Restoration Not Cancellation: The Puritan Approach to Restoring Fallen Believers

Oct 1

Commentary

There is a troubling trend in the modern church when it comes to spiritual restoration. Whether it be a prominent church leader who has permanently disqualified himself from pastoral ministry or a lay person caught in sin; the trend seems to be the same: keep the fallen member on the sidelines.

Logically, as those who hold to the distinctives of the reformed faith, namely the depravity of man and God’s unconditional electing love, we should be the most gracious in our care toward the fallen; knowing the depths of our own infirmities while remembering what lengths the Lord has and continues to condescend to hold us fast. As those who have a high view of Scripture, we should also be reminded of countless individuals from King David to Peter who fell magnificently but were restored powerfully by the overwhelming grace of God: “Let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him; And to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:7).

However, the trend, particularly in the reformed church, seems to be the opposite; with the approach being one of punishment for past sins vs loving restoration and prevention of future sins. Typically, this method is marketed as “defending the truth,” “protecting the church,” or being “zealous for righteousness.” In practice, it’s pharisaical legalism, heaping burdens upon those who have fallen (Matt. 23:4) while keeping them at the rear instead of enabling a return to spiritual active duty. In a sense, it’s become a form of “cancel culture” within the church, where a member steps over an invisible line of sin and is permanently set aside. Satan could not be more supportive of this approach, for while he can never separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8:35-39), he loves to keep fallen believers off the front lines of action.

The Puritans were no stranger to this temptation within the church, nor were they infallible. Look at the contentious relationship between John Owen and Richard Baxter if you want to see how not to act (read our article on this here).

In the little book Christian Love, a slightly modernized version of the Treatise of Christian Love, Hugh Binning gives some much needed advice to our modern church when it comes to how to treat fallen brothers and sisters in Christ. Below are eight considerations from Binning and an added bonus from John Bunyan that we ought to keep in mind during the process of restoration.

1. Act like your Father.

Binning writes that love is nothing more than “divine love in condescension.” He describes it as a continuous loop where we move from God towards one another and back to God again (1 John 3:17). In fact, we are never more like our spiritual Father than when we love others with this condescending love. Hence, why John writes that whoever does not love, does not know God (1 John 4:8). Binning asks the reader, “shall we be ashamed to love those as brethren whom He has not been ashamed to adopt as sons, and whom Christ is not ashamed to call brethren?” If God loved us “while we were yet sinners,” how much more will He continue to love us now that we’ve been adopted into His family and far be it from us to withhold that very love from others.

2. Stop being surprised when leaders fall.

You should be the worst sinner you know. Binning writes, “Whenever I find my spirit rising against the infirmities of others, and my mind swelling over them, I repress myself with this thought, ‘I myself also am a man.’” It’s surprising how shocked the church gets when its leaders fall into sin. As an officer on active duty, I expect to be a higher target than the airmen below me. Yet, somehow in the realm of spiritual warfare, we are aghast when our spiritual leaders fall on the battlefield. Binning asks the question: “Is it anything strange that weak men fail, and sinful men fall? Is not all flesh grass … therefore I will not be high-minded but fear (Rom. 11:2). I will not be moved to indignation, but provoked to compassion, knowing that I myself am compassed with infirmities (Heb. 5:2).”

3. Don’t slander and build on another’s ruin.

Binning writes that under the veil of “displeasure at sin, and delight in virtue,” the church wastes its days slandering the fallen: “Truly, there is much idle time spent this way in discourses of one another, and venting our judgments of other. As if it were enough of commendation for us to condemn others, and much piety to charge another with impiety.” Ouch. Our brother and sisters’ names should be treated as pledges which we faithfully aim to restore instead of losing or alienating by backbiting; after all, we are dealing with the bride of Christ. Binning accurately remarks that “some would have nothing to say if they had not others’ faults and frailties to declaim upon.” I’ve seen men who have fallen from the spiritual battlefield with minor flesh wounds end up with both legs amputated and unfit for duty because of the powerful destruction of slander[CJ1] . Hence, why Paul in 1 Cor. 6:10 attributes revilers and slanderers in the list of those who will be excluded from the kingdom of God. This sin is serious and it devastates the body of Christ.

