grudem writes that the keys imply “authority to open a door and give entrance to a place or realm [and also] the authority to exercise discipline within the church.” The idea that the power of the keys carries over into church discipline can be seen in the passage in Matthew 18:15-20, where Jesus also speaks of “binding” and “loosing.” The main point of this passage is clearly about confronting sin within the church, so there is a clear link between the authority of the church, its possession of the keys, and its ability to bind and loose. Essentially, Jesus is telling them that the actions of the church will represent a spiritual reality, in that whatever is bound or loosed on earth shall have been bound or loosed in heaven. So the church is not “unsaving” a person, but rather echoing an already true and ongoing spiritual process.

As Patrick mentioned in the previous article, the goal of church discipline is not the promotion of some sort of exclusive group, but rather it is love that comes from a desire to maintain the purity of Christ’s church. If the motivation of the church is not to restore their brother to a right relationship with God, then the church has lost its proper focus. The passage regarding church discipline in Matthew 18 comes immediately after Jesus’ discussion of the love of God in seeking after the single stray sheep. He tells them, “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?” This is a clear portrait of the love that the Father has for each of His children. He truly desires that each of them maintain a right relationship with Him and He has given the local church the authority to deal with sin for this purpose. As always, the goal is to “gain your brother.”

Of course, we are not to shout a man’s sin from the rooftops the moment we hear of it. Jesus gives three different stages in this process. “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.” (Matt. 18:15-17). There is clearly a gradual increase in the scope of the disclosure of sin within the church seen here, so we must be careful that we don’t reveal more than necessary when dealing with these types of situations.

Assuming Pastor Patrick will touch on the various applications of church discipline in his next article, I want to look a little more closely at the idea of church discipline as a testimony to the world. As Patrick mentioned in his article, the degree to which the church deals seriously with sin will illustrate the holiness of God to our unbelieving neighbors. The world absolutely loves to see the hypocrisy within the church when its leaders are publically shamed for their transgressions. Every time this happens, it gives them another reason to believe that God doesn’t really transform people’s lives with the gospel. So when we go out and preach the good news that there is freedom from our slavery to sin, our words lack power due to inconsistent testimonies. This also happens when we tolerate the sin around us in our daily lives outside of church. At work and at school we see sin abound almost unbridled, it seems. But as Christians, we have a choice to make: we can join in, ignore it, or speak up against it. Obviously we know that we should not join in, but I think our silence often times conveys acceptance. When we act like sin doesn’t bother us, the world will believe that we approve of it. This is not to say that we should go around condemning everyone in an unloving way, but I do think there are appropriate times where we can confront someone, whether it be at our workplaces or on our campuses. Of course this needs to be done gently and with humility. If practiced correctly, this hatred of sin will be evident to the unbelievers around us and they will be able to see the theology behind it. God will not tolerate sin in His church and I pray that we all can adopt the same attitude in our own lives.