We believe in the Holy Catholic Church. My contention would be that, apart from such a position as I desire to bring to your notice–some real apostolic belief in the real work of Jesus Christ–apart from that no Church can continue to exist. That is the point of view which I take at the outset. The Church is precious, not in itself, but because of God’s purpose with it. It is there because of what God has done for it. It is there, more particularly, because of what Christ has done, and done in history. It is there solely to serve the Gospel.
It is impossible not to observe at the present day that the Church is under a cloud. You cannot take any division of it, in any country of the world, without feeling that that is so. Therefore I will begin by making quite a bold statement; and I should be quite prepared, given time and opportunity, to devote a whole week to making it good. The statement is that the Church of Christ is the greatest and finest product of human history. It is the greatest thing in the universe. That is in complete defiance of the general view and tendency of society at the present moment. I say the Church is the greatest and finest product of human history; because it is not really a product of human history, but the product of the Holy Spirit within history. It stands for the new creation, the New Humanity, and it has that in trust.
The previous post in this series may be found here.
God has given us the analogy of marriage not merely as some sort of intellectual exercise, but as a means of coming to understand our relationship with God. Sibbes makes four applications, uses, which are to draw from an understanding the marriage between Christ an the church:
First, Sibbes offers an encouragement to the discouraged. A true saint will be understood not by an apparent perfection, but by a grief for sin. Anyone can appear moral and well-behaved. I imagine the Devil would have impeccable table manners and would offer up the largest gift to charity if it served his purpose. But there is something no Devil can do: repent. When Christian and Pliable are walking along early in Pilgrim’s Progress, they are identical: they both very much desire heaven. The distinction is that Christian feels his sin.
Moreover, a true believer can sin — even sin grievously.
The true distinction of a believer is a sorrow for sin; it is a sickness which never seems to stay away for long. Even are best moments are marred by sin.
And coming near to Christ then seems a terror to a stricken conscience. It is to this one that Sibbes makes the first application:
Use 1. Let us oft think of this nearness between Christ and us, if we have once given our names to him, and not be discouraged for any sin or unworthiness in us. Who sues a wife for debt, when she is married? Uxori lis non intenditur. Therefore answer all accusations thus:—‘Go to Christ.’ If you have anything to say to me, go to my husband.
He then explains this proposition from a different position. If Christ has paid all for our sin, what is left to be paid?
God is just, but he will not have his justice twice satisfied, seeing whatsoever is due thereunto is satisfied by Christ our husband. What a comfort is this to a distressed conscience! If sin cannot dismay us, which is the ill of ills and cause of all evil, what other ill can dismay us?
Sibbes makes another observation from the phrase “a weaker vessel”. This phrase is one of those propositions that seems especially foreign to our culture. But if we consider that the original is with God and the analogy is with us, we can see the purpose of the proposition:
He that exhorts us to bear with the infirmities one of another, and hath enjoined the husband to bear with the wife, as the weaker vessel, 1 Pet. 3:7, will not he bear with his church as the weaker vessel, performing the duty of an husband in all our infirmities?
The second application brings some hope. God does not merely love his weaker wife: he changes her. God does not love us because we are lovely, but he makes us lovely in loving us:
Use 2. Again, his desire is to make her better, and not to cast her away for that which is amiss. And for outward ills, they are but to refine, and make us more conformable to Christ our husband, to fit us for heaven, the same way that he went. They have a blessing in them all, for he takes away all that is hurtful, he pities and keeps us ‘as the apple of his eye,’ Zech. 2:8. Therefore, let us often think of this, since he hath vouchsafed to take us so near to himself. Let us not lose the comfort that this meditation will yield us. We love for goodness, beauty, riches; but Christ loves us to make us so, and then loves us because we are so, in all estates whatsoever.
The third use is to use this grace and goodness of God to draw us off from sin. We are kept from sin by use of means. As contemplate the goodness of this good husband, this perfect God who hates all sin and seeks to rescue us from sin, it transforms us.
Sibbes makes an interesting observation about human nature:
We are, as we affect;† our affections are, as their objects be. If they be set upon better things than ourselves, they are bettered by it.