There are entire Christian online channels and ministries, many of which are led by active Pastors, that exist and receive their financial support solely by building on the ruin of fallen believers. Such sites quickly defend their legitimacy by quoting passages like Jude (“contend earnestly for the faith…”), when in all actuality, they’re simply casting spears at the bride of Christ. Binning writes: “Truly, evil speaking of our brethren, though it may be true, yet it proceeds out of the abundance of these in the heart: guile, hypocrisy, and envy. While we catch at a name of piety from censuring others and build our own reputation upon the ruins of another’s good name, hypocrisy and envy are too predominant” (1 Pet. 2:1). Binning goes on to write, “I find the saints and fearers of God commended for speaking often one to another, but not at all for speaking of one another.”

4. Pursue peace.

Peace must be fought for because it does not come natural to the human heart. Some people seem supernaturally framed for contention and flee from peace as if their lives depended on it. Yet, this is the fruit of the Spirit because it can only come from those who have tasted the love of the Father. Binning writes: “A Christian, having made peace with God … is to dispose him to a peaceable and quiet condescendence to others; and if peace flee from him, to follow after it, not only to entertain it when it is offered, but to seek it when it is away, and to pursue it when it runs away” (Psa. 34:14). Since we have received peace between us and God, how much more should we be bound as peacemakers to our fellow man? I love the medical analogy given by Binning: “do as you would do if your own arm were disjointed: set it in, restore it tenderly and meekly, ‘considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted’.”

5. Judge not the heart.

Binning writes that humility causes us to see the worst in ourselves and the best in others: “He casts his eye most on the other side, his own infirmities and others’ virtues, his worst part and their best part.” The modern church seems bent on the opposite, seeing the best in our own hearts while seeing the worst in others. Recently, a well-known pastor who had disqualified himself from pastoral ministry published a book describing how he fell. In it he explained all the hidden sins and satanic devices that were causal to his downfall while highlighting the transforming power of God’s mercy and grace. Listen to his own words:

“I have lost almost everything of value in this temporal world … but most of all, I have dishonored my Lord. … I’m not asking you to pity me … I only want to use my sinful example to help you … I will share to with the painful lessons I have gained so that you may avoid the abyss into which I fell.”

The hatred and animosity directed toward him after he released this book, by many influential men who admitted they hadn’t even read the book, was deeply disturbing. The majority immediately accused him of profiteering from his sin, despite not knowing his heart or even where the proceeds would go, while others said he should have just stayed quiet, having done enough harm to the church. While time and truth will go hand in hand when it comes to the genuineness of this man’s repentance, the initial reaction of most Christians in my community is disheartening. Where does this predisposition come from? Binning writes that this attitude comes from self-love which “looks to other men’s failings through a multiplying or magnifying glass,” while being “most suspicious and jealous” of any good works, “apt to take all in the worst part.” Conversely, Binning writes that true Biblical love “can believe well of every man, and believe all things, as far as truth will permit.” Would not sanctified love rejoice in the repentance of a fallen brother, who has placed himself under the leadership of a local church, while leaving his heart to the Lord? After all, I can barely understand my own heart (Jer. 17:9), much less others; the heart is His terrain.

6. Prevention over punishment.

Binning writes that love “does not punish because one has sinned, but so that one should not sin; it looks more to prevention of future sin than to revenge of a by-past fault … as a physician cuts a vein without anger.” For what kind of doctor is angry at his own patient? The irony behind the previous response to the fallen pastor’s book is that while online discussion continues to focus on condemning him for writing the book, no one is discussing what the fallen pastor learned in the wilderness; the confessed disastrous decisions that led to his fall. That’s one of the gravest errors in this cancel culture is that it not only isolates the fallen brother, but it neglects the prevention of future sins and protection of the body. Would we not want an After-Action Report (AAR) describing how such a prominent church leader fell? Satan certainly would not. He would prefer us to come alongside his efforts in slandering and condemning the fallen warrior instead of facilitating lessons learned for future generations. Ironically, the same Christians questioning how such a prominent leader fell were the very same ones refusing to read the book answering that very question! As an Air Force pilot who is used to an open debrief culture following every mission and mishap (in which rank is left at the door and every minor error is analyzed for sometimes hours), I saw such a book as highly beneficial to the church. In fact, that debrief culture is what makes the US Air Force the best in the world, despite many other nations having equal or better aircraft.

