Pastors Q&A: Is there restoration in church discipline (1 Corinthians 5)?

Hey guys, this is my first ever pastor Q&A, so what up? So we're working the building. In light of what's been spoken about today and preached just to build off that in 1 Corinthians 5, as it was kind of mentioned, but Paul kind of practically does this, judging someone or bringing church discipline, right? So especially as he highlights what the particular sin maybe was in 1 Corinthians 5 1 being that someone in sexual immorality had had someone's father, their father's wife, but then carrying on to verse 5, his decision in placing judgment on them was to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of their flesh, but so that their spirit might be saved. And then he carries on, later on, to around verses 10 to 13 where he talks about not associating with any so-called brother or a moral person, not to even eat with them, basically to remove them and cast them out. So in light of all this, as someone just reading this, it can look like, well, where's the restoration here, because it seems very cast them out even to Satan for the destruction of flesh, but in the middle of that there seems to be some hope for their spirit to be saved in a way. So what's going on there? Oh, yeah, good stuff. Can you read 10 through 13 just so we get what Paul is talking about? Before you go into that, is this a thing where I should stand here or sit down now? You can sit down, you're good, bud. You want me to just read verses 10 to 13? I think that's what you said where it talks about Paul to the consequences of it. There were kind of two questions there. One was church discipline and kind of how does that go about it and what's the purpose of it, right? Yeah. Okay. So this is more like, is your question more like, why in this instance is this happening? Is this? No, I don't think so. Yeah. It's more about like, how does reconciliation function in given what Paul says to do in this section? In that section. So that's why specifically Paul is giving commands of what to do. Let me try to tackle this real quick before you happen, Derek. Okay. So let me just clarify what church discipline is and isn't. So church discipline isn't shunning. It isn't like not talking to someone ever again. Church discipline is when someone's high handed underpentant sin has gotten to the point where they are demonstrating a persistent attitude that does not keep in step with what they Christian ought to be. And so then as a church. So in smaller terms, they're profession of faith in the way they're living their life don't match. And do so. So they say, I'm a Christian and they're black to our hands. Yeah, but then do so in such a heavy-handed and obvious, serious way ongoing. So it's like, hey, we're calling you to repent multiple times. You refuse to do so. Then. It should be Matthew 18. Yes, that's Matthew 18. So then in doing so, that person is, their profession of faith can no longer be affirmed. We can no longer look at this person's life and say, you don't seem to be genuinely a Christian. And so what the word excommunication is to then remove communion from them. So for example, the Lord's table is for the saved person. And so their ex communion, remove from the table and therefore also removed from membership. Now outside of Matthew 18, and in 1 Corinthians 5, and then I will also bring up Titus 3, there are certain situations, I would also actually also bring up 3 John. There are certain situations where how you interact with that person is even more serious. Where, for example, it says in Titus 3, talking about divisive people who stir up dissension and division in the body, warn them once, warn them twice, and then have nothing to do with them. And this is another situation which Paul is sort of responding with is like, total like, you guys need to remove yourself from this person. And the idea is that, and how discipline works, is that the correction of basically saying, like, we do not have confidence that you are saved and you need to repent. And so this is sort of the final straw saying, man, we can't do anything else, but we need to warn this person with big neon flashing lights. And that's kind of the hope that the consequences of discipline bring about. And now, so Paul in this scenario is not, his purpose is not to bring about reconciliation, what he's doing in the context is saying, y'all, I cannot believe you are tolerating this. Like this is absurd. Like this is such a flagrant sin that not even unbelievers tolerated, it is mind blowing to me that you guys are tolerating it. And so he is trying to get them to say, this is, this is that serious. It is actually the loving thing to do to discipline this person. And so his purpose in the context isn't to talk about how to reconcile with his brother because he's basically trying to convince him that you do need to exercise discipline. Yeah. And that's actually, if you, like in verse 11, who bears the name of brother, if he's guilty of these things. So they're saying, like, hey, I'm a Christian and they're still persisting in these things. And you're saying, you can't keep doing that if you claim to be a Christian. And they say, I can claim to be a Christian, do whatever I want. I'm going to keep doing this thing and I don't really care. And so it's the more that hardened state of like active rebellion against God's word or they won't submit to God's word, which is the only evidence we have that someone actually is a Christian, is that when they're sinning, you go to them and say, hey, this is what God says. And you need a repent of that. And if they say, I don't care, I'm going to keep doing this anyway. And they keep doing that, keep doing that, keep doing that. Eventually, there comes a point where you have to say, brother, I don't think you are a Christian. And so part of that, right, is is removing yourself from positions where you could in relationship affirm them as a Christian, is that's what you need to remove yourself from, right? So you can't keep going up to them and saying, hey, brother, how are you? Because you have no evidence that this person is a brother. And so there's various things within your relationship that needs to actively change to demonstrate actually that there is a difference here. And so I'll turn back and now over to you and then we'll talk about some application of how that actually looks practically. The key thing to build off what Baza is saying is that it has to do with whether or not this person is repentant. And so even if there is a serious, and like someone commits