Church Discipline and the Assurance of Love

The Assurance of Love

"In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul told the Corinthian congregation to wake up to the truth and to realize that they had someone in their number who was living as an enemy to the gospel he professed. A man was committing adultery with his father's wife (a serious crime even in pagan Corinth)! But the man is not the direct object of Paul's rebuke; that was reserved for the congregation. Why? Because the congregation was allowing the man to continue thinking of himself as a follower of Jesus when he was in open and unrepentant sin. His sin was as leaven in the loaf (as Paul goes on to say); it was infection in the body. The infection itself was serious but not nearly as serious as the congregation's toleration of it. To be welcoming and tolerant at this point was not simply an individual infection; it was a failure of the body's entire immune system. It showed that something essential to the body's life and health was missing, and it would quickly lead to the death of that local body if not immediately addressed. A body that could not resist such an intrusion would soon succumb to it.

Considered from the point of the individual disciplined, what Paul was calling them to implement was an act of love. Given that this man was obviously continuing to regard himself as, and was being regarded by others as, a Christian, he was clearly self-deceived. We know that professing Christians can be self-deceived. Paul later wrote to the Corinthians, "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves" (2 Cor 13: 5; cf. 1 Pet 1: 10– 11). We should realize that offering someone assurance of their salvation, based merely on their profession of faith in Christ, may not be the most loving thing we can do. And if that is true for us as individuals, it is doubly true of our congregations. Joining a church is joining an assurance-of-salvation cooperative. We are to observe evidences of God's grace in one another's lives and to encourage one another. We are to correct one another when occasion requires. Paul was urgent in 1 Corinthians 6 that the Corinthians not be deceived about who would inherit the kingdom of God. That warning sprang from love. Membership functions to assure us that we truly know God's love and that we truly love God in response."

-Mark Dever, in Those Who Must Give an Account: A Study of Church Membership and Church Discipline http://www.amazon.com/Those-Who-Must-Give-Account/dp/1433671190/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365087341&sr=1-1&keywords=Those+Who+Must+Give+an+Account%3A