Marks of a Church
1. True Biblical Preaching
The church is first distinguished by the true preaching of the Word of God. Few places in Holy Scripture more
clearly set forth the absolute necessity of the proclamation of the Word than Luke 16:19-31, the parable of the
Rich Man and Lazarus. The story is familiar. The Rich Man, because he looks down on the poor and refuses to
meet the needs of Lazarus who sits at his very gates, lands himself in the torments of hell.
Most commentators center their exposition of this is passage on our Lord's description of perdition and
judgment; however, the conclusion of the story packs the real punch. After a brief discussion with Father
Abraham concerning the inescapability of his situation, the Rich Man appears to grow a heart, albeit too late. "I
beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will
not also come to this place of torment." Father Abraham's response appears abrupt, "They have Moses and
the Prophets; let them listen to them."
The phrase "Moses and the Prophets," of course, refers to the Hebrew Old Testament, the "Scriptures" to the
day and age. The Rich Man then decides to correct father Abraham's misunderstanding, "No father Abraham,
but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent."
The Rich Man's logic seems compelling. Imagine attending an open-casket funeral where halfway through the
service the cadaver sits up and starts to speak. At the least, the dead man speaking would command an
attentive audience. But Father Abraham is insistent: "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will
not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."
There are enormous implications emerging from what Jesus says here.
First, Jesus is asserting that mankind's condition in sin is so severe that even his mind cannot be trusted. Direct
exposure to the truth is no guarantee that man will do the right thing with that truth. The catchall solution, it
seems, to every societal ill in our day is the ambiguous "education." If young people know the risks involved in
premarital sex, then they will be less likely to engage in it, we are told. If children are made aware of the
dangers of recreational drug use, then they are quipped to "just say no" when appropriate.
Second, however, Jesus seems to be saying that the facts do not always speak for themselves. It is not enough
to draw men into righteous living by cleverly devised ministry plans and church-growth strategies, much less
into the Kingdom of God. Only the Word of God possesses the power to do this. Paul speaks of the gospel in
Romans 1:16 and says, "It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." Notice, Paul does
not say that the gospel talks about power, or shows the way to get power, but it is itself the power. The power
is in the proclamation of the message.
God's powerful Word represents the vital aspects of the Church's existence. The Word of God is not only her
charter; it is her life (cf. Deut. 32:47). John Armstrong, editor of the Coming Evangelical Crisis, says this about
the Church's present attitude toward the Word of God:
"The written Scriptures are to be our guide for message and method. We go to the Scriptures to
understand the gospel, but we also go to the Scriptures to understand how we evangelize, how
we preach, how we help the souls of distressed people, and how we worship the living and true
God acceptably. Today we go to many sources to address these and related issues....
Today's evangelicalism treats experience as final authority. Have you been born again? Have you
been led by God? Has God spoken to your heart? Did you feel good about the worship (praise,
celebration, or seeker) service? Does the music move you personally? Are your kids excited
about the programs? Rarely do we examine matters of religious faith and practice by Scripturealone
principle."
A local church without this utter dependence upon and submission to God's Word is no church at all. In times
past, battles fought over the Bible centered on its reliability and inerrancy. But the challenge facing this
generation of the Church-at-large must certainly involve the relevancy and sufficiency of the Scriptures.
Current theological "hot topics" such as the role of the Holy Spirit in worship and supernatural gifts, the
"literalness" of prophetic pronouncements, and the date and circumstances surrounding the return of the Lord
Jesus are all woefully premature. Until the Church at the dawn of the 21st century has settled itself on this
issue - the sufficiency of Scripture - and, correspondingly, the absolute necessity of biblical preaching, there is
little hope that any theological consensus will result from the myriad of denominations active today.
2. The Sacraments
The second mark of the Church is a right administration of the sacraments. Regardless of where a believer
falls in his convictions concerning the Lord's Supper and Christian baptism, there can be little doubt that our
spiritual forebears placed a far higher importance upon these means of grace than the present generation.
Ronald Wallace, in his work Calvin's Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament, quotes Calvin as saying that there is
"nothing more useful" in the Church than the Lord's Supper:
"Indeed, Calvin is willing to transfer to the sacrament Paul's title for the Gospel, and to call them
the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. He refers particularly to three
aspects of their usefulness. Firstly, they assist spiritual growth by uniting us more fully to Christ
the more they are used by faith...Secondly, they confirm and increase the faith of believers, which,
once engendered, is so continually beset by temptation to doubt and by manifold difficulties that
it requires to be continually supported and continually purged from unbelief.... Thirdly, the
sacraments are a spur to practical Christian living."
However, it would be wrong to suppose that a believer's responsibility toward the sacraments is purely
pragmatic or to make a person happier and healthier. The Lord's Supper and Baptism exist as essential
elements in the life of the Church because Christ Himself has instituted that it should be so.
First Corinthians 11:23 contains Paul's justification for the admonition to keep the Lord's Supper, "For I
received from the Lord what I also passed on to you..." The sacraments are not an ordinance of man, but an
ordinance of Jesus himself. To neglect them involved the guilt of rebellion, for Jesus commanded, "Do this in
remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19b). Peter's command to the first believers at Pentecost was unequivocal:
"Repent and be baptized, every one of you (Acts 2:38).
Right Administration of Baptism
The grace of baptism has been woefully neglected in the Church today. Baptism, according to the Westminster
Shorter Catechism, "doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and partaking of the benefits of the
covenant of grace, and our engagement to be the Lord's." As a sign, baptism points to something vital in the
believer's life. As a seal, it makes official in the eyes of God and the Church that what is being done is truly a
means of grace. The Catechism mentions three benefits that are signed and sealed in our baptism.
First, baptism signs and seals our "ingrafting into Christ." There are few notions in the thinking of the apostle
Paul that get more "press" than the idea of union with Christ. When the Holy Spirit regenerates a believer, he
is brought "into the Beloved" or "in Christ" (cf. Eph. 1:3 ff). We are joined to Him like stones in a building
(Eph. 2:19 - 22). We are like members of a body connected to our Head, Jesus Christ (Eph. 4:15 - 16). Our
union with Christ resembles the union between a man and a woman in marriage (Eph. 5:22 - 23). John Murray,
in his book Redemption: Accomplished and Applied, says, "There is no communion among men that is comparable
to fellowship with Christ - he communes with his people in conscious reciprocal love." Our baptism signifies
and seals this vital union.
