Divorce and Remarriage

This is an address I gave several years ago to the West Lancs Reformed Baptist Fellowship:

Marriage, divorce and remarriage

My task this evening is a daunting one. It is daunting first of all because this is a subject on which Christians do not agree and on which many hold strong opinions. I can’t hope to satisfy everyone by what I say. All I can do is to set before you as clearly and as honestly as I can what I believe the Bible has to say. But it is daunting secondly because this is a very large subject. Numbers of books, some of them quite substantial, have been written about it, and the Bible itself is a large book and simply to review all the relevant passages from the Old and New Testaments would take more time than we have together on this occasion. But neither of these is the most daunting aspect of this subject. The fact is that marriage and the family are central to all our lives and to a great deal of our happiness. What I say and what is taught in the churches on this matter impacts very deeply on peoples’ lives. It is true that this does not directly affect the issues of salvation and eternity, though it can do indirectly. We live in a fallen world, and all around us are broken marriages and damaged families and children. What is the word of the Lord to this situation? What is the word which brings wisdom, healing and peace into the broken families and broken lives of our generation? What is the word which we need within the churches as well as in our witness to those without? For the fall and sin and the pressure of a godless world has its effects within as well as without. Let me speak with real seriousness. This is not a matter for mere squabbling. It is not a matter about which we can be satisfied with simply trying to uphold a view we might have received by tradition. Nor must we meekly give in to the culture of our day and try to make the Bible say much the same sort of thing as the world does. It is likely that what we say this evening will affect some people quite considerably, even to the extent of tears. It is possible that what we say might affect the family life of some for the rest of their lives. I only say this because I have spoken on this subject before and people have come up to me afterwards having been deeply affected. Indeed, already some have shown a more than theoretical interest in what I am going on to say tonight.

I start with some basic principles that I think we all agree with. First, marriage is an ordinance of God and not a human expedient which has simply proved on the whole to function well. Marriage is intended to be the lifelong commitment of a man and a woman to each other. All Christians are committed to promoting marriage and maintaining the marriage bond. It is quite clear that the thrust of our Lord’s teaching was to prevent divorce and the churches must seek to do the same.

Second, we can all agree, I think, that divorce cannot take place without sin. Some believe that prior sin can be a ground for divorce, but if there is no prior sin then the divorce itself is sinful. God hates divorce and that is a bottom line for us all. However, it is one thing to say that there can be no divorce without sin, it is quite another to start apportioning blame in particular cases. All I am doing at the moment is establishing a general point.

Third, we are all agreed about the importance of pastoral care and the need for seeking to bring about reconciliation when marriages threaten to break down; and indeed when they have broken down. We are all committed to the demanding task of caring for those who go through marriage difficulties, and the traumas and heartaches that are involved in divorce. Whether we are successful or not in preventing divorce and repairing breakdown, we work and pray to that end. And even when reconciliation has proved impossible, our care does not stop while we have the opportunity of expressing it. Please keep these three points of agreement in mind because I can’t keep referring back to them.

I would like now to plunge into the deep end and explain to you what my own position is. It seems to me that this is the most honest thing to do. Having tried to set out what I believe and the Scriptural reasons for thinking as I do, I then want to say something about the subject from an historical point of view, and finally to raise a number of practical questions relating to church life and fellowship.

As soon as we come to consider what the Bible says about divorce we have to recognise that divorce in the Bible and in Bible times differed in a number of respects from what we understand by divorce. As far as we are concerned the word ‘divorce’ is a technical term, but I do not think that is the case in the OT and I believe we can be sure it isn’t in the NT. The NT uses three verbs which are usually translated ‘divorce’ because of the context in which they occur, but literally they are ‘to put away’, ‘to separate oneself from’, and ‘to send away’.

A second feature of divorce in the Bible is that it was always the act of one of the spouses. It was not the act of a magistrate or of any third party. Amongst the Jews only a man could divorce; a wife was not able to put away her husband (though she could make his life so miserable that he put her away!). In the Graeco-Roman world of the NT both husbands and wives could divorce. So among the Jews a divorce took place when a husband sent his wife away and gave her a certificate saying that he had divorced her. Under Roman law a man could put away his wife simply by a word or an act, he could turn her out and she was divorced. And a wife could leave her husband and that was a divorce.

Unless we understand this we are almost certain to go wrong when trying to apply the Bible to divorce today. Nowadays it is sadly not unusual for a husband to go off and simply leave his wife. He may refuse to come back or she may not even know where he is. In such circumstances Christian wives have sometimes agonised over whether or not it would be right to get a divorce. But a Christian woman in Corinth, say, or Rome, in the time of Paul would not have thought like that at all. She would know that her husband had divorced her; he had separated himself from her and that was that. In biblical terms divorce takes place when a husband or a wife intentionally separates from the other partner. Under OT law this was to be formalised by giving a certificate, which would have provided some protection for the wife.

So if that is what divorce is in biblical times are there any grounds on which a husband or wife may put away the other? I believe that the only ground given in Scripture for divorce is serious sexual misdemeanour. Let me start by explaining what I mean by using the phrase ‘serious sexual misdemeanour’. Usually Christians tend to say that the ground for divorce is adultery, but Scripture does not use that word in this connection. The verses, of course, are Matthew 5:32 and 19:9. Matthew 5:32 says, ‘But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery.’ The Lord uses a more general word, rightly translated ‘sexual immorality’, and not the more specific word ‘adultery’. Why is this? I’m not sure that it is possible to prove conclusively the answer I’m going to give, but I think it is almost certain.

In the Old Testament there were three sexual sins that were singled out as particularly serious, all of which attracted the death penalty. These are adultery, bestiality and homosexual acts. Clearly if a married man or woman was convicted of any of these and put to death, then the other partner would be free to remarry. Death breaks the marriage bond. But by the time of the New Testament it seems evident that divorce had taken the place of the death penalty for these sins. Joseph was not minded to have Mary stoned to death, he was minded to divorce her quietly. It is true of course that the Pharisees tried to catch Jesus out when a woman was taken in adultery and said, ‘Moses commanded us to stone such women’, but that was simply a catch question and they knew full well that under the Romans they had no power to carry out the penalty. But long before NT times we read in Isaiah and Jeremiah of God divorcing his people for their unfaithfulness, which, I think, indicates that divorce for unfaithfulness must have been the practice in Israel even in those times. So I think Christ’s words refer to the three sexual sins for which the death penalty was the punishment in the law. If someone is guilty of serious sexual misdemeanour then the other partner can divorce the guilty party and act as if he or she was dead. And this is actually what the Westminster Confession says: ‘In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce, and after the divorce, to marry another, as if the offending party were dead.’

There are two more things to add to this. Neither Mark nor Luke makes any mention of these particular words of Jesus when they record him speaking about marriage and divorce. But if it was taken for granted that divorce for such sexual sins was permissible we can understand why they did not do so. You do not always need to mention what everybody already knows. Secondly, I have used the words ‘serious sexual misdemeanour’ and I have done so deliberately. I do not take these three cases mentioned in the OT as exclusive, that is, it is only those three sins, but as exemplary, that is, serious sexual sins like these. I am sorry to have to mention this at all, but tragically we live in days of great evil and we cannot afford to be literalistic at this point – think of President Clinton if you like, but don’t dwell on it.

Some of you may well say something like this, ‘I’ve followed you so far and I recognize that sadly there will be divorces from time to time, even from within churches, and I accept that, but I do not believe that divorced people can legitimately marry again.’ You may have realised that my reasoning has already included the idea of remarriage; it came out in the quotation I gave from the Westminster Confession: ‘In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce, and after the divorce, to marry another, as if the offending party were dead.’ But we obviously need to look at this more thoroughly.

Why would anyone think that divorce did not include the right to remarry? The usual reason given is that marriage creates a union that is indissoluble, those who marry become one flesh and, so it is said, that cannot be undone even if they live apart. This, of course, is the view held in particular by the Roman Catholic Church. So the Catechism of the Catholic Church, beginning with quoting Genesis 2, says: ‘“Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.” The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been in the beginning. “So they are no longer two, but one flesh.”’ Later on the Catechism expresses it like this: ‘The matrimonial union of man and woman is indissoluble.’