We become the thing we love. As our affections are set on a thing, we are changed in the direction of that thing:
For the prime love, when it is rightly bestowed, it orders and regulates all other loves whatsoever.
Our love regulates all else. And so, and only when, our love is rightly set upon God in Jesus Christ is will our life be rightly ordered. We must labor to keep our affections in right order and set upon Christ alone. Only then will our life be rightly ordered:
In other things we lose our love, and the things loved; but here we lose not our love, but this is a perfecting love, which draws us to love that which is better than ourselves. We are, as we affect;† our affections are, as their objects be. If they be set upon better things than ourselves, they are bettered by it. They are never rightly bestowed, but when they are set upon Christ; and upon other things as they answer and stand with the love of Christ. For the prime love, when it is rightly bestowed, it orders and regulates all other loves whatsoever. No man knows how to use earthly things, but a Christian, that hath first pitched his love on Christ. Then seeing all things in him, and in all them, a beam of that love of his, intending happiness to him, so he knows how to use everything in order. Therefore let us keep our communion with Christ, and esteem nothing more than his love, because he esteems nothing more than ours.
We will know if Christ is truly our espoused if we submit our will and desires onto his (and you see how this matches with the sorrow a true believer feels when confronted with his own sin).
Finally, this knowledge of Christ as husband of the church should bring joy.
First, consider what a greatness it is to be brought into union with Christ: all things are ours (1 Cor. 3:21-23):
The excellency of this condition to be one with Christ, is, that all things are ours. For he is the King, and the church the Queen of all. All things are serviceable to us. It is a wondrous nearness, to be nearer to Christ, than the angels, who are not his body, but servants that attend upon the church. The bride is nearer to him than the angels, for, ‘he is the head and husband thereof, and not of the angels,’ Heb. 2:16. What an excellent condition is this for poor flesh and blood, that creeps up and down the earth here despised!
Second consider our need for Christ. Sin has created an infinite debt; what would we do without Christ’s provision:
But especially, if we consider the necessity of it. We are all indebted for more than we are worth. To divine justice we owe a debt of obedience, and in want of that we owe a debt of punishment, and we cannot answer one for a thousand. What will become of us if we have not a husband to discharge all our debts, but to be imprisoned for ever?
And let no one think that they have sinned beyond the mercy and grace of God, the merit of Christ’s death:
A person that is a stranger to Christ, though he were an Ahithophel for his brain, a Judas for his profession, a Saul for his place, yet if his sins be set before him, he will be swallowed up of despair, fearing to be shut up eternally under God’s wrath. Therefore, if nothing else move, yet let necessity compel us to take Christ.
Third, knowing the greatness, the goodness, the necessity of receiving from Christ let us be won over by his offer; let us renew our desire and come to him:
Consider not only how suitable and how necessary he is unto us, but what hope there is to have him, whenas he sueth to us by his messengers, and wooeth us, whenas we should rather seek to him; and with other messengers sendeth a privy messenger, his Holy Spirit, to incline our hearts. Let us therefore, as we love our souls, suffer ourselves to be won. But more of this in another place.
I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have gathered my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.’—Cant. 5:1.
This song is a mirror of Christ’s love, a discovery of which we have in part in this verse; wherein Christ accepts of the invitation of the church, and comes into his garden; and he entertains her with the terms of sister and spouse. Herein observe the description of the church, and the sweet compellation, ‘my sister, my spouse;’ where there is both affinity and consanguinity, all the bonds that may tie us to Christ, and Christ to us.
1. His sister, by blood.
2. His spouse, by marriage.
To begin with: the relationship sibling and spouse do not usually mix in our understanding. Therefore, before we go on, we must consider the nature of metaphors used to describe the relationship between Creator and Creature: the metaphors are used to draw out some aspect of the relationship: no single metaphor provides us a complete understanding. There are other images which are used to describe the relationship between God and his people. We pray “our Father”. The Lord refers to Israel as his bride in Hosea. Minear finds 95 images of the church in the New Testament. When reading a metaphorical description, take it for what it has been proposed — but don’t begin to cross-reference the images to find contradiction. Read them as partials images to provide a complementary whole.
