Saturday 29 February 2020
The Social And Economic Responsibility Of The Visible Church
By Johannes G. Vos
Clay Center, Kansas.
I. The Church has a Social and Economic Responsibility
THAT the visible Church has a responsibility in the social and economic spheres is and always has been quite generally accepted by Calvinists. Doubtless there has been, and still is, disagreement, and also vagueness, concerning the question of precisely what that responsibility is, but that it exists has been generally accepted by adherents of the Reformed Faith. The purpose of the present article is to attempt to define and clarify the basic principles involved in the matter of the social and economic duty of the visible Church. It is not proposed to consider in any detail matters which ought to be included in the content of the Church’s testimony concerning social and economic matters, but rather to discuss the relation of social and economic matters as such to the visible Church. Thus, for example, this article will not undertake to discuss either capitalism or socialism from the Christian point of view, but will rather seek to show what is involved in the Church’s responsibility concerning whatever economic principles it believes to be sanctioned by the Word of God. The present article does not purport to be a discussion of either sociology or economics from the Christian point of view, but only a study of the relation of the visible Church, as an institution, to these realms.
The method employed will be to present, first of all, a brief grounding of the Reformed position that the visible Church has a responsibility in the social and economic spheres; then to state and criticize certain widely prevalent views concerning the social and economic duty of the Church; and finally to discuss in a positive way the witness of the visible Church in the social and economic spheres: its derivation from the Scriptures, its formulation in creedal doctrine, its proclamation in the pulpit, its relation to the acts of ecclesiastical judicatories, and its necessary limits.
That the visible Church has a responsibility in the social and economic spheres is denied, in general, by mysticism, pietism, certain types of eschatologism, and to some extent by Barthianism or the theology of crisis. Over against all these tendencies, that responsibility is emphatically affirmed by the Reformed Faith. Wherever Calvinism has been professed in a really pure and consistent form, it has always manifested a genuine concern that the truth of special revelation be brought to bear on all realms and aspects of human life. For Calvinism is the antithesis of the anabaptistic position which would virtually limit the relationships of Christianity to the realm of special grace and would isolate that realm from all significant connection with “the world”. Not world-flight but world-conquest has ever been the watchword of real Calvinism.
We shall consider, then, the grounds of the Calvinistic view on this question. It cannot be denied that the Scripture deals with social and economic matters. By this it is meant that the Scripture deals with social and economic matters not merely incidentally, or for purposes of illustration or metaphor (as in some of our Lord’s parables, such as those of the Pounds, Talents, Laborers in the Vineyard and the Lost Son), but that the Scripture deals with social and economic matters directly — not, of course, as though the Bible were a textbook of economics or sociology, presenting a general or formal scientific treatment of these subjects, but, rather, as presenting expressly or by necessary implication, data which must be incorporated in any truly Christian formulation of these sciences.
The Scriptures which bear upon social and economic matters are so numerous that nothing beyond a very general and incomplete survey of such can be attempted in this article. First of all, we find, at the very beginning of the Old Testament, truth concerning marriage and the constitution of the family (Gen. 1:18–24). In the decalogue, the entire second table of the law bears on social and economic life. The fifth commandment sets forth the sanctity of authority, the sixth the sanctity of life, the seventh the sanctity of sex and marriage, the eighth the sanctity of private property, the ninth the sanctity of truth between man and man, and the tenth the sanctity of God’s providential dispensations in the social and economic spheres.
As affirmed by the Westminster Confession of Faith,[1] that portion of the Mosaic Law which constituted the civil laws of the nation of Israel “expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other now, farther than the general equity thereof may require”. This statement of the Confession of course embraces a considerable portion of the Mosaic legislation, and precisely that portion which deals most directly with social and economic matters. The Confession’s statement, however, should not be taken as implying that these “judicial laws” of Israel have no relation whatever to the subject of Christian social ethics, but only as implying that they have no direct and formal application, per se, as positive laws, to Christian social ethics, although the principles of “general equity” which can rightly be discerned as underlying them are of a moral nature and therefore perpetually valid.
In the Psalter the many references to “the poor” and “the needy” (e.g., Psalm 9:18) have no doubt frequently been regarded as referring to the economically underprivileged, but this interpretation is quite unwarranted. In practically every case the context indicates that these expressions do not refer primarily or directly to the economic status of the persons described, but are to be understood in a religious sense, being in fact almost techinical terms used to describe the true people of God who must suffer persecution and reproach for His name. This is shown by the fact that “the poor” and “the needy” are regularly contrasted, not with “the rich” but with “the proud” and “the wicked” (e.g., Psalm 10:2; 12:3–5; cf. 147:6 where “the meek” are contrasted with “the wicked”).
Those Psalms which picture the glories of the messianic Kingdom and the final eschatological state, as Psalms 46 and 72, in doing so of course present a picture of an ideal state of social justice. This may be regarded as having an indirect bearing on the subject of social ethics, for the ideal which will be actualized in the eschatological Kingdom is precisely the state of affairs which, if it were not for sin and the curse, would exist here and now, and therefore, from the standpoint of the moral law, it is the state of affairs which ought to exist here and now, even though it cannot exist here and now except in a partial and preliminary manner.
The Book of Proverbs contains a great deal of teaching which bears on the ethical aspects of social and economic matters, so much, indeed, that it would be superfluous to cite particular passages of the book.
It is in the Old Testament prophets especially that the advocates of the liberal “social gospel” profess to find teaching on “social justice”. It is of course correct to say that the prophets proclaimed the necessity of justice in the social sphere. Yet the emphasis of the Old Testament prophets is not that of the “social gospel”, for the latter usually has a humanistic or man-centered tendency, whereas the messages of the prophets are theistic and God-centered to the core. It is never social justice for its own sake, nor social justice for man’s benefit and welfare, that the prophets insist upon, but social justice for God’s sake — social justice as an implication of a covenant relationship to Jehovah, the God of grace and salvation, to serve and glorify whom must be the total aim of His people. Thus understood, the Old Testament prophets provide many instances of ethical teaching which bears on social and economic questions. Such passages as Isaiah 10:1, 2; 29:20, 21; 58:6, 7; Amos 2:6–8; 5:11, 12; 8:5, 6 may be cited as examples.
Turning to the New Testament, we may note that the preaching of John the Baptist contained a strong note of social ethical obligation and of insistence upon repentance for sins of social and economic injustice (Luke 2:1–14).
Contrary to claims frequently made, the Sermon on the Mount contains comparatively little teaching that has a direct bearing on social and economic questions. Its message is primarily religious, and its ethical teaching moves primarily in the personal rather than the social sphere. Mention may be made, however, of its teachings concerning marriage and divorce (Matt. 5:31, 32), concerning non-resistance to evil (Matt. 5:38–42) and concerning love of enemies (Matt. 5:43–48).
Turning from the Sermon on the Mount to other parts of our Lord’s teaching, we find Him dealing with support of needy parents (Matt. 15:3–6), obligations to the State (Matt. 22:15–21), marriage and divorce (Matt. 19:3–9), the wickedness of those who “devour widows’ houses” (Matt. 23:14), the duty of conserving food (John 6:12), the obligation of rendering help to our neighbor in his time of need (Luke 10:25–37), and the duty of faithfulness in handling “the unrighteous mammon” (Luke 16:9–12).
In the New Testament Epistles we find, among other matters, teaching concerning civil government in Romans 13; concerning marriage in I Corinthians 7; concerning various reciprocal duties of husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, in Eph. 5:22–6:9 and Col. 3:18–4:1. Warnings against social parasitism and the love of money are found in II Thess. 3:10–12 and I Tim. 6:9, 10; the right use of wealth is inculcated in I Tim. 6:17–19; the Epistle to Philemon has a bearing on slavery. James 5:l-6 warns against the misuse of wealth and oppression of the poor. James 2:15, 16 and I John 3:17, 18 speak of the duty of providing relief for needy Christians. All these passages contain social or economic teaching in the broad sense.
Finally, mention may be made of social and economic teaching in the Apocalypse. Though obviously the primary purpose of the book is not to teach social ethics, yet it contains elements which have a real bearing on social and economic matters. In chapter 6 we see the unfolding of divine judgments upon a world which rejects the gospel of Christ. Among these judgments are the slaughter of war and the curse of famine, accompanied by soaring prices for the commonest of staple foods. Here it may properly be inferred that war and its sequel of famine are not to be regarded as mere mechanical problems in human relations and in the production and distribution of foodstuffs, but that we are to realize that their ultimate origin is spiritual, namely the sin and unbelief of mankind.
Again in chapter 13 we have the description of the tyrannical reign of the wild beast from the sea. Among the features of his reign are universal dominion, world-wide peace, bitter persecution of Christianity, all-but-universal man-worship, and ruthless enforcement of submission to this dictatorial regime by means of an absolute economic boycott (verses 16, 17). Surely this chapter bears on a Christian view of society and of economic life. Among other things it teaches a lesson — much needed today — that world peace on the wrong basis would be a curse rather than a blessing, and that the pooling of all national sovereignties in a single world-state, so far from being a step toward “building the Kingdom of God”, might turn out to be the kingdom of the beast, with its utter suppression of all human liberty and its ruthless trampling upon all that is holy.
It has been shown that the Scripture deals with social and economic matters. As Calvinists we hold that the sovereignty of God is absolute and that the scope of the authority of the Scripture which reveals the will of God is unlimited. Where the Bible speaks, what it says is authoritative in every sphere of life to which it is properly applicable. Therefore the relevant teachings of the Scripture must have their proper application to the social and economic spheres. The authority of the Scripture is not to be confined to “faith and life” in the narrow or strictly religious sense; all the concerns and relationships of human life are included in its scope.
From the foregoing it follows that the visible Church has a responsibility to bear testimony to the teachings of the Scriptures as they bear on social and economic matters. For the Church as the pillar and ground of the truth must bear witness to the whole counsel of God.
II. Common Views Concerning the Social and Economic Duty of the Church
1. That the Visible Church is the Agent of World Redemption
A fairly common view among those who reject the supernatural soteriology of Christianity regards the visible Church as the agent of world redemption. This conception regards the visible Church itself, as such, as the hope of humanity; it sees in the Church a nucleus of men of good will which is to remake human society and mold and fashion it as it ought to be. The slogans of this point of view are such expressions as “building a better world” and “building the Kingdom”.
Certainly there is an element of truth in this idea. For the visible Church is the sphere in which the gospel of Christ, which is the power of God unto salvation, is chiefly operative. As such, it is normally the nucleus of regenerate life in the world, and must therefore produce an impact upon society in general. Christians are affirmed in the Scripture to be both “the light of the world” and also “the salt of the earth”. Where there are no regenerate Christians, there exists no real “salt”, and therefore no genuine impact of regenerate life upon society in general. Where there are regenerate Christians, such an impact, in greater or less degree, will exist. Thus in God’s appointed scheme of things the growth, in numbers and in grace, of the visible Church, will be accompanied by an increasing beneficial effect upon society in general (or in case of the negative reaction of extreme “hardening” on the part of the world, by increasing divine judgments).
The view under consideration, though it contains an element of truth, is none the less essentially false. It tends to regard the visible Church, in its corporate capacity as an institution, not so much as a witness as as an expert engineer who is to take human society apart and put it together again as it ought to be. This view thus regards the social impact of the Church not as an organic development of the regenerate life of the Church, but as a deliberately planned and executed program — not the growth and functioning of an organism, but the promotion of a campaign. That is to say, its naturalistic view of salvation inevitably causes it to regard world redemption as a matter of human planning and reconstruction. If the human race must climb the heights of destiny according to its own wisdom and under its own power, then the visible Church as the one organization that regards that task with real seriousness, must take the responsibility for determining the pattern to be sought and the means to be employed in seeking it.
To regard the visible Church as the agent of world redemption is not only wrong in principle, but must always lead to manifold evils in practice. For one thing, it must tend toward a totalitarian notion of the Church which regards the Church as a sort of over-all steering committee for the human race, an organization to the functions of which there can hardly be assigned any definite limits. Such a Church will always tend to become totalitarian; it will always tend to eclipse the individual, the family, and the State. Such tendencies are seen when the Church in its corporate capacity as an institution steps outside its proper sphere and engages actively in politics, in business, in general education, and so forth. That Christian people — the Church’s members — should exert an impact on the political life around them, that they should do their best to bring Christian ethical principles to bear upon the business world, that there should be adequate general education conducted upon a Christian basis, no consistent Calvinist will deny. But for the Church as an institution to enter the political arena favoring and supporting this or that candidate or party, to sponsor a co-operative grocery store, to own and operate an agricultural college, is quite another matter. If the Reformed interpretation of the Scripture teaching about the visible Church is correct, these activities lie outside the limits of the proper functions of the Church as an institution. The Church does indeed have a supremely important task to perform, but that task is not the reconstruction of human society in general.
2. That the Social and Economic Message is the Church’s Primary Message
There exists in some quarters today a tendency to falsify the gospel by “interpreting” or re-thinking it in terms of sociological or economic theories. Thus the fruit is confused with the tree, and the cart placed before the horse. In some cases, indeed, a false and poisonous fruit is confused with the good tree, and a broken and dangerous cart is placed before the reliable horse. For the social and economic theories in terms of which Christianity is “interpreted” are themselves sometimes of a highly doubtful and even harmful nature.
This tendency to re-think Christianity in terms of this or that social or economic conception is of course a thoroughly humanistic tendency, a product of the perverse man-centered view of life that is characteristic of our time. Religion is regarded as a means to an end, and cultivated because of its “values” for the human race. For this tendency consists in regarding this or that (real or imaginary) product of Christianity as the main thing in Christianity. It may assume various forms, from a reactionary insistence upon the status quo which virtually identifies Christianity with extreme capitalism, laissez faire and the supremacy of the white race, to a downright advocacy of communism as the real substance of the Kingdom of God on earth. Perhaps its most common form consists of an identification of Christianity with either socialism or democracy, regarding one or the other of these as equivalent to “the essence of Christianity”. In each case Christianity is regarded primarily or wholly from the standpoint of human benefit, in each case its real essence is missed, and in each case a social by-product (which may be legitimate or spurious) is wrongly regarded as the essence.
The true conception is rather that of the application of Christian ethics to the social and economic spheres. This application, being a product of the gospel, is therefore not the gospel itself. The term “social gospel” is, consequently, a misnomer, for duty is not good news; the application of Christianity to the social and economic spheres is a matter of ethics, not of evangelism. Instead of speaking of a “social gospel” we should speak of a social application of the ethical implications of the gospel. For in Biblical Christianity the primary message must always be the soteriological message; the ethical implications must always be regarded as secondary. This does not, of course, mean that the ethical implications are unimportant, nor that they may be neglected. Neither in social nor in individual matters can true Christianity tolerate antinomianism.
The question now arises, In what sense can we speak of “social redemption”? This phrase is frequently used by orthodox Christians, quite apart from the ideology of the “social gospel”, to describe the far-reaching effects of Christianity upon human social institutions. Undoubtedly there is a sense in which we may rightly speak of social redemption. Christ is the Redeemer of the human race as an organism, and this must include human society and its institutions. The phrase, however, is often used in a vague and loose manner, and needs to be carefully guarded.
Obviously we cannot speak of social redemption in a sense exactly analogous to that in which we can speak of the redemption of an individual, or more precisely the salvation of an individual. If society or a social institution, such as, for example, a nation, can experience “salvation”, this is not to be thought of as parallel to the subjective salvation of an individual human being. We cannot rightly apply the whole ordo salutis — regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, glorification — to society. It is true that it is common enough to speak of the “regeneration” or “re-birth” of a nation, but this is a figure of speech; it does not mean that a nation as such can experience that instantaneous, supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit by which, as a nation, it would cease to be dead in trepasses and sins and become a new creature in Christ Jesus. Moreover if society, or a nation, can experience “salvation”, it can also at a later time lose it again, but an individual who really experiences it possesses it for ever.