However, I do not believe this follows. The verse in Genesis says nothing about this union being unbreakable. In fact Jesus, when he quoted it, went on to say, ‘What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate’, which surely implies that man can separate those joined together, but ought not to do so. Another reason for believing that the marriage bond is not indissoluble comes from Deuteronomy 24. In the opening verses of that chapter permission for divorce is allowed, as Jesus put it, ‘for the hardness of your hearts’. That chapter allows a divorced woman to marry again, but if she does and the second husband dies or divorces her she is forbidden to go back to her first husband. But that surely must mean that she is not indissolubly married to him.

The fact is that divorce does break the marriage bond – which is why it is so serious a step – and that does mean that those who are divorced may remarry. Jesus himself permits those legitimately divorced for serious sexual sin to remarry: ‘And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery’ (Matthew 19:9). The best way to catch the sense of this is to say it twice, omitting the clause about sexual immorality first time round. First: ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery’; second: ‘whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.’ In other words if the divorce is for sexual immorality the person who marries again does not commit adultery.

Let me try now to take stock and summarise what I have said so far and demonstrate some of its implications. In the Bible divorce is the act of one of the partners. So if either the husband or the wife simply abandons the other the proper thing would be for that husband or that wife to secure a divorce – which would be the equivalent of giving a certificate of divorce in the way that Deuteronomy states. However, very often the one who acts in this way nowadays just goes off and leaves the obtaining of a divorce to the other partner. In my opinion obtaining such a divorce is merely a formality to conform to British law; the actual divorce was the separating that was done by the one who went off. In this case sexual immorality is not an issue; here is someone who has had divorce thrust upon him or her. Such people have been wronged, and they are free to remarry.

Why do I say that they are free to remarry? Firstly because that is what divorce does; it dissolves a marriage and leaves the parties unmarried. But, secondly, in Matthew 5:32 Jesus says, ‘But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the grounds of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery.’ This is an extraordinary statement because Jesus assumes that the divorced woman is going to be remarried and thus the man who divorces her ‘makes her commit adultery’. It is not possible to put the Greek here literally into English. It is something like ‘makes her to be an adulteress’ or ‘makes her to be adulterated’. However we understand this phrase two things are quite clear. The first is that Jesus does not forbid the woman who has been wrongly divorced to remarry, as he could have done; quite the opposite, he assumes she will remarry. Indeed in those days if she did not remarry she would usually be in a very precarious situation. The second thing to note is that he places the full responsibility for this state of affairs upon the man; the fault is his.

I have said that if a person is abandoned he or she is already divorced in biblical terms, but I want to suggest a further step, an implication of this. Suppose a husband does not leave his wife, in fact wants her to continue to live with him, but frequently and severely beats her. Such behaviour is actually calculated to drive anyone away. It is surely true that no-one is under any obligation to remain in a position of constant danger. If a man makes life hell for his wife I believe she is right to leave and I would call that a case of constructive divorce. Whatever he may say, he is literally sending her away by the actions which he takes. I remember a case many years ago when a neighbour of a couple attending our church phoned me up to say that she could hear the wife being beaten next door and crying out with pain. But, she said, the wife will not leave her husband unless a minister tells her it is right to do so. At that time I counselled the wife to leave and get a judicial separation, but now I believe that in circumstances like that the husband was effectively driving his wife away and so divorcing her. She was right to leave and would have been right to get a divorce in terms of British law, and that would have left her free to remarry.

But there is a proper ground for divorce and that is serious sexual sin. Of course it is better if sin is confessed and forgiveness and reconciliation takes place; divorce is not mandatory for serious sexual sin. However I would add that if a person is repeatedly unfaithful yet always professes sorrow and asks for forgiveness there may well come a point when the other partner says, ‘Enough is enough’ and terminates the marriage. I would also say this. A person whose partner has been unfaithful may be truly forgiving and yet find it very difficult emotionally, psychologically, to resume the intimacies of marriage. Repairing a marriage is not usually a quick fix job.

Before I go any further I would like to say something about the use of the word ‘adultery’ in our Lord’s teaching. I shall have to be brief and so cannot tie up all the loose ends, but it is important for us at least to be challenged to think about this. I’m turning now to Luke 16:18: ‘Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.’ These words were spoken by Jesus to the Pharisees; you can see this in v14: ‘The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him.’ It is quite clear then that it is to the Pharisees that Jesus is speaking. Now we know that the Pharisees were sticklers for the letter of the law. We know also that in Deuteronomy 24 the law permitted divorce and remarriage. How then could Jesus imply that people were adulterers when they obeyed precisely the letter of the law that had been given them by God? The answer is there for us in v15: ‘And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts…”’ What counted in God’s eyes was not simply the legal act, but the motive of the heart.

We all know how it works because it happens frequently today. A man’s been married for some years and, perhaps where he works, he sees a young, attractive woman and he wants her, he lusts after her. Some of you will remember David Jacobs who was once very popular on the radio. I remember hearing him tell how he met his second wife. She was young, beautiful, intelligent, and he said to himself: ‘I’m going to marry you.’ And his very next sentence was this, ‘My own marriage was already on the rocks…’ So he ditched his wife to marry the other. It was all done legally, of course, but the question is: What did God think of it? I think Jesus might say it was adultery. And don’t forget that he also said that the lustful look is adultery too.

I have not really said anything yet about marriage itself. I believe we can say that Scripture shows us that the marriage relationship is a covenantal one. Malachi 2:14 says: ‘Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.’ And Proverbs 2:17 in speaking of the adulteress says of her: ‘who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God.’ A covenantal relationship suggests that there are mutual obligations that lie on both partners. This is strengthened by an interesting section in Exodus 21:10,11. The case being discussed is that of a man who has taken a slave wife, that is, he has bought a woman and made her his wife. These verses say: ‘If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.’ So three obligations lie on the husband, providing food, clothing, and ensuring what are called her marital rights, which probably refers to sexual relations. This is a humane law concerned to protect the rights of a wife who might well be vulnerable to ill-treatment in the circumstances. If she was not properly cared for she was to go out without any of the money that was paid for her being returned. To go out clearly means she was being given a divorce.

I think we can see something similar in 1 Corinthians 7. In verse 2 Paul says – and here I am following my own translation: ‘But because of the fornications let each man hold to his own wife and each woman hold to her own husband.’ Paul is not saying here that people should get married to avoid temptation; he is saying that married people should live together in such a way that neither partner is tempted to seek sexual satisfaction with someone else. Even a period of prayer and fasting must be by consent and only last for a time.

But there is more also to notice in this chapter. In verses 8 and 9 Paul speaks to those he calls ‘the unmarried and widows’. He believes it is good for them to remain single, but he also says, ‘but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry.’ I can’t explain this fully now, but there is a question I want to pose. Do you think it likely that in Corinth those who were ‘unmarried’ might include people who had been divorced? Isn’t it true that if churches today make any substantial impact on the world around and significant numbers of people come in and are converted that we are likely to find divorced people among those who are unmarried? We have to know what we are to say to them. Paul’s advice is this: ‘Stay as you are, for it is good to be single, but if you fall in love and long to get married then that is what you should do.’

I now want to turn from this rather inadequate sketch of what we find in the Bible to look at the subject historically. Here is a quotation: ‘The magistrate who delivers an innocent wife from the cruel hatred of a wicked husband and allows divorce, is not separating those joined by God but preserving from a more perilous situation a wife already inwardly rejected and separated, and granting her the chance of a genuine union with one to whom it is the Lord’s will for her to be joined… Therefore if any wife discovers that her husband is an adulterer or murderer or sorcerer… or if he forms liaisons with immoral women before her eyes… or schemes against her life by poison or sword… or subjects her to beatings… then we grant her the necessary liberty of having recourse to a notice of divorce and of legally establishing grounds for dissolution… if any married woman refuses or is unable to fulfil the role of a wife, even without the intervention of adultery, the godly husband is not bound nor is he forbidden remarriage by this word of the Lord.’ As the language might indicate this is not a modern advocate of divorce who has been over-influenced by a permissive society, it is the Reformer Martin Bucer, who perhaps was reacting against the restrictiveness of the Roman Catholic position and its effect on ordinary people.

The fact is that the Reformers, and the Puritans after them, rejected the Roman Catholic belief in the indissolubility of marriage. John Owen called the view that ‘marriage among Christians is a sacrament of that signification as renders it indissoluble’ a fiction. In England an attempt was made to reform the ecclesiastical laws during the reign of Edward VI. Under the proposed reform ‘divorce for adultery, desertion, continued absence and extreme incompatibility was to be allowed with the right of remarriage.’ Opposition from those of Catholic persuasion and in-fighting by the friends of the Reformation meant this never came into effect. Twice in the reign of Elizabeth I a similar reform was brought before Parliament, but with the rise of High Church views and the fact that the measure was supported by the Puritans, as well as the delicacy of Elizabeth’s own position as a daughter of Henry VIII, it was sent to a committee for consideration and was never heard of again.

I have already quoted from the Westminster Confession. A little later in the section on ‘Marriage’ it states: ‘nothing but adultery, or such wilful desertion as cannot be remedied by the church or civil magistrate, is cause sufficient of dissolving the bond of marriage.’ This was the position of Calvin, too, and I think was generally representative of Reformed thinking. In America, Jonathan Edwards’ grandfather obtained a divorce because of the repeated adultery of his wife, who may have been mentally unbalanced. Cotton Mather, in arguing for divorce, with remarriage, for criminal uncleannesses, incest, fornication and malicious desertion, wrote these interesting words: ‘otherwise the state of believers under the New Testament would in some cases be worse than what the God of heaven directed for his people under the Old.’

There is one more quotation I would like to give, and it comes from John Owen in a short tract entitled: ‘Of marrying after divorce in case of adultery’, though in this quotation he is actually dealing with the case of desertion from 1 Corinthians 7:15. ‘If a person obstinately departs, on pretence of religion or otherwise, and will no more cohabit with a husband or wife, it is known that, by the law of nature and the usage of all nations, the deserted party, because, without his or her default, all the ends of marriage are frustrated, is at liberty to marry. But it may be it is not so among Christians. What shall a brother or sister that is a Christian do in this case, who is so departed from? Saith the apostle, “They are not in bondage, they are free, - at liberty to marry again.”

‘This’ says Owen. ‘is the constant doctrine of all protestant churches in the world; and it hath had place in the government of these nations, for Queen Elizabeth was born during the life of Queen Katherine, from whom her father was divorced.’

I have stressed the Reformation position because it seems to me that the Roman Catholic position has exercised a strong influence amongst evangelicals in this country. It may be that this influence has come through the Church of England, although I do not know enough to be certain about this. The result is that it is possible to approach the Scriptures with assumptions already in one’s mind, though without realising that this is so. Though I have been able to quote the Westminster Confession of Faith on divorce, it is worthy of note that the 1689 Baptist Confession says not a word either way on the subject, nor does the Savoy Declaration, the 1658 confession of the Congregationalist/Independent churches. This suggests that there was not complete unanimity on the subject amongst nonconformists, though we must be careful. John Owen’s words – and he wrote the Preface to the Savoy Declaration – seem to indicate that the disagreement, if there was any, is likely to have been about detail rather than broad principle. I would add that the 1966 Strict Baptist Affirmation of Faith permits divorce on the grounds of adultery.

At this point I want to turn to church life. It is well known that there is a fairly broad spectrum of belief concerning divorce and remarriage within evangelical and Reformed Baptist churches in this country, we do not all think alike and so we do not all act alike. This raises tensions within churches and between churches. How do we handle this? First of all I think we must watch our attitudes and our words. It is easy, on the one hand, to talk about those who take a hard-line position, or on the other to talk about those who are abandoning the biblical position. The fact is it is possible to have genuine disagreement about what the Bible says and while it is perfectly proper for people to defend and expound their own beliefs and to argue against those who think differently, this ought to be done with Christian grace and courtesy.

Secondly, generally speaking most churches will have a majority view on the subject and most ministers will have a view also, though in both cases these may alter over the years. It is the question of remarriage which affects the church most directly. It seems to me that a remarriage ought not to take place within the church premises if this is against the conscientious belief of the majority in the church, nor should a minister be expected to take a service of remarriage against his conscience. On the other hand, minorities in the church should not carp and cause trouble – perhaps even well into the future; nor leave the church, if the decision regarding remarriage is one they disagree with. In the end we all stand or fall before our own Master. We are not responsible for the decisions of others and we should pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding. I would like to explore this at some length but it is going to be considered as a subject in its own right in due course.

Thirdly, churches will disagree among themselves over the issues that are involved in this matter. We have to recognise this and acknowledge that we can still have fellowship in the gospel even while on some matters, including this one, we may differ. In fact, I believe, that we can co-operate practically if we are willing to do so.

Fourthly – and I would like to say a little more on this – I believe we have to think through very carefully what the responsibility of churches and pastors really is. Marriage is the most personal and intimate of relationships and marriage breakdown is often a complex and very personal matter. In the end divorce is the decision of at least one of the partners in the marriage. If the couple are Christians then it is a decision which they take before Christ, though I know they may not fully realise that at the time. When it comes to a Christian who wishes to remarry, or marry another Christian who has been divorced, that also is a decision that the two concerned take before Christ. They are responsible people who are answerable to their own Master and will be judged by him.

How does this affect pastors? Pastors obviously want to do all they can to help and advise the members of the church. In most cases of marriage difficulty within the church they will be called in and they will try to apply biblical principles to the situation. If the pastor is wise he will usually take his wife when he goes to give counsel, but if he is single it is much more difficult and potentially dangerous for him. But a pastor will only know as much as he is told. He may try to probe if he feels that real problems are being withheld from him, yet he knows that there may be things that are too private for either spouse to reveal to him, and in any case he has no right to intrude into the intimacies of another marriage. In some cases, of course, the exact situation will be clear, sometimes only too clear, but in others he may not really know just what has been going on. And similar problems may arise when it comes to speaking with a couple who wish to marry and a divorce has taken place in the past. The fact is pastors are just pastors, ministers of the word. They have not been appointed as judges over other peoples lives, what they do is to make known the word of God; the responsibility for applying it and obeying it lies with those to whom it has been made known.

What about other elders or deacons and the church meeting? Pastors have to keep confidences; there are things they cannot tell to other church officers, and there are certainly things that should not be told to the church members in a meeting. Suppose in a marriage break up one partner accuses the other of adultery while the other denies it. You cannot have a discussion in a church meeting about who might or might not be telling the truth. Later on it may be that the one who accuses the other wants to get remarried and justifies the divorce and subsequent remarriage on the grounds of the other’s adultery. I am not trying to make things more difficult or complex than they are in the interests of a lax attitude to divorce and remarriage, I am simply saying that this can be an area fraught with difficulty. In such circumstances we cannot apply any rule of thumb. A church may have to rely on what the pastor, who knows most about the situation, believes to be the best course of action to adopt. We need, I think, to follow the advice of another writer: ‘God who knows the hearts of us all will ultimately vindicate or condemn; but his church, if it errs, must err on the side of mercy rather than judgment.’

Finally, while we are considering the implications of divorce and remarriage for the local church, it is sometimes suggested that any Christian couple involved in a remarriage should not engage in public Christian service, even if they may become church members. Sometimes this is based on 1 Timothy 3, where it is stated that anyone who serves as an overseer or deacon must be ‘the husband of one wife’. However, it is by no means clear that this has anything to do with divorce and remarriage, and we cannot simply assume that it does. The only other ground for refusing them public Christian work would be that they were living in adultery, but if that view were taken they could not remain in membership either. This would also put the couple between a rock and a hard place. The only way in which they could ever become church members would be by getting another divorce, but it is divorce that Scripture particularly seeks to prevent.