Notice how Sibbes draws out five implications of Christ being our brother
First, the church as “sister”: this implies the image of Christ as “brother”. Christ is our brother, because he is a human being like us:
Christ is our brother, and the church, and every particular true member thereof, is his sister. ‘I go,’ saith Christ, ‘to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God,’ John 20:17. ‘Go,’ saith he, ‘and tell my brethren.’ This was after his resurrection. His advancement did not change his disposition. Go, tell my brethren that left me so unkindly; go, tell Peter that was most unkind of all, and most cast down with the sense of it. He became our brother by incarnation, for all our union is from the first union of two natures in one person. Christ became bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, to make us spiritually bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.
Second, Sibbes then turns this around: if Christ has become like us, let us become like him:
Therefore let us labour to be like to him, who for that purpose became like to us, Immanuel, God with us, Isa. 7:14; that we might be like him, and ‘partake of the divine nature,’ 2 Pet. 1:4. Whom should we rather desire to be like than one so great, so gracious, so loving?
Third, there is an interesting thing to consider in all of this. In Romans 8, Christ is said to been found “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3). He, “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.” Philippians 2:7 (NASB95) His becoming like us was a loss, a degradation. In John 17:5, Jesus prays to be restored to the glory which he had “before the world was”.
Despite this shame, he willingly took it on:
Again, ‘Christ was not ashamed to call us brethren,’ Heb. 2:11, nor ‘abhorred the virgin’s womb,’ to be shut up in those dark cells and straits; but took our base nature, when it was at the worst, and not only our nature, but our miserable condition and curse due unto us. Was he not ashamed of us? and shall we be ashamed to own him and his cause? Against this cowardice it is a thunderbolt which our Saviour Christ pronounceth, ‘He that is ashamed of me before men, him will I be ashamed of before my Father, and all the holy angels,’ Mark 8:38. It argues a base disposition, either for frown or favour to desert a good cause in evil times.
This has often struck me. He has every reason to be ashamed of me — I have no reason to be ashamed of him. I wonder if it is the shame of being found unworthy of his company; that I am not sufficiently like him to claim his friendship. How bizarre that to be ashamed of one so glorious.
Fourth, to have such a brother is a great encouragement
Again, It is a point of comfort to know that we have a brother who is a favourite in heaven; who, though he abased himself for us, is yet Lord over all. Unless he had been our brother, he could not have been our husband; for husband and wife should be of one nature. That he might marry us, therefore, he came and took our nature, so to be fitted to fulfil the work of our redemption. But now he is in heaven, set down at the right hand of God: the true Joseph, the high, steward of heaven; he hath all power committed unto him; he rules all. What a comfort is this to a poor soul that hath no friends in the world, that yet he hath a friend in heaven that will own him for his brother, in and through whom he may go to the throne of grace boldly and pour out his soul, Heb. 4:15, 16. What a comfort was it to Joseph’s brethren that their brother was the second person in the kingdom.
(While that would not likely how Richard Sibbes have thought it possible to sing of this happiness — it certainly expresses the encouragement we should feel)
Fifth, to know that Christ is the brother of the Church, is to know that Christ is the brother of every Christian. The sorrows carried by the Church in earth are known by their brother in heaven:
Again, It should be a motive to have good Christians in high estimation, and to take heed how we wrong them, for their brother will take their part. ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?’ Acts 9:4, saith the Head in heaven, when his members were trodden on upon earth. It is more to wrong a Christian than the world takes it for, for Christ takes it as done to himself. Absalom was a man wicked and unnatural, yet he could not endure the wrong that was done to his sister Tamar, 2 Sam. 13:1. Jacob’s sons took it as a high indignity that their sister should be so abused, Gen. 34. Hath Christ no affections, now he is in heaven, to her that is so near him as the church is? Howsoever he suffer men to tyrannise over her for a while, yet it will appear ere long that he will take the church’s part, for he is her brother.
There is yet one more implication related to this final point. Yes, the persecutor of the Church should think of the danger he incurs by provoking the brother of the Church. But the members of the Church should also take this heart. Sibbes has said that we should become like Christ. But too often the Christians have become very devils.
