Why God Allowed Sin to Enter His Creation

by Bruce Mills

Yesterday I taught on Romans 9:14-24, a passage which clearly deals with God’s sovereignty in election. In verse 22, Paul states, “What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?” Now, I have dealt with that verse in a previous post on the doctrine of reprobation (2/18/08) so I will not rehash that issue.

However, one issue which we discussed yesterday dealt with God’s sovereignty in relationship to sin. This is a very serious issue in theology, because after all, if we have no answer for the horrendous things which take place around us, we might conclude either that God is impotent and incapable of dealing with such matters, or that He is a mean and vindictive tyrant who enjoys inflicting pain on His subjects.

So why does God permit evil in His creation? Why does He allow such events as a deranged gunman killing 32 students and faculty members on a college campus in Virginia in April 2007? What about mass genocide as has taken place in Bosnia and Rwanda within the past few years? What about radical Islamic terrorists flying commandeered airplanes into towers, killing thousands?

And why didn’t God simply wipe out Lucifer (Satan) at the very beginning when he rebelled? After all, He has the right and power to do that. In fact, Revelation 20:10 says he is will do just that someday. So why didn’t God cast him into the Lake of Fire the day after he rebelled? Why let him rampage through humanity for centuries?

What possible answer does Christianity have for such questions? Using material that I gleaned from both John Piper and John MacArthur, let me see if I can answer that.

The ultimate answer is that “all things have been created through [Christ] and for [Christ]” (Col. 1:16). Clearly God knew all that Satan would do if He created him and permitted him to rebel. So in choosing to create him, God was choosing to fold all of that evil into His purpose for creation. His purpose for creation was the glory of his Son. All things, including Satan and all his followers, were created with this in view. God created them knowing what they would do, and that knowledge was taken into account in God’s decision to create them. Therefore, the evil that Satan and his demonic forces do is simply one aspect of how God’s greatest and perfect purpose will be accomplished.

And in Romans 9:22, we learn that the entrance of sin into the world was necessary so that God could display His wrath, judgment, holy anger, vengeance, and justice. That’s why it says God was “willing to demonstrate His wrath.” His wrath is just as much an attribute of God’s nature as any other of His attributes. And so God allowed sin to enter into His perfect creation in order that He could display His holy wrath, because if there was no sin, He would have had no reason to display His wrath, and without His wrath, the fullness of the glory of God would not have been revealed.

Satan’s fall and ongoing existence are for the glory of Christ. Ultimately, Jesus Christ will be more highly honored, more deeply appreciated, and more deeply loved because He defeats Satan—not the moment Satan fell, but through millennia of enduring him and those who follow him “with much patience”--and decisively through His own death. A single, sudden, and infinitely holy display of power to destroy Satan immediately after his fall would have been a glorious display of power and righteousness. But it would not have been the fullest possible display of the full glory of the Son and the Father. God chose an infinitely wise way of displaying the full magnificence of divine glory by letting Satan fall and do his work for thousands of years.

The glory of Christ reaches its highest point in Christ’s obedient sacrifice on the cross where Jesus triumphed over the devil (Col. 2:15). Jesus said in that final hour of his own sacrifice, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him” (John 13:31). Paul said that the crucifixion of Christ is the point where we see his wisdom and power most gloriously displayed: “But we preach Christ crucified…the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23–24).

Satan, with all the evil and misery he brings to this planet, serves to magnify the power and wisdom and love and grace and mercy and patience and wrath of Jesus Christ. We would not know Christ in the fullness of His glory if He had not defeated Satan in the way He did.

Now, I understand that that’s not an easy answer to accept for many. But that’s the answer God gives us in Romans 9:22. Had there been no Satan and no sin, God couldn’t have displayed His wrath against sin and we wouldn’t have known that aspect of His nature. And because that aspect of His nature wouldn’t have been put on display, the full revelation of God’s glory would have been lost. So God created Satan and allowed and endured sin for the purpose of revealing His holy wrath in its judgment and its punishment. And it had to be so in order for God’s character to be fully revealed.

The text also says, “and to make His power known.” Here is another reason why God created Satan and permitted sin to enter His creation. First of all, He did it so that He could show His wrath. Secondly, He did it so that He could show His power.

