
We grow more into Christ’s likeness not only through Bible study and prayer, but through mutual care and accountability.[i] This care and accountability includes the practice of church discipline.
When you exhort a fellow Christian to repent of disobedience to one of God’s commands, you are practicing the first step in church discipline. Jesus commanded, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother” (Matthew 18:15). Jesus instructs us to escalate the process of admonition[ii] until the offender repents. If the individual does not repent, and great effort and patience have been expended in seeking to appeal to him, the final step in the process of church discipline is expulsion from church membership (but not from attending church services, that he might continue to hear God’s Word) and exclusion from the communion table (excommunication).
This does not give us a license to nitpick fellow believers, for “love covers a multitude of sins” (I Peter 4:8). But in the case of gross and unrepentant violations of God’s commands, we should humbly and lovingly confront the offender.[iii]
The Westminster Confession (30.3) lists five concerns that should motivate us to practice discipline in the church:
“Church censures are necessary for the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren[iv], for deterring of others from the like offenses[v], for purging out of that leaven which might infect the whole lump[vi], for vindicating the honor of Christ, and the holy profession of the gospel[vii], and for preventing the wrath of God[viii], which might justly fall upon the church, if they should suffer His covenant, and the seals thereof [the sacraments] to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders.”
Even when discipline proceeds to the final step, excommunication, the goal is to reclaim the offender. Since the Lord’s Supper is for Christians, excommunication alerts the impenitent about the ultimate implications of his rebellion[ix]. From his outward behavior, he does not appear to be a Christian and, should he continue in his rebellion, he will perish in hell. Only God knows the heart; the church can only judge by words and actions. The church, while making no final judgment about the offender's spiritual state, is to treat him as if he were an unbeliever since his lack of repentance makes him appear so[x].
When we announce the excommunication of a church member to the congregation[xi] we say, "We will cease to call him brother, and now call him friend." In regarding him as a friend, we will pray for his repentance and seek to win back into the brotherhood.
Repentance and its fruits[xii] allow excommunication to be reversed. We should celebrate when the offender repents[xiii], as well as forgive and forget[xiv], exhibiting the grace that God has shown to us.
Peter Kemeny, Pastor
Good News Presbyterian Church
P.O. Box 1051, Frederick, MD 21702
End notes