Second Corinthians 2:5-11 Restoration Hardware

So we're continuing on in 2 Corinthians chapter 2, and really kind of interesting information and teaching that's going on in there. I titled this sermon Restoration Hardware. I don't have it up there, but I thought, you know, that's really what's happening with with what Paul's talking about today. I could start with a couple of quotes from some of the brethren that I admire. One, John Darby said, there is little power among us to restore because there is little spirituality and of that love which cares for its members in Christ.

William Kelly said, So now grace has communicated to the saints in measure the apostles' grief at the Corinthian scandal. Not that they, if any, felt so deeply as he, but that he could speak of them all as affected similarly with himself. Thus the hearts of all would be reconciled and even he that had caused the grief would feel that there was in the apostle anything but the wish to overwhelm him. He adds that the rebuke of punishment already inflicted of so many was already enough.

So we're gonna talk about the treatment of an offender. Particularly apparent here is Paul's sensitivity as a pastor. This is a pastor's heart at work. Couple of things I want you to notice. He never mentions the culprit's name. He doesn't point him out.

He recognizes that Christian discipline is not simply punishing, but it's also corrective or remedial. He understands the feelings and the spiritual needs of the repentant wrongdoer. He appeals to his own conduct as an example for the Corinthians to follow, and he's aware of the division, divisive operation of Satan within the Christian community. Constable said that.

So starting with verse five, he said, but if any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me, but in some degree in order that in order not to say too much to all of you. So there are three things he's gonna talk about here. He's gonna talk about, and if you have the handout, this is, I showed you last week, the color where you fill it in. He's gonna talk about feeling pain. He's gonna talk about causing pain and avoiding pain.

You know, it might appear how tough the Apostle Paul was when he wrote the instructions of the first letter to what we describe as the evildoer. But notice in verse four of 1.5, was the loving heart caused his eyes to shed tears as he wrote the words.

1 Corinthians 5.1 says it's actually reported there is immorality among you and immorality of such a kind as does not exist among the Gentiles that someone has his father's wife.

But in 2 Corinthians 2.4 he says, for out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears so that you wouldn't be made sorrowful, so that you would be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I have especially for you. I think sometimes, sometimes if you have a task of correcting someone, your attitude is aggressive. But Paul's attitude here is with much affliction and anguish of heart, In many tears, he had to write this.

It hurts. You know, I said to Miles Stanford one time, if you knew, if you've ever read his polemic papers where he challenged an author about a doctrinal issue, I said, you know, Miles, you're a fairly mild-mannered guy with not a lot of, you know, you're not real aggressive, but these polemic papers of yours, boy, they, You take out both guns and you start shooting, and it's really aggressive. And he said, you know, when I have to do this, he said, I go into my office and I shut the door. And he said, I'm so sensitive that if you came in there and touched me, I'd probably break into tears.

So within the body of Christ, you realize that sorrow fills the heart of the one doing the correcting like it did with Paul. had overspread the whole church in Corinth. And it's the feeling that fits the problem. So now the grace that communicated to the saints Paul's grief at the Corinthian scandal, not that they, if any, felt it as deeply as Paul did, but that he could speak of them all as afflicted, affected similarly with himself. So consequently the hearts of all who would be slewed and even he that had caused the grief would feel that there was in Paul anything but the wish to overwhelm them.

So he says in verse six, sufficient for such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the majority. So this man was made to feel that the body of believers that he belonged to in Corinth really was abhorrent about the sin he was doing, and they repudiated the sin, but the real trick here is to repudiate the sin without repudiating the sinner, because the Lord Jesus loved us to die for us, but he hates sin. Paul's words and tears were effective And the punishment was inflicted, he was removed from the body of believers, not by Paul only, or by one or two of the most spiritual people of Corinth, but the whole body of believers removed him. Darby says that verse six does not imply that there were not unanimous, it should read the many, by the majority, which the New American Standard says. The point is that the discipline is designed to reach the sinning believers are not disciplined merely for the sake of punishment. I've heard stories of churches that will punish people for public sin where they try to shame them publicly. Paul's not trying to do that.