How does God show His power in relationship to sin? First of all, in His judgment of sin. The closing chapters of the book of Revelation reveal the power of God in judging sin. If you read them, you will see the devastating plagues that He will one day send on the earth. You will see the great fiery judgments that He will bring upon men. And you will see Jesus Christ return as the conquering Lord, riding on a white horse, carrying a sword, wearing blood splattered garments as He comes to defeat Satan, his demonic forces, and the armies of the world and take the earth for His own possession so He can establish the millennial Kingdom. And after the final rebellion, you will see all of unredeemed humanity collected before the Great White Throne because God has the power to bring them out of the graves so that He can bring them before His judgment bar and then send them into the Lake of Fire forever. That is truly a demonstration of His unlimited power to judge sin.

And so, Satan and sin exist in order that God may fully glorify Himself and His Son, and demonstrate that part of His nature which is holy and reacts in violent wrath against sin and evil. And God created Satan and allowed sin in order that He could demonstrate His tremendous power as well as His vengeance, and His power is seen in its ability to conquer all that attempts to conquer Him.

Sin and the Glory of God

by Bruce Mills

I spent Thursday through Saturday of this past week at the Ligonier National Conference in Orlando. The teaching that took place was incredible, with men of God such as Sinclair Ferguson, Alistair Begg, Derek Thomas, and D. A. Carson opening up the Scriptures on various aspects of the holiness of God. I was absolutely blown away by D. A. Carson's message on the church as God's holy people, and quickly realized why he was my son-in-law's favorite professor during his time in seminary. But there was one message which stood above all of them in moving me emotionally. It was Thabiti Anyabwile's message titled "Cosmic Treason: Sin and the Holiness of God." He masterfully worked his way through Numbers 25, drawing out point after point about the horrendous nature and treasonous character of sin.

Two of Anyabwile's points were particularly thought-provoking. The first was this: "Sin poisons our sympathy so that we side with the sinner in his sin rather than God in His holiness and justice." Think about that. If we should see God's judgment fall upon an individual, a nation, or a people because of sin, rather than crying out for God to vindicate His name and to continue to execute His justice until the sinner repents and God's name is glorified, we find ourselves sympathizing with the sinner who is receiving the just punishment for his sin. We forget that sin is open rebellion against an infinitely holy God, and the slightest offense deserves eternal damnation in hell. By its very nature, sin is an incalculable malevolence against God's glory. But instead of seeing God's judgment as the demonstration of His supreme holiness, we begin to wonder why He would take such drastic action against someone for what seems to be such a petty offense. We question God's goodness and love, and thus, we demean His holy character. We are willing to accept a God who punishes sin, but only to the degree that we think it should be punished. And when we do that, we have diminished God's holiness to a level equal to ourselves, and we have diminished the nature of sin to that which can be expiated with a minor slap on the wrist.

The second point which I found to be equally profound was this: "To care about anything more than the supremacy of the glory of God is itself treason against God." That statement exalts the glory of God to a level which most people have never considered. God’s glory is the sum total of who God is, and He is defined by His attributes. He is the infinitely sovereign Lord who is holy, righteous, just, loving, merciful, and gracious in all of His ways at all times. Unless we have a high view of God, recognize Him for who He is, and seek to exalt His supreme glory in every moment of our lives, our attitude and actions toward Him are treasonous.

Such a view of God will greatly magnify one's view of the sin in his own life. And as our sin is magnified and we see it for what it truly is, the infinite love of God as demonstrated by His sending His only Son to die for our sin becomes a staggering thought. To think that virtually every moment of my life I am sinning because I don't seek to exalt the supremacy of the glory of God in that moment, yet He loved me so much that Christ came to die for me. That thought simply blows my mind.

There is one last aspect of this that I want to mention quickly. Having such a high view of God and His glory is why Phinehas took the immediate, drastic action that he took in Numbers 25 to stop God's plague of judgment against the people for their sin. And it will do the same for us. A high view of God and a view of our sin as treason against Him will cause us to take every step necessary to kill sin in our own hearts and lives. That may be difficult, but Jesus said we are to take whatever steps are necessary, no matter how drastic, to cut out sin from our lives (cf. Matthew 5:29-30, 18:8-9). His language was figurative--He didn't mean we are to literally cut off our limbs or pluck out our eyes--but He did mean that we are to take sin seriously and do everything it takes to rid ourselves of it. And when we see God in all His infinite glory and majesty, and recognize our sin as a rebellious slap in the face of our Creator, those who are genuine Christians will begin to do just that.