adultery against their spouse, and there's all this clamor in the church, we need to discipline this person. It's like, well, this person is repentant. So like even though they've committed a serious sin, it's not as if they are unrepentant, because Christians are sinners, but specifically, they're repentant sinners. I would say the same thing with an addict. It's like an addict gets saved. And then I don't expect an addict in the next day to just be like, hey, I'm clean. I'm never going to do drugs again. Like that would be foolish. I expect rather it's going to take maybe years, decades for this brother or sister or the same thing if they're abusive in their speech. Like they've learned this their whole life. I don't expect this perfection, but rather throughout their life, they're going to grow and mature and be sanctified in that. That's right. So the kind of way we should treat someone who is under formal church discipline, I actually I prefer how Jesus says it in Matthew 18, where it says treat someone as a tax collector or a Gentile. And so the idea is like, okay, we don't just don't talk to Gentiles if you're a Jew. And what you do is you treat them as people who are outside of the covenant community. And so applying that is, well, I don't treat them as if they don't exist. I treat them as someone who needs, who needs the gospel of grace. And that's how we, that's how primarily our treatment of them should be. However, in wisdom, there are situations that exercise greater distance and greater hesitancy and interacting with someone, simply because of the toxicity that they bring into the situation. You know, like, if someone, Lord forbid, that like just was violent at our church and showed up the next week, it would be kind of a question of like, all right, is it safe for this person to be here? And we're going to actually potentially love our other brothers and sisters by saying, hey, you're, it's not safe if you're here. And we might actually ask them to leave because we're trying to not just try to show love for them. We're trying to actually love everyone else and protect them from this person who was violent last week. Yeah, and in that, right, we've actually had marriage things where one of the spouses is very violent. And so we ask the other spouse, hey, would you want them to just not be at our church any longer and not welcome here anymore? Would you like every other week for this to be a thing? Like what would you like for this to be? Because we're trying to, like, suss out the situation so that we can care for the one who's abused while putting limitations on the abuser so that we can ensure their safety, but also the safety of those around them. And so to get back to your question of, like, where is the reconciliation here? Now, as I mentioned before, in terms of Paul's intent, the idea of reconciliation is not in this text. However, very excitingly there is reconciliation and I would like to read for you second Corinthians chapter 2 this is very exciting so Paul is responding now to another letter that the Corinthians sent to him so he gets a letter from them he responds with first Corinthians then he gets another report back from them and so then he responds with second Corinthians and so he writes I'll read from the beginning of the chapter for I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you for if I caused you pain who is there to make me glad but the one who I have pained and I wrote as I did so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice for I felt sure of all of you that my joy would be the joy of you all for I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you so clearly the Corinthians were just like just cut to the heart about all that Paul wrote because you know there is a lot that needy correction in the Corinthian church and praise God they responded in grief and therefore repentance as well so now if anyone has caused pain he has caused it not to me but in some measure not to put it too severely to all of you now he is actually speaking of an individual for such a one this punishment by the majority is enough okay so what he's referring to there is this individual who is now been under formal church discipline now he's referring to the punishment of the majority so clearly this is in the implication is that the members of the church got together and the majority of them whether it's a raising of a hand or a voting whatever they agreed the majority of them to remove this person from the church so as to discipline or punish them now the punishment he's saying the punishment of the majority is enough like the church discipline that you guys followed through on that is enough you know as I'm to say you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow so I beg you to reaffirm your love for him for this is why I wrote that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in any in everything anyone whom you forgive I also forgive indeed what I have forgiven if I have forgiven anything has been for your sake in the presence of Christ so that we would not be outwitted by Satan for we are not ignorant of his designs so there's the reconciliation so clearly at the at this the the response of this letter the church follows through in obedience to to follow through on church discipline against this this sexually immoral man he is grieved and overwhelmed with sorrow at like the response of the church and what this means for his life clearly there was some misunderstanding of how grace and Christian obedience works and now the church is struggling they don't know what to do they're like well you told us to discipline this guy and so now Paul is saying well here's he lie he didn't again he didn't talk about what to do afterwards in in first Corinthians he didn't address it but now he's saying well this person is now repented forgive him I forgive him lest you be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow like what you can because he's demonstrated repentance he's turned away from this and we can actually welcome him back in and forgive him do exactly do you think he is specifically has in mind the identity of this so-called brother in mind when he's going into the second Corinthians to I believe so I believe so because it's I think the that phrase the punishment of the majority that is specifically referring to church discipline and that is the only situation regarding church discipline that he wrote to them about yeah and so when first Corinthians 5.5 comes along and Paul says I'm handing him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh yeah so but that in the end his spirit may be saved now is this kind of like a maybe a Romans one vibe where he's kind of like hey you know the wrath of God is on the wickedness of man and I'm going to give him over to that and he's going to basically face the natural consequences that come from that I would I wouldn't necessarily say it only refers to natural consequences that is one of the ways you can interpret that text or is like sort of theology involved here is this actually speaking of self-internal self yeah I think it has to do with the destruction of the flesh is referring to like that person's like physical life and so I think that idea is we know that the Lord disciplines his children and some of that discipline might actually include like taking their physical life from them so that their soul might be saved so that you like it's part of the the Lord's promise to preserve those who are his is I'm actually going to keep you from committing more sin and I'm actually just gonna take you out of this world and so I think what Paul is getting at here is he's saying like well I'm going to did we're gonna discipline this guy formally so that the Lord also might would might discipline him and and his physical life and hopefully this guy is actually a Christian ultimately he doesn't know if he is because it so might be saved right I would add into that as well that there's a there's an interesting thing that happens actually within church discipline where so when someone formally comes into church membership right the church examines that person's profession of faith in their life and says as far as we can tell we think you're a Christian and that person said to the church as far as I can tell you guys are faithful church and I want to join with this church so there's this formality actually that happens within every time of church membership where then the church's responsibility is to disciple but also to discipline in the same way that like parents are to disciple and discipline their kids so the church actually we do that with one another in our lives so there's formative discipline where we learn from God's word and we're like oh I didn't know that was a sin okay I was up doing that but there's also corrective discipline which is more like the discipline that we probably think of as growing up as kids and being disciplined by our parents you know they did it what seemed right at their time to make sure that we you know grew in a way that was noble and wonderful and so we see this like parallel between that's actually how God disciplines us as well as his kids and one of the ways that God does that actually is through formal church discipline where if someone says well this thing isn't a sin and the church looks around them and says no this is sin and they say I disagree with you and the church says we're looking at God's word and we're looking at your life this is sin and if you're gonna continue to profess to be a Christian and walk in this sin then we can't publicly affirm any longer that you are a Christian and so when there is this persistence in sin and then the church actually X communion it cates them where they basically say we don't leave your Christian any longer they don't mean you need to leave and never come to our gatherings anymore but rather as Chris said we're expecting that you're around and we're in your life but we're gonna treat you as a non-Christian so we're gonna preach the gospel to you we're gonna keep calling you to sin or away from sin and all these things with the end that that person does repent and come but if they don't what X communion really does is it shows a physical symbol that your sin which cuts you off from your relationship with God does the same thing with relationship with his people so is a and sometimes that is the harder thing for someone to grasp because you're like oh well my sin you think it's restoring my relationship with God okay but if you're actually like bearing with human consequences as a result of your sin that's a much different thing like when you have a church look at you and say we actually don't believe you're a Christian any longer the weight of that is that's stark and it's meant to be because it's meant actually to show you your sin it's kind of one of those things it's meant like for your eyes to open to the reality of the situation it physicalizes a spiritual reality because you don't want to see these things you want to do what you want to do and you don't care and God must agree with whatever right so but if you actually see a consequence to your sin there's like a realization of like oh this actually really is a sin and so there's a way in which when you are excommunicated that you're handed over to the realm of Satan because you're not in the realm of God's kingdom in the church thus it's like you're in this place not a physical place but in this like spiritual state where it really actually makes everything real and you realize the cost of your sin and it actually destroys relationship and it destroys all these things so then the question is are you going to persist in sin or repent and then be restored back to the community and so I think that's actually the most shocking thing of what it does is that it really does separate you from the kingdom of God in a physicality sort of a way so that your soul so that your soul actually might be saved and praise God that's what happened in this brother's life because that's the whole aim and so that doesn't always happen though in fact sometimes when you walk through church discipline the person actually gets to the point where they realize actually I was never a Christian to begin with I was just pretending it was all show and so it's actually good for them because no longer they convinced they are of the household of faith now they know I'm not part of the household of faith and I say that's a good thing because now they actually can be saved whereas before hand they thought they were a Christian so they didn't need God's grace they didn't need the gospel they thought those good news for other people and it's it's okay I'm alright but now they have this actual realization at the end of day I'm not a believer and actually need God's grace and so that's actually one of the craziest things that we see actually within church membership and the whole reason of church membership in our lives is so that we might actually be recognized publicly but also disciplined when necessary so that our souls might be saved Which is why I don't understand why churches in Winnipeg don't talk about