One of the things in the Christian life that is very hard is finding the balance between being a friend to those who are not believers, just as Jesus was a friend to "publicans and sinners,"  but at the same time making sure that we are not being pulled into sin or partnering with sin.

I think there is a lot of wisdom in this excerpt by the deceased British preacher D. Martin Lloyd-Jones.  I am posting it for two reasons.  First, I think it is something that can help Christians to understand the balance better.  Too often we make the mistake of being to separatistic and Pharisaical.  This is not what God wants!  But other times we make the opposite mistake of joining with "the fruitless deeds of darkness"  ...sometimes with noble-sounding excuses.

I am also posting this for the benefit of non-Christians, especially those who have had bad experiences with Christians in the past.  Our particular youth group has come under criticism from some who have felt that some of us have been exclusionary.  Very likely, a good amount of the criticism is due.  On the other hand, sometimes Christians are put into a position where they must choose between going along with their friends or following their Lord and Savior.  At times, non-Christians interpret this as being arrogant or judgmental.  It is my hope that by reading this, non-Christians will learn how to help Christians be friends with them without Christians having to dishonor or disobey the God they seek to honor.

In Christ,  Nate

No Fellowship With Darkness

-by D. Martin Lloyd Jones

[We are to] have no fellowship at all with the unfruitful works of darkness.  That, then, is the general statement of the principle.  But this is a very delicate matter to handle, it is a very difficult principle to put into practice in daily life and living; it can be seriously misunderstood. 

I must show therefore exactly how this teaching is to be put into practice, because if I leave it at this point there are those who may say to me, “Are you not teaching a kind of monasticism?  Are you telling us to have nothing to do at all with sinners, with people who are not Christians?  We are not to walk in their counsel, we are not to stand on the street corners with them; we are not to sit in the seat of the scornful.  Are you telling us therefore that we are to spend the whole of our lives with Christian people only, and never to have any conversation whatsoever with those who are guilty of living a life of sin?”  The answer to this perfectly fair question is to be found in the fifth chapter of Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians and it is a very important statement.  There Paul says, “I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people- not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters.  In that case you would have to leave this world.  But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother [a Christian] but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard, or a swindler.  With such a man do not even eat.  What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?  Are you not to judge those inside?  God will judge those outside.  ‘Expel the wicked man from among you.’”  [NIV]

The context is important.  The Apostle is dealing here with the case of an incestuous person who was in the membership of the church at Corinth, and he tells them to put this incestuous person outside the fellowship; they must excommunicate him and have no fellowship with him.  But then he realizes that they might misunderstand what he says, so he takes it up and expounds it.  He says, “I wrote you in an epistle not to have company with fornicators,” which is equivalent to saying, “Have no fellowship at all with the unfruitful works of darkness.”  But be careful, he continues, how you carry that out- yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortionists, or with the idolaters of this world, for if you did that, then you would have to go out of the world altogether and segregate yourselves to become monks and hermits and anchorites.  But, he says, I am not telling you to do that!  In other words, he is not telling them to break off all communication with sinners outside the church.  And he supplies a very good reason for his qualification.  As Christians we are to be the light of the world, and the salt of the earth; we are to remain in society, and it is through us and our life and conduct and behavior, our words and our teachings, that sinners have a hope of becoming Christians and of being delivered from the wrath of God.  Therefore, we are not to cut ourselves off entirely from them.  They are living a life of sin; yes, but, says the Apostle, if you are going to have nothing at all to do with them, you would have to go right out of the world.  Christians would have to live in communities of their own and would never have dealings at all with non-Christian people.  So the Apostle explain the distinction that he draws; if a person who belongs to the Church becomes guilty of evil practices, they are not to have any fellowship with him at all.  Why?  Because more is expected of him!  He is a Christian, he must be reprimanded, he must be dealt with and punished.  Paul talks about handing such a person over to Satan, for the destruction of his flesh, that the spirit and soul may be saved.  But he does not tell us (and this is the thing I am anxious to emphasize) that we are to have nothing to do with outsiders whom we know to be guilty of sin.

