New Thoughts: (10/23/15-10/27/15)
To begin with something of a technicality, there is some question as to this letter of Paul’s. Is he speaking of a different letter written previously, or is he speaking of an earlier part of this letter? For my own part, I think the answer is pretty clearly that he means a different letter. For one thing, the only part of this letter that might be construed as the referent is effectively the preceding paragraph, which would be an odd thing to indicate in this fashion. It would seem more fitting to say something like, “I just told you,” or, “as I wrote above.”
Add to this that he did not say any such thing in that paragraph, but addressed a very specific issue involving two very specific individuals. There was nothing in that which could be taken as suggesting a prohibition against associating with sinners outside the church. It would seem odd, then, for Paul to think there was a need to clarify his point, if this is what he had in view.
On the other hand, the only other letter we know of is 2 Corinthians. This does not preclude there having been others, but one would think we might find evidence of such letters had they been written. There seems to have been great effort to preserve the apostolic writings, even from the earliest days of the church.
There is, of course, the well-accepted view that 2 Corinthians actually contains portions of two distinct letters, which letters likely bracketed this one in terms of their time of being written. So, then, the material toward the beginning of that other book constitute the earlier letter, and the remainder consists in a letter sent after this present crisis had passed. Without delving too far into that letter, I would say the change in tone is pretty clearly to be seen. There are commendations given which it would seem clearly reflect a positive response to this letter. There are other matters spoken of which would seem more likely to precede this point.
Is it possible that Paul is speaking of the closing matter of 2 Corinthians 6? I could see how that might need addressing. “Do not be bound together with unbelievers” (2Co 6:14). “Come out from their midst and be separate” (2Co 6:17). That whole section seems to be saying not to have anything to do with unbelievers, doesn’t it? In fact, I would have thought it pretty clearly said that very thing. Of course, if one tried to live by that rule, particularly being such a minority sect at the time, Paul’s point here would be particularly apt. You’d have to pretty well give up on living.
Try it as a thought exercise for your own situation. If you could not tolerate any contact with an unbeliever, where exactly would you find employment? Where would you obtain schooling? What neighborhood could you live in? If you would accept food only if sourced from people of faith, how long would you be able to feed yourself? We must hear Paul’s words together with those of our High Priest. “I don’t ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one” (Jn 17:15).
When Wuest considers the instruction of that prior writing, he expresses the injunction applying to ‘mingling in a close and habitual intimacy’. This becomes more critical to understand as we move into the real intent of Paul’s message: Applying it to those within the fellowship of the church. In both cases, the instruction is provided to us as a Present Infinitive. This indicates the continuation of a past action – in this case ending such continuation. You have been in the habit of keeping company with them. They have been in the habit of sinning. I could suggest that they have been in the habit of sinning in so flagrant a manner as to make it known to one and all, and that may well be the case. But, it is not necessary to the case. I think the same injunction would hold were you the only one aware of their ways. Now that you know, what do you do? That might be the question that needs asking.
It is interesting, isn’t it, that what we have here are two such present tense activities. It is not just that they are happening now, but that they are happening as a continuation of past action. That is rather the definition of habit. A habit could not have formed without past activity. We are told by behavioral studies that it takes some thirty days of continued practice to form a habit. The corollary is that it takes at least as much continued practice to break that habit, at least barring extraordinary intervention by the Spirit of Christ.
This is not discussing our response to a momentary lapse into sin on the part of our fellow. It is describing what we might term lifestyle. Certainly, in the situation Paul has just addressed in this chapter, it was a lifestyle matter. This was not one moment of yielding to passion. It was a committed relationship, however illicit and immoral. So strong was the commitment that this young man felt it right to bear it proudly in the church! This is, to be sure, a mixture of commitment and cultural pollutants, but still: So blinding is this habituation to sin as to make the sinner suppose himself holy in spite of it! That is sobering.
As something of an aside, this morning’s Table Talk devotional considers Psalm 51, David’s great cry of repentance. The point is made that we are inclined to be forgiveness addicts, so swift to seek out the sense of forgiveness as to leave sin undealt with. I read this and know myself guilty of just such tendencies. I am simultaneously observing my dear wife experiencing a depth of anguish for sin that seems fit to crush her. Yet, we trust God. He has brought it to mind, and to be sure, He has done so in order to bring forgiveness to bear, but that means first truly understanding the nature of that sin which is at the root. It requires a committed change of direction, and that change may be slight or it may be radical.