The slander, backbiting, unforgiving, judgmental, bitterness which infects congregations is a hideous black mark upon the church. Don’t these Christians realize that the brother or sister they are tearing apart with their tongue is a brother of Christ? Christ died for them, and we think ourselves better than one for whom Christ died?
In Psalm 50, God warns:
Psalm 50:19–21 (NASB95)
19“You let your mouth loose in evil
And your tongue frames deceit.
20“You sit and speak against your brother;
You slander your own mother’s son.
21“These things you have done and I kept silence;
You thought that I was just like you;
I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.
We can comfort ourselves with the thought that Psalm 50 refers only to unbelievers. But what of Matthew 18 and the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant? A servant who has been forgiven much by his master refused to forgive a fellow servant (remember that no one image exhausts the demonstration of our relationship to God). Here Christ applies the principle to all believers:
Matthew 18:31–35 (NASB95)
31“So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened.
32“Then summoning him, his lord *said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.
33‘Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’
34“And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him.
35“My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”
Remember that the other person in your congregation is a brother of Christ, a son of God. To mistreat him is to provoke the ire of God.
Proper leaders are marked by allegiance to God’s revealed word, which includes exhibit the holiness it enjoins. A claim to, or even possession of, a leadership role does not in itself invest authority. As we have seen elsewhere, pastor have significant authority; but this authority extends only so far as they conduct themselves in accord with Scripture. When leaders run counter to Scripture, church members must oppose them. Christ rules his church and does by means of Word taught and applied by church leaders.
Ray F. Van Neste, “The Church in the General Epistle,” in The Community of Jesus: A Theology of the Church, ed. Kendell H. Easley and Christopher W. Morgan (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2013), 148.
[As with everything, I reserve the right to correct this argument; it is like most things here, a draft]
In his history of early Christianity, Rodney Stark noted the following conclusion of those who have studied the mechanics of conversion (that is movement into some religious group to the point of identification):
By now dozens of close-up studies of conversion have been conducted. All of them confirm that social networks are the basic mechanism through which conversion takes place. To convert someone, you must first become that person’s close and trusted friend. But even your best friends will not convert if they already are highly committed to another faith. Clearly, these same principles applied as fully in the first century as in modern times.
Stark, Rodney. Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome (p. 13). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. In a recent interview, sociologist Harvey Whitehouse discussed the concept of a “fused” identification with a group — a level of relationship with the group which explains as an “intense form of cohesion”. Both of sources explain that the beliefs of the group become more important to the members after they join the group.
Whitehouse notes how rituals will introduce a person into a group and make them “fused” with that group. (There is the interesting tone of the article, in which the interviewer and the interviewed both seem to think themselves beyond this primitive act of belonging to some group; perhaps I am wrong, but the tone is there.) But why is this so? That Whitehouse concedes, “No one really knows.”
The fact that there is a sociology and mechanism by which one enters into a group and that such a pattern seems to be independent of the actual core commitments of that group (Whitehouse notes, “Fusion in football and religion really isn’t very different.”) could lead one to conclude that religion is thus arbitrary.
However, the fact of a mechanism does not tell us “why” (as Whitehouse acknowledges) rituals have an effect upon people. He can only see that they are useful to help form an identification with a group.
If Christianity is true (and I hold it is), then it must and can explain why this mechanism exists: Human beings were created for worship. When this worship is misdirected, the mechanisms for this worship will continue be active and fasten upon the wrong object. As Paul says in Romans 1, having abandoned worship of the Creator, human beings worship the creature. Rom. 1:25. Therefore, one can worship God or football.
That the mechanism misfires (such as when a person joins a dangerous cult and thereafter engages in crime), or overcharges something which does not deserve the attention (look at your social media and see the people absurdly over-invested in sports, entertainment or politics to the point that it becomes their identity and they reject other forms of cohesion, such as family, in favor of a political party), merely proves the importance of the biblical command, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
James K.A. Smith, in his book Desiring the Kingdom, argues that these mechanisms which form our identity are the mechanisms which direct ourselves and make them meaningful (in one direction or another):
a philosophical anthropology that recognizes that we are, ultimately, liturgical animals because we are fundamentally desiring creatures. We are what we love, and our love is shaped, primed, and aimed by liturgical practices that take hold of our gut and aim our heart to certain ends.
