There are many churches where the philosophy is that everyone should be allowed to go to church. But there are certain types of people that Christians should not tolerate. These would fall into the following categories:
1. Brethren who fall into blatant sin and will not repent.
2. False brethren.
3. Certain false teachers.
I believe Jude and II Peter 2 use sacrificial language in connection the Love Feast (which I associate with Holy Communion). The two passages are very similar. Jude warns about false brethren. II Peter 2 warns against false teachers. These teachers aren't just teaching false doctrine, but they are also 'like natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed' (II Peter 2:12). Similar phrases are used in Jude and II Peter to describe these people.
Notice the wording in II Peter 2,
13 And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;
Compare to what Jude says,
12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
Christ is described as a Lamb without spot or blemish (I Peter 1:19.) A Passover lamb or any sacrifice to the LORD had to be without spot or blemish. If 'feasts of charity'/love feasts were the Lord's Supper, then we should remember this supper was commenced during Passover, and that Christ is the Fulfillment of Passover. The Passover Lamb pointed forward to Him, and He told His disciples to take and eat His body after breaking the bread.
The bread is Jesus body. We who partake of it are one bread according to I Corinthians 10, and we are all the body of Christ.
In these churches, they were allowing these evil false brethren to partake of the love feast. It is like a lamb offered to the Lord that has a spot or blemish on it, an unacceptable sacrifice.
Let us look at I Corinthians 5.
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
Here in verses 7 and 8, Paul writes of keeping the feast without the leaven of malice and wickedness. In this chapter, he is urging them not to keep company with a fornicator, but rather to deliver him over to Satan. This is for his own good since by doing so, his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. this is also for the good of the church, to keep the leaven of the man's sin from contaminating the rest.
1. Brethren who fall into blatant sin and will not repent.
2. False brethren.
3. Certain false teachers.
I believe Jude and II Peter 2 use sacrificial language in connection the Love Feast (which I associate with Holy Communion). The two passages are very similar. Jude warns about false brethren. II Peter 2 warns against false teachers. These teachers aren't just teaching false doctrine, but they are also 'like natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed' (II Peter 2:12). Similar phrases are used in Jude and II Peter to describe these people.
Notice the wording in II Peter 2,
13 And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;
Compare to what Jude says,
12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
Christ is described as a Lamb without spot or blemish (I Peter 1:19.) A Passover lamb or any sacrifice to the LORD had to be without spot or blemish. If 'feasts of charity'/love feasts were the Lord's Supper, then we should remember this supper was commenced during Passover, and that Christ is the Fulfillment of Passover. The Passover Lamb pointed forward to Him, and He told His disciples to take and eat His body after breaking the bread.
The bread is Jesus body. We who partake of it are one bread according to I Corinthians 10, and we are all the body of Christ.
In these churches, they were allowing these evil false brethren to partake of the love feast. It is like a lamb offered to the Lord that has a spot or blemish on it, an unacceptable sacrifice.
Let us look at I Corinthians 5.
4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
Here in verses 7 and 8, Paul writes of keeping the feast without the leaven of malice and wickedness. In this chapter, he is urging them not to keep company with a fornicator, but rather to deliver him over to Satan. This is for his own good since by doing so, his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. this is also for the good of the church, to keep the leaven of the man's sin from contaminating the rest.
-
1
- Show all