Theology For Everyman, The Church: Body of Christ

THERE ARE FUNDAMENTALLY two views of the church. There are variations of these and mixtures of them, but fundamentally only two views. This division runs through the various denominations or “churches” as we shall see.

The first conception of the church may be stated as follows: It is that body of persons who (1) profess faith in Christ, (2) are subordinate to properly appointed officers, and (3) associate with those of like profession and practice. We must consider these items separately.

First, they profess faith in Christ. This usually signifies more than saying they believe in someone whom they themselves call Christ. Their profession must recognize that Christ is a particular historic person who was none other than God incarnate. This is invariably considered as the minimum profession of Christianity. Insistence is on the fact that the Christ is no mere man — no mere reformer — but the very Son of God. Profession of faith in Christ may be all that is required, but this must be an orthodox profession. Usually Christ, being regarded as divine, is also recognized as a member of the Trinity. Furthermore, His divinity is seen as necessary to His work of redemption, the acknowledgement of which is usually regarded as essential. The person affirms faith in Christ — as God and Saviour.

Second, those who make this profession do so to certain men called church officers, who are thought to be appointed by Christ. After all, there must be someone, it is argued, to determine when men make satisfactory confessions. It is thought that these officers are indicated in the Bible. The Roman Catholic church finds the pope to be the recipient of the keys of the kingdom or church, and he indirectly appoints the necessary subordinates, or the priesthood. The Anglican church acknowledges no order, except administrative, higher than the bishop, who is thought to be in succession from Peter, to whom the keys were given and by whom they were transmitted to the bishopric. Those who defend the view under consideration are advocates of episcopal order, or government by bishops. Others, such as Presbyterians, believe that the officers are ministers (on one level and equal) associated with representatives of the congregation (elders); and still others, such as Congregationalists, regard the congregation itself as retaining and not delegating its authority.

Third, persons who profess faith in Christ to these duly appointed officers are received into the fellowship of like-minded persons. This fellowship constitutes the church. If a person professed Christ and acknowledged certain officers but was not recognized by them, he would not be admitted to this fellowship and therefore would not, in spite of all, be in the church. It is to be understood, furthermore, that membership in this society is not inalienable. A person may be excommunicated, that is, he may be cut off from the communion of the church and no longer be considered a member.

This is a very understandable and apparently sound view of the church. But is it true? Is a person who professes faith in Christ and is received by officers into a fellowship of like professors truly a member of the church in the biblical sense of the word? We admit that he may be, but this does not satisfy advocates of this doctrine who teach that there is no “maybe” here but only certainty. Such a person, they say, is undoubtedly a member of the church of Christ with all its benefits and privileges. They will say that if a person is a member of a certain local church or denomination he is truly a member of the church of Christ. So long as he is not cut off from the communion of this body (excommunicated) he is not cut off from Christ. So these advocates cannot accept our statement that members of their church may be members of the church of Christ. No, say they, they are members of Christ’s church.

This notion that members of some particular denomination are necessarily members of Christ’s church or body we cannot grant. We will not deny that a person who sincerely and truly makes a sound profession of faith in Christ is a member of His true church, but how do we (or they) know that all who make the profession sincerely believe it? How can they be sure that they are not receiving hypocrites? So long as officers cannot search the hearts of professing believers, they cannot know whether such professors are sincere, true believers or not; nor can they prevent the admittance of some nominal (in name only) believers.

Advocates of this view must assume the officers’ ability to know the hearts of professors. But while they assume this, they do not claim it and cannot admit that they even assume it. Even the church of Rome claims no such infallibility for individual priests or bishops who receive persons into their church. So there is a dilemma here: This view depends on the officers’ ability to know hearts, but the officers do not even claim such ability. Yet if they do not have this ability, they cannot be certain that the persons they admit are true members of the church of Christ.

