What is the New Testament picture of expulsion from within the Christian community?
(Drafted October ’03)
Mainly due to a concern I have about fellow Christians focusing too much, IMO, on the ‘boundaries’ of our faith (manifested in an eagerness to exclude people over doctrinal differences)…
I wish to examine, via a survey of Biblical passages, instances where intra-community expulsion is explicitly stated or strongly implied (i.e. if someone in the community is found to behave in the specified negative way, it is more or less assumed that he/she will be expelled). My attempted focus will be on people who at least were Christians but - for some reason - were ousted or commanded to be removed by the apostles, or deemed to have ‘wandered from the faith’. In other words, I am trying to seek Scriptural precedence for expelling people who generally do or did NOT wish to leave the church.
This I feel is distinct from discussing those who leave on their own accord, were never real members at all or do not consider themselves as belonging to traditional Christianity (e.g. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and the cults). This is why I have passed over individuals like the ‘false prophets’ depicted in 2Peter 2 and the men in Jude ‘whose condemnation were written about long ago’ (Jude 4). It is also why I wish to postpone for now the issue of the ‘Judaizers’ in Galatians (and the ‘anathema’ mentioned therein) and concerns over the antichrist in the Johannine epistles (very popular letters for Christian boundaries). All these parties presumably NEVER INTENDED to be a genuine part of the church, and thus for them the threat is not expulsion but exposure.
To repeat:
I am assuming that, even (especially) when we are dealing with condemnation, it is valid to distinguish between individuals inside the covenant and those outside it (or those ‘faking’ it or who are actively seeking to destroy it). This is why we never call the average non-believer on the street a ‘heretic’, an ‘apostate’ or ‘antichrist’ (with all their implications). No, we reserve this severe status for long-time professing Christians, for our leaders, our theologians and philosophers i.e. people whom we think "KNOW BETTER" and thus are considered more culpable.
Unfortunately, things are not so easily categorized and I am unable to avoid some overlap here and there. Still, let’s see what we can come up with. The nature of my examination will be as follows:
Throughout, my focus will be on asking the BASIS for and CONTEXT of the condemnations. I hope to pull everything together later and propose some general principles for setting Christian boundaries with the unfortunate corollary of excluding those who do not comply with them.
[Note: My Scriptural passages will certainly seem insufficient to some and I GLADLY welcome suggestions of verses I‘ve overlooked or which (you feel) provide some insight to the early church’s community-censure practices.]
What does the New Testament show about expulsion or disassociation or fatal condemnation from WITHIN the Christian community?
This section will be divide into four:
A. The Pauline epistles (excl. Galatians):
| Bible verse | Cause of Expulsion / Condemnation |
| Rom
11:17-22, "Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God : sternness to those who fell, but kind to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you will also be cut off." |
|
| 1Cor
5:1-2,
"It is actually reported that there is sexual immortality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? … you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat." |
|
| 1Cor
10:7-10, "Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.’ We should not commit sexual immorality…we should not test the Lord…And do not grumble…(as some of them did and were killed)." |
|
| 2Cor
12:21 – 13:2 "I am afraid…I will be grieved over many who have sinner earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged…I already gave you a warning when I was with you the second time…On my return I will not spare those who sinner earlier or any of the others…" |
|
| 2Thess
3:14:-15, "If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother." |
|
| 1Tim
1:18-20, "…I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme." |
|
| 1Tim
4:1-3, "…some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain food…" |
|
| 1Tim
5:6-8, "But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while lives. If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." |
|
| 1Tim
6:20-21, "Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in doing so have wandered away from the faith." |
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| 2Tim
2:16-17, "Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some." |
|
| Titus
3:9-11, "But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned." |
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The most salient feature about the survey above is that ethical and moral issues - and NOT doctrinal ones(!) - form the overwhelming component of the offenses in question!
