Should or Can we fellowship with a member on church discipline?

[Ray]

I'm asking you guys this question because a brother told me that I should not be fellowshipping with anyone who's on church discipline until he gets restored. Is this Biblical? Even though the person on church discipline is attending church but not his home church during his discipline?

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

Obviously, if the church justly excommunicates someone, then we are to treat him like a heathen and a tax collector, which requires us to withdraw from Christian fellowship with the person. In John 9, however, Jesus continues to have fellowship with a man whom the Jews unjustly cast out of the Synagogue. I have had to do something similar with people who were summarily and/or illegally excommunicated from a certain "Reformed" denomination as well. Whether or not the so-called discipline is just or not will determine the answer to the above question. As things stand, we do not know enough about the particulars of this case to comment much further.

 

[Ed Walsh]

a brother told me that I should not be fellowshipping with anyone who's on church discipline until he gets restored. Is this Biblical?

What do you mean by "church discipline?" Are you referring only to the final stage of excommunication, as Daniel assumed in post #2? Or are you including lesser steps such as barring from the Lord's Supper?

 

[Ed Walsh]

Greetings,

As I wait for your answer, I have a few general comments.

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 (ESV) along with Matthew 18:15-20 are two primary texts on the subject:

9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—
10 not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
11 But 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.
12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?

Is seems from verse 11 that the “shunning” of an immoral brother should begin even before excommunication. “not even to eat with such a one.” In other words, if you have a friend who has moved in with his girlfriend, I don’t think you need to wait a year or so for official sanctioning to be completed. You should, as they say today, un-friend him NOW. But does that mean that all communication must be cut off? I don’t think so. It just can not be business-as-usual. The subject matter of any conversation with such a “brother” must come around to his erring way(s).

Here are some comments from W. Hendriksen on Matthew 18:17

Matthew 18:17 (ESV)
17 If he refuses to listen 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.

Jesus continues: And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as the foreigner and the tax-collector. Not as if Jesus despised or would have nothing to do with foreigners and tax-collectors. As to his attitude toward non-Israelites see Matt. 8:11; and toward “publicans” see Matt. 9:10–13. But just as foreigners and tax-collectors who are still unconverted must be considered as being as yet outside the kingdom of God, so also this impenitent person must now be viewed as being in the same class. Because of his own stubbornness he has lost his right to church membership, and it has now become the church’s painful duty to make this declaration—in order that even this severe measure of exclusion may, with God’s blessing, result in the man’s conversion (1 Cor. 5:5; 2 Thess. 3:14, 15). Note: “even to the church,” indicating the honor the Lord bestowed upon the church (Matt. 16:18 “my church,” cf. Acts 20:28b; Eph. 1:23), and the grievous character of rejecting its admonition.

Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew (Vol. 9, p. 701). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.​

 

[Von]

Don't you think that our idea and valuation of fellowship as such cause us to doubt whether we can still meet with someone? If we highly valued fellowship with the body of Christ, the thought of excommunication should horrify us. Just meeting with someone would then be ok, but a weak (late afternoon) shadow of the real thing.

Look at what David said:
I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD. (Psalm 122)
My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God....For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. (Psalm 84)

David would not consider meeting with a believer as a substitute for real fellowship in the house of the Lord.

 

[Ray]

What do you mean by "church discipline?" Are you referring only to the final stage of excommunication, as Daniel assumed in post #2? Or are you including lesser steps such as barring from the Lord's Supper?

He's on a Censure and is barred from the Lords Supper. I get the idea that he is only guilty about the consequences from his sin not that he sinned greatly against the Lord.

 

[Alan D. Strange]

The OPC Book of Discipline describes how we are to engage someone who is suspended from the Lord's Supper (but still a member on the rolls of the church): "An officer or other member of the church, while under suspension, shall be the object of deep solicitude and earnest dealing to the end that he may be restored" (BD VI.B.3.b).

You should engage the brother with his restoration in view, which is to say that you, as appropriate to your station and relationship with him, should encourage him to manifest repentance so that he may resume his place at the Table. If this sounds or feels odd, such strangeness in these sorts of cases is perhaps only a indicator of failure in our ordinary "one-anothering," in which we should be encouraging each other to faith and repentance.

We need to remember that we ought not only to be encouraging the censured to repent, but we should also, by lips and lives, be urging one another to do so all the time. As Luther said, we are called to a life of repentance. Sometimes that takes a particular shape when someone fails to repent and is censured: we must keep urging that one to repent.

Peace,
Alan

 

[Ray]

The OPC Book of Discipline describes how we are to engage someone who is suspended from the Lord's Supper (but still a member on the rolls of the church): "An officer or other member of the church, while under suspension, shall be the object of deep solicitude and earnest dealing to the end that he may be restored" (BD VI.B.3.b).

You should engage the brother with his restoration in view, which is to say that you, as appropriate to your station and relationship with him, should encourage him to manifest repentance so that he may resume his place at the Table. If this sounds or feels odd, such strangeness in these sorts of cases is perhaps only a indicator of failure in our ordinary "one-anothering," in which we should be encouraging each other to faith and repentance.

We need to remember that we ought not only to be encouraging the censured to repent, but we should also, by lips and lives, be urging one another to do so all the time. As Luther said, we are called to a life of repentance. Sometimes that takes a particular shape when someone fails to repent and is censured: we must keep urging that one to repent.

Peace,
Alan

Thank you