Smith, James K. A.. Desiring the Kingdom (Cultural Liturgies): Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (p. 40). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. The “liturgies” are the “rituals” which Whitehouse noted created the cohesion of the group.
Now, when we think of these liturgies, we must be careful not box them up to some special place — like a church. Political idolators have very few temples to attend. Sports only take place a limited number of times a year and yet adherents can be consumed in the off-season. The rituals or liturgies are all around us all the time.
As Richard Sibbes writes in The Spiritual Man’s Aim, “Religion meddles in all matters.” While he is referring specifically to Christianity as “religion” (and the word “meddle” in the 17th century did not indicate a busybody, but rather involvement with), his proposition is more broadly applicable: that thing which is our religion, that matter which forms our most basic commitments and gives us an identity in relationship to others will invest itself into all matters of our life.
A person who is nominally connected to some identity, such an occasional religious adherent may live a life utterly inconsistent with his religious pretensions. Such casual hypocrisy is everywhere realized. But there are other commitments which formative and which that person will not violate. When it comes to commitments and communities (if you will) which are the de facto positions of that society, the commitments will appear effectively invisible to the adherents. They will likely seem themselves as members of no group and “fused” with nothing other than their reason and individual existence.
It also then true that one’s relationship to the group will be critical to maintaining one’s position with the group — the de facto position of the broader society will create a sufficient gravity to pull one into the primary cultural commitments (the liturgies of the broader culture have the advantage of being everywhere always present; you could make a Marxist argument for reification of sorts).
When it comes to the Christian life, the presentation of Christ to the world in the life of the Church is the Church’s apologetic (as Francis Schaffer rightly said), and must be thereafter part of the process of maturation:
The invitation implicit in this story is not simply to an individual relationship with God (though that is one implication). The invitation is to become part of the new people of God, the bride of Christ. It suggests a spirituality with a much more communal orientation. Here is a spirituality in which we grasp the amazing dimensions of Christ’s love “together with all the saints” (Ephesians 3: 18). We model and embody God’s love for one another (1 John 4: 12). I have a relationship with God because we have a relationship with God. There are persons of God because there is a people of God.
Chester, Tim; Timmis, Steve. Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community (Re: Lit Books) (p. 149). Crossway. Kindle Edition. And:
We need to create church cultures in which it is normal and expected for everyone lovingly to confront and persuade everyone. As William Lane says, “The avoidance of apostasy demands not simply individual vigilance but the constant care of each member of the community for one another.” 2 Sin is deceitful (v. 13). It never presents itself as sin. It creeps up on us, camouflaged and reasonable: “Of course you have a right to be angry after what they did.” “Of course you ought to sleep together since you’re planning to get married.” “Of course you should have a drink with that man— you need some of the appreciation your husband never gives you.” Often we are the last to notice its deceit, but others can and often do. That is why being part of a gospel community is so vital.
Chester, Tim; Timmis, Steve. Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community (Re: Lit Books) (pp. 150-152). Crossway. Kindle Edition:
12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
Hebrews 3:12-13 (ESV).
In the Christian life, we have often seen how one first breaks with the church and then with the doctrine. There is a moral break, and then there is an intellectual “explanation”.
Now it is precisely here where Christianity must be clear that the relationship is not ultimately to one-another: the true “fused” relationship is with Christ:
Jesus’ call itself already breaks the ties with the naturally given surroundings in which a person lives. It is not the disciple who breaks them; Christ himself broke them as soon as he called. Christ has untied the person’s immediate connections with the world and bound the person immediately to himself. No one can follow Christ without recognizing and affirming that that break is already complete. Not the caprice of a self-willed life, but Christ himself leads the disciple to such a break
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 93. Bonhoeffer elsewhere explains that our relationship to one-another is a relationship to one-another in Christ: you and I related to Christ and thus to one-another.
