I propose to initiate study of this topic by developing a number of propositions.

The first proposition is this: The Christian life is a disciplined life. In developing this proposition I shall advert to the pattern and the performance.

The Pattern⤒🔗

The very word discipline reminds us that all Christians are disciples of Christ. There are many statements in the New Testament that remind us of this. Our Lord Himself urged perfection as both the aim and duty of His disciples. The apostle Paul instructs us to be imitators of Christ. The apostle Peter also recalls that patient resignation in each situation is part of the Christian vocation - 'to this you were, called', he says, 'because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps' (1 Peter 2:21).

This spells out a new way of life for everyone who recognises Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. We do not fix our own ideals, we don't behave just as we please, though we find that the more we pursue the life of discipleship the more we are pleased with the way of life it involves. To be sure, it involves rigorous self-discipline, painful self-examination, untiring effort that objec­tively considered, may be regarded as altogether too daunting, but that is to overlook what inspires it all, the spiritual transfiguration that makes us like our Saviour Himself.

The authentic pattern which our Lord sets is that of obedience to God. The doing of God's will was His meat and drink. Even He spoke of not doing what pleased Himself but of doing what pleased His Father. And the motivating energy was the love He had for His Father. So the pattern of Christian discipline is loving obedience to God. Obedience presupposes knowledge. Christian obedience is not vaguely directed. It is not a matter of detached mysticism. It is very clearly controlled by the revealed will of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ knew what God the Father wanted of Him. He knew it so precisely as to be deeply distressed by it, but He was unshakeable in His resolution to do what God directed. That is our pattern - to submit ourselves to the revealed will of God and to do it. That is the sum of Christian discipline.

The performance←⤒🔗

In speaking of the performance I'm not going to attempt a contrast between what we actually achieve and the perfect pattern provided by Christ. That would scarcely be an edifying exercise. What I want to do is highlight the motivating principle of our performance and reflect on some generally helpful guidelines.

When I speak of the motivating principle I'm referring to the over-mastering passion of the Christian that is love and gratitude to our Lord Jesus Christ. There is always a sense of astonishment in the Christian mind. "He loved me and gave Himself for me" sums it up. This is the inexplicable and the totally delightful story of the relationship between redeemed sinners and their Redeemer. And always this love begets love. We love Him because He first loved us. This is what makes us want to be like Him, in spirit in attitude, in behaviour. This is what makes us sensitive to everything that impinges upon the honour of Christ and the wellbeing of all who name His name.

Knowing and responding to the love of Christ is not a unique experience. It has indeed its own specific shades of astonishment, wonder, gratitude and joy in each believer, but it has also the delightful recognition that one is sharing in a wider fellowship. We look at other Christians in a new light. We learn indeed that the Christian life is not lived in solitariness but in fellowship. "A solitary Christian is an anomaly" as one has put it. From the fellowship we derive help, strength, encouragement and guidance. In the fellowship we inevitably assume new responsibilities, the consideration of which will bring us to the main thrust of our discussion.

One of the main helps derived from the fellowship - the Church - is in the development of our understanding of the will of God by which our life is to be controlled. As children learn in the family situation, so Christians learn in the community of believers in Christ. Scripture, we are reminded, is not of private interpre­tation. The understanding of Scripture is a product of co-operative and lively study by a variety of people, comparing Scripture with Scripture. Out of this come generally agreed rules for Christian discipleship. To begin with, the new convert may accept these rules as safe and useful guides. As he reaches maturity and comes to clear understanding of the word of God, he may realise that certain rules are culturally conditioned and may have to be restated in terms that fit the actual contemporary situation. This is part of the co-operative learning process.

Then the more we understand the word, the more we become aware of what in ourselves is inimical to the word. We are alerted to things in our behaviour that call for correction. Igno­rance, carelessness, forgetfulness and arrogance vitiate the whole of life, but awareness of this summons to confession, repentance, amendment. Often it is in discussion with fellow-believers that we become aware of our own failures and are stimulated to self-review and correction, by the grace of God.

Private conversation and discussion between fellow-Chris­tians often prevents the development of situations that otherwise would be harmful. Such private conversations also provide oppor­tunity for a Christian burdened with the knowledge that he has hurt, wounded or offended a brother, to make confession of his fault and seek the forgiveness of the one he wronged.

Sometimes a Christian is deeply burdened by a sense of sin. There is something in his life that greatly troubles his conscience. He prays about it. He entreats Gods help. But the feeling grows on him that he must unburden himself to a counsellor. Consider this advice that was given to me by a mature and well informed and deeply exercised elder. He did not claim it was an original counsel of his own but he deemed it wise. 'If God in His providence has seen fit to conceal your fault from others, don't you be so foolish as to reveal it.' Still one recognises that people come to the point where they would say 'I've got to tell someone or burst'. Then the chosen listener should be one noted for wisdom, maturity and reliability. Sharing the burden may be helpful but the one who is made the sharer has to respect the conditions of strict confidenti­ality.