Expulsion or exclusion is commanded chiefly as a means of ensuring the community is free / purged of:
B. Acts and the Non-Pauline epistles (excl. 1st, 2nd and 3rd John):
| Bible verse | Cause of Expulsion / Condemnation |
| Acts
5:1-10 (Ananias &
Sapphira) "Peter said, ‘Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? (Sapphira, how could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord)…You have not lied to men but to God. When Ananias/Sapphira heard this, he/she fell down and died." |
|
| Acts
8:19-23 (Simon the Sorcerer) "Peter answered Simon, ‘May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin." |
(This passage depicts merely potential expulsion, see vs. 24) |
| Acts
20:29-30, "I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them" |
|
| Heb
4:1-6,
"…Let us…make very effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following (the Israelites’) example of disobedience." |
|
| Heb
10:26, "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God…" |
|
| James
2:14, "What good is it…if a man claims to have faith but no deeds? Can such a faith save him?" |
|
| Rev
2:4 (Church in Ephesus) "Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place." |
|
| Rev
2:14, 15 (Church in Pergamum)
"I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality…you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent there! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and fight against them with the sword of my mouth!" |
|
| Rev
2:20 (Church in Thyatira) "I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent but she is unwilling…I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely…" |
|
| Rev
3:1-3 (Church in Sardis) "Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God…if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will to you." |
|
| Rev
3:1-3 (Church in Laodicea) "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot, I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing’. But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked…" |
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Not unlike the Pauline corpus, the chief warnings regarding inner-community falling away and apostasy focus on:
There is some ambiguity in deciding on the relevance of Jesus’ teachings for intra-community condemnation of Christians, not least because the gospels focus on the creation of the new community of God (i.e. the person and works of Jesus himself). Needless to say, we need to be very careful about analyzing the transgression of a certain group’s boundaries by using documents that do not yet presume the formation of this group.
Wright cautions against the temptation to understand Jesus’ warnings (especially in the Synoptic gospels) apart from the specific historical situation in which they are set :
"The warnings…are manifestly and obviously, within their historical context, warnings about a coming national disaster, involving the destruction by Rome of the nation, the city and the Temple…The ‘normal’ way of reading these passages within the Christian tradition has been to see them as references to a general post mortem judgment in hell; but this betrays a fairly thorough lack of historical understanding. Jesus’ warnings thus take on a quadruple character within the context of his times:
"First, they fit naturally into the wider context of the Jewish sectarianism of the day. To pronounce judgment on the present regime was not unusual…it was a sign of deep loyalty to Israel’s true god and true vocation, and of deep distress at the corruption which seemed endemic in the national life.
"Second, the story Jesus told was one in which Israel’s intransigence led to judgment : to the judgment of angry imperial Rome, provoked once too often; and at the same time to the judgment of Israel’s own god, returning to his people at last only to discover that they had been untrue to their vocation… Jesus’ warnings belong perfectly within the context of Palestine under threatening and heave-handed Roman rule.
"Third…Jesus’ warnings carried a constant reference to the present generation…(he) seems to have stressed the signs of the times’ : the story he was telling was not about some general or abstract truth, of which the present moment just happened to be one example. His message was specifically directed to that very moment in Israel’s history.
"Fourth, Jesus’ warnings…cut against several strands within the complex and pluriform Judaism of the time…he warned against violent revolution (and therefore against the stricter Pharisaic agenda)…his warnings provoked the chief priest (who controlled the Temple, the symbol of national inviolability)…his message was not one that the majority of his contemporaries were particularly disposed to hear.
"Putting together these four elements of Jesus’ warnings, we find a classic prophetic profile, a classic example of critique from within. Israel’s story is retold so as to reach a devastating climax, in which the present Jerusalem regime will be judged, and the prophet and his followers vindicated. The covenant god will use the pagan forces to execute his judgment on his people, and a new people will be born, formed around the prophet himself." (Jesus & the Victory of God, N.T. Wright, p.323-5)
Thus, MANY Gospel judgments and warnings probably contained specific socio-political referents and were primarily targeted at those in historical Israel who opposed the formation of this new people around the strange prophet from Galilee (there’ll be more to say about this when we get to Galatians). On the other hand, epistles like 1st Corinthians already assume the existence of this new group and seek to sustain it. Whilst a post-Resurrection (not to say 21st-century) church obviously can and must use our Lord’s recorded words for decisions about community boundaries, we need to bear in mind the qualifications required of the gospel context.
