Weekly Dose Of Lloyd-Jones

But the view of the Church which we put forward in the last lecture demands that there should be discipline. Furthermore, as we have just seen, the practice of discipline is something to which we are exhorted repeatedly and strongly in the Scriptures themselves.Now discipline is to be exercised along two main lines. First of all, it is to be exercised with respect to doctrine. We read: ‘A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject’ (Tit. 3:10). John says that if a man does not bring the true doctrine he must not be received at all, not even into one’s home, let alone into the church. Let me make this clear. This does not mean that Christians should never admit an unbeliever into their house. Of course it means nothing of the sort! What it does mean is that if a man who claims not only to be a Christian but also a teacher is teaching error, you certainly must not receive him into your house. But of course you receive the unbeliever into your house in order that you may talk to him about Christian things. Paul puts this perfectly in 1 Corinthians 5:11 where he says, in effect, ‘In all these matters of discipline I am not referring to those who are out in the world, because if you are to keep yourself from all those people it would mean that you have got to go right out of the world! No, I am not saying that, but I do say that if a man who is a brother is guilty of these things, don’t keep company with him.’

So the New Testament tells us that we really must be concerned about doctrine in the Church, and that we must do something about false doctrine. And I think that the whole situation confronting us today is abundant proof of the terrible consequences of failing to exercise discipline with respect to doctrine. I do not hesitate to assert that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers in the nineteenth century failed to exercise the discipline they should have done when that fatal Higher Criticism began to come in from Germany. It was because they failed to discipline the people who believed and taught such things, that we are witnessing the present situation. With a mistaken tolerance and, often, a misunderstanding of the teaching of the parable of the tares, they allowed this wrong teaching, hoping that things would soon be better; and they talked about maintaining a positive witness and not being negative! In this present generation we are reaping the consequences of that tragic fallacy on the part of church leaders.*

*Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (1998). The church and the last things (16–17). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.