Church discipline, like most good things, can bear repeated emphasis, not only because of its essential significance to the church on earth but also because its glory is so great that there is no possibility of reaching the ultimate depth of the Truth which it seeks to apply! This is an introduction to a series of column-length articles, most of which will deal with specific Bible passages which shed important light upon this subject.

Christ’s church or God’s house must be served faithfully and tastefully by wise housekeepers, lest its lawlessness militate against the best interests of all concerned. Church discipline seeks to rear children fit for the Lord’s own service and praise. Church discipline recognizes the infectious power of spiritual disease, and is willing, if need be, to perform radical surgery in order to save the body from death. Church discipline is official, for it is the task of those who over-see in Christ’s Name the flock which he entrusts to their care. Church discipline is strict, for it implies that God’s Word provides an infallible norm for Christian discipleship. Church discipline is loving and sympathetic and kind, for it is done by “ordinary believers” upon whom Christ has laid the world’s most extraordinary office.

We are speaking of church discipline, and so it is of every significance that we say something about the place and importance of this “glorious body of Christ.” In all frankness we would confess that the church is the most important of all human societal relationships. Unlike families, governments, and schools, the church is essentially imperishable. Even hell’s most furious assaults cannot remove her from the rock of ages. To the church as to none other the very “oracles of God” (Rom. 3:2) have been entrusted.

I think the following description of the church is helpful:

Typical of the church is that she is church of Christ and that to her the very words of God have been entrusted, and this appears in all that the church does as she very really holds out salvation to the members of the church, proclaiming that Word which addresses itself to man in the totality of his essentially religious existence, that Word which is God’s loving command. As guardian of the Word the church becomes the instrument for the leading of the Spirit of God, for God’s Spirit uses exclusively God’s Word to convict, to regenerate and to renew the church’s children. To the church powers are entrusted which go far beyond the functional delimitations of ordinary societal relationships. Thus the church is the treasure house of divine wisdom, the arsenal of God’s weaponry.1

If this representation of the church is only fractionally accurate, the official administration of the authority of the church’s highest officers, her elders, is unbelievably important!

J.H.P.

1. H.J. Popma, Cursus ter Inleiding in de Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee, p. 29 (translation mine, J.H.P.)