It is our intention now to begin a series of brief articles in which we shall point to certain passages from Scripture which quite directly deal with the task of ecclesiastical discipline.

Opposition to the exercise of a meaningful, official church discipline is often expressed by the question, “How can ordinary members of a congregation be expected to counsel others with respect to matters of the Faith?” The practical impossibility of a disciplined church is concluded from the apparent incompetence, ignorance and weakness of the “ordinary member” or, to use his more technical title, the “layman.” From this conclusion it is very logically indicated that the church, too, must be run by experts, must have its thinking guided by intellectuals and its practice formed by those especially qualified to give such leadership.

Churches of the Reformation have never yielded ground to this objection, because they adopted the viewpoint of the Scriptures as expressed in such a text as Romans 15:14,

And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. On this verse F. W. Grosheide comments as follows: The word goodness (agathoosynee) appears just a few times in the New Testament, and then exclusively in the writings of Paul, Romans 15:14; Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 5:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:11. It is a specific fruit of the Holy Spirit, a fruit of the light, a gift of God. We must conceive of a virtue which. by God’s grace, governs one’s life (“full of goodness”), is pennanent, and which drives one in the right direction. The Romans had come to this point without Paul. That means that a great work of God has already happened in them, enabling them to love the good and to seek it. With this romes also their being “filled with all knowledge.” We ought not to understand the word knowledge (gnosis) as it appears in Paul’s epistles in a narrowly intellectual sense. It is indeed to possess insight, but in such a sense that this insight influences life. To use a word out of our own times, this knowledge bears an existential character.(1)

Because of the presence of these spiritual endowments the Christians at Rome are “able also to admonish one another.” Nothing is specified here as to the precise character of these admonitions. The general need for such admonition, and the particular basis in the gifts of goodness and knowledge underlying this characteristic activity of the Christian congregation are simply and forcefully asserted.

We can best make our point here by a brief quotation from the Canons of Dort, for grace is conferred by means of admonitions; and the more readily we perform our duty, the more clearly this favor of God, working in us, usually manifests itself, and the more directly his work is advanced… (2)

(1) Exegetica, 1952, p. 8 (translations mine, JHP).