The following, therefore, represent the verses I believe best apply to our purposes here, which is to seek guidelines to removing formerly genuine members of the Christian faith from the Christian community :
| Bible verse | Cause of Expulsion / Condemnation |
| Matt
5:13, Mk 9:50, Lk 14:34-35 "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men." |
|
| Matt
5:22,
"…anyone who says ‘You fool!’, will be in danger of the fires of hell." |
|
| Matt
5:28-29, Mk 9:43-47 "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye/hand causes you to sin, gouge it out / cut if off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell." |
|
| Matt
6:13, (Lord’s Prayer) "But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." (see also Lk 6:37) |
|
| Matt
6:19-24, Lk 11:34-35
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth…but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!…You cannot serve both God and Money." |
|
| Matt
10:32-33, Lk 12:8-10
"Whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God." |
|
| Matt
13:20, Mk 4:16-19, Lk 8:13-14
(Parable of the Sower) "The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away." |
|
| Matt
18:15-17
"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." |
|
| Matt
18:32-35 (Parable of the Wicked Servant) "Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant…I canceled all that debt of your because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." |
|
| Matt
24:9-12, 24; Mk 13:9-13, 22
(Olivet Discourse) "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved…For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect – if that were possible." |
|
| Matt
24:48, Lk 12:45-46 "But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." |
|
| Matt
25:10-13 (Parable of Ten Virgins) "But while (the foolish virgins) were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet, And the door was shut. Later the others also came. ‘Sir! Sir!’ they said, ‘Open the door for us!’ But he replied, ‘I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.’ Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour." |
|
| Matt
25:26-30, Lk 17:20-27 (Parable of the Talents)
"’You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from hi. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. "…But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them – bring them here and kill them in front of me." (Lk 17:27) |
|
| Mk
9:42, Lk 17:1-2, Matt 18:6-9 "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom it comes. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin." |
|
| John
6:60-66 "On hearing (the teaching of Jesus about ‘eating his flesh and drinking his blood’, John 6:53-58), many of his disciples said, ‘This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?’…Jesus said to them, ‘Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken o you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe…This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him." From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. |
|
| John
15:2-6 "(The Father) cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit…No branch can bear fruit by itself. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me…If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned." |
|
| John
6:70, 13:21, 17:12 (Judas) "Then Jesus said, ’Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!’ "I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me. "None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled." |
(The case of Judas may be too unique to count as a Biblical portrait of ‘casting out’ from within the community…) |
Even assuming (quite problematically) that my sample of passages above can apply without qualification to anything OTHER than the historical Israel (and its specific circumstances) among whom Jesus lived and taught, it seems quite unambiguous that doctrine is NOT a key determinant to determine who must be ‘taken out’ of the community.
To close this section I’d like to quickly address a Gospel episode a friend raised as part of his justification for condemning theological heretics…
D. What about Jesus’ seven woes upon the Pharisees (Matthew 23:1-36)?
What kinds of crimes did the latter commit, meriting fierce censure from our Lord Himself?
Putting aside the issue of whether Jesus’ woes qualify as an expulsion from God’s true community or a mere condemnation of God’s enemies (no insignificant difference), and bearing in mind the gospels’ historical qualifications outlined above, the pattern here doesn’t seem too different from the above. The offenses condemned were:
From a look at arguably Jesus’ fiercest condemnation of his religious opponents, again it seems the emphasis is on the corruption of character (with its resultant burdening /fracture of the community) with almost NO mention of abstract disputes about the nature or attributes of God. Even when ‘theological’ differences (e.g. vs. 16-17) were raised, they were not seen meriting condemnation in themselves (in fact, the Pharisees' teaching alone seemed in general approved by Jesus, Matthew 23:3, "So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.")
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Observation from survey:
What strikes me from the foregoing is that we have almost no evidence of Christians being ‘cast away’ from the church SOLELY over theological disputes!
These problems, and not speculation about the philosophical theology, seem (at least from a glance at Scripture) the main impetus for ‘kicking out’ people from the church.
Conclusion: At the very least, it LOOKS LIKE a Biblical distortion to encourage a severing in Christian community WHOLLY over abstract disputes in philosophical theology whilst virtually IGNORING the moral character of both those under threat of heresy and the (more often than not, self-) appointed guardians of the faith.
(I’m unable to contain one of my personal quirks on Christian ‘politics’ here [chuckle]:
I’d like to think that if the above is even half-right, then it would be more Biblically correct (though unfortunately less politically so!) :
With all the above in mind - and in full awareness that some may think that I’ve abandoned the very idea of doctrinal boundaries altogether (smile) - let’s move on to the next crucial question…
Can we fatally/’eternally’ condemn individuals SOLELY over doctrinal issues?
A proposed cautious answer (to be elaborated later):
Based on the above (and notwithstanding the many other potential passages yet to be examined), I would (quite radically, I know) suggest that it would be un-Biblical to expel genuine Christ-believing people entirely on the basis of a difference in doctrine.
HOWEVER…this does not mean that a deviant doctrine ALONE cannot result in condemnation. I propose that if/when this is called for, it would have to be due to either or both of two reasons:
A.Lau