TPW 32 The 16th Century Reformation of Ecclesiology

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It's sinful for us to be divided from one another, for Christians to be divided from one another. And if everyone would just study the
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Bible and read it carefully, we'd all be Presbyterians. So I'm not, it's not, the problem is not me, it's everybody else.
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To post the sermon
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I preached on Reformation Sunday, on the reformation of biblical ecclesiology, the doctrine of the
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Church. Very very important theological biblical topic is our doctrine of ecclesiology.
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That's from the Greek term ekklesia, your doctrine of the Church in terms of systematic theology is the ecclesiology that you hold to.
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And the Reformation really had to respond to the erroneous ecclesiology of the
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Roman Catholic religion and put forward the biblical doctrine of the one holy universal and apostolic
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Church along with the marks of the Church. But I wanted to post this because I think this is vitally important.
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I think it is vital, especially for parents to be teaching this doctrine to their children, to covenant children, because I really do think that as covenant children are growing up now, that they are going to really find it difficult, if things don't change, they're going to find it very difficult to find a church to be part of that loves the gospel and that hasn't capitulated to all of the gay stuff going on right now, and actually holds to the biblical gospel and calls people to repentance of all sin, and preaches
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Christ and Him crucified as the only way of salvation, and administers the sacraments biblically and accurately, and holds to Sola Scriptura and biblically regulated worship.
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So I hope that you will find this edifying. Let's pray for God's blessing on our time and His word, please.
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Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have breathed forth to us, to your church, your will for our salvation and our understanding our duty in this life.
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We pray that you would help us understand the many passages we're going to look at this morning, that we might have a correct and biblical doctrine of the church, and that we might pass that on to the rising generations as it is so vital to their lives and to their future in this world to understand it.
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We pray you'd help us now to that end. In Jesus' name, amen. Please take your Bibles and turn, please, to Matthew 16, since it's a reformation
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Sunday. Going to speak on the issue of ecclesiology, the issue of the church.
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What is the church? What is the doctrine of the church and the great work that was done by the
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Protestant reformers in helping to recover this blessed truth? Matthew 16, verses 13 through 19 will be our scripture reading.
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Matthew 16, verses 13 through 19. This is God's word. Now when
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Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, who do people say that the
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Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist and others Elijah, but still others,
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Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, you are the
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Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus said to him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my
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Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
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I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.
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May God bless the reading of His infallible word. The Lord Jesus told
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Peter, as we just read there at Caesarea Philippi, these wonderful words assuring the existence and indestructibility of His church through all succeeding ages of time.
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He said, and I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
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While the gates of hell have not and will not ever prevail against the church of Jesus Christ, the church has always been the special target of the concerted hatred of the hosts of hell and the enemies of God, from the day that Cain killed
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Abel to the day that Ishmael mocked and threatened Isaac, to the day the church was reduced to eight people in the ark, to the day that only 7 ,000 faithful Israelites remained in the days of Ahab and Jezebel when
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Elijah thought he was the only believer left, to the days that Josiah tore his robes at the reading of the rediscovered book of the law, to the days when our brothers and sisters were, in a mocking fashion, turned into human candles to light the evil
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Emperor Nero's garden parties, to the days in which Athanasius stood against the world in defense of the full deity of Christ, to the days in which
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Christ followers retreated into the Alps and lived uninfluenced by papal
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Rome for centuries until the Piedmont Valley was at last breached by the Pope's armies where they massacred the peaceful Christian men, women, and children who lived there in the
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Middle Ages, to the morning star of the Reformation in John Wycliffe who denounced the Roman Curia as a synagogue of Satan and spurred the
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Roman mass as a blasphemy all the way to Luther, to Calvin, to the Puritans, and et cetera.
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Church history is the story of Jesus building and refining his glorious church in all the world.
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We all need to ask this question. Why are we here today in this room right now as repentant believers in Christ alone?
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Why do we have a church where the one true gospel is still loved and believed and preached?
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Why? Because Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
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We are a living testimony to that truth, to the fact that he has built this church, that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
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Try as they may, the gates of hell will never stop the forward progress of the church in this world.
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We are proof of this. The great hymn, my favorite hymn of all time, The Church's One Foundation, has two memorable verses which speak directly to this issue.
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Those stanzas read, though with a scornful wonder men see her sore oppressed, by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed, yet saints their watch are keeping, their cry goes up, how long?
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And soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song. Mid toil and tribulation and tumult of her war.
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Do you realize that? We are at war. The day you became a Christian, you entered into God's army to be at war with the world, with the unbelief, with your own sinful nature.
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Mid toil and tribulation and tumult of her war, she waits the consummation of peace forevermore.
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Till with the vision glorious, her longing eyes are blessed, and the great church victorious shall be the church at rest.