Let me draw to a conclusion. In the Old Testament marriage is a covenant between a man and woman which ought to be lifelong. Divorce and remarriage were permitted because of hardness of heart caused by sin. The teaching that we have of the Lord Jesus Christ was essentially directed against the Pharisees’ abuse of the Mosaic permission of divorce. What Jesus sought to prevent was divorce, rather than remarriage; if there is no divorce, then there will be no remarriage. Paul deals with a quite different situation in 1 Corinthians 7, a pagan Graeco-Roman situation, which was complicated by a teaching that marriage itself had been superseded. He allows both for divorce and remarriage in certain circumstances, especially where a married person comes to faith in Christ while the other partner does not.

A short statement of the position I am setting before you is this. If a person has been divorced by the other partner simply leaving, whether for someone else or not, the person thus wrongly divorced can remarry. If one partner commits some serious sexual sin this violates the marriage covenant and divorce with remarriage is permissible. This does not exhaust all the possible situations that may arise, some very complex, but it gives a basis from which further applications can be made. All Christians should be committed to promoting marriage and upholding it, but also committed to treating with compassion and biblical wisdom those whose lives have been scarred by marriage breakdown.

A High View of the Church

For a long time it has been my ambition to write a book about the Church. For many reasons I doubt whether such a book will ever see the light of day from me. So I am putting the first chapter here, and may add some other chapter or part chapters later. You can comment if you wish, either directly or via email: paulernestbrown@btinternet.com.

A high view of the church

You sometimes hear evangelical Christians talking about a ‘high view of the church’. When they do so they are usually claiming that this is the view that they themselves hold. They may speak like this in order to distinguish their belief from a High Church view, that is, from the outlook and understanding of the church favoured by Catholics, Roman and Anglo, and by the Orthodox Churches. They may also be responding to a criticism of evangelicals which says that they have virtually no doctrine of the church at all. Sometimes they are trying to distinguish themselves from fellow evangelicals whose views on the church they conceive of as woolly and unbiblical. They themselves are not simply ‘low church’; they have a high view of the church.

So, in this first chapter, I would like to outline what a high view of the church looks like. Some might think that speaking about a ‘high view of the church’ is misconceived. Is it a form of triumphalism? Is it a roundabout way of saying my view, or our view, is the only right one? Doesn’t it rather smack of pride and self-conceit? There are certainly dangers along these lines. However, all I am doing is using terminology that is already in use and trying to flesh out a little more what I think is really meant by it. To talk about a ‘high view’ means that the church is an important subject. It means that it must be taken seriously. Evangelicals take other doctrines of the Bible seriously and we try and draw biblical lines around what is clearly revealed as fundamental truth, even though there may be areas where we recognize there are differences among us. However, we are sometimes more cagey when it comes to the Bible teaching on the church, partly because our differences are more obvious and in some cases because we do not want to privilege one understanding of the church and exclude others from general acceptance as evangelicals and as churches. So what are some of the features of a high view of the church? Here are the most important, in my view.

A high view of the church recognizes Jesus Christ as head of the church

There are, of course, a number of verses which explicitly state this and it scarcely needs to be demonstrated. However, I want to begin with Matthew 16 because I believe it is an important starting point for considering the church. One week after Peter had confessed Jesus as ‘the Christ, the Son of the living God’ the transfiguration took place and the voice of the Father was heard speaking from heaven, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased, listen to him’ (Matthew 17:5). This immediately establishes a perspective; Peter, the disciples, the church which is being built, are all subject to Jesus. His sheep listen to his voice and follow him. It is his will which is to done. The Father affirms and authenticates his Son as head over the church.

It is my impression that all too often Christians understand ‘head’ to have overtones of ‘headmaster’, ‘head teacher’. Not only does ‘head’ speak of authority to them, it also has something of the flavour of ‘boss’ about it, which was the name by which our headmaster at school was known – that is, in his absence. But the picture is quite different with Christ; ‘and he is the head of the body, the church’ (Colossians 1:18). Christ and his church are organically one; it is united to him by the Holy Spirit. So the picture is one of the direction, guidance and care that the head gives to the body: ‘no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church’ (Ephesians 5:29). Other images are also important. Jesus is our shepherd (1 Peter 2:25); he is the bridegroom (Matthew 9:15); he is the high priest who, taken from among the people, like us in every respect except sin, sympathizes with our weaknesses (Hebrews 2:17-18; 4:14-16). We must not forget either the character drawn of him in the Gospels, One who is ‘gentle and lowly in heart’. All of this is not to deny the element of authority or the greatness, holiness and uprightness of Christ, but it is to put a right perspective on our understanding of ‘head’. It is not an alien headship; it is the headship of the One into whose body we have been called by grace.

Scarcely anyone professing the name of Christian would deny that Jesus Christ is the head of the church but the real question is; what does that mean in practice? How is the headship of Christ expressed in the life of the churches; how do the churches acknowledge and submit to his headship? Or, to put it in a slightly different way, how can anyone tell whether the churches are living under his headship? You will realise that I have slipped from speaking about the church to the churches, from singular to plural. I want in due course to revert to the singular, but it is quite evident that as far as the church is made visible in the world it is primarily in churches – whether we want to think in terms of denominations or individual local churches.

At this point I only want to assert one thing, leaving aside other relevant considerations. It is the responsibility of churches to seek consciously to discover and do the will of their head. In the last analysis every individual Christian is answerable only to Jesus Christ. Jesus says to all his followers, ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’ (John 14:15), and Paul tells us: ‘For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil’ (2 Corinthians 5:10). However much we should listen to the advice of fellow-believers, and submit to the leaders in the church (Hebrews 13:17), and learn from the history of the church, in the end we are all personally responsible to our Lord and head. And so it is with a church. Every church is under its head, the Lord Christ, and its great concern must be to do his will. How this works out in practical terms remains to be considered, but the principle is of crucial importance. We see this illustrated in striking form in the opening chapters of the book of Revelation. Jesus Christ is the One who walks among the churches (2:1), who speaks to their individual condition and needs, who calls for the response that is appropriate to that condition, who warns but also has promises for each of them if they heed what he says.

In considering this we are touching on a theme which is not given the profile it deserves among many Christians today. It is not just that Jesus Christ is alive, having been raised from the dead. In Acts 2 Peter’s great stress in his sermon on the day of Pentecost is that Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of God, that he is on the throne, that God has made him Lord and that this has been demonstrated by the lordly act of pouring out the promised Holy Spirit (v30,33-36). This had immediate application to Peter’s hearers who were struck to the heart at the realisation that the One they had rejected and crucified was now on the throne of heaven at God’s right hand. But it had great significance also for the group of believers in Jerusalem whose numbers were to be so remarkably augmented at that time. They were the ones who recognised this truth and who knew what it must mean for them in practice: Jesus Christ is lord and head of his church. It is in the church that the lordship of Christ is recognized, acknowledged and lived out in practical terms.

There are many implications that arise from the headship of Christ and I want to spell out five of them. The first is that it is Jesus Christ who builds the church, ‘I will build my church’ (Matthew 16:18). The church is his and he is its builder. It is part of his activity as head that he builds the church and adds to it, ‘And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved’ (Acts 2:47). To recognize this is to not to overlook the responsibility of the church to fulfil its commission, seen for example in Matthew 28:18-20. But it does mean that the church is to be taken up into what he is doing, fulfilling his purpose and acting in dependence upon him, rather than drawing up its own agenda and carrying it out, perhaps somewhere along the line looking for his blessing on what is done. In practice this may only be a matter of attitude, but it is a crucial one. To do all the right things, but to do them apart from him, is a recipe for disaster in the end. And if such efforts bring success, or apparent success, they will only lead to real problems in the longer term. We must see ourselves as servants fulfilling what he has called us to do, and doing it for him and with him.

