In these modern times we take a very consumer-driven view of church.
We choose where we will attend and even change churches if it suits us.
This is very true! But I wouldn't say "we." I don't take a consumerist view of my participation in the life and work of the Church, following the biggest noise and greatest activity within it.
Some leave, or choose to have nothing to do with the institutional church.
But I would argue that they remain in the Body of Christ.
Not all would agree.
Does God's word agree? This is what matters. And when I read
1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4:4-16 and
Hebrews 10:24-25, I understand that any professing Christian who has purposefully and persistently separated themselves from the Body of Believers is in direct disobedience to God's command to love the brethren as God loves them.
1 John 3:14
14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.
1 John 4:7-11
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Discussion questions:
- What authority does the church have over the believer?
- What if a believer rejects that authority?
- What if a church exercises their authority to put you out of the church?
- Are those put out of the church outside the Body of Christ?
- Does the institutional church have authority over those outside their fellowship?
What authority does the Church have over the individual believer?
1 Peter 5:5
5 Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for
“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”
1 Corinthians 5:1-2
1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife!
2 And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you.
1 Corinthians 5:6-7
6 Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
1 Corinthians 5:11-13
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.
12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside?
13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.”
2 Corinthians 6:14-18
14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?
15 And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?
16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will dwell in them
And walk among them.
I will be their God,
And they shall be My people.”
17 Therefore
“Come out from among them
And be separate, says the Lord.
Do not touch what is unclean,
And I will receive you.”
18 “I will be a Father to you,
And you shall be My sons and daughters,
Says the Lord Almighty.”
Ephesians 5:1-13
1 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.
2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
3 But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints;
4 neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
5 For [a]this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
7 Therefore do not be partakers with them.
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
9 (for the fruit of the [b]Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth),
10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.
11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather [c]expose them.
12 For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.
And so on. The Body of Believers, the Church, has the responsibility to keep itself pure, free of "leaven," casting out of itself whatever offends God and is unclean. The Church is
not a "hospital for the sin-sick," but
a family of Spirit-indwelt children of God, called by Him to be separate from the World and victorious over the Flesh and the devil (
Ja. 4:4; 1 Jn 2:15-16). All members of the Church are to be "subject one to another," in humility edifying one another spiritually, challenging one another to holiness and Christ-centered living, working to restore one another to such living when it ceases, worshipping and serving God in holy, Spirit-filled community.
If a believer rejects their God-commanded submission to their brethren and refuses the God-instituted spiritual leadership and authority of the Elder/Pastor of a particular community of believers to which they've connected themselves they are, if their rejection/refusal is not based upon legitimate, biblical grounds, in disobedience to God and cut off from fellowship with Him until such time as they return to Him in the way He has prescribed in Scripture to do (
Ja. 4:6-10; 2 Co. 7:9-11; 1 Jn. 1:9; Ro. 12:1).
What if a church community expels you from itself?
See above.
If you're put out of the Church, the Body of Believers, are you ejected from being "in Christ," too?
No. Every genuine believer is eternally-secure in their relationship to God, that relationship anchored in the perfection of Christ, not the believer. God always accepts Christ and so, always accepts those who are "in him." The believer's fellowship with God, however, is halted whenever they live in disobedience to Him (See the parable of the Prodigal Son -
Lu. 15:11-32). It's only in fellowship with God that all of the excellent things He is and imparts to His children are properly experienced by the individual believer (
1 Jn. 1; Rev. 3:20; 2 Co. 13:14; 1 Co. 1:9).
Does the institutional Church have authority over those outside its authority and community?
No. See above.