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We've covered in this church the doctrine of justification by faith alone and the doctrine of sola scriptura fairly thoroughly over the past several years.
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In fact, mention was made of the great revival, the great revival of 1741.
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You know what ignited that revival? Jonathan Edwards preached 12 sermons on justification. 12 sermons on justification, and this country was never the same since.
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But there's another great doctrine that was in dire need of reformation in the 16th century that's often overlooked today, and it's the doctrine of ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church.
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What is a church? What is the church? What is the biblical teaching on the nature of the church?
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What is meant when scripture says there's one church for which Christ died? In Ephesians 5 .25,
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that great admonition to husbands. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church. What does that mean?
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And gave himself for her. What does that mean? Because this precious doctrine of the church has been overlooked in our time, and it has been overlooked in our time, badly by Protestant churches, badly by the
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Reformation churches. So much so that many people that used to be in our ranks have left for the barren wastelands of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy over the past few decades.
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Book after book after book has come out from apostates, people that no longer believe the true gospel, who have left biblical churches for those false churches.
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Understanding biblical ecclesiology, biblical church, what does that mean, is essential for us.
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And it's essential for our covenant children to know what is a church. How do you figure out where you're going to go to church?
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Lord willing, if you grow up, if you get married, if you end up moving away from here, how do you find a church?
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How do you understand that? What is the most important thing about that? What do we mean when the scripture says that there's the church at Corinth, the church at Rome, the church at Thessalonica?
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Those are talking about specific local gatherings of believers and their children. They are together a local church.
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When the Reformation of the 16th century happened, and it became clear that the hierarchy of the
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Roman Catholic religion and the papacy were not going to be corrected by scripture for their many errors, one great doctrine that came into the foreground was the biblical doctrine of the church.
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In the ancient church of the first few centuries after Christ, as the church dealt with deadly errors concerning the person of Christ and the doctrine of God, they published creeds to refute those heresies.
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Contained in those creeds were affirmations concerning the attributes of the Christian church. What was called in church history books the old
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Roman symbol, which eventually became called the Apostle's Creed, a reference was made to the holy church.
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The Apostle's Creed itself, we confess, I believe in the holy Catholic or universal church.
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The Nicene Creed of AD 325 speaks of the Catholic and apostolic church.
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The Council of Constantinople in 381, there you find the first use of all four of those great biblical attributes together in one creed.
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They confess one holy Catholic and apostolic church. Christians have always believed in the church and have confessed together for hundreds of years, for century after century, we believe in one holy
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Catholic and apostolic church. All four of those attributes are appropriate descriptions of Jesus' church.
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And I've given you an outline there in your bulletin, and we're gonna look at each one of those in succession. The church's oneness is the first thing, if you'd like to look on your outline there in your bulletin.
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The church's oneness, and I've given you all the key passages there. I would encourage you, parents, teach this stuff to your kids.
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This is no mere academic egghead exercise we're talking about here. It is absolutely essential that covenant children know what a church is and know how to pick one and know how to decide if they're gonna be part of one or not.
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First of all, the church's oneness, it needs to be said that, tragically and sadly, the church in this world hardly looks to be one in the visible sense.
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It must be said, however, that institutional uniformity, as we see somewhat in the
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Roman Catholic religion and the Eastern churches, is not what Jesus intended when he said in John 10, 16, there will be one flock and one shepherd.
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You realize this, of course, if you're a Christian, we believe in how many churches? One. I, as a
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Presbyterian minister, believe that there is only one church in this world, one. There is one flock and one shepherd,
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Jesus. In John 17, Jesus prayed, I don't pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one.
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As you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us. So there are not, in the ultimate sense, multiple churches on Earth.
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There is one flock and one shepherd. And what the Lord Jesus prayed that his disciples, when he prayed that they would be one, that is fulfilled.
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That's not something he was really hoping would take place. That is fulfilled in the baptism of every person in the
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Holy Spirit into the one body. Galatians 3, 28, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free.
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There is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Denominational labels aside, those who know
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Christ and have been brought into the one church, we are all one in Christ Jesus.
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So please remember this. Jesus was not praying for the oneness of his disciples as if he was really hoping it would work out that way.
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So often, John 10, 16 and John 17, 20 are misused by people.
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Young people, you need to know about this, how these passages are misused a lot.
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They've been misused a lot in recent decades by people in an attempt to bring about unity at the expense of truth.
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When our Lord prayed for unity, that request is fulfilled perfectly in the unity of God's people in the gospel and in their all being indwelt by the
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Holy Spirit. They are one and they've never been anything other than one. They are one and that they know and believe the one true gospel and are saved by that gospel.
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There is a glorious unity to the body of Christ on earth in that sense. However, anytime you hear people clamoring for unity between groups that don't agree on the gospel, that is a false unity.