This leads straight into the second implication, the church is utterly dependent on its head. ‘Apart from me you can do nothing,’ said Jesus (John 15:5). The picture is instructive. Jesus is the true vine, but he is the stock, the main trunk, and the branches make up the rest of the vine. It is another picture of the church inseparably joined to Jesus Christ just as the head and body belong together as one. If any of the branches become detached from the main stock they are unable to be fruitful. Whether we think of the branches as applying to individual disciples, or local churches, or together as the whole church, the statement remains true; apart from him we can do nothing. Perhaps it is possible to stretch a point and to say that while we can do nothing by way of real fruitfulness; those who are known by his name can, apart from him, do enormous damage to his reputation and glory and to the souls of men and women. This dependence on him is not something that can simply be taken for granted. The whole passage in John 15 about the vine shows how Jesus impressed on his disciples – and so on his church – the absolute necessity of abiding in him, continuing in a living fellowship with him. Nothing is more important than this when we are considering the ongoing relationship of Christ and his church.

And so the next implication arises naturally from what we have been considering. The priority for the church is to replicate, as much as possible, the character and likeness of its head in its corporate life and in the lives of its individual members. What is the fruit of the vine if not the expression of the very nature of the vine? It is the nature of the vine to produce grapes, and grapes contain seeds that can develop into new vines. The church needs to look like its head and master. Was Christ faithful in doing his Father’s will? So must the church be. Was Christ full of compassion towards people in all their manifold needs? So must the church be. Did Christ seek out the lost that they might be saved? The church must do the same. Was Christ holy, harmless and undefiled? The church must pursue holiness with great urgency lest its character deny its claims and negate its message. Was Christ opposed, slandered and persecuted? What was done to the master will be done to the servant and the church must not make an accommodation with the world to gain a peaceful life. It needs to be repeated, this is a priority for the church.

Fourthly, in its witness to the world and in its own worship and instruction the church should give the largest place to Jesus Christ. The church belongs to Jesus Christ; it is spiritually joined to him and he is the head. Is it making too much of the analogy to remember that when it comes to other people we recognize them most of all by their heads and their faces? Is it inappropriate to say that the world should be able to recognize the church not so much because it is drawing attention to itself but rather because it is always pointing to Jesus Christ? The church is that body that trusts Jesus Christ; that loves him and serves him, that worships him, that lives by him. Why did the people of Antioch give the disciples the name Christian (Acts 11:26)? It may have been a nickname; it may have been spoken sarcastically, but it was surely given to them because the most distinguishing thing about them was the position that Jesus Christ occupied in their living and speaking. Doubtless the church and its members might speak on many different issues confronting the society in which it is placed but what makes it distinctive is that everything is related to its faith in Jesus Christ and he himself is always what it wants to speak about most of all.

We might pursue this a little further. Within the church the person, words and deeds of Jesus must always occupy a prominent position. Think for a moment of the letters in the New Testament. Paul’s letters, in particular, are full of references to Jesus Christ; again and again his name is mentioned. It is as if Paul cannot repeat his name too much. And not only his name; Paul often refers to the death of Jesus. If he wants to urge husbands to love their wives – to take one example – this is how he does it: ‘Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her’ (Ephesians 5:25). We find the same thing in the letters written by Peter and perhaps to a lesser extent in John’s. It is true that James with his practical letter refers much more to God and has only two explicit references to our ‘Lord Jesus Christ’ (1:1; 2:1), though it is interesting to notice in the second that he goes on to describe Jesus as ‘the Lord of glory’. There are two references to ‘the coming of the Lord’ in chapter 5 (7,8) which obviously mean the return of Jesus Christ, so it is possible that ‘Lord’ elsewhere might refer to him, perhaps especially in 5:14,15. Overall the New Testament with its four Gospels is full of Jesus Christ and, overall, this should be true also of the worship, preaching and witness of the church.

The final implication of the headship of Christ that I want to draw attention to is the inevitable necessity of prayer. If Christ builds the church then those who are co-labourers under his control and guidance need to keep in contact with him, and that means prayer. When Jesus himself was in the world prayer to his Father was a noteworthy feature of his life. His ministry sprang out of his relationship with his Father. His concern was always to do the will of his Father and only to speak what his Father had given him to say. In his incarnate condition, living as man, prayer was both a necessity and a delight to him. In a far greater way prayer needs to permeate all that the church does and says. It is true that prayer is most often to the Father in the name of Jesus, but that does not exclude fellowship with Christ, in fact it includes it for we meet the Father in and through the Son. And prayer can sometimes quite properly be directed specifically to the Son (see 2 Corinthians 12:8-10).

A high view of the church recognizes that Jesus Christ speaks to us through his word

If we speak to him in prayer he speaks to us in the whole Bible. I assume this rather than proving it, though Peter’s words about the Spirit of Christ in the prophets predicting the sufferings and glories of Christ remind us that it is proper to consider the Old Testament as the word of Christ (1 Peter 1:11). And Jesus’ words about the coming of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth to the apostles and bringing to their remembrance all that Jesus had said to them as well as teaching them all things lays the basis for considering the New Testament in the same way (John 14:16,17; 26; 15:26,27; 16:7-15). The church acknowledging Jesus as its head will necessarily see itself as under the authority of what he has said. Its great concern will be to learn from him, to submit to him, to obey him and to live by all his words.

As soon as we begin to talk about the church obeying the revealed word of its head in the Bible there are two attitudes – at least that is how I would describe them – that tend to lessen the importance of that statement. The first is the attitude that assumes that all Christians comprise the church and that all Christians are free to understand and work out what obedience to Scripture means to them. So there are all sorts of Christian societies and organisations, of Christian groups and churches who to a greater or lesser extent work out what they think the Bible means for them and get on and act as they think appropriate. In some ways this seems inevitable for the world is a big place and there are many tasks that Christians want to fulfil, and moreover, initiators and those who see a desperate need that they wish to meet are likely to want to get on with the job and not listen to others, especially if it seems this is going to hinder what they have set their hearts on doing. Yet for all that, this seems to overlook almost entirely the idea of the church as a body and in practical terms can easily lead to lack of co-ordination, multiplication of churches and societies, fragmentation and even rivalry. In fact the Christian world and more particularly the evangelical world is marked and marred by these things.

Secondly there is an attitude which seems to say something like this. The New Testament does not lay down any blueprint for the church and so the corollary is that the churches are free to work out what is best for them in terms, for example, of leadership and worship. At times this seems more to arise because the New Testament does not lay down the blueprint some Christians would like to see, or the pattern which they think is likely to work best. However, the real point is this. The New Testament does have lot to say about the church and about churches. As with everything else that the Bible says we have to examine what it says carefully and not jump to conclusions that are not justified by the evidence. We must be rigorous in our exegesis, we must assess the significance of what Scripture says, but Scripture is authoritative and what is said about the church is authoritative, even if it does not fit in with our preconceived ideas. A high view of the church means a biblical view of the church and a willingness to submit our understanding and practice to what the Bible says, not however simply in external matters like structures and ministries but especially in spiritual principles and ways of proceeding. Moreover we need to take account of the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:16 when he says, ‘If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God’ (see also 14:33). Paul evidently anticipated that the churches would be in agreement, and that to depart from the churchly consensus was a mistaken thing to do.

What about the Old Testament in this connection? Sometimes too much weight is given to elements in the Old Testament, or perhaps it might be better to say that the wrong things have sometimes been carried over into church practice. When the priesthood of Christ was restricted to the Melchisidekian priesthood and the Aaronic priesthood was allowed as the pattern for the Christian ministry in the days of Cyprian this introduced a fatal misunderstanding about the ministry and was probably also responsible for introducing the whole idea of hierarchy. To a much lesser extent the Old Testament has affected some Protestants also. On the one hand this is seen when the book of Psalms is seen as the only legitimate hymn book for the church; on the other when references to musical instruments in the Psalms and elsewhere are used as establishing a pattern for New Testament worship. However it is also true, I believe, that to discount the Old Testament entirely is a mistake. There is a danger of this when, for example, it is said that New Testament worship is different from Old Testament worship in that worship now is a matter of the whole of life and Christians simply come together for edification. But this is actually not true; Christians come together to draw near to God, to express praise and thanks to him, to pray to him as well as to hear his word and be instructed from it. They always have done and always will do. It is the same passage in Hebrews 10 which speaks about using our access to God through Jesus our priest to ‘draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith’ which goes on to say, ‘not neglecting to meet together’, and it is difficult to believe that the one thing that is not to be done when meeting together is to draw near together to God in worship.

