Church Discipline

An essential mark of the church

If Jesus is Lord of the church, then discipline is essential. After all, this is the one issue of church life He spoke directly to in Matthew 18:15-17. The only thing Jesus explicitly commanded the local church to do was practice discipline. The only time He mentioned the “church” and said do this, it was discipline. His inspired Apostle, Paul, applies Jesus’ directions repeatedly. A “church” today that will not follow these commands is, thus, not following the Lord Jesus and so not a true church.

Mark of the True Church

So when the Reformers of the sixteenth century sought to recover the Biblical church, they insisted on following Jesus’ instructions on discipline. Many of them came to see that discipline is an essential mark of the church, along side the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments. (Others simply assumed that for the Lord’s Supper to be administered correctly, the church had to administer discipline so that it wasn’t knowingly giving the bread and wine to someone sinning “with a high hand”.) So for most of the history of the evangelical church it was understood that discipline was crucial. A famous Baptist theologian of the 19^th century, John L. Dagg said, “When discipline leaves a church, Christ goes with it.”

We see in Titus that the pastor and elders of a church have two main duties, first it is teaching and then the application of discipline – admonishing, rebuking and when necessary expelling and ostracizing (Titus 1:9). This was widely seen as the major responsibilities of the pastor before the 20^th century.  

The inspired Apostle almost shouts, “Purge the evil person from among you!” (1 Cor. 5:13). He tells us that we aren’t to separate from the immoral in the world because that is the status quo for the world. But those who claim to be Christians; who profess, on the one hand, that Christ has bought them but say, on the other, by their sin that God tolerates immorality, these we are “not to associate” with (1 Cor. 5:11).

“now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.” (1 Cor. 5:11.)

Paul tells the pastor Titus, ‘Warn [the divisive person] once and then twice, then [if he still doesn’t repent] have nothing more to do with him’ (3:10). Ironically, the person who causes separations in the church over minor issues (like Bible translations, rapture theories, power struggles) is to be separated from; the rest of the church is to divide from him. In 2 Thessalonians 3:6, scripture likewise commands us to “keep away from any brother” who is idle and rebellious.

“Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.” (2 Thess 3:6)

Care Enough to Confront

When we see a brother or sister in sin we are to “care enough to confront.” We go to them. We are to make the effort of warning them – to try and win them over. If that doesn’t succeed, we don’t just wash our hands of the problem and hope it will just go away. We bring it to others – not to embarrass the divisive person but with hopes of helping him, to bring about change. But at the end of the process, the divisive or immoral church member is still in his sin then he to be expelled and utterly ostracized. That doesn’t mean we just treat them rudely and hope they go away on their own volition. They are to be intentionally and publicly expelled. They are to be rejected because we love them and we’ve determined that this is the only way they will see that their sin, particularly their divisiveness, cannot be tolerated in God’s church. Perhaps it is the only way they will see that it is God’s church, not theirs to rule over and start fights in when they don’t get their way. Put them out, with hopes of bringing them back.

Some find this too harsh. More than once I’ve heard Christians say that to apply church discipline to an egregiously sinning, unrepentant church member would be “unloving.” But do we really know what it means to love better than Jesus Himself, who loved us unto death? Do we really understand what it means to be a loving church better than the Apostle who wrote the commands of Titus 3 about expelling and ostracizing a divisive person? Do we believe that the same Apostle who wrote the powerful “love chapter” in 1 Corinthians 13 was an unfeeling monster just eight chapters earlier? Of course not!

It is the expulsion and ostracism of the immoral or divisive person that is the kindest, most loving thing to do, if done rightly, for him and it is certainly the best thing for the congregation, particularly the young sheep in the flock who could get wounded by the unchecked sin. Apparently the discipline that Paul provoked the Corinthian church to apply eventually was used by God to bring true repentance to the immoral man. In 2 Corinthians 2:5-11, Paul encourages the Corinthians to welcome the repentant man back.

Church discipline is clearly laid out by the Lord Himself (in Matthew 18) and forcefully demonstrated in the letters of Paul. It is a requirement for a Biblical church. The church is to be God’s holy people (1 Peter 2:4) and so a wall must set off God’s people from the world. Church discipline is that wall. Genuine repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is the gate.

Flee from a “church” that will not Discipline

Yet today we have so-called churches which never practice discipline and which will accept members from other churches without checking if they were disciplined and will even accept members excommunicated by other churches, even make them deacons. If you’re in such a church, flee.

This article was adapted from an article originally published in Impact Magazine (Singapore.)

John B. Carpenter, Ph.D., is pastor of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church, in Danville, VA. and the author of Seven Pillars of a Biblical Church (Wipf and Stock, 2022).

Covenant Reformed Baptist Church is Caswell County’s/Danville’s Reformed church.