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That's happened many times in recent decades. The Evangelicals and Catholics Together document said that all of Christ's disciples, whether they're
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Protestant or Catholic, are violating the unity that Christ intended for all his disciples.
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But you see, unity that is not based on the true gospel is not unity at all. It's false unity.
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It is a lie. While true believers may be divided sadly across denominational lines, they are all one in Christ Jesus and in the gospel.
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There is a oneness to all of Jesus' disciples in the world. And I know that we all could tell stories.
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I wasn't raised in Presbyterian circles. I was raised in evangelical fundamentalist churches. And yet my basic core beliefs about how
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I'm getting to heaven and who Jesus is and how he saved me is still very much the same. It's always been
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Christ alone. It's always been justification by faith alone. And yet visible divisions, folks, you need to know this.
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They go as far back as the churches founded by the apostles themselves in the New Testament.
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When people tell you, hey, for 1 ,000 years, there was only one church, and then you had this east -west schism. And then the western church, they're all one until you get to the 16th century, and then you have a billion
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Protestant denominations. They all come up. Folks, the churches that were founded by the apostles had denominational factions in them already.
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You see it in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 1 .10, Paul said to the church in Corinth, now that was a church that had a lot of problems.
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He said to them, now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly together in the same mind and the same judgment.
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For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe's household, that there are contentions among you.
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Now I say this, that each of you says, I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, or I am of Christ.
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Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? Denominationalism hardly began with Protestantism, folks.
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It hardly began with Protestantism. Unity ought to be labored for by all believers.
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Yes, we should labor for unity. We should not be content to be divided from other Christians. And if we can't put theological differences on the table and be teachable, then we are directly disobeying
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God's expressed commands to us. Paul said, and the Holy Spirit of God speaking through him, to all churches of all ages,
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I plead with you, brethren, by the name of Jesus Christ, that there be no divisions among you.
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It's sinful for us to be divided from one another, for Christians to be divided from one another. And if everyone would just study the
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Bible and read it carefully, we'd all be Presbyterians. So the problem is not me, it's everybody else.
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But seriously, in all seriousness, we shouldn't sweep differences aside. We should be willing to talk about differences that we have with other true believers, not sweep them aside, but put them on the table.
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Brother, what do you think about this? How do you understand this? And take me to the key passages, let me be teachable.
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Let me listen to what you believe, and then you listen to what I believe. Let's see who can go to the text of Scripture and exegete the text and be faithful to the context.
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We should be able to do that. And through the centuries and through the years, Christians have done that fairly well.
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Despite those divisions, as sad as they are, there still is a oneness to Christ's followers in this world, regardless of the denominational labels that they wear.
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I've met Christian people from many, many different Protestant denominations over the years. And at the end of the day, really, what
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I wanna know is what are you trusting in for eternal life? What is your hope based on that you're reconciled to God?
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If it's Christ alone, and you're trusting only in him, then we are brothers and sisters in the
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Lord. The second attribute of the church is holiness, holiness. Here is one that is vitally important, and it's not practiced well today.
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The church's holiness, Ephesians 5, 25. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
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Holiness, not just in the legal and judicial or forensic sense, like in our justification, but also personal sanctification and righteousness is what
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Jesus Christ came to accomplish in his church. There is no possibility that the true church of Jesus Christ, the truly born again and justified flock in this world, could fail to exhibit real holiness to the world.
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It's impossible that the church would not be holy, that it would not be more righteous.
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A worldly church is a contradiction in terms and is a denial of the power of God to change people from rebels into loyal, adopted children who long to serve
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Christ. When Jesus prayed that great high priestly prayer, John 17, that gold mine of Christian truth, he prayed in John 17, 15.
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I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. Listen, they are not of the world.
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Jesus is saying that. That is an indicative statement about his disciples in the world.
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They are not of the world. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
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Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world,
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I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth.
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There's no such thing as a Christian who is of the world. He prayed for all his future disciples and said about them, you are not of the world.
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Sanctify them in your truth, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. All of God's people have been set apart for God and are in the process of being conformed to the image of Christ in true righteousness and holiness.
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The church's holiness will never be perfect in this life. But it is nonetheless a real holiness.
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All who truly know Christ in this world, folks, will be holy. Everyone who knows Jesus will be holy.
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This is the primary reason the New Testament speaks in such strong terms of the need for discipline among the members of local churches.
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Why is church discipline an essential mark of the church? Because the church has to be holy.
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Church membership is a great privilege, even though it is often difficult, because when you get a lot of sinners together in close proximity to one another, what tends to happen?
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Sin, people offend each other, people hurt each other's feelings. But a true Christian whose first priority is the sanctity of Christ's name will be quick to listen, slow to speak, and not easily provoked.
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True Christians ought to be self -sacrificial and willing to defer to one another and admit wrongdoing to one another.
