SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/14/2023 10:08 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “The
Authority For Discipline”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
18:18-20
Message of the verses: “18 Truly, I say to
you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you
agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father
in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among
them.’”
I promised to quote what MacArthur has to say about
the grammatical construction in this passage:
“The grammatical construction in the passage also
clarifies its meaning. As in Matthew
16:19, shall be bound and shall be loosed translate future perfect passives and are more
accurately rendered ‘will
have been bound’ and ‘will
have been loosed.’ The idea is
not that God is compelled to conform to the church’s decisions but that, when
the church follows Christ’s pattern for discipline, it conforms its decisions
to what God has already done and thereby receives heaven’s approval and
authority.
“Perfect passive are also used in John 20:23 in regard to
forgiving or retaining sins. Believers
have authority to declare that sins are either forgiven or not forgiven when
that declaration is based on the teaching of God’s Word. If a person has received Jesus Christ as
Savior and Lord, the church can tell him with perfect confidence that his sins
are loosed, that is, forgiven, because he has met God’s condition for
forgiveness, namely, trusts in His Son.
If, on the other hand, a person refuses to receive Christ as Savior and
acknowledge Him as Lord, the church can tell him with equal confidence that his
sins are bound that is, not forgiven,
because he has not met God’s condition for forgiveness.”
Have
you, as a true believer in Jesus Christ, ever talked to a person who perhaps is
in some kind of cult, and tells you that he or she is going to go to heaven
because they are following the false ways of the cult? Perhaps they come to your door and talk to
you about their cult. Now if this kind
of thing happens you can be kind to that person and tell them in a loving way
that what they are following is not going to get them to heaven, and then tell
them exactly what the Bible has to say about salvation.
Now
as the church has the authority of disciplining its own members as we have been
learning, I’m sure that there are times, because of the seriousness of this
action that those who are doing this, that is leaders in the church, that they
may find themselves wondering why a sinful person can tell another sinful
person that they are sinning. However as
we look at Matthew 18:15-17 and follow it we have the assurance that what is
being done is in agreement with the Word of God and the God of the Word. Discipling a person is a difficult thing to
do, humaningly speaking, but then many times in following the Word of God there
are difficult things we have to do.
MacArthur
writes “The Lord gives no command without giving the necessary power and
authority to obey it. In these three
climaxing verses in Jesus’ instruction about church discipline we learn that,
when the Lord’s people sincerely seek to purify His church in His way, they
have the energy, approval, and authority both of the Father and the Son.”
This
is what we will continue to look at as we go through these verses, and it may
take a couple more SD’s to go through, but this is a subject that a believer
needs to understand, not because they are Pastors or deacons, or any kind of
church leader, but because one may be involved in a church that is not doing discipline
in the proper way, that is doing it in their way and not God’s way, and so it
is good for all believers to truly understand it.
1/14/2023 10:35 AM
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