I find the example of David’s sin with Bathsheba instructive in this regard. It is telling, for example, that repentance did not consist in putting her away. Yes, his marriage to her had been accomplished in most sinful fashion. It was a crime quite in keeping with what Paul has just laid out as grounds for excommunication, for turning over to the devil, albeit in hope of rescue of soul. David’s repentance was heartfelt and real. But, what was required of that repentance? It was not required that he reverse and reject every event that had been part of it. For Uriah, it would be quite impossible. Dead is dead. For Bathsheba, had David felt it necessary to turn her out from his household, the act of his repentance would likely have proved a slow motion death sentence. Who would have her after this? Who could? How would she provide for herself? But, repentance does not demand the impossible, nor does it insist on that which would harm self or others. After all, the goal of repentance is life.
The fact that David’s repentance left this relationship intact does not make his repentance any less real. It certainly didn’t make the price of his sin any lighter. It did consist in facing the reality of his sin. He faced it not as some theoretical, of course I’m a sinner, everybody is fashion. He laid it out, if not wrote it out. Here are my crimes against You, God, and to be sure, they are against You, whatever human cost may attach. Create in me a clean heart (Ps 51:10). Such a dangerous prayer! For it requires that sort of deep, soul-wringing examination and repentance as is happening with my beloved. It is hard to watch, let alone to experience. It is heart-wrenching, because we know that forgiveness is real. But, if we have lost sight of the fact that the repentance which leads to forgiveness must also be real, we will tend to short-circuit the process, and leave ourselves with a false hope of a false cleanliness.
Habit: Life is a matter of habit, really. We may exchange one habit for another, and hopefully those we choose as replacements represent an improvement, but it remains habit. If we are in the habit of sinning in some particular fashion, it’s going to take serious, committed effort to establish the counter-habit. The first step is awareness. We are no doubt aware of our habit. That’s not the issue. We know well enough what we do. It’s not even the awareness of God watching, although that might help. The problem is that even such awareness requires the establishment of habit, and we are more in the habit of forgetting His presence when it’s convenient to us to do so.
It is when God has brought to mind this habit, and made plain to us that this is sinful, that enough is enough, and either it goes or He goes that we can get after it. We cannot get after it, though, if we think to do so in our own strength. I think this is why it seems to be the invariable case that we don’t deal with sin until brought to the end of ourselves. It has to have crushed out every bit of pride and ego in us first, else we suppose we can do it on our own. OK, God, you’ve pointed out the problem. Now let me deal with it. But, we can’t. We will try. We may even have success for a season. But, because we have left God out of it, we find ourselves back in the mire again, scratching our heads and feeling utterly defeated. We may even be inclined to start accusing God of abandoning us, of asking the impossible of us, of failing us – as if God could fail! The problem is us. The problem is that we’ve not turned to the one antidote that might work: God.
We are still busy trying to make ourselves pleasing in His sight. There is something to be said for that, but not when we seek to do so by main strength of will. The flesh is weak. The struggle is real. The clear and consistent message of all Scripture and all experience is that apart from God we can do nothing, and this is clearly part of that nothing. It is as He works within us that we progress, and only as He works. See, where He is pointing out the sinful habit, He is making known to us where He is at work. This is what’s next, dear child. This is our focus. And it is our focus. We can’t simply lay back and wait for Him to fix everything, because if we do so, He won’t be bothered with us. But, it’s just as certain that we can’t fix everything on our own. We can’t make ourselves pleasing in His sight. He can, and He will as we align our will with His. When we finally stop struggling and say, “OK, Lord, how are we going about this?” He is pleased to take us step by step to the place He has in mind.
He will empower us to establish new habits, to break off old habits. He will so work within us as to make this repentance real, to make the sorrow a matter of life restored, rather than death pursued. May I just say that this matter of ‘close and habitual intimacy’ is of utmost importance to the process? We need that ‘close and habitual intimacy’ with God first and foremost. That may sound too spiritual for some. To be sure, it is spiritual, but it comes about by very natural means. We become intimate with Him as we consider His Word. His Word is, after all, the revelation of His being. It is His expression of Himself in making Himself known to us. Here is who I AM. Here is how I love you. Here is what I want you to grow up to be. The whole of Scripture is a love song from God to His elect. It is the love song of a Father for His children, of the Groom for His bride. He wants nothing but the absolute best for His own, and He is seeing to it that it comes about.
