35 The Pattern of Sanctification: Discipline
(2 Corinthians 13:1–2)
This is the third time I am coming to you. Every fact is to be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses. I have previously said when present the second time, and though now absent I say in advance to those who have sinned in the past and to all the rest as well, that if I come again I will not spare anyone, (13:1–2)
Every year since 1790 the president of the United States, as required by the Constitution, has delivered the “State of the Union” message to Congress and the American people. In his message, the president outlines his concerns, goals, priorities, and agenda for the nation. As loyal citizens (Rom. 13:1–7; 1 Peter 2:17), Christians should be concerned about the state of their country. But as those whose “citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20; cf. Eph. 2:19), they should be far more concerned about the state of God’s kingdom.
Indeed, the present state of the church is a cause for grave concern, prompting widespread calls for renewal. Seminars, conferences, and books offer suggestions for remaking the church so it can better market itself to contemporary society. Self-styled experts sound dire warnings that the church’s very existence is threatened. If it is to survive, they insist, it must reinvent itself. It must become more culturally relevant and improve the packaging and promoting of its message. They argue that the church must do a better job of targeting people’s felt needs, and it must reach them with more efficient forms of communication than it currently employs.
To that end, a number of innovations have been proposed to save the church from the oblivion that these self-appointed experts believe threatens it. Some suggest developing virtual churches on the Internet. These would, in effect, be technologically updated versions of the drivein church, where people can worship without the exposure of interacting with others. Such “cyber churches” would also offer the convenience of allowing people to “worship” from the comfort of their own homes. And if the service did not meet their felt needs, they could simply close their Internet browser.
Some would replace traditional churches with more congenial, less confrontational forums, such as house churches. They believe the low level of control, lack of structure and authority, and absence of historical and theological traditions in such settings would make unbelievers feel more comfortable. If the traditional church structure is to be retained, significant changes need to be made. Preachers must be replaced by presenters, who use no notes and do not hide behind pulpits. Presumably, that will generate a more positive response from their hearers. Sermons are obsolete, because one-way communication is ineffective. Furthermore, excessive references to Scripture should be avoided, because they are distracting to the biblically illiterate. Systematic Bible exposition will also have to go, because most people attend church sporadically and find it irritating to miss messages in a series.
Frankly, the idea that the church might go out of existence unless it reinvents itself in the fashion recommended by the so-called experts is a brash and irresponsible, if not blasphemous, assertion. Will God’s plan, formed in eternity past, to call out a people for Himself, redeem them, and bring them to eternal glory be thwarted if the church fails to re invent itself to fit worldly expectations? Is the church, which Jesus Himself promised to build, and which He declared would not be overpowered even by the “gates of Hades” (Matt. 16:18), to be rendered ineffective by a lack of cultural sensitivity and marketing savvy? Having purchased the church with His own blood (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 1:18–19), will the Lord Jesus Christ stand by and allow it to be relegated to the scrap heap of history by its own ineptness?
The theories of the modern church-growth experts raise the crucial question of who determines what the church is to be. Many of the suggested changes noted above are the result of surveys. The idea is that the church, like any business, should find out what its customers want and then give it to them. Only then can it hope to remain relevant. That may be good marketing strategy, but it overlooks the fact that the church is not a business selling a commodity. The church’s priorities are not determined by surveys of unbelievers or marginal Christians, but by the truth of God’s Word, which discloses the will of the Head of the church— the Lord Jesus Christ.
What the church desperately needs, therefore, is consistent, faithful, clear theological exposition of the mind of the Lord as revealed on the pages of Scripture. Only then will it be equipped to effectively counter the moral and spiritual crises of our time. The church must submit to the authority of Scripture. When it does so, the result will not merely be sound information, but holiness, which is the key to the church’s blessing and impact in the world.
Even though Scripture is clear that holiness is central to the Lord’s will for the life of the church, the most neglected principle of the church-growth movement is the confrontation, restoration, or discipline of those who sin. To intrude on people’s privacy and hold them accountable for their behavior seems the height of folly, certain to alienate people and destroy the church. Confronting sin seems outdated in an age of moral relativism and ambiguity. People want the freedom to do what they want. Churches have become fellowships of independent members, with minimal accountability to God and still less to each other. The result is an entire generation of pastors and church members who have no experience of the church confronting sinning people and calling them to repentance or removal; thus, no serious, personal dealing with sin, so essential to the spiritual virtue of the saints.
The biggest problem facing the church is not cultural insensitivity, but insensitivity to sin. The disinterest in confronting sinning people in the church for the purpose of repentance and restoration, or exclusion if they do not repent, is the most visible symptom of the church’s moral and spiritual decline. It is its most disastrous failure, for it signals a lack of concern for holiness—to say nothing of a lack of reverence for the Lord of the church and a shallow commitment to Scripture. Its failure to practice church discipline is the most glaring evidence of the church’s worldliness and a major reason for its impotence.
Underscoring its importance, the very first instruction the Lord Jesus Christ gave regarding the church concerned church discipline:
If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. 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)
The vision of the glorified Christ in Revelation 1:12–16 symbolizes the concern for the purity of His church that He expressed in Matthew 18. His white hair (v. 14), reminiscent of that of the Ancient of Days in Daniel’s vision (Dan. 7:9), symbolizes His divine wisdom. His laserlike eyes (v. 14), searching the depths of His church, reveal Christ’s omniscience. Those attributes equip Him to judge His church, a judgment is depicted by His glowing, burnished bronze feet (v. 15).
Thus, church discipline is not optional but is a critical element of life in the church prescribed and practiced by the Lord of the church Himself. God takes discipline so seriously that He Himself took the lives of two prominent unrepentant sinners in the early church (Ananias and Sapphira; Acts 5:1–11).
The church in the grossly wicked city of Corinth faced a crisis. Most of its members had come to Christ out of paganism and idolatry and brought some of the immoral practices associated with their former lifestyle into the church. In 1 Corinthians Paul confronted a long litany of iniquities they were still engaging in. As if that were not enough, the false teachers who had invaded the Corinthian church were leading it astray into further sin. The apostle was deeply concerned, not for the church’s cultural relevance, but for its holiness. He knew that if the Corinthians failed to lead godly lives, the church would dishonor her Lord and be spiritually ineffective. A church that tolerates sin undermines the gospel, which proclaims transformation in Christ resulting in living a life of obedient righteousness (cf. Rom. 6:16–18).
Paul had expressed his concern for the Corinthians’ purity in 2 Corinthians 11:2, where he wrote, “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.” Paul’s concern mirrored that of the Lord of the church, who desires to “present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:27). The true church consists only of believers, and its primary objective is not to make unbelievers feel comfortable but to bring believers to spiritual maturity.
In this epistle, which reflects the intense concern of his heart, Paul’s goal was to edify the Corinthians and redirect their hearts away from the poisonous lies of the false teachers. The concluding section (2 Cor. 12:19–13:10) focuses on several key elements of the sanctification process. Paul discussed the first of those, repentance, in 12:20–21 (see chapter 34 of this volume). In 13:1–2 he turned to the next logical step in the sanctification process, church discipline, which addresses the issue of what to do with those who sin and refuse to repent. He discussed the motive for church discipline and the method of church discipline.
THE MOTIVE FOR CHURCH DISCIPLINE
This is the third time I am coming to you. … I have previously said when present the second time, and though now absent I say in advance to those who have sinned in the past and to all the rest as well, that if I come again I will not spare anyone, (13:1a, 2)
The most important reason for church discipline lies in God’s oft-repeated charge to His people, “Be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44; cf. v. 45; 19:2; 20:7, 26; Ex. 22:31; Num. 15:40; Deut. 6:17–18; 7:6; 1 Peter 1:15–16; 2:9–12). Church discipline is sometimes necessary to help believers “cleanse [themselves] from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1).
God Himself disciplines His people so they can share His holiness (Heb. 12:10). Job 5:17 notes, “Behold, how happy is the man whom God reproves, so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.” The psalmist declared, “Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord” (Ps. 94:12). Paul reminded the Corinthians, “But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world” (1 Cor. 11:32). The writer of Hebrews urged his readers not to forget “the exhortation which is addressed to [them] as sons, ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives’” (Heb. 12:5–6; cf. Prov. 3:11–12). The Lord Jesus Christ declared in Revelation 3:19, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.”
As part of that process, God has given the church the responsibility of disciplining its sinning members. As noted above, the first instruction Jesus gave the church involved discipline (Matt. 18:15–17). That is such a basic element of the church’s life that Paul was outraged when the Corinthians failed to practice it. He strongly rebuked them for failing to discipline one of their members, who was living in unrepentant immorality:
It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. … Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. … I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves. (1 Cor. 5:1–2, 6–7, 9–13)
Nor was the situation at Corinth unique; Paul expected all churches to practice discipline. To the Thessalonians he wrote,
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us. … If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. (2 Thess. 3:6, 14–15)
He exhorted Titus, overseeing the churches on the island of Crete, “Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned” (Titus 3:10–11).
Besides the obvious one of obedience to Scripture, there are at least two other important reasons for practicing church discipline. First, it is necessary to maintain the purity of the church’s fellowship and also shows that the church takes seriously what the Bible says about sin. A second reason, and goal of church discipline, is to bring sinning believers to repentance and restoration—to the place of God’s blessing. Some denounce the practice of church discipline as an unloving intrusion into peoples’ private lives. But in reality it is the strongest expression of love, because love seeks to protect its objects from what would harm them. And nothing is more damaging to believers than unrepentant sin, which forfeits God’s blessing and brings His chastening.
Paul not only preached church discipline but also practiced it. He had already put one unrepentant sinner out of the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 5:3–5; cf. 1 Tim. 1:20) and now gave fair warning that he would discipline when he came again. Wanting to spare the Corinthians the pain of chastening, Paul had avoided confronting them. In 2 Corinthians 1:23 he reminded them, “I call God as witness to my soul, that to spare you I came no more to Corinth.” He had warned the sinning members of the Corinthian assembly to repent previously … when he was present in Corinth for the second time (during the sorrowful visit; cf. 2:1). And though he was still absent from Corinth, he issued a warning in advance to all those who had sinned in the past (cf. 12:21) and to all the rest of the unrepentant sinners as well that when he came to them for the third time he would not spare anyone. Pheidomai (spare) is a strong word, used in classical Greek to speak of sparing someone’s life on the battlefield. It conveyed the idea of having mercy on an enemy. Paul’s declaration that he would not spare them was not an idle threat; those who refused to repent would get exactly what their sin called for.
The time for grace, mercy, and patience was over. There would be no more warnings; when he came again Paul would deal with the sinners at Corinth. If they failed to repent, they would find Paul not to their liking when he visited (12:20). As a faithful parent (1 Cor. 4:14–15), Paul could not leave his spiritual children in a state of disobedience; he had to discipline them and bring to the place of obedience and blessing. Their persistent failure to repent would bring action on his part.
For God’s glory, the church’s purity, and sinning believers’ well-being, and gospel witness, Paul did not hesitate to confront sin in the churches under his care. As previously noted, he had already rebuked the Corinthians for their failure to discipline the man living in immorality (1 Cor. 5). In a sharply worded section of his letter to them, Paul chided the Galatians for tolerating false teachers, who brought both doctrinal error and sin into the church:
I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! (Gal. 1:6–9)
Paul’s willingness to confront sinners proved he was not a man pleaser: “For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ” (v. 10). In fact, Paul fearlessly confronted even the apostle Peter, the leader of the Twelve, and the greatest preacher and miracle worker of the early days of the church:
But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?” (Gal. 2:11–14)
He told the Thessalonians bluntly, “For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either” (2 Thess. 3:10). Paul put Hymenaeus and Alexander out of the church in Ephesus (1 Tim. 1:20).
Paul was a compassionate man and ministered with meekness, gentleness, and humility (cf. 2 Cor. 10:1). He loved the Corinthians (12:15). But unlike many in the church today, Paul saw no conflict between love and discipline. Discipline is an expression of love, because it is those whom the Lord loves that He disciplines (Prov. 3:11–12). Paul was absolutely intolerant of sin, because he knew it would infect, sicken, weaken, and ultimately destroy the church. J. Carl Laney writes,
The church today is suffering from an infection which has been allowed to fester. As an untreated boil oozes germ-infested pus and contaminates the whole body, so the church has been contaminated by sin and moral compromise. As an infection weakens the body by destroying its defense mechanisms so the church has been weakened by this ugly sore. The church has lost its power and effectiveness in serving as a vehicle for social, moral and spiritual change. This illness is due, at least in part, to a neglect of spiritual discipline. (A Guide to Church Discipline [Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1985], 12)
Unrepentant sin also robs individual believers of the joy of God’s pleasure. “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save; neither is His ear so dull that it cannot hear,” wrote Isaiah. “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear” (Isa. 59:1–2). Paul loved the Corinthians too much to ignore the sin that ravaged the lives of individuals and destroyed the power and testimony of the church.
THE METHOD OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE
Every fact is to be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses. (13:1b)
Church discipline is not a witch-hunt, where people’s reputations are destroyed by flimsy, unsupported allegations. Because God is a God of justice (Isa. 30:18), He has designed a discipline process that is both thorough and fair. Paul’s chastening of the unrepentant sinners at Corinth would be carried out in strict accordance with God’s law, as his quote of Deuteronomy 19:15 assured the Corinthians. Rhēma (fact) can refer to the allegations in a judicial proceeding. Matthew’s gospel uses it in relation to church discipline in 18:16, where Deuteronomy 19:15 is also quoted, and in 27:12–14, where it refers to the charges against Jesus at his trial before Pilate.
The Old Testament Law affirmed that no one could be convicted of a crime unless the accused person’s guilt was confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses. In addition to Deuteronomy 19:15, which Paul quoted, Numbers 35:30 says, “If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death at the evidence of witnesses, but no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness.” Deuteronomy 17:6 expounds on that principle: “On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness” (cf. John 8:17; Heb. 10:28).
That same requirement for multiple witnesses holds true in the process of church discipline. No one is to be put out of the church until a thorough four-step process has been completed. First, a person who knows of a sinning Christian is to reprove him in private (Matt. 18:15; Gal. 6:1). If he refuses to repent, the one who confronted him does so again, this time bringing one or two others along as witnesses (Matt. 18:16). If he still refuses to repent, the entire church becomes involved in calling him to repentance (Matt. 18:17). If he ignores the church’s call to repent, he is to be put out of the church and treated as an unbeliever (Matt. 18:17). In 1 Timothy 5:19 Paul repeated the principle that multiple witnesses are required, this time in connection with allegations against church leaders: “Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses.” The sins that trigger the discipline process include serious doctrinal error (1 Tim. 1:18–20), sins that threaten church unity (Titus 3:10), and issues of purity (1 Cor. 5).
An undisciplined church is as shameful and tragic as an unruly child (Prov. 10:1, 5; 17:21, 25; 29:15). It brings reproach on the name of Jesus Christ and grief to the Great Shepherd and His undershepherds. If the church doesn’t take sin seriously enough to take action against it, how can it expect the world to take the gospel of deliverance from sin seriously? If the church is to honor Jesus Christ and have a powerful testimony in the world, it must engage in confronting its sinning members. Only then can they be called back to holiness and progress toward spiritual maturity.