Magyar Egyház, 1973 (52. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1973-01-01 / 1. szám

MAGYAR EGYHÁZ

7

Church Discipline

According to all scriptural texts of the Bible the Lord is the God of order. A perfect, divine plan created the entire universe in an orderly fashion. The miracle of creation: the fashioning of the visible front the invisible, and the divine ordering of the material world; establishing universal laws, determining man’s future and mission. Discipline: to subordinate our own will, work and life to the higher will and intentions of God, the Creator of the universe. Obedience to the divine commandment which is the commandment of life, the acceptance of the divine order, which regulates life in the universe, and the execution of the divine will, which determines our personal place in the world. Man revolted against this divine discipline and as a result of that sin lost the happiness of eternal life — thereby experiencing the hopelessness of life without God, the misery and pain caused by our own transgressions, and the deathly fright of the feeling of extinction. Mans life changed from the happy and perfect world created by God to the discouraging, earthly sinful life, dead ending at the cemetery.

God wrought a change in the hopeless condition of man as He sent Christ to us, when by His word He recreated us spiritually, and once again subjected us to H is will, and through our faith He lifted us out of chaotic world of man and into the perfect world of divine order. The miracle of redemption is the restoration of the original divine order in the soul of man by faith; by virtue of Christ’s death on the cross man once again may subject himself to the will of God and, though lost by sin, regain his original connection with God, eternal life.

This was the foundation of the church discipline of the New Testament, which the Lord Jesus Christ left behind for His disciples in two wonderful messages of the Holy Scriptures. The first of these messages is found in Matthew 18:18, it has served as foundation and cornerstone for the church discipline of the Christian Church for nearly 2000 years and reads as follows: “Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall hind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” The second message, dealing with the Holy Spirit reads as follows: “And when He (the Comfortor) is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness and of judgement.” (John 16:8) With these, the Lord, Jesus Christ, gave the highest authority on this earth to His disciples, the authority of church discipline, with which His chosen disciples could, witli divine power, either accept into (or reject

from) the church, the divine order of creation, and heaven other men. It follows, therefore, that church discipline is not a right exercised (or not exercised) by virtue of human whims hut rather represents a divine power and duty delegated to us by Christ, which we must exercise in full knowledge of the consequences. The non-application of church discipline is just as great a sin as its misapplication according to personal whims and desires.

The leaders of the first Christian churches regularly applied church discipline. The apostles thought of the church as the body of the risen Christ which under no circumstances could be described, defamed or shamed by either personal or congregational sins. Christ was the son, the earthly embodyment of tlie living God, the head of the church, the expression of perfection. It was, therefore, imperative that the church, the body should resemble Him in all respects. The Christian church consequently did everything in her power to rid herself of individuals who, following proper disciplinary warning, would not or could not abstain from sin and to deny them the holiest of holies, the participation in the Lord’s supper, which forever reminds us of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The Christian church opposed individuals and groups who wanted to change the God given liberties into liberality who wanted to dispose of divine order along with the old testament and wished to lead their lives according to the precepts of “everything is free and everything is possible.” The leaders of the first congregations and the apostles who taught them fought many a battle to prevent the divine spiritual freedom granted the congregation from becoming human liberality, the freedom which every member of the congregation was duty hound to demonstrate to all non-memhers, by leading exemplary earthly lives in complete obeyance of the will of God. The writings of the new testament perfectly describe the form, meaning and goals of church discipline. Church discipline was exercised as follows:

1— Private warning

2— Repeated warning in the presence of witnesses.

3— Warning in the presence of church leaders.

4— Reproach in the presence of the entire congregation.

5— The denial of participation in the Lord’s Supper.

6— Excommunication from the congregation.

The above exercise of church discipline was intended at all times to serve two purposes. The first purpose was to temporarily punish the wrong doer