Prayer is also part of that relationship. Will we hear from God in prayer? It is unlikely, though not impossible, that prayer is going to result in some audible response from on high. But, at the very least, prayer is that place where we pour out our hearts unto God. It is prayer that lies at the basis of Psalm 51. That Psalm is a prayer, and most heartfelt. God! I am undone! I have destroyed our relationship, and I don’t have it in me to make it right again. Help me! Fix me. Let us return to that habitual intimacy that has been ours from my youth. It is not beyond You to do so. This I know. Cleanse me and I shall be clean. Show me the new habit, and then help me to take it up, that I may love You even more than before.
Returning to our text, though, we see this: The sinner has a habit of sinning. That habit is past action continuing in the present, and it must stop if there is to be a future. The church, in this case, had its own habit of welcoming and tolerating that sinner. It opened its doors to him and effectively preached to him that there was no need for him to change. Come as you are and stay as you are, it makes no difference to us. What did that habit say of their sense of God? Did they demonstrate awareness of His holiness? Did they demonstrate awareness of His power? Oh, they loved their displays of power. They loved nothing more than to be struck by wonder and awe as they showed each other their gifts. Look what I can do! Hear what brother so and so just said! Impressive, isn’t it? Yet, by tolerating the sinner in his sin, they proclaimed that God didn’t care about sin, or worse, that He was powerless to do anything about sin. Either way, they promoted a God who isn’t. What is that? That is idolatry. And so, the sin spreads like leaven through the church, leaving the church utterly ineffective as a witness to those outside.
I could almost allow my exploration of this passage to stop right here. It is assuredly a call for us to clean up our acts individually and as a congregation. We are in an age that preaches toleration as the greatest good – with the obvious exception that requiring holiness is not to be tolerated. It creeps into the church with us each Sunday. We bring it in half unaware that such thinking has taken hold in us. God says, no! Never cease from issuing the call of, “Come as you are.” Never! But, let there be no mistake in the hearts and minds of those who come. The invitation is not that they stay as they are. The invitation is to come and be changed. The invitation is to come and be washed clean of that filth which has encased them as it did us. The invitation is to be reborn, made anew, freed from the chains of sin and set free to a life of righteousness, of willingly choosing the one way that leads us home. We cannot take that road if we insist on carrying our sins along with us. They must be shed along the way, else we shall be too overburdened to make it to the end.
This is a call for church discipline, and it cannot be missed. There is something Paul is telling us here, and it is this: Where there is no fruit of the Spirit in evidence, the conclusion must be drawn that there is no indwelling of the Spirit. This is certainly not to say that the elect shall be constantly bearing such fruit to perfection. Far from it! But, there shall be a clearly discernable trend in their lives. Most assuredly each of us has our besetting sin to deal with. Each of us remains a work in progress. But, the key is this: It is in progress. It is not a work begun and set aside. It is not a work planned but never started. It is not stagnant, for to be stagnant is to be dead or dying. It is in progress, and there shall be evidence of this. Where the Spirit is, there cannot help but be fruit. The corollary therefore holds necessarily that where there is no fruit there is no Spirit.
Does this mean we need to test our congregants for the evidence of tongues, or prophecy, or any other such extraordinary proof? No. Those aren’t the fruit. They are but a sampling of those gifts God gives to the church – through individuals – for the edification and building up of the whole church. The fruit of the Spirit, by contrast, is inward: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal 5:22-23). Those are all inward matters of character. They have outward manifestation, but only as the inside is changed and remodeled to suit the new Owner. You are a temple of God, occupied by the Holy Spirit. He has cleaned house. He has remodeled the inner man. It will be observable in the outer man.
How, then, can we suppose that one addicted to fornication, avarice or idolatry is demonstrating such a remodeling? Is it really conceivable that a man of God would make it a habit to swindle others? Is it really conceivable that one filled by the Holy Spirit would live a life of drunkenness and abusiveness? I’ll tell you what is conceivable. It is conceivable that a swindler, or a fornicator, or an idolater, or even a devil-worshiper might take upon himself the disguise of being a believer. What better crowd to swindle than the Christian? What more open field for the sexual predator than so trusting a group? And, where there is no sound foundation, what more effective assault could the devil-worshiper make than to insinuate himself into the elect and spread the subtle lie from within.
Listen, those noisy and noisome Satanists who seek public recognition and public accommodation are too obvious to be of much concern. They are attention seeking narcissists not unlike the bulk of mankind. But, they are no particular danger to the Church. Their error is too obvious, and their evil too clearly on display. That’s not the assault. That’s the feint. The real assault is more subtle, more capable of insinuating itself into the life of the church unseen. It’s leaven, remember? It works by looking like the real thing, by being indiscernible in the lump until its corrupting work has been completed. To change the image, it is not the slavering wolf at forest’s edge who poses the biggest threat, but that wolf who has taken upon itself the skin of the sheep, masquerading as the very prey it seeks to devour. That is where our attention must be.
