The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline (9Marks)

Jonathan Leeman’s main point is that the church is the true display of God’s love as it practices membership and church discipline. He says, “as the gospel presents the world with the most vivid picture of God’s love… local church membership and discipline in fact define God’s love for the world.” Leeman unpacks this idea by showing that God’s love is contrary to romanticized secular anti-authority love that the world has developed. God’s love is also contrary to the false dichotomy of people not an institution. Freedom of love without any structure and rules. Instead, “God intends for the exclusivistic practices of church membership and discipline to help (re)define love and beauty of fallen human beings.” Therefore, Leeman shows that both membership and discipline is how God’s love is best displayed which is the surprising offense to the world. The problem with our view of the church is a problem with our view of love as the world has redefined love. To resolve the confusion Leeman shows how the redefinition took place and how the church has fallen for the new definition. He tracks the development starting with the rise of individualism (where the church embraced as s matter of self-expression and self-fulfillment ) to consumerism (where the church has become a franchise brand copacetic with popular slogans like, ‘your way right away’ ) which logically leads to a lack of commitment in the local church (as the church worships the god of options) to eventually skepticism (where the church is seen as proud to be assertive and dogmatic about doctrine leading to pragmatism) leading ultimately to the root problem which is anti-authority. The world has warped its mind to be against authority and that warped view has infected the church to question her doctrine, her preaching, her office, and ultimately her God. The book aims to restore that warped view of love by restoring the biblical view of love as God’s manifestation of it through the world by church membership and discipline.Leeman exercises theological care in straining to define God’s love. He defines love as not the unconditional agape love that most evangelicals (myself included) have always thought about this love. Instead he looks at the whole of Scripture and concludes that the love of God is both conditional and unconditional. As an example: God’s love for sinners. From our standpoint, God’s gift of salvation is a pure undeserved, unconditional gift. However from God’s standpoint it is conditional because His love was a response to the person and work of Christ. Regarding this great love that God has given us he says, “he gives to us because he is attracted to the display of his glory. His love for us is always conditional upon that.”That is a staggering statement that God’s love is conditional as a response to the Son’s redemption and for the display of the Son’s glory to all peoples. He clarifies further saying that God has always loved conditionally citing Gen 2:15-16. He goes further to clarify that the good news of Christianity is not that God changed to love us unconditionally but that, “he has decided to grant his ‘conditional love’ fully and assuredly to a people contrary to what they deserve because Christ satisfied his conditions.” That is both a difficult and devastating blow to my theology of love. Christ’s obedience is stressed. Christ’s love for His Father is stressed. My love for God and God’s love for me is no longer subjective but completely anchored to the objective reality of what Christ has done.But this love of God is not just outward, apart from any response, from the one loved. Leeman explains his view saying, “God’s love is a boomerang that natural man loves and despises. We love the embrace of the boomerang as it flies outward; we despise the demand of the boomerang as it calls us back to loving him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We also despise the suggestion that his love will cause him to judge.” The boomerang word picture is helpful to show God’s love involves a response of worship and adoration. Love then involves submission which is “love for God and giving oneself for the pursuit of His glory.”Strengths/Weaknesses One major strength of this book is the breadth of material that Leeman was able to synthesize. His book is very well researched in the various developments of individualism to anti-authority and especially his insights (as borrowed from D.A. Carson) on the subject of God’s love. However Leeman shoots himself in the foot a little bit. He says that one of the weaknesses of the church is that it’s absence of authority is because of its failure to rest in the authority of the word of God and namely in expositional preaching. I wish he would model that statement a little bit more in his explanation of God’s boomerang love. I appreciate the survey of historical theology (from Augustine, Edwards, Luther, and even Piper) but a more potent exegesis of the more sure Word would have been his strongest argument. For example, he says: “Theologically, God is not interested merely in relationships, but in particular kinds of relationship… God-to-human and human-to-human relationships should serve the particular end of imaging or worshiping God. That is what love wants. That is what love burns for.” Unfortunately biblical support was lacking. It is unfortunate that Leeman spends only 3 pages on when to leave a church, a very practical and significant question for church members today.Leeman persuasively shows that true love requires a response. If we are to love like God we must love what God loves and hate what God hates. Love then is expressed to the world by how Christians are to love one another especially in the local church. This local church is what Jesus intends to use as the medium for conveying his gospel message – for protecting it, displaying it, holding it up, and making it attractive, and put it to work. Church membership is what draws the line to indicate who is in and who is out. The church is a reflection of heaven according to Leeman and is a picture of who is in heaven and who is out. He shows this by expanding upon Leon Morris’ conclusion on Matt 16:18-19, “Good reasons may be brought forward for holding that Jesus meant that the new community would exercise divinely given authority both in regulating