Biblical Evidence for Sinners in the Church

This is the newly-revised second draft of a portion of my upcoming book, The One-Minute Apologist. It may be shortened or otherwise changed before it goes to press, but I believe this piece, as it is, might be helpful for those working through this issue, so here 'tis [Bible verses: RSV, as throughout my book[s]:

The Apostle Paul (Rembrandt, c. 1657) had a Hades of a
time with the "churches" at Galatia and Corinth.

* * * * *

The Church cannot contain rank sinners within it, but only the holy and saved.

That would make the Church no better than the hypocritical Pharisees

The One-Minute Apologist Says::

The Bible teaches us to let the "wheat" and the "tares" (or "weeds") grow together in the Church (Matt. 13:24-30), rather than to immediately kick out everyone who is a sinner. Jesus said, by means of His parable, "Let both grow together until the harvest" (13:30).

Holy Scripture contains an abundant amount of proof against the Puritanical notion that sinners can never be counted part of Christ's Church at all. When Jesus talked about the "kingdom of heaven" He said that it would include sinners as well as the righteous, until the Last Day: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast for his son, . . . And those servants went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good; so the wedding hall was filled with guests" (Matt. 22:2,10; see 22:1-14);

Matthew 13:47-49: "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net which was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind; when it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into vessels but threw away the bad. So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous,"

Note that in all three of these parables, the evil and the sinners were not separated from the righteous until Judgment Day. Likewise, the sacraments are not null and void if dispensed by men wallowing in serious sin. St. Paul called the assembly at Corinth, for example, the "church of God" (1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1; cf. 2 Cor. 11:2), yet seriously rebuked it: "It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father's wife" (1 Cor. 5:1); "you yourselves wrong and defraud, and that even your own brethren" (1 Cor. 6:8; see 6:1-8); "I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you assemble as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you . . ." (1 Cor. 11:17-18).

He says that they are "still of the flesh" because of rampant "jealousy and strife" (1 Cor. 3:3) and rebukes their tendency to receive "another Jesus than the one we preached," and "a different spirit" and indeed, even "a different gospel from the one you accepted," (2 Cor. 11:4). Paul laments the fact that he may have to "mourn over many of those who sinned before and have not repented of the impurity, immorality, and licentiousness which they have practiced" (2 Cor. 12:21).

We observe the same dynamic with regard to the seven churches of Revelation, which are still referred to as "churches" (Rev. 2:1,7,12,18; 3:13-14), even though sternly rebuked for a multitude of serious sins, such as: abandoning their initial love for God (Rev. 2:4); idolatry and "immorality" (2:14,20-21); lukewarmness (3:16); and being "wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked" (3:17).

The Galatians (given the titles of "churches" in Gal. 1;2) scarcely fare any better: "O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you,. . . Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?" (Gal. 3:1,3); "but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits, whose slaves you want to be once more? . . . I am afraid I have labored over you in vain." (Gal. 4:9,11); "who hindered you from obeying the truth?" (Gal. 5:7).

A Protestant Might Further Object:

But the Bible teaches that Christians should be "perfect" (Matt. 5:48).

It also says that they don't sin: "No one born of God commits sin; for God's nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God" (1 Jn. 3:9), and that church leaders should be "above reproach" (1 Tim. 3:2). So how can we also believe that unrepentant sinners are still part of the Body of Christ?

The One-Minute Apologist Says::

Of course the goal of Christian teaching is righteousness and holiness, but it doesn't follow that every Christian will attain the goal (cf. 1 Tim. 3:2). We are justified by Christ, but that doesn't mean we immediately cease all sin. Protestants understand this theological distinction (and, in fact, formally separate justification from sanctification in their theology, unlike Catholics), so it is surprising that they still often raise these objections.

Jesus knew that sinners could still be believers, and believers sinners, since He taught about the wheat and the tares (Matt. 13:30) and the kingdom of God as a fishnet that included both "good" and "bad" (Matt. 13:47-50), etc. But these striking passages even go beyond that: the fact that the tares are burned (Matt. 13:40-42 makes it very clear that this represents hell) absolutely proves that not only saved sinners who are justified but insufficiently sanctified, are in the Church, but also those who will eventually be damned.

It's true that holiness is a mark of Christians and thus of Christ's Church. In 1 John, proverbial or idealized language is used to express the essence of a Christian: lack of sin. Yet in the same epistle, John also states, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves" (1:8; cf. 1:10) and takes it for granted that we will "confess our sins" (1:9). This motif is expressed again in a striking passage (1 Jn. 2:1-2):

My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin; but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

Here the presence of sin among believers is casually assumed. James 5:16 urges Christians to "confess your sins to one another," and St. Paul describes himself as "the foremost of sinners" (1 Tim. 1:15); note that this is in the present tense, not past. The notion of the completely, literally "holy" Church on earth, is, then, soundly refuted from abundant biblical evidence to the contrary.

That the holiest church should produce the greatest sinners is but the natural application of the principle that the corruption of the best is the worst.

Ronald Knox

(University and Anglican Sermons, London: Burns and Oates, 1963, 63)