“How do you reconcile these statements,” asks someone.  I do it like this.  We are to maintain contact with sinners in exactly the same way as our blessed Lord and Saviour did.  He was called ‘the friend of publicans and sinners.’  He sat with them, He ate and drank with them; they drew near to Him and He did not refuse them, He did not reject them; He mixed with them, He spoke to them; yes, but He did it in such a way that He had no fellowship whatsoever with the unfruitful works of darkness.  I other words, as our Lord sat there and mixed with the publicans and sinners, they did not indulge in evil and foul and suggestive talk; they did not do that in His presence, there was something about Him that prohibited that.  And the Apostle is telling us that, while we maintain our contacts with non-Christians for the good of their souls and for their salvation, we do not have any fellowship in their outlook, or in their talk.  Most of them recognize our position and our profession of the name of the Lord.  We can discuss other matters with them, but if they tend to bring in ugly and unclean things we are to show our disapproval, we are to show that we have no fellowship with them, we do not enjoy such things anymore.  This is a very difficult line to draw, but I think we will always know when the time comes to do that.  We can have fellowship with them without enjoying the things they are doing.  Let us maintain contact with them, and our hold upon them, for their good and for their benefit, but let us have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness in any shape or form.  We must make it plain and clear to them that though we are interested in them as persons and human beings, and though we may share common interests with them, we have no interest whatsoever in that which is sinful and harmful in their lives.

But we observe that the Apostle’s teaching does not stop even at that point.  Out attitude should not be negative only.  It is to be positive.  He says, “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”  He again is a word that can be very easily misunderstood.  To reprove does not simply mean to reprimand, or to condemn, or to denounce.  It is very easy to do that.  But that is not what the Apostle meant at all.  That was the attitude of the Pharisees who, when they saw these things, gathered up their robes and took themselves away.  That is the typical pharisaical attitude, and in many ways it is the exact opposite of the Christian attitude.  It is pure negative.  I agree that it is very difficult not to act in this way at a time like this when you see and read about disgusting and foul things.  How difficult it is not to show horror, detestation, and abhorrence, and not just to renounce it root and branch while keeping to the other side of the road.  But that is not the Apostle’s meaning…

What then does the Apostle mean when he says, “But rather reprove them”?  Well, the real meaning of the word- and this is not my theory, you may check me- is to convince by means of evidence, to convict by means of giving enlightenment and understanding.  It means that we are to throw light upon these things in such a manner that we really shall convince the person to whom we are speaking of the nature of what he is doing and what it means to his immortal and eternal soul.  We are not just to denounce evil things in and of themselves; instead, we are to throw upon them the whole light of the gospel.  We are not to address non-Christians about particular evils alone; but, in a loving and sympathetic and understanding manner, to talk to them about themselves and their souls and their whole relationship to God.  The tragedy about a man who is a slave of drunkenness is not simply that he is drunk, and that the consequences are bad in a social sense, but that the man’s relationship to God is altogether wrong.  The Apostle tells us that, “no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God”!  That is the point!  And rightly to reprove means to throw the light of the gospel upon a man and his whole situation.  We must get him to realize that he is in darkness, that he has darkness within him, that he is dwelling in darkness, that his whole relationship to God is wrong, and that, if he goes on living like that until his death, then he will go to perdition.  Do what the Lord Jesus Christ did with the publicans and sinners; He did not simply denounce their sins; He preached the gospel to them; He showed the love of God to them, having made them realize the character of the things that they were doing.  Such is the meaning of the word reprove. 

And that is what you and I are called upon to do.  We are not to cut ourselves off from these people; we are not, as self-righteous Pharisees, just to throw our disgust and our abhorrence or our superiority and our uncleanness.  God forbid that we should ever do such a thing, or that the Church of God should ever do such a thing!  She has done it far too often in the past.  She did it in the Victorian period, and I believe she is still doing it.  The masses of the people, the so-called working class, are outside the Christian Church today, and it is partly because we are far too ready to give the impression that we are just respectable people, not Christian people.  We are to reprove in this right way, we are to talk the Gospel to these people; not to preach at them but to talk the Gospel.  They will know that we are different, that perhaps we once took part in certain things but that we no longer do so.  Our business is to let them know about the change that had come to us.  We are to give them a glimpse of a better life, a purer and cleaner life, yes, and a life which is much more enjoyable. 

