Excommunication

Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:

(putting out of the community). An act of obedience to the Lord in “putting away (out)” of His assembly a person for being wicked in doctrine or moral behavior (1 Cor. 5:13; Gal. 5:12).

Concise Bible Dictionary:

Though this word does not occur in the AV, the duty of excommunicating wicked persons from the fold of Israel, and from the church as the house of God, is plainly taught. Again and again we read in the Old Testament that for particular sins “that soul shall be cut off from Israel” or “cut off from his people” (Ex. 12:15; Ex. 30:33,38; Lev. 7:20-21,25,27; Num. 9:13; Ezra 10:8; etc.). How far this was acted upon we do not know. In the New Testament we find the authorities agreeing that if any one confessed that Jesus was the Christ he was to be cut off; and they excommunicated the man that had been born blind because he said that Jesus must be of God (John 9:34).
In the church we have a case of “putting away” at Corinth. The assembly were admonished to put away from themselves the wicked person that was among them (1 Cor. 5:13). The person was cast out. He was afterward repentant, and then the Corinthian saints were instructed to forgive him and to receive him again into communion (2 Cor. 2:6-11). The necessity of putting away an evil person is apparent; the presence of God, who is holy, demands it, and believers are called to holiness: “the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Cor. 3:17). As to discipline on earth there is a dispensational binding and loosing (compare Matt. 18:18), to which the saints are called where it is needful to put away evil from the assembly, but always with the hope that restoration may follow. See DISCIPLINE.
Connected with the case at Corinth there was also mentioned the delivering unto Satan of the guilty person for the destruction of the flesh, but this was the determination of Paul as being there in spirit with them (1 Cor. 5:4-5), which seems to stamp it as an apostolic act. Paul individually did the same with Hymenaeus and Alexander (1 Tim. 1:20). The positive injunction to the church at Corinth was to put away from among themselves the wicked person. In 3 John we read of Diotrephes who took upon himself to cast some out of the church, which John would not forget when he visited them. As is seen at Corinth, “putting away” should be an act of the assembly, not of an individual.

From Manners and Customs of the Bible:

John 9:22. The Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.
According to the Talmud and the rabbit’s there were two, and perhaps three, grades of excommunication among the Jews. The first was called niddin, and those on whom it was pronounced were not permitted for thirty days to have any communication with any person save at a distance of four cubits. They were not prohibited from attending public worship, though they could not during the thirty days enter the temple by the ordinary gate. They were not allowed during that time to shave, and were required to wear garments of mourning. The second was called cherem, and was pronounced on those who remained contumacious under the first. It was of greater severity than the other, and required the presence of at least ten members of the congregation to make it valid. The offender was formally cursed, was excluded from all intercourse with other people, and was prohibited from entering the temple or a synagogue. The third was called shammatha, and was inflicted on those who persisted in their contumacy. By this they were cut off from all connection with the Jewish people, and were consigned to utter perdition. It is not clear, however, that there was any real distinction between the second and third grades here noted, Lightfoot suggests (in Horae Hebraicae, on 1 Corinthians 5:5) that the penalty of excommunication was probably inflicted for those faults for which neither the law nor tradition made any certain provision. The Talmud assigns as the two general causes of excommunication, money and epicurism. The first refers to those who refused to pay the moneys which the court directed them to pay; and the second refers to those who despised the word of God or of the scribes. Some rabbinical writers enumerate twenty-four different offenses for which excommunication was inflicted, some of them being frivolous in the extreme.
Excommunication is alluded to in Matthew 8:12; John 9:34; 12:42; and 16:2. Some think our Lord, in Luke 6:22, refers to the several grades above noticed: “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.”

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