Marks of the True Church: Discipline

We've been considering the three “marks of the true church” as outlined in the Belgic Confession, and we've come to the last: “if church discipline is exercised in punishing sin.” There's at least two words in that statement that make modern church ears uncomfortable — discipline and punishing. They sound controlling, legalistic, unloving. Did the author of the confession get it wrong? Is it a product of a sterner time that has little relevance for today? To the contrary, the Confession reflects enduring biblical truth. 

We must be quick to note that the church is full of sinners. That’s who we were before coming to Christ and that’s who we are after coming to Christ. The issue of concern is not the presence of sinners, but the presence of impenitent sinners. When a person comes into the Church through faith in Christ they are entering into a new framework of living. They have a new standard of morality, a new paradigm for understanding the world. To shift one’s thinking (or to use a Biblical description, put on “the new self”) God has put in place a number of devices that facilitate the process. Local church membership and the mutual accountability it entails, biblical preaching and teaching, gathered worship, spiritual “disciplines” such as prayer and fasting, and, if need be, loving admonition and correction, all play an important role in making us who we have been created to be. We need these elements so that we can move on to the maturity that God envisions for us. 

As is evident from the list above, there’s a lot of “discipline” that goes on before a church ever has to “purge the evil person" from among them. (1 Corinthians 5:16), and that’s a good thing. Excommunication is something that should be extremely rare if the folks in a church are intent upon putting on the new self, "created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:24) But if there is one in their midst that refuses to heed Christ, unrepentant about their sin, or intent on spreading false doctrine, that one must be treated “as a Gentile and a tax collector,” that is, one out of fellowship with God and his people. (Matthew 18:15-20)

That last point is important to emphasize. As John teaches, the purpose of proclaiming the gospel is to have fellowship with God and his people. (1 John 1:1-3) Sin intrudes on that fellowship, and when it does the necessary thing is to confess it, knowing that God forgives sin (1 John 1:8). If one refuses to acknowledge sin for what it is then that one makes God out to be a liar and demonstrates that the gospel has not been embraced (1 John 1:10). Such a one has no place within the church until he is ready to confess what all true churches confess, that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord.

Invitation to Grow

Koinonia, a Greek word that has rich meaning for the Christian. It stands for the reality that in Christ believers, bound together by our faith in Jesus, are called to mutual participation and identification with other believers. As N. T. Wright instructs: “The idea that we need to grasp . . . is that, in Christ, Christians not only belong to one another but actually become mutually identified, truly rejoicing with the happy and genuinely weeping with the sad . . . Koinonia is part of the truth about the body of Christ. All are bound together in a mutual bond that makes our much-prized individualism look shallow and petty.”

In theory, koinonia is noble. In practice, it is difficult. Followers of Jesus are brought into the body of Christ by the electing grace of God. As a result, we find ourselves in fellowship with people that we might not normally gravitate towards, and once in relationship we are called to maintain that relationship, sometimes at great cost. But if we are willing to pay the price, there is great reward.

This is what Paul was assuring Philemon when he asked him to receive back into his household Onesimus, his runaway slave, newly converted. Paul knew that this would be challenging for Philemon. But if his friend would fully embrace the implications of koinonia he would grow to understand in a deeper way what it means to be in fellowship with Christ and Christ’s people. Wright’s paraphrase of Philemon 6 is to the point, “I am praying that the mutual participation, which is proper to the Christian faith you hold, may have its full effect in your realization of every good thing that God wants to accomplish in us to lead us into the fullness of Christian fellowship, that is, of Christ.”

So, those folks with whom you worship each Sunday, you are bound to them in Christ. You are called, therefore, to koinonia, mutually identifying and participating in life with them for they, too, have been reconciled to God through the blood of the cross. In humility, work out your differences; in generosity, rejoice when they rejoice; with empathy, join them in their sorrow; in love for Christ, serve beside them in his kingdom. In this way we will all mature, until we “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).