I see no reason for saying Ananias and Sapphira were not saved. The analogy of the apostle's reasoning, in 1 Corinthians 11: 3032, would lead rather to suppose they were. But it is a mistake to call this dealing with the world. It is God judging in the midst of the assembly and that He surely does, even to death, as 1 Cor. 11, above cited, and 1 John 5:16, 17, and James 5:15 distinctly show. 1 John 5:16, 17, I think, teaches another truth-that there are cases where the charity of the Church is arrested in its outward gracious nature, and takes the form of indignation against evil. So with Christ: " he looked about on them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts." Perfect love, when forced to take its holy character, or rather to make its holy character prominent, is intolerant of evil, and especially of certain forms of evil, such as a base slighting of God, or pretension to deceive Him under fair forms, or heartless hindrance of blessing to others under the forms of piety. The action of God in this way within the assembly is judicial.
There are cases where discipline is in the course of progress, and might terminate (Job 36:7-12) in death, but where the intercession of the saints may be the means of blessing, and in the administration of God's government in the Church on earth, may avert the threatened evil. As regards this government, the sins would be forgiven and the life of the faulty person spared, the soul being set right. (Job 34:23, 24.)
But there are cases which are not such as can draw out this charity which pleads for the offender, but according to the Spirit, indignation against him as guilty of it. This was the case with Ananias and Sapphira. Peter speaks with just zeal and horror of what they have done, and the action of God, being full in the Church, was judicial on a sin which was unto death. God may and does deal sometimes providentially in judgment with the world, though it is not the time for making His judgment adequately express His sense of right and wrong. And yet it is the time in which, as regards His active full dealing with the world, His grace is in full exercise, and not judgment. Grace characterizes the epoch. But His relationship to the world has nothing to do with Ananias and Sapphira. Although the principles of scripture lead rather to the supposal that Ananias and Sapphira were not lost, yet the very principles we have seen laid down in scripture show us that the act took them out of the active exercise of the Church's charity. It is only in this the Church pronounces anyone saved. And when God's judgment thus comes in, the case is by it taken out of any thoughts of the Church in charity, and she has nothing to say.