That is the level that comes both alongside and after the issues Paul addresses here. It must be understood that if the church is tolerating this sort of blatant desecration by those who claim to be its own, then something has already been at work out of sight and in secret. If the bread has risen, the leaven has already done its work. But, the church thus infected and left untreated can spread less like leaven and more like the plague. It is deadly to itself and to others.
Now, let us consider the things that Paul sets before us as unfitting for a believer. We begin with the topic that has been most immediately at hand; that of the immoral, the partaker in illicit sex. It is interesting to note that the term Paul uses more properly describes a male prostitute. But, it seems the term took on a wider application over time, and came to include all forms of inappropriate sexual pursuits. If I were to restrict myself to the more rigid definition or even to prostitution more generally, I would suppose the church was pretty safe on this count. Sadly, it wouldn’t shock me all that much to discover I was wrong. It is well known, after all, that the general problems of pornography are as prevalent in the church as outside the church. Sexual sins are so pervasive in the culture that it would be almost surprising to find them utterly absent from the church, even though that really should be the case.
These are the sorts of sins which catch our attention. These are the things we are ready and willing to decry and denounce, even if it be with compassion for those caught in the web of pornography. By and large, people both in the church and outside recognize that there is something wrong with this, even as they participate. But, what of the other issues Paul lumps in here?
How about the covetous, or as others would put it, the avaricious? We think of avarice, and we probably think of those so-called one-percenters. Present-day society seeks to train us that we might hate those at the top, or at least view them with utmost suspicion. It simply isn’t possible that they got to the top by any means other than underhanded greed, is it? But, take the meaning of the word and see if you can escape. The idea of the term is that of always wanting more. Now, if I look back upon the camps of the ninety-nine percenters, why were they encamped? Was it not because they were always wanting more, and preferably without having to go through the effort of earning it? They may complain of heavy college debt, but then why the debt? Was it not from wanting an unearned more?
But, what of our own estate? Is my life characterized by satisfaction with what God has provided, or is it characterized by always wanting more? If I am a workaholic, why is that? It might just be to escape household stresses in some cases. More likely, it is the covetous urge recognizing the need for more income to buy more things. In preparing for my class this week, I was taken to Ecclesiastes 7:29. How that verse fits our day! “Behold, I have found only this,” writes the Preacher. “That God made man upright, but they have sought out many devices.” Now, clearly this text was not looking at our addiction to technological trinkets, but look around! Young folks barely able to make enough to keep food on the table are spending money they don’t have to gain access to the latest iPhone. Every few years, we discover the need to spend more to replace the things we have, not because they are old and worn out, but simply because they’re not the latest. The phone in the house wasn’t enough. We must have the phone wherever we may be. The cost of that is exorbitant, and only more so when we realize how often we just really don’t want to answer.
Are we idolaters? If history is any indicator, yes. Calvin looked at the situation back in the 17th century and observed that mankind were little more than idol factories. We cannot destroy them fast enough to keep up with our own production. Even as we seek to serve God in the church, we demonstrate this tendency, as we raise our particular task up as the most important, or our particular style of worship up as the only style, or any number of other ways that we inflate ourselves before God. And, if we don’t do it in the church, we’ll do it at home. We all have our idols within the entertainment industry. For some, it will be particular actors or actresses. For others, it may be particular musicians. I could list many who hold a special place in my listening habits.
This, too, has followed us into the church in our day, as we have our particular preferences for modern worship musicians. I would hope that most of them are entirely embarrassed by their fame, but I rather doubt that’s the case. Or teachers: We all have our favorites. I will give great preference to R. C. Sproul, if it’s not evident from the numerous mentions he gets in my studies. Others prefer MacArthur, or Horton, or other such luminaries of the day. But, we must be careful that we don’t allow appreciation to grow into idolatry, for it is our natural tendency.
It may not be people, but rather things. There are those whose view of patriotism ranges to idolatry, or whose concern for Israel rises to that level. There are those who are still inclined to exalt outmoded worship practices, and the Temple. But, Israel had its own problem with idolatry in that regard. I fail to see what we gain by repeating their error.
