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A Perfect Church? Not in This Life
R. Scott Clark, D.Phil.
First published in Evangelium, Vol.
4, Issue
2.
In a recent book, church growth guru George Barna seems to
suggest the end or irrelevance of the local congregation.(1) He
speaks for a significant number of people who find their
congregation unsatisfying or who cannot find a church at all. It
is not hard to understand such ambivalence and frustration. The
church is divided and broken. It is filled with sinners and
hypocrites. R. R. Reno and others have said that we are living
in the “ruins of the church.” (2) This is how it has always been and
exactly as Jesus said it would be.
Welcome to life in the church. It is not perfect and, in this
life, it will never be perfect, but it is nevertheless
instituted by God. The ministry of the Gospel (and sacraments)
and the exercise of discipline are the evidences that the church
is Christ’s.
Church: Since the Beginning
The history of the Patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and the
history of Israel is the history of the institutional church. To
be sure, Israel was a national church, and we are not. The
national promises and conditions given to her have been
fulfilled by our Lord Jesus.(3) Still, the pattern is instructive.
Israel was constituted as a “covenant assembly” (e.g., Deut
31:30). She had offices (prophet, priest, and king) and even
membership records (See Gen 5, 11; Matt 1; 1 Tim 5:9–16).(4)
God has always entrusted his gospel, the ministry, and the
sacraments to redeemed sinners, and he expects those who bear
his name to be united to a particular congregation. This was the
early apostolic pattern. The early Christians “devoted
themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42; ESV). Such a
congregational life, organized around Word and sacrament, would
be impossible without some form of mutual accountability and
organization.
Church: Instituted by God
In the 19th century, however, some influential scholars argued
that the original church was an informal, Spirit-led association
of believers without structure, offices, or institutions and
that the notion of a structured, institutional church is
unbiblical. This belief fits well with our American, democratic,
egalitarian, and individualistic instincts but it is a serious
misunderstanding of Scripture. In Matthew 16, Jesus queried his
disciples, “‘…who do you say that I am?’” (v.16). Peter
answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”
(v.17). To this Jesus replied, in part, “I will build my
church…I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and
whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and
whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”
(vv.18–19). The keys to which our Lord referred are symbols of
authority given to officers who are to exercise that authority
in a particular institution: the church. Christ has given to the
church genuine, spiritual authority to make decisions, which,
when they agree with Scripture, are binding on earth and in
heaven. The church does not make persons believers or
unbelievers. Rather the church’s authority is ministerial: it
recognizes what is true and announces that truth with God-given
authority. It is this very church to which Jesus gave authority
to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments (Matt
28:18–20).
Jesus could not have been clearer about his intention. The
noun for “church” used in Matthew 18 was drawn from the Greek
translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (e.g., Deut 4:10; 9:10). It
means “the covenant assembly” and denotes a divinely constituted
gathering of God’s people with officers, members, sacraments,
and discipline.
Against this background we can understand why the Apostles
followed the ancient pattern by gradually instituting three new
covenant offices broadly corresponding to the Old Testament
offices: prophets/ministers (1 Tim 4:6, 11–16; 6:11–12),
priests/deacons (Acts 6:1–7; 1 Tim 3:8, 11–13) and elders (1 Tim
3:1–7; 1 Tim 5:17-20).(5)
It is clear that the New Covenant church was Spirit-led, but
the Spirit works through the Word (Rom 10:14–18) and sacraments
(1 Cor 10) to bring his elect to faith and to confirm to them
the promises of the gospel (Heidelberg Catechism Q. 65).(6) The
pattern of the New Covenant church was established very early
(Acts 2:42). The life of the early church was Spirit-led, but it
was so in a structured, disciplined assembly with officers,
sacraments, and discipline.
Not only did the Apostles obey Jesus’ instructions in regard
to the local congregation, but in Acts 15 we even see an example
of a regional gathering of delegates to make binding decisions
(that they called a “decree”) about the nature of the gospel and
about membership in the church (Acts 15). “Paul and Barnabas and
some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the
apostles and the elders about this question” (Acts 15:2). Here
is the first synod or general assembly. At this synod there were
missions reports, speeches, discussion over the meaning of
various passages of Scripture, even heated theological argument
(vv. 7–11), and finally, agreement.
The Marks of a True Church
It is with these passages in mind that the Reformed and
Presbyterian churches confess belief in an institutional church.
The Belgic Confession says in Article 27, “We believe and
confess one single catholic or universal church—a holy
congregation and gathering of true Christian believers, awaiting
their entire salvation in Jesus Christ being washed by his
blood, and sanctified and sealed by the Holy Spirit.”(7) The
Westminster Confession of Faith likewise teaches that there is a
“catholic or universal Church” (25.1) and also “a catholic
visible church” (25.3).(8) Notice that the church is both universal
and particular. One cannot belong to the catholic church without
belonging to a particular congregation. Thus the Belgic
Confession (Art. 28) agreed with the early church father Cyprian
(200–258) in saying, “Outside the church there is no salvation.”
In Article 29, the Belgic Confession recognized that, in this
life, every congregation will contain “hypocrites who are mixed
among the good in the church and who nonetheless are not part of
it, even though they are physically there….” Even though the
church is mixed, it is possible to distinguish a true church
from the “false church” and from “sects” (Art. 29). A true
church “engages in the pure preaching of the gospel; it makes
use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ
instituted them; it practices church discipline for correcting
faults.”