Whatever his approach is, it's designed to bring the sinner to repentance or a change of mind so he can be restored. to fellowship, both in their souls and in the place of fellowship amongst God's people. So what Paul is telling them, I think we've reached that point with this fellow. It is time to have a change of mind about him. I, as a As an elder, I've had occasion a couple of times to talk to somebody about a sinful issue, and it's a really hard thing to do. And you start thinking, initially you think, well, I'm gonna have to get my back up and I'm gonna have to be strong about this, when in fact, Paul's approach is not that at all.

He's after the sin, but everything and every move is designed for restoration. So he says the pain inflicted by putting this person out of the assembly had inflicted enough on him that the work had done, or what they had done, it worked. So imagine that if you're dealing in any situation where you're the person that has to bring punishment. Do you do it in such a way that the person will change their mind? and want to be restored.

I think about our society we live in today. If a church body wanted to take someone and put them out, they wouldn't care. They'd just go somewhere else. So you have to start with a body of believers like Corinth or one of the New Testament churches where fellowship and the love amongst them as a body of believers is really important to every one of them. And for someone like this person to flaunt sin in their face, Paul was very strict about that in the first letter. He said, turn him over to Satan so that his spirit might be saved. Remove him from the assembly.

If you wanted to remove me, it would bother me big time. So Paul adds that, again, that the punishment inflicted was enough. If they didn't inflict the punishment that they did by removing him and it hadn't been carried out, then there wouldn't, I think, be the desired end of the purpose of doing it. Nothing of what Paul suggests that just a reprimand short would have stopped the evil or brought an evildoer to repentance.

It was a pretty severe situation. How infrequently we use it today. Too often by putting away, too often the putting away is done in a hard judicial spirit. The anguish of heart, the tears are absent. The offender becomes more occupied with the harsh manner of his brethren than with his delinquencies. Consequently, his repentance is a long way off. to his loss and to the loss of his body of believers.

If all are not agreed in the matters of discipline, you have to wait. Don't you find it interesting that in a lot of cases that Paul acts in certain circumstances requires us to wait, to wait on the Lord to cause the effect to happen? But if they wait, their way will be made clear and else there is not power enough to set things right. I know you know that from a personal experience with circumstances that you find.

John Darby says, the effect of spiritual power is to make all those who are spiritual act together against the evil. So in this case, the majority refers to the whole church. The minority, there probably was a few minor voices in that church that wanted either more severe discipline or not discipline at all. But as a majority, Constable says that Paul threw the whole weight of his apostolic authority behind forgiving as he had previously thrown the whole weight of his apostolic authority behind the disciplining.

I was struck by this Hungry Heart this week that has to do with how the Lord deals with us, not only with sin, but in our lives. In the Hungry Heart for the 29th, he says, under a heading of harvest conditions, the type of plow employed has much to do with the resultant harvest.

So I was looking at this as a plow and a harvest. The primitive stick plow places quite a limitation upon what would be harvested, if anything. But if the husbandman plows, is cutting deep into their lives, we can expect a rich harvest. Samuel Rutherford said, why should I start at the plow of my Lord? That makes deep furrows in my soul. He proposes a crop. Isaiah 28, 24, does the farmer plow continually to plant seed? Does he continually turn and harrow the ground? No, of course he doesn't.

It's a job that has to go to be done in breaking up, turning over, the exposing to the elements, the harrowing. Now what was going on with this fellow from Corinth? The Lord is speaking to his faithful people who are feeling that they are under the plow. Furrows are being cut deep in their souls. They're being turned up and turned over, laid bare, exposed, broken, and harrowed.

The Father says, even to faithful people, This is necessary because we're looking ahead to a harvest. This is an essential aspect of the work. But take comfort, it's not gonna go on forever. So in this case, Paul is telling the Corinthians, invite him back in. So he says in verse seven, so that on the contrary, you should rather forgive and comfort him. because the plowing has done its job.

Otherwise, such one might be overwhelmed with excessive sorrow. Forgiveness is a really interesting topic. I remember years ago we had several weeks that we When Hal was here, we talked about forgiveness. Roger and Hal and Vern and I would get together for several times and we talked about forgiveness. In Galatians 6, one brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in spiritual gentleness, each one looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted. Our problem was we would try to decide who was the spiritual one to do this.

Ephesians 4.32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ has also forgiven you. J.B. Stoney says a very different tone comes out of the second epistle of Paul here. The apostle now comes in to comfort them, for they are cast down. It is, blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort them who are in any trouble by the comfort wherein we ourselves are comforted of God.