The tragedy is that they think that out life is miserable and unhappy and at best boring.  And we must not blame them for thinking in that way.  If we look miserable in the company of people, they think that it just means that we give up everything, and that Christianity, to use the words of Milton, means “to scorn delight, and live laborious days.”  It is because we do not show the joy of the Lord and the joy of salvation that they get this wrong notion of Christianity.  We are to reprove them by showing that Christianity means a life of enjoyment, a life of happiness, a life of peace.  We get greater enjoyment here than they have ever known, or than we ourselves ever knew when we lived as they do.  Flash the light of the gospel upon them.

The Apostle goes further, in verse 13, when he adds, “But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light.”  He means that when everything is reproved and exposed by the light, it is made visible and clear.  Flash the light of the gospel on it, “For whatever doth make manifest if light.”  While we continue to hold conversation with unbelievers, while we maintain a social contact with them, we must desire to make them begin to feel that they are missing something tremendous.  Why did the publicans and sinners draw near to the Lord Jesus Christ?  He was absolute purity and holiness, yet He acted like a magnet on them and they drew near unto Him.  The Pharisees hated them, denounced them, and kept apart from them, but when publicans and harlots saw the incarnate God walking before them, they draw near unto Him.  Oh!  There is something attractive about holiness; it makes us feel unworthy and unclean when we look at it; it makes us see the things we are doing, as negative denunciation never does nor ever can do; it shows us our need, and at the same time it gives us a glimpse of something that is so different from our past, so much better, so much more wonderful that anything we know.  Holiness ought to be attractive, it ought to be loving, it ought to draw people.  That is what is meant by reproving.  We are to reprove the unfruitful works of darkness by being light, by being what we are, in our conversation, I our speech, in our exposition of the gospel.

You will find that non-Christians sometimes quite deliberately try to annoy you; they will do things to shock you; they will do everything they can to make you denounce them.  Resist the temptation!  Do not let them succeed!  Never be merely negative and denunciatory.  But rebuke by showing something of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  Radiate upon them the light of the gospel.  Remember that Christians are the light of the world; in your light they will see themselves and what they are doing  as they have never done before, and they will long to be cleansed, to be washed, to be purified, to become holy, as you are holy, but above all as Christ is holy.  Do not be partakers with them, have no fellowship with what they are doing, reprove them as ‘light in the Lord.’

-D. Martin Lloyd-Jones in Darkness and Light, p. 416-422  (bold added)

Questions

Q: How does being a Christian make sins any better than non-Christians?

A: Sin is bad, no matter if it is done by a Christian or a non-Christian.  But according to the Bible, those who have placed their trust in the Lord Jesus as their Savior have had their sins forgiven.  Romans 8:1 says, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."  However, this does not mean that Christian have a license to sin!  (Jude 4)  In fact, we know that God disciplines His children when we sin.  The book of Hebrews talks about this in chapter 12:5-11.  In fact, Hebrews 12:8 says that if you are not disciplined, then you are an illegitimate child. 

Isn't this a contradiction?  Why are we disciplined if there is "no condemnation" for believers?  The answer is that it isn't a contradiction because it's two different things.  Those who have Jesus as their Savior do not have to fear the condemnation of hell because Christ has already done all that is needed to bring them to God.  Our relationship to God is now like the relationship between a father and child.  In Galatians 3:26 Paul says to the Galatian Christians, "You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus."  So, because we are adopted as God's sons and daughters when we are saved, God treats us the way a perfect father should treat his children.  A perfect father doesn't disown his children when they disobey, but a perfect father does discipline out of love.  He does it for our own good, to bring us back to Him and to help us stop doing things that are destructive to ourselves.  When Christians sin against our Father, we are not in danger of hell, but our relationship with God is damaged until we turn from our sin and turn back to our Father.

In some ways, you could say that God takes the sins of Christians even more seriously than the sins of non-Christians.  And which do you think hurts God more... rebellion from people who do not know Him, or rebellion from His sons and daughters?  Also, the more we grow as believers, even "small" sins become bigger because we are sinning with more knowledge that what we are doing is wrong.  

