1Cor 11:30-32 - Correcting or Condemning?

30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. 31 But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.


So here at last is the specific mention of the Lord’s discipline. God is the judge of last resort, but He would rather that His children examine themselves in the light of the Truth and judge themselves. This is not judgment unto condemnation in either case. God does not condemn His children {Ro 8:1} and His children ought not to condemn themselves. But they ought to judge themselves with right judgment to discern if their hearts, attitudes and behaviours are consistent with their professed belief (meaning not their faith itself, but the Object in Whom that faith is placed). Is there trust in Christ? Then there ought to be evidence in the life, springing from the renewed heart. Perhaps the best verse on this truth is found in Paul’s second letter to this same group:

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! {2Co 13:5}

The whole point is, in fact, quite the opposite of condemnation; God calls upon His children to act rightly and disciplines them when they do not so that they will not be condemned. {Heb 12:6} But true children and heirs - sons and inheritors - remain in the house forever and are never cast out. The only question is whether they are true sons or false. God wants us to discern this in the light of His word, for the sheep (the true children) hear His voice and come to Him and He will never cast them out.

From all this I think it can be gathered that self-examination and self-judgment are healthy for the Christian. It is never an examination in the light of others, but only in the light of God’s Word, where Christ is revealed by the Holy Spirit to the believing heart. And the more He is revealed, the more we will learn to condemn sin in our own flesh while clinging to the hope that is found only in Christ. A Biblical view of our own sin brings us closer to God - it does not drive us away. But it must be a Biblical view - full orbed and including not just conviction and repentance - but also the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ by which we are saved.

Conviction without the gospel is the loss of hope, which ought to mean a loss of all hope in self. Repentance without loss of hope in self is merely self-destructive regret. Loss of hope in the self is what prepares a person to hear the gospel of hope in Another, namely Jesus Christ. Those who have been converted may lean more to one side than the other at various times - but the growing Christian has a maturing awareness of both sin and grace, and is led ever deeper into the meaning of grace by deeper awareness of, and hatred for, sin - starting with his own. In other words, repentance is ongoing for the Christian, but it is yoked to a faith that receives and glories in the justifying and sanctifying grace of God.

How important this balance is, for to overlook ongoing repentance can only lead to the carelessness of the so-called "free grace" theology that ultimately says that no matter what a person does as a Christian up to and including apostasy cannot affect their security. On the other hand, overlooking the grace of the gospel by focusing exclusively upon sin and the need to be convicted of it can bring about despondency, depression and legalism. The gospel is good news - not bad. It is liberating, not enslaving. Unfortunately, many of us are out of balance at various times on one of these issues or the other.

For the Christian, to be free from the correction of God in this life would be to have been given up or given over, as God did with mankind on the deep and destructive spiral into defiance that marks Ro 1:18-32. Far from being a relief, the prospect is terrifying. God does reach a point where he gives up on people. He reaches a point where He will no longer hear their prayers and where the Divine countenance forever turns away and forswears any further manifestations of the general call to repentance and salvation. The sad, sad part is that those who slip so easily over that line do so by degrees and they may cross that eternal place of no return without any sense of having done so. A gradual slipping into sleep, like the subject of the proverb (Proverbs 6:10-11) will bring poverty upon him and want just like a robber. {Yes- the proverb is speaking of indolence and laziness in regard to life habits, but there is a principle here where the slumber of unwatchfulness will rob a man of spiritual riches and leave him wanting}

And he who thought he belonged - who tasted of the heavenly gift without receiving it, who went right up to the edge and waded in the shallows, hung around the church, learned the lingo and the rituals, put on the face - such a person may by degrees discover that he is not really a child of God. But by that time, he will probably not care.