Imagine the value of this man that got thrown out of the assembly before what he was doing, that that just wasn't the end of this guy's life. He now had a ministry. Because I'm sure in Corinth this wasn't the first time this was going to happen. And this wasn't the first person that was ever gonna have trouble with expulsion or excommunication because of sexual sin.

Well, he's now the guy, he's the go-to guy in the church. He's the guy that walks beside the offender and encourages them because he knows, he knows. He has been, as we said a few weeks ago, he's now qualified to do the comforting. The grace of God comes out.

Everything has been going wrong, but now I find that the more diminished I am in myself, the more I receive from God. Interesting about this guy, I identify with this guy so much because this punishment he went through really belittled him. You know, he was just heartbroken about it. What a premium there is in the smallness of this man now.

Paul had got comforted in persecution and death as it comes out in chapter 11. God had comforted him in the midst of his suffering for his name, for the Lord Jesus' name, and now is able to comfort the Corinthians when they're cast down because of their failure. So I think that a punishment like this causes heartache not only for the person It's punished but for those who had to do it, the assembly. This man had been so grieved at having had to grieve them. Paul, back up. Paul had been so grieved at having had to grieve the Corinthians, but now he rejoices that he can comfort them because they're cast down and made small.

True, I don't deserve to be comforted, But the secret of it is that no matter how you have been made small or self-diminished, you then will be comforted of God. It was the same with Job. Job got to the point where he said, I abhor myself. I am self-diminished, says Stoney.

Then God comes in, shows that it is then only that he has in a fit state to receive the favor. Practically, it is when one is reduced to put out nothing that Christ is everything. Boy, do we know that. Many one talks of Christ being everything to him who has never yet found himself as nothing. I have to take the place of the Syrophoenician woman who says, I'm not entitled to anything.

I'm a dog, but yet His grace will reach me. So in verse 7, is it possible otherwise that we might be overwhelmed with excessive sorrow? Sorrow for sin is a good thing. Yet there's a point where it may become excessive and harmful, not only from a group, but individually. A point where sorrow would cease and the joy of forgiveness be known. The joy of the Lord and not sorrow for sin is our strength. Find it interesting as you are led to the Lord Jesus to find out that God has paid all of the penalty for your sins. that if you believe him, he will save you for all eternity.

Or if you're a father dealing with a son who needs discipline, you read in Colossians 3.21, fathers don't exasperate your children so that they will not lose heart. There's a point here that you don't go beyond. And the point is that you love them at the beginning through the whole process to the end.

So Paul can say, wherefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. So the action taken at Corinth was effective. That the man was brought into considerable distress and anguish of heart over his sin. The danger now was that the Corinthian church would, in their zeal against sin, overlook his sorrow and not forgive him. and not restore him to his place in their body. So Paul writes to them, urging them to do this and accordingly confirm their love towards him. What does this show? It shows that by accepting the offender back into their body of believers, after he had had a change of mind, had repented, be confirming the Lord's forgiveness of him.

Kosovo says, Discipline, which is so inflexible as to leave no place for repentance or reconciliation, has ceased to be truly Christian. For it is no less a scandal to cut off the penitent sinner from all hope of re-entry into the comfort and security of fellowship of the redeemed community than it is to permit flagrant wickedness to continue unpunished in the body of Christ. Interesting because, again, we are a body of believers united in the one who's the lover of the universe, and forgiveness is what we're all about. William Kelly says, the notion, therefore, like the French Revolution reformers my favorite John Calvin, Beza, and others, to this effect is not only unfounded but unworthy also. If you were convicted of sin in those environment, they would permanently put you out of the fellowship. you were gone. And Kelly says it's unfounded but unworthy also for as the first epistle of Corinthians had emphatically insisted on putting away the offender, the second is equally plain that mutual confidence was in measure restored by their decision and self-judgment in the case.

And John Darby tells us that when that was so, then Paul is anxious that they should care for this man. He's been down himself and he's a member of Christ, he's washed in Christ's blood, and they had a responsibility to take care of him. So if the body of Christ and the love of Christ was there, the person, if a believer, would be miserable until he was received in again. It's interesting that When you get sideways with someone and you separate from them, there's this thing in the flesh that it's permanent.