Shall we consider extortion? We probably think that here, at last, we have an issue that is no issue. When’s the last time we held somebody up to demands for payment? Well, let’s look at it another way. When’s the last time you insisted on your way or the highway? When’s the last time you left for a new church because they weren’t meeting your needs? Or, let’s move down the stack a bit. When’s the last time you gave significantly less than 100% to your employer and yet insisted on claiming 100% of your pay? When’s the last time you gave less than 100% to your family, and yet required their 100% in regard to you? Oh dear. No escape on this one, either.
This, to me, is the shocking reality of Paul’s list here. I look at it, and I have to ask myself, which one of us can survive such an assessment? Which one of us would not have to be chased out of the church on these grounds? I want to think that Paul is being ironic here, or sarcastic. I want to think that somehow he’s laying a charge at the base of the Corinthian’s overinflated sense of their own sanctification, but it’s clear from what preceded that if anything, they suffer much worse to be in their midst. I can look at other letters, and discover the same sort of exclusionary language. “Know for certain that no immoral, impure, or covetous man, no idolater has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God” (Eph 5:5).
As one of the studies I was doing this week noted, when we arrive at the commandment against coveting, we are all of us brought up short. Always wanting more? I suppose there may be those who don’t suffer from it, but I’ve not met them. Looking at how Weymouth presents the list from verse 11, I see more issues, as the issue of being a reviler comes into view. They translate that term as describing one given to ‘abusive language’. Oh, I can go there, can’t I? Maybe not in the church – I certainly try to avoid it there. But, among co-workers? It’s gotten better, I think, but I can still be hard on folks, so long as it’s at a safe distance. What about that young buck driving his noisy, noxious vehicle past me just yesterday? Oh, I may not have cursed him, but I was certainly willing to hold him forth for ridiculed.
Weymouth proceeds to the one who is ‘hard-drinking’. There, I think I am safe. But, I also know how easily I could become unsafe, but for the grace of God. Time was when this was me, whether with drink or drugs or, more probably, both. Those days are gone, thanks be to God. But, like smoking, like other addictions of the flesh, they are never so far gone that one can let down his guard. They would reassert their hold given half a chance. There was a period of time where even the music of my youth needed to be cut off. I have convinced myself that some of that is now acceptable listening, although by and large I keep to instrumental stuff. It’s hard to be offended by mere notes, but even there, I might be better served to ask if God finds beautiful what I find beautiful.
But, our propensity for idolatry, for addiction, for worldliness must keep us ever watchful, ever humbled before a God who tolerates not the least sliver of such things in His presence. If these were the only things I knew of holiness, I should despair. The only recourse is to kick the likes of me out of God’s house? The only possible outcome is to arrive at the end of days only to discover a ‘Keep Out’ sign on the gate? This message should drive us away, lead us to just give up and go back to our old ways. But, God. God has provided the Gospel for just such a man. God has shed His grace upon just such a man. God has looked upon this man’s impossible condition and said, “By My own right arm, I shall do it.” As the old song goes, “God has made a way where there seemed to be no way.” And, looking at the purity He demands, looking at the fierce demand for holiness that Paul reiterates, I am driven back to walking humbly with my God, as He requires (Micah 6:8), for any possible basis for pride has long since been knocked out from under me. Any hope apart from Him has long since been cast to the curb. Which one of us can survive this assessment? Nobody. No, not one. Yet, by the word of God, and by the work of His Holy Spirit within us, we have assurance that the time will come when that no is made a yes; not on the basis of any good we have done, but wholly and solely because Christ, our eternal Paschal Lamb, has been sacrificed on our behalf.
That command of the last section to live an unleavened life continues to hold. We continue to find more and more leaven that needs to be cleaned out. The good news is that we serve a God who is helping us in this endeavor, guiding us to the next bit of leaven that needs removal, and then removing it from us. We are not passive in the process, but we are children watching our Father, Who art in heaven, do His marvelous work in and for us; allowing us a hand in things, inviting and even insisting that we have a hand in things, and yet, like any good father, knowing that things are really in his hands to get done. Life is training. Who can survive the assessment? “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Ro 7:25)! Through Christ, we who have been called by our Father shall indeed survive it. We shall be made as He is – in His time, in His way, and by His power.
Yet, the call remains. We cannot allow even the appearance of tolerance for that one who claims to be a believer and yet persists in unrepentant, habitual sin. We cannot allow ourselves to be convinced of the validity of the so-called ‘carnal Christian’. There is no such creature. There is no perfect Christian, but there is certainly no true Christian who remains committed to his sinful ways. What Paul commands us to do is put them out of the Church. Sounds harsh, but it isn’t really. It is done in the same spirit of hope in which he instructed the church to turn their immoral brother over to Satan: The hope of saving his soul.