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Part of the church's holiness is its willingness and readiness to forgive and to restore one another.
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We must be slow to wrath, folks. You know why? Because our God is. We must be quick to listen, willing to forgive, ready to pardon, just like God is towards us.
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So that's the church's holiness. The church cannot be just like the world. If the church looks just like the world, there can only be one reason behind it, because the professing church is not converted.
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The professing church doesn't know Christ. So the church is one, and it's holy. Thirdly, the church's catholicity, or universal nature, the church's catholicity.
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This is different from oneness, in that the church is the universal church, socially and continuously.
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Churches which seek to have as members, folks, only a certain color of skin, a certain education or income level, or nationality, are guilty of violating this principle, this attribute.
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The Christian church dealt with this specific issue primarily in the issue of Jews and Gentiles. The one church is universal or Catholic.
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It crosses all national, linguistic, and ethnic lines. Gentiles who came to Christ did not have to become
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Jews, or act like Jews, or obey the dietary restrictions of Jews, in order to have all the privileges of membership in a local church.
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And that took a lot of writing in the New Testament to get that across to people, so they knew this. This was always one of the great strengths of the gospel, folks.
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It united the most unlikely people with one another. People who otherwise would never have had anything to do with each other.
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The gospel brings them all together. The gospel continues to do this today.
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Remember the way the church is described in scripture in Revelation 5, 9. And they sang a new song, saying, you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain.
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And have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.
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And have made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on the earth. The church crosses all languages, borders, ethnicities, and skin colors.
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It is universal. And there are many Christian people in this world who look real different from us, are very different from us in the way they express themselves, in the way that they worship.
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But in that we're one in the gospel, there is a universal nature to the one church of Jesus Christ.
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Fourthly, the church's apostolicity, the church's apostolic. What does that mean?
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Only conformity to the apostles doctrine guarantees that our churches are apostolic.
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I hope that you will remember what I just said. Only conformity to the apostles doctrine guarantees that our churches are apostolic.
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Folks, our understanding of this attribute is real different from Rome and Constantinople's definition of it.
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Is Bredwell Heights Presbyterian Church an apostolic church? Can we say that we are an apostolic church?
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Jesus said in Matthew 1040, he who receives you, said this to his apostles, he who receives you, receives me.
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And he who receives me, receives him who sent me. In Luke 1016, Jesus said to his apostles, he who hears you, hears me.
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He who rejects you, rejects me. And he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me. In John 1320,
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Jesus said, most assuredly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send, receives me.
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And he who receives me, receives him who sent me. Folks, how do we know if we have received the apostles and hear the apostles?
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There's only one answer to that, only if we listen to what they wrote in scripture. That's how we know if we are an apostolic church or not.
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Everything in the New Testament was written by an apostle or under apostolic oversight. And while we value greatly the writings of great theologians through the centuries, there is no substitute for adherence to the doctrine of the apostles.
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Remember when the New Testament church first began to explode in numbers at Pentecost? It says of those early Christians, after thousands were baptized and brought into the church, it says in Acts 2 .42,
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and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers.
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This commitment, this continuing steadfastly, that means immovably to the apostles' doctrine, that must continue today as well.
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We are only an apostolic church if we continue in the apostles' doctrine.
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If a church doesn't do that, the church ceases to be apostolic, it ceases to be biblical.
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And a church can only be apostolic if it follows the apostles' doctrine. And the only existing source of the apostles' doctrine is what?
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Scripture, the Bible. And this is why the one great battle cry of the Reformation was sola scriptura.
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If we would be an apostolic church, we must look for the apostles' doctrine and the only source from whence it can be derived, that is the scriptures and no other source.
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If we want to be apostolic, we have to hold tenaciously to the precious doctrine of sola scriptura.
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When that all important doctrine is abandoned, the church devolves into superstition and into every kind of false doctrine and idolatry.
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All churches are to heed what the scripture itself asserts on this matter. Ephesians 2 .20 says about the church, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
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Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. How can we know for sure if our church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, only by adhering to, obeying, and believing what the apostles and the prophets taught?
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And the only place we can know what the apostles and prophets taught is the holy scriptures. Do you see why the reformers, it wasn't just sloganeering, sola scriptura.
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We're just protesting because we're honoring obnoxious and want to protest. It was, if we would be biblical, if we would be apostolic, if we would be the church that God wants us to be, we have to go to the only source of God -breathed truth that there is.
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The only source of the apostles and prophets doctrine that we have, the scripture. Now the
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Roman Catholic religion, their understanding of these four attributes, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, was not biblical.
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The papacy as we know it today really began to appear around 590 AD with the reign of Pope Gregory I.
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The papacy's rise to power in Europe was bitterly contested at every single step of the way by the rest of the church.
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But the high point of papal power came in the Middle Ages, in the 11th through the 13th centuries.