To speak of the “redemption” or “salvation” of society or of any social institution is, therefore, really to employ a figurative mode of expression. Strictly speaking, what is meant is that enough of the individuals making up that society have experienced personal subjective salvation, and have engaged in the practical application of its ethical implications, to alter the dominant character or trend or official position or status of that society or institution from non-Christian to Christian, from unbelief and rebellion against God and His Word to faith and submission to God and His Word. When such a change takes place that society is “redeemed” or “saved” in the only way that a collective organism can possibly be saved — by the salvation of the dominant portion of its component parts, not only in their inner character but in their social relationships. In this sense “social redemption” or “social salvation” may properly be affirmed, but it must always be borne in mind that this comes through and is contingent upon the personal salvation of the individuals who impart to the social organism in question its specifically Christian character. We may not posit a realistic ordo salutis for social organisms as such.
Does this imply the non-reality of collective persons? Brunner in his book Justice and the Social Order[2] entirely rejects the concept of collective personality, even asserting that to speak seriously of such paves the way for totalitarianism. There is good reason for holding that the Scripture teaches the reality of collective persons, however. The elders of Israel made a league with the Gibeonites without inquiring of the Lord (Joshua 9:3–27). Even though this treaty was obtained by fraud on the part of the Gibeonites, it was binding and could not be broken (verses 19, 20). Long afterwards in the time of King David there occurred a famine of three years’ duration, which David learned, upon inquiring of the Lord, had been inflicted upon the nation because King Saul had slain the Gibeonites (II Sam. 21:1). Joshua, the elders of Israel and the Gibeonites who negotiated the original treaty had all been dead for a long period of time; Saul who violated the treaty had been dead for years, and his family was entirely out of authority in Israel; yet after all that, the nation of Israel as such is held responsible by God for maintaining the sanctity of the treaty entered into in the days of Joshua. How can these clear facts be explained except by affirming that the treaty was the deed of the nation as such, and that the nation as such was responsible for maintaining it, and guilty of violating it? The same conception of collective personality and collective responsibility also permeates modern life. A treaty is binding even though all the individuals who negotiated and ratified it may be dead or out of office. A war bond or currency note is an obligation of the nation as such, even though the administration that issued it may be out of office and the signatures on it may be those of dead men. We may rest assured, then, that corporate or collective personality and responsibility has a real, and not merely a fictitious, existence, and that Christian social ethics must therefore take account of this in the application of Christian ethical principles to the realm of society.
Against the application of Christian religious and ethical principles to collective persons such as families and nations it has sometimes been urged that these collective persons exist in the sphere of common grace and therefore it is wrong to apply to them principles derived from the realm of special grace. But the fact that such collective persons exist in the realm of common grace does not imply that they may not have certain responsibilities or relationships in the realm of special grace. It is an over-simplification to assert that the family and the State exist in the sphere of common grace and therefore they need not, or must not, be Christianized. The individual also exists in the sphere of common grace, yet it is his duty to become a Christian. The family and the State are corporate persons having moral responsibility collectively, and not merely in their individual members. Though neither the family nor the State is peculiar to Christianity, and therefore both must be regarded as pertaining essentially to the realm of common grace, yet in certain cases they may have specific relationships to the realm of special grace. Thus there is such a thing as a Christian family; not merely a family whose members are Christians, but a Christian family. And there is (or at least ought to be) such a thing as a Christian State; not merely a State most of whose citizens are Christians, but a Christian State.
Admittedly the problems of the interrelations of the realms of common and special grace in connection with the family, and especially with the State, are complex, and have never yet been throughly and satisfactorily worked out. A great deal more study of this problem, in the light of the Reformed doctrines of common and special grace, needs to be done. But at all events we should avoid that facile over-simplification by which an organism existing primarily in the realm of common grace is assumed, ipso facto, to have no obligations or relationships in the realm of special grace. Whether the State, for example, in its corporate capacity, ought to have a specifically Christian profession and character, is of course a question on which Reformed theologians have differed. A. A. Hodge answered this question in the affirmative:
The contrary view of this question is set forth by Dr. W. Stanford Reid in an article entitled “Should We Try to Christianize the Realm of Common Grace?” Dr. Reid writes as follows:
Further, in criticism of Dr. Reid’s position, it may be inquired whether the Kingdom of God is righteousness and truth and peace only in the abstract, or only in principle. Do political parties and tariff reforms have nothing to do with righteousness and truth and peace? Might it not be that righteousness would require the rejection of a particular political party, the favoring of a tariff reform? Doubtless Dr. Reid would admit this much, yet he rejects the idea of a Christian State, a Christian political or economic program, as confusing the realms of common and special grace. But is not this an over-simplification of the question? Surely the realm of special grace is not secularized when the Church owns real estate, builds buildings, receives bequests — all matters within the realm of common grace. Why then should the concept of a Christian State be rejected as “Christianizing the realm of common grace”? The problem is much more complex than appears on the surface. The same issue of The Calvin Forum in which Dr. Reid’s article was published also contained an article advocating Christian labor unions.[6] Similarly there are those who advocate Christian veterans’ organizations. The Christian school is also a case in point: the school, teaching general knowledge, such as reading, writing and arithmetic, clearly exists primarily in the realm of common grace. Yet Christian parents provide Christian schools for their children, and it is clear that a Christian school is not simply a school with Christian pupils and Christian teachers, but a school which is established and which is to function according to the teachings of Christianity. This constitutes an instance of the complexity of the interrelations of the realms of common and special grace; the school which exists and functions primarily in the realm of common grace, yet recognizes certain obligations and relationships in the realm of special grace, and if it were not for the realm of special grace there would not even be any reason for the existence of such a school.
Even though we may yield a cordial assent to Dr. Hodge’s statement that “it is our duty, as far as lies in our power, immediately to organize human society and all its institutions and organs upon a distinctively Christian basis”, we must always remember that this obligation of Christian social ethics is not and never can be the Church’s primary message. The primary message must always be the gospel, which is addressed to individuals; the ethical implications, individual and social, though both real and important, must remain secondary.
3. That the Church’s Social Message is Coordinate with its Message to the Individual
A third common view of the social and economic responsibility of the Church would regard the social message as coordinate with, or parallel to, the message to the individual. This view is held not only by advocates of the liberal “social gospel” but by many conservative Christians who are concerned about the importance of an application of Christian principles to the problems of society, but who have not arrived at an organically integrated conception of the relationship between the individual message and the social message. The tendency in such cases is to assert that the Church must of course preach the gospel to individuals, but the Church must also proclaim redemption and righteousness to society; and these two functions of the Church are juxtaposed in a more or less mechanical fashion as if they constituted two distinct but parallel or coordinate assignments. Such a view must be regarded as erroneous because over-simplified and mechanical in its conception of the relation of the social obligation to the Church.
The great peril of regarding the social message as coordinate with the message to the individual is that this view inevitably leads to the anomaly of a belief in the possibility of “Christianizing” the social structure apart from the regeneration of its individual members (or the controlling portion of them). If the message to society and the message to the individual are parallel and not organically related the one to the other, then each of them may attain results independently of the other. In that case, there might conceivably exist a “Christian” State with a very small proportion of Christian citizens, or even with none at all; or there might exist a “Christian” economic order operated by unbelievers, that is, by persons converted to the Church’s social and economic message but not to its individual message. From any truly Christian point of view such a thing is of course an absurdity, yet it is logically possible if the social message and the message to the individual are regarded as coordinate.
The view under consideration includes all attempts to arrive at a Christian society or the Kingdom of God en masse, by the shortcut of attempted direct cultivation of the social fruits of Christianity apart from the cultivation and growth of the tree. This entire conception stands condemned by the affirmation of the Scripture that a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit (Matt. 7:17). A corrupt tree — a society made up of individuals who are personally unregenerate — may indeed bring forth fruit which superficially seems to be good, and may even, by the operation of God’s common grace, bring forth fruit which is “good” in a relative and limited sense — that is, which is “good” if judged from a humanistic rather than from a theistic point of view — but cannot yield fruit which is truly good in the Christian sense of the word.
The truth is that the Church’s social message is organically related, subordinately, to the message to the individual. Christ is the Saviour of society, of nations, of social institutions, only by first of all being the Saviour of individual human beings, not otherwise. The ethical principles of Christianity are applied in the social sphere by Christian people, not by the children of the world. The notion that those who are not personally believers in Christ can apply the ethical teachings of Christianity in their social and business life is simply a delusion, albeit a very common delusion. There is no shortcut to the Kingdom of God; it cannot be attained by a mass movement of the unregenerate. Those who think that non-Christians can practice the ethical teachings of Christianity have a sadly superficial, mechanical and erroneous idea of what the ethical teachings of Christianity are and what is involved in practicing them. This stricture is relevant against those who glibly talk of “applying the Golden Rule” to industry and business, as if any non-Christian could easily apply the Golden Rule simply by deciding that it would be a good thing to do. Of course no person can even begin to apply the Golden Rule to any sphere of life until he is born again, for the Golden Rule is not really applied unless it is done with a motive of love for God and as a matter of obedience to the will of God.
The Christianization of society may indeed lag far behind the regeneration of individuals; in fact, it must inevitably do so, owing to the human lethargy of the regenerate (who are in this life only imperfectly sanctified) and their sinful neglect of their duty of applying their Christian principles consistently in the social sphere. But while the Christianization of society will always lag behind the regeneration of individuals, the proposition may not be reversed. The regeneration of individuals can never lag behind the Christianization of society; the fruit may develop much more slowly than the tree, but the tree will never lag behind the development of the fruit. For the fruit is dependent on the tree, not vice versa.
The liberal “social gospel” or “Kingdom of God” propaganda wrongly assumes that the mass of the people in so-called Christian countries are individually already Christians in the proper sense of the term. Or rather, liberalism does not believe in individual Christianity in the proper sense of the term; it posits a naturalistic religious experience in place of the supernatural subjective salvation of orthodox Christianity. Doing this, it easily regards the Church’s message to the individual as already pretty well attended to, and thinks that the Church can go on from this point with the great unfinished task of the social message. But the whole idea is false. The masses in so-called Christian countries may be baptized, they may be nominal Church members (though reliable statistics would seem to indicate that, in the United States at least, it is doubtful whether the majority of the population has even a nominal Church membership status), but there is no reason to believe that vital Christianity, or personal regeneration, is now or ever has been the portion of the majority of individuals of Christendom or any country in it. Therefore, we must conclude, the social application of Christianity now can, in the nature of the case, only be undertaken by a minority of the population.
4. Confusion of Ethics with Eschatology
Confusion of ethics with eschatology is far from uncommon, and is responsible for two mutually antagonistic extreme views with respect to the social and economic duty of the Church. On the one hand, there exists the rejection of ethics in the interests of eschatology. This extreme is characteristic of certain types of dispensationalism which verge on, if they do not actually involve, antinomian attitudes in the social sphere. On the other hand, there exists the rejection of eschatology in the interests of ethics, an extreme which is characteristic of those who are zealous for the liberal “social gospel” or “Kingdom of God” concept, and who accordingly tend to think of the Kingdom of God as “coming” or even “being built” by a humanly planned and executed program of social reforms, and who tend to think of the “Christianization” of society as something to be attained by political action along certain specific lines.
Both of these extreme views involve the same basic confusion of thought. There is no real conflict between Christian ethics and Christian eschatology rightly conceived. Eschatology is based on prophecy, that is, on the revealed portion of the counsel or decrees of God concerning future events. Ethics, on the other hand, is based on the moral law revealed in the Scripture. The former deals with the will of God in the sense of decree or purpose; the latter deals with the will of God in the sense of precept or command. The one is the basis of hope; the other is the basis of duty. Yet there are those who say that we should not attempt to apply Christian ethical principles to social institutions because, they assert, such “is not the will of God for this dispensation”; or because they hold that the Scripture prophecies of iniquity to continue in the world until the consummation of the age remove all obligation to work for righteousness in the social sphere. Some have gone so far as to call efforts toward the application of Christian ethical principles to social institutions “the devil’s righteousness”. It would be as logical to say that since it is appointed unto men once to die, there remains no reason why we should establish and support hospitals.
The rejection of eschatology in the interests of ethics is equally erroneous. Granted that the Kingdom of God is present as well as future, only an utterly naturalistic Pelagianism can hold that the Kingdom in its absolute and final form can come within history, that is, before the resurrection of the dead. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption” (I Cor. 15:50). Why should an earnest concern about the application of Christianity to society be regarded as incompatible with an eager anticipation of the return of the Lord? Yet it is undeniably characteristic of many devotees of the “social gospel” that they have, to all intents and purposes, no real eschatology. This attitude is typical of what may perhaps be called “pseudo-postmillennialism” — the belief that the Kingdom of God will be achieved gradually by the naturalistically conceived process of “Christianizing” social institutions through a series of social reforms deliberately planned and promoted. This idea of the Kingdom of God becomes, to those who hold it, virtually a substitute for eschatology. While they may perhaps believe theoretically in a general eschatology, this is to them a thing detached and not related in any organic way to their thinking concerning the world in which they live today. The thing that really matters to them is the “coming” of the Kingdom within history, here and now. Their zeal for the Kingdom within history is so great that they quite fail to grasp the import of the Scripture affirmation that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; they absolutize the Kingdom within history and make it, not merely the sphere of their social ethical duty, but the object of their hopes. Thus time supplants eternity, the earthly supplants the heavenly, and ethics supplants eschatology. The result, from the standpoint of the Christian who loves the Lord’s appearing, is a particularly drab and dreary substitute for “that blessed hope”. The Christian’s yearning aspiration “Come, Lord Jesus” has been lowered and transformed to the resolution “Let us be Kingdom builders”. Those who very properly call attention to the Scripture teaching that the Kingdom within history must always be partial and imperfect, and that only the eschatological Kingdom can rightly be the object of Christian hope in the absolute sense, are likely to be waved out of court with a bland assertion that they are reducing the work of the Holy Spirit in this age to “a charge of the light brigade”. Doubtless the spirit of American pragmatism has done its work here, with the usual result of the worship of “success”: we are virtually told that a proper devotion to Christian duty in the social sphere is meaningless unless the absolute object of our ultimate hopes is attainable by it. Why can those who have this attitude not see that the obligation of duty is not contingent upon the existence of a probable prospect of immediate success, nor even, indeed, upon a prospect of the attainment of complete success at any time during the present age — that duty and hope are two different things? Has the leaven of pragmatism so permeated American liberal Protestantism that it must be held treason to believe in any mountain higher than men can climb, any Kingdom more perfect than the Church can “build”? This virtual negation of eschatology is utterly contrary to the whole emphasis of the Scriptures, and must always be abhorrent to the Christian heart. If recognition of the Church’s responsibility in the social sphere must rob us of the comfort of “that blessed hope” of our Lord’s return and the eschatological Kingdom of God, it were indeed better to hold fast our eschatological hope and surrender our social ethical responsibility. But the antithesis is a false one; we are not reduced to any such hard alternative. It is not a case of “either. .. or” but of “both. .. and”. Every real Calvinist must necessarily affirm both the social ethical duty and the ultimate eschatological hope. Only those afflicted with the myopia of pragmatism will think that the one cancels the other, that we must choose between the two.
III. The Witness of the Visible Church in the Social and Economic Spheres
1. Study of the Scriptures in Relation to Social and Economic Problems
If the Church is under obligation to bear a testimony concerning social and economic matters, as Calvinism necessarily implies, it must be recognized as of the utmost importance that this testimony shall be Scriptural. The Church is to bear witness to the truth of God, not to the theories or prejudices of men. It is precisely at this point that a great deal of current and recent purported social and economic application of Christianity breaks down. What claims to be the “social gospel” or a social application of the ethical implications of the gospel, often turns out to be an alien fruit that has been produced by a strange vine and is wrongly labelled “Christian” and urged upon the Church as if it were a genuinely Christian product. The word “Christian” has become so debased that it is often applied to whatever the user believes to be good, reasonable or beneficial, quite regardless of whether or not it is really Christian in the sense of historic Christianity.
A real social and economic witness for the Church, then, must proceed from the Scriptures, not from human theories about sociology and economics. The important thing is to ascertain with accuracy what the Scripture teaches, first, about the realms of society and economics, and the relation of the Christian to them; and secondly, what the Scripture teaches about the relation of the visible Church as an institution to these spheres.
