A serious act of discipline by a church declares a member to be excluded from the community because of an error either in doctrine or in morals. The degree of exclusion varies according to the seriousness of the lapse and the pastoral wisdom and discretion and recommendations of the church leaders.
Disciplinary actions are a vital and necessary part of any community. Without them, the community quickly dissolves into anarchy. This is particular important for the Christian Church because the church does not live for itself, such a a social club does, nor does it have any right of existence in and of itself. The Christian finds its right and credibity of existence in the name of Christ, the Son of God. God's holiness and the truth of Scriptures, therefore, demand excommunication to be a necessary aspect of church life. On this the NT provides both the theological foundation and practical precedence for it in its teachings and the examples of the apostles.
First, Jesus provides the clear instructions for it: ""If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector" (Matt. 18:15-17 NIV). Jesus affirms in the following verse the right of the church to exercise such disciple with a mandate, "Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." (See also Matt 16:19, to Peter; Jn 20:23.)
Similarly, Paul instructs the Thessalonians about their members who were living disruptive lives: " For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat." We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat" (2 Thess. 3:10-12 NIV).
To the Corinthians, however, he is more forceful: "I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral peopl—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked person from among you" (1 Cor. 5:9-6:1 NIV).
Though the expression "hand over to Satan" is somewhat ambiguous, Paul cares just as much about those whose errors have to do with matters of faith as much as morals. Both by way of exhortation to Timothy and as information, he tells Timothy:
Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme. (1 Tim. 1:18-20 NIV)
Such drastic actions against the misbehaving brethren, however, is not intended to be punitive, but for the welfare of both the church and the indivividual and out of concern for the sanctity of the body of Christ. Prefacing the action he instructed the Corinthians noted above he says, "So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Cor. 5:4-8 NIV). Clearly Paul envisages the action needed should not be the decision of a domineering elder acting out his personal spleen against another member but a corporate decision of the whole church with the good of the offender in mind.
The biblical basis for excommunication is, therefore, clear. What many leaders find difficult is its practical outworking. It is sad, to say the least, that secular organizations seem better prepared to deal with offenders of their corporate cultures than many Christian churches. So that they will not be caught off-guard, they prepare themselves by means of an SOP—Standard Operating Procedures—which every member of the staff must sign off on before they start work, which spells out as clearly as possible what is expected of them and what happens if they decide to go astray. Perhaps because we Christians have a distorted understanding of love that we do not, hoping foolishly that everyone in the church will care to be holy as they are supposed to. Added to this act of negligence is the fact that most independent churches have no requirements for membership or have no membership roll at all. When an offender is shown up for what he is he simply moves to another church down the road. What the church leaders have done in this case is to leave other to clean up the failures of their pastoral responsibility. If you care about your flock, make sure you think through what it means for the member who sins and what it means for the church when he sins. Work out—and write it out in terms as clear as you can possibly have them—what and who is to do what, how and why, when sin occurs among your flock. Discuss it and publicize it in your church—revise it if necessary—so that everyone in the church understands it, owns it, and are committed to it. You owe it personally to the Lord to have this in place in your church.
©ALBERITH
270821lch