This instruction is perfectly in keeping with that which Jesus taught. “If he refuses to listen, tell it to the church. If he won’t even listen to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector” (Mt 18:17). And, here, we must recognize the full impact of the instruction given. What are the Gentile and the tax-collector to be to the Church? They are not creatures so vile that we must avoid their very touch. They are not those from whom we withdraw utterly. Rather, we have been left in the world to reach those very ones. It is those so utterly outside the Church who most need her ministrations. They are the mission field. All, then, that Paul is saying here is recognize that these individuals remain unreached, whatever their claims and appearances. They are to be pursued as unbelievers, for that is what they are. They are not to be treated as family unless and until they are demonstrably part of the family.
We remove them from fellowship, but we do not forget them. We do not write them off as lost causes. We recognize them for what they are: Sinners in need of Christ. The issue here is not one of denouncing and rejecting the sinner. The issue is making certain that in our hope for that sinner’s restoration, we don’t inadvertently encourage sin in others. It is leaven. It is invasive and it is insidious. Sin is not content to occupy that bit of real estate it is given. It wants more. It will take more unless thoroughly and assiduously opposed. Its reach is not even restricted to the individual life. Where sin is tolerated in one member, it must be expected that sin will spread to other members. I say it is not a possibility for which we must be on the lookout. It is a certainty the severity of which ought to have us eager to heed Paul’s call here; which, after all, is God’s call. “Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.” It is for his good and for yours. Sin is a deadly contagion. It must be routed out utterly.
I believe I have already touched on the next few points, but let me circle round to them again. If we are going to pursue Paul’s command in regard to a purported brother, we must just as surely take heed to our own spiritual condition. The command to get the log out of my own eye remains. Personal assessment is always apt, but particularly so in this case. We don’t cast this one out with an air of superiority, but with the holy fear that proceeds from humility. This should be made clear to the one cast out. It MUST be clear to us. There, but for the grace of God, go I. I am not immune to sin’s enticements. I am not arrived at some perfection of holiness that grants me grounds to speak down to your condition. I am flesh and blood just as you are. But, I must heed my Lord’s command, lest I join you in your sin.
Yet, even in removing the sinner, there remains the call of the Church to every lost soul: “Come as you are.” We spoke of that in this week’s sermon regarding Psalm 95. The call is constant. Come. Come and bow down. Come and rejoice. Come and worship. But, that call is issued to those who believe, those in whom the Spirit has made His dwelling place. To the sinner, the same call goes forth to come, but it is a call to come and be cleansed of sin’s stain, to be liberated from sin’s bonds, to be reborn into a newness of life as the adopted child of the most holy, most high God. Such a child, washed and restored, cannot continue as he is. Come as you are, but come to be changed. Come to exchange the fruit of death for the fruit of the Spirit. As you come, understand that this change, however gradual, however wavering in its progress, must come. Where the Spirit is, there cannot but be the evidence of His fruit. Where there is no fruit, by corollary, there cannot possibly be the Spirit indwelling.
Now, let me turn to another aspect of Paul’s instruction here. The injunction is particular in making this demand on us: “Don’t even eat with such a one.” Why is this? What is the significance of eating? Now, I can begin by noting that this has that same sense of habitual practice as applied to their sinful proclivities. At the same time, we have other instruction, even in this letter, regarding how to respond when invited to an unbeliever’s house to eat. Don’t ask too many questions, but don’t reject them, either. Jesus, after all, had no scruples about dining with the sin-sick and lost. They were the ones who needed Him, and He could hardly hope to reach them by rejecting all contact with them. But, here? Don’t even eat with them.
I am inclined to think that perhaps this refers to the love feasts that characterized the early church, those first forms of observing communion together. That is a topic Paul will take up more directly later in the letter, but it is also something that was recognized as a particular feature of this new Christian sect. It was largely misunderstood and misrepresented, but it was recognized. This is what these Christians do. They meet together for some odd love feast. We’re not sure what goes on in there, although we’ve got some suspicions. But, it’s the clear mark of these believers. In light of that, it would be understandable, certainly, that Paul would enjoin the believers from welcoming so blatant a sinner to their feast. It is another mark of tolerating sin in God’s house.
