02.28. Manner of Exercising It
Manner of Exercising It
We come now to a most important aspect of our subject - the spirit and manner in which discipline is to be administered. The Assembly is not a mere court of justice where a judicial process goes on for the trial of wrongs by certain laws. To act thus is to go entirely off the ground of grace upon which we stand before God.
Remember What We Are - As another has well said: "We ought to remember what we are in ourselves, when we talk about exercising discipline it is an amazingly solemn thing. When I reflect, that I am a poor sinner saved by mere mercy, standing only in Jesus Christ for acceptance, in myself vile, it is, evidently, an awful thing to take discipline into my own hands. Who can judge save God? This is my first thought.
"Here I stand, as nothing, in the midst of persons dear to the Lord, whom I must look upon and esteem better than myself, in the consciousness of my own sinfulness and nothingness before the Lord; and to talk of exercising discipline!-it is a very solemn thought. Indeed to my mind; it presses on me peculiarly. Only one thing gets me out of that feeling, and that is the prerogative of love. When love is really in exercise, it cares for nothing but the accomplishment of its object . . . Though the subject-matter of conduct be righteousness, that which sets it going is love-love in exercise, to secure, at all cost of pain to itself, the blessing of holiness in the church. It is not a position of superiority in the flesh" (J. N. D.).
Galatians 6:1 instructs us: "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." It is in a spirit of meekness that the erring one is to be dealt with and not in any spirit of being better than he. Notice that the aim is noted here as restoration.
Mourning and Identification - When Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the evil that was in their midst, unjudged, he reproved them because they were puffed up and had not rather mourned, that he that had done this deed might have been taken away from among them (1 Corinthians 5:2). Thus we see that mourning and deep heart exercise should be the attitude of the Assembly when one must be put away as a wicked person unfit for fellowship. Instead of acting in a cold, judicial, Pharisaical way there should be sorrow, humility, and confession of common sin and shame that such a thing has happened in God’s house. There may even be occasion for self-reproach that it has had to come to this extreme act of cutting off. Had the erring one been looked after enough? Had he been prayed for? Had a godly example been set him? Had true shepherd care been exercised toward him? All these questions will surely arise in hearts truly realizing the shame of the case.
Furthermore, instead of looking at the evil as that of the erring individual, the Assembly must take it up as their sin and in confession of common sin and shame. Paul wrote the Corinthians, "ye . . . have not rather mourned." It was their sin; they were all identified with it as a whole family is with the shame of one of its members. So one has written: "The Assembly is never prepared, or in the place to exercise discipline, unless having first identified itself with the sin of the individual. If it does not do it in that way, it takes a judicial form, which will not be the administration of the grace of Christ ... The Church is never in the place of exercising discipline until the sin of the individual becomes the sin of the Church, recognized as such-I do not think any person or body of Christians can exercise discipline, unless as having the conscience clear, as having felt the power of the evil and sin before God, as if he had himself committed it. Then he does it as needful to purge himself" (J. N. D.). In the Old Testament the priests were to eat the sin offering of the people in the holy place (Leviticus 10:17-18). They were to bear the iniquity of the congregation and to make atonement for them. This typifies for us priestly intercession, making the sin of another our own and pleading with the Father, as a priest, that the dishonor done to Christ’s body, of which we are members, might be remedied. This is the spirit in which discipline is to be exercised. When the apostle wrote sternly to the Corinthians commanding them to put away the wicked person from their midst, he said it was "out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears" (2 Corinthians 2:4). This is the only right spirit in which to exercise discipline.