But if there are mistakes that are made when trying to apply the Old Testament to the church how do ensure that these are avoided? This is not necessarily an easy thing. The first point to be made is that all the ritual connected with priesthood and sacrifice finds it fulfilment in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. The people of Israel were intended to draw near to God through the mediation of others and on the basis of sacrifice. Exactly the same principle obtains today except that we have one Mediator and one sacrifice already completed through which we come. The procedure is the same in principle but very different in practice. Once that has been established there are many parallels that are instructive. Worship is essentially the response of a people redeemed by grace to the God who redeemed them. This means that it is generally joyful, as most of the Psalms indicate, in general terms even more so, as Old Testament people were not aware that redemption came on the basis of the sacrifice of the Son of God given by the Father’s love. It is by comparing Old and New Testaments together that we best see the relevance of the Old to the church life and worship of the New.

When we consider the New Testament itself many Christians are concerned about attempting too close a replication of what we find in it. This is firstly because there are all-too-many groups claiming to base their church structures and life on the New Testament who yet differ, sometimes quite considerably, among themselves, some of them making rather exclusive claims for their own position. In addition it does not seem that God’s blessing is particularly tied to any particular group – that is, at least, among those who believe the Bible as the word of God and who hold fast to and preach the evangelical gospel found within it. These concerns are understandable but we find it is much the same with other doctrines from the Bible, yet this does not stop us from seeking to be as biblical as possible in what we believe and do. Neither should this be the case with the church. The fact is Jesus Christ has spoken in his word and it must be the active intention of his people to find out what he has said and to try to bring themselves into line with it, first of all with spiritual priorities and attitudes but also with external structures and ministries. He must be allowed to rule his church.

There are questions that arise however. What about private judgment? Do not Protestants claim the right of judging the word of God for themselves, if necessary saying, ‘Here I stand, I can do other’. The answer to these questions needs to be nuanced. Yes, in the last analysis conscience is to be captive to the word of God. But this does not give individuals the right simply to look at the Bible by themselves and come to their own conclusions. No-one has the right to imagine that he can divorce himself from the understanding that God has already given to the church and work everything out by himself. However, if he (or of course, she) has honestly considered all that he has access to of the mind of God’s people and cannot believe that some point is right then he must hold to the word of God first, though still with a teachable spirit willing to listen to what others might say, and paying attention particularly to any consensus over the centuries and what conclusions those noted for godliness and service in Christ’s cause have come to.

What about the possibility of ongoing revelation? Does the Holy Spirit reveal or uncover truth not realised before to the church? Or does the Holy Spirit still speak through prophets giving direction and guidance to the church? Has God ‘yet more light and truth to break forth from his word’? Two statements are easy to make. The word of God must be considered as the only infallible and authoritative guide that has been given to the church and the Bible is that word in written form. Secondly the ministry of the Holy Spirit gives insight into the meaning of that word and enables application of the word to the life and witness of the church. While it is possible that those statements might be better expressed than I have managed they are non-negotiable in themselves. Christ must rule by his word as head of his church.

But there is a difficult area still existing. What about those matters that cannot be directly addressed in the Bible. Suppose, to take one example, a church was in a position where it would be able to plant another church and it seemed advantageous to do so. How does the church know whether it is the will of God for it to go ahead? My own answer, I think, would be something like this. The question itself is misconceived. The church and Christians generally are not supposed to operate by discovering that a certain course of action is the will of God, with its implication that every other course is not his will. The church in dependence on the Spirit and using Christian wisdom follows the principles of Scripture recognising that God brings his will to pass through all that it does. In a given situation a church might seek to plant another church, but this does not require that every member is equally convinced about the wisdom of doing so, or that anyone claims that it is the will of God for such a church to be planted. Maybe the attempt comes to nothing, the church will still learn much through the experience and this will prove to be the will of God for it at that time.

There is one further thing to say about the church recognizing that Christ speaks and guides through his word. Where this principle is honestly embraced we can expect there to be increasing convergence of understanding and practice as well as increasing respect for others in areas of disagreement. It surely must follow that if Christian churches are honestly seeking to be faithful to what their Lord says in his revealed word that there is likely to be more agreement, at least on the big things. It also follows that if we agree on our fundamental authority that in itself means a large measure of unity, and a basis for fruitful discussion on matters in dispute and for co-operation on matters of agreement. Moreover, if we can see that those with whom we disagree nevertheless are themselves truly submissive to the Lord and his word that establishes a basis for mutual respect, and we will probably find that on some matters they have much to teach us.

A high view of the church also means a high view of the ministry

This needs a little explanation. By ‘ministry’ I mean those who minister to the church and for the church. I mean those who are especially set apart as ministers of the word of God. In some circles it is common to stress what is called the every-member ministry of the church. This has an element of truth about it but can also be misleading. It is true that every Christian is to serve Christ the head of the church. It is true that within the fellowship of the church there is intended to be mutual encouragement, help and prayer. But it is not true that the ministry in any specific sense is intended to be carried out by every member. This needs some further consideration.

One of the passages which those who stress the importance of every-member ministry rely on is Ephesians 4, especially verses 11-13, though the whole section from verse 7 to verse 16 needs to be born in mind. Many modern Bible versions translate verses 11 and 12 like this: ‘And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ’. Looked at like this it seems pretty decisive; it is the saints who do the work of the ministry and who build up the body of Christ. However the translation is not certain. Older versions in effect insert a comma between ‘saints’ and ‘for’; ‘to equip the saints, for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ’. If you look at it like that, it is the apostles etc who are given for all three purposes. It seems to me that the Greek is not decisive here and at the least we should be careful about hanging too much on a translation which is debateable. More important though is the fact that the emphasis is actually on the persons listed in verse 11. The risen Christ has given gifts to men (v8) and what he has given are the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. He has given men to fulfil key functions. It is true that all the saints, all who belong to the church, have their part to play as the passage clearly indicates but it is these key people who enable that to take place. A third consideration arises if we ask what sort of ministry Christian people are called to. For this we need to look on in the letter. The end of the chapter speaks about practical holiness. This means putting away falsehood and anger, doing honest work and sharing, being kind to one another, forgiving one another. It is in this way that the church is built up in unity and Christlikeness. Going on into chapter 5 there are instructions for wives and husbands, for children and parents, for slaves and masters. These are the things that Paul is concerned about as he speaks to all the members. Well, there is room for some debate here, and over the roles themselves that are depicted in verse 11; later on we shall have to consider how within the church Christians are to handle differences of interpretation and understanding.

Perhaps it might be helpful to start with the list given in that verse, though this will have to be my own understanding and others will think differently at some points. The apostles are surely the same people who are spoken of in 2:20 and 3:5. As they are described as a foundation in 2:20 and as those to whom the mystery has been now made known they must refer to the twelve (including Matthias, 1:26) plus Paul himself (1 Corinthians 15:8). We often think of them as the ones through whom the gospel and its teachings were revealed in the past, but we overlook the fact that the apostles are a permanent gift to the church. The ministry of the apostles has not ended for they continue to speak from the pages of the New Testament. The writers of the New Testament were either apostles themselves or wrote under the authority of apostles. If we want to think of the present ministry of Christ, we can say that he speaks by his Spirit but he does so through the words of his apostles. The apostles are a gift to the church until the time when Jesus returns and their teaching is no longer needed.

If 2:20 and 3:5 identify the apostles for us they also identify the prophets. The apostles were limited in number, they could only be in one place at a time and they wrote over a period of time and even then it was some time before their writings would be available to the churches scattered across the Mediterranean world. The prophets therefore filled the gap. Before Paul wrote to the church at Corinth all the Christian truth they had received came by word of mouth, which could easily be forgotten or distorted. For this reason there were prophets in Corinth and Paul specially commends their ministry which was of crucial importance at that time, but not once the churches had the completed word of God. Evangelists I take to be preachers of the gospel, perhaps who especially go to places where it has not been heard before. It would be possible to describe Paul as an apostolic evangelist. Other descriptions could be said to fit for he was clearly a teacher but it seems likely that this description bests fits him (cf. Romans 15:19,20). In my opinion it is perfectly possible for evangelists to be elders in a church though not if their ministry is primarily an itinerant one – but we shall have to think about elders in a little while.