Also notice that the church's responsibility towards sinning Christians is different from its responsibility to sinning non-Christians.  (See 1 Corinthians 5.)  Everyone sins, almost constantly.  But there is a difference between struggling with sin and not struggling against sin!  If you are not struggling against sin, it just means that you are sinning without even putting up a struggle.  So, when someone is struggling against sin, the church comes alongside that person to support him or her in our common battle.  But the Bible tells churches to do appropriate church discipline when someone sins a "high handed" sin of willful rebellion, not being willing to view their sin as wrong and turning from it.  Repentance is the difference.  It is one thing to repeat a sin although you constantly struggle against it and turn to God in repentance; it is another thing to continue in sin because you don't see it as wrong.  

Q: Aren't all sins equal?

A: I don't know where people get this from, but I hear it all the time.  Years ago however, I learned that the Bible doesn't really teach this.  Now, this doesn't mean that some sins are "okay" and only the "really bad" sins are bad... all sins are bad.  But it does mean that some sins are an even bigger deal than others.

Where does the Bible teach this?  For one, in John 19:11 Jesus tells Pilate, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.  Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin."  Now, whatever this means, one thing is clear... Jesus is saying that there is such a thing as a "greater sin."   We have to take this seriously.  This is some big evidence that not all sins are equal.

Another place that seems to teach this is Matthew 7:3-6 where Jesus says, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."  Some sins are comparable to a speck.  Some sins are comparable to a plank of wood.  It is worse to have a plank in your eye than a speck!  But neither are good.  (By the way, notice that contrary to common belief, Jesus does not tell us not to take the speck out of our brother's eye.  Jesus says we should do that!  But, we are supposed to take the plank out of our own eye first.  This is different from thinking, "I'm okay; You're okay."  Instead it means, "I'm not okay, so I'm going to start with me so that I can then help you.") 

Doesn't it also make sense that not all sins are equal?  We all know that it is worse to rape someone than to lust for someone.  Both are bad.  One is worse.  We all know that it is worse to blow up a bus full of nuns than to lose your temper.  Neither are cool with God.  Yes, hate is killing someone in your heart, and it makes us guilty before God.  (Matthew 5:21-22)  But it is worse to hate someone and to actually kill them. 

Why do we seem to want to believe that all sins are equal?  Maybe it is because we are afraid people will view some sins as "no big deal."  Maybe it is because it makes feel better about some of our sins.  If all sins are equal, then we can tell ourselves that the sin that we feel guilty about is only as bad as some other sin that doesn't seem to be a big deal.  Maybe it's because we don't want to score worse than others... but if this is a reason, you don't need to worry about it.  God is the only one who knows the "scale."  God takes everything into account... knowledge, opportunity, attitude of the heart, how the sin affects others, etc.  Only God knows enough to see the heart and to take all of these things into account.  Just because some sins are greater than others doesn't mean that we can figure out how they all compare.

(Note: I have often used an illustration that says that earning our way to heaven is like jumping across Lake Michigan.  Yes, some people might get further than others, but realistically we're all basically the same compared to God's standard.  Maybe this is where some people thought that I taught that all sins are equal, but that isn't exactly what that is saying.  Also, in one sense, all sins are infinite because they are all against an infinitely great and holy God.  But at the same time we see that Jesus saw some sins as greater than others.  Maybe a good way to think about it is like this... some sins are like an infinitely high stack of nickels, and some sins are like an infinitely high stack of quarters.  In one sense, they are both infinite, but in another sense they are not the same.)

"For of this you can be sure: no immoral, impure, or greedy person- such a man is an idolater- has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.  Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things the wrath of God comes on those who are disobedient.  Therefore, do not be partners with them.

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.  Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.  For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.  But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible.  That is why it is said:

'Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you'

Be very careful, then, how you live- not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.

-Ephesians 5:5-17

We must make it plain and clear to them that though we are interested in them as persons and human beings, and though we may share common interests with them, we have no interest whatsoever in that which is sinful and harmful in their lives.

-D. Martin Lloyd Jones

For Christians, we need to avoid the temptation to isolate ourselves into a Christian bubble, or to give others the impression that we think we are better than they are.  As it is said, Christianity is like one beggar telling another beggar where to find food.

For those who are not believers, I hope that one of the things you learn from this is how you can be a better friend to Christians, and how you can make it easier for Christians to be a friend to you.  We want to be friends with you, but because we follow God's Word, we cannot have fellowship with "deeds of darkness."  Help us by not putting us in a position where we need to choose between following God and being around you.

-Nate Archer