its internal affairs and in deciding who would be admitted to and excluded from its membership.” From that statement Leeman extracts five ways that the apostolic church exercises her authority: to guard and protect the gospel, to affirm credible professors of faith, to unite such professors to itself, to bar/exclude non-credible professors, and to oversee discipleship of believers. As a former Catholic I found Leeman’s distinction between the Catholic and Protestant view of the authority of the church refreshing. He compares the authorities of a landlord vs. an ambassador. A landlord (Catholic view) has the power to enact while the ambassador (Protestant view) has authority to declare on behalf of his king. The distinction is subtle but the implications are massive. He says it best, “The church has authority not because it’s omniscient but because Christ has commissioned it to stand and speak – or better, to go and speak – in [H]is place.”Based on this Leeman defines membership as: a covenant of union between a particular church and a Christian. This covenant consists of the church’s affirmation of the Christian’s gospel profession, the church’s promise to give oversight to the Christian, and the Christian’s promise to gather with the church and submit to its oversight. Leeman further expands seriousness of membership by calling it a covenant more than a commitment.Leeman’s definition of church discipline flows from membership as: discipline occurs at any time sin is corrected within the church body, and it occurs fully when the church body announces that covenant between the church and member is already broken because the member has proven to be un-submissive in his or her discipleship to Christ. By this token the church withdraws its affirmation of the individual’s faith, announcing that it will cease giving oversight, and releases the individual back into the world. The first definition defines the subject as a Christian while the latter describes them as a Member. That is very clarifying and also the responsibilities of the church and why they correct in the act of church discipline.One direct application of membership that displays God’s love through Christ’s authority is protecting the Lord’s Table from those who are not members. Leeman says, “partaking of the Lord’s Supper without being a baptized member of a local church is an act of presumption and disdain for the authority of Christ Himself.”Overall the book was very engaging and intellectually stimulating. I enjoyed Leeman’s infectious joy to tell others about the love of God by displaying that love through His church as they establish practice biblical membership and discipline.

Jonathan Leeman's book  The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline (IX Marks)  is a passionate and convincing defense of church membership and discipline, rooted in an invigorating theological discussion of the love of God."Membership and discipline are not artificially erected structures," Leeman writes. "They are not legalistic impositions upon new-covenant grace. They are an organic and inevitable outgrowth of Christ's redemptive work and the gospel call to repentance and faith. Missing local church membership is like missing the fact that Christians are called to pursue good works, or love their neighbors, or care for the poor, or pray to God, or follow in the way of Christ. Submitting oneself to a local church is what a true believer does, just like a true believer pursues good works, loves his or her neighbor, and so forth. Someone who refuses to join--or better, to submit to--a local church is like someone who refuses to pursue a life of righteousness. It calls into question the authenticity of his or her faith (16)."Surprisingly broad in scope (375 pages, with footnotes on about half the pages), Leeman's book impressed me with the depth of its scholarship, critiquing and synthesizing the ideas of thinkers as old and current as Jay Adams, Augustine, Karl Barth, George Barna, Jacques Barzun, Craig Blomberg, John Calvin, D. A. Carson, Rene Déscarte, Jonathan Edwards, Michel Foucault, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Paul Hiebert, Søren Kierkegaard, Dan Kimball, Martin Luther, Brian McLaren, Leon Morris, Mark Noll, Karl Popper, Ayn Rand, William P. Young (of The Shack), Alexis de Tocqueville, Paul David Tripp, Frank Viola, Charles Wesley, and N. T. Wright. Yet it also contains some very helpful practical advice for the local church that is trying to implement or refine its practice of membership. It is also thoroughly soaked in God's Word, with a three-column Scripture index that is over six pages long."What we need, I believe," Leeman writes, "is a truly systematic theology of church membership and discipline. We need to consider how the practices of local church membership and discipline fit into the larger matters of God's love, God's judgment, God's authority, and the gospel (17)." Leeman attempts present this systematic theology in a way that churches of many denominations, regardless of their unique church structures, can benefit.Leeman's book is well-organized, even containing a 5-1/2 page outline of the entire book in an appendix! Here Leeman records, for each chapter of the book, its main question, his main answer to that question, and each of the steps of his argument within that chapter. These same questions, argument steps, and answers are set apart as headings within the text of the book, making it easier to review and use the book after you are done reading it.Now to an overview of the book. Here is the table of contents:Part 1 - Love Misdefined1. The Idolatry of LovePart 2 - Love Redefined2. The Nature of Love3. The Rule of Love4. The Charter of Love5. The Covenant of LovePart 3 - Love Lived6. The Affirmation and Witness of Love7. The Submission and Freedom of LoveLeeman surveys his book like this: "Chapter 1 begins as a sociological consideration of the cultural factors that inhibit meaningful church membership and discipline.... Ultimately, I will argue that these sociological considerations give way to spiritual ones. "Chapters 2 to 5 present one sustained theological argument for church membership and discipline. Chapter 2 attempts to articulate a right understanding of love. Chapter 3 attempts to articulate a godly understanding of authority. I take the time to do both these things for two