There is a lot of debate about pastors and teachers. Are they two separate roles or should we think of pastor-teachers? We cannot be certain though I lean towards the latter but we surely have to recognise that some are better at teaching than they are in fulfilling the more personal pastoral functions while it is the other way round in other cases. We shall need to look in more detail at pastor-teachers in a later chapter. What needs to be stated here is that this is a crucial gift for the health and growth of the churches and this is why a high view of the church also must have a high view of the ministry. If Christ has a church, a church which is expressed locally in specific churches, then those who minister within those churches and to their members obviously have a high calling and a vital ministry. The spiritual health, growth and purity of the churches depend upon the ministry they receive, and the ministries of the members themselves also depend to a large extent upon those with pastoral and preaching ministry. This needs to be considered sensitively. All Christians are equal before God as sinners redeemed solely by grace. All have different gifts and abilities and different callings in life which are to be faithfully fulfilled. We must not exalt one group of Christians over another. Yet the functions that Christians perform are not the same; some are more crucial than others. And of these latter none is of more central importance for the glory of God in the church than that of those exercised by pastors and teachers.

A high view of the church stresses the importance of worship

By worship here I am referring to corporate acts of coming into God’s presence for the purpose of praise, prayer and listening to his word. I also include baptism and the Lord’s Supper under the same heading. It is in the nature of the case that worship is of central importance. The church is a body, a fellowship of people drawn together because they have first been drawn to God through Jesus Christ. Having been justified by faith they have been adopted into God’s family, but that gracious adoption also constitutes them all brothers and sisters in Christ. They share a common birth by the Holy Spirit; they share a common faith in Jesus Christ and a common love for him; they serve the same Master and have the same hope, a glory which they will share together as the people of God. It is their relationship to God himself which is the most important thing about them, and it is that which also draws them together. As God’s people in churches in particular places they are ‘like living stones … being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ’ (1 Peter 2:5). Just as the tabernacle was central among the tribes in the wilderness, and the temple was in the centre of the land, in the capital city, once Solomon had built it, so worship is central in the life of the church.

It is an important truth that all of life should be lived to the glory of God and all that we do offered up in worship to God. It is also true that every individual believer needs to have those times when he or she draws near to God in prayer and in reading and receiving guidance and instruction from God’s word, and so for every married couple and family too. But a high view of the church places a special premium on the church together coming before God in worship. In many ways this is the primary activity of a church as church. God’s people are called to serve him in every area of life. He gives his people different gifts and abilities and puts them into different employments and positions in order to be his witnesses and representatives. Their main task is to be the best that they can be in all the varied stations in life; to commend the gospel and their Lord by their diligence, patience and goodness. You only have to read the New Testament letters to see how the apostles lay this obligation on Christian people, I have already referred to this above. But when do they come together with their brothers and sisters as church? When they meet for worship. They do not of course cease to be members of the church in their homes or in their jobs, that is, in the usual context in which they live out what it means to belong to Christ’s church, as already indicated. But they come together first and foremost to worship, generally on the first day of the week as the first Christians did (Acts 20:7). The local church gathers to express its praise and thanks to God, to pray for his continued help and grace and for the manifold needs of itself and its members and much more beside, and to hear the word of God read and preached.

In a busy world it is likely that many Christians are not able to be involved in what is usually called ‘church work’. Many churches make great demands upon their members and this is understandable in view of the many needs that there are. But it is also true that many employers make demands on their staff, and there are the demands of family life and secular activities beyond employment that need the involvement of Christian people. Worship is that time when Christians leave other activities, when they concentrate upon their God and the needs of their souls. It is these times of worship which enable them to function as Christian in the other activities of life. It is in worship that they draw near to God, that they realise the reality of fellowship with their brothers and sisters, that their hearts are moved, their souls are refreshed and strengthened, their minds are instructed and their lives given renewed purpose and direction. A high view of the church demands the highest standards of worship. Unless the regular worship services are acceptable and glorifying to God and inspiring and nourishing the souls of God’s people the church is failing at the most important point. Personal devotions and extra-church ministry, however valuable, were never meant to replace or compensate for a lack in corporate church worship.

One further point can be made here about worship; worship includes prayer and the Lord’s Supper. A prayer meeting is not a matter of business, nor is it just a matter of asking though often that will have a large part in such a meeting, it is worship and should be thought of in that way. It is a pity to make a distinction between worship services on a Sunday and prayer meetings on other occasions. Words are not everything but they can convey subtle distinctions which are not helpful. Later more will be said about the Lord’s Supper – allow me to use that title for the time being, it is the one I prefer but others are perfectly suitable. A high view of the church and of worship, I believe, will also mean that the Lord’s Supper should be celebrated regularly, frequently, with dignity and appropriate time being given to it. In this many Nonconformist churches seem to fail.

A high view of the church also recognizes the priority of mission

Some of the statements in the last section may have raised doubts about this in the minds of some readers, but this point is not just added as a corrective, it is an essential truth. It may seem that the use of the word ‘priority’ indicates that mission comes before everything else and I would not want to give that impression, but it does come with everything else. The Bible reveals God’s great mission: to save sinners and to bring them into one body which will glorify him throughout eternity. In fulfilment of this he sent his Son, the archetypal missionary, and through his work the church in its New Testament form has come into being to continue and bring to completion God’s mission in the world through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. So mission enters into the essential purpose of the church and must never be relegated to a subsidiary position.

This is why worship must never be thought of as completely separate from mission. It is why Christian worship must be sensitive to unbelievers and to what goes on in contemporary life. There are certain things that those who come into Christian services of worship ought always to be able to pick up. That for us God is great and good; we worship him and love him, we sing his praises not out of formality but from our hearts. That prayer is real and we expect God to hear and to answer. That we trust him and trust his word and desire to hear it and let it mould our lives. That we are glad to welcome strangers; that we desire that everyone should know and worship this God for he is worthy of it – and more also. And worship leads to mission. One of the words that Roman Catholics use for the Lord’s Supper is the ‘Mass’ which comes from the Latin word for ‘send’ and occurs at the very end of the liturgical service. Thus the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: ‘Holy Mass (Missa), because the liturgy in which the mystery of salvation is accomplished concludes with the sending forth (missio) of the faithful, so that they may fulfil God’s will in their daily lives.’ We disagree strongly with the Roman Catholic understanding of the Mass because of its unscriptural nature, but we ought to see that when worship and the Lord’s Supper are finished the members of the church are indeed ‘sent out’ to fulfil God’s will in their daily lives.

In the first place the mission of the church takes place as the church lives out its calling as God’s people in the world. This was the case with Israel in the Old Testament. As the nation prepared to cross the Jordan and take up residence in the land of promise, living its life surrounded by heathen nations Moses addressed it like this: ‘See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people” For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?’ (Deuteronomy 4:5-8). The church also is to live ‘in the sight of the peoples’ keeping the statutes and rules that God has given, demonstrating that God’s ways are best and that God is real and makes a difference to human life and behaviour. Peter picks up the analogy in his first letter: ‘But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles [literally, nations] honourable, so that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation’ (1 Peter 2:9-12). Israel often failed very badly. The church ought to do much better but its testimony is still regrettably patchy.