I have taken a fair bit of time working through the proposition that the Christian life is a disciplined life because I am persuaded that it is basic to our total thinking regarding Christian discipline. For Church discipline is not something that can or should be imposed upon the membership of the Church, as civil laws are imposed upon the State. Church discipline will only be effective where the membership recognise the authority of Christ, the Head, their necessary submission to Him in all things, and so respect for the order of life in the fellowship mandated by Him. This is not to say that the authority for Church discipline derives from the consensus of the members. There is no inherent sovereignty in the membership. Church authority derives from Christ its Head alone. If people defy the Headship of Christ they cut themselves off from His grace and from the fellowship of the redeemed.

We’ll pass on now to the second proposition which is this: The Christian Church is a disciplined community.

It is, I think, a pity that when we think discipline, we think of dealing with faults, aberration, offences. That is, in a way, the negative side of discipline even if it has positive ends in view. The positive side of discipline in the Church as in the family is in the nurture and building up of the membership in knowledge and faith and holiness of life. We do not pay sufficient attention to the disciplinary aspect of public preaching. Yet just as the due appreciation of the sacraments depends on the accompanying preaching of the word, so the right understanding of the corrective element in discipline depends also on the faithful preaching of the word. This indeed is what makes heretical preaching so dangerous – for it is subversive of the loyalty due to Christ and His revealed will. So much indeed, is this the case that Durham tended to think false teaching was more dangerous and ultimately more destruc­tive of the Church, than offensive public behaviour. There is a degree of deliberateness and arrogance in persistence in heresy that exceeds what springs from human infirmity or ensnarement in disgraceful practices.

That reminds us of the important contribution made by faithful preaching to the general discipline of the Church, and it reminds us that the Church must be as diligent to ensure that all its preachers faithfully adhere to the teaching of Scripture, as that its members demonstrate a life-style that is in harmony with God's revealed will.

So much for the positive element in Church discipline. Reflection on the negative or corrective element brings other features into focus. I speak of the negative element because we face situations where the Church is bound to say 'No' to members who appear to behave unworthily.

Three basic things must be noted at this point.

1. The Church is entitled to say No, only where the word of God says No. Church discipline in this sense, concerns itself with breaches of the revealed will of God. Breaches of merely human conventions, breaches of local cultural practices, breaches of human traditions are not generally the concern of the Church except to the extent that they exhibit a spirit of pride and arrogance that is insensitive to the feelings of believers of tender conscience. The apostle reminds us that there are times when undeniable liberty may have to be curtailed if its exercise proves subversive of the faith of others. But the general principle holds good – the Church is not authorised to burden the conscience of its members with rules and regulations which it cannot warrant from the word of God. When the State passes laws we say that it creates or constitutes new crimes. There is no parallel power in the Church. It cannot proscribe what the word of God does not proscribe. It cannot demand what the word of God does not demand. It cannot constitute new sins.
2. The corrective discipline of the Church in any official sense is exercised only when the corrective efforts of members of the fellowship acting more or less privately and informally have failed of their purpose. Where what is deemed to be offensive is so only to one or two members of the Church they have a duty to endeavour to remedy the situation privately.
   These accords with the teaching of the Lord in Matthew 28:15 ff. There, the intervention of the Church comes properly after interpersonal dealing m the fellowship, and highlights the importance of the first proposition we considered.
   Intervention by the Church involves a measure of publicity and there can be situations where the very publicity can itself aggravate the original damage. So it is good, where possible, that intervention by the Church be as low-key as the situation will allow. One of the benefits of our Presbyterian system is that it allows offences to be dealt with at a local level by the congregations Kirk Session, with as little trumpeting abroad of offences as possible.
3. The third basic thing to note is that Church discipline concerns only those within the Church and ideally should be sufficient.
   It concerns only those within the Church. The Church has a witness to bear to those outside. It may and should publicly denounce the public offences of those outside as John the Baptist denounced the wickedness of Herod. But the Church responsibil­ity is discharged when it notifies those outside that their behaviour is offensive to God and brings judgment on the nation. But when the offenders are members of the Church, the Church is duty bound to deal with their public offences in such a way as will induce repentance and show concern for the honour of Christ to whom the Church belongs.
   In cases of disputes between members of the Church which are brought under review by the Church, the decisions arrived at should be respected and accepted, even when some people still feel aggrieved.
   This raises a topical question. Is there a positive rule that requires Christians to settle all their disputes within the fellowship of believers - i.e. within the Church? We recall Paul's question to the Corinthians, 'If any of you has a dispute with another, does he take it before the ungodly for judgment?' Church courts, we remind ourselves, are concerned with matters of morals. They have in mind the necessity to deal with sin so that the purity of the fellowship may be maintained. Church courts are not directly concerned with crimes so as to have those guilty of them duly punished. They are concerned with the degree of moral turpitude attaching to criminal behaviour. State courts are not directly interested in sins. They deal with crimes. It may therefore be argued that where disputes are occasioned by criminal behaviour, those who feel aggrieved may properly have access to both ecclesiastical and criminal courts.