7. Get back in the fight.

There’s a scene in Tolkien’s The Return of the King that has always stood out to me. During the great climactic battle for Middle Earth, while the city of Minas Tirith is surrounded by the hosts of darkness, there’s an internal scuffle well behind the walls. Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, out of madness, attempts to burn his son Faramir who had previously fallen on the field. As we all know, Gandolph ends up rescuing Faramir and gets everybody back to the walls to face the main effort that endangers The White City. Unfortunately, this scene is a convicting picture of the church when it spends an inordinate and disproportionate time “burning” fallen believers behind the lines while the war is raging. Binning’s commendation is to get back in the fight: “Why, then, do we leave our station, forget our callings, and neglect that employment which concerns us all; and fall at odds with our fellow-soldiers, and bite and devour one another? Doth not this give advantage to our common enemies? While we consume the edge of our zeal and strength of our spirits one upon another, they must needs be blunted and weakened towards our deadly enemies.”

8. Don’t Despise what the Lord Delights in.

This last pile on is from John Bunyan’s The Acceptable Sacrifice, the first book published after his death in 1688. In this heartwarming read, he spends over 100 pages expositing Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Bunyan’s thesis is that the most precious offering to God is a broken spirit and that oftentimes our sin becomes the means to melt our hardened hearts. Prior to writing Psalm 51, King David was a proud and legalistic hypocritic, whose heart had become so hardened that he could easily overlook his own sin of adultery and murder while being readily willing to execute a man for simply slaying a lamb. After the Word of God broke his heart over his sin, he penned this beautiful Psalm of repentance, where he discovers the only thing left to offer God: a broken spirit. Bunyan writes that it’s as if David should say, “I thank God I have that,” and remarks that such a heart goes “beyond all external duties” and is to God as “His beloved, His jewels.” He compares this broken heart to spices that have been beaten, casting “sweet smells in the nostrils of God.” However, Bunyan is quick to note that this kind of broken heart is almost always despised by men, and is “excellent only to God … the world has not this esteem or respect for such a heart.” We see this in the church’s response to the fallen. While the Lord boils the tea leaves in the waters of adversity, creating a fragrant and useful aroma for His future work, we are quick to throw that tea behind a cupboard or cast it into the sink. We prefer cold tea bags and despise what the Lord delights in. While the Lord allows the sins of men like Moses, David, Peter, and Saul to crush their proud hearts and mold them into useful vessels for future action, we cast these vessels into the dunghill of disqualification. Meanwhile, God says to such a one: “To this man will I look,” for as Bunyan rightfully concludes, such a man “is of more value than is either heaven or earth. ‘They’, saith He. ‘shall wax old’; ‘they shall perish’ and vanish away; but this man, he continues.” As an aside, I tasted some of this brokenness in the fallen pastor’s book on repentance and it was sweeter to me than the dozens of books he wrote on the mountain. That book could only have been written by a broken man and we would be wise to inhale this aroma.

Restoring a fallen brother or sister in Christ is a delicate process and there’s no one size fits all playbook. Wisdom and discernment by shepherds within the local church is required. However, if we applied the eight principles above, we could prevent much undue harm to the precious bride that Christ gave His own life for.

In conclusion, I leave us with a short history lesson. On July 2nd, 1881, President James Garfield was shot in the back by Charles J. Guiteau. Ironically, as Candice Millard brings out in her book Destiny of the Republic, it was not the bullet that killed the former President. Rather, it was the medical malpractice of the day which led to seven months of infections and complications that eventually killed Garfield. The president’s doctor had violated the phrase "do no harm," or primum non nocere; the fundamental principle in healthcare ethics where practitioners must avoid causing unnecessary harm to patients while providing care.

May we “do no harm” as we lovingly restore our fallen brothers and sisters in Christ. After all, we’re all patients in the same hospital of sin.