To the Praise of His Glory

by Bruce Mills

I taught Romans 5:12 in my Sunday School class yesterday. The text reads, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned." Let me just say at the beginning that attempting to explain the complete interpretation of that verse would take far more space that would be reasonable for this blog.

But there was a rather significant question which arose from one of the ladies in the class. Although these were not her exact words, her question generally centered around the following concepts: "Why did God create man and allow him to sin? After all, God could have created man so that he would not or could not sin, so why would He foreordain to allow sin to come into the world?"

That is one of the most significant theological questions anyone can ask, because it focuses on the issue of the origin of sin and evil and why God allowed it to occur. God could have just wiped out Adam and Eve after they fell and started over. So why didn't He? Let me give you the only explanation which makes sense to my feeble, finite mind. These thoughts are not original with me, but they make this very difficult concept as understandable as is possible to the human mind.

We have to begin by considering God’s creation of the angels. Why did God create the angels? To give Him glory. But angels are incapable of fully understanding the character and nature of God. They were created in perfect holiness, so they understand God's attributes of holiness, righteousness, and majesty. But there are certain characteristics of God's nature that they don’t understand, including His grace, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. And yet those attributes are a part of the nature and character of God.

Why don’t they understand those attributes? Because they were created in holiness which means they have no need for God's forgiveness, grace, mercy, or compassion. Those characteristics only have meaning where there is the guilt feeling of sin, and a holy angel has no such feeling. Perhaps it is for that reason that the holy angels long to look into the gospel of salvation (1 Peter 1:12).

So holy angels were created to praise, glorify, and give honor to God, but they can only do so from a limited perspective because they were holy beings from the beginning. So there was a whole aspect of God’s nature which needed to be glorified, praised, and exalted that holy angels couldn’t understand.

But then the angels sinned and fell. Revelation 12:4 says a third of the angels followed Lucifer in his rebellion against God. And when they did that, they were damned to hell forever and were instantly unredeemable. No fallen angel was ever redeemed. No fallen angel was ever saved. No fallen angel was ever forgiven for that fall. Because angels were not created as procreative beings, but were individually created, they fell individually. And so they were damned forever. There is no possibility of redemption for fallen angels.

So there was a whole dimension of God's character that would never be praised and never be fully glorified unless God created some people who would have the capacity to fall, and then having fallen, could be redeemed. Then flowing out of their redemption would come an understanding of God’s grace, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

We Christians understand those concepts because we know how guilty we were and how greatly our sin had offended God, and how great God's grace was in forgiving us of that sin. Where we have trouble in comprehending God's character is with the things the angels understand—God’s holiness, justice, righteousness, and perfection. Because we were born in sin and have never been absolutely holy, righteous, or perfect, we have trouble understanding those attributes. But we understand God's mercy and love. We are amazed by it, but we understand it.

And I think that’s the reason, as best as my feeble mind can understand it, why when Adam sinned God did not say, "That's it; it's over. I'm going to wipe man out and start over." Rather, He said, “Now I will pour out My love and grace and mercy on him by sending My Son to redeem fallen sinners. I want the glory of which I am worthy.”

And if we should ever think God is out of line for wanting that glory, then that shows how little we understand about His worthiness. He deserved the praise from those who would understand His grace.

And that’s why, when having redeemed us, Ephesians 3:10 says He uses the church to teach the angels about His manifold wisdom. Because by observing His actions toward us, they learn things about God’s character which, without us, they would never understand. And if the purpose of creation and heaven and eternity is the eternal praise of God, then it’s fitting that He would allow sin to continue to exist, so that His Son's victory over sin and death might result in glory that would otherwise have never been possible.

Maybe this helps you understand this whole issue a little bit more. So, “through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” We all sinned in Adam. But nevertheless, He allowed us to be born in order to call us to redemption so that we could be to the praise of His glory forever.

The Wretched Character of Sin

By Bruce Mills

How wretched of a sinner are you? I am convinced that if you asked that question to most people, they would immediately say, “Well, actually, I’m not that bad. I try to treat others nicely; I don’t lie, cheat, or steal. I’m not that bad of a sinner.” I am convinced that is the answer people will give because I have asked numerous people that question (or one similar to it), and the answer I get is virtually always the same. People simply don’t feel that badly about their sin.