membership and the importance of it, because it's actually meant for your saving of your soul. That's a big deal, right? And so having other believers around you that know you love you, speak into your life and that you've given them permission to do that and that you're committed to and coven it to do with is not just like a nice nifty thing to do for people, weak people who need help in their life, but it's for all of us as Christians because of the deceitfulness of sin, because we will run after it unless other people around us are saying no, no, come back. - Do you have a question, another follow-up? - Yeah, my only follow-up would be like, there could be that within many church memberships and church bodies that general fear of thinking about, hey, I've been persisting and said immorality, said this, said sin, whatever it may be, and that fear of maybe this potential for a Corinthians 5 type of action being taken, but at the same time, you also get Paul, there can be a question of identity within that because I think as to the Corinthians church, we had all these issues that he talked about no one involved in sexual immorality or whatever drunkenness, whatever will inherit the kingdom of God. I said a lot of whatever, as I didn't memorize that scripture, but then a lot of people, I've heard lots of people, you know, they see a church member and they start throwing that scripture out, but they forget what comes after because Paul says such were some of you, you know, but now you were washed and cland sanctified, right? And so their identity isn't sexual immoral, dude, or woman, or they're not a drunkard or this, that's not their identity, they're a child of God, but they're struggling with said things. So the identity stays the same, yet there is a sin and a struggle to be dealt with via the church body and membership. And so I was kind of comparing that with, is this guy sold called brother in a different camp over here versus. Yeah, you know, the interesting thing about that probably at that point is they don't know. Is he a brother? He claims to be, but look at his life. That's right, yeah. You have no evidence to believe he's a brother. So why are you pretending that he is? That's unloving for this guy because you're treating him as if he and God are okay. But you have no reason to believe that. And that's actually really one of the hardest things about pastoral ministry. But also as churchmen and church women is we can look at someone's life and as far as we can tell, think that they are a Christian. But we can't know 100% certainty because we don't know what's going on in their hearts. We don't. Could I hop in here, boss? We don't know these things. Yeah, I think part of what a boss is getting at is. But how Jesus talks about to evaluate one another, which is by our fruits. That's the whole point of like that. That's the only point of visible sight we have is like, okay, well this is what the fruit is of this person. I can't look underground and see through the dirt what the roots are. I can only judge someone by their fruit. And the hard thing is that some people are really good at kind of like coloring some fruit on paper, cutting out and stapling it to a tree and saying, look at my fruit, it happens and it looks believable for a time. But obviously part of it is hopefully that person cannot keep up that facade forever and that we can actually really truly call them to repentance. And it's a sad fact of life that churches can get this wrong. But to get back to your point about how people kind of throw this around, if any Christians really know about discipline and want to follow discipline, they want to throw it around and it's like that person needs to be disciplined because they did this thing that I didn't like. And it's just like, well, are they repentant over it? Like, what's the deal guys? And I think that's the piece that people often forget is like church discipline is not for people who have sinned, it's for people who have sinned and are not repentant of it. Yeah, church discipline, yeah, is for correction not retribution and that's what gets mistaken because a lot of sins in the church are very emotional and people get hurt, right? And so somebody did this, they need to be disciplined, I want my pound of flesh, right? And yeah, it's not retributive, it is restorative, that is the goal. Yeah, that's even actually practically. If we have any more instances of church discipline and those kind of things in the future, just for you to know as members, like as we're walking through with people, these things and before we as elders would bring that to a church member meeting of some sin going on in someone's life, it's really only those who are unrepentant in those things. And so it may not appear, you might look at that situation and be like, it doesn't appear to me they are repentant. And so I would love for you to come and talk to us if you feel that way because we're often times really involved with all of that stuff. And as far as we can tell, if that person is being repentant, then we're not ready to bring it yet to church discipline at that moment. But we are watching and aware of these things. And so we're trying to navigate the line of like, Godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. What is this? What's going on behind all of this? Knowing that the first person that comes up and it says something always appears right until the second one comes, then you're like, oh, wait a minute, so you don't have all the information. And so you're trying to like navigate the intricacies of the human heart. And it is a minefield of lies and things as we're trying to protect and cover. And I mean, it's a part of why discipline is something that it's not a one size fits all approach. It can take a different amount of time, the speed at which you move from step to step. In this situation in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul was like, we can accelerate this sucker all the way to the end right now. That's a rare situation. And sort of try to put like a bit of a button on this conversation. I would encourage you. We have a book upstairs called Church Discipline by a guy named Jonathan Lehman. We bought like a bunch of copies and gave them out. If you would like a copy of that book to kind of read a whole like 120-ish paid book on what Church Discipline is, how can we follow it? I would really recommend it. It's a spectacular book. So I encourage you. And if anyone else here is curious about that, wants to copy that book. We can grab a few and bring them downstairs.