Church Discipline: A Necessity
Since the fall, the institutional church has always contained
believers and unbelievers. Our Lord himself compared the church
to a field with both weeds and wheat. According to Christ, the
program for this age is to “[l]et both grow together until the
harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather
the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but
gather the wheat into my barn.’” (Matt 13:24–31; ESV).
The church is composed of wheat and weeds. We live in the
time of sowing. In terms of the parable, the harvest time comes
with the return of Christ, the judgment and end of all things.
We need to adjust our view of the church to match that of Jesus.
It is not that there can never be discipline. Cain was
excommunicated because he showed himself to be in open rebellion
to the Lord and an unbeliever (Jude 1:11). We are not, however,
authorized to go rooting about the church (to stretch a
metaphor) looking for “weeds” or to disregard the church because
it is mixed.
In Matthew 18:15–20, Jesus prescribed the method of
discipline for the church. If one member of the congregation
sins against another, the offended should speak to the offender.
If the erring brother is resistant, then he is to be approached
by two or three witnesses (Deut 19:15). If the offender “refuses
to listen to them, tell it to the church” (v.17). If he remains
impenitent, he is to be excluded from the congregation. This is
a potent act: “…whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in
heaven” (v.18). This is also a formal, judicial decision: “if
two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be
done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are
gathered in my name, there am I among them” (vv.19–20). This
passage not only teaches us the necessity of discipline, but
everything taught here assumes the existence of an institutional
church (cf. John 20:21–23).
Peter exercised the most severe church discipline upon a
couple who lied to the Spirit (Acts 5:1–11). The Apostle Paul
ordered the Corinthian congregation to excommunicate an
impenitent member:
When you are assembled in the name
of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of
our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the
destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the
day of the Lord (1 Cor 5:4–5; ESV).
Notice that Paul wrote to a congregation about discipline,
not only as a punitive measure, but for the sake of the rebel’s
own soul.
Furthermore, the Reformed confessions speak about church
discipline with one voice. The Westminster Confession of Faith,
chapter 30 requires church discipline. Heidelberg Catechism
question 83 describes church discipline as one of the keys of
the kingdom. According to the Belgic Confession Art. 29, church
discipline is a mark of the true church. In other words, though
the church is unavoidably sinful, it must also be disciplined to
be a church.
In this life, however, even the act of discipline is
imperfect, and no disciplined church will be perfect. The
Corinthian congregation is proof of this. Nevertheless, despite
all their sins (e.g., gross immorality, factions), Paul
continued to call them a “church” (1 Cor 1:2). The Scriptures
and the Reformed confessions do not teach that discipline must
be done perfectly, only that it must be done.
Conclusion
Some influential religious leaders think the church is
irrelevant because it is not hip or does not generate a
sufficiently intense religious experience. Others abandon it
because it is sinful, but I suspect that the real problem that
some have with the church is not just its sinfulness, but more
fundamentally, its humanity. Too many Christians recoil at the
notion of an earthy institution with flesh and blood members,
with sacraments of bread, wine, and water. I hasten to remind
those so troubled that we have a truly human (and truly divine)
Savior (Romans 9:5) and a truly human mediator “…the man Christ
Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5).(9)
The church is human and, because of Adam, sinful, but when, on
that account, we are tempted to think ill of Christ’s church,
let us remember that Scripture quite remarkably calls that
assembly of sinners “the church of God, which our sinless Christ
obtained with his own blood” (Acts 20:28).
Though the church is human, it is not a human invention. That
is why Paul calls it “the church of God” (1 Cor 1:2; 10:32;
11:22). It is a divine institution. The church, whether as the
assembly of those looking forward to the coming of the Messiah,
with shadowy ministry of Word and sacrament (1 Cor 10:1-4), or
as the assembly celebrating the accomplishment of salvation and
the resurrection of the Messiah (Acts 2), has always existed.
Christ has given to her the keys of the kingdom and, through the
Apostles, gifted her with the Holy Spirit and special officers.
The bad news is that church has always been full of sinners
and will remain so until our Lord returns. The good news is that
our God-Man Savior, the Second Adam (1 Cor 15:45) obeyed the law
in the place of his people, died for them, and was raised for
their justification (Romans 4:25; 5:1–21). By his Word and
Spirit he works graciously and powerfully to bring his people to
faith through the foolishness of gospel preaching (1 Cor 1 and
2), to confirm them in that hope through gospel sacraments.(10)
He also uses sinful, frail men to exercise church discipline
to correct his church, to protect her against wolves (Acts
20:29), and to demonstrate the righteousness of God in hope that
those under discipline will turn from their sin and renew their
profession of faith by amending their lives.
There are folk who cannot find a church. Perhaps they are not
looking or perhaps they are looking for the wrong things. They
should look for a congregation that has the marks of the church,
but not for perfection, because they will not find it—not in
this life anyway.
Footnotes
Ó2007
Westminster Seminary California All rights reserved
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S. M. Baugh
R. Scott Clark
Iain M. Duguid
Bryan D. Estelle
W. Robert Godfrey
Michael S. Horton
Dennis E. Johnson
Hywel R. Jones
Peter R. Jones
Joel E. Kim
Julius J. Kim
George C. Scipione
Robert B. Strimple
David M. VanDrunen
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