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As more and more temporal and spiritual power was consolidated into the papacy, the church of the
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Middle Ages came to be regarded less, listen, less as those who profess faith in Christ with their children and became more of an external, visible, and temporal hierarchical structure comprised of priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and finally the
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Pope himself. Those four biblical attributes, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, they came to be understood institutionally.
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Institutionally. The church's oneness was defined by Rome in the Middle Ages and on the eve of the
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Reformation in terms of the church's submission to the Pope as the one vicar of Christ in the world.
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That was what the church's oneness was. The bishops that ordained your priest, they were in communion with the bishop of Rome.
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That's what made the church one to them. The church's holiness was said to be both the holiness of the grace invested in the sacraments, particularly in the mass, and conveyed from the altar by the priesthood.
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So it was no longer a holiness of the lives of God's people being set apart and sanctified.
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It was the holiness of the grace that was invested in and channeled to the people through their priests and their altar.
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The church's catholicity was affirmed by Rome only because the church dominated
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Europe. It was the one grand institution. And so wherever you found that institution and bishops in communion and priests in communion with that institution, that was the universal church rather than being made up of those who know
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Christ. And then fourthly, the church's apostolicity came in the
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Roman Catholic religion on the eve of the Reformation to manifest expression in terms of the apostolic authority of the
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Pope, which he purportedly gained through direct apostolic succession from Peter by virtue of his sitting on Peter's throne.
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Roman Catholic theologian Ludwig Ott wrote this, quote, In the unbroken succession of the bishops from the apostles, the apostolic character of the church most clearly appears.
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You hear that? They really do believe they can trace the ordinations of their priests back to bishops and can trace their way all the way back to one of the apostles.
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Ludwig Ott, the Catholic theologian, continues, It is sufficient to point to the apostolic succession of the
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Roman church because the Roman bishop is the head of the whole church and vehicle of the infallible doctrinal power thereof.
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End quote. When the Reformation began to break away from these false notions, since the institutionalized
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Roman Catholic religion was not open to being corrected by Scripture, the churches of the
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Reformation immediately began to be attacked by Rome for not being true churches.
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They said, You guys have left us. You guys have left the churches founded by the apostles, ordained through successions of bishops all the way down to today.
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You guys are now outside of the church. You are on your own. Because Rome misunderstood the attributes of the church in an almost exclusively institutional and external manner.
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Their basic belief was this. If you are not in communion with the Pope, your churches are not one holy
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Catholic or apostolic. Having misunderstood and misapplied all four attributes, they condemned the churches of the
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Reformation and said that our churches, that we were heretics, that we were schismatics, that we had left the one church founded by Christ.
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And because of these attacks, the Reformers studied the biblical doctrine of ecclesiology, the biblical doctrine of the church in great detail, in much more depth than had ever been done.
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And they came to see what we know today as the marks of the church. And I've got that there in your bulletin as well, if you'd like to follow this part.
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The Protestant Reformers could see right away as they searched the Scriptures that the Roman Catholic religion had interpreted the church, listen to me, in an entirely static way.
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A static way. Let me explain what I mean by that. That's extremely important. The Bible presents us with marks of the church, namely things that the church is actively doing week in and week out.
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You see, for Rome, it was, if the person who holds this particular chair of authority can trace their ordination back to one of the apostles, that's a bishop who's in communion with the one true church.
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If he ordained your priest, you're good to go. You're in a church, regardless of what that church teaches or says.
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You see, it really doesn't matter if you could trace historically that your pastors were ordained by a direct line of succession all the way back to the apostles themselves.
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Even if you could pull that off, let's say that one of them could come in here and demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the bishop that ordained their priest can trace their ordination all the way back to one of the apostles and they could prove it.
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That doesn't guarantee that what those people teach is what the apostles taught. Even if you could pull it off, and I've told these folks for years and years,
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I've been fighting with them on the internet for years and years and years, I don't care who ordained your priest.
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I don't care who ordained who and who ordained this guy or that guy. If they don't teach what the apostles taught, your church is not apostolic.
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And so the Bible does present us with the idea of apostolic succession, folks, but not an apostolic succession of authority or office, but an apostolic succession of truth.
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I want you to turn to this passage with me. Look at 2 Timothy 2, verses one and two. Folks, parents with covenant children, adults that have any influence over younger kids, teach these two verses to them.
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2 Timothy 2, verses one and two. Please, please make sure that the covenant children of this church and the covenant grandchildren that you may have understand this.
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2 Timothy 2, verses one and two. Listen carefully to this God -breathed portion of Holy Scripture.
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Paul says to Timothy, 2 Timothy 2, verse one. You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus and the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
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Now you need to read that over and over and over again. What is Paul passing on to Timothy here?
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His office as an apostle? No. Is he passing on to him some kind of authoritative position that he then is to transmit to someone else?