reasons. First, church membership is a function of God's love and authority exercised among covenanting believers. Second, I believe that most evangelicals have, at best, reductionistic understandings of love and authority. You might almost say that I'm trying to use these two chapters to introduce a new worldview before making the more specific arguments concerning church membership and discipline in chapters 4 and 5. If you're anxious to cut to the chase, however, go straight to chapter 4, where I formally define church membership and discipline, and I defent this definition based on Matthew 16, 18, and 28. Membership, I argue, is a kind of covenant. Chapter 5 then pans the camera in on this covenant and considers what exactly it is in light of the covenants of the Old Testament and the new covenant. "Chapters 6 and 7 are then an attempt to get more practical and 'apply' the doctrine developed in the previous four chapters. Chapter 6 walks the reader through the membership and discipline process from the church's perspective. Chapter 7 does the same from the individual Christian's perspective (36)."If you want a theological defense of church membership, a book that convinces you that membership and discipline are a vitally important part of Jesus' gospel, then this may be the best book you can read. Leeman's passion springs from his own life journey: "I may have been converted by God through the very decision to submit to [a] pastor's authority" (162). As an assistant pastor in an urban Mennonite church, I cannot resist quoting this book to my own fellow elders and fellow church members. How I long for more of the "clear line between church and world" that Leeman describes--for a church where relationship is not pitted against structure, where we realize that "God is not interested merely in relationships, but in particular kinds of relationships" (138). "I am not suggesting that people cannot come to faith gradually, or even hand their allegiance over to Christ gradually.... Still, we must not lose sight of the fact that the church publicly represents an alternative reality to the world. We have to cross the border" (165).If you want a "how to" manual, there will be other books that deal in a more detailed fashion with the disciplinary steps outlined in Matthew, as well as the passages from the Epistles about church discipline (Jay Adams does this well in  Handbook of Church Discipline: A Right and Privilege of Every Church Member (Jay Adams Library) . However, the final chapters of Leeman's book do contain many helpful insights about matters such as membership classes, doctrinal statements, observing the Lord's Supper, responding to abusive authorities, and disciplining sinful or absent members.Here are some more favorite quotes from Leeman's book:- "The universal church is to the local church as faith is to deeds" (213).- "The nature of our salvation and the relationship between faith and deeds require Christians to submit to the local church. Submitting to a local church, or what we typically speak of as "joining a local church," is faith putting on deeds.... A Christian must choose to join a church, just as a Christian must choose to submit to Christ, but having chosen Christ, a Christian has no choice but to choose a church to join" (215).- "On the one hand, the local church practices baptism, as commanded by Christ in the charter of Matthew 16, 18, and 28. On the other hand, the local church practices the Lord's Supper, as commanded when Jesus promised a new covenant in Matthew 26. If we bring these two things together, we have the two marks of church membership. Church members are simply those marked off by baptism and the Lord's Supper in a local congregation. That's the church" (247-48).- "If submitting to Christ through conversion should immediately translate into submitting to a local church through baptism, then the Lord's Supper is a meal reserved for baptized members of churches. For a Christian to partake of the Lord's Supper without having first submitted to the authority of some local church through baptism is to claim an authority that Jesus never gave to the lone Christian.... It's to say, 'Jesus may have authorized the apostolic church [defined by Leeman as every local church that 'is built on the foundation of the apostles' and 'guards and proclaims the apostles' teaching,' 181] to bind and loose, which in turn declares some individuals as possessing the right to represent Jesus on earth and not others, but never mind all that. I know who I am! Forget the church.' In short, partaking of the Lord's Supper without being a baptized member of a local church is an act of presumption and disdain for the authority of Christ himself" (304).- "Corrective church discipline is a small act of judgment on earth that dimly points to God's final judgment in heaven. It's performed with the hope that it will help bring a sinner to repentance before that final judgment comes. When we get down to it, therefore, I think discipline is hard to do, because we treat God's final judgment so lightly" (322).Finally, a few things I wish this book did better:- Discuss what the NT Epistles say about the application of church discipline. (Leeman focuses mostly on Matthew's ecclesiological foundations.)- Consider more carefully the biblical parameters for church standards. Leeman does say, "A church should never bind a believer's conscience where Scripture does not bind it" (299), "The church does not have the authority to keep one whom Christ has united to himself from itself" (218), and "[Pastors and teachers] cannot command or formally require a member or even the church to do something.... Church members are commanded to obey them, but that obedience is to extend no further than where the Bible prescribes" (212). However, does the Bible itself actually prescribe that churches cannot prescribe some "essentials" (Acts 15:28, NASB) for membership?- Explain in more detail how parachurch ministries can function without undermining authentic church membership and discipline. Leeman gives about 1 page to this topic.If you've read this far, you know I am enthusiastic about this book. If church membership and discipline is an interest of yours, or if they are weak in your church, you will do well to read this book, comparing it with Scripture and asking God what he wants to teach you.God bless!Dwight Gingrich