Basis for Disfellowship
By Harold Key
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All life is a gift of the Lord, spiritual as well as physical. We recognize that it is impossible for men to add any one to the church. This is the action of the Lord who creates a new member of the body of Christ. It is the Father who begets new children into His family. Other members can only recognize and accept the new relationship. Now the point at which spiritual life functions is faith in Jesus as the Christ the Son of God. This has always been the foundation principle of the church, the sine qua non, without which there is nothing. Apart from this faith as a fact in the heart, that heart has no place in Christ's community. There is nothing else which can establish such a relationship.
When any one makes a clear, distinct confession of his faith in the manner which Jesus instructed, the Christian community recognizes that he is one with them and one of them. With the lips one makes an emphatic verbal confession of what is in his mind regarding Jesus, that He is the Christ the Son of God. In baptism one makes an equally emphatic assertion as to what is his will concerning the divine-human Lord, submission to Him. Upon such confession both by word and deed, the church extends to such a one the right hand of fellowship.
Now if the basis for drawing to a person is his faith expressed clearly and distinctly, by word and behavior, in the divinity and rule of Jesus Christ the Son of God, then the basis for withdrawing must be nothing less than an equally clear and distinct denial of that faith either in word or in behavior.
Although we may sometimes surmise that an individual is developing in faith and will ultimately confess Jesus Christ, yet we cannot have fellowship with him until he distinctly confesses with mind
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So far as I understand divine revelation, no man ever adds another man to the Lord nor cuts one off from the Lord. It is to his own master he stands or falls. However, a congregation which perceives spiritual sickness in one is to encourage, admonish, warn, or even have no company with that one, depending upon the severity of his illness. But he is still a brother (2 Thess. 3:14, 15).
So far as I know, a brother is to be withdrawn from only for two possible reasons. If he deliberately and distinctly repudiates the confession that he once made of his belief in the deity of Jesus Christ, obviously he renounces the very basis of fellowship (2 John 7-10). To deny either the humanity or the divinity of Jesus is to destroy for one's self the very basis of spiritual life, for he rejects the Son as God's representative to man, or the Christ as man's representative to God.
The only other basis for withdrawing from a brother is if he denies the Lord by the way he lives. If his manner of life is an obvious repudiation of the Lord's control over him, he shows in practice that the Son of God and Savior of man means nothing to him. Therefore, if he walks disorderly by behaving scandalously, either as a deadbeat (2 Thess. 3:6), or a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner (I Cor. 5:11), obviously he refuses to let the Spirit of Christ control his flesh. He refuses to let the Lord be Lord in his life. This is a repudiation of baptism, the death and burial of the carnal nature and the rising to walk in newness of life.
But the flesh is not all that must be crucified with Christ and be buried in baptism. The disposition and attitude must likewise submit, for Christ must be enthroned in every area of one's will. So a person's loveless, judgmental attitude as seen in his factious, divisive spirit is equally a refusal to submit one's will to the Lord and let the Spirit of the Lord control his attitude (Romans 16:17; Titus 3:10). Not only are such grosser sins as immorality, impurity, licentiousness, drunkenness and carousing the works of the flesh; but equally so are the sins of enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, faction and party-spirit. All of these are a repudiation of the Spirit's control and thereby a practical denial of Jesus as Savior and Lord. Therefore, the scripture plainly says that none who practice these sins shall inherit the kingdom of God (Gal. 5:19-21).
So then, fellowship is destroyed either by disbelief in the deity of Christ or by rejecting the control of the Lord in leading a life of holiness and brotherhood. The first denies the fact of Jesus Christ, the second resists the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
But what about one who teaches or practices what we consider to be doctrinal error? Are we to withdraw from him also? Are we to follow the practice of the Roman Catholic Church which says: "Should a Catholic be so unfortunate as to contumaciously deny a single article of faith, or withdraw from the communion of his legitimate pastors, he ceases to be a member of the Church, and is cut off like a withered branch" (Faith of our Fathers, page 10). I believe such practice is wrong because differences in the understanding of doctrinal implications and in judgment of methods by which to implement the Spirit's commands are not necessarily a denial of the deity of Christ nor a repudiation of His Lordship over one's life. Brethren are not to force their own doctrinal concepts upon one another, but are to hold them peaceably as private matters between themselves and God (Romans 14:22). Differences in judgment of methods may at times be so sharp and incompatible that it is better for brethren to separate geographically for a time in order to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
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The failure to realize that differences in understanding and judgment are not necessarily sinful has led many of us to conclude that we had to renounce and condemn all those with whom we differed. This misguided zeal has been responsible for more strife and division within the Restoration Movement than anything else. A better understanding of this point would do much toward restoring a sense of the unity of all believers in Christ within the framework of New Testament principles. May His grace quicken our understanding!