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No. What Paul passed on and what has been passed on to us here is this. You see it in the passage?
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The things you have heard from me. In other words, the faith, the doctrines of Scripture.
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It is these truths that Timothy is to commit himself to faithful men who will also commit them to others.
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We are called upon to disciple others, to commit the things we have heard and been taught, the doctrines that we know from the apostles to faithful people who will commit them to others.
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My sincerest hope, and I know every parent here, your sincerest hope is that you will communicate successfully the gospel and the doctrines of Scripture to your children and that when you are older,
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Lord willing, if they get married and have children, you will see them doing family devotions. You will hear them passing the faith on to their children.
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You will see them faithful to their local church. You will see them doing what the apostle Paul did here for Timothy and what he commissioned
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Timothy to do for others. Folks, do you see why? The Protestant reformer said, it doesn't matter if you can trace ordinations all the way back to the apostles.
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We don't look for an organic apostolic succession of office. We look for an apostolic succession of the things that were heard from the apostles to Timothy and then passed on to others.
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What is it that we do? We pass on the doctrines. We pass on the faith, not an office, but the faith itself.
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So we do believe in apostolic succession and an apostolic succession of doctrine, not office.
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The reformation could see that the four attributes were indeed biblical and correct, not as Rome taught them, but as the scriptures teach them.
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But there was something more. The church of Jesus Christ is manifested, not just in those biblical attributes, one, holy,
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Catholic, and apostolic, but also the church can be seen by what it does and what it is actively engaged in.
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Remember I told you, the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, they define their church, whether or not your local parish is a true church, they define it in static terms.
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If you're in communion with this guy who was ordained by this guy, you're good to go, you're in a church. The reformer said, no, it actually varies from week to week.
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If you are engaged in and are doing what the scriptures command the church to do, then you are a church.
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And so it's not a static definition, it's a dynamic definition. There are so many groups today which claim to be churches.
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How can we know which ones are true churches and which ones are not? And this is a critical point I hope everyone here will understand fully.
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The church in the Bible cannot be understood primarily in static terms. It is not a bare institution of offices traceable to the time of the apostles.
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The church in the Bible is what it is because of its attributes and its marks, namely by what it actively is doing.
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Did you notice that when we confessed that chapter from the Westminster Confession? I want to, let me explain this to you. I want you to get this.
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Chapter 25 says, the Catholic church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less visible.
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And particular churches which are members thereof, listen, are more or less pure according as the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced.
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You see how that's talking about the actions of the church, what the church is actively doing. The ordinances, that's the sacraments, baptism of the
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Lord's supper, as they are faithfully administered, what the church is doing and see public worship performed more or less purely in them.
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This is the clear teaching of scripture. Remember the letters that Jesus had dictated to the seven churches there in Revelation two and three.
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He would commend them for certain things and then he would tell them what they were doing wrong. When the churches of Galatia were toying with the false gospel,
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Paul was clear to them that if they embrace that doctrine, if they embrace that false doctrine, it doesn't matter who ordained who, it doesn't matter who planted this church or that church, they will cease to be considered within the kingdom of God.
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There is no sense at all in scripture, none, that if an apostle founded your church and ordained your bishop, you're good to go, you're a true church.
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You're only a true church as long as the true gospel is being preached in that place and the sacraments are administered correctly in that place and church discipline is administered in that place.
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The idea that you're a church, if the apostle founded you and one of your bishops was ordained by one of the apostles, that is no part of divine revelation in scripture.
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In fact, Paul even said to the Galatian churches that if he himself or another apostle comes and contradicts the message that he preached, that person is under God's curse.
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A church's status as a true church of Christ was based upon the level of ongoing and active faithfulness to the teachings of scripture, the teachings of the apostles and the purity of the worship of God.
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That's what the reformers saw in scripture. It's not a matter of which bishops your local church is in fellowship with, but rather is the doctrine of the gospel taught and embraced there.
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You realize if this church suddenly decided to embrace the federal vision and added works to the gospel, we lose our status as a church.
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The day that's preached, the day that's taught here is a day we're not a church anymore. In the biblical sense, we would cease to be a church that day and we would become a synagogue of Satan, no matter how many of you were here.
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And so it's based on the accuracy of the gospel that's taught there, the ordinances that are administered there, are they administered according to scripture?
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And is the worship of God regulated by scripture in those places? Those are the things that determine whether or not you are in a true church.
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And that's what our young people need to know. That's what they need to have in their thinking so that they evaluate churches biblically and not according to musical tastes or anything like that, or how many pumpkin spice lattes they give them.
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The reformers pointed to two basic marks of the church in addition to the four attributes. The right preaching of the gospel and the word of God, the right administration of the sacraments, and eventually they added a third, church discipline.
