Corrective Discipline: When We Won’t Let Go of Sin
Have you ever received a rebuke or correction that hurt, but you ultimately knew was good for you? I’ve had my fair share in life already, and am sure there are more to come. These kinds of rebukes aren’t like biting criticism or complaints, but loving admonition from someone you trust and know has your best interest in mind. Ultimately, the Lord uses them for our growth and transformation into greater Christlikeness. These corrections are to be part of the formative discipline that takes place in the lives of Christians as we seek to help each other follow Jesus (see the previous article for more). But what happens when this kind of rebuke isn’t heeded? Even worse, what takes place when it’s rejected and spurned? How are Christians, and entire churches, meant to deal with a brother or sister who fails to regard faithful correction and exposure of sin as a good work of the Lord in their lives?
Though we might wish to avoid those questions, on this side of Heaven we’ll need to face them and strive to deal with straying brothers and sisters in a biblical, loving manner. Love, after all, is truly what’s at the heart of the process of church discipline that Scripture defines for us. To see this, consider Matthew 18:15-17:
15 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. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to lis ten to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
In order to understand church discipline, and the impetus behind it, we must understand the last part of Matthew 18:15, “If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” The two parts of that statement are necessary for us to grasp the goal of church discipline: loving restoration.
The Heart
The goal of church discipline is to gain your sinning brother’s ear so that he might heed your warning. And if your brother has something to heed, it means you’ve done the uncomfortable work of bringing up his sin. Why would you do that? Out of love. Out of the same desire for their good that Christ has in calling his children to holiness throughout the New Testament (e.g. Rom. 6, Eph 4, Col. 3, and 1 Pet. 1). We don’t bring up sin because it’s fun or enjoyable, but because it’s necessary and helps direct us towards the paths of righteousness that our Good Shepherd leads us on. Our desire for one another in the local church is for the good of each member, and sin is not good for us - it brings only de struction and death. So we are to do the early work of discipline - which initially looks just like formative discipline in bringing our stumbling brother’s sin before them so that they might see it for what it is.
The Hope
What happens when we gain our fellow church member’s ear and they heed our warning, turn from their sin in repentance, and continue on in following Christ faithfully in righteousness? We gain our brother back! We have true fellowship with them as they fellowship with Christ in being honest about their sin (1 John 1:5-9). In such repentance, we see restoration as the goal of the entire discipline process. This is why it comes first. We gain our brother when the sheep that was wandering hears our beck and call and comes back home. This is the hope of all discipline in the church, and the reason Jesus gave us instructions on how to deal with unrepentant sheep.
When Things Go Awry
Though we desire immediate restoration, it’s not always the outcome. When sin is confronted, we can be tempted to double down and hold fast to our sin rather than Christ. This is dangerous territory, and so we are instructed to take this sin seriously and not ignore it. When a brother or sister doesn’t heed the first one-to-one correction of their sin but instead holds tightly to it, then we must bring in other church members, and hopefully pastors, who can help confront the sin present so that our brother would see their sin as real and repent from it.
Unfortunately, things go from bad to worse at times, and even confrontation from a few does not produce repentance. Thus, in such cases, Christ instructs us to bring the matter before the entire church so that the whole membership might call the straying sheep back to Christ. If even this severe and widespread warning is not heeded, and repentance is not exhibited, we are called to remove the sinning member from our midst (1 Cor. 5:5) in hopes that they might finally be jolted awake to the reality of their sin. This is the final, most severe, and heartbreaking call to repentance. It’s a drastic measure – it means we can no longer affirm such a person as a brother or sister in Christ, and thus must bar them from participating in communion and experiencing Christian fellowship with the brethren. But it’s a necessary measure, as it lovingly communicates the grave nature of the brother’s unrepentant sin.
Navigating Cloudy Waters
Sin is challenging. It can be hard to nail down, pinpoint, and name rightly. How then do we go about the process of church discipline so that our church doesn’t mirror something like the Salem witch trials? We must understand that not all sin is disciplinable (1 Pet. 4:8). Rather, there are three criteria we must consider before we dive into the process described in Matthew 18. In order to pursue formal church discipline the sin we are correcting must be outward, serious, and unrepentant. It must be outward in that it can be seen with our eyes or heard with our ears. We can’t pull out the discipline card every time we suspect pride or greed in someone else’s heart. Don’t get me wrong, sins of the heart are serious, it’s just that we can’t peer into people’s hearts as God can, and so we trust he will reveal sins of the heart through time if they are present. Disciplinable sin is also serious in nature. Pursuing every tiny sin to the point of church discipline would leave the church weary, and leave little place for love “to cover a multitude of sins” as 1 Peter 4:8 instructs. Sin that leads to discipline must also be unrepentant, meaning that the sinning individual has been corrected with the truths of Scripture yet still clings tightly to their sin. In this case, as they refuse to let go of their sin, it would appear they treasure their sin more than Christ.
Thus, we must be careful not to jump to discipline at every inkling of sin present in the church. We are a body of redeemed, yet sinful humans after all! And so we are to exercise patience, forbearance, and long-suf fering alongside one another as we seek to follow Christ yet stumble along the way. We should believe the best of each other, embodying Christian charity, so that we might patiently point one another to Christ. This requires the Lord’s provision of grace and humility at every turn.
A Holy Church
Christ desires that his church be a pure witness to the lost world around us. While never easy, corrective discipline enables the church’s faithful heralding of the Gospel because it ensures that those who proclaim Christ truly live for Christ. Through corrective discipline we learn that every member of the local church plays a vital part in the church maintaining its status as a “pillar and buttress of the truth” as we obey the call of our Lord to “be holy as I am holy” (1 Tim. 3:15, 1 Pet. 1:16). Corrective discipline requires the hard and humble work of loving confrontation, which though difficult, is a necessary part of God’s good plan for us to lovingly oversee one another’s souls, guard our lives, and pursue righteousness together.