Christian love must be the dominant feature of Christian discipline←⤒🔗

This should be so obvious as to need little exposition. Should be, but it is not always so. It has and does happen that people involved in the administration of disci­pline are initially very well aware of the spirit that should characterise them and so they begin well. But as the process wears on and they suffer from personal misrepre­sentation or questioning of their authority they become more concerned with their own reputation than with the proper con­duct of the case.

The dominance of love in the Church's administration means also that the admin­istration of public discipline should not be unduly intrusive. In regard to matters that are recognised as of doubtful interpretation for example, the right of private judgment has to be respected and no process should be occasioned by difference of personal conviction in these matters.

Nor does the public administration of discipline require that officers of the Church subject its members to constant and de­tailed scrutiny into their private lives. Pas­toral counselling should take care of this area. There is a case recorded of a man seen by an elder to be looking out of his house window on the Lords day, being subse­quently summoned before his Kirk Session to answer a charge of 'idly gazing abroad on the Lord's Day'. That is the sort of situation which degrades discipline and provokes rebellion.

The sanctions proper to public disci­pline in the Church are spiritual. They are in harmony with the direct aims of such discipline which Durham lists as follows:

1. to vindicate the honour of Christ;
2. to preserve the authority of His ordinances;
3. to procure the good of the offender - the destruction of the flesh and the saving of the spirit; and
4. to procure the good of the Church in preventing the spread of evil.

All of these aims must be kept in mind when decisions are come to and action is proposed. For example, the good of the offender may be quickly achieved if he is brought to recognise his offence, express sorrow and regret and duly repent. So far as the procuring of his good, matters could rest here. But the other aims may make it expedient and even necessary that action be taken, involving a public statement to the congregation or the suspension of the offender even though he is recognised as penitent.

The spirit of love requires that where public offences are brought before Church courts the case should be dealt with as quickly as possible. This is not a recipe for lack of thoroughness in investigation but it does recognise the trauma occasioned to all concerned in undue prolongation. Cases that are unduly prolonged take on the appearance and indeed acquire the reality of persecution and this severely prejudices all the aims of Church discipline. Among other arguments in support of a plea for expeditious process. Durham observes that 'when offences are fresh, then often the parties offending and offended, as also others, are most affected therewith. Whereas, if a long time intervene, that edge wears away, and whatever the conclu­sion be, it proves not so edifying to any' (671).

The spirit of love which is 'the bond of perfectness', the cement of the Church of Christ, requires also that decisions come to by a majority of the Church after due process be respected and honoured. This does not deprive anyone of the right of private judgment. It does not do violence to anyone's conscience, for it does not require anyone to believe what he regards as the unbelievable. What it does require is that the authority of the Church exer­cised according to Biblical warrant be re­spected and disputes be not publicly con­tinued which cannot but result in public denigration of the Church. I recognise that there are those who cannot in good con­science accept this, who think that defi­ance of the Church's decision and continu­ance of dispute is in the interests of truth which is paramount. But there must come a point where they have to recognise that they have done all they can, that before God they have no responsibility for a judgment which offends them and that their personal unhappiness is not to become a destructive element in the Church as a whole.

Again, I must warn against the danger of being so engrossed in and obsessed by a matter occasioning differences of judg­ment that it becomes mainly a point of personal honour to pursue it in the face of all decisions and discounting all damage. We can persuade ourselves all too easily that we have no personal axe to grind - that our concern is totally for the honour of Christ and not our own good name. It is a remarkable and sad fact that disputes be­tween Christians are usually punctuated by disclaimers from both sides of the intru­sion of personal pride 'It's the principle of the thing' has often been the watchword of opposing factions and in this warfare what is most severely prejudiced is the love of Christ that abounds in love of the brethren. The outside world feels justified in its cynicism - 'how these Christians loathe one another'.

Another thing which the spirit of love demands is that no-one involved in a for­mal disciplinary process be disadvantaged through ignorance of prescribed proce­dures. Care should always be taken to inform such people of what will be helpful to them: in particular, it is never conducive to a general conviction that there has been fair and equal treatment to all parties, when cases are dismissed on a mere tech­nicality as, for example, the presentation of an appeal when strict procedure requires a complaint.

Reflection on this situation leads us to make a plea for flexibility in dealing with people obviously and confessedly guilty of offences when it is equally obvious that they are themselves deeply hurt, embar­rassed and penitent. Gentleness should be the order of the day in this situation.

Integration and edification are the results of properly ordered Church discipline←⤒🔗

If I am right in saying that Church discipline is a means of grace, that its aim is to win the erring to repentance and so to restore them to the fellowship, and at the same time remind the fellowship and the outside world how God abhors evil, then the result of discipline must be the up-building of the Church in love and faithful­ness. What can be more helpful in cases where offence has been given and taken than to see those who were alienated, em­brace one another in the love of Christ?

It all comes back to our starting point. The Christian life is a disciplined life, drawing its inspiration and energy from the pattern and Spirit of Christ. All of us must submit ourselves to the authority of Christ. Where this is done there will be few occasions for public discipline and when these occasions do occur they will be char­acterised on all sides by humility, confes­sion and renewal that will advertise the integrity of the Church as belonging only to Jesus Christ its Redeemer and Lord.