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Now I want you to think about these three things. These are the marks of a church. These are the active, ongoing, dynamic marks of a true church.
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Number one, the right preaching of the word of God and the gospel. The Holy Spirit of God breathed forth the following soul -stirring charge, not just to Timothy, but to all ministers of the gospel who would ever live.
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Weigh this carefully in your mind. Seminary students, weigh this in your mind too. One of the last things Paul wrote before he died,
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I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead that is appearing in his kingdom.
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I can't think of a more frightening way to preface what you're going to say than that. Preach the word.
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Be ready in season and out of season. Convicts, rebuke, exhort with all long -suffering and teaching for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.
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The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.
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But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
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And I say to you and to Roman Catholicism and to any other religion out there that pretends to be
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Christianity, to anyone else listening, to any pastor whoever hears this, if in your building that wears that label,
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C -H -U -R -C -H, if those things are not happening, then you don't have a church where the word of God is not read, labored over, exposited, accurately interpreted, preached, taught, applied and embraced.
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I don't care how many generations backward we can trace ordinations, that place is not a church.
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The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is the place where the ministry of the word is heard every single week, every single time without fail.
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And if it doesn't, you may have had a gathering of Christian people. You may have had an emotional experience of some kind.
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You may have heard a motivational speech and some sentimental stories that drew some tears from your eyes and pulled at your heartstrings.
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But where the word of God and the gospel are not actively week in and week out being preached, that place is not in any biblical sense of the word, a church.
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Amen? The Lord Jesus said in John 8, 31, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
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In John 14, 23, he said, if anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. And the apostle
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Paul was so forcefully in favor of the idea of the truth of the gospel trumping apostolic authority that he told the
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Galatian churches in Galatians 1, 8, but even if we, you know that the antecedent of we is there?
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If I come back, if an angel from God comes to you, if another apostle comes back here and says something different from the gospel we preached to you, may they be damned on the spot.
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You think Paul would be okay with the idea? Well, as long as you can trace your ordination back, it doesn't matter what they teach. Of course not.
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Forget the idea of apostolic succession of office. These people, these Galatian churches, they were warned by the
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Holy Spirit speaking through Paul's letter to them that if Paul himself comes back and tells them something different, may he be damned to hell on the spot.
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It's pretty strong stuff. Galatians 1, 6 through 8, 6 through 9. The fact is people can claim and can prove all day long to me that their pastors can trace their ordinations, their priests can trace their ordinations all the way back to the apostles.
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I could not possibly care less. If those people don't teach what the apostles taught,
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I don't care if the apostles themselves or an angel from heaven tells me something of other words, you shouldn't listen to them.
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Secondly, the right administration of the sacraments. In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul gives detailed instructions on how the
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Lord suffers to be observed in the church. And baptism is likewise a definitional mark of the Christian people.
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The Lord Jesus instituted baptism when he gave his great commission. He commanded us to go and do it. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the
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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The right preaching of the gospel, the right administration of the sacraments for a church to be a true
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Christian church, it must be actively engaged in these activities. And then finally, the third mark, church discipline.
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Why are local churches often attacked and scorned as judgmental, bigoted or self -righteous? Because they actually require their members to be repentant believers who seek to follow
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Christ in the way they live their lives. That's not new. The church is always supposed to be doing that. Remember, one of the attributes of the church is what?
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Holy. The church is holy. It's supposed to be different from the world. The New Testament is filled with very serious, very strict admonitions to purge unrepentant wicked people from the church.
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Listen carefully to Jesus concerning a sinning brother who refuses to repent, Matthew 18, 17. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church.
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But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him beat you like a heathen and a tax collector. Paul told the
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Galatian churches, Galatians 6 .1, Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual, by the way, that means a believer, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted.
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Paul in 1 Corinthians 5 .13 said, put away from yourself the evil person. He also said earlier in that same chapter,
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I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world or with the covetous or with extortioners or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
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But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother anyone who says they're a
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Christian who is sexually immoral or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even to eat with such a person.
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That's very unpopular today, folks. When churches seek to obey that, it's not out of hatred for those people, it's out of love for them.
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It's out of a heartfelt desire for them to maintain their profession of faithing in Jesus Christ.
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But we're told not even to eat with them. Second John 1, 10 and 11 says, if anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not even receive him into your house nor greet him, for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.
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The Reformation of the 16th century was one of the greatest movements of the Holy Spirit of God since the days of the apostles of Christ.
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The word of God and its simple doctrines regarding authority, salvation, the church, sacraments, et cetera, have been buried by layer after layer of unbiblical traditions, practices and superstition.
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But when people began to read scripture again, its light began to dispel the darkness.
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Not only were the Bible and the gospel recovered, but the biblical doctrine of the church was recovered too.
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And we need to have a biblical ecclesiology, a biblical understanding of what a local church is.