Second, baptism marks a soul as a member of the covenant of grace. In luke 15, the father begs the elder
brother to make us of all that has been provided for him. "‘My son,' the father said, ‘you are always with me,
and everything I have is yours'" (v.31). The father here pleads with his oldest to make use of what has been
provided for him in the community of the covenant of grace. Access to the Word of God, the instruction of
godly parents, and involvement with the body of Christ - all are gifts at the disposal of those who are brought
into the covenant by baptism. This, by the way, is why the Westminster Confession of Faith speaks so strongly
about the necessity of "fulfilling one's baptism." To whom much is given, much is required. To have access to
the abundant means of grace in the covenant community and not make use of them is to invite a more severe
judgment.
Third, baptism signs and signifies our "engagement to be the Lord's." The Catechism's language turns deeply
affectionate here. To submit oneself to water baptism is to anticipate a wedding. Every baptism signifies the
great Marriage Supper of the Lamb that will take place at the consummation of all things. In Revelation 19:9,
the angel tells John to write, "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!"
Witnessing a Christian baptism reminds the covenant community that at the end of our days a party of cosmic
proportions will take place as Jesus takes His bride to be His forever.
Right Administration of the Lord's Supper
The catechism also contains instruction concerning the meaning of the Lord's Supper as well:
"The Lord's supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to
Christ's appointment, his death is showed forth; and the worthy receivers are, not after a
corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his
benefits, to their spiritual nourishment, and growth in grace."
There is far too much careful theology in this definition to examine, but notice that the sacrament is a meal.
The Lord Jesus has appointed us to eat in order to our "partaking of his body and blood." Believers who do so
receive enormous benefits and "spiritual nourishment."
While I was an unmarried seminary student, my roommates and I would practice our best "pitiful, hungry
seminary student look" on the way to Sunday worship. Because if Providence smiled upon us that morning,
some kind, elderly lady would ask us to her home for "Sunday supper." My fondest memories from seminary
are of those wonderful afternoons. I had no more in common with those sitting around the gracious table
than the fact that we attended the same church. We would eat until we were stuffed. But, inevitably, on the
way back to our apartments, my friends and I would spend the entire time in unabashed praise of the sweet
elderly lady who had just fed us.
The spirit of the Lord's Supper is much the same. How often does the Church take pause to remember that,
in the Supper, she dines with her Lord? To eat a meal at someone else's home is a true act of intimacy. You eat
what they have provided. You enjoy their topics of conversation. You observe their mealtime traditions. It is
to become a member of the family. The Lord's Supper consists in the Lord's people gathered together to
delight in the "richest of fare," namely the grace of Jesus in the shedding of His blood.
A Church without the sacraments is not only woefully impoverished, but it also fails to achieve the status of
"Church" at all.
3. Church Discipline
Finally, the third mark of the Church is church discipline. Few words have gained such disfavor in the Church in
recent days as the word "discipline." The word seems to conjure up images of monasteries and cat o' nine tails
for most Christians. It is true: discipline may be - and, at times, has been - used as an excuse for authoritarian
rule and loveless tyranny. However, in the New Testament, church discipline is a far richer concept.
The word "discipline" might be substituted with the word "oversight." Church discipline is simply the
responsibility that leadership has to oversee the spiritual health and well being of those in their pastoral care.
Formally speaking, Paul directs Titus to "appoint elders in every town" (1:5b). Therefore, the direct,
institutional oversight of the Church rests in the hands of those to whom God has especially gifted and
appointed to do so, namely, to elders....
Yet there is another sense in which church discipline ought to be present in our churches. In Galatians 6:1 Paul
directs, "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch
yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of
Christ." In other words, church discipline is not merely a formal exercise of bringing someone before a body
of elders, but it is also a responsibility of all believers to be about the business of mutual spiritual welfare.
Eugene Peterson, in his book Working the Angles, describes what he calls "spiritual direction":
Spiritual direction takes place when two people agree to give their full attention to what God is
doing in one (or both) of their lives and seek to respond in faith.... Whether planned or
unplanned, three convictions underpin these meetings: 1) God is always doing something: an
active grace is shaping this life into a mature salvation; 2) responding to God is not sheer
guesswork: the Christian community has acquired wisdom through the centuries that provides
guidance; 3) each soul is unique: no wisdom can simply be applied without discerning the
particulars of this life, this situation.
"God is at work," Peterson says. We can assume that at all times. Believers are either moving towards or
moving away from God's purposes in their lives.
"No believer is alone," Peterson says. Our fierce individualism has not muted the fact that we live with a "great
cloud of witnesses" to whom has been given great wisdom about so many of life's issues.
"Focus on the individual," Peterson stresses. Avoid stereotyping people by assuming that your ministry-model
"works every time." People are infinitely complex and the Kingdom of God will never thrive under a methoddriven
ministry. We must be able to respond to all of life's vicissitudes with eternal verities emerging from the
Scriptures and the wisdom of the ages that lives in subjection to them.
But for our purposes, we must grasp the spirit of church discipline if we are ever to identify it in our churches.
Jesus describes the formal use of church discipline in Matthew 18:15ff. "If your brother sins against you, go and
show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over."
Notice that the goal of oversight is to "win over your brother." Jesus' language places a watchdog over our
motives as we take it upon ourselves to approach our brother to "show him his fault." Church discipline is not
an excuse to air grievances, but a grace that God gives to bring about unity in the body. The questions we
must ask are: "Do I long to be in right fellowship with this believer? How glad will I be if they do indeed
repent? Am I punishing this person? Am I exacting revenge?" Therefore, the spirit of church discipline has
restoration as its goal and longs for the connectedness that comes from perpetually repentant people.
Consequently, and second, church discipline exists with an accompanying (and healthy) mistrust of self. It is our
condition in sin that has created our need for oversight. Sins' greatest mischief in the life of a believer is to
mask its own existence, to make us think that it is not there. The soul that has been most hardened by sin is
the soul that thinks i tis immune or untouched by its pollution. Therefore, the Gospel teaches us not to give
ourselves the benefit of the doubt. We cannot be trusted on our own. If left to our own devices, our
destruction would be certain.