Perhaps someone will say that we are overdoing the difficulty here. Can we not be reasonably certain that a person who says he believes in Christ and who is not living in any open or gross sin is a Christian? Yes, we can be reasonably sure — that is, we can be sure enough to allow his profession to be made a basis of admission to this fellowship. But it is unreasonable to say that such a person could not possibly be a hypocrite. After all, the Bible indicates that people may say and do many things that are Christian without themselves being Christian. The rich young ruler, for example, said that he kept the whole law from his youth up, but he rejected Christ actually, even while respecting and reverencing Him. Christ said that some would come in the last day and say: “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” (Matt. 7:22). Christ did not deny their ascription of Lordship to Him, nor their claim to have prophesied, cast out devils, and done many mighty works in His name. But He rejected them nonetheless, saying: “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7:23). The Apostle Paul wrote: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (I Cor. 13:1-3). So it is possible for a person to be a great philanthropist and a martyr without having love (that is, Christ) in his heart, and all he does will therefore profit him nothing. If it is possible for a person to call Christ Lord, to cast out devils in His name and die a martyr to His cause without having Christ in his heart, then certainly no man can judge infallibly about the state of another man’s soul.

It is not only that men may err in their judgments about others’ profession, but they do err. Christ tells us that hypocrites are added to the professing members of His church. This is the teaching of the Parable of the Tares. An enemy plants the tares; that is, the devil establishes hypocrites in the field (or church) of Christ. Moreover, the parable could be construed as a warning to faithful church officers of their inability always to remove these “tares,” or hypocrites, even when they can detect them: “lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them” (Matt. 13:29). The separation of true and false believers will not, according to this and other parables (such as the net and fishes, Matt. 13:47 f.), take place in this world but at the final judgment and not by men but by angels. Christ, though He wants us to keep His church as pure as possible, wants us to know that some inevitable impurity must be accepted and borne with until the “harvest.”

Thus the foregoing definition of the church will not do. The church of Christ is not simply those who profess Christ, are subordinate to his officers, and associate with those of like profession. The devil’s children are members of this company. The enemies of Christ profess to love Him. This is the church of the anti-Christ as well as of Christ.

What, then, is the church of Christ? Although the foregoing definition is unsatisfactory, the addition of two words will make it quite satisfactory. Thus: The church consists of all who sincerely profess faith in Christ, and are normally subordinate to his officers and associate with those of like profession. This definition requires that the person’s profession correspond to his state of heart. Since no officer can tell whether this is so, God alone knows whether the person is sincere and, therefore, truly a member of the church. For that reason the true church is called “invisible.” This does not mean that true Christians are invisible but that their “trueness” or genuineness is invisible to man. For example, the true faith of the eleven apostles was not visible any more than the false faith of Judas was visible (until the betrayal and suicide following Christ’s rejection of him revealed it). So long as a person makes a sound profession and does not belie it by gross sin, we “presume” that he has true faith. The Puritans used to say that we exercise a “judgment of charity.” Only one thing we must avoid — namely, making a judgment of certainty.

Furthermore, we said that the church consists of all who sincerely profess faith in Christ and are normally subordinate to his officers and in fellowship with those who make a like profession. Normally, sincere believers in Christ will join the “visible” church because Christ wills it. He himself attended the synagogue or church of His own day. The New Testament enjoins the assembling of ourselves together. Christ gave gifts to the church after His ascension, according to Ephesians 4:11 f., and these were ministers to build up the church. Such statements indicate that the establishment of the visible church was His will, although He forbade any to join except those who deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Him. Hypocrites may nonetheless profess to do these things and be admitted, but that is no excuse for sincere persons not making the same profession. Christ also commanded His apostles to baptize in His name, thus receiving professors by a visible act into a visible organization. So converts to Christ desiring to do the will of Christ will receive baptism and join the visible church. At least, normally they will do all this.

Is it conceivable that they will not do this? It is not conceivable that they will permanently delay uniting with the church if they realize that it is the will of Christ that they do join. But it is conceivable, too, that they may be wrongly instructed in their duty. Hearing that they should believe and be saved, they may wrongly conclude that merely exercising and expressing faith is sufficient without joining any organization. They may not realize that belief in Christ means belief in all His commands, including the one to join the church. This is not likely, of course, and a Christian person should not long remain in such a condition. But since it is a possibility, at least in rare cases, for short intervals, we must agree with Augustine that there may be lambs outside the fold (just as there are wolves inside).

What complicates the matter is that the Bible sometimes uses the word “church” in the sense of the visible church and sometimes in the sense of the invisible church. For example, Stephen in his sermon before the Sanhedrin referred to all Israel in the wilderness as “the church.” “This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sinai, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us” (Acts 7:38). Now we know that not only were there some hypocrites in that body called the “church” but almost all of the members were such. That was the generation of which God swore in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest (Ps. 95:11). Only the younger generation were spared, but the rest perished in the wilderness — a symbol of eternal perishing. Yet they were called “the church.” In the apostolic church itself there were those who were not true believers, as indicated by the Apostle John in I John 2:19: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.”

