1 John 1:6 “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”
We have already mentioned that when we walk in darkness that we no longer enjoy fellowship with the Lord. This truth is confirmed to us in the above quoted passage of scripture. To have fellowship with the Lord means that we sense His constant presence. We clearly hear His voice when He speaks to us. We know the leading and guidance of His Spirit as He witnesses with our spirits as to his will for our lives. We know His peace and comfort in every circumstance that comes our way. We have a quite assurance that He hears our prayers, and that we have every petition and request that we make known to Him. By His Spirit He shows us things to come, and He prepares us beforehand so that things do not take us by surprise. The list is almost endless. When we walk in sin however, we no longer enjoy fellowship with the Lord and all these things stop taking place in our lives.
1 Corinthians 5:6-11 “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? … (11) But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner--not even to eat with such a person.”
In the church the Lord Jesus has instructed us to withdraw fellowship from a brother who is living in unrepentant sin. In the passage of scripture quoted above this truth is clearly revealed to us by the apostle Paul, for in this passage we can clearly see that this particular brother would no longer enjoy any fellowship with his brothers and sisters in Christ. In the spirit this principle is exactly the same, for this brother no longer enjoys any fellowship with our Lord Jesus either. The Lord Jesus is not a hypocrite, and so He would not instruct His church to withdraw fellowship from a brother living in unrepentant sin while He was continuing in fellowship with that same brother. And so although this brother no longer enjoys fellowship with either the church or the Lord Jesus, he remains a brother in Christ and he has not lost his salvation. Nevertheless he is now excluded from any normal interaction with both the church and the Head of the church, the Lord Jesus Christ. Under the Old Covenant one who was unclean was put outside the camp, and they were separated from the rest of the children of Israel until they were cleansed. This practice was a type of what takes place in the church today, for the whole purpose of this action is to bring the person to the point of repentance so that they once again can be restored to fellowship, both with the church and with the Lord Jesus.
2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 “(14) and if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. (15) Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.”
Let me say that most churches today do not obey the Lord Jesus in this instruction, for they continue to have fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ who are living in unrepentant sin, even though our Lord Jesus has withdrawn His fellowship from them. I want you to notice in the passage of scripture quoted above that the purpose of exclusion is so that the brother may be ashamed of their behaviour to the point that they repent of their sin, and thus fellowship can be restored. Sadly a lot of believers living in sin today are not ashamed of their sin, simply because the church is not being obedient to the Head of the church in this area. And so the church does a disservice to these believers by not withdrawing fellowship from them, because it hinders the Holy Spirit from producing godly sorrow in their lives thus leading them to repentance.
Hebrews 12:14-15 “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: (15) looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.”
There is one further aspect to this truth that needs to be mentioned, which is the contagion effect of sin. In an earlier quoted passage of scripture the apostle Paul warned the church in Corinth that if they chose not to deal with the brother who was living in unrepentant sin, that they themselves would be at risk of being affected, and he used the metaphor of leaven being spread into the whole lump of dough. Make no mistake, when believers begin to tolerate unrepentant sin in their fellow believers, it doesn’t take too long before sinful practices begin to spring up throughout that church. In the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit confirms this truth to us when He tells us that it is possible for the sin of bitterness for example, to spring up in one believer and then spread to others in that church so that they too become defiled.
Michael E.B. Maher
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