Therefore, the inertia in the Church will always tend toward disintegration. The mark of the Church of
discipline is therefore not only a theological necessity but a practical necessity as well. We need the Church,
yes; but we need the Church together, involved in each other's lives, engaging in each other's business. Only
this humility of community can set in motion the perpetual equipping of the saints and conversion of the lost
for which the church exists. Without church discipline, there is no Church.
The church will find itself mired in confusion about what is and is not appropriate church activity. The leaders
of churches are constantly faced with a thousand voices, all clamoring for a slice of the church's time or
finances. But without a clear understanding of the specific spheres of the church's responsibility, their decisions
regarding giving will always be based upon whim rather than wisdom.
Some churches suffer from a truncated ministry where a pastor's "pet passions" set their agenda. The pastor
might very well be a visionary who "has a heart" for this or that area of God's Kingdom. However, the
Christian sphere of activity is always going to be larger than one man's present passion. The church may be
doing on thing well, but what have they neglected in the process?
Finally, and still worse, how many churches suffer from a "top heavy" organizational flow chart that dies the
death of hopeless stagnation in endless committee structures? Who would dare to suggest that the American
Church needs more bureaucracy than it it presently has? In our day the Kingdoms of this world remain sadly
un-assailed by the people of God. The reason: they are too busy.
The distinction between the Church and Kingdom and the accompanying focus on the marks of the Church
are the main tools in the pastor's toolbox. They provide a desperately needed compass for the Church's vision
and mission.
Taken from Chapter 4 of The Enduring Community: Embracing the Priority of the Church. By Brian Habig and Les
Newsom.
A Stunted Ecclesiology?
The Theory & Practice of
Evangelical Churchliness
by J. I. Packer
About a half-century ago North American evangelicals began to speak of the evangelical
church. They still do. The phrase denoted, and denotes, the worldwide fellowship of
congregations and Christians who profess evangelical beliefs and maintain an evangelical
style of piety and pastoral care, centering upon conversion, Bible-reading, evangelism,
fellowship with God in assurance and trust, and fellowship with other believers in the
shared joy of born-again life. The currency of the phrase marks the mutation of the
former self-image of evangelicals as the marginalized faithful remnant within liberal-led
Protestantism into a sense of being truly the core of God's church on earth.
Evangelicalism is more and more viewing itself as the main stream, in relation to which
non-evangelicals, whether so by adding to the biblical faith or subtracting from it, are
deviating eddies, and evangelical vocation is more and more seen as involving prayer and
labor for the leavening and reinvigorating of non-evangelical communities by evangelical
truth. This mutation continues to broaden and deepen. It shows a remarkable recovery of
confidence and, so I think, of churchliness too.
What is in the mind of evangelicals when they speak of the evangelical church? They are
not using the singular noun in what would be a secular way, that is, to signify a statistical
and organizational collective, though of course the global evangelical fellowship is that,
and may be so viewed if sociology is one's concern. But in fact their use of this phrase is
voicing the same sort of claim to authenticity as Roman Catholic and Orthodox
Christians express when they identify themselves as belonging to the church. This small c
use of the word church (large c reduces it to a group label) carries the thought of the one
body of Christ on earth, of which all believers are in some sense members, but which
takes its most proper form in the circle of communion to which each of the adjectival
qualifiers (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and now evangelical) is pointing.
Believers using any one of these three distinguishing labels for self-identification express
thereby, in an informal and subtextual way, their belief, not that God is content to have
three communities of saints side by side, but that here is the particular road that ideally all
God's people would be taking together. The ecumenical exchanges of the past century
have brought an awareness of this churchly inkling (often not more, but never less) as
undergirding the sometimes perplexing phenomenon of separation justifying itself; and
when evangelicals speak of the evangelical church, the same inkling is involved. There is
here, in fact, a recognizable renewal of the sense of churchly reality that lay at the heart
of the sixteenth-century reformation.
A comparable renewal has taken place among evangelicals in Britain, and I see myself as
a product of it. English by birth, Canadian by choice, Christian by conversion and
Calvinist by conviction, I speak as an evangelical who finds his home in the worldwide
Anglican church family precisely because historic Anglicanism in its essence represents
evangelical churchliness so well. (Present-day Anglicanism in the West is dreadfully out
of shape and out of sorts, but that is another story.) In what follows, however, I attempt to
generalize about all global evangelicalism as it is today.
This, be it said, is a tall order, for since the Second World War evangelicalism has
become a massive network of pulsating energies, largely charismatic in style and
constantly adjusting its cultural forms. Statisticians say there are something like half a
billion evangelicals in the world, twice as many as there are Orthodox and almost half as
many as there are Roman Catholics, and to speak representatively for this multinational
pluriform constituency is not an easy task. But I shall try my best, and I apologize in
advance to any evangelicals who may feel I am off-key as far as they are concerned.
The Principles of Evangelicalism
What does evangelical mean on evangelical lips? It is an umbrella word, covering and
connecting belief, spirituality, purpose, and action, both personal and corporate. The
quadrilateral account of evangelicalism as biblicist, cross-centered, conversionist, and
evangelistic has gained wide acceptance in recent years. I myself profile evangelicalism
in terms of six belief-and-behavior principles, thus:
1. Enthroning Holy Scripture, the written word of God, as the supreme authority
and decisive guide on all matters of faith and practice;
2. Focusing on the glory, majesty, kingdom, and love of Jesus Christ, the Godman
who died as a sacrifice for our sins and who rose, reigns, and will return to
judge mankind, perfect the church, and renew the cosmos;
3. Acknowledging the lordship of the Holy Spirit in the entire life of grace, which
is the life of salvation expressed in worship, work, and witness;
4. Insisting on the necessity of conversion (not of a particular conversion
experience, but of a discernibly converted condition, regenerate, repentant, and
rejoicing);
5. Prioritizing evangelism and church extension as a life-project at all times and
under all circumstances; and
6. Cultivating Christian fellowship, on the basis that the church of God is
essentially a living community of believers who must help each other to grow in
Christ.