I was once presenting the gospel to a lady and commented that we are all sinners and that we all sin multiple times per day. She looked at me with an indignant expression and said, “Not me! I haven’t sinned today. All I’ve done today is mow the lawn and wash the dog. So I haven’t sinned today.” She obviously viewed sin as a matter of external deeds rather than internal attitudes. I responded, “Jesus said the greatest commandment is ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’ (Mark 12:30). Since that is the greatest commandment, if we don’t do that, it is sin. Can you say that you have done that perfectly today?” She looked at me with even greater indignation and said, “Well, if that’s going to be your definition, then I guess I have sinned today.”

The problem is that her perspective on sin, as well as that of all of unregenerate humanity, is that it is in direct and gross contradiction to what God’s Word says about sin. According to the Bible, man is corrupt and depraved to the very core of his being; a creature who goes about continually lying and deceiving, who hates God and rebels against everything He stands for; and who follows after his own desires and plea-sures rather than that which pleases God. In Romans 3: 10-18, the apostle Paul describes man’s condition in these words:

“There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one. Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

But I expect those who are not Christians to see their sin that way. It is not until they are confronted by the Law of God and His standards that they are even willing to admit that they are unrighteous sinners. What bothers me are those Christians who don’t seem to view their sinfulness as being all that bad. When they talk about their sin, it is often in the forensic sense in which sin becomes some kind of abstract concept which they know infects us, but which they feel capable of controlling most of the time—at least externally when they are around people other than their family. They fail to appreciate the fact that apart from the saving grace of God and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, they would be just as enslaved to sin as their unregenerate family, friends, and neighbors.

Sin is not something which any human is capable of controlling within himself. Sin is the master, not the human will. Sin enslaves, controls, and destroys. No person, in and of himself, has any ability whatsoever to subdue the sin that runs rampant through their fallen flesh and wages war against their mind (cf. Romans 7:23). That includes believers. Yes, Christians are new creations in Christ, but their newly created soul is trapped in a fallen fleshly body which continues to be enslaved to sin. So the Christian walk is a continual war against the desires of the flesh.

If you ever get to the point that you think you have achieved mastery over the sin in your life, just look at your response when someone breaks a promise they made to you, or someone challenges your integrity. You will find that immediately a war breaks out within you. You will begin to seethe with anger and bitterness; perhaps it will even burst forth in verbal outrage.

You may try to justify your anger by calling it “righteous anger” over the sin which that other individual committed against you, but the reality is that in your heart, you have determined that you are so important that no one should dare to violate your trust or to challenge your honesty. You have allowed pride to swell, and the respect and honor of others to become an idol of your heart. And when you set up an idol in your heart, you forget that it is a subversion of the eternal God’s righteous reign over your life. Instead you become more concerned with another person’s offense against you than the gravity of their sin against God.

But sin doesn’t only involve and affect other people and your relationship to them. David committed the sin of adultery with Bathsheba, then covered it up by murdering her husband Uriah. Yet when he came to God, pleading for forgiveness, he recognized that ultimately his sin was against God. He cried out, “Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight” (Psalm 51:4). He wasn’t denying the offense against Bathsheba and Uriah; he was simply acknowledging how great and awful sin really is. It isn’t merely an offense against other people; it is an offense against an infinitely holy God who is absolutely just in inflicting upon us an infinitely eternal punishment.

Don’t ever minimize the gravity of your sin. You and I are wretched, depraved sinners. Every area of our life is tainted by the poison of sin: our thought processes, our attitudes, our motives, our actions, and our inactions. Without Christ, the human heart pursues sin like a starving lion pursues a wounded deer. With Christ, you can for the first time in your life, overcome sin, even though you will find it to be a continual, lifelong battle, fraught with both victories and defeats.

So if you are a believer, acknowledge and grieve over the depths of your sin, confess it, turn from it, and by the power of the Holy Spirit who is at work in your life, pursue righteousness. If you are not a believer, recognize that so long as you cling to your sin, you will never see God except on judgment day, and then it will be too late. Admit you are a sinner, turn to Christ who paid the death penalty for the sins of unworthy sinners, and receive His forgiveness. Only He can give you the ability to defeat the sin which presently controls your life.

Discipline in the Local Church

by Bruce Mills

Many years ago, I wrote a small booklet for our church which outlined the elders’ perspective on the administration of church discipline within our congregation. In this post, I would like to reproduce some of that document, while removing the situation-specific references to my church. Hopefully, this will give readers a better understanding of what the Scriptures teach regarding this important topic.

