@BARNEY BRIGHT
I'm sorry but, I messed up the order of my post you are referring to. This
was not directed at you: "If you were to be judge instead of God, heaven would be empty."
"First of all there has to be true repentance so that forgiveness can be given. A person who isn't truly repentant of his or her actions isn't deserving of repentance. God certainly doesn't forgive those who are not truly repentant. Those christians who have rebelled against Gods moral standards and the true doctrines concerning the True God and his congregation and who are not repentant, are to be disfellowshipped."
-Agree. True repentance is the only way to receive true forgiveness.
The Apostle Paul dealt with an unrepentant sinner in the first century. A Christian in Corinth was living immorally with his father’s wife. In this regard, YHWH God had told the ancient Israelites: “A man who lies down with his father’s wife has exposed his father to shame. Both of them should be put to death without fail.” (
Leviticus 20:11) Paul didn't order the death penal...Some of the offenses that could merit disfellowshipping from the Christian congregation are fornication, adultery, homosexuality, greed, extortion, thievery, lying, drunkenness, reviling, spiritism, murder, idolatry, apostasy, and the causing of divisions in the congregation. (
1Corinthians 5:9-13; 6:9, 10; Titus 3:10, 11; Revelation 21:8) Mercifully, one promoting a sect is warned a first and a second time before such disfellowshipping action is taken against him. In the Christian congregation, the principle enunciated in the Law applies, namely, that two or three witnesses must establish evidence against the accused one. (
1Timothy 5:19) Those who have been convicted of a practice of sin are reproved Scripturally before the “onlookers,” for example, those who testified concerning the sinful conduct, so that they too may all have a healthy fear of such sin.
1Timothy 5:20
-All scriptural, as far as I can see. And I have no problem with this as, the church has it's function.
How do you see the below verse concerning "Satan and the destruction of the flesh" While at the same time saving the spirit/soul?
Sorry again about the error ... was not meant for Barney! :)
1 Corinthians 5:5
King James Version
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."[/QUOTE\]
What does it mean to “hand [the wicked] man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, in order that the spirit may be saved”? When an unrepentant practicer of gross sin is disfellowshipped from the congregation, he again becomes part of Satan’s wicked world. (
1 John 5:19) Hence, he is spoken of as being handed over to Satan. The person’s expulsion results in the destruction, or the removal, of the corrupting element from the congregation and in the preservation of its spirit, or dominant attitude.
2 Timothy 4:22.
Overseers of that congregation had not expelled this person, but Paul urged them to “hand such a man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.” They were to put him out of the Christian congregation into the world ruled by Satan the Devil and where destruction awaits. (
1 John 5:19) Why take this action? As Paul said, “in order that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord,” Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 5:3-5.
This man had to be disfellowshiped if the “spirit,” or spirituality of the congregation, based upon God’s Word, was to be saved. Otherwise, ‘a little leaven would ferment the whole lump,’ that is, a spiritually corrupting influence would permeate the congregation and Jehovah would cut off that congregation. Today it is just as vital that the congregation’s spirit, based on Jehovah’s inspired Word, be saved.
1 Corinthian 5:6.