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The concept of fellowship is one of the fundamental
doctrines of Scripture. Primarily, fellowship is with the Almighty
Creator, who created man with the object of extending to him eternal
fellowship. God's holiness and purity are at present a barrier for sinful
man, but through the work of Jesus Christ that perfect fellowship can
eventually be gained. Meanwhile those who have been called to the truth
have the additional privilege of joyful fellowship with each other. They
continue "steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in
breaking of bread, and in prayers." (Acts 2:42). But this sharing of a
God given hope means that individual believers, and communities of
believers, must repudiate all fellowship with anything abhorrent to Him.
This is one of the basic principles of divine revelation,
and is the basis of repeated exhortations in the scriptures.
Thus God requires a holy people. This was God's
invitation to Israel at Sinai, and the same words were applied to
Christians by Peter in his first epistle (1 Pet 2:9). Being holy means we
are to be "sacred" or "set apart". Our lives have to be dedicated to God's
will, and must be clearly distinct from the majority of mankind who
disregard divine standards and requirements. God declares "to this man
will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and
trembleth at my word" (Isa 66:2). Humility before God, respect for
His word and belief in His promises are the characteristics of a man of
faith. Faith and obedience place us in covenant
relationship with God through Christ, giving us a tremendous privilege but
also a great responsibility. God's word is Truth, and there is
only one true Gospel and only one standard of acceptable
behaviour in His sight. Love for God and respect for His word demand that
we seek out that truth and strive to uphold it. From time to time, all of
us fail and we need God's mercy and forgiveness. Our own personal weakness
though does not mean we can seek to lower Divine standards, rather must we
increase our diligence in trying to live up to God's holy calling.
Old
Testament Teaching
When God established Israel as His holy people, he
gave them a law to instruct them on how to be a holy and separated people.
Much of that law was taken up with showing how easy it was for man to
become defiled and separated from God. Although we are no longer bound by
the Law of Moses, its principles covering ceremonial uncleanness have much
to teach us. Following chance contact with the carcass of an unclean
animal, a man was unclean till evening. If someone
carried the carcass of an animal, something additional was required - he
also had to wash his clothes, and then be unclean until even. The law
defined longer periods of uncleanness arising out of contact with human
birth or death. During this period of uncleanness, the Israelite could not
approach the sanctuary nor touch a holy thing, but he was
still part of the camp of Israel. But there was a final category: those
who were in a state of continual uncleanness, typified by the leper. Such
unfortunate people were not just denied access to the sanctuary, they were
put out from the camp.
In all this there is a pattern for spiritual Israel.
We all sin, and we have to exercise our conscience in admitting that sin,
and following the prescribed process for being cleansed. But the one who
continues in sin, represented by the leper, is to be put outside the camp
in order to prevent the infection spreading. The period of separation from
the camp was not permanent; once free from infection, and after
demonstrating that fact to the priest, the cleansed leper would be
welcomed back. This gives us a clear insight into the mind of the
spirit on such matters.
New
Testament Teaching
The same principles are shown very clearly in the
NT, where there are many references to the need to separate from those who
continue in wrong belief and/or practice (Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians
5:11; 2 Thessalonians 3:6,14-15; Titus 3:10-11; 2 John 1:10)
As under the Law of Moses, so in Apostolic teaching:
the one who continued in error was to be separated from the community of
the saints until he demonstrated he was clear of the defilement. Then he
could and should be welcomed back, as is made clear by the case of the
brother at Corinth (2Cor 2:6-7). Withdrawal was necessary to bring the
wrongdoer to his senses, and to prevent his bad example leading others
astray - "a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump". Withdrawing
is the only sanction available to an ecclesia when there is a brother or
sister who refuses to turn back from error in doctrine or practice. The
purpose should always be to highlight the severity of the situation, in
the hope of generating a change of mind. Withdrawal however, should always be
corrective, never punitive.
The Meaning
of Withdrawal
Having established that withdrawal is a
responsibility placed on God's people in both OT and NT times, we should
try and understand what it means. We can never take to ourselves the
prerogative of judging the acceptability of any individual before God. We
cannot judge another's servant, and so we certainly cannot determine the
standing of a brother or sister before God and Christ. If we withdraw
ourselves from someone, we are not making ourselves out to be better than
that person, we are merely establishing a difference. We
are saying that, according to our understanding of the Scripture, we
believe that the brother or sister's behaviour is wrong, and we have to
stand aside from it. Failure to take action may result in others being led
astray, but more importantly, we would ourselves be committing sin. This
point is very important, although often not appreciated; it leads to
misguided concepts described by phrases such as "guilt by association". We
are not being tainted by another's sin, but by our own sin of disobeying
Christ's command to withdraw ourselves from persistent and unrepentant
wrongdoers. We have no authority to change, ignore, or downgrade Christ's
commands: and to do so on the grounds of showing love is, in
effect, to accuse Christ of being less loving than we are!
Therefore we must act.
The first action must be to try to restore the
situation by prayerful discussion. But if irresolvable differences of a
fundamental nature continue to exist, only two options are possible. We
can either 'sweep differences under the carpet' and ignore them, or we
must separate from those who promote error, and those who tolerate error.
It is the second option is the right one.
If we ignore differences, ecclesias will be adopting different standards,
and end up "doing what is right in their own eyes".
We stress again, that by withdrawing, we do
not condemn our brethren and sisters. Rather, we condemn ourselves if we
fail to act, because our conscience would be compromised. We are not
throwing our brother or sister out of God's family, rather are we hoping
to persuade a change of mind. Such a path is not easy; indeed it is always
very painful, but we believe it to be necessary.
If in this section we may appear to have paid more
attention to withdrawal than to the positive aspects of fellowship, it is
not because we consider it to be more important, but rather because it is
the one aspect of fellowship which is particularly important and where we differ from some other
Christadelphian communities. |