I think this profile remains accurate, and I will assume it in the rest of this essay.
The evangelical emphasis on the uniqueness of Holy Scripture as the verbalized
revelation of God, and on its supreme authority over God's people, is sometimes
misunderstood as a commitment to the so-called restorationist method in theology. This
method sets tradition in antithesis to Scripture, and places the church's heritage of
thought and devotion under a blanket of permanent suspicion, thus reducing its
significance to zero and encouraging all who seek truth and wisdom from Scripture to
dismiss tradition as mere morbid pathology and a hydra-head of destructive mistakes.
There is no denying that individual evangelicals of highest integrity, if sometimes limited
learning, have followed this method, at least in their own view of what they were at.
The Role of Tradition
But the authentic evangelical way has always been to see tradition as the precipitate of
the church's living with the Bible and being taught by the Holy Spirit through the
Bible—the fruit, that is, of the ministry that the Holy Spirit has been fulfilling in the
church since Pentecost, according to Jesus' own promise. Seeing it so, mainstream
evangelicals value highly what they see as the positives of tradition, as witnesses their
constant drawing of inspiration from the thought and service of such past leaders as (for
instance) Augustine, Bernard, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Whitefield, Wesley, Spurgeon,
Carey, and Hudson Taylor. Similarly, they treasure the hymns of such as Isaac Watts,
Charles Wesley, and John Newton, and many also value liturgical forms from the classic
Anglican Book of Common Prayer and the literature of Celtic spirituality—all of which
are elements in the tradition of the church. Jaroslav Pelikan's felicitous description of
tradition as "the living faith of the dead" in contrast to traditionalism, "the dead faith of
the living," is, so far, a thoroughly evangelical estimate.
Because evangelicals know that Christian minds, like Christian hearts, are as yet
imperfectly sanctified, they expect some of the Christian community's traditions to prove
mistaken and misleading, and they see the need to test all of them accordingly. But
because evangelicals know that the Holy Spirit's guidance into truth was and is a reality,
they expect to discover that tradition is full of truth and wisdom, and to find that even
controversy in the church's past, however bewildering and unhappy in the short term,
brought clarity out of confusion about what honors God, benefits souls, and builds the
church. Thus they treat tradition as an archive of past ventures in expounding and
applying the Bible, and so as a resource to help them in their own exegetical and
theological work.
Evangelicals do not regard tradition, or any part of it, as infallible, any more than they
view present-day expositions of Scripture from pulpits, platforms, and podiums, and in
printed pages, as in any way infallible. Their goal is canonical interpretation, that is,
understanding reached by letting the corpus of canonical writings elucidate itself from
within, as the various books link up with and throw light on each other. Evangelicals
know that the Bible, thus canonically interpreted, must itself be the assessor of all
attempts to expound and apply it. So, as the eighth of the Anglican Thirty-nine Articles
says, even "the Three Creeds" (Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian) "ought thoroughly to
be received and believed," not simply because the church commends them, but because
"they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture."
Evangelicals value tradition, then, as a repository of God-given insight—that is, of ripe
skill in listening to what the Bible says and verbally reproducing it in ways that transcend
the limitations and relativities of particular cultural backgrounds. Thus, evangelicals
value Nicene Trinitarianism and Chalcedonian Christology and Augustine's analysis of
sin and grace, all of which were wrought out in the Greco-Roman intellectual world, and
they value also the Reformers' Christocen-tric bibliology, soteriology, and ecclesiology,
which were wrought out in the intellectual world of Europe's Renaissance. The evidence
for that is the long series of theological treatises and textbooks affirming the general
Reformational point of view that have been written during the past half-millennium;
though coming from a wide variety of geographical and denominational sources, they are
extraordinarily similar in substance on all of these basic themes.
Churchliness & Dissonance
I am making a case for the genuine churchliness of today's evangelical church, a
churchliness that is directly in line with that of the churches that separated from Rome at
the time of the Reformation. It is a case, I believe, that urgently needs to be made, both
because this recovered churchliness is a significant fact that is often overlooked and
because much evangelicalism is in a state of cognitive dissonance about it, affirming
churchliness yet retaining an ethos and mindset that seems to observers to deny it. Roman
Catholic, Orthodox, high Anglicans, and leading ecumenists often say that evangelicals
have an inadequate view of the church. Is that true? In theory, no, but in practice the
answer often appears to be yes.
Churchliness means recognizing the centrality of the church and the primacy of the
corporate in the purpose of God. The corporate means the negating of individualism in
conscientious togetherness of life and action in, through, under, and for our Lord Jesus
Christ. Locally, that means mutual involvement, openness, dependence, and ministry
within the congregation; ecumenically, it means realizing brotherhood with all Christians
worldwide, plus "all the company of heaven" as the historic Anglican Prayer Book puts
it, in ongoing adoration of the Father and the Son through the Spirit. The local-church
aspect of this is adumbrated in Ephesians 4:11–16; the universal-church aspect is
reflected in Hebrews 12:22–24 and Revelation 7:9–12 and 14:1–5.
To be sure, the gospel message individualizes, and faith is always an individual, personal
matter, and in the God-centered relationships of love and service formed within Christian
community, each person's individuality and selfhood is deepened and enhanced. At the
same time, however, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the self-sufficient
individualism to which sin in our spiritual system gives rise should be step-by-step
snuffed out, and the glory of God in and through the community's life should
increasingly become the focus of each believer's longings and prayers. This process is
precisely a growing into, and an expressing of, churchliness. Is it a regular mark of evangelicals,
as it certainly was of the magisterial Reformers? I, for one, have to say: nothing
like sufficiently. And that is, in effect, to say that evangelical churchliness is as yet a
stunted growth.
Confessionally and conceptually, evangelical ecclesiology is full and strong. Consider,
for instance, the account of the church given by the Amsterdam Declaration, representing
the common mind of some 11,000 evangelists and church leaders gathered together in the
opening year of the third millennium:
The church is the people of God, the body and bride of Christ, and the temple of
the Holy Spirit. The one, universal church is a transnational, transcultural,
transdenominational and multi-ethnic family, the household of faith. In the widest
sense the church includes all the redeemed of all the ages, being the one body of
Christ extended throughout time as well as space. Here in the world, the church
becomes visible in all local congregations that meet to do together the things that
according to Scripture the church does. Christ is the head of the Church. Everyone
who is personally united to Christ by faith belongs to his body and by the Spirit is
united with every other true believer in Jesus.
The classic exponents of Reformation ecclesiology, John Calvin of Geneva and Richard
Hooker of England, would have nothing major to add to that. Yet, as was said, observers
will feel there is cognitive dissonance here: Evangelicals who subscribe to such
statements do not seem in practice to rate churchliness a factor in full-orbed Christian
discipleship, and rarely do they display a personal formation that is fully churchly. Strong
individuality within an equally strong frame of corporateness is indisputably the New
Testament ideal for Christian living; why then do evangelicals, strong as they are on
individuality in Christ, appear weak when it comes to the corporate awareness that should
flow from seeing the church as central in the plan of God? What is the problem here?
In broadest terms, this problem of today has three sources. First, evangelicalism was
always in part reactionary against Roman Catholicism, and reaction restricts and
constricts those reacting. Evangelical rejection of the Catholic mode of churchliness,
which is essentially sacramentalist, breeds a tendency to undervalue churchliness as such.
Out goes the baby with the bathwater. Second, reinforcing this, European pietism, which
has decisively shaped English-speaking evangelicalism since the eighteenth century, was
very much a reaction against the deadness of state churches, and in effect redefined
churchliness as close fellowship among spiritually lively groups—a view that
evangelicals readily embrace without considering its sectarian overtones. Third,
twentieth-century wrenching of leadership out of evangelical hands and away from
evangelical principles, which has significantly deadened some older denominations, has
given new appeal to the pietistic (even separatist) path. This is how Christian concern to
cultivate spiritual life has come to hinder the converted from developing a fully churchly
heart.
Stunting Elements
To be more specific, there are five elements in the characteristic evangelical mindset of
our time that work against thorough realization of what has been called the "abundance
ecclesiology" of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, where the church is declared to be the
fullness of Christ, the beloved bride for whom he laid down his life, and is to grow as a
single new man in Christ (you can hardly have a more corporate image than that!),
moving always into the maturity that is the measure of Christ's own stature (see Eph.
1:23; 4:11–16; 5:25–27). All five are matters of proper Christian priority that have
unhappily triggered improper reactionary antitheses.
Factor one is evangelical salvation-centeredness. No one should fault evangelicals for
their loving attention to the task of unpacking the gospel message that "Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners" (1 Tim. 1:15). Nothing is more important than that the
gospel is fully grasped, and exploring it and emphasizing it is a thoroughly churchly
activity. But it has led to a habit of man-centered theologizing, which sets needy human
beings at center stage, as it were, brings in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit just for their
saving roles, and fails to cast anchor in doxology, as Paul's expositions of the gospel lead
him to do (see Rom. 11:33–36; 16:25–27; Eph. 3:20–21; 1 Tim. 6:13–16; cf. Rev. 5:9–
14).
Too often we evangelicals relegate the truth of the Trinity to the lumber-room of the
mind, to be put on display only when deniers of it appear, rather than being made the
frame and focus of all adoration. The church then comes to be thought of as an
organization for spiritual life support rather than as an organism of perpetual praise;
doxology is subordinated to ministry, rather than ministry embodying and expressing
doxology; and church life is thought out and set forth in terms of furthering people's
salvation rather than of worshiping and glorifying God. The antithesis is improper and
false, to be sure, but the man-centered mindset is real, and is one facet of a stunted
churchliness.
Factor two is evangelical word-centeredness. No one should fault evangelicals for
valuing Scripture and doctrine and preaching in the way that they do—or, at least, used to
do, for catechism, adult Bible schools, and serious learning of the historic faith are
currently in eclipse among us, to our own great loss. But our stress on text and talking has
marginalized and dumbed down the sacraments, so that their message about the crucified
and living Lord as the life of the church is muffled, and the Eucharist becomes an extra,
tacked on to a preaching service, rather than the congregation's chief act of worship, as
Calvin and Luther and Cranmer thought it should be. The word-sacrament antithesis,
most certainly, is also false, but evangelicals' disproportionate word-centeredness is a
fact, and is a further facet of a stunted churchliness.
Factor three is evangelical life-centeredness—using "life" in the spiritual sense whereby,
in historic pietism as in Holy Scripture, it means responsive, satisfying personal
fellowship with God, the fruit of regeneration in the heart and the first installment of the
coming bliss of heaven. No one should fault evangelicals for flagging this as the most
vital matter of all, doubly not when they, and those to whom they speak, belong to
moribund congregations or denominations that settle for something less than spiritual life
in their adherents. Martin Bucer, the Strasbourg reformer who midwifed Calvin's
understanding of the Lord's Supper and helped Cranmer to envision a pastorally adequate
Church of England, was the pioneer evangelical thinker in this area: He urged that the
spiritually lively folk should meet separately as ecclesiola in ecclesia (the little church
within the church), to maintain their spiritual vitality in fellowship together.
English Puritanism and German pietism took this up in a big way. The perennial trouble,
however, is that, by a process as understandable as it is regrettable, growing care for the
health of the smaller body reduces concern for the quickening and renewing of the larger
unit. Evangelicals have hewed to Bucer's line diligently enough for the small group that
meets to pray, study the Bible, and share experience to be labeled an evangelical
institution, and this unhappy process has been observed to take place in these groups over
and over again. Such a narrowing of care is a seedbed of sectarianism and ought never to
occur—but it does, and it has to be listed as one more facet of modern evangelicalism's
stunted churchliness.
Parachurch & Independence
Factor four is the parachurch-centeredness that is nowadays virtually an evangelical
trademark. No one should fault evangelicals for creating a plethora of parachurch
ministries; they are needed if the work of the kingdom is to get done. Parachurch
agencies supplement the ministrations of the church with auxiliary activities and
specialist skills that local congregations lack. Missionary societies were first in this field,
followed by societies for specialized service at home, and from these beginnings has
grown today's vast mix of parachurch bodies, ranging from the very small to the very
large (Campus Crusade, Focus on the Family, the International Fellowship of Evangelical
Students, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and such like). Everyone should be
glad they are there, and rejoice in the work they do.
But sadly, by the same narrowing process described above, these agencies of God's
kingdom draw interest, prayer, enthusiasm, and money away from the wider-ranging,
slower-moving, less glamorous realities of congregational life, so that the parachurch
body comes to have pride of place in supporters' affections and in effect to be their
church. Here, again, the antithesis is improper in theory but potent in practice, and must
appear as yet a fourth facet of evangelicalism's stunted churchliness.
Factor five is the independent-church syndrome, which matches parachurch-centeredness
but goes further. Evangelicals have created many independent congregations in recent
years, and I would be the last to criticize them for doing so: After all, church-planting as
such is a sign of health and growth. Nor should we fault the theology behind independent
churches, which is that Christ the Lord himself must rule and guide each congregation by
his Word and Spirit as directly as possible. Yet a problem lurks here. Independent
congregations are such through declining connectional bonds with other congregations—
such bonds, I mean, as synods, councils, superintendent ministers, bishops, and court
systems provide. Abuse of these bonds, as seen, for instance, in American Anglicanism's
current agony under rogue bishops, is an argument not for abolishing authority networks,
but for constitutionalizing them more wisely and electing operatives for them more
discerningly.
No antithesis should be posited between connectional structures and the congregation's
responsibility to follow the will of Christ, for structural links holding congregations
together as the apostles' personal ministry once did would seem to be part of his will,
whatever local problems may arise from acknowledging this. Links of this kind, within
an agreed-upon frame of creedal soundness, are signs of the organic, space-time
continuity of the body of Christ on earth, the catholic visible church of which each
congregation is an outcrop, sample, and microcosm; such signs should not be cast off.
When they are, sectarianism seems to threaten, and another aspect of stunted churchliness
has made its appearance.
My hope is that in this new century the churchliness of evangelicalism will become
evident. As my analysis shows, the difficulty here is more practical than theoretical.
Evangelical ecclesiology is not stunted, but evangelical churchliness as a mindset and an
ethos is, and without rethinking and adjustment this will continue, so that the credibility
of the evangelical claim to mainstream status as church will remain suspect and perhaps
be forfeit. Will the evangelical church gain credibility through change at these key
points? Or will it continue partly at least to deny its name? We wait to see.
J. I. Packer is recently retired professor of theology at Regent College, a prolific author,
and a well-known pastor, teacher, and lecturer. For more details about his fifty years in
Christian ministry, please see the interview on page 42, following this article.
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Toward a Reformational View
of Total Christian Involvement
by Dr. O. Palmer Robertson, a missionary of the African Bible College
and former Old Testament theologian at Reformed Theological Seminary
The greatest issue facing the church of the twentieth century concern's the church's definition of its
own nature and mission. While the church through the ages has defined repeatedly the triune nature of God,
the full authority of Scripture, the person and work of Christ, it has not vet reached an adequate resolution of
the problems involved in its own self-definition.
One of the obvious results of this failure at self-definition is the widespread disharmony felt in virtually
every sector of the body of Christ. Since the church does not know itself, it does not know how to recognize
itself. Since the church does not understand its own task, it cannot unify about a single task. The present
study does not presume to offer a final solution to the complicated problems involved in the church's
definition of its own nature and mission. It intends only to offer some observations which hopefully may
lead to a solution to this particular problem.
Essential to the church's understanding of itself is an understanding of its relation to the broader scope
of God's work in the world. One of the most tragic errors of the modern church involves the church's
assumption that all which God does in the present world must he funneled through the assembled body of
believers. An effort must he made to make some careful definitions, distinguishing the church from other
equally valid workings of God in the world today. The following definitions, although admittedly tentative,
may offer some relief to these points of tension.
I. DEFINITIONS
At the outset, it may he helpful to attempt to distinguish between the church and the kingdom of God.
A. The church
While various efforts have been made to define the church, a simple and safe method may be to define
the church in terms of its relationship to the Trinitarian God. The church is: the elect of the Father; the
redeemed of the Son and the renewed of the Holy Spirit. Immediately it should become obvious that to
speak of the church is to speak of a people. Identification of the church with a building may be proper in
colloquial language, but it never will find substantiation in the theological framework of the New Testament.
The church consists of those who have been elected of God before the foundation of the world, those
for whom Christ died, those renewed by the inner working of the Holy Spirit of God. They are new
creatures in Christ, breathing of a vital life which comes from immediate relationship with God Himself.
They exist in a fashion incomprehensible to those who are not the church. More particularly, they exist as a
united body. They gather together to offer their worship to God. They build up one another in the faith.
They offer testimony to the truth of God among themselves and to the world. Their specific domain of
responsibility is that of the revelation of God embodied in the person of Jesus Christ and interpretation in
Holy Scripture. Theirs is a particular task which no other organization in this world may perform. To them
is given the treasure of the Gospel, and the task of spreading that treasure to the world. The church finds its
concrete expression in congregations, sessions, presbyteries, and assemblies.
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B. The Kingdom of God
At this point it would be helpful to define a little more carefully the terms "church" and "kingdom".
The ekklesia speaks of the "called out ones", or more specifically the "ones called together." The people of
God are called out to be together as the people of God.
The basilea refers to a realm broader than simply a people. It refers to a rule or a reign, to a kingship
or a domain. As in the case of the church, a triune definition of the kingdom may be of help.
God the Father sits enthroned over his eternal kingdom. From beginning to end He has reigned
supremely and unchallenged. No force operating in this world ever has been free of the domain of God the
Father. The kingdom of the Son may be called the Messianic kingdom. This kingdom refers more
specifically to the rule which Christ himself was established since his coming to earth. This kingdom
continues to grow in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation.
At the heart and core of the eternal rule of God and the Messianic kingdom of Christ is the inward rule
of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of men. Notice the words of Christ in Matthew 12:28: "If I by the Spirit of
God cast out demons, then the kingdom of God is come." The demon-possessed soul finds deliverance
through the rule of the Spirit of God initiated in the inner heart. The Holy Spirit begins the rule of God in its
seed-form through the act of regeneration. According to the teaching of Jesus himself in John chapter 3, no
man can "enter" or "see" the kingdom apart from rebirth (John 3:3, 5). The emphasis of these verses rests
on the initial contact of a man with the kingdom of God. Prior to the point of renewal by the Holy Spirit, a
man exists within the domain of Satan, under the authority granted the wicked one by God.
This rule of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of men provides the open door into the broader realm of the
kingdom of Christ. This Messianic kingdom may be defined as that area in which God's actual rule over evil
comes to concrete expression in time and history. It may be distinguished from that eternal kingdom of God
which always and at all times operates over God's enemies.
With these definitions in mind it may be possible to move further and ask the question, what is the
precise relationship among these various manifestations of "kingdom" and "church"?
II. RELATIONSHIPS
1. The church has as its peculiar responsibility the expounding of the revelation of God to the people
of God. Its task is to gather in and to build up the saints of God. Contrary to much modem theory,
situations are not the only things which change attitudes. Pure environmentalism cannot answer the
complicated question of human motivation. In fact, the change of heart is the most essential way to change
the attitude. According to Scripture, God has ordained the foolish-ness of preaching as the means of
changing men. C.H. Dodd's study of the apostolic preaching recorded in the book of Acts has much to say
at this point. Those elements characteristic of first century proclamation must dictate to the modem church
the content of its proclamation. Sadly today, the modem church assumes that the world knows the truths of
the Christian gospel and so therefore does not bother to proclaim the fulfillment of the Old Testament
promises, the super-natural intervention of God in human history by the birth of Jesus Christ, the historical
death and resurrection of the savior for the sins of his people. Sadly, the call to significant repentance and
faith is not being issued by the church.
Often, in this connection, the question is raised, what is evangelism? Generally the implication is left
that evangelism by word is not adequate, and that evangelism by deed may prove to be more effective in the
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modem world. It is, as a matter of fact, quite interesting that those who are most concerned to see the
church involved in the realm of social questions are those most interested in doing away with the officer of
the diaconate that office designed specifically for a ministry of mercy.
Yes, the proclamation of the gospel by the church must be a proclamation by deed as well as by word.
It should be noted, however, that this deed-proclamation as well as the word-proclamation must be carried
forward in well-defined limits by the church. When the responsibilities of the members of the kingdom of
God are considered, a much broader responsibility will be noted. But at this point it is of great value to
become aware of the fact that the church must exercise self-inflicted limitations. In studying the office of
deacon as presented in the New Testament, never does the diaconate appear as a social club aimed at
rectifying the social ills of the world. Instead, its ministry is limited. Primarily, it functions to relieve the
saints of God. When and if the diaconate ministers to the world-at-large, its ministry must be related directly
to the proclamation of the gospel. But so far as the New Testament church is concerned, the diaconate
confines its exercises to Christian brethren.
2. The relationship of the church to the kingdom of God is a basically simple one. The church provides
the impetus to the kingdom. The church supplies the guidelines for the permeation of the total structures of
society by the members of Christ's kingdom. Kingdom-members then mobilize in their efforts to overcome
every area of human life for Christ's sake. Individually and in organizations, members of Christ's kingdom
develop theoretical foundations for action, and practical ways of implementing that action. The implications
of the gospel for the totality of human life must be faced courageously and lived out sacrificially.
This distinction between the church and the kingdom clearly must be distinguished from that crippling
individualism which has marked American Christianity. The day of nomadic individualism has passed from
the scene of history. Massive urbanized humanity may be confronted only by Christian coalitions. Therefore
let those Christians involved in the political life of the nation come together to determine the implications of
the Christian gospel for world-wide Communism, for Israeli-Arab border disputes, for selective service and
right-to-work laws. Let these Christians speak to the world, not as though the world were Christian but as
though the world were men in God's image now shattered, but nonetheless living under the great epoch of
Gods grace toward an entire universe. Let Christians, living in a society with many social and economic
injustices, organize to alleviate the plight of suffering man. Let Christians having responsibility for
educational institutions unite to develop a thoroughly Christian education.
While the church exercises restraint in its ministry of word and deed, limiting itself more specifically to
that special revelation of God found in the Scriptures, no limit should be placed on the proclamation by word
and deed of the members of Christ's kingdom. The subject matter of their concern is the entirety of God's
creation. Their deeds extend to the totality of human life and existence. Not one inch of this entire world
may remain unchallenged by the lordship of Jesus Christ.
3. It is quite obvious that the Messianic kingdom of Christ includes both his church and the work of
his kingdom members. Christ's kingdom begins by being planted within the hearts of men as a result of the
proclamation of the gospel as the church assembles for worship, edification and witness. The rule of Christ
over man manifests itself through the working of the Holy Spirit in renewing and sanctifying the hearts of
men. At the same time, the church does not exhaust the kingdom of Christ. Sadly the church today has
assumed that all the labors of the Messianic kingdom must be funneled through its assemblies. Sadly the
church has taken upon itself a role too great for its resources. Sadly the assembled form of Christ's people
has lost faith in the working of Christ outside its own assembly halls. The result of this tragic assumption by
the church of all that which rightly belongs to the Messianic kingdom is two-fold: first, the most essential task
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of the church, which is to concern itself with that particular revelation embodied in Christ and incorporated
in Scripture has been neglected; and, secondly, by wrestling from the kingdom members their initiative in
every realm of human existence, the church has robbed kingdom members of their proper and effective role
among the world today.
When the church develops a willingness to function within the limitations of God's purpose for its
existence it will be able to develop proper concentration on its unique mission. Then it also will be able to
provide impetus for members of Christ's kingdom in their massive efforts to claim the world for Christ.
The kingdom of Christ therefore embodies more than the church. The kingdom of Christ may be
defined as that realm in time and history in which the sovereignty of God actively operates to overthrow evil.
Scripture speaks plainly of a kingdom of evil, a kingdom of Satan, a kingdom of the rulers of the darkness of
this world. Satan's kingdom is a powerful one. Its power finds representation not merely in overt acts of
violence. It permeates even the social, economic, political, and educational structures of the world today. The
entire "course of this world" derives its impetus from Satan himself.
Against this kingdom of Satan the Messianic kingdom of Christ struggles. Receiving its impetus and
direction from the church, working individually and in groups as servants of the Lord Christ, the kingdom of
Christ assaults every structure and seeks to bring every thought of man into sub-mission to Christ. Christian
political organizations direct their efforts toward bringing the secular state into conformity with God's
intention for the state. Christian social group strain their efforts to seek social justice among men. Christian
educational organizations demand that every philosophy be brought into submission to the lordship of
Christ.
4. Although Satan does maintain a kingdom, and although men do not yet see all things subjected to
Christ, yet the ultimate sovereignty of God at all times over all that transpires in his creation must be
recognized. Satan operates only within well-defined limits. God's rule always is a present realty. The eternal
kingdom of God subsumes every activity of men and nations under its domain at all times, from the
beginning of history until its end.
At the same time, the eternal kingdom of God has definite future dimensions. 1 Corinthians 15
describes the future expectation which may be held concerning the eternal kingdom of God:
Then cometh the end when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to
God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all
authority and power. For He must reign, until he hath put all enemies
under His feet. (1 Corinthians 15:24, 25)
At the end of time the kingdom of Satan shall be squeezed out fully. The kingdom of Christ shall
dispel the last remnant of darkness, and the Messianic kingdom shall become equated with the kingdom of
God. God then shall be all in all, and the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord
and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.
Thus we may see something of the interrelationship of the kingdom and the church. Nothing is more
essential for the church today than a recognition of these various ways of God's working in the world. The
church must see that its assembly does not exhaust God's intended way of working in the world. The church
must rediscover its unique role in relation to the Messianic kingdom and the eternal kingdom of God. So
long as the church assumes to itself all the prerogatives which belong to these various ways of God's working
in the world, its central task and calling, its unique mission to the world shall be dissipated.
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III. INTERPRETATIONS
After having offered some definitions with regard to the kingdom and the church, and after having
dealt summarily with the various relationships between kingdom and church, we note briefly in conclusion
various interpretations of the role of kingdom and church as manifested in Christendom today.
A. The Conservative Interpretation
Represented in diagram form, the conservative interpretation would relate church and kingdom in the
following manner:
Several points may be noted regarding the conservative interpretation:
(1) This position shrinks the kingdom into the domain of the church. Only that which happens "at
church" partakes of religious significance. The eleven o'clock worship service becomes the true test of one's
Christianity. If a person attends church regularly he is rightly involved in a work of God's kingdom.
(2) This particular approach creates a great vacuum in God's working in the world. This position
represents a prone-ness to leave religion on the church doorstep. Sunday worship may be compared to a
"heavenly dust" which rinses out of the hair all too easily on Monday morning. Many of this persuasion will
carry the moral implications of their Christianity into their work-a-day world on an individualistic basis, but
never do they attempt to organize as Christians in the world dealing significantly with the problems of the
world. Seldom is an effort made to determine the total implications of Christianity for their particular
profession.
(3) This viewpoint generally accepts without question the secular patterns of society. As a result, this
view never becomes critically aware of the non-Christian characteristics of the structures of society
themselves. In other words, public education and popular political party-structures prove to be quite
adequate vehicles for the Christian's life in the world, according to this perspective.
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(4) This position places the work of the kingdom on a much lower level than the work of the church.
Often church-vocation is regarded as the only type of "full-time Christian work" available.
(5) This viewpoint replaces the deficiency of critical analysis of current world practices with a strongly
eschatological outlook. Since little effort is made to extend the rule of Christ beyond the domain of the
assembled church; this viewpoint looks for the righting of all wrongs at the return of Christ and thus basically
is content to live with the status quo.
B. The Liberal Interpretation (See diagram following.)
With the provided diagram in hand, notice the following points about the "liberal" approach:
(1) In contrast to the conservative, the liberal expands the church so that it engulfs the kingdom. As a
result, the church is forced into involvements too deep for its competence. The church usurps those areas of
concern which belong rightly to Christians in their vocations, and at the same time neglects its distinctive
responsibility of expounding Scriptural truth to its people. The result is that kingdom members lack the
theological depth necessary for accurate and significant action, while the church issues ineffective decrees on
subjects beyond its competence.
(2) In the liberal approach, God is seen to be at work in the structures of the world in a redemptive
sense just as genuinely as He is redemptively at work among the people of God. At the same time, the
church loses its distinctive identity because it cannot differentiate God's work in its own midst from God's
work of providence amidst the world.
(3) The liberal is only selective in his criticism of the current world order (note interspaced jagged line
on diagram). He may criticize racial discrimination, but at the same time he actively promotes secularized
Godless education. He may criticize selected political viewpoints, while whole-heartedly endorsing a
secularized political party.
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(4) The liberal is non-eschatological. He has little interest in the future life, and intends to realize all
Gods kingdom in the present world.
C. The Reformational Interpretation. (See diagram below)
This position is fully represented in the diagram supplied. While admittedly attempting to limit the
various manifestations of kingdom and church to their respective spheres, the Reformational viewpoint
acknowledges the unity of the whole. The church concerns itself primarily with the revelation of God
contained in Scripture, though not shirking from laying down any principles or specific outworkings of those
principles which are obviously and certainly in accord with Scripture. Yet the church draws back to allow
proper room for the functioning of the members of Christ's kingdom. Proper recognition is given to the fact
that subjects of Christ's kingdom work individually and in groups to promote the cause of Christ in every
sphere of life, pushing back the kingdom of darkness. Overarching the total programs of church and
Messianic kingdom is the eternal kingdom of God, which ultimately shall absorb the totality of God's work in
the world in its various forms. The Reformational position commends itself with tremendous practical
advantages:
(1) The church will devote its proper amount of time and energy to the unique calling which no other
institution in the world is capable of fulfilling. The gospel will be proclaimed among the church and to the
world. The whole counsel of God contained in Scripture, providing all principles necessary for faith in life,
will find full explication.
(2) Members of Christ's kingdom thrive under the challenge of carrying to full consequences the
principles of life derived from its assembly. Kingdom members function as salt and light, permeating the
totality of the created universe.
(3) The kingdom of S