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And our covenant children need to have a biblical understanding of the church. A biblical view of the church is essential to the entire church's health in this world.
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After the Reformation and these new churches were founded, according to the word of God, gone were popes.
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No more cardinals, no more priests, no more five extra sacraments. Gone were popes who murdered their predecessors to get that office.
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Gone were men who bought and sold the papacy and bought and sold bishoprics and church offices.
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And what replaced those false teachings? A biblical doctrine of ecclesiology, a biblical doctrine of the church.
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The wicked and evil people were purged out of the church and it became a holy communion of saints and their children again.
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The plague of vile doctrines was also purged out. The mass, indulgences, purgatory, mariolatry, icon worship, and penance.
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And they were replaced with the glorious, pristine, Pauline doctrine of the simple justification of the center by faith alone apart from works.
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And I want you to consider one final thought regarding a biblical doctrine of the church, a biblical ecclesiology. The idea that the reading and expository preaching of Scripture would stand at the center of Christian worship was actually a foreign concept in the 16th century.
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It's always been, well, historically, it's always been the center of Protestant worship, of biblical
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Christian worship. The reading and proclamation of the word always ought to hold the center of biblical worship in the biblical church.
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The Reformation recovered this and put the word of God in its rightful place. The theologian
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Louis Burkhoff wrote, strictly speaking, it may be said that the true preaching of the word and its recognition as the standard of doctrine and life is the one mark of the church.
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Without it, there is no church and it determines the right administration of the sacraments and the faithful exercise of church discipline.
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When Ulrich Zwingli got a hold of a Greek New Testament and taught himself Greek and wrote down all
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Paul's letters in Greek and memorized them in Greek and broke away from the Roman church's lectionary and just started preaching verse by verse through the
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Gospel of Matthew, it changed that whole area. Zurich and its surrounding territories were changed by the unleashing of expository preaching.
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There's a famous little anecdote when Zwingli first started doing that, a man in his church said, I felt as if grabbed by the hair, held up off the ground and suspended in space.
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Theologians long ago spoke of the church triumphant, those currently in the bliss of heaven with Christ now, we believe in the church triumphant and the church militant, those who are still on earth, that's us, in the midst of difficulties and struggles and hardship, stress.
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We are the church militant, brothers and sisters. And yet there are so few who really have a passion for the local church in our country today.
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There are a few who are really militant for the sake of the health of the local church.
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Church in America in 2018 has become a competitive marketplace, devolving into shallow entertainment, a fear of offending people and wishy -washy emotional pep talks instead of solid expositional preaching and application of the word of God.
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Will you have a biblical doctrine of the church and will you love your local church? Will your children have a biblical ecclesiology as they grow up, as they start deciding where they're going to attend church, where they're going to put in their lot?
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Will you pray for your pastors, your elders, your deacons? Will you teach your children how to discern between a faithful biblical church and an unfaithful church?
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Will your children go to the church that has cool music they like, but little faithful proclamation of the word of God, little concern for the personal holiness of its members and little respect and use for the sacraments that Jesus gave us?
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Or will they stand their ground as part of the church militant? Will they be able to find the word of God preached anywhere in this nation?
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Where will your children and grandchildren go to church if we don't show them how to love and be part of a local church? Will there be any
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Christians left in this baby -murdering, self -centered, perverted nation that we find ourselves in?
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You and your family, I want to tell you this. You and your family and your descendants have no hope and no future apart from the existence of healthy, godly, biblical local churches in their neighborhoods.
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You and I, our lives are tied up in the church. And so whatever else you might have going on in your life, whatever other interests you have in this world, you must pray that God would bless you and your descendants and your church after you with a biblical ecclesiology.
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Love the biblical doctrines of one holy, catholic and apostolic church that preaches the word of God in the gospel faithfully, that administers the sacraments according to Christ's appointment and that exercises church discipline.
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Love the church of Christ and love your local expression of the church of Christ.
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Let's pray. Our God and Father, we are so thankful to you for the church.
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We thank you that Jesus' statement of fact that the gates of hell will not prevail against it has held true.
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Though it's racked with controversy, with savage wolves rising up in its midst, seeking to lure away the disciples after themselves, we bless and praise you.
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They will not ultimately succeed. You will protect your church. You will assure its existence and its flourishing into the future.
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Break and burden our hearts for it, that we might take our place among the church militant. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. This is
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Pastor Patrick Hines of Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church, located at 108 Bridwell Heights Road in Kingsport, Tennessee.
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And you've been listening to the Protestant Witness Podcast. Please feel free to join us for worship any Sunday morning at 11 a .m.
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sharp, where we open the word of God together, sing his praises, and rejoice in the gospel of our risen Lord. You can find us on the web at www .bridwellheightspca
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.org. And may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.