Q. 1 Cor. 5 In an excommunicable case, that is, one of grave or gross wickedness, can rebuke or withdrawal be substituted for “putting out?” If insisted on by leaders and accepted by an assembly, spite of the strongest protest, in what position does it involve that assembly? Is it really proved “clear"?
A. If a person gave just occasion for public discipline, and there was good ground to fear worse, of which no adequate evidence to convict appeared, it would be godly order to rebuke one thus sinning; and, if he withdrew, it would in the actual state be not only a relief to all, but a more proper course for the assembly to accept his withdrawal by announcing it formally before all, than to put him out without full proof of guilt.
But if the guilt were grave and palpable, so that the common conscience of the saints rejects such offenders, merely to rebuke the person is not to “purge out the old leaven,” nor is it to be a new lump but a leavened one. And if further and heinous evil came to light, it would still more show the state, not of the, offender only but of that assembly, if they then let him withdraw by announcing it, instead of distinctly refusing such a wish at such a time, and forthwith putting out the wicked person from among themselves. We have no such custom, nor the assemblies of God, as to treat rebuke and withdrawal under such circumstances as tantamount to putting out, or allowable to God's assembly; nor does scripture warrant it. No doubt the assembly cannot put out a man if they have accepted his going out; but who has ever known the acceptance and announcement of withdrawal where the assembly had before it the proof of guilt demanding excision? Such a course would give a premium to the wicked in evading solemn judgment, and the command to put out would soon become a dead letter. It has been often tried but always refused hitherto. And no wonder; for it would hinder all adequate clearing of themselves among the saints; it would annul the Lord's authority by His word in the last resort of the church's responsibility; and it would lower a professing assembly of God (yea, in principle the assembly as a whole if acquiesced in) beneath a decent club of the world, which assuredly would not deal so lightly with flagrant offenses against public law or common morality. No special pleading, no detraction of others, can extenuate so plain a dereliction of a holy duty on the part of those who are unleavened. Such an assembly, to its own ease, may have got rid of the offender, as well as of those whose consciences protested against such ways as ungodly; but it has never vindicated the Lord in thorough hatred of the manifest evil, nor so much as mourned that the evildoer might be taken away from among them, still less sorrowed to repentance after a godly sort with diligence, clearing of themselves, indignation, fear, longing desire, zeal or revenge. In no way therefore has it proved itself to be pure in the matter, but the contrary. Till it does, it should not by my judgment be owned as God's assembly by all who would obey Him rather than man.