They're gonna learn their lesson. But in the body of Christ, there is a separation from sin, but forgiveness and restoration is there. And it's like when I sin, I lose fellowship with the Father and there's a consequence. because I love the fellowship with the Father and the Lord Jesus. There's huge, huge benefits to abiding in Christ. If I lose that, I can be restored instantly, but sometimes I don't think about it, and I suffer, and you suffer. And then the Lord restores you. And it's like, oh, wow.

And he's never said, call me later. I can't deal with you right now. He always says, come unto me right away. Confess right away. Corinth Paul had no occasion to write this until the man was broken down, though. And he was broken down about himself. It isn't any good to attempt to restore someone until he's ready to be restored.

So sometimes you have to wait. Like being put out of a local church, it may be done with bold righteousness sometimes. The man, Paul writes, was grieving over his sin, and you may say, well, it's time to restore him. But when he's not officially restored, I don't think he really understands the power it takes to do it. And I got to thinking, you know, I don't know of any time, maybe Wayne or somebody who's been here longer than me can speak of a time when that may have happened around here.

I do know that there have been circumstances where here that people have left over issues, but there was never any recrimination here because they left. And in a lot of cases, the Lord would change the person's mind when they left, and they would solicit to come back, and we would receive them with open arms. That's the way it ought to be. That's the way it ought to be. wasn't necessarily over a sin issue, sometimes it was over a doctrinal issue.

It's interesting that the Apostle Peter, with a lot of verb, says to the Lord, I love you more than these do. And then he denies Christ three times, and the Lord rebukes him. He didn't say it after that, did he? He had changed his mind about how much love he had for the Lord, but the Lord restored him afterwards.

So, verse six that we just talked about, fairly bear the meaning that is, he has distinguished another sort of censure from the Corinthians, had administered from the excommunication that he himself joined in, but That was already done in accordance with the inspired injunctions of Paul, and it had affected the purpose, and it shouldn't last any longer.

So John Darby said, this is entirely confirmed in the call that follows, rather to forgive and comfort, lest perhaps he be continued under so terrible a sentence broken down as he was, and he should be swallowed up with excessive grief. I would say that a believer may be the only person that would understand that being excommunicated from his fellow believers over sin could experience excessive grief. Lots of people experience excessive grief over a lot of other things, but over sin, involved in a group of believers that loves you and you love them to be ostracized from them has an effect that really exercises excessively the soul of the one who sinned.

So when Paul, who understood that, he said, look, we need to demonstrate our love towards this man. And he's soliciting re-entrance into the the body of believers and from what we hear and what he says, he's abhorrent of the sin and wants to be restored.

So, notice also in verse 9, Paul says, and for this end, I also wrote so that I might put you to the test whether you are obedient on all things. Obedience here was kind of interesting thing to work through because Paul says in Philippians, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intended in one purpose. So the saints are to prove their obedience in all aspects, in grace, restoration of the man. Paul made a point of obedience to him as an apostle when he was thrown out, He says, here, now, I'm urging you to restore this one. And he says, so before, in solemn judgment of his dreadful sin, Paul also had all this in view when he wrote both epistles. He wanted them to comply with and be restored so the man would be restored.

And Paul's not really saying, I'm lording it over you. We talked about that last week. He's really saying, you know, I'm giving you advice as your apostle. I want you to obey me in this because we've been put to a test on both sides. So verse nine and verse seven and eight really kind of go together. Watch how this happens. Seven says, so that on the contrary, you should rather forgive and comfort him. Otherwise, such a one might be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

So I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. For to this end I wrote, so that I might put you to the test. And this is a test for approval. whether you are obedient in all things. Well, you were obedient in throwing him out. Let's see if you're gonna be obedient in restoring him. I think I missed it.

But one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also. For indeed, what I have forgiven If I have forgiven anything, I did it for your stakes in the presence of Christ. What does this verse show? It shows that if the assembly at Corinth forgave the man, their forgiveness carried with it Paul's forgiveness. Kind of a complicated verse because I don't think it means that it would have been adequate healing of the church to have forgiveness have forgiven the Corinthian offender because the apostle had done so and communicated. In other words, if Paul had said, well, I forgive him, you should too. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, if you forgive him, then I will. We're in harmony about that. So he did command excommunication, but he didn't command restoration. He advised it.