And so, the observation of these sociologists describe something which was already inherent in Christianity: the need for a worshipping community, the Church to bring people into fellowship and to bring about maturity. As John writes in his first epistle:
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
1 John 1:1–4 (ESV)
Note:
The priority of life over intellectual adherence may sound odd or even wrong to a Christian, because Christianity is a religion of a very definitive doctrinal commitment (although many call themselves Christian without any commitment to any proposition). We must admit that the Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to create the Church. Yet, what does that Word command? Love God and love your neighbor (and yes the nature of the love is carefully laid out, it is not a vague emotion).
Jesus says that our love for one another will be both admission to the world of our being disciples of Jesus and a verification of Jesus’s claim to be Messiah. As important as doctrine is, we are not saved to become theologians (although all have a duty to be theologically sound, as this is necessary for maturity); we are saved for good works. Eph. 2:10
It is in the worshipping community that we come to understand the full depth of Christian thought and life. It is a thing which can only be rightly understood on the inside.
And, it is also the case that only the Holy Spirit’s operation on a person is sufficient to make that person find the Christian life and commitments sufficiently desirable that they will make the commitments and investment to become part of the Body of Christ. That is why “Church” mechanisms which rely upon attraction and flash and look little different than the attraction of a musical act or a sports team do not create actual Christian conversions. It may create an adherence to some local congregating group with the word “church” on the door (but often not); but it cannot create a member of the Body of Christ.
Collins lays down series of rules for his congregation, that they may not swerve or fail in the faith. The first rule is discussed here.
The second rule give my Collins is
Be very well rooted and established in the right that has been delivered to you.
When the roots do not go down deep, one can easily be swayed. “There are many Christians that, through their own itching ears and the heaping up of teachers to themselves, have never been root or established in the truth.”
One without depth, cannot distinguish. Without a true “sight” of Christ, one will follow after existing affections and ideas. Christianity entails an entire renewing of the mind (Rom. 12:1-2). Collins expresses it thus, “You must not only hear the things of God, but see them; the first will but blind you, or best leave you in great uncertainty; the last will settle you.” There must be renovation of one’s heart.
This will require effort — and an effort which begins by beseeching the Lord to be the teacher, “In order to have a heart established through grace, get the Lord himself by prayer to teach you every truth. What Jesus Christ teaches once is everlastingly taught; no word is abiding, but what the Lord Jesus himself teaches.”
Here we see the great duty and burden of the church. The duty of the gathered people is to create disciples: those who are rooted and grounded in the truth. The truth must shape thought, affections and action. It is the duty of leaders to lead others in the way of truth (Heb. 13:7) and then to give an account for such leadership (Heb. 13:17). The new Christian will easily wonder if left utterly alone. The church is given to bring about this depth of life.
Yes, every individual Christian has the duty to learn the things of God, to study, prayer, mediate, serve, et cetera. But God did not give his Word to be lived in isolation but in communion. This depth takes place among the gathered people of God.
John Collins, one of the Puritans who became unable to preach at the Great Ejectment (1662), delivered this sermon on Jude 3, “Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” In that sermon he sets out the rule
Bring all doctrines that offered you to believe and all the practices that are put upon you to practice to the test of the Scriptures, to the Word of God. Try them there, whether they are to be retained or to be rejected. You will thus discover what is right and what is wrong; and you have on the best part of your armor by which you contend against error.
This rule sets a duty upon the Christian “in the pew”. One is not to blindly follow leadership, nor accept every doctrine or practice merely because it is delivered. Someone might ask, but what about “unity”. There is political unity and there is unity in Christ. The unity of the Spirit will be completely consistent with the Scripture. A unity founded upon something is not Christian unity and a Christian has no duty to preserve such unity (to take extreme examples as illustrations, the Nazis and Maoists have some serious “unity”; but it is a monstrous, evil unity. Criminals robbing a bank have unity. Unity is neither good nor bad except for the basis of the unity.)
He states the rule simply, “All that is written you must believe, and you must believe nothing but what is written.