Every Christian is of course under obligation to search the Scriptures and to seek to understand and apply their teachings to all of life. Ministers and theologians must undertake such study in a special way, and those who are properly qualified should endeavor to search the Scriptures exhaustively and formulate their teachings systematically, for the benefit of the Church as a whole, since obviously such specialized and intensive study of the Scriptures cannot be undertaken by every Christian, or even every minister, for himself.
In our day it often falls to ecclesiastical committees to undertake studies and bring in reports on matters assigned to them. In such cases the temptation often exists to abide by the obvious, the generally accepted and traditional views on social and economic questions. These traditional positions may of course be Scripturally correct, but Church committees should not simply take this for granted but should avail themselves of the best possible assistance and should seek to present really thorough and convincing exegesis of the Scriptures in support of their conclusions. Surely there is room for great advance and improvement in this respect. In our age, however, even the Church is often impatient of thorough study and investigation, and insistent on a “practical” emphasis. We should always realize that nothing can be really practical unless it is founded on truth, and that nothing in the Church’s witness can be accepted as truth unless it can be shown to be really Scriptural. Patient study, careful exegesis of the Word of God, is the absolutely necessary groundwork and presupposition of any really sound and adequate testimony in the social and economic spheres as in any other sphere.
2. Formulation of Creedal Doctrine
The Scriptural truth ascertained in process of time by investigation on the part of Christian people, and especially ministers, theologians and ecclesiastical committees, should eventually result in a measure of agreement with respect to the subjects involved, in the visible Church or a particular branch of it, and should then crystallize in the form of definite creedal doctrine which will be documented in confessions of faith, catechisms, testimonies or other formal creedal standards. This does not imply, of course, that the formulation of creedal doctrine represents the attainment of the Church’s legitimate social and economic objective, but only that it is a proper, and highly desirable, element in such attainment. For creedal doctrine is the corporate witness of a particular branch of the visible Church. It is the landmark of progress made in agreement on the teachings of the Word of God. As such it constitutes the Church’s manifesto to the public and also the norm of truth, subordinate to the Scriptures, for the Church’s own internal life.
Clearly this work of formulating creedal doctrine relating to social and economic matters has in the past been accomplished only in a very imperfect and partial manner. There remains very much land yet to be possessed. But it would be a mistake to assert, as some do, that until the twentieth century no Church in its creed paid any attention to “social justice” or “the social teachings of Jesus”. Such statements are gross exaggerations. Only part of the task has been accomplished, it is true, but part has been accomplished, and that part no inconsiderable part.
Contrary to the sweeping assertions that are sometimes made, “social justice” is not a recent discovery; only certain special theories of it are recent. When a person claims that “social justice” as a concern of the Church is something new, it will usually be found upon investigation that what is meant is not really social justice as such but Marxian socialism in one form or another. What is recent is the man-centered, humanistic conception of “social justice”, that is, social justice regarded not as a duty owed to God, but regarded from the standpoint of its “value” to humanity. Indeed, the whole idea of “values” in religion and ethics may be said to be not only relatively modern, but perverse. When religion is professed because of its “value” (that is, of course, its value to man), then man and not God is regarded as the center of the universe; when ethical virtues are practiced, not because they are right, but because they have “value” to humanity, then the idolatry of man-worship has already triumphed.
As a matter of fact, the great Reformed creeds are far from blind to social justice, even though we may freely recognize that there remains a vast unfinished task. Mention may be made of the teachings of the Westminster Confession on the civil magistrate (or the State), on marriage and divorce, on war, and on oaths — all of them matters in the social sphere. Particularly worthy of mention is the long section in the Westminster Larger Catechism dealing with the Ten Commandments (Q. 98–148), especially the portion dealing with the second table of the Law (Q. 122–148), which presents a carefully worked out and detailed discussion of social and economic obligations, solidly and squarely grounded on the Scriptures at every point. This section of the Larger Catechism is worthy of much more attention than it has commonly been given. Although written more than three hundred years ago, it has stood the test of time and will be found to present a very thorough summary of the teachings of the Bible on social and economic matters. Certainly it is vastly superior to the collections of nebulous ideas and subjective opinions that sometimes pass for advanced studies in “social justice” today.
3. Preaching and Teaching by Ministers
Ministers are ordained to preach the whole counsel of God; therefore an application of the Word of God to society and economics must be included in their message. To avoid such themes would mean to proclaim a narrowly individualistic message. The Calvinist can recognize no domain of human life as exempt from an application of the relevant teachings of the Scriptures. The minister who holds the Reformed Faith will accordingly not hesitate to preach, and preach confidently and emphatically, upon social and economic matters.
In the nature of the case ministers must go beyond the creeds of their Church in their preaching. They may not of course violate or contradict that which their Church has already corporately affirmed as its creedal doctrine. But creedal doctrine is itself the crystallized precipitate of the investigation and preaching of ministers. Historically it must always follow after such investigation and preaching, not precede it; the Church had preaching first, creeds afterward. To hold the contrary, i.e., that all matters must first be formulated as creedal doctrine and only after that made a matter of preaching, would be to put a stop to all progress in developing a Scriptural corporate witness. In the nature of the case ministers must blaze a trail into what has hitherto been terra incognita in order that the Church may in due time come to general agreement as to what the Scripture teaches on these subjects.
Such trail blazing must however be done with a proper degree of caution. Of course the erroneous tendencies discussed in Part II of the present article ought to be understood and avoided. Beyond this, the minister should avoid preaching on doubtful questions, and should make sure of being on Scriptural ground, before venturing to preach on social and economic matters. It is much better to say nothing at all than to say something the truth of which is open to reasonable doubt. And of course the minister should never give his hearers the impression that he is proclaiming the accepted corporate witness of his Church unless he is in fact doing so.
4. Acts of “Synods and Councils”
If anything is characteristic of American ecclesiastical judicatories, it is the tendency to indulge in sweeping pronouncements on matters Concerning which it may properly be doubted whether they are subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction or are legitimate fields for such pronouncements. American Church assemblies apparently tend to assume that all mundane matters whatever are properly subject to pontifical ecclesiastical pronouncements “favoring” this or “opposing” that. It is no uncommon thing to read of Church assemblies issuing pronouncements favoring or opposing a particular tariff law, a particular policy concerning immigration, universal military training, membership in the “United Nations”, the forty-hour week, the Fair Employment Practices Act, and so forth. The idea appears to be that through such pronouncements the Church as a body “takes a stand” or “is put on record” with respect to the issues involved. Since agreement with such pronouncements cannot be made a condition of membership in the Church, it is difficult to see such “taking a stand” can put a denomination as a body on record with respect to the particular matters involved. At most, it would seem, such pronouncements can have only the weight of an expression of opinion on the part of the judicatory making them. As such, of course, they will possess a certain amount of weight and exert a corresponding degree of influence.
The Westminster Confession takes a very positive stand against the practice above referred to:
We may readily admit the validity of the distinction drawn here by the Confession. But we at once face the problem of just where lies the boundary between “that which is ecclesiastical” and “affairs which concern the commonwealth”. Is not the Confession’s confident statement something of an over-simplification? Are “ecclesiastical” matters and “commonwealth” matters after all so mutually exclusive, so easy to separate, as the Confession seems here to imply? Is there not an area which may, in one aspect or another, concern both the Church and the commonwealth?
Any attempt to apply in practice the principle laid down in this section of the Confession is bound immediately to encounter many questions and differences of opinion as to what constitutes proper matter for ecclesiastical action and pronouncement. Without attempting any complete solution of this problem, the following may perhaps be suggested as the lines along which a solution should be sought:
(a) Principles may be confidently affirmed, where their Scriptural warrant is clear. Thus a Church judicatory should have no hesitation, for example, in affirming that the Word of God sanctions private ownership of property, and requires capital punishment for the crime of murder.
(b) The details of the application of principles should be specified only with great caution. Clear-cut cases will of course be quite easy to decide and will not raise any special problems. Thus for the Church to oppose a decree abolishing all private property, or a law abolishing all capital punishment for murder, would involve no difficulties. Again, whether a city should have a mayor or a city manager, and whether a state legislature should have one chamber or two, are clearly matters pertaining solely to the commonwealth and not proper for Church assemblies to deal with. But border-line cases will be very difficult to decide. Whether the abandonment of the gold standard for currency involves a breach of trust and is therefore immoral, is perhaps a doubtful question so far as the propriety of a Church judicatory pronouncing upon it is concerned. Concerning such a matter, ecclesiastical synods and councils should deal, if at all, only with the most extreme caution and reserve. It should be realized, too, that there will always be an area of apparent conflict or confusion along the boundary line of jurisdiction that lies between the Church and the State. This should serve as an added consideration in favor of caution and reserve.
(c) It is extremely important that the Church adhere strictly to what can be clearly and convincingly shown to be the teaching of the Scriptures. All too often this is disregarded in practice, and the Scriptural character of sweeping pronouncements, in themselves of a highly debatable nature, is lightly taken for granted. Thus it often happens that an ecclestiastical assembly will adopt a resolution dealing with some social or economic matter by a very small majority, and the resolution, to which almost half of the members of the assembly were opposed, will then be published to the world as the “stand” of that Church on that question. Common sense would seem to require that synods and councils should refrain from attempting to issue what purport to be authoritative pronouncements on social and economic questions until there is some evidence of real unanimity within the judicatory itself as to the Scriptural character of the pronouncement in question.
The common contemporary practice of ecclesiastical assemblies making broad pronouncements on all sorts of subjects is to be deplored, not only because as practiced it often constitutes a violation of sound principles, but also because it tends greatly to degrade and cheapen the authority of the Church in the eyes of the world. The Church as an institution, as well as the individual Christian, should pay heed to the warning of the Scripture against being an allotriepiskopos — a self-appointed meddler in matters which pertain to others (I Pet. 4:15).
5. The Limits of the Church’s Social and Economic Witness
For the Church’s social and economic witness to serve its real purpose effectively, it must of course be confined within its proper limits. We may now consider some of these limits.
The most obvious limit of the Church’s social and economic witness is of course the silence of the Scripture on a question. By the silence of the Scripture is meant not merely the absence from the Scripture of express statements dealing with the matter in question, but the further absence from the Scripture of data which may properly be regarded as relevant to the question by way of valid logical inference. Where the Scripture neither expressly nor by necessary implication speaks on a matter, the Church has no choice but to remain silent. The Church’s task is to bear witness to the whole counsel of God, not to improve or supplement the counsel of God by having recourse to human opinions or theories. Thus, for example, the Scripture is silent on the precise form of government for the State, and the Scripture is silent concerning the question of whether railways should be owned and operated by private corporations or by the government. The silence of the Scripture concerning these and a host of similar matters marks them as true instances of adiaphora, and, as such, the Church as an institution should refrain from attempting to deal with them.
Apart from matters on which the Scripture is wholly silent, there are matters on which the Scripture speaks, expressly or by implication, but concerning which the sense of the Scripture is obscure, doubtful or apparently self-contradictory. In such cases, the temptation to indulge in confident over-simplification must always be resisted. The Church has no right to bear a testimony except where it is really sure of its Scriptural ground. Where this is in doubt, it is better — indeed, it is a duty — to wait for further light, rather than to jump to conclusions which in the nature of the case can have only doubtful Scriptural warrant.
In the third place, the proper God-ordained jurisdiction of the individual, the family and the State must always be respected and not trespassed upon. That something is recognized as being good or just does not at all necessarily imply that it is the Church’s business to deal with it directly, or actively to promote it; nor does the fact that a matter is held to be bad or unjust necessarily imply that it is a proper object of ecclesiastical disapprobation and correction. That city children should have commodious playgrounds to keep them off crowded streets is doubtless good in its sphere; so likewise that highways be properly patrolled, that banks and the postal service be honestly and efficiently managed. Yet none of these worthy ends are proper objectives for the Church as an institution. We should oppose a totalitarian Church just as truly as a totalitarian State; that is, we should oppose the tendency of the Church to become paternalistic and pre-decide questions for the individual, the family and the State. For example, the Church may properly warn against selfish greed on the part of both capital and labor, but the Church has no right to pronounce upon the merits of a particular dispute between the two; to do so would be to trespass upon the proper jurisdiction of the State; it would be as improper as for the State to decide whether a man possesses the qualifications for admission to the Lord’s Supper, or for ordination to the gospel ministry.
In defining the principles regulating the Church’s witness as over against the State, the ground was broken as long ago as 1578 by the Second Book of Discipline adopted by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland:
Notes
Clay Center, Kansas.
I. The Church has a Social and Economic Responsibility
THAT the visible Church has a responsibility in the social and economic spheres is and always has been quite generally accepted by Calvinists. Doubtless there has been, and still is, disagreement, and also vagueness, concerning the question of precisely what that responsibility is, but that it exists has been generally accepted by adherents of the Reformed Faith. The purpose of the present article is to attempt to define and clarify the basic principles involved in the matter of the social and economic duty of the visible Church. It is not proposed to consider in any detail matters which ought to be included in the content of the Church’s testimony concerning social and economic matters, but rather to discuss the relation of social and economic matters as such to the visible Church. Thus, for example, this article will not undertake to discuss either capitalism or socialism from the Christian point of view, but will rather seek to show what is involved in the Church’s responsibility concerning whatever economic principles it believes to be sanctioned by the Word of God. The present article does not purport to be a discussion of either sociology or economics from the Christian point of view, but only a study of the relation of the visible Church, as an institution, to these realms.
The method employed will be to present, first of all, a brief grounding of the Reformed position that the visible Church has a responsibility in the social and economic spheres; then to state and criticize certain widely prevalent views concerning the social and economic duty of the Church; and finally to discuss in a positive way the witness of the visible Church in the social and economic spheres: its derivation from the Scriptures, its formulation in creedal doctrine, its proclamation in the pulpit, its relation to the acts of ecclesiastical judicatories, and its necessary limits.
That the visible Church has a responsibility in the social and economic spheres is denied, in general, by mysticism, pietism, certain types of eschatologism, and to some extent by Barthianism or the theology of crisis. Over against all these tendencies, that responsibility is emphatically affirmed by the Reformed Faith. Wherever Calvinism has been professed in a really pure and consistent form, it has always manifested a genuine concern that the truth of special revelation be brought to bear on all realms and aspects of human life. For Calvinism is the antithesis of the anabaptistic position which would virtually limit the relationships of Christianity to the realm of special grace and would isolate that realm from all significant connection with “the world”. Not world-flight but world-conquest has ever been the watchword of real Calvinism.
We shall consider, then, the grounds of the Calvinistic view on this question. It cannot be denied that the Scripture deals with social and economic matters. By this it is meant that the Scripture deals with social and economic matters not merely incidentally, or for purposes of illustration or metaphor (as in some of our Lord’s parables, such as those of the Pounds, Talents, Laborers in the Vineyard and the Lost Son), but that the Scripture deals with social and economic matters directly — not, of course, as though the Bible were a textbook of economics or sociology, presenting a general or formal scientific treatment of these subjects, but, rather, as presenting expressly or by necessary implication, data which must be incorporated in any truly Christian formulation of these sciences.
The Scriptures which bear upon social and economic matters are so numerous that nothing beyond a very general and incomplete survey of such can be attempted in this article. First of all, we find, at the very beginning of the Old Testament, truth concerning marriage and the constitution of the family (Gen. 1:18–24). In the decalogue, the entire second table of the law bears on social and economic life. The fifth commandment sets forth the sanctity of authority, the sixth the sanctity of life, the seventh the sanctity of sex and marriage, the eighth the sanctity of private property, the ninth the sanctity of truth between man and man, and the tenth the sanctity of God’s providential dispensations in the social and economic spheres.
As affirmed by the Westminster Confession of Faith,[1] that portion of the Mosaic Law which constituted the civil laws of the nation of Israel “expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other now, farther than the general equity thereof may require”. This statement of the Confession of course embraces a considerable portion of the Mosaic legislation, and precisely that portion which deals most directly with social and economic matters. The Confession’s statement, however, should not be taken as implying that these “judicial laws” of Israel have no relation whatever to the subject of Christian social ethics, but only as implying that they have no direct and formal application, per se, as positive laws, to Christian social ethics, although the principles of “general equity” which can rightly be discerned as underlying them are of a moral nature and therefore perpetually valid.
