When church discipline is done properly, the holiness and good of the church are promoted. The negative outcomes of discipline are never desired but are a grace from God for the blessing of His church.

When I first started attending a Reformed church, I remember an announcement that was made about a former member who had been excommunicated for the sin of contumacy. I had grown up in a mainline denomination where formal discipline was never spoken of, much less practiced. I was wholly unfamiliar with the process. I had never even heard of the word contumacy. When I looked it up after the service, I learned that contumacy is a stubborn refusal to submit to authority. I knew the elders to be kind, gracious, and faithful men. Even though I didn’t quite understand what was happening, it confirmed to me that this was a church that took seriously the commands of the Bible.
This episode was perhaps my first encounter with negative church discipline, which concerns the correction of church members and the administration of censures. To understand negative church discipline and how it works, we can look at one obligation, two guides, three goals, and four outcomes.
The one obligation of the church toward its members is the command of Jesus to shepherd the sheep. The prophet Ezekiel warned of bad shepherds who cared nothing for the sheep. These bad shepherds abused, neglected, used, and even devoured the sheep (Ezek. 34). By contrast, Jesus proclaimed that He is the Good Shepherd of the sheep. He would love, care for, and protect them. The Good Shepherd would lay down His life for the sheep (John 10). He would be the Good Shepherd pictured in Psalm 23, whose rod and staff would comfort the sheep. The elders of the church are the undershepherds of Christ in how they lead the congregation (1 Peter 5:1–5). This pastoral care and comfort include discipline to keep and guide the sheep.
As Ezekiel warned, shepherds can be harsh, overbearing, and abusive. We can see this in some churches even today. Scripture therefore provides two guidelines to steer church discipline away from abuse. Discipline must be guided by decency and order (1 Cor. 14:40). Formal discipline must follow the process given in Scripture. Matthew 18 gives a decent and orderly process whereby if a brother sins against you, you are to confront him privately. If he does not repent, then you are to take along one or two brothers as witnesses. If he still does not repent, then you are to take it to the church. This is done in a decent and orderly manner by giving the offender an opportunity to fairly state his case before the elders of the church. He ought to have a chance to defend himself against the charges against him. The deliberate nature of the process often takes time. Those in the midst of the process may see that as a problem, but it is a feature of the system, not a bug. We do not want such important decisions rendered hastily. Decency and order require thoughtful, patient, and measured responses. If, however, a person is found to be in sin—and especially if he is unrepentant—he is to be disciplined, possibly to the extent of excommunication.
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College students need to live around the older and younger members of the covenant community. It isn’t that other generations are better than the current generation of college students, but rather that they have different struggles than college students. They have lived experiences and perspectives that are needed for a well-rounded preparation for adulthood. The knowledge and wisdom that college students can glean from older saints who are seasoned in both the joys and challenges of the Christian life can help them see beyond the unique assumptions that accompany every new generation.

You’ve made it. You stand among the stately ivy-covered halls of your chosen college. You walk across the manicured quad, dorms, and library to your classes. You are on your way to higher education. Everything seems perfectly designed to prepare you for your future life and career—except it isn’t. The college life is not real life. This is not to say that real and important things do not happen in those college years; they do. However, the priorities, place, and pace of college life does not reflect real life and will not adequately prepare you for success in real life.
You cannot be properly rooted and grounded in your faith apart from Christ’s church. And if you are not rooted and grounded in the local church, you will major in the minors. Yet, a good local church rarely factors into the decision of choosing a college. More than luxurious dorms, award-winning faculty, a killer rec center, beautiful architecture, or a state-of-the-art library, college students need the church in order to be truly successful in college. College students need the church because all Christians need the church.
The priorities of college life do not reflect real life.
Even in many evangelical colleges, the pursuit of academic inquiry takes precedence over all other interests. The pressure to perform academically can be overwhelming and all-consuming. The brilliance of PhDs who challenge preconceived notions of truth can capture the imagination. Grades become the ultimate purpose for existence. Or perhaps the student is driven by the social life of college such that hanging out with friends is the sole interest of college. That social life might even be oriented around a parachurch campus ministry. But the emphasis is always, “What are we doing next?” Or maybe the college student is experiencing the modest rebellion of newfound independence and just wants to do his own thing. Independence and self-expression become paramount.
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The depths of the ocean are a frequent metaphor for the immensity of God. It makes perfect sense when we realize how big the ocean is and how little of it we actually know. Samuel Francis utilized this imagery in picturing the love of Jesus. It was only the greater depths of Jesus’s love that were able to overwhelm the rivers of depression experienced by the teenaged Francis.

During one of my first chapel services as a student at RTS-Orlando, Dr. John Frame played the organ to accompany our hymn singing. The first hymn we sang was “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus.” I don’t know if it was the first time I had heard that hymn, but I remember how the organ absolutely filled the chapel with the deep, somber, sonorous notes. As I sang out the lyrics, the awe and gravity of God’s love swallowed me whole. The melding of instrument, music, and lyric was a wonderful experience of worship.
This song was written by Samuel Trevor Francis (1834-1925) after a serious bout with depression. As his biographers tell the story, one winter night as a teen, Francis was walking across the Hungerford Bridge over the River Thames. He paused and stared down into the depths of the river below. He contemplated plunging into the icy waters and ending everything. But instead, John 3:3 came into his mind, “Truly, truly, I say unto you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Francis repented and this reformation of heart prompted him to begin writing poetry and lyrics. One of the songs that came from this was “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus.”
Initially, this song had four verses, though since its appearance in the 1911 The Song Companion to the Scriptures, it is usually shortened to three. The text echoes the Apostle Paul’s description of the strength required to “comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of the love of Christ (Eph. 3:18). The picture is of a limitless ocean.
Herman Bavinck spoke of God as, “an immeasurable and unbounded ocean of being.”[1] The Puritan John Flavel (1627-1691), who ministered in the seaport of Dartmouth, often contextualized his ministry to the many seafaring men in the city. He wrote, “Another resemblance you have from the sea, the great abyss, that vast congregation of waters, whose depth no line can fathom.” [2]
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O The Deep Deep Love Of Jesus—Indelible Grace
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