How then would someone try to take me off from the basis for the unity of Spirit? First, someone might say, “This is the practice of the ‘Church’.” As if the “Church” was an independent basis for the communication of God’s revelation. He then draws out the point:
No sober man will go against reason. No Christian will go against the Scripture; and no peaceable-minded man will go against the church. But then the church must shine by a Scripture-light. If that be a rule, it must be ruled by the Scripture. The church’s power is in not authoritative, as to give laws against the laws of Christ; it only ministerial. We believe the Scripture for itself, and not because of the church; we receive the Scripture by the church. Therefore, when we set up the name of a church, let us see whether that church walks in the way of Christ, whether she is his spouse or no, whether she acts according to his institutions, whether they bring his light, yea or no; then submit. For it is not what a church practices but what it is warranted to practice; not what it holds for truth, but what it is warranted to hold for truth.
This can be very deceptive — it is not the fact that the church professes such a thing: a group called a ‘church’ may profess and do all sorts of things. The Christian ‘church’ has done and professed all sorts of things that have no warrant in Scripture (and which are rejected by other Christian ‘churches’. The Scripture is only warrant for the Church’s doctrine and practice.
He then states two more deceptions. One is the claim, that this is the way our ‘fathers’ worshipped. This tack is not so prevalent in the West now, because we can easily move about.
The final one is actually a means which is very common in our culture, “this is the way the people now do it.” This is not only a matter of what other ‘churches’ profess or do — although such is an argument. We have gone a step further than Collins’ time, because now the church will take on believes and practices based upon the opinion of those who are not even claiming to be Christian.
(From Sermons of the Great Ejectment, Banner of Truth. An excellent volume; get it.)
Commenting on Colossians 1:18, “And he [Christ] is the head of the body, the church”, Thomas Manton writes:
[T]he church is the body. By the church is meant the church mystical, or all such as are called out of the world to be a peculiar people unto God. Now, these considered collectively or together, they are a body; but singly and separately, every believer is a member of that body: 1 Cor. 12:29, ‘Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.’ All the parts and members joined together are a spiritual body, but the several persons are members of that body. Yea, though there be many particular churches, yet they are not many bodies, but one body, so it is said, 1 Cor. 12:12, ‘As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.’ He is the head, and the many and divers members of the universal Christian church are but one body. The universal invisible church of real believers is one mystical body knit by faith to Christ, their head, and by love among themselves. And the visible universal church is one politic body, conjoined with Christ their head, and among themselves, by an external entering into covenant with God, and the serious profession of all saving truths. They have all the same king and head, the same laws—the word of God—the same sacraments of admission and nutrition, which visibly, at least, they subject themselves unto, and have a grant of the same common privileges in the gospel.
Thomas Manton collected works, volume 1, page 454, Christ’s Eternal Existence and Dignity of her Person, sermon v.
Gerald Bray asks, If anyone can buy a Bible and read, why preaching?
…the Bible, like any other aspect of the visible church, can be read and studied without any appreciation of the spiritual dimension to which it bears witness.
This is where preachers come in. They are men sent by God to bring his Word alive in the world. Their purpose is not merely to teach what the Bible says, thought that is important, but to challenge their hearers to receive that teaching in their hearts. A sermon is not a lecture but a plea to us to hear and submit to the authority of the Word of God. The problem with ancient Israel was not that they had not heard that Word but that it had not submitted to it in humble obedience. Unfortunately, what was true of them is also true of many people today because true preachers (as opposed to lecturers and pulpit entertainers) are few and their message is neglected. The true preacher is a man filled with the Spirit of God, who can bring his Word alive in that Spirit. As the fire in him spreads to those who hear him, the dry wood is set alight, and men and women come to know the power of The Lord Jesus Christ in their lives.
When this happens, the conversion of individuals leads to the creation of the new community that we call the church. Fire can exist only its own, but only for a time because eventually it will grow cold and be extinguished. Individual sparks need to find the full body of the blaze to which they can contribute and from which they will draw new life. That fire and that life can be found in the visible institutions which we call “the church,” but the two things are not identical. When we are alive in the Spirit, we live in the visible church but we see beyond it, knowing that our true home, and indeed the true Church of God is the spiritual body, which the Spirit’s heavenly fire brings to life in the world.
memoirandremains 