I cannot, however, preclude the possibility that Paul is talking about more personal or private interactions. A meal shared is very much an evidence of fellowship. Even in grade school, with the enforced herding of children to long tables, the inevitable result is that each one seeks to sit with those he likes. We can decry the cliquish nature of what develops, or we can recognize that it is utterly natural. Personally, I should have to think that trying to prevent willful associations of that nature is rather like seeking to oppose the wind. We choose our associates because we enjoy our associates. To the degree we are able to determine those with whom we spend our time, it would be rather a perversity of character were we seeking out those we loathe. There may be those we have to work harder to be around, family members that we more tolerate than enjoy. Of course, we may very well be those family members that others tolerate more than enjoy. It’s worth keeping in mind.
But, where we have liberty of association, we will associate with friends. At meals, this is particularly true. We do not invite to our table those we despise. There are periods of life, when it might be supposed that we invite those to our table whom we feel will best improve our future prospects, although this is far less common than it may have been in past times. Dinners have far less to do with social climbing, for most of us anyway, than with enjoying good fellowship.
All that being in mind, what does our eating with such a one as Paul has described say? It says these are the sorts we choose to be among. If these are the sorts we choose to be among, is this not evidence that we are more like them than not? Obviously, there are limits to how far we can take such an assessment. After all, we are not called out of the world. We are not to avoid the lost, but to invite them to be found. Jesus ate with tax collectors and worse. We ought not to feel we can only associate with the godly. Where then is evangelism? But, that is ministry, and though we may be ever so spiritual and insist that all of life is ministry, it isn’t ministry on the same level. Even Jesus had his down time. There is a time for evangelism, a time for discipling, a time for personal study and prayer. There is also a time for rest and fellowship, and simply enjoying the blessings of God’s Providence, such as they may be. Meals, I dare say, fall far more in that last time than any other. We may feed the poor in evangelistic outreach, and may even share a meal with those we seek to reach. But, at home we are more likely to seek the fellowship of friends. We ought to be more likely to maintain those associations which contribute to our growth in grace, and those to which we contribute in kind.
Eating: Sharing not just the food, but fellowship and experience; sharing of ourselves, coming to know one another more fully. It may seem no big deal to us. Who, after all, is checking up on us? Who either knows or cares whether we have had this family to dinner, or another? Our lives are sufficiently isolated one from another that it seems doubtful that it could matter. But, this was a different time and a different dynamic. Community was more in evidence. Corinth, for all that it was a city, may have had more of the small town to it from our perspective. I remember the town I grew up in, a town where it seemed everybody knew whose you were and how to get ahold of them if they needed to know what you’d been doing. It wasn’t like there was blanket coverage of every acre, but the likelihood of going unnoticed was far less than we experience in our neighborhoods today. We mostly live behind our doors and know little or nothing even of those across the boundaries of our property. We may well have chosen our property with an eye to having no neighbor across that boundary. Here, though, in Corinth and elsewhere, visitors were known.
Think of those meals we see Jesus partaking of, when He was in the house of this person or that. People knew. Granted, this was Jesus, and people seemed to be particularly keen to know His whereabouts at all times. Yet, when it came time for the Last Supper, there were no crowds filling the hall. On the other hand, when he dined with Simon the Pharisee, even the lowlifes apparently heard about it. What could it mean? What would Simon’s friends say? Would he be kicked out of the Pharisee club for associating with the likes of this Man? Or, worse, yet, would the rather casual entrance of this prostitute into his house suggest prior associations in the minds of his associates? What was he supporting? Where were his loyalties and his predilections?
This is the sort of thing Paul is driving at. If you eat with this sort, you lend them at least a degree of acceptability. You say, by your association, that you find nothing wrong with their blatant sinfulness. This same association would not happen if you went to dine with outsiders, or even if you invited them to dine with you for some purpose. But, the casual meal among friends will be seen for exactly that: Its demonstration of what sort of friends you keep. It would be wrong, then, to keep association with one who has been set under the discipline of the church. The ban may sound harsh. It is intended to be harsh. But, it is intended to be tough love. The one who can’t come to service, but can maintain all his prior friendships is unlikely to find much reason to change. Surely, in our day, if one has an excuse to take back a few hours of Sunday morning, it’s hardly going to present a problem. But, if we are cut off from all our better associations? If friends refuse to see us any longer? If we are left to live more or less alone? Oh, we may seek out company amongst those who have been rejected like ourselves, but we won’t fail to recognize the loss we have suffered. We won’t, for the most part, lose the desire to be restored.