In the Psalter the many references to “the poor” and “the needy” (e.g., Psalm 9:18) have no doubt frequently been regarded as referring to the economically underprivileged, but this interpretation is quite unwarranted. In practically every case the context indicates that these expressions do not refer primarily or directly to the economic status of the persons described, but are to be understood in a religious sense, being in fact almost techinical terms used to describe the true people of God who must suffer persecution and reproach for His name. This is shown by the fact that “the poor” and “the needy” are regularly contrasted, not with “the rich” but with “the proud” and “the wicked” (e.g., Psalm 10:2; 12:3–5; cf. 147:6 where “the meek” are contrasted with “the wicked”).
Those Psalms which picture the glories of the messianic Kingdom and the final eschatological state, as Psalms 46 and 72, in doing so of course present a picture of an ideal state of social justice. This may be regarded as having an indirect bearing on the subject of social ethics, for the ideal which will be actualized in the eschatological Kingdom is precisely the state of affairs which, if it were not for sin and the curse, would exist here and now, and therefore, from the standpoint of the moral law, it is the state of affairs which ought to exist here and now, even though it cannot exist here and now except in a partial and preliminary manner.
The Book of Proverbs contains a great deal of teaching which bears on the ethical aspects of social and economic matters, so much, indeed, that it would be superfluous to cite particular passages of the book.
It is in the Old Testament prophets especially that the advocates of the liberal “social gospel” profess to find teaching on “social justice”. It is of course correct to say that the prophets proclaimed the necessity of justice in the social sphere. Yet the emphasis of the Old Testament prophets is not that of the “social gospel”, for the latter usually has a humanistic or man-centered tendency, whereas the messages of the prophets are theistic and God-centered to the core. It is never social justice for its own sake, nor social justice for man’s benefit and welfare, that the prophets insist upon, but social justice for God’s sake — social justice as an implication of a covenant relationship to Jehovah, the God of grace and salvation, to serve and glorify whom must be the total aim of His people. Thus understood, the Old Testament prophets provide many instances of ethical teaching which bears on social and economic questions. Such passages as Isaiah 10:1, 2; 29:20, 21; 58:6, 7; Amos 2:6–8; 5:11, 12; 8:5, 6 may be cited as examples.
Turning to the New Testament, we may note that the preaching of John the Baptist contained a strong note of social ethical obligation and of insistence upon repentance for sins of social and economic injustice (Luke 2:1–14).
Contrary to claims frequently made, the Sermon on the Mount contains comparatively little teaching that has a direct bearing on social and economic questions. Its message is primarily religious, and its ethical teaching moves primarily in the personal rather than the social sphere. Mention may be made, however, of its teachings concerning marriage and divorce (Matt. 5:31, 32), concerning non-resistance to evil (Matt. 5:38–42) and concerning love of enemies (Matt. 5:43–48).
Turning from the Sermon on the Mount to other parts of our Lord’s teaching, we find Him dealing with support of needy parents (Matt. 15:3–6), obligations to the State (Matt. 22:15–21), marriage and divorce (Matt. 19:3–9), the wickedness of those who “devour widows’ houses” (Matt. 23:14), the duty of conserving food (John 6:12), the obligation of rendering help to our neighbor in his time of need (Luke 10:25–37), and the duty of faithfulness in handling “the unrighteous mammon” (Luke 16:9–12).
In the New Testament Epistles we find, among other matters, teaching concerning civil government in Romans 13; concerning marriage in I Corinthians 7; concerning various reciprocal duties of husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, in Eph. 5:22–6:9 and Col. 3:18–4:1. Warnings against social parasitism and the love of money are found in II Thess. 3:10–12 and I Tim. 6:9, 10; the right use of wealth is inculcated in I Tim. 6:17–19; the Epistle to Philemon has a bearing on slavery. James 5:l-6 warns against the misuse of wealth and oppression of the poor. James 2:15, 16 and I John 3:17, 18 speak of the duty of providing relief for needy Christians. All these passages contain social or economic teaching in the broad sense.
Finally, mention may be made of social and economic teaching in the Apocalypse. Though obviously the primary purpose of the book is not to teach social ethics, yet it contains elements which have a real bearing on social and economic matters. In chapter 6 we see the unfolding of divine judgments upon a world which rejects the gospel of Christ. Among these judgments are the slaughter of war and the curse of famine, accompanied by soaring prices for the commonest of staple foods. Here it may properly be inferred that war and its sequel of famine are not to be regarded as mere mechanical problems in human relations and in the production and distribution of foodstuffs, but that we are to realize that their ultimate origin is spiritual, namely the sin and unbelief of mankind.
Again in chapter 13 we have the description of the tyrannical reign of the wild beast from the sea. Among the features of his reign are universal dominion, world-wide peace, bitter persecution of Christianity, all-but-universal man-worship, and ruthless enforcement of submission to this dictatorial regime by means of an absolute economic boycott (verses 16, 17). Surely this chapter bears on a Christian view of society and of economic life. Among other things it teaches a lesson — much needed today — that world peace on the wrong basis would be a curse rather than a blessing, and that the pooling of all national sovereignties in a single world-state, so far from being a step toward “building the Kingdom of God”, might turn out to be the kingdom of the beast, with its utter suppression of all human liberty and its ruthless trampling upon all that is holy.
It has been shown that the Scripture deals with social and economic matters. As Calvinists we hold that the sovereignty of God is absolute and that the scope of the authority of the Scripture which reveals the will of God is unlimited. Where the Bible speaks, what it says is authoritative in every sphere of life to which it is properly applicable. Therefore the relevant teachings of the Scripture must have their proper application to the social and economic spheres. The authority of the Scripture is not to be confined to “faith and life” in the narrow or strictly religious sense; all the concerns and relationships of human life are included in its scope.
From the foregoing it follows that the visible Church has a responsibility to bear testimony to the teachings of the Scriptures as they bear on social and economic matters. For the Church as the pillar and ground of the truth must bear witness to the whole counsel of God.
II. Common Views Concerning the Social and Economic Duty of the Church
1. That the Visible Church is the Agent of World Redemption
A fairly common view among those who reject the supernatural soteriology of Christianity regards the visible Church as the agent of world redemption. This conception regards the visible Church itself, as such, as the hope of humanity; it sees in the Church a nucleus of men of good will which is to remake human society and mold and fashion it as it ought to be. The slogans of this point of view are such expressions as “building a better world” and “building the Kingdom”.
Certainly there is an element of truth in this idea. For the visible Church is the sphere in which the gospel of Christ, which is the power of God unto salvation, is chiefly operative. As such, it is normally the nucleus of regenerate life in the world, and must therefore produce an impact upon society in general. Christians are affirmed in the Scripture to be both “the light of the world” and also “the salt of the earth”. Where there are no regenerate Christians, there exists no real “salt”, and therefore no genuine impact of regenerate life upon society in general. Where there are regenerate Christians, such an impact, in greater or less degree, will exist. Thus in God’s appointed scheme of things the growth, in numbers and in grace, of the visible Church, will be accompanied by an increasing beneficial effect upon society in general (or in case of the negative reaction of extreme “hardening” on the part of the world, by increasing divine judgments).
The view under consideration, though it contains an element of truth, is none the less essentially false. It tends to regard the visible Church, in its corporate capacity as an institution, not so much as a witness as as an expert engineer who is to take human society apart and put it together again as it ought to be. This view thus regards the social impact of the Church not as an organic development of the regenerate life of the Church, but as a deliberately planned and executed program — not the growth and functioning of an organism, but the promotion of a campaign. That is to say, its naturalistic view of salvation inevitably causes it to regard world redemption as a matter of human planning and reconstruction. If the human race must climb the heights of destiny according to its own wisdom and under its own power, then the visible Church as the one organization that regards that task with real seriousness, must take the responsibility for determining the pattern to be sought and the means to be employed in seeking it.
To regard the visible Church as the agent of world redemption is not only wrong in principle, but must always lead to manifold evils in practice. For one thing, it must tend toward a totalitarian notion of the Church which regards the Church as a sort of over-all steering committee for the human race, an organization to the functions of which there can hardly be assigned any definite limits. Such a Church will always tend to become totalitarian; it will always tend to eclipse the individual, the family, and the State. Such tendencies are seen when the Church in its corporate capacity as an institution steps outside its proper sphere and engages actively in politics, in business, in general education, and so forth. That Christian people — the Church’s members — should exert an impact on the political life around them, that they should do their best to bring Christian ethical principles to bear upon the business world, that there should be adequate general education conducted upon a Christian basis, no consistent Calvinist will deny. But for the Church as an institution to enter the political arena favoring and supporting this or that candidate or party, to sponsor a co-operative grocery store, to own and operate an agricultural college, is quite another matter. If the Reformed interpretation of the Scripture teaching about the visible Church is correct, these activities lie outside the limits of the proper functions of the Church as an institution. The Church does indeed have a supremely important task to perform, but that task is not the reconstruction of human society in general.
2. That the Social and Economic Message is the Church’s Primary Message
There exists in some quarters today a tendency to falsify the gospel by “interpreting” or re-thinking it in terms of sociological or economic theories. Thus the fruit is confused with the tree, and the cart placed before the horse. In some cases, indeed, a false and poisonous fruit is confused with the good tree, and a broken and dangerous cart is placed before the reliable horse. For the social and economic theories in terms of which Christianity is “interpreted” are themselves sometimes of a highly doubtful and even harmful nature.
This tendency to re-think Christianity in terms of this or that social or economic conception is of course a thoroughly humanistic tendency, a product of the perverse man-centered view of life that is characteristic of our time. Religion is regarded as a means to an end, and cultivated because of its “values” for the human race. For this tendency consists in regarding this or that (real or imaginary) product of Christianity as the main thing in Christianity. It may assume various forms, from a reactionary insistence upon the status quo which virtually identifies Christianity with extreme capitalism, laissez faire and the supremacy of the white race, to a downright advocacy of communism as the real substance of the Kingdom of God on earth. Perhaps its most common form consists of an identification of Christianity with either socialism or democracy, regarding one or the other of these as equivalent to “the essence of Christianity”. In each case Christianity is regarded primarily or wholly from the standpoint of human benefit, in each case its real essence is missed, and in each case a social by-product (which may be legitimate or spurious) is wrongly regarded as the essence.
The true conception is rather that of the application of Christian ethics to the social and economic spheres. This application, being a product of the gospel, is therefore not the gospel itself. The term “social gospel” is, consequently, a misnomer, for duty is not good news; the application of Christianity to the social and economic spheres is a matter of ethics, not of evangelism. Instead of speaking of a “social gospel” we should speak of a social application of the ethical implications of the gospel. For in Biblical Christianity the primary message must always be the soteriological message; the ethical implications must always be regarded as secondary. This does not, of course, mean that the ethical implications are unimportant, nor that they may be neglected. Neither in social nor in individual matters can true Christianity tolerate antinomianism.
The question now arises, In what sense can we speak of “social redemption”? This phrase is frequently used by orthodox Christians, quite apart from the ideology of the “social gospel”, to describe the far-reaching effects of Christianity upon human social institutions. Undoubtedly there is a sense in which we may rightly speak of social redemption. Christ is the Redeemer of the human race as an organism, and this must include human society and its institutions. The phrase, however, is often used in a vague and loose manner, and needs to be carefully guarded.
Obviously we cannot speak of social redemption in a sense exactly analogous to that in which we can speak of the redemption of an individual, or more precisely the salvation of an individual. If society or a social institution, such as, for example, a nation, can experience “salvation”, this is not to be thought of as parallel to the subjective salvation of an individual human being. We cannot rightly apply the whole ordo salutis — regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification, glorification — to society. It is true that it is common enough to speak of the “regeneration” or “re-birth” of a nation, but this is a figure of speech; it does not mean that a nation as such can experience that instantaneous, supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit by which, as a nation, it would cease to be dead in trepasses and sins and become a new creature in Christ Jesus. Moreover if society, or a nation, can experience “salvation”, it can also at a later time lose it again, but an individual who really experiences it possesses it for ever.
To speak of the “redemption” or “salvation” of society or of any social institution is, therefore, really to employ a figurative mode of expression. Strictly speaking, what is meant is that enough of the individuals making up that society have experienced personal subjective salvation, and have engaged in the practical application of its ethical implications, to alter the dominant character or trend or official position or status of that society or institution from non-Christian to Christian, from unbelief and rebellion against God and His Word to faith and submission to God and His Word. When such a change takes place that society is “redeemed” or “saved” in the only way that a collective organism can possibly be saved — by the salvation of the dominant portion of its component parts, not only in their inner character but in their social relationships. In this sense “social redemption” or “social salvation” may properly be affirmed, but it must always be borne in mind that this comes through and is contingent upon the personal salvation of the individuals who impart to the social organism in question its specifically Christian character. We may not posit a realistic ordo salutis for social organisms as such.
Does this imply the non-reality of collective persons? Brunner in his book Justice and the Social Order[2] entirely rejects the concept of collective personality, even asserting that to speak seriously of such paves the way for totalitarianism. There is good reason for holding that the Scripture teaches the reality of collective persons, however. The elders of Israel made a league with the Gibeonites without inquiring of the Lord (Joshua 9:3–27). Even though this treaty was obtained by fraud on the part of the Gibeonites, it was binding and could not be broken (verses 19, 20). Long afterwards in the time of King David there occurred a famine of three years’ duration, which David learned, upon inquiring of the Lord, had been inflicted upon the nation because King Saul had slain the Gibeonites (II Sam. 21:1). Joshua, the elders of Israel and the Gibeonites who negotiated the original treaty had all been dead for a long period of time; Saul who violated the treaty had been dead for years, and his family was entirely out of authority in Israel; yet after all that, the nation of Israel as such is held responsible by God for maintaining the sanctity of the treaty entered into in the days of Joshua. How can these clear facts be explained except by affirming that the treaty was the deed of the nation as such, and that the nation as such was responsible for maintaining it, and guilty of violating it? The same conception of collective personality and collective responsibility also permeates modern life. A treaty is binding even though all the individuals who negotiated and ratified it may be dead or out of office. A war bond or currency note is an obligation of the nation as such, even though the administration that issued it may be out of office and the signatures on it may be those of dead men. We may rest assured, then, that corporate or collective personality and responsibility has a real, and not merely a fictitious, existence, and that Christian social ethics must therefore take account of this in the application of Christian ethical principles to the realm of society.
Against the application of Christian religious and ethical principles to collective persons such as families and nations it has sometimes been urged that these collective persons exist in the sphere of common grace and therefore it is wrong to apply to them principles derived from the realm of special grace. But the fact that such collective persons exist in the realm of common grace does not imply that they may not have certain responsibilities or relationships in the realm of special grace. It is an over-simplification to assert that the family and the State exist in the sphere of common grace and therefore they need not, or must not, be Christianized. The individual also exists in the sphere of common grace, yet it is his duty to become a Christian. The family and the State are corporate persons having moral responsibility collectively, and not merely in their individual members. Though neither the family nor the State is peculiar to Christianity, and therefore both must be regarded as pertaining essentially to the realm of common grace, yet in certain cases they may have specific relationships to the realm of special grace. Thus there is such a thing as a Christian family; not merely a family whose members are Christians, but a Christian family. And there is (or at least ought to be) such a thing as a Christian State; not merely a State most of whose citizens are Christians, but a Christian State.
Admittedly the problems of the interrelations of the realms of common and special grace in connection with the family, and especially with the State, are complex, and have never yet been throughly and satisfactorily worked out. A great deal more study of this problem, in the light of the Reformed doctrines of common and special grace, needs to be done. But at all events we should avoid that facile over-simplification by which an organism existing primarily in the realm of common grace is assumed, ipso facto, to have no obligations or relationships in the realm of special grace. Whether the State, for example, in its corporate capacity, ought to have a specifically Christian profession and character, is of course a question on which Reformed theologians have differed. A. A. Hodge answered this question in the affirmative:
“It is our duty, as far as lies in our power, immediately to organize human society and all its institutions and organs upon a distinctively Christian basis.”[3]So far as the character of the State is concerned, Abraham Kuyper’s position is similar to this:
“...the magistrates are and remain — ‘God’s servants’. They have to recognize God as Supreme Ruler, from Whom they derive their power. They have to serve God, by ruling the people according to His ordinances. They have to restrain blasphemy, where it directly assumes the character of an affront to the Divine Majesty. And God’s supremacy is to be recognized by confessing His name in the Constitution as the Source of all political power, by maintaining the Sabbath, by proclaiming days of prayer and thanksgiving, and by invoking His Divine blessing.
“Therefore in order that they may govern, according to His holy ordinances, every magistrate is in duty bound to investigate the rights of God, both in the natural life and in His Word. Not to subject himself to the decision of any Church, but in order that he himself may catch the light which he needs for the knowledge of the Divine will.. . .
“The sphere of State stands itself under the majesty of the Lord. In that sphere therefore an independent responsibility to God is to be maintained. The sphere of the State is not profane.. .. The first thing of course is, and remains, that all nations shall be governed in a Christian way; that is to say, in accordance with the principle which, for all statecraft, flows from the Christ. But this can never be realized except through the subjective convictions of those in authority, according to their personal views of the demands of that Christian principle as regards the public service.”[4]It might indeed be alleged that Dr. Kuyper here teaches the obligation of a theistic rather than a Christian State, but such a distinction would be alien to his entire viewpoint. As a Trinitarian Dr. Kuyper of course believed that the Triune God is the only God that really exists. The God who, according to his teaching, is to be recognized in the constitution of the State, is not an abstraction having no real existence — not an imaginary God of theism apart from Christianity — but the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. That such was indeed Dr. Kuyper’s view is evident from his very positive statement concerning the obligation “that all nations shall be governed in a Christian way” and his reference to “the principle which, for all statecraft, flows from the Christ”. Clearly Dr. Kuyper believed in a relationship between the State and the Christian religion; that is to say, he believed that the State, though existing in the realm of common grace, must have a certain relationship to the realm of special grace.
The contrary view of this question is set forth by Dr. W. Stanford Reid in an article entitled “Should We Try to Christianize the Realm of Common Grace?” Dr. Reid writes as follows:
“We hear people today talking about a Christian state, Christian education, Christian art, etc., as though there were such things. Can we say for instance that there is such a thing as a Christian form of government? The reply may be made that a theocracy is such a government; but are we to try to bring one into existence in this day? Again is there a Christian form of economy? Is capitalism — or socialism — or anarchy a Christian form of economic organization? We could keep on asking questions such as these concerning every sphere of human life. Ultimately we must ask does God, in His Word, tell us directly or by implication what a Christian state, Christian art, Christian education should be? Or does he simply lay down certain principles for society, art, science, etc., which should be followed to attain the highest ends for those particular spheres of human activity?
“Let us look at some of these questions more closely. If we take, for instance, the question of social relationships, we may find a partial answer. Concerning this matter, the Scriptures have considerable to say. They state that every power is ordained of God, and that the civil ruler bears the sword in order to punish wrong-doers. In the economic field also we are told that the laborer is worthy of his hire, that he should not be kept waiting for his wages nor defrauded of them. We are also told that men should give to the poor and help those less fortunate than themselves. On the other hand, the Scriptures do not say that there is one certain form of government or political economy which is divinely ordained and for which the Church must continually strive. The form of government and the form of economic organization comes in the providence of God. It may partially fulfill the requirements laid down in the Scriptures, or it may not. But until Christ’s kingship is finally acknowledged by all men at the end of days it does not seem that we should expect to see any such thing as a Christian state, or any other specifically Christian form of social organization, except the Church.”
“We must realize then that we cannot confuse these two spheres in any way. We cannot talk about a Christian political or economic program, Christian art or music. Christians may be involved in these matters, and they should be, but they must realize that right at this point they are Christians working in the sphere of Common Grace. Thus while they remain Christians with their own distinctive point of view and sense of responsibility, they should not try to make the realm of Common Grace part of that of Special Grace. The Kingdom of God is righteousness and truth and peace, not political parties, tariff reforms, views on perspective or dissonances of chords.”[5]Here it is obvious, at any rate, that Dr. Reid’s view is contrary to those of Kuyper and A. A. Hodge. Dr. Reid holds that “it does not seem that we should expect to see any such thing as a Christian state, or any other specifically Christian form of social organization, except the Church”, until the dawn of the eschatological Kingdom “at the end of days”. The present writer is in agreement with the statements of Kuyper and Hodge, and would raise the question whether Dr. Reid has not confused two essentially different questions, namely, (a) the question of whether there ought to be such a thing as a Christian State, and (b) the question of whether there can be such a thing as a Christian State, that is, whether “we should expect to see” such a thing as a Christian State this side of the eschatological Kingdom. With this latter question, the ethical obligation in the social sphere has no concern. Ethics deals with what ought to be, not with what can be or will be. We will never see a morally perfect individual in the present life, either, but it is every individual’s duty to be absolutely perfect immediately.
Further, in criticism of Dr. Reid’s position, it may be inquired whether the Kingdom of God is righteousness and truth and peace only in the abstract, or only in principle. Do political parties and tariff reforms have nothing to do with righteousness and truth and peace? Might it not be that righteousness would require the rejection of a particular political party, the favoring of a tariff reform? Doubtless Dr. Reid would admit this much, yet he rejects the idea of a Christian State, a Christian political or economic program, as confusing the realms of common and special grace. But is not this an over-simplification of the question? Surely the realm of special grace is not secularized when the Church owns real estate, builds buildings, receives bequests — all matters within the realm of common grace. Why then should the concept of a Christian State be rejected as “Christianizing the realm of common grace”? The problem is much more complex than appears on the surface. The same issue of The Calvin Forum in which Dr. Reid’s article was published also contained an article advocating Christian labor unions.[6] Similarly there are those who advocate Christian veterans’ organizations. The Christian school is also a case in point: the school, teaching general knowledge, such as reading, writing and arithmetic, clearly exists primarily in the realm of common grace. Yet Christian parents provide Christian schools for their children, and it is clear that a Christian school is not simply a school with Christian pupils and Christian teachers, but a school which is established and which is to function according to the teachings of Christianity. This constitutes an instance of the complexity of the interrelations of the realms of common and special grace; the school which exists and functions primarily in the realm of common grace, yet recognizes certain obligations and relationships in the realm of special grace, and if it were not for the realm of special grace there would not even be any reason for the existence of such a school.
Even though we may yield a cordial assent to Dr. Hodge’s statement that “it is our duty, as far as lies in our power, immediately to organize human society and all its institutions and organs upon a distinctively Christian basis”, we must always remember that this obligation of Christian social ethics is not and never can be the Church’s primary message. The primary message must always be the gospel, which is addressed to individuals; the ethical implications, individual and social, though both real and important, must remain secondary.
3. That the Church’s Social Message is Coordinate with its Message to the Individual
A third common view of the social and economic responsibility of the Church would regard the social message as coordinate with, or parallel to, the message to the individual. This view is held not only by advocates of the liberal “social gospel” but by many conservative Christians who are concerned about the importance of an application of Christian principles to the problems of society, but who have not arrived at an organically integrated conception of the relationship between the individual message and the social message. The tendency in such cases is to assert that the Church must of course preach the gospel to individuals, but the Church must also proclaim redemption and righteousness to society; and these two functions of the Church are juxtaposed in a more or less mechanical fashion as if they constituted two distinct but parallel or coordinate assignments. Such a view must be regarded as erroneous because over-simplified and mechanical in its conception of the relation of the social obligation to the Church.
The great peril of regarding the social message as coordinate with the message to the individual is that this view inevitably leads to the anomaly of a belief in the possibility of “Christianizing” the social structure apart from the regeneration of its individual members (or the controlling portion of them). If the message to society and the message to the individual are parallel and not organically related the one to the other, then each of them may attain results independently of the other. In that case, there might conceivably exist a “Christian” State with a very small proportion of Christian citizens, or even with none at all; or there might exist a “Christian” economic order operated by unbelievers, that is, by persons converted to the Church’s social and economic message but not to its individual message. From any truly Christian point of view such a thing is of course an absurdity, yet it is logically possible if the social message and the message to the individual are regarded as coordinate.
The view under consideration includes all attempts to arrive at a Christian society or the Kingdom of God en masse, by the shortcut of attempted direct cultivation of the social fruits of Christianity apart from the cultivation and growth of the tree. This entire conception stands condemned by the affirmation of the Scripture that a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit (Matt. 7:17). A corrupt tree — a society made up of individuals who are personally unregenerate — may indeed bring forth fruit which superficially seems to be good, and may even, by the operation of God’s common grace, bring forth fruit which is “good” in a relative and limited sense — that is, which is “good” if judged from a humanistic rather than from a theistic point of view — but cannot yield fruit which is truly good in the Christian sense of the word.
The truth is that the Church’s social message is organically related, subordinately, to the message to the individual. Christ is the Saviour of society, of nations, of social institutions, only by first of all being the Saviour of individual human beings, not otherwise. The ethical principles of Christianity are applied in the social sphere by Christian people, not by the children of the world. The notion that those who are not personally believers in Christ can apply the ethical teachings of Christianity in their social and business life is simply a delusion, albeit a very common delusion. There is no shortcut to the Kingdom of God; it cannot be attained by a mass movement of the unregenerate. Those who think that non-Christians can practice the ethical teachings of Christianity have a sadly superficial, mechanical and erroneous idea of what the ethical teachings of Christianity are and what is involved in practicing them. This stricture is relevant against those who glibly talk of “applying the Golden Rule” to industry and business, as if any non-Christian could easily apply the Golden Rule simply by deciding that it would be a good thing to do. Of course no person can even begin to apply the Golden Rule to any sphere of life until he is born again, for the Golden Rule is not really applied unless it is done with a motive of love for God and as a matter of obedience to the will of God.
The Christianization of society may indeed lag far behind the regeneration of individuals; in fact, it must inevitably do so, owing to the human lethargy of the regenerate (who are in this life only imperfectly sanctified) and their sinful neglect of their duty of applying their Christian principles consistently in the social sphere. But while the Christianization of society will always lag behind the regeneration of individuals, the proposition may not be reversed. The regeneration of individuals can never lag behind the Christianization of society; the fruit may develop much more slowly than the tree, but the tree will never lag behind the development of the fruit. For the fruit is dependent on the tree, not vice versa.
The liberal “social gospel” or “Kingdom of God” propaganda wrongly assumes that the mass of the people in so-called Christian countries are individually already Christians in the proper sense of the term. Or rather, liberalism does not believe in individual Christianity in the proper sense of the term; it posits a naturalistic religious experience in place of the supernatural subjective salvation of orthodox Christianity. Doing this, it easily regards the Church’s message to the individual as already pretty well attended to, and thinks that the Church can go on from this point with the great unfinished task of the social message. But the whole idea is false. The masses in so-called Christian countries may be baptized, they may be nominal Church members (though reliable statistics would seem to indicate that, in the United States at least, it is doubtful whether the majority of the population has even a nominal Church membership status), but there is no reason to believe that vital Christianity, or personal regeneration, is now or ever has been the portion of the majority of individuals of Christendom or any country in it. Therefore, we must conclude, the social application of Christianity now can, in the nature of the case, only be undertaken by a minority of the population.
4. Confusion of Ethics with Eschatology
Confusion of ethics with eschatology is far from uncommon, and is responsible for two mutually antagonistic extreme views with respect to the social and economic duty of the Church. On the one hand, there exists the rejection of ethics in the interests of eschatology. This extreme is characteristic of certain types of dispensationalism which verge on, if they do not actually involve, antinomian attitudes in the social sphere. On the other hand, there exists the rejection of eschatology in the interests of ethics, an extreme which is characteristic of those who are zealous for the liberal “social gospel” or “Kingdom of God” concept, and who accordingly tend to think of the Kingdom of God as “coming” or even “being built” by a humanly planned and executed program of social reforms, and who tend to think of the “Christianization” of society as something to be attained by political action along certain specific lines.
Both of these extreme views involve the same basic confusion of thought. There is no real conflict between Christian ethics and Christian eschatology rightly conceived. Eschatology is based on prophecy, that is, on the revealed portion of the counsel or decrees of God concerning future events. Ethics, on the other hand, is based on the moral law revealed in the Scripture. The former deals with the will of God in the sense of decree or purpose; the latter deals with the will of God in the sense of precept or command. The one is the basis of hope; the other is the basis of duty. Yet there are those who say that we should not attempt to apply Christian ethical principles to social institutions because, they assert, such “is not the will of God for this dispensation”; or because they hold that the Scripture prophecies of iniquity to continue in the world until the consummation of the age remove all obligation to work for righteousness in the social sphere. Some have gone so far as to call efforts toward the application of Christian ethical principles to social institutions “the devil’s righteousness”. It would be as logical to say that since it is appointed unto men once to die, there remains no reason why we should establish and support hospitals.
The rejection of eschatology in the interests of ethics is equally erroneous. Granted that the Kingdom of God is present as well as future, only an utterly naturalistic Pelagianism can hold that the Kingdom in its absolute and final form can come within history, that is, before the resurrection of the dead. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption” (I Cor. 15:50). Why should an earnest concern about the application of Christianity to society be regarded as incompatible with an eager anticipation of the return of the Lord? Yet it is undeniably characteristic of many devotees of the “social gospel” that they have, to all intents and purposes, no real eschatology. This attitude is typical of what may perhaps be called “pseudo-postmillennialism” — the belief that the Kingdom of God will be achieved gradually by the naturalistically conceived process of “Christianizing” social institutions through a series of social reforms deliberately planned and promoted. This idea of the Kingdom of God becomes, to those who hold it, virtually a substitute for eschatology. While they may perhaps believe theoretically in a general eschatology, this is to them a thing detached and not related in any organic way to their thinking concerning the world in which they live today. The thing that really matters to them is the “coming” of the Kingdom within history, here and now. Their zeal for the Kingdom within history is so great that they quite fail to grasp the import of the Scripture affirmation that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; they absolutize the Kingdom within history and make it, not merely the sphere of their social ethical duty, but the object of their hopes. Thus time supplants eternity, the earthly supplants the heavenly, and ethics supplants eschatology. The result, from the standpoint of the Christian who loves the Lord’s appearing, is a particularly drab and dreary substitute for “that blessed hope”. The Christian’s yearning aspiration “Come, Lord Jesus” has been lowered and transformed to the resolution “Let us be Kingdom builders”. Those who very properly call attention to the Scripture teaching that the Kingdom within history must always be partial and imperfect, and that only the eschatological Kingdom can rightly be the object of Christian hope in the absolute sense, are likely to be waved out of court with a bland assertion that they are reducing the work of the Holy Spirit in this age to “a charge of the light brigade”. Doubtless the spirit of American pragmatism has done its work here, with the usual result of the worship of “success”: we are virtually told that a proper devotion to Christian duty in the social sphere is meaningless unless the absolute object of our ultimate hopes is attainable by it. Why can those who have this attitude not see that the obligation of duty is not contingent upon the existence of a probable prospect of immediate success, nor even, indeed, upon a prospect of the attainment of complete success at any time during the present age — that duty and hope are two different things? Has the leaven of pragmatism so permeated American liberal Protestantism that it must be held treason to believe in any mountain higher than men can climb, any Kingdom more perfect than the Church can “build”? This virtual negation of eschatology is utterly contrary to the whole emphasis of the Scriptures, and must always be abhorrent to the Christian heart. If recognition of the Church’s responsibility in the social sphere must rob us of the comfort of “that blessed hope” of our Lord’s return and the eschatological Kingdom of God, it were indeed better to hold fast our eschatological hope and surrender our social ethical responsibility. But the antithesis is a false one; we are not reduced to any such hard alternative. It is not a case of “either. .. or” but of “both. .. and”. Every real Calvinist must necessarily affirm both the social ethical duty and the ultimate eschatological hope. Only those afflicted with the myopia of pragmatism will think that the one cancels the other, that we must choose between the two.
III. The Witness of the Visible Church in the Social and Economic Spheres
1. Study of the Scriptures in Relation to Social and Economic Problems
If the Church is under obligation to bear a testimony concerning social and economic matters, as Calvinism necessarily implies, it must be recognized as of the utmost importance that this testimony shall be Scriptural. The Church is to bear witness to the truth of God, not to the theories or prejudices of men. It is precisely at this point that a great deal of current and recent purported social and economic application of Christianity breaks down. What claims to be the “social gospel” or a social application of the ethical implications of the gospel, often turns out to be an alien fruit that has been produced by a strange vine and is wrongly labelled “Christian” and urged upon the Church as if it were a genuinely Christian product. The word “Christian” has become so debased that it is often applied to whatever the user believes to be good, reasonable or beneficial, quite regardless of whether or not it is really Christian in the sense of historic Christianity.