There are two aspects to be considered in the light of these passages. The first is this, whatever might be said about it, the church should live in such a way that its whole manner of life commends its Lord and disarms its critics. The church is to live down the accusations that are made against it. It is to be noted for its good deeds, 1 Peter 2:12, where Peter is probably remembering the words of Jesus, ‘let your light so shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven’ (Matthew 5:16). The second aspect is this. Israel was a nation and it was particularly in its national life, in the life of the people together, that it was to be a testimony to the nations. Its laws were just and wise and merciful. The people were brothers and sisters and were to live together in harmony, caring for each other. At the centre of its life was its worship of the Lord with all the men and many women and children too going up to the temple three times a year. All these elements belonged together; it was a unified nation under God with a just and compassionate lifestyle arising from its relationship to him. The church is not a nation, it is scattered throughout the nations, but it expresses itself in local churches, local communities of God’s people and these should be examples of unity, of belonging, of justice, goodness, compassion and love. How far they are is always a challenge and a matter for re-examination and re-commitment.

But there is much more to mission than this. In the context of all that we have been considering there is the commission given by the risen Lord Christ: ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:18-20). I take it that this is best understood as a commission given to the church. Although the eleven disciples are mentioned the passage itself has indications that more people might have been present when Jesus spoke these words; and the reference to ‘the end of the age’ indicates that this is an ongoing commission, always relevant until the end comes. What needs to be noted especially is that this is a very broad commission. It is not just about making converts; it includes baptizing them, which indicates a church dimension, and teaching them to observe all that Jesus has commanded. There is a complete process here: making disciples, bringing them into the church, teaching and nurturing them to bring them to full maturity in all the ways of the Lord. It is an ongoing and never-ending task with ministry directed both to those outside the church and those inside the church, fulfilled both by evangelist and pastor.

It is the relationship between reaching out to those beyond the bounds of the church and pasturing those within which I would like to comment on. These tasks go on together, though often different people are responsible for the two aspects of ministry. Those who evangelize need to realise that disciples either have to be formed into churches, as in New Testament days, or else integrated into existing churches. A high view of the church necessarily means that this must always be in mind. And churches do not simply exist to reach out for more converts, but to worship God and nurture the all-round growth of the believing community. Similarly churches and those who work in them must avoid introversion and remember not only their own responsibility in evangelism, but also the duty of prayer for others engaged in evangelistic mission both at home and abroad and to be on the look out for those within their own membership who may be gifted for similar work. Because nothing is perfect in the present age there are often tensions at this point, but the work is one and needs to be looked at in that way.

In recent years there has been an emphasis on the pastoral ministry which has acted to the detriment of those with evangelistic gifts. It is not often the case that evangelistic gifts and pastoral gifts are combined in the same man to the same degree. Because of the emphasis on pastoral ministry the work of an evangelist has sometimes been seen as a sort of second-class ministry. The result has sometimes been that those better suited to evangelism have sought to be pastors instead which can have a twofold effect. On the one hand the work of evangelism may not be done as it could have been, on the other those not entirely suited to pastoral ministry may struggle at the task, to their own discouragement and the dissatisfaction of the church. All that is being argued here is that a high view of the church sees the vital place of mission and looks at it in a joined-up way. There is one church and one mission and this perspective must mould the way we think of mission and the way it is carried out.

A high view of the church has a deep concern for the glory of God through the church

In Paul’s doxology at the end of Ephesians 3 he says, ‘to him be glory in the church’ and this must be the church’s concern. It is the name of God, the reputation of God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, that is at stake here. When Paul, a Jew who had a deep love and concern for his own people, was writing to the Romans he found it necessary to quote this verdict from the Old Testament about them: ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you’ (Romans 2:24, quoting Isaiah 52:5 though modified in the light of Ezekiel 36:20-23). That is a terrible indictment, and it reminds us that the reputation of God is bound up with the behaviour of the church. This presents a great challenge to Christian people in the twenty-first century and at a number of levels.

In the first place it is not at all apparent what the church is. To an outsider there are great multinational organizations that go by the name of ‘church’, there are national organizations with the same name, and most towns in Britain and America are dotted with a variety of buildings having a variety of names all including the word ‘church’ somewhere. What is anyone who is not in the know to make of all this? This, to my mind, is a very serious problem. There is clearly no easy way of resolving it. But – and this is what makes it so serious – the reputation of God, our God, is bound up with this. People dismiss the Christian faith simply because ‘Christianity’ seems to be such a shambles. I believe evangelicals ought to pay much more attention to this, difficult though it seems to come up with any answers. Certainly at the local level churches need to be much more aware of the importance of their corporate witness in the area that God has put them and amongst the people who live there.

Regrettably it is often at the local level that damage is done. There seem to be tensions and difficulties in far too many churches. Of course there will always be some, but it is not so much that they arise that is the problem, but the fact that churches and their leadership often seem incapable of dealing with them in a biblical manner. Far too many churches end up with actual division, one group going off, sometimes to join other churches, sometimes to form a new church. The ripples from events like this spread out to relatives of church members, parents of children that attend Sunday school or young peoples’ groups, people who live close to the church building who often get to know far more than is realised about the church. The gospel speaks of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of bringing people together and uniting them in love, but all these are called into question by bitterness, refusal to apologise or to forgive, hard attitudes and division. But ultimately it is God’s name that suffers.

Evangelicals believe a great deal in common; even allowing for the fact that the word has been somewhat devalued in recent years. Yet we are divided up into small groups of churches, and groups of churches within groups of churches, over all sorts of matters which may have relative importance but are not the big, central issues of the faith. We all recognize one another as belonging to Christ’s church, even though some of our disagreements may be substantial; it is possible to believe that brothers in Christ have succumbed to wrong emphases which will be spiritually harmful in the long run without calling into question their salvation or their integrity. In practice we might, say, support the same missionary societies, make much the same sort of representations to government, meet at conferences, but we still won’t have any formal links or public acknowledgement that we are one in the body of Christ. We like to think that by keeping a public distance from those with whom we have these measures of disagreement we are acting in a principled way and being faithful to our Lord. But I doubt whether this is actually the case. The fact is that we are one with all those who belong to the church of Christ; they are our brothers and sisters in him and our disagreements are ones that are internal. The Scriptures give us guidance on what excludes from the church and this needs to be examined in a later chapter; basically it comes down to heresy and serious moral sin for which there is no repentance. We read of our Lord Jesus Christ concerning his people, ‘He is not ashamed to call them brothers.’ If anyone has the right to ashamed of any and all of us it is he, but for any of us to be ashamed to be identified as brothers with others who are clearly his true followers must itself be something shameful.

The public lines of demarcation between churches and Christians are all wrong today and give a false impression to the world. There are those regrettably who call themselves Christians with whom we are not at one, there are others with whom we are at one but we are not seen to be at one. This may not matter quite so much among ourselves; on the whole we understand the situation (perhaps!), but it does matter for our witness to the world, and for the reputation of our God and his Son, Jesus Christ. I know we have to make some distinction between the visible and the invisible church, I know the problems which come as the legacy of 20 centuries of history. But Christ has a church in the world; it is one and that unity is supposed to be seen in a fractured world (John 17:20-23). It is not good enough simply to say, ‘Come into our local congregation and see brotherly love in action’ when that brotherly love can’t seem to reach a couple of streets to another congregation where they do things in a slightly different way. Is our common Lord glorified by that?

Of course this is not the only thing that harms the reputation of God. The church of Jesus Christ in its earthly condition will never be the perfect church it will be one day (Ephesians 5:25-27), and paradoxically the more successful it is in winning converts the more problems and difficulties it has to overcome, the more lives have to be nurtured and guided into the paths of righteousness. The church must always be reforming; it must always be crying out for God to revive it, it must always be pursuing holiness. The problem when churches are divided up into different groupings, with slightly different understandings and different agendas is that it is all too easy for individual churches or groupings to compare themselves with others. ‘We are the ones who have our eyes open to worldliness, but look at them!’ Pride and self-righteousness are never far away from our hearts; a sort of incipient one-upmanship creeps into Christians far too easily. It is better to acknowledge our unity and try to help each other, rather than divide up and fire shots at one another. We all still have much to learn, especially in the art of godly, Christ-like living and Christ-honouring church life and if we were willing to we could probably learn much more from each other than we realise. A high view of the church longs for one holy, catholic church; that is, a church which glorifies God because it is reflecting something of his character in its inner life and its outward witness. And because it longs for it, it works towards it.