But God does not only
approach us via our parents. He also draws near to us through the church. The
Lord Jesus Christ has vested authority in the church. This authority is, first
of all, to preach the gospel. The church is Christ's preaching agency. Before
He ascended to heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ sent his disciples out to preach
the good news about salvation in his name and to teach people how to live in
obedience to his will. He said to them: "…
go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey
everything I have commanded you."
The apostles took this command seriously.
They themselves went out into the world preaching, discipling, baptizing, and
teaching. Before they died, they trained others to preach. They told those they
trained to train, in turn, others. In the last letter he wrote before he died,
the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, minister of the church in Ephesus: "And
the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to
reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others" (2 Tim 2:2).
Timothy, taught by Paul, had to teach others who would, in turn, be able to
teach others.
And so to this day the
apostolic message has been handed down through the church. The faithful church
of Jesus Christ has continued to preach the good news about salvation in the
Name of Jesus Christ.
Not only does the church
have the authority to preach the Word of God (to those who are already members
of the church and in the context of mission work to those who do not yet know
Christ). Christ, the Head of the church, also gave the church authority to
exercise discipline over the members of the church—over those under its care.
In Matthew 16, the Lord told
Peter and the other disciples that He was giving them the keys of the kingdom
of heaven, and that whatever they bound on earth would be bound in heaven, and
whatever they loosed on earth would be loosed in heaven. The Lord hereby gave
the church authority to announce guilt or innocence. If a member of the church
is living in disobedience to the commandments of God, then the church has the
authority to tell that person he stands guilty before God. And when a person
repents, again, the church has the authority to declare that person
innocent—innocent before God on the basis of the blood of Jesus Christ.
The Lord Jesus worked that
out more—what in fact He was giving to the church—He worked that out a bit more
in Matthew 18. There He said that if a member of the church refuses to repent
of a specific sin, if he hardens his heart and holds on to that sin, if he
loves that sin more than Jesus Christ and obedience to his word, then the
church has the power, authority, and responsibility to excommunicate that person.
To bar him from the rights and privileges of membership in the church, and to
declare that he, because of his hard-hearted sin against God, because of his
unwillingness to seek forgiveness at the foot of the cross of Christ, no longer
has a place in the kingdom of heaven.
We have an example of this
process at work in the New Testament. In his first letter to the church at
Corinth, chapter 5, Paul said that it had been reported to him that there was a
case of sexual immorality in the church that shocked even the pagan unbelievers
of Corinth. The case was that a member of the church was living with his
stepmother. This was a case of incest. As depraved as Grecian society was,
apparently incest was almost unheard of. Here in the church at Corinth, there
was a case of incest. A man was publicly living together with his father's
wife—his stepmother. And the church did nothing about it. In fact, the church
was kind of proud about how enlightened it was that it could tolerate such a
thing.
Paul said to the church: Put this man out
of your fellowship! He continued: "When you are assembled in the name of
our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is
present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed
and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord."
The church was to put this
man outside, to excommunicate him, to hand him over to Satan. By expelling the
man from the church, he would be thrust into the devil's territory, severed
from any connection with God's people. The purpose was not only the
preservation of God's good Name, but also that by being officially ostracized
from the church, the man would experience such anguish that he would repent and
forsake his wicked way.
So you see, do you not, that
the authority to discipline that Christ gave his church is remedial? It is
meant to reconcile the sinner to Christ and the church. All discipline is meant
to be therapeutic. You can make the analogy with discipline in the family. It
is supposed to be healing. Administered in a firm but loving way, it brings
correction. Sadly, discipline is sometimes administered in a cruel, abusive and
destructive way. That is no longer discipline. That's something else. It's
abuse. We will turn to that painful topic in a future issue.
The point is that discipline
in the family and in the church is meant to bring healing and correction—to
reconcile the sinner to God.
(The next post will be about the state as an agent of authority.)
This
series of blog posts were originally presented as a speech at the October 1998
Ontario Women's League Day in Ancaster, Ontario. Much of the spoken style
remains.