A real social and economic witness for the Church, then, must proceed from the Scriptures, not from human theories about sociology and economics. The important thing is to ascertain with accuracy what the Scripture teaches, first, about the realms of society and economics, and the relation of the Christian to them; and secondly, what the Scripture teaches about the relation of the visible Church as an institution to these spheres.
Every Christian is of course under obligation to search the Scriptures and to seek to understand and apply their teachings to all of life. Ministers and theologians must undertake such study in a special way, and those who are properly qualified should endeavor to search the Scriptures exhaustively and formulate their teachings systematically, for the benefit of the Church as a whole, since obviously such specialized and intensive study of the Scriptures cannot be undertaken by every Christian, or even every minister, for himself.
In our day it often falls to ecclesiastical committees to undertake studies and bring in reports on matters assigned to them. In such cases the temptation often exists to abide by the obvious, the generally accepted and traditional views on social and economic questions. These traditional positions may of course be Scripturally correct, but Church committees should not simply take this for granted but should avail themselves of the best possible assistance and should seek to present really thorough and convincing exegesis of the Scriptures in support of their conclusions. Surely there is room for great advance and improvement in this respect. In our age, however, even the Church is often impatient of thorough study and investigation, and insistent on a “practical” emphasis. We should always realize that nothing can be really practical unless it is founded on truth, and that nothing in the Church’s witness can be accepted as truth unless it can be shown to be really Scriptural. Patient study, careful exegesis of the Word of God, is the absolutely necessary groundwork and presupposition of any really sound and adequate testimony in the social and economic spheres as in any other sphere.
2. Formulation of Creedal Doctrine
The Scriptural truth ascertained in process of time by investigation on the part of Christian people, and especially ministers, theologians and ecclesiastical committees, should eventually result in a measure of agreement with respect to the subjects involved, in the visible Church or a particular branch of it, and should then crystallize in the form of definite creedal doctrine which will be documented in confessions of faith, catechisms, testimonies or other formal creedal standards. This does not imply, of course, that the formulation of creedal doctrine represents the attainment of the Church’s legitimate social and economic objective, but only that it is a proper, and highly desirable, element in such attainment. For creedal doctrine is the corporate witness of a particular branch of the visible Church. It is the landmark of progress made in agreement on the teachings of the Word of God. As such it constitutes the Church’s manifesto to the public and also the norm of truth, subordinate to the Scriptures, for the Church’s own internal life.
Clearly this work of formulating creedal doctrine relating to social and economic matters has in the past been accomplished only in a very imperfect and partial manner. There remains very much land yet to be possessed. But it would be a mistake to assert, as some do, that until the twentieth century no Church in its creed paid any attention to “social justice” or “the social teachings of Jesus”. Such statements are gross exaggerations. Only part of the task has been accomplished, it is true, but part has been accomplished, and that part no inconsiderable part.
Contrary to the sweeping assertions that are sometimes made, “social justice” is not a recent discovery; only certain special theories of it are recent. When a person claims that “social justice” as a concern of the Church is something new, it will usually be found upon investigation that what is meant is not really social justice as such but Marxian socialism in one form or another. What is recent is the man-centered, humanistic conception of “social justice”, that is, social justice regarded not as a duty owed to God, but regarded from the standpoint of its “value” to humanity. Indeed, the whole idea of “values” in religion and ethics may be said to be not only relatively modern, but perverse. When religion is professed because of its “value” (that is, of course, its value to man), then man and not God is regarded as the center of the universe; when ethical virtues are practiced, not because they are right, but because they have “value” to humanity, then the idolatry of man-worship has already triumphed.
As a matter of fact, the great Reformed creeds are far from blind to social justice, even though we may freely recognize that there remains a vast unfinished task. Mention may be made of the teachings of the Westminster Confession on the civil magistrate (or the State), on marriage and divorce, on war, and on oaths — all of them matters in the social sphere. Particularly worthy of mention is the long section in the Westminster Larger Catechism dealing with the Ten Commandments (Q. 98–148), especially the portion dealing with the second table of the Law (Q. 122–148), which presents a carefully worked out and detailed discussion of social and economic obligations, solidly and squarely grounded on the Scriptures at every point. This section of the Larger Catechism is worthy of much more attention than it has commonly been given. Although written more than three hundred years ago, it has stood the test of time and will be found to present a very thorough summary of the teachings of the Bible on social and economic matters. Certainly it is vastly superior to the collections of nebulous ideas and subjective opinions that sometimes pass for advanced studies in “social justice” today.
3. Preaching and Teaching by Ministers
Ministers are ordained to preach the whole counsel of God; therefore an application of the Word of God to society and economics must be included in their message. To avoid such themes would mean to proclaim a narrowly individualistic message. The Calvinist can recognize no domain of human life as exempt from an application of the relevant teachings of the Scriptures. The minister who holds the Reformed Faith will accordingly not hesitate to preach, and preach confidently and emphatically, upon social and economic matters.
In the nature of the case ministers must go beyond the creeds of their Church in their preaching. They may not of course violate or contradict that which their Church has already corporately affirmed as its creedal doctrine. But creedal doctrine is itself the crystallized precipitate of the investigation and preaching of ministers. Historically it must always follow after such investigation and preaching, not precede it; the Church had preaching first, creeds afterward. To hold the contrary, i.e., that all matters must first be formulated as creedal doctrine and only after that made a matter of preaching, would be to put a stop to all progress in developing a Scriptural corporate witness. In the nature of the case ministers must blaze a trail into what has hitherto been terra incognita in order that the Church may in due time come to general agreement as to what the Scripture teaches on these subjects.
Such trail blazing must however be done with a proper degree of caution. Of course the erroneous tendencies discussed in Part II of the present article ought to be understood and avoided. Beyond this, the minister should avoid preaching on doubtful questions, and should make sure of being on Scriptural ground, before venturing to preach on social and economic matters. It is much better to say nothing at all than to say something the truth of which is open to reasonable doubt. And of course the minister should never give his hearers the impression that he is proclaiming the accepted corporate witness of his Church unless he is in fact doing so.
4. Acts of “Synods and Councils”
If anything is characteristic of American ecclesiastical judicatories, it is the tendency to indulge in sweeping pronouncements on matters Concerning which it may properly be doubted whether they are subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction or are legitimate fields for such pronouncements. American Church assemblies apparently tend to assume that all mundane matters whatever are properly subject to pontifical ecclesiastical pronouncements “favoring” this or “opposing” that. It is no uncommon thing to read of Church assemblies issuing pronouncements favoring or opposing a particular tariff law, a particular policy concerning immigration, universal military training, membership in the “United Nations”, the forty-hour week, the Fair Employment Practices Act, and so forth. The idea appears to be that through such pronouncements the Church as a body “takes a stand” or “is put on record” with respect to the issues involved. Since agreement with such pronouncements cannot be made a condition of membership in the Church, it is difficult to see such “taking a stand” can put a denomination as a body on record with respect to the particular matters involved. At most, it would seem, such pronouncements can have only the weight of an expression of opinion on the part of the judicatory making them. As such, of course, they will possess a certain amount of weight and exert a corresponding degree of influence.
The Westminster Confession takes a very positive stand against the practice above referred to:
“Synods and councils are to handle, or conclude, nothing but that which is ecclesiastical: and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth; unless by way of humble petition, in cases extraordinary; or by way of advice, for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate.”[7]While the Confession’s language is very positive, it immediately raises a problem: just what constitutes ecclesiastical business? It will be observed that the Confession does not say religious but ecclesiastical business, and draws a distinction between “that which is ecclesiastical” and “affairs which concern the commonwealth”, affirming that the former category alone constitutes a proper sphere for ecclesiastical action, and that the latter category is to be strictly left alone by synods and councils, with two exceptions which are very carefully specified and defined.
We may readily admit the validity of the distinction drawn here by the Confession. But we at once face the problem of just where lies the boundary between “that which is ecclesiastical” and “affairs which concern the commonwealth”. Is not the Confession’s confident statement something of an over-simplification? Are “ecclesiastical” matters and “commonwealth” matters after all so mutually exclusive, so easy to separate, as the Confession seems here to imply? Is there not an area which may, in one aspect or another, concern both the Church and the commonwealth?
Any attempt to apply in practice the principle laid down in this section of the Confession is bound immediately to encounter many questions and differences of opinion as to what constitutes proper matter for ecclesiastical action and pronouncement. Without attempting any complete solution of this problem, the following may perhaps be suggested as the lines along which a solution should be sought:
(a) Principles may be confidently affirmed, where their Scriptural warrant is clear. Thus a Church judicatory should have no hesitation, for example, in affirming that the Word of God sanctions private ownership of property, and requires capital punishment for the crime of murder.
(b) The details of the application of principles should be specified only with great caution. Clear-cut cases will of course be quite easy to decide and will not raise any special problems. Thus for the Church to oppose a decree abolishing all private property, or a law abolishing all capital punishment for murder, would involve no difficulties. Again, whether a city should have a mayor or a city manager, and whether a state legislature should have one chamber or two, are clearly matters pertaining solely to the commonwealth and not proper for Church assemblies to deal with. But border-line cases will be very difficult to decide. Whether the abandonment of the gold standard for currency involves a breach of trust and is therefore immoral, is perhaps a doubtful question so far as the propriety of a Church judicatory pronouncing upon it is concerned. Concerning such a matter, ecclesiastical synods and councils should deal, if at all, only with the most extreme caution and reserve. It should be realized, too, that there will always be an area of apparent conflict or confusion along the boundary line of jurisdiction that lies between the Church and the State. This should serve as an added consideration in favor of caution and reserve.
(c) It is extremely important that the Church adhere strictly to what can be clearly and convincingly shown to be the teaching of the Scriptures. All too often this is disregarded in practice, and the Scriptural character of sweeping pronouncements, in themselves of a highly debatable nature, is lightly taken for granted. Thus it often happens that an ecclestiastical assembly will adopt a resolution dealing with some social or economic matter by a very small majority, and the resolution, to which almost half of the members of the assembly were opposed, will then be published to the world as the “stand” of that Church on that question. Common sense would seem to require that synods and councils should refrain from attempting to issue what purport to be authoritative pronouncements on social and economic questions until there is some evidence of real unanimity within the judicatory itself as to the Scriptural character of the pronouncement in question.
The common contemporary practice of ecclesiastical assemblies making broad pronouncements on all sorts of subjects is to be deplored, not only because as practiced it often constitutes a violation of sound principles, but also because it tends greatly to degrade and cheapen the authority of the Church in the eyes of the world. The Church as an institution, as well as the individual Christian, should pay heed to the warning of the Scripture against being an allotriepiskopos — a self-appointed meddler in matters which pertain to others (I Pet. 4:15).
5. The Limits of the Church’s Social and Economic Witness
For the Church’s social and economic witness to serve its real purpose effectively, it must of course be confined within its proper limits. We may now consider some of these limits.
The most obvious limit of the Church’s social and economic witness is of course the silence of the Scripture on a question. By the silence of the Scripture is meant not merely the absence from the Scripture of express statements dealing with the matter in question, but the further absence from the Scripture of data which may properly be regarded as relevant to the question by way of valid logical inference. Where the Scripture neither expressly nor by necessary implication speaks on a matter, the Church has no choice but to remain silent. The Church’s task is to bear witness to the whole counsel of God, not to improve or supplement the counsel of God by having recourse to human opinions or theories. Thus, for example, the Scripture is silent on the precise form of government for the State, and the Scripture is silent concerning the question of whether railways should be owned and operated by private corporations or by the government. The silence of the Scripture concerning these and a host of similar matters marks them as true instances of adiaphora, and, as such, the Church as an institution should refrain from attempting to deal with them.
Apart from matters on which the Scripture is wholly silent, there are matters on which the Scripture speaks, expressly or by implication, but concerning which the sense of the Scripture is obscure, doubtful or apparently self-contradictory. In such cases, the temptation to indulge in confident over-simplification must always be resisted. The Church has no right to bear a testimony except where it is really sure of its Scriptural ground. Where this is in doubt, it is better — indeed, it is a duty — to wait for further light, rather than to jump to conclusions which in the nature of the case can have only doubtful Scriptural warrant.
In the third place, the proper God-ordained jurisdiction of the individual, the family and the State must always be respected and not trespassed upon. That something is recognized as being good or just does not at all necessarily imply that it is the Church’s business to deal with it directly, or actively to promote it; nor does the fact that a matter is held to be bad or unjust necessarily imply that it is a proper object of ecclesiastical disapprobation and correction. That city children should have commodious playgrounds to keep them off crowded streets is doubtless good in its sphere; so likewise that highways be properly patrolled, that banks and the postal service be honestly and efficiently managed. Yet none of these worthy ends are proper objectives for the Church as an institution. We should oppose a totalitarian Church just as truly as a totalitarian State; that is, we should oppose the tendency of the Church to become paternalistic and pre-decide questions for the individual, the family and the State. For example, the Church may properly warn against selfish greed on the part of both capital and labor, but the Church has no right to pronounce upon the merits of a particular dispute between the two; to do so would be to trespass upon the proper jurisdiction of the State; it would be as improper as for the State to decide whether a man possesses the qualifications for admission to the Lord’s Supper, or for ordination to the gospel ministry.
In defining the principles regulating the Church’s witness as over against the State, the ground was broken as long ago as 1578 by the Second Book of Discipline adopted by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland:
“The civil power should command the spiritual to exercise and to do their office according to the word of God; the spiritual rulers should require the Christian magistrate to minister justice and punish vice, and to maintain the liberty of the Church, and quietness within their bounds.”
“The magistrate ought neither preach, minister the sacraments, nor execute the censures of the Church, but command the minister to observe the rule prescribed in the word, and punish transgressors by civil means; the minister again exercises not the civil jurisdiction, but teaches the magistrate how it should be exercised according to the word.”[8]It will be noted here that the magistrate may not teach the Church anything, but merely command the Church to follow whatever the Church itself finds to be taught in the Word of God; God did not constitute the State a teaching body, or pillar and ground of His truth. On the other hand, the Church, while it may not interfere with the jurisdiction of the magistrate, yet is to teach the magistrate how to exercise his own civil jurisdiction “according to the Word”; that is to say, the Church, unlike the State, is essentially a teaching or a witnessing body, which operates in the realm of truth, and therefore it also has a responsibility to teach the civil magistrate, or to bear witness to the State, concerning those doctrines and principles of the Scripture which are relevant to the sphere of civil government. But when we pass from the sphere of truth into the sphere of actions, the Church may not deal with the sphere of the State any more than the State may deal with that of the Church.
Notes
- XIX. 4.
- P. 120; p. 244, note 47.
- Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, p. 327.
- Calvinism (1943 ed.), pp. 103-4. (Page numbers different in older editions).
- The Calvin Forum, XI, 6 (January 1946), pp. 112-114.
- “Labor and the Christians”, by Richard Postma, in The Calvin Forum, XI, 6 (January 1946), pp. 116-118.
- XXXI. 5.
- Op. cit., I, 16, 20, in John Spottiswoode, History of the Church of Scotland, 203–1625, Vol. II, pp. 234-5.
The Visible Church: Its Nature, Unity And Witness
By Johannes G. Vos
Clay Center, Kansas.
I. The Nature of the Visible Church
THE visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the Gospel (not confined to one nation as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.”[1] Thus according to the Westminster Confession the criterion of membership in the visible Church is profession, whereas the divine election and gathering “into one, under Christ the Head thereof” is the criterion of membership in the invisible Church.[2]
While of course the ideal condition of the visible Church would be complete coincidence with the invisible Church (or more precisely, with that portion of the invisible Church which at a given time is present on earth), still it must be recognized that this ideal will not and cannot be attained in this age, but must await its full realization in the age to come when the distinction between the visible and the invisible Church will have passed away in the state of glory. The visible Church, being visible, must of necessity be essentially a professing body, for profession is a visible phenomenon, whereas divine election and vital spiritual union with Christ are not. For this reason all the attempts which have at various times and in various circles been made to limit the membership of the visible Church to the regenerate, or to such as profess to have assurance of regeneration or real piety, must be adjudged to be wrong in principle and harmful in tendency.