That’s the point. Church discipline comes always with the goal that restoration may happen. It may not happen as thoroughly as one might desire. There are things which cannot but sever the close relationship that once obtained. There are times when a full and complete restoration would be an invitation to greater sins, and it would be neither loving nor safe to pursue restoration in such a case. But, there can still be reconciliation. There can be recognition that, so far as we are able to ascertain, that lifestyle of sin has been left behind, or at the very least, progress has been made. We would not wish to threaten that progress by putting a softened heart in harm’s way. We would not wish to threaten those who remain uninvolved with that sinfulness by introducing a wolf into their midst on the wishful thinking that he has become a sheep. If we must err, it ought be on the side of such caution as promises the best outcome for all involved.
In the meantime, barring clear repentance, the order stands: Don’t eat with them. Don’t hang with them. If we bring our dear, loving Apostle John into it, don’t even say hello, lest you be thought to join him in his sinful deeds (2Jn 10-11). Never mind letting him in the house. Don’t even acknowledge him. Paul’s taking it fairly easy with his instruction, when you hold it up against that.
Let me turn to another question: That of Paul’s mindset in issuing this instruction. We have already seen occasions in this letter where he exhibits a clear trace of irony. It shows particularly clear when he holds forth the Corinthians’ self-assessment. Oh, I see! You’ve become kings already, and I’ve been left behind. You’ve achieved perfection, and I’m still stuck back here with my half-finished work. Everybody loves you, but I’m despised. This fairly drips with irony. There are other points in the letter where a similar attitude would seem to hold, and there is something in us which would just as soon find that attitude in evidence here. Looking at that list of causes for expulsion, it’s hard to imagine who remained. Covetousness and idolatry are such pervasive issues, we should find ourselves sounding like the disciples when Jesus set out the path for salvation. “Then, who can be saved?” Who can remain the church? Which one of us remains within? Surely, Paul, you are joking somehow, or at the very least exaggerating.
The evidence would seem to suggest otherwise. I note these instructions given to the church in Thessalonica, which are given with no such hints of jest. “Here is a command from the Lord: Keep clear of any brother who leads an unruly life out of accord with those traditions you received from us” (2Th 3:6). “If anyone will not obey the instruction of this letter, take note of him and don’t associate with him. Thus may he be put to shame” (2Th 3:14). Or, we could take up the letter to Galatia, which has no humor in it whatsoever, for the situation was too severe to permit of it. Concerning the deeds of the flesh, wherein we see the same matters listed as here, Paul concludes, “Those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:21). Now, I grant, it’s a matter of practice or habit, not the occasional lapse. But, then, what he’s dealing with here is likewise habitual in nature, and sufficiently blatant as to be known to one and all. No, we don’t get to write this off as being over the top. It is meant to be taken at face value. Don’t eat with them, don’t associate with them, and for the sake of God’s name, don’t let them continue to put forth that they are somehow Christians.
By their deeds they proclaim themselves to be outside, whatever their words may say. As this morning’s choice of the BBE concludes, “For it is no business of mine to be judging those who are outside; but it is yours to be judging those who are among you.” Put them outside, and let God deal with them. Let them be as publicans and sinners to you, a field to be sown anew with the Gospel, in hopes that they may yet hear the call of the Father and answer. But, if they will not hear, if there be no fruit on that tree, recognize the truth of the matter.
This is hard to hear. There are those in each of our lives for whom we pray as unceasingly as we know how, in hopes that God would pull off a miracle and bring them to saving faith. We may cling to those promises that whatever we ask in His name we will do, and insist that they’re going to be saved, because we’ve prayed and now God is bound by our prayers. I grant we are highly unlikely to express our feelings in such fashion, for to do so would expose the magical thinking to which we’ve fallen prey. Yet, our heart attitude may very well find itself described in such terms. We forget that what is prayed in His name is that which is prayed on His authority, as expressing His determined will. If, in His good and perfect will, He has determined that one for whom we pray shall be hardened, then hardened he shall be however much we pray and preach and prod. It is not for us to make demand on God. It is for us to serve as He directs, to sow without prejudice, to trust His decisions even when we don’t like them, and to obey even when it hurts.
Church discipline is a thing most fixedly in that last category. It hurts. It hurts to be under it, and it hurts to have to enforce it. It hurts, as well, to be second-guessed at every step by those whose compassions and partial understanding of matters leads them to suppose themselves wiser, fairer, and more loving. Armchair pastors and elders are of little more benefit than armchair quarterbacks. If ever there was a time for the old song, “Walk a Mile in My Shoes”, it is here. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:31). It can be a terrifying thing to find you have to be the means His hands have chosen to use to bring correction, or worse yet, condemnation.
God help us to be faithful in the execution of all that He gives us to do. God help us to obey come what may, and to trust Him for the completed work, both in ourselves and in those we serve.
