“Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure—not to put it too severely—to all of you. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough, so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.” (2 Corinthians 2:5-11 ESV)
The situation being referred to here appears to be the one talked about in 1 Corinthians 5:1-13. A man within the gatherings of the church was evidently in an incestuous relationship with his father’s wife (his mother or his step-mother). And the church was glad and was ignoring the situation. And so Paul instructed the church to exercise church discipline on the man and to remove him from the fellowship of the believers. And the goal of this action was that the man would be brought to repentance to save his soul from hell.
And they were to no longer be in fellowship with the man in order to shame him, for they were to “Purge the evil person from among you.” And it appears that they did as they were instructed. But now Paul was instructing them to forgive the man and to comfort him so that the man would not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. And now they were to reaffirm their love for him. So it also appears that the man, thus, had repented of his sin of incest (sexual immorality), and so God had forgiven him of his sin.
Now it helps us to picture this if we can understand the situation they were in during that time period, in contrast to our time period. For the church was the body of Christ made up of all who were of genuine faith in Jesus Christ, who had died to sin and who had been raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but now as slaves to God and to his righteousness. But the church in Corinth was the whole body of Christ in the entire city. And they were all under the same elders/overseers.
Now they didn’t all meet together in one huge building, as far as I understand, but they met from house to house and in the temple courts, which were open to the Gentiles. And they probably met wherever they could find places to meet, and they met daily, not just one day a week. And all of them who were of genuine faith in the Lord had gifts of the Spirit and were to be given opportunities within their gatherings to where they could all minister encouragement and exhortations to one another.
So, for them it wasn’t like it is for us here in America, anyway, where every congregation of what is called “church” is separate, one from the other, and under different authorities and church denominations. So, in America, if a church congregation in any particular city exercised such biblical discipline upon its members who were engaged in gross sexual immorality, the offending parties could just go to a “different church” where they would be accepted and not be disciplined at all for their sinful behaviors.
But in the time of Paul, where the church was all believers in Christ in the entire city under the same elders/overseers (my understanding), if the entire body of Christ in that city exercised that kind of church discipline on the man, he would be shunned by all the Christians in the city, and he would have nowhere else he could go. And so this would definitely put much pressure on the man and he would have felt punished to the point of either repenting of his sins or else just rejecting God and the church altogether.
Now, that may seem harsh to some people today who did not grow up in that culture, but we have the opposite situation in the church in America today where sexual immorality is running rampant in the gatherings of the church (or the false church). And it appears that few congregations are exercising such biblical discipline on the offending parties, and so the cancer has been allowed to spread throughout the church. If any church does anything, it is often to supply a support group for the addicted to sin.
But our Lord disciplines those he loves so that we will live godly and holy lives in accord with his will and purpose for our lives, just like godly parents discipline their children so that they do not end up wild and out of control. So, exercising true biblical discipline in such cases is not cruel to the offending parties. What is cruel is ignoring the situation and doing nothing so that human lives and marriages and families are being destroyed by this evil cancer of sexual immorality which is permeating the church.
But what this also teaches us is the importance of forgiveness. Now I believe the Scriptures teach that we must forgive even if the offending parties do not repent of their sins, but that is largely for the benefit of the ones who do the forgiving, because if we do not forgive others it will eat away at us like a cancer inside of us and it will kill us from within. But this forgiveness is not approving of others’ sins and it does not mean we should be in fellowship with those we know are living in sin. But it is us not getting even with them.
Yet the kind of forgiveness that God offers to us and that these Christians were now to offer to this man was a forgiveness that involved restoration to the body of Christ because the man had repented of his sins. For when we truly repent of (turn from) our sins to follow our Lord in obedience to his commands, he does forgive us, and he will bring us into fellowship with him, provided that our repentance is genuine. And if God, who is sinless, forgives us, we who are born into sin should thus forgive others their sins.
[Matthew 6:14-15; Matthew 18:21-22; Mark 11:25; Luke 6:37-38; Luke 11:4; Luke 17:3-4; 2 Corinthians 2:5-7; Colossians 3:12-13]
You are Loving and Forgiving
An Original Work / February 19, 2012
Based off Psalm 86
You are loving and forgiving,
Jesus, Savior, King of kings.
You provided our redemption.
By Your blood You set us free.
You are gracious; full of mercy.
No deeds can compare with Yours.
Great are You; there is none like You.
Glory be to Your name.
Teach me Your way, and I’ll walk in it.
O Lord, I will walk in Your truth.
May I not have a heart divided,
That Your name I give honor to.
I will praise You, O Lord, my Savior,
For great is Your love toward me.
You have delivered me from my sins.
Your grace has pardoned me.
You, O Lord, are full of compassion,
Slow to anger, bounteous in love;
Faithful to fulfill all You promise;
Glory be to Your name above.
Hear, O Lord, and answer Your servant.
You are my God. I trust in You.
Turn to me and grant Your strength to me.
You are my comforter.
https://vimeo.com/117066958
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