No doubt these attempts have been motivated by a praiseworthy and pious desire to promote the purity and holiness of the visible Church by excluding unregenerate persons from her membership. But such attempted exclusion of the unregenerate is, and always has proved, impossible to carry out in practice. Who shall say with certainty whether a particular applicant for membership is regenerate or not? Certainly no Protestant ecclesiastical judicatory can claim to be infallible. The Scriptures teach that it is possible for a Christian to attain full assurance, or certainty, concerning his own salvation, but this is something quite different from attaining certainty about another person’s salvation. If it be admitted that ecclesiastical judicatories cannot pronounce concerning an individual’s regeneration, what shall we say about the proposal to throw the burden of responsibility on the applicants, and admit to membership only such as profess to have assurance of their own regeneration? Not only is there no warrant in the Scriptures for such a criterion of Church membership, but the effect in actual practice must be, as it has been, to exclude many who no doubt are true believers, but who, because of diffidence, or because of misunderstanding of the grounds of assurance, or because of lack of spiritual maturity, do not or cannot claim assurance of their own regeneration. Thus persons who ought to be members of the visible Church, and who need the benefits of such membership even more than those mature Christians who have attained full assurance, are excluded from the household of God and placed on a par with unbelievers. The practical evils which must result from such a condition are obvious.
The visible Church, then, is a society composed of those throughout the world who profess the true religion, together with their minor children, and the criterion of membership in it is not election, regeneration or “real saintship”, but a credible profession of faith in the true religion. By a credible profession is not meant a profession which compels belief, but one which it is possible to believe, that is, a profession which is adequate in content and which is not contradicted by known facts of the applicant’s life. In The Larger Catechism the Westminster Divines affirm that “Such as are found to be ignorant or scandalous, notwithstanding their profession of the faith, and desire to come to the Lord’s supper, may and ought to be kept from that sacrament.. . .”[3] Thus those who are found to be ignorant, that is, whose profession lacks an adequate and correct content, and those found to be scandalous, that is, those whose profession is contradicted by their manner of life, are to be authoritatively debarred from the Lord’s supper, and no doubt such persons should also be excluded from actual membership in the visible Church until their ignorance or scandalous living has been corrected. But apart from persons whose profession is rendered incredible by reason of ignorance or scandal, those who profess the true religion are to be received as members of the visible Church. The fact that there has been, and no doubt will continue to be, diversity of opinion as to what constitutes ignorance or scandal of such a nature and degree as to render a person’s profession incredible, does not militate against the validity of the principle outlined above. As in all matters of faith and practice the Scriptures must be the source of guidance, but obviously reasonable latitude must be allowed ecclesiastical judicatories in the difficult task of applying the Scriptures to this problem. Although some deficiencies or aberrations of faith and life can with general agreement be pronounced “ignorance” or “scandal”, yet there are many matters of faith and especially of life concerning which it is far from easy to decide confidently, and about which there is little unanimity even in “the best Reformed Churches”. The temptation to try to formulate a cut-and-dried, classified list of all forms of ignorance and scandal must be resisted because in the nature of the case such a formulation cannot be complete, and moreover cannot take account of the varying circumstances of life which may affect the question of the credibility of an applicant’s profession.
The Scriptures teach, and it has been generally accepted throughout the history of the Church, that the members of the visible Church are to be associated in particular local congregations under officers who sustain a special relation to their respective congregations. The Church being a visible body must necessarily have some form of organization or government. Although it seems to be common at the present day to regard the form of Church government as a matter of indifference, to be determined according to human prudence or preference, the Reformed Churches historically have taken higher ground than this, and have held that the government of the Church is a matter of divine appointment in Scripture, and that the form appointed in Scripture is to be continued in the Church jure divino until the end of the world. Of the four historical forms of Church government, episcopal, papal, congregational and presbyterian, generally only the last two have claimed to be founded exclusively on the teachings of the Scriptures. While a superficial reading of the New Testament might seem to favor the congregational or independent polity, a more careful study reveals data which cannot be reconciled with independency, and discloses the basic elements of presbyterian government in the New Testament documents and in the apostolic Church which they portray. It is well known that the Westminster Assembly spent a great amount of time wrestling with the problem of the divinely appointed form of Church government. The product of the Assembly’s labors, The Form of Presbyterial Church-Government and of Ordination of Ministers, sets forth, with a closely reasoned discussion of the relevant portions of Scripture, the Bible basis for the presbyterian form of Church government. Clearly the Westminster Divines believed that presbyterian government exists jure divino; their view of the matter was far removed from that of a professor in a well-known American Presbyterian seminary who said to his students: “Presbyterianism is a form of Church government set forth in Scripture, but that is very different from affirming that presbyterianism is the form of Church government set forth in Scripture”.
Yet to affirm that the presbyterian form of Church government is appointed in Scripture and to be continued jure divino in the Church does not imply that this form of government is essential to the being of a Church. No doubt every adherent of the Westminster Standards will agree that presbyterian government is essential to the well-being of a Church. But it would be going too far to assert that bodies of professing Christians which maintain other forms of Church polity are therefore no Churches, nor parts of the true visible Church of Christ. The true Presbyterian will avoid, on the one hand, the error of allowing that Church government is a matter of indifference to be arranged according to human prudence, and, on the other hand, the error of insisting that presbyterian government is essential to the being of a Church. Avoiding both of these extremes, he will stand on solid Scriptural ground.
It should be said that the modern trend toward independency, whether in fact only or in name also, is wrong and to be deplored. That such a trend exists, and among Christians whose heritage has been Presbyterian for generations, can hardly be questioned. There are today not a few but very many persons, including a considerable number of ministers, who are members of denominations holding the presbyterian form of government, who yet conduct themselves very much as if they were independents. This attitude may be termed the delusion of virtual independence. There is a widespread tendency on the part of conservatives in some formerly conservative denominations to disclaim all responsibility for the acts and policies of presbyteries, synods, general assemblies and their boards and agencies, and to take refuge, so to speak, within the four walls of a comparatively orthodox congregation which exists as an evangelical island in a denominational ocean of Modernism. This delusion of independence may go so far that ministers and elders seldom or never attend the stated meetings of presbyteries and higher judicatories, and claim that by reason of non-participation in the deliberations of these bodies they are exempt from responsibility for their acts and policies. Such an attitude can only be regarded as wishful thinking. A denomination having the presbyterian form of government has a corporate existence as a denomination, and is no mere loose voluntary association of separate independent congregations. Every member and minister of such a denomination sustains a necessary relation to the denomination as a whole, and is ipso facto responsible, to a greater or less degree, for the doctrines, policies and acts of the denomination as a whole. The idea that a member, minister or congregation may be enrolled in a denomination having presbyterian government and yet be virtually independent is simply a delusion, which may perhaps be explained psychologically as a rationalization by which evangelical Christians seek to justify their continued membership in denominations which have corporately succumbed to the deadly virus of modern unbelief.
Somewhat less ominous than the widely cherished delusion of virtual independence, but still serious, is the widespread trend, among persons with a Presbyterian background and training, to forsake the presbyterian polity altogether and join independent Churches. There exist today even such anomalies as “independent” or “denominationally unrelated” “Presbyterian Churches”. It is hard to see wherein such “Presbyterian” Churches differ greatly in polity from the Congregational Churches established by the Puritan settlers in New England in the early years of the seventeenth century. These Churches were indeed originally “presbyterian” in the sense that each possessed a number of ruling elders associated with one or more ministers of the Word; but historically it has always been recognized that normal presbyterian polity involves the association of a plurality of congregations in a corporate life under common superior judicatories, although of course exceptional circumstances may exist under which such association is impossible, at least for the time being.[4]
It is obvious that a great many Christian people whose background and religious nurture have been Presbyterian are today in independent congregations of varying doctrinal complexion which may generally be classified as “Fundamentalist” Churches. No believer in the jus divinum of presbyterian government can justify this state of affairs. But how is it to be explained? Certainly it must be regarded as the end-product of a long and gradual declension from the strictly Reformed view of Church government held by Presbyterians in general in times past. Presbyterian government could not be so easily and so completely abandoned in favor of independency unless those who make this change had already lost their conviction of its Scriptural character as a matter of divine appointment for the Church. Along with this gradual loss of conviction which must have taken place, there may exist in many cases a certain illogical conclusion drawn from the premises of existing conditions. Because certain denominations, while adhering, in general, to the presbyterian or some other form of government, have been guilty of apostasy from the essential truths of the Gospel itself, the conclusion has apparently been drawn by many persons that apostasy from the Gospel itself is somehow inevitably linked with the fact of a corporate denominational organization as such. Because some denominations in their corporate capacity have become apostate, many earnest Christians have become disgusted with corporate denominational organization itself and have taken refuge, with other like-minded persons, in independent congregations of a generally “Fundamentalist” character. This tendency to forsake denominations as hopelessly corrupt, and on forsaking them to establish independent congregations rather than to combine congregations in doctrinally sound denominations, is one of the major developments in the ecclesiastical situation of our day. A great multitude of such independent congregations have sprung up across America during the past few years. This tendency is to be deplored, because in many cases it marks the end of a decline from Calvinism to a general evangelicalism, and from presbyterian government, regarded as existing jure divino, to independency held on grounds of mere expediency.
II. The Unity of the Visible Church
The visible Church being a divine institution, the question of its unity cannot be an unimportant one. Nor is it an easy problem to solve, for besides the distinction between the invisible and the visible Church, that between the visible Church as an organism and the visible Church as an institution must be kept in mind. Obviously the modern “church union” movement greatly over-simplifies the problem. An instance of the superficiality with which it is often faced is the frequent quotation of I Corinthians 1:10ff. as if this passage were a direct condemnation of denominationalism.
Now it is perfectly clear that the four parties mentioned by Paul in verse 12 were not competing denominations, but rival factions within one and the same congregation, “the church of God which is at Corinth” (verse 2). Factions such as the apostle condemns may occur in any Church, and have occurred even within the supposed uniformity of the Church of Rome. This passage has no doubt an indirect bearing on the question of denominationalism, especially by reason of its insistence upon the Christian duty of cultivating unanimity (verse 10), but it does not prove that for which it is often cited, namely, that denominational divisions can never be legitimate.
It is very common to cite such Scriptures as our Lord’s petition in John 17:21 (“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and 1 in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”) and assume without proof that such texts are directly applicable to the visible Church as an institution, and that every separate denominational organization must therefore be inherently wrong, and ought to be abandoned as soon as possible in the interest of obedience to the requirement of unity involved in such texts of Scripture.
What John 17:21 and similar Scriptures really require is not necessarily organic union of the visible Church as an institution, but rather unity of the visible Church as an organism in this world. The rhetorical question of Amos,[5] “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” implies a negative answer, and certainly any form of Church union which is not founded on true unity is without value and moreover is no real fulfilment of the ideal set forth in our Lord’s petition. He prayed that his people might all be one with a mutual unity similar in some way to his own reciprocal unity with the Father. He prayed also that his people might be one in himself and the Father. While the ontological unity of the Son with the Father is of course unique and cannot be fully paralleled by any unity among Christians, still it is clear that our Lord’s prayer requires something quite different from, and much more than, a mere indiscriminate union of professing Christians, of various divergent shades of belief, in one organization. Certainly what is required first of all is a true unity of doctrinal conviction; not a mere walking together, but a real state of being agreed; and in the second place this condition of unity must have its root and strength in the relationship of Christian people to God the Father and God the Son. There can be no real and worthy horizontal unity which is not itself the product and expression of a real vertical unity — a unity with the Triune God on the basis of the self-revelation of God given in the Scriptures.
It is clear that the current church union movement, despite its many pious phrases and its apparent moral indignation against the alleged evils of denominational divisions, falls far short of embodying the Scriptural ideal of Christian unity. The modern church union movement must be adjudged to be far less holy than it seems and claims to be. In reality it is not the product of an ardent desire for obedience to Christ and conformity to his revealed will. On the contrary, it is the offspring of widespread religious skepticism and general depreciation of the importance of doctrinal truth. A well-educated layman recently told the writer that he had been successively a Presbyterian and a Methodist, each for a period of years, yet he did not know the doctrinal difference between the two. This may illustrate the state of affairs which seems to be prevalent in contemporary American Protestantism. It is from such soil that the current urgent demand for organic union has sprung. If people who have been members of a denomination for years do not know wherein it differs from other denominations, of course they will see no reason why immediate union should not take place. We face today a situation in which the ordinary denominational labels have largely become meaningless, because of the general abandonment of doctrine: not merely this doctrine or that doctrine, but the abandonment of doctrine as such. This is extremely serious, for it means that the product of the current church union movement, in so far as it attains its objective, will not be a compromise between the distinctive tenets of various denominations, nor even a setting-forth of a minimal substratum of evangelical Christianity which may be supposed to be common to them all, but rather the ecclesiastical expression of a spineless non-doctrinal religion which will be called, but will not really be, Christianity. The real issue is not Presbyterianism versus Episcopalianism, nor Lutheranism versus Methodism; it is historic Christianity versus a vague, non-doctrinal religion which can only be labelled pseudo-Christianity, a religion which at bottom can only be pure humanism. The non-doctrinal and even anti-doctrinal tendency of the modern church union movement was clearly seen by Dr. B. B. Warfield more than half a century ago when he wrote:
“What is ominous in the present-day drift of religious thought is the sustained effort that is being made to break down just these two principles: the principle of a systematized body of doctrines as the matter to be believed, and the principle of an external authority as the basis of belief. What arrogates to itself the title of ‘the newer religious thinking’ sets itself, before everything else, in violent opposition to what it calls ‘dogma’ and ‘external authority.’ The end may be very readily foreseen. Indefinite subjectivism or subjective indifferentism has no future. It is not only in its very nature a disintegrating, but also a destructive, force. It can throw up no barrier against unbelief. Its very business is to break down barriers. And when that work is accomplished the floods come in.
“The assault on positive doctrinal teaching is presented today chiefly under the flag of ‘comprehension.’ Men bewail the divisions of the Church of Christ, and propose that we shall stop thinking, so that we may no longer think differently. This is the true account to give of many of the phases of the modern movement for ‘church union.’ Men are tired of thinking. They are tired of defending the truth. Let us all stop thinking, stop believing, they cry, and what a happy family we shall be!”[6]
Having decided that the modern church union movement is in essence really anti-Christian because it is anti-doctrinal, shall we also affirm that union of the visible Church as an institution is not a valid ideal, and need not be sought even as an ultimate objective? By no means. That the current church union agitation is subversive of real Christianity does not imply that there cannot be a legitimate and worthy church union movement. Certainly the Scriptural emphasis on unity of the visible Church as an organism implies the validity, as an ultimate objective, of the ideal of union of the visible Church as an institution. Certainly very few Christians would venture to defend denominationalism as good in itself. It may be inevitable; it may be a necessary evil under existing conditions; it is certainly far less of an evil than would be an indiscriminate organic union of denominations on a vague, non-doctrinal basis; but after all, it is an evil; it is not inherently good.
By denominationalism is not meant all co-existence in the world of distinct ecclesiastical bodies each possessing autonomy subject only to God and his Word. Two communions may be organically separate because of geographical, linguistic or other reasons, and yet be of identical faith. Such are not really different denominations. They are in no sense rivals the one of the other. Rather they are one in all respects except their actual external organization. Real denominationalism, on the other hand, exists where of two or more bodies occupying, in whole or in part, the same territory and seeking to present their message to the same public, each claims to be more faithful to the Scriptural pattern than the others, and therefore competes, more or less, against the others. On the other hand, various examples could be cited of true “sister Churches”, of identical or virtually identical faith, each of which is nevertheless ecclesiastically fully autonomous. Such co-existence of separate communions is not to be regarded as something evil; rather it is in itself morally indifferent, and in view of actual conditions in the world, may be quite proper and necessary for adequately carrying out the functions of the Church.
