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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment