What we are talking about is the matter of church discipline. When Christ came to earth, he committed to the church the keys of the kingdom. And the church has traditionally understood there to be 2 keys: the preaching of the word and the practice of church discipline. By these two keys the ascended Christ exercises his authority in the world. By them the kingdom is opened and shut to people.
I don’t think I have to labor how awesome a responsibility this is. Certainly it is an important responsibility too, especially for our day. We live in a time where licentious living is on a rampage. One of the main attributes of the church is to be her holiness, but much of the time we cannot tell the difference between Israel and the Canaanites.
The church has been much to blame for this. We have not been in the habit of practicing church discipline. One reason is because we have been overly concerned about other people’s self esteem and nobody wants to step on any toes. For some reason we have this phobia of “making people feel bad.”
Another reason is because churches today are too caught up in the numbers game. Since we have embraced the business model of doing church we think that the church that has the most consumers is a healthy church. Obviously then you will ignore the command to discipline your members if that is your philosophy. The thought process goes like this, “If we discipline them, then they might walk away and never come back.” Then of course, you won’t have bragging rights as to how big your church is.
In sum, the practice of church discipline has become almost extinct in our land. But when we look into the Bible we see that it commands us to practice church discipline. Even though so many churches today are adverse to it, when as we look into the Bible we understand that any true church must heed the command to do it. And when we look into the passage before us this morning it teaches us why we must practice church discipline and how we are to go about it.
I. Why do we need to practice church discipline?
Paul gives us three reasons why we need to practice church discipline. The first and foremost reason is so that we might maintain the honor of Christ.
A. Vindication of the honor of Christ
Whenever a person who professes to follow Christ is involved in sin, he sullies the name of Christ. He gives those who are outside the church a reason the blaspheme God.
You can just look at the first two verses here to see that. Paul addresses the Corinthians because right there in the church was a man practicing a horrendous sin: he was involved in sexual immorality—and it was of the sort that the pagans would not even do. He was in an unlawful relationship with his stepmother. This guy was degrading the name of Christ.
But it wasn’t just him! I would love to pause here and take a little poll. The question I would ask is, “With whom is Paul angry?” There is no doubt that Paul is livid. He is irate. But a good question to ask is, “With whom is he angry?” You are probably going to say that he is angry they guy who is fornicating. That may be true. But he’s not the one Paul rebukes. Paul is mad at the rest of the church because they are tolerating this guy and his sin! He says in verse 2, “You are arrogant!” They were actually proud of this guy! They were not only condoning it, they were applauding it!
No what does that say about the church! If people are out there parading around in a lifestyle that is corrupt, and they are doing this so that all the world may see, what are the people outside the church going to think of Christ? Is this what Christians do? Who wants to follow Christ if that’s what Christianity is all about?
We cannot let that happen. Christ’s name must be vindicated. People outside the church must see that Christ does not tolerate any kind of behavior that is immoral. They must see that Christ requires his people to be holy, even as he is holy. So one of the reasons we practice church discipline is to uphold Christ’s reputation and maintain his honor among the unbelieving.
But there is another reason why we must practice church discipline. It is not only for the vindication of Christ’s name, it is for the restoration of the sinner.
B. Restoration of the Sinner
If you look at verse 5 this becomes clear. At the end of verse 5 Paul tells us that the church should discipline this guy who is living in sin “so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” Paul’s point is that this guy is not living like a Christian. Even though he has been a part of the church, he is not walking with the Lord. Paul doesn’t want him to think that he can go on like this and be a Christian. No one who lives like this can enter the kingdom of heaven. So Paul says, “If you do this, he may come to his senses. He may repent and his soul will be saved.”
Please recognize this: The whole reason that we do church discipline is not because we want to punish someone. It is because we want to see them restored to a right relationship with God. We want to see them walking faithfully with Christ and enjoying communion with him.
A lot of people object to Church discipline because they think that we might offend the person who is sinning and we might turn them off to the gospel. But that is a fallacy. The truth of the matter is that, if they are living this way, they are already turned off to the gospel. We shouldn’t then let them go on thinking that they are OK. What they need is to be jostled so that they wake up out of their stupor.
This is what we are to do with our kids, is it not? We have all heard the proverb, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” That is to say, if we do not discipline our children, they are going to grow up to be corrupt citizens. They are never going to come to understand how God wants them to live.
And that’s what we hope to accomplish with church discipline. We hope that a person will wake up and say, “I haven’t been living in a right relationship with the Lord. I’m sorry I haven’t been heeding his word and following him.”
So you should see that church discipline is not mean spirited. It is done out of a love for the sinner. It is done by people who long for their spiritual well being.
But there is one other reason why we need church discipline. It is not only to vindicate the name of Christ. It is not only because we want to see the sinner restored. We practice church discipline because we want to preserve the purity of the church.
C. Preservation of the Church’s purity
Look down at verse 6. It says, “Your boasting is not good. Do you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” Do you know what that means? It means that one sin, if left unchecked, can become contagious. It can be like a cancer that spreads and affects other parts of the body.
Paul uses the imagery of leaven. Those of you who cook with yeast know that if you put a little bit of yeast in dough it spreads throughout the whole lump. His point is that if we do not put our foot down and nip it in the bud, that one sin can infiltrate the rest of the church. In the end, the purity of the whole church can be compromised.
This is how depraved we are. Our nature is so vile that we say, “Well, so in so is getting away with it, why can’t I?” That’s why we have to deal with sin through church discipline. That way people see that this is not something that is acceptable.
Jack DeWolf gives a good example of how sin can easily permeate the larger body. In a conference on conflict resolution in 1994 he told about a man on staff with Chuck Swindoll who became sexually involved with his secretary. The good thing is that the church did seek to deal with the matter. The bad thing is that they did not deal with it publicly. The next year 17 marriages of senior leadership people in the church broke up!
You will note too that these were not just ordinary lay people. These were leaders of the church—the people who were supposed to be superior in their piety!
The Scripture makes clear that sin is like a plague. It can quickly infect many others if it is not dealt with properly.
Hopefully you recognize now why church discipline is necessary. But now that we understand the need for it, let’s take a second and talk about the nature of it. In order to practice church discipline, what must we do?
II. What must we do in church discipline?
Paul says that two things must happen when we practice church discipline: We must formally excommunicate the sinner and then keep our distance from him.
A. We must cast them out
Let’s begin with the formal act of excommunication. He mentions it a couple of times. In verse 2 he says that the sinner should be removed from their fellowship. Then in verse 13 he repeats himself when he says, “Purge the evil person from among you.”
But I want to focus your attention on verse 5. In verse 5 Paul says that they are “to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.” Those might come across as some shocking words, and I want you to be clear on what it means. What Paul says here helps us to understand what God does in church discipline and how it works.
It is interesting to note that Satan, at least in this instance, becomes God’s instrument in the restoration of sinners. Satan is typically adverse to the things of God and the opponent of his kingdom. But here you see how God is sovereign and Satan’s works are self defeating.
Now, when we hand someone over to Satan, what we are doing is removing that person from the safety of the church. When someone is cast out of the fellowship of believers, they are cast away from the rule of Christ and from his protecting arm. To put it mildly, he is on his own. He now has to fend for himself. It is hoped that as he joins the world in following Satan and indulges his flesh that he will suffer so much that he will turn back to the Lord.
It is no secret that sin has consequences. The more you sin, the more you suffer. That’s what Paul means when he says that we deliver him over “for the destruction of the flesh.” He is talking about the physical and emotional pain that sin causes. Paul’s hope is that as this guy suffers more and more the consequences of his sins, he will wise up and turn back to Christ.
I once read somewhere that some ancient civilization used to take criminals and tie them to rotting trees. They did that so that the rot of the tree would begin to destroy their flesh.
It obviously was a slow and gruesome death. But it was one that serves to illustrate what happens in excommunication. When we cut them loose from the church, they become bound in the grips of Satan and tied to their sinful lifestyle. We can only hope that the decay that they then experience will bring them to their knees.
I have only been a part of one excommunication in my ministry so far. Hopefully, the Lord will spare me and it will be the last. But one of the ministers in our presbytery had to be excommunicated. Charges were brought against him because he was cheating the church out of money. He was called to appear before a court made up of ministers in our presbytery, and he failed to show up to every appointment that was made. Since he would not repent (or even show for his trial), the presbytery had to be excommunicate him.
It was an awesome event. Not in the sense that it was exhilarating, but in the old meaning of the word awesome: that of being overwhelmed with a sense of awe and wonder. In that moment we actually cut him loose from the church’s protection and handed a man over to Satan. It was a profound experience, one that I cannot even begin to describe. I can only say that it was a incredible moment—so grave and serious, when we cast this man out of the kingdom and closed the doors behind him.
To this point, the man has not repented. We can only hope that he is not becoming hardened, but rather that his sins are producing a misery that will lead him to repentance.
The formal act of casting someone out of the church is only one part of the excommunication though. We need to remember that after this our contact with them should be cut off too. That is to say we are not only supposed to hand this person over to Satan, we are to distance ourselves from them
B. We distance ourselves from them
Paul brings this out in the last section. In verses 9-10 he clarifies that you are not to distance yourself from the ordinary unbelieving person in the world. If we distance ourselves from them, then we will never be able to witness to them. But in verse 11 he says, “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.”
In other words, we are not even to sit down to a cup of coffee with them. Obviously this has something to do with what we talked about earlier, about being influenced by their lifestyle. We are to cut off our relations with them so that we will not come to share in their corruption. But there is another side of it. Losing friends is part of their punishment. Part of their chastisement is that they are to be deprived of our fellowship.
You all know what it is like to lose a friend. No doubt it has happened in your life at some point. It hurts. It hurts bad. And losing a brother in the Lord is even worse. You not only lose a close friend, you lose the encouragement of Christ that comes through them.
Within the church we develop some of the greatest bonds. It is more than friendship, it is family. Loosing that relationship can (and should) be heart wrenching.
But this is supposed to be part of the pain they experience. As they drift off into the world, hopefully they will experience the loneliness of it. I don’t think I need to tell you that pagans don’t make very good friends. Most friendships tend to be very shallow and self serving. In other words, they will love you as long as they can get something out of you.
You can see that this can be a severe blow to take. But we should not think that we are being mean spirited when we do this or that those who do these things hate that person. The loss of the church’s protection and the withdrawing of its fellowship is something that God uses to draws his people back. We may grieve the sin and that these measures had to be taken, but the act of discipline is something in which we are to delight.
Conclusion:
Before we end, we should note one last thing about this case of discipline in Corinth. You should know that it has a happy ending. In 2 Corinthians 2 Paul tells the Corinthians that they should receive the repentant one back into their fellowship and affirm their love for him. In other words, it worked. Just in case you are the skeptical type and you need some proof, there it is. God uses this stuff. He doesn’t just tell us to do this because he likes to see the gates slammed in someone's ’ace. He tells us to do it because this is his means of taking care of his people.
Lord willing, nothing like this will ever have to happen here. I pray that it won’t, anyway. But if the Lord should permit it sometime, let’s remember to trust in the Lord with all our might and lean not on our own understanding. We might be tempted to overlook the fault and keep a person in the church, but that will do nothing for anyone. If we really love the Lord and want to see God work, we will faithfully obey his command and practice discipline when it is needed.