Denominationalism properly so-called, however, must always be regarded as an evil. It is only because of the fact of sin that error exists, and it is only because of the fact of error that real denominationalism exists. Where two denominations hold mutually contradictory doctrines, clearly at least one of them — perhaps both of them — must have deviated from the path of truth. Because error is sinful per se, we must hold that the denominationalism which results from error is something evil. The modern church union movement sheds many tears over the “shameful divisions” which exist among Christians, but it never sheds any tears over the sinful error which must lie at the basis of these divisions. It is perhaps characteristic of Liberalism to be more concerned about the consequences of sin than about the sin itself. But as Christians we should be much more concerned about the sin itself than about the consequences of the sin. The really deplorable thing in denominationalism is not so much the external divisions as the sinful, even though sincere, adherence to error which has produced and perpetuated the divisions. This is what most needs to be repented of.
It follows that there can be no real remedy for denominationalism without facing the fact of error and dealing with it. Any program of Church union which starts out by assuming that opposing views are inherently equally valid and equally true is doomed to failure so far as really remedying the trouble is concerned. The prevalent skepticism concerning the existence of absolute truth tends to result in regarding the creed of a denomination as possessing only a relative value as the tradition or preference of that denomination, instead of its being regarded as that denomination’s understanding of the absolute truth given in the divine special revelation. It is quite true of course that absolute and final authority may not be claimed for any creed or confession; only the Scriptures constitute the absolute and final authority for faith and life, and the creed of a denomination has at best the value of a limiting concept or landmark of progress already made in understanding the Scriptures. Thus no creed may ever be regarded as complete and final, that is, not subject to future revision or additions as more light is gained from the Scriptures. But thus to recognize that no creed can be absolute, complete and final, is something quite different from the attitude toward creeds which modern skepticism has produced. That attitude is begotten of the notion that truth itself cannot be absolute and permanent, but changes with the times. Thus there are those who say that the Westminster Confession was an excellent expression of Christianity for the seventeenth century, but is not suitable for the twentieth century, because today men think in other categories than those of the seventeenth century. For our own day, it is said, there must be a new construction of Christianity in terms of modern thinking. Now those who think thus of the creeds which form their denominational heritage will of course not venture far in defending those creeds, nor will they be inclined to insist upon the doctrines formulated in them. Rather the tendency will be to regard the creeds as pieces of antique furniture, not indeed without interest and importance, but hardly relevant to the issues of the present day. If two denominations are negotiating a merger, where this attitude toward creeds prevails, even flatly contradictory propositions in their respective creeds will not prove a real barrier to union. Creeds which are not held to be landmarks of attainment in the grasp of absolute, unchanging truth, can easily be treated as material for bargaining and compromise, or even be relegated to the museum of curious antiques as possessing a historical interest only.
Wherever this perverse skeptical attitude toward creeds prevails there can only be failure to provide any real remedy for the evil of denominationalism. For this attitude of indifferentism fails to face the fact of error and take it seriously. Any real remedy must start out with the recognition of the supreme, absolute and permanent authority of the Scriptures, and with the assumption that the creed of one’s own denomination, as far as it goes, is a faithful formulation of the teaching of the Scriptures. It must then be recognized that various denominations have creeds which, in some points at least, are mutually contradictory. The fact must then be faced that where two creeds are contradictory, at least one of them must be in error. Although every denomination must necessarily start by assuming that its own creed is true, and must therefore also necessarily start by assuming that the other denomination’s creed, in the contradictory points, is false, still these assumptions must be regarded as provisional only. That is to say, if there is to be any real progress in providing a remedy for denominationalism, all parties must recognize that, after all, only Scripture is the absolute and final authority; no party may claim infallibility over against other parties; no party can absolutely rule out the possibility that it is in error and the opposing party is holding the truth on a particular matter. Otherwise even discussion of contradictory points would be impossible; there can be no real discussion where each party insists that its own rightness, and the other party’s wrongness, are matters beyond dispute. To take such an attitude would be to assume that which, for a real remedy of denominationalism, requires proof, namely the actual Scriptural character of doctrines which one or another party alleges to be Scriptural.
Even where the above-mentioned presuppositions of a remedy for denominationalism exist, it is obvious that any real progress in this matter will require a great deal of effort, much patience and a high degree of Christian humility on the part of the denominations concerned. The temper of our times is against it. The Westminster Assembly of Divines, representing all parties of English Protestanism except the high episcopacy of Archbishop Laud, sat for about seven years, during which time 1163 sessions were held. Ample time was taken for the unhurried and thorough investigation and discussion of the matters under consideration. There was a patient and painstaking effort to ascertain the real sense of the Scriptures on these matters. No doubt the Assembly’s work, for industry, patience, thoroughness and whole-hearted devotion to the Word of God, has never since been paralleled. There seems little reason to suppose that any present-day assembly called to attempt to resolve denominational divisions would equal or even approach it. The hurried sessions of synods and assemblies of the present day, with their ready-made dockets and pressure of business and inevitable struggle to finish their work by a fixed closing date, afford but an unfavorable climate for the calm, deliberate investigation and discussion of doctrinal matters which is so urgently needed today. Mutual agreement among the people of God in their confession of the truths of his Word is a plant that cannot be forced; it must grow slowly, even in the most favorable soil. The impatient, pragmatic temper of the twentieth century is too much in evidence, even in the most orthodox denominations, to permit sanguine expectation of any early or marked progress toward a real elimination of denominational divisions. Not that such an elimination of divisions should be regarded as impossible, in whole or in part; it is only that the Churches do not value truth highly enough to make the necessary efforts and sacrifices. No doubt most Church members of today would regard a contemporary Westminster Assembly of Divines, called to meet for seven years and hold over a thousand sessions in the pursuit of mutual agreement on doctrinal truth, as a waste of time and money which ought to be devoted to more “praccal” ends. But we may rest assured that there is no short-cut to the desirable goal. There can be no real progress toward Church union on a truly Scriptural basis without the payment of a heavy price by the parties involved. Comparatively few would be willing to pay that price.
III. The Witness of the Visible Church
Scripture affirms that the Church is “the pillar and ground of the truth”,[7] and it must be the visible Church that is referred to, for in the same verse it is called the house of God, in which persons are to conduct themselves according to the instructions Paul had just written concerning public worship, the silence of women, and the qualifications for the offices of bishop and deacon. But in what sense is the visible Church the pillar and ground of the truth? Although Roman Catholic commentators naturally take the phrase as relating to the alleged infallibility of the Church, most Protestants who have interpreted the phrase as referring to the Church rather than to Timothy have followed Calvin in holding that the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth because it is the divinely appointed instrument by which the truth is perpetuated, lest it perish from the memory of men. The visible Church is thus the custodian, defender and proclaimer of divinely revealed truth. Although this proposition will be readily accepted by orthodox Christians in general, a problem inevitably arises in connection with it. Of what truth is the Church the pillar and ground? To how much divinely revealed truth is the visible Church to bear testimony? Human fallibility results in diverse and conflicting views of divinely revealed truth. In view of this diversity of faith, how can the visible Church really bear witness to the truth?
The problem under consideration at this point should not be mistaken for the problem of the degree of conformity to the Church’s creed which ought to be required of officers, members or applicants for membership. That is indeed a real and important problem, and it will be discussed later in the present article. But the question before us now is how the visible Church, in view of the diversity of faith which inevitably exists among those who profess the true religion, can have a creed at all. We are raising not the question of what should be required of candidates for Church membership or office, but the question of how those who are already members can express their Christian faith not merely as so many individuals, but in a corporate testimony for the truth. It is true, of course, that the Church decides who can be its members; but it is also true that the members determine what the Church shall stand for. This may perhaps be illusstrated by considering the civil government of a nation. The government indeed decides who is qualified for citizenship in the nation; but it is also true that the citizens determine what shall be the character of the constitution and government itself. Similarly there exist two reciprocal functions in the visible Church: (a) the function of determining the membership of the Church itself; and (b) the function of the members in determining what shall be the character of the Church’s corporate witness to the world. The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth, certainly; but after all, the Church is not an abstract ideal; it is a real body made up of individual members each of whom is subject to error and therefore views the truth somewhat differently from all others. If the Church is in any real sense the pillar and ground of the truth, it must bear a corporate witness to the truth. But that witness cannot be merely an ideal detached from the actual beliefs of the Church’s members. In some sense it must be the collective product of the doctrinal convictions of individual persons as these view the divine special revelation. How can the visible Church, made up as it is of fallible individuals, bear a corporate witness to the truth?
The fact that every Christian is subject to error must always be reckoned with. Just as every Christian, even the most holy, has within him a remaining element of the corruption of original sin which inevitably finds expression in actual transgressions, so every Christian, even the most enlightened, has within him a remaining element of intellectual perversity which inevitably finds expression in some degree of doctrinal error in his personal convictions. Every Christian, it must be realized, has within him the germs of heresy. Just as the corruption of original sin, and its expression in actual transgressions, are subdued, but not eradicated, by the process of sanctification, so the germs of heresy in the Christian, and their tendency to find expression in actual errors, are kept under control, but not eradicated, by the gradual process of illumination by the Holy Spirit which accompanies the work of sanctification. And like sanctification, illumination cannot be total in the present life. There are also those in the visible Church who are only professing Christians, and who lack the Spirit’s work of regeneration, sanctification and illumination. Such persons have only those operations of the Spirit which pertain to the realm of common grace. Yet they exist and have an influence among the regenerate members of the visible Church, and will inevitably have an effect on the character of its witness to the world.
In seeking a solution of this problem, two extremes must be avoided as destructive of any real testimony to the truth. In the first place, it is necessary to avoid the conception of the Church bearing witness to the truth by means of a total body of dogma issued by an inner hierarchy and published to the world as an infallible statement of truth, to be accepted by all men with an implicit faith. This is the Roman Catholic conception. In criticism of this it may be said that it is destructive of a real testimony to the truth because in this system everything is made contingent upon the validity of the hierarchy’s claim to infallibility. Moreover in this system it is not really the visible Church that is the pillar and ground of the truth, but a select inner hierarchy headed by the Pope. The lay members, even though constituting perhaps more than ninety-nine percent of the total number, have no part in the Church’s corporate witness except by an unquestioning and absolute acceptance of whatever is placed before them by the hierarchy. As the Westminster Confession asserts, this is “to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also”,[8] and we may add, it is to destroy all real corporate witness to the truth on the part of the Church. Rome virtually equates the Church with the hierarchy, so far as testimony to the truth is concerned; the laity is not regarded as essential to this function.
In the second place, it is necessary to avoid the extreme which lies at the opposite pole from that of Rome, and which would give full play to the so-called atomistic tendency of Protestanism. If we reject the claim of the Pope of Rome to be infallible, we must also avoid that disproportionate recognition of the right of private judgment which would allow every individual Christian to claim to be a pope. While it is certainly true that Rome is wrong in virtually excluding the lay Christian from participating in the corporate witness of the Church, and that there must be a real, and not merely a fictitious, relation between the Church member as such and the Church’s testimony to the world, nevertheless it must be realized that as long as human fallibility exists there will be no two Christians, who think at all seriously about divinely revealed truth, who are in complete agreement in their view of the truth.
Now if the principle of private judgment is to be exalted above measure, every individual Christian can demand that the visible Church as a body bear witness to the entirety of revealed truth as he sees it. Since every other Christian could with equal right make the same demand, and the various demands thus made would conflict with each other, the result of this tendency would be only confusion and anarchy. There being no agreement concerning the extent and content of the truth to which the Church is to bear witness, and every Christian naturally being unwilling to surrender his own private judgment to some other Christian’s view of the truth, a corporate witness to the truth would be impossible. The logical end of this state of affairs would be the existence of as many denominations as there are individual Christians in the world. Only so could each be a member of a denomination which would fully bear witness to the truth as each, in the exercise of his right of private judgment, views the truth. That is to say, if the right of private judgment is to be allowed unlimited scope, there can be no visible Church on earth, but only a multitude of individual, and individualistic, Christians. Now this “atomistic tendency” of Protestantism is only too real, and while it would be unthinkable to surrender the right of private judgment to Rome’s demand for an implicit faith, still this does not mean that private judgment may be allowed to assert itself without any limits, and demand an ecclesiastical confession of every element of doctrine that any individual Christian believes to be truth. If every Christian were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to be a member of any Church that did not bear a corporate witness to everything that he held to be divinely revealed truth, all agreement and hence all corporate testimony would be impossible. Again, if every Christian were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to be a member of any Church that bore a corporate witness to anything that he regarded as error, all agreement and hence all corporate testimony would be out of the question.
Thus it is clear that the Scriptural doctrine of the visible Church as a witnessing body requires a balance to be struck between the concept of corporate ecclesiastical testimony and the concept of private judgment. Somewhere between the two extremes represented by Rome and by the atomistic tendency of Protestantism in its full logical development, the true course must lie. A line must be drawn, an area must be defined, within which unity of confession exists and is insisted upon even at the cost, if need be, of excommunicating those who dissent, but outside of which divergence of belief is tolerated. Thus in the nature of the case no Church can really bear a corporate witness to all the truth which God has revealed in his Word, nor may any denomination make such a claim. To claim such a total testimony to divine truth would amount to claiming infallibility as Rome does. And in the nature of the case no Christian can expect to find a Church which will bear a complete and exact testimony to his own personal faith. Inevitably there will be divergence, at least at the periphery which lies outside the area of ecclesiastically denned dogma. Those zealous persons who look for a visible Church on earth which will fully and precisely embody their personal faith — no more and no less — as its corporate witness, are looking on earth for what can exist only in heaven. They overlook the truth that even the best Christians are still subject to error, and that neither in individuals nor in Churches can there be such a thing as total orthodoxy on earth. The removal of the intellectual effects of sin, like the removal of the moral effects of sin, is a gradual process, and can never be complete in this life.
Just where this line is to be drawn — just what area is to be marked off — constitutes the confessional problem of Protestantism. Divergent ideas on this question have produced denominationalism, at least in its creedal aspect. This is a very serious and difficult problem. The present generation is not even inclined to face it frankly. We live in an age when creeds are seldom taken very seriously, and are more often by-passed than honestly accepted or rejected. Men are not seldom ordained to ecclesiastical office who have not even read the confessions which they profess to accept, and who after they have been ordained go blithely on their individualistic way in utter disregard of the express statements of the creed they have solemnly vowed to defend and propagate. Where such conditions exist, the problem stated above cannot really be faced, much less can it be solved. When men are indifferent to truth as such, or when they have lost all interest in corporate testimony to truth and care only about their individual witness, there will be no serious concern about the problem of just what and how much doctrine a denomination is to bear witness to in its confession.
Nor can the problem be solved by the short-cut of concentration on a few generally recognized “essential truths”. Such a solution would be an unscriptural over-simplication. Moreover it cannot solve the problem because there will inevitably still be disagreement as to which truths are to be regarded as “essential”. One Christian insists that the doctrine of Christ’s two natures is of the essence of Christianity; another holds that it is unimportant, and may be omitted. One asserts that the so-called “Apostles’ Creed” is an adequate statement of the “essential truths” of Christianity; another replies that it is inadequate because it leaves out everything that was gained by the Protestant Reformation. One maintains that the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture must be included in a Church’s confession; another counters by saying that it is only a “theory” and by no means to be insisted on. The inevitable result must be that any creed pared down to such a few “essential truths” as to suit the generality of professing Christians would in reality suit very few of them, and would leave the visible Church to bear a corporate witness to almost nothing. No Christian who believes that the Bible as a whole, with its wealth of divinely revealed truth, is the Church’s supreme authority, will be satisfied with attempts to solve the confessional problem of Protestantism by concentration on a few selected “essential truths”. This is a false trail which must necessarily result in the rejection as “non-essential” of the greater portion of what God has committed to the Church in his Word.
There can be no short-cut or easy solution to this problem. To say that the Church as the pillar and ground of the truth ought to bear witness to all that God has revealed in his Word is axiomatic, but does not solve the problem we are considering. For the problem consists precisely in the fact that Christians differ in their conceptions of the content of the system of truth revealed in the Word. If all were in agreement there would be no problem. The Church is faced with the task of bearing a corporate witness for divine truth while no two of her members are in complