Thesis 12- We must practice the grace of church discipline.
The Reformers wisely argued that there are three distinguishing characteristics of the true church. The church is that place where the gospel is rightly preached. It is that place where the sacraments are rightly administered. And it is the place where discipline is rightly practiced. Since the time of the Reformation the evangelical church has been rightly seeking to recognize, define and defend right preaching. Seminary students are trained in how to prepare and deliver faithful, God honoring sermons. Since the Reformation we have debated the meaning, the efficacy, and the object of the sacraments. But in the last fifty years or so, church discipline has fallen utterly by the wayside.
There are any number of explanations for why this is so. If we adopt a business model of the church, and we see parishioners as market-share, then discipline makes precious little sense. No one wants to drive customers away. Worse still, we have found that lawsuits are bad for business. Churches that practice discipline have and will found themselves embroiled in civil suits, often losing them.
The above are rather crass and unspiritual reasons for a failure to practice church discipline, which is why the evangelical church has come up with a more “reasonable” rationalization. Many churches gladly affirm that they do not practice church discipline, claiming to be “grace centered” churches. These churches believe that church discipline is unloving, unkind, and ungracious. They believe it to be counterproductive, and counter-gospel. And they are flat wrong.
Discipline is neither in the home nor in the church some grim, law-infused, mean-spirited exercise designed to harm those who receive it. It is instead an expression of tender care and love. The Bible itself says, “For whom the Lord loves He chastens” (). Church discipline is a powerful act and means of the grace of God, for both the recipient of the discipline, and the rest of the congregation. When we confront a brother with his sin, when we call him to repentance, when we remind him that those who refuse to repent for gross and heinous sin give evidence that they are outside the faith, we are proclaiming the gospel. We are giving the very warning of Jesus, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (). We speak the same warning to the entire congregation as well, reminding all that those who repent find forgiveness and peace with God, while those who refuse will face the judgment.
There is one other excuse evangelical churches use for their failure here. We reason that the excommunicated will simply move down the street to some other church, and thus it does no good. But Jesus said to Peter, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” We are called to live by faith, and not by sight. A rightly disciplined man may join the church down the street. But that doesn’t change his standing before God. When we use this argument we show our own unbelief, rather than the unbelief of those under discipline.