On the other hand, the true church is mentioned, too. Christ said: “I will build my church; and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16: 18). The powers of Hell not only stand against but they often make conquests of the visible church. It is only the invisible church of which Christ’s description is true. Another instance is Eph. 1:22-23: “And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.” Surely nothing false or evil could be part of the body of Christ, in whom God is well pleased. In spite of this double usage of the word “church,” in and out of the Bible, we must remember that the true church, the saved church, the church in vital union with Christ, is the invisible church.

In addition to the description already given of the true, invisible church we find other characteristics mentioned in Scripture. The invisible church is:

1. Infallible (it knows its Master’s voice and will not follow a stranger, John 10:5). 2. Indestructible (nothing shall separate it from “the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus,” Rom. 8:39; no one shall take it out of His hand, John 10:28). 3. Indivisible (“that they may be one, as we are,” John 17:11; “I am the vine, ye are the branches,” John 15:5). 4. Invincible (“the gates [defensive weapons] of hell shall not prevail [or stand] against it,” Matt. 16: 18; “the meek shall inherit the earth,” Ps. 37:11). 5. Universal (“out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation,” Rev. 5:9; “the field is the world,” Matt. 13:38; “God so loved the world,” John 3:16).

Putting everything together, we would have some such definition of the church of Jesus Christ as this: It is the invisible, infallible, indestructible, indivisible, invincible, and universal body consisting of all those who truly believe in and adhere to their Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. In the vast majority of cases, they are members of the visible church.

What makes the Church visible isn't the claim to be a Christian, but the adherence to doctrines. That evil men should be in the church is has a very strong precedent in the bible; Jesus proclaims to his apostles their authority, but hardly ever says, "except for one of you (Judas)." When he does, it is to point out specifically that he has called chosen ALL of them, even though "one of you is a devil."

Protestants love talking about salvation through faith. And, in truth, the Catholic opposition to Luther was that Luther argued "salvation through faith, in spite of evil," whereas the Church argued "salvation through faith which conquers evil." But let's look at the invisible-church notion of salvation through faith. Since "faith" means the confidence in the truth, what is is that we know to be true about this Jesus we shall believe in? The visible church asserts that one may plainly know what to believe in, because it is infallible, even while men are not at all impeccable. In other words, it demands faith in the truth. From faith in the doctrine, it becomes possible to have faith in Christ.

Of course, the invisible-church proponents like to argue that they demand faith in Christ, but what is it that we are supposed to believe? Although the simple answer is "the bible," the truth is that there are a million opinions among those in the invisible truth about how to interpret the bible? Which is the correct one? Who shall we believe? Usually, the answer becomes that which most aligns best with whatever the believer's own will clings strongest to, or the "sense of community" they feel. In turn, this traces back to the congregation's own history and founding.

Hence, the visible Church puts its faith in Christ, confident that it is Christ they have learned about, regardless of the foibles of their teachers. Meanwhile, the invisible-church proponents end up ironically putting their faith in men, whether it be their pastor, John Calvin, or attractive people.

There is an appealing argument from proponents of the invisible truth good Christians can be discerned from among the various denominations, in spite of the secondary issues which divided them. But is that so? Has not every denomination splintered from its parent denominations in the belief that the parent denomination was irreformably evil? What beliefs unite this invisible Church? What shall we know to believe in? That pornography is wrong? Masturbation? Homosexuality? Divorce? Remarriage? Birth Control? Female congregational leaders? Premarital sex? abortion?

Catholics know how to be moral, if they care to. They can cling to leaders who claim to be Catholic, but permit immorality, but they will always know the true doctrine of the Catholic Church, so they will always know how to avoid sin.

dangus, you wrote
""Hence, the visible Church puts its faith in Christ, confident that it is Christ they have learned about, regardless of the foibles of their teachers. Meanwhile, the invisible-church proponents end up ironically putting their faith in men, whether it be their pastor, John Calvin, or attractive people. ""

Very good point ,Dear friend.

