Most hockey fans are familiar with it, though I suppose it
happens less in international play than in the NHL.
Hockey has two minute penalties, five minute penalties, compound penalties like “double minors” and a variety of other ways of maintaining order. But it is only the rarest and most egregious
offenses that call for ejection. The player who receives such a penalty is sent
straight to the dressing room.
Game over.
Game over.
It’s called a game misconduct, and something similar may
happen to Christians.
All sin leads to death of some sort.
Death is sin’s paycheque, its inexorable consequence. Sin produces death like pregnancy produces children and trees produce fruit. This is the way it is in a fallen world.
Not all death in scripture is physical or immediate. When
the serpent assured Eve, “You will not surely die”, he was splitting semantic hairs. Of course she did not die physically at that
moment, but death entered her when she took the fruit God had forbidden, and it
began to do what it always does. Spiritual separation from God was instantaneous:
the man and his wife hid themselves. But the inevitable long-term effects of
that separation on their human bodies were not immediately apparent.
Physical or Spiritual?
The Bible uses various images to speak of death, but
we are often left asking whether any particular reference to death is physical
or spiritual, temporary or permanent, metaphorical or actual.
I don’t think there’s much doubt about this one. It’s
talking about physical death:
“If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life — to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.”
Why physical? Well, all sin leads to spiritual death. That’s
evident from the third chapter of Genesis on. There are no sins at all that don’t
put spiritual distance between us and God. He is “of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong”, as the prophet said. That’s as true of believers as it is of non-Christians.
Our relationship to the Lord does not change when we sin, but our fellowship is
broken and in need of restoration: “If we say we have fellowship with him while
we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth”.
But this is a specific sort of sin, distinguished from other sorts. So no, it’s not the beginning of spiritual death that’s
referred to here, but the physical death of a Christian brought about prematurely
by the judgment of God.
New Testament Case Histories
We have a several examples of this in the New Testament.
Ananias and Sapphira were the first in the church to encounter this sort of judgment. And Paul tells
the Corinthians:
“Anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.”
Here it appears the parties involved are
(i) Christians, (ii) dead by the direct judgment of God, and (iii) the status of their salvation is not in question, since Paul goes on to add, “When we are
judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world”. That remains true even if we are disciplined to death.
There is also Paul’s instruction earlier in the same letter
to “deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that
his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord”. It is uncertain whether his physical death had at that point become unavoidable, but the words “destruction of the flesh” at
least suggest the possibility. (In view of the erroneous and popular teaching
that Satan is the Lord of Hell, I should probably add that this does NOT refer
to handing over a Christian to eternal damnation, but rather to putting him out
into the world, which is Satan’s actual domain. Gehenna will be every bit as unpleasant for Satan as for any other sinner
dispatched there, probably greatly more so.)
Causes of Judgment
Why would a loving God choose to take some of his servants home
early (especially the less obedient ones we might think need more practice)? The answer is not spelled out for us
and it would be foolish to speculate too much about it. This much we do know:
- Deterrence is a strong possibility: after Ananias and Sapphira experienced God’s judgment, “great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things”. That is not an unhealthy response.
- Purity is very important to the Head of the Church: “a little leaven leavens the whole lump”, as Paul tells the Corinthians in the context of his instruction to “deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh”. Sincerity and truth are critical to the church’s mission and to the fellowship within the Body of Christ. Sin, once identified, must not be allowed to spread unchecked.
- Guilt demands judgment, as we see in the Corinthian situation, where it appears there were some gathering who were guilty “concerning the body and blood of the Lord”, having no regard for their fellow believers for whom Christ shed his blood. Paul warned that a person who fails to discern the body “eats and drinks judgment on himself”. This is not eternal judgment, but family discipline.
Eternal Sins and Internal Discipline
What should be evident is that a “sin that leads to death”
has nothing in common with Mark’s “eternal sin” or Matthew’s “sin that will not be forgiven”, which is a study for another day. (What day, you ask? Friday, actually.) Further, the Christian who fears that eternal
judgment for his or her sins still remains a possibility after salvation will
have to keep looking for something to support that teaching. It is not what
John is speaking about here.
What is apparent is that it is possible for a believer to so
completely misunderstand his place in the church and the purpose for which he
was redeemed with the blood of his Saviour that he winds up being more use to
the Lord and his fellow believers as a cautionary tale than as a functioning
part of the Body.
Like a game misconduct, that’s not something to which any of
us should aspire.
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