Introduction

Early church documents identi­fy three cha­racteris­tics by which the true church of God may be known. These marks are the preac­hing of true doc­trine, the adminis­tra­tion of the sacra­ments, and the exer­cise of church disci­pline. Many churches today are in­volved in carry­ing out the first two of these important fea­tures, but neglect the third. The lea­der­ship of a New Testament church which is commit­ted to obey the Scrip­tures and to fulfill its responsibility to shepherd the flock of God in accordance with sound doc­trine will carry out church discipline. This means that the elders of the church will view their responsibility to the flock to include not only the teaching of the Word of God and the administration of the ordi­nances of our Lord, but also fulfilling their obliga­tion to reprove, rebuke, and exhort the members of the body of Christ to obey and follow His Word (2 Tim. 4:2, Titus 2:15).

Because it is essential that believers who are identified with the local church under­stand their role and responsibili­ties to one another and to the church leadership, I would like to explain the doctrinal position and prac­tice of church discipline within the local church.

The Need for Church Discipline

The purpose of church disci­pline is to affect a return to a biblical standard of conduct and doctrine in a member who sins (Matt. 18:15; 2 Cor. 2:5-8; Gal. 6:1), to maintain purity in the lo­cal church (1 Cor. 5:6-7), and to serve as a deter­rent to sin (1 Tim. 5:2­0). Discipline within the lo­cal church is a biblical im­perative, as command­ed by Jesus in Matt. 18:15-17 and by the apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 5:1-13. A church that ne­glects to lovingly con­front and cor­rect its members is not being kind, forgiv­ing, or gracious. Such a church is really hinder­ing the Lo­rd’s work and the advance of the gospel. The church without discipline is a church without purity (Eph. 5:25-27) and is in seri­ous dan­ger of losing its spiritu­al effec­tiveness. The leader­ship of local evangelical churches which are committed to the principle of obeying Scripture and seeking to maintain a be a pure and effective church until our Lord’s return will exercise church disci­pline within the body in a loving, gentle, and caring fashion for the purpose of restoring sinning bre­thren to fellowship with the Lord and with other believers.

The Steps of Discipline

Church discipline is generally to follow an established set of four steps as out­lined by Jesus in Matt. 18:15-17. Howev­er, in certain situations, these steps may be reduced in number as taught by Paul in 1 Cor. 5:3-5 and Titus 3:10.

Step One. The first step of discipline is a private one-on-one corrective summons. Jesus sta­ted, “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private” (Matt. 18:15). This means that whenev­er one believer sins against another, the believer who has been sinned against must first go to the sin­ning bro­ther and deal with the matter pri­vately. The purpose behind the reproof at this point is to point out the sin, to set the matter right, and to affect the repen­tance of the offender toward God and the offend­ed believer. There is nothing in Scrip­ture which indicates that the church lead­ership is to be involved in the matter at this point. The first step involves only the two parties to the sin: the of­fender and the offended.

However, it should be understood that Je­sus did not mean that when a believer ob­serves sin in the life of another believ­er, that just because the sin is not against him per­son­ally, there is no obliga­tion to con­front the sinner. That, too, is taught in this passage. Believers are accountable for one another (Phil. 2:4) and are to demonstrate their love for the spiritual growth and development of their fellow believers by confronting them about their sin.

The attitude which characterizes this step, and every other step of discipline, is one of gentleness (Gal. 6:1) along with a firm commit­ment to the standards of God’s Word.

Step Two. The second step of church dis­cipline is a group corrective summons. Jesus said that if the private one-on-one corrective summons failed to gain the re­pentance and restora­tion of the sinning believer, then “Take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed” (Matt. 18:16). Again, the sin­ning believer is given another opportunity to turn from his sinful behavior.

The presence of these one or two witnesses is to serve two purposes: (1) they are first counselors who seek to reunite the two estranged parties, and (2) if the sin­ner refuses to repent and be restored, they serve as witnesses for the church leader­ship to the call for restoration and repentance, and the subse­quent refusal. There is no requirement that these indi­viduals be actual witnesses to the sin of the believer being confronted, but rather they are witnesses to what transpired in the group corrective summons.

Step Three. After the sinning believer has been dealt with both privately and by the small group, if no repentance and res­toration takes place, then Jesus said, “Tell it to the church” (Matt. 18:17). The purpose in bringing the mat­ter before the local assembly is so that it may do its part in bring­ing the sinning brother to repentance. The full details of the sin will not be explained, but only such commentary as may be neces­sary to inform the church family of the general nature of the matter.

When such an an­nouncement is made, other believers have a responsibility to pray for the sin­ner, to avoid a critical or pride­ful spir­it, and to call the sinner to re­pentance. Paul instructs the church in 1 Cor. 5:11 and 2 Thess. 3:14 that believ­ers are to avoid any planned social fel­lowship which would in­dicate accep­tance of the sinning broth­er, such as eating meals to­gether. Rather, the church’s obliga­tion is to use every opportu­nity to bring to the sinner’s attention the need to re­pent of the sin and be restored to fellow­ship.

The sin­ning believer is forbidden to shar­e ­in the Lord’s Table within the fel­low­ship of the church and may not participate in any ministry of the church. However, he is not pro­hib­ited from attend­ing church services hoping that the min­istry of the Word will serve to bring about repen­tance and res­toration.

Step Four. If the sinning believer still does not turn from his sin after a period of corrective summons by the entire church, then he is to be excluded from the church. Jesus’ instruction on this matter states, “If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Matt. 18:17). At this point, the individual who refuses to repent at every step of the process is an individual whose heart is hard toward God and His people. He is to be put out of the church, thereby removing him from the protection that Christ provides to His church, and turned over to the realm of Satan (1 Cor. 5:5). Thus, he is no longer to be considered as a believer, but is to be treated exactly as one would treat an unbeliever. This means that, while making no final judgment about his actual heart condition, the church is to treat him as if he were an unbeliever. He gives no evidence of being a believer since he re­fuses to heed the authority of Christ ves­ted in the leaders of His church. Therefore, the other believers within the church are to seek to evangelize this individual whenever an opportu­nity occurs.

Thus, like any other unbeliever, this per­son would be permitted to attend the church services with the hope that the ministry of the Word and the work of the Holy Spir­it will bring about the ef­fect of repen­tance from sin and a profes­sion of Christ as Lord and Savior.

Repentance and Restoration

As previously stated, the purpose of church discipline is to affect the repen­tance from sin and restoration to fellow­ship of the sinning believer. At any step along the process, if repen­tance and res­toration to fellowship takes place, the rest of the body of Christ is to receive the penitent believer back into full fel­lowship within the church. This process involves forgive­ness, assistance, and love (2 Cor. 2:7-8).

At any time in which there is public sin which is or will be known throughout the church and the sinner has repented, he should appear before the elders and explain to them about his repentance and his de­sire for forgiveness and restoration. If such oc­curs and there is indication of the gen­uineness of such repentance, the elders should then inform the individual of his restora­tion. The pastor or another elder should announce this to the church family with the exhortation that all are to re­ceive the person back into the full fel­lowship of the church, reaffirm their love for him, and treat him in the same manner as any other broth­er in Christ.

Every believer within the church should also be ex­horted that persistence in failing to for­give a repentant believer is to place oneself in danger of church discipline.

What Sins May Result In Discipline?

Scripture presents four major categories of sin that call for church discipline. These perimeters embrace both the spirit (flexibility) and law (rigidity) essential for the purity of the church. They cover all Christian behavior, both public and private, dealing with sin as it relates to Christian love, unity, standards, and truth.

The categories are:

1. Private and personal offenses that violate Christian love (Gal. 5:19-21).

2. Divisiveness and factions that destroy Christian unity (Rom. 16:­17, 1 Cor. 5:11, 3 John 9-10).

3. Moral and ethical deviations that break Christian standards (Eph. 5:11, 2 Thess. 3:6).

4. Teaching false doctrine (Titus 1:9-11, 3:10; 1 Tim. 1:19-20, 6:3-5; 2 John 7-11).

Conclusion

Fear of disunity, conflict, and criticism has caused many Chris­tians, chur­ches, and church leaders to avoid con­fronting Chris­tians who are in sin. But a care­ful study of the New Testament indicates that such loving confronta­tion is a Chris­tian duty. Church discipline is God’s loving plan for restoring believers to fellowship with Himself and with the body of Christ. Christ desires that the church be “holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:27). Car­ing church discipline may be the means God will use in these days to purify the church so that Christ’s bride will have “no spot or wrinkle” at His coming.