Here is an excerpt from a thread I started earlier today.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1774722/posts

Protestant Theology. The early Protestant Reformers were constrained by the logic of separating from Rome to defend their new doctrinal positions. Thus we find Luther writing numerous treatises on faith, grace, and justification, and Calvin producing in 1536 his Institutes of the Christian Religion, as the first systematic compendium of Protestant doctrine. “My design in this work,” wrote Calvin in the introduction, “has been to prepare and qualify students of theology for the reading of the divine word.” The beginnings of the Reformation were thoroughly dogmatic in character.

Protestant writers describe the original Reformation theology as Biblical in the direct sense. It did not take philosophy as a basis or ally. Its first business was to know and expound the Bible. It did not claim Aristotle and Plato as friends or forerunners. It used reason, but reason derived only from the Bible and put to a Biblical use.

Actually there was a philosophy behind this theologizing, notably the nominalism of William of Ockham (1280-l349), whom Luther called “my teacher” and rated in learning far above Thomas Aquinas. Two strains in Ockham, sometimes called “the first Protestant,” became imbedded in the Reformation: a distrust of reason in dealing with religion, and a theory of voluntarism which made right and wrong depend on the will of God. The first strain appeared prominently in Lutheran or evangelical thought, with the emphasis on revelation and grace as the exclusive media of religious knowledge and salvation. The second affected Calvinism and the Reformtheologie, postulating, in Calvin's words, that “God chooses some for the hope of life, and condemns others to eternal death….For all men are not created on an equal footing, but for some eternal life is preordained, for others eternal damnation.” The divine will, therefore, and not as in Aquinas the divine wisdom, is the ultimate norm of man's existence and destiny.

Had Luther and Calvin alone formulated Reformation principles, there would certainly have been Protestant dogmatics, but scarcely a Protestant theology. Credit for the latter belongs to Philipp Melanchthon (1497-l560), professor of Greek at Wittenberg and author of two basic compendia of Reformation belief: the Confession of Augsburg and the Apology for the Confession, both compromise documents which differed from Luther and Calvin in many points and paved the way for a speculative theology. Melanchthon made important concessions on the doctrine of free will and unconditional predestination, on the power of reason to reflect on matters of faith, and on tradition as found in the Churches of Rome and the East. These concessions were more or less reconciled with the opposition in the Formula of Concord (1580).

The latter part of the sixteenth century and most of the seventeenth was the period of Protestant scholasticism, using the Institutes of Calvin and the Formula of Concord as the base of operation. Despite an essential difference in content, the method was not unlike that of the medieval Schoolmen. Typical of the doctrines treated was the infallibility of the Bible, to which the same kind of intrinsic efficacy was attached as Catholics attached to the sacraments.

Partly in opposition to this rigid dogmatism and partly the result of Deistic influences from England, Protestantism in the eighteenth century faced a serious crisis. Immanuel Kant (1724-l804), the “philosopher of Protestantism,” questioned the foundations of the Lutheran faith in which he was reared and died. Kant's notion of religion was consistent with his general theory of knowledge and reality. Just as he held that phenomena are not in themselves things, “They are nothing but ideas, and cannot exist at all beyond our minds,” so he believed that revelation and the Church are only “adventitious aids.” Man's ultimate religious authority is his own mind. “The inner voice of reason is always his surest guide.” It is impossible to exaggerate the effect of Kantian ideas on subsequent thought, directly in Protestant rationalism, and indirectly by encouraging sentimentalism and dogmatic voluntarism.

The reaction was not long in coming. In 1821, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) published his Christian Faith, which dates an epoch in the history of modern theology. While rationalists and supernaturalists carried on their struggle, Schleiermacher took the ground from under their contention by removing its main presupposition. The Christian faith, he said, does not consist in any kind of doctrinal propositions. It is a condition of devout feeling and, like all other experience, simply an object to be described. Against the supernaturalists he maintained that Christianity is not something to be received on authority from without, but an inward condition of our own self-consciousness. Against the rationalists, he said religion is not a product of rational thinking, but an emotion of the heart, a feeling which occurs independently of the mind. Moreover this feeling is not merely personal but social in its Protestant form, since it is the common experience of a historical community derived from the Reformation.

Parallel with Schleiermacher's theology of religious experience was an accent on ethical values, borrowed from Kant and crystallized under Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889). But Ritschl gave offense by his conviction that the final revelation of God has been mediated through the facts of history and by ignoring the findings of comparative religion. The leader of the opposition was Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923), in whom Liberal Protestantism, fully conscious of itself, assumed the stage. Troeltsch held that three laws on inquiry obtain in the study of the Christian religion: the law of criticism, according to which no historical judgment can assert more than probability, even as regards the life and teachings of Christ; the law of relativity, which bars out all facts of a unique or absolute character, including those of an alleged supernatural order; and the law of analogy, which places the doctrines of Christianity on a par with other faiths in the stream of religious history.

At the present time, theologians in the Protestant tradition may be conveniently divided into the orthodox or conservative, the liberal, and those on the border line between liberalism and orthodoxy.

Conservative theology until lately has been confined to the re-exposition of traditional Lutheran and Reformed confessions of faith. At least in America, however, it is taking on new significance as the fundamentalist churches are growing in membership and stature and defending, as Machen explained, the right of Christianity to regard doctrinal issues as matters of supreme importance.

Liberalism has passed through a number of stages. In the very moment of its triumph over fundamentalism in the thirties, it began to disintegrate, mainly because liberals found themselves in the dilemma of choosing between humanism (without revelation and almost without God) and the fundamentalism they opposed. Liberals like John C. Bennett, Walter Horton, and Henry Van Dusen formed a school of thought whose future is still in doubt, but which tends more in the direction of neo-orthodoxy than back to the naturalism of Troeltsch and Adolf Harnack.

Undoubtedly the most creative feature of contemporary Protestant theology is the rise of a new conservatism, whose essence is a return to orthodoxy, but to orthodoxy with a difference. Its followers are usually former liberals, who repudiate the Biblicism of the fundamentalists and yet accept Biblical criticism in its most extreme forms. Their spiritual ancestor was Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the Danish philosopher-theologian who drove a wedge between liberals and the orthodox by asking not “what is the content of Christianity?” but “what does it mean to be a Christian?” Kierkegaard believed that one could become a Christian only by a blind commitment of one's whole life to God in Jesus Christ.

Two men in Europe and two in the United States typify the modern trend toward neo-orthodoxy. Karl Barth (1886-1968) in Switzerland began as a liberal, became active in the ecumenical movement, and in more than a dozen volumes, especially his monumental Church Dogmatics, has revolutionized Protestant theology. Barth warned against identifying the Word of God with the words of the Bible, making it a kind of “paper-pope.” The words of Scripture and of Christ are simply tokens through which the Word of God is revealed when, to whom, and under what circumstances He desires to make the revelation. Thus the Word of God is its own proof, for it cannot be proved by reason. Christ comes to every man with the challenge “Follow me,” and thereby sets up a crisis in his heart. He must choose, and his choice is Kierkegaard's leap of faith in the dark and a gamble that there is a God. “Theology of Crisis” and “Dialectical Theology” are familiar synonyms for the Barthian system.

Emil Brunner (1889-1966) is often coupled with Barth, although the two parted company when Brunner publicly criticized Barth for his repudiation of natural theology and leaving no room for the new nature of the redeemed man. Brunner popularized the “I-Thou” concept of relationship with God, which originated with the Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber (1878-1965). Unlike objective knowledge, which seeks to control the object known, the “I-Thou” relation means a personal communication of God to us and of ourselves to Him. Critics of Brunner charge him with confusing analogy and reality by taking a description of faith for the definition of man's intimate knowledge of God.

In the United States, Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) has been the leading follower (and critic) of Barth, from whom he differs especially on the function of reason in relation to faith. He accused Barth of making Christianity irrational. If, he asked, revelation has nothing to do with what we know by reason, how can we understand it? Niebuhr's most distinctive concept is that of sin, which arises from man's finite nature constantly urging him to deny his limitations. Man expresses his pride by identifying himself with social groups like nations and churches, where he finds a sense of security in their power, knowledge, or goodness. The only cure for man's sin lies in the doctrine of salvation by grace.

Paul Tillich ( 1886-1965), described as “the last liberal,” stands in a class by himself. All religious thinking, according to him, is an expression of some mode of law. Heteronomy is an imposition of law upon man from the outside, as in the Churches of Rome and creedal Protestantism. Autonomy is a rebellion against heteronomy, and we are now in the midst of a disintegrating autonomous order. Theonomy is the essential principle of Protestantism, an eternal protest against any Church or creed, which claims to teach as a spokesman of God. Even Christ may not be viewed as a heteronomous authority who demands obedience nor may Christianity claim superiority over other religions as a religion. Kantian idealism, in the guise of Schelling’s romanticism, finds in Tillich its most prominent modern exponent.

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