It's not therefore, quote, whom I forgive, you also must forgive, but to whom you forgive anything, I'll also do it. He's most careful to press on their own place of ratifying love even when apostolically laying down their duty that he might have fellowship with them throughout whatever they do. In the prerogative of mercy, he would follow and what he had forgiven, if he had forgiven anything or he had forgiven nothing, do it on the account of Christ's person. That's why he does it. How blessed the seal of authority and how gracious the sanction. May we cherish such a scene of divine affection in the presence of good and evil. And again, Paul, that if Paul forgave any by reason of his apostolic authority, he did so for their sake, as acting on behalf of Christ. It's interesting here. I read some things about administrative forgiveness.

After I think about it, I probably don't want to include it because it's mechanical. William Kelly says, but it is also a deep moment to mark and learn that though he has to awaken the assembly both to judge and restore, for they had failed in both aspects, he will then, he will have them to feel and act aright. He joins them in their act and in no way acting for them. So he does not at all speak as a spiritual dictator, however real and the great authority given to him as an apostle, as he takes pains to allege in both doctrine and discipline.

John Darby says the effect at Corinth was given in chapter two, I'm sorry, chapter seven of 2 Corinthians, verse 11. Paul says, for behold, What earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you, what vindication of yourself, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong in everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter.

So, I did this, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ. You might say in the person of Christ means that if he were there to do it with authority, it was limited merely to whether it was the right thing to do in the sight of Christ. I read that, so verse 11. so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes." Interesting that we're to note well here that the devil himself in some cases likes to see believers and it's a really interesting term, righteously excessive. Did you get that term down? Righteously excessive at the expense of meekness and the gentleness of Christ. It's beautiful to see him urging both righteousness and grace, and in the end, Satan did not get an advantage. They were of one mind in the Lord. He says, for we are not ignorant of the mindset of Satan. I think sometimes we really don't understand what Satan's up to. Satan was trying to make a division between the Corinthians and Paul.

That was his ultimate goal. Paul himself had been sorry he had written the first letter, because he didn't want to crack the whip like he did. And that though it was inspired one, In his own heart he had gotten down. It's beautiful to see him urging righteousness. Paul would say, forgive, for we are not ignorant of his devices.

We should be aware. So often though, you can't really say that about believers. We're ignorant of his devices, though our intentions are good and we fall into every trap that he sets for us. And a lot of times it's based on The simplest things. So to close this up, I was looking at Chester McCauley and in one page, what I've spent several minutes talking about, he did it all in one page.

So he says, the scheme here comes from the word mind or mindset. We're not ignorant of the mindset of Satan. He said the metaphor used in 1 Timothy 3.7, he must have a good reputation when talking about elders, he must have a good reputation, those outside the church so that he will not fall into the reproach and the snare or the trap of the devil.

2 Timothy 2.26, that they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil. having been held captive by him to do his will. So we read verses like that and we think, well, that whatever doing his will is, is that we're gonna be these just awful people. No, it's to get us engaged in splitting us up. That's what he's really good at. So he's gonna say in verse 14 in chapter 11, no wonder.

For even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. A lot of times we have our religious righteousness clothed as an angel of light and it isn't from the Lord at all. Macaulay goes on and says, the channels that he works in are religious, are rationalism, Human reason is the source of truth that stands in opposition to the revelation of the word of God. It can be supernatural.

Second Thessalonians 2.9, that is the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders. Another one is this power and signs. and wonders are the same words when used referring to the miracles of the Lord Jesus and the apostles.

So we must realize a couple things in closing. Our meekness, our weakness is immense. The difficulty as various as humanly possible. Our weaknesses are so varied, as many as we can possibly think. And outside of us is the wiles and the dangers of Satan.

But we can rest assured that greater is he that is ignorant, excuse me, greater is he that is in the saints than he that's in the world. We're not ignorant of his schemes. We know what he's up to. And we know that the enemy's thoughts and his designs are levied permanently and directed specifically at the body of Christ. Why?

One man that I read said, because the only divine society on the earth is the body of Christ. I like that term, divine society on the earth is the body of Christ. J.B. Stoney closes it by saying, many a one talks of Christ being everything to him, who has yet found himself to be nothing. I have to take the place of the syrophoenician woman and say, I'm not entitled to anything.

I'm a dog. But yet, his grace will reach me. Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you. How we thank you for your grace and your mercy and your love towards us, that you never fail, that you're always in the position of correcting us, restoring us, loving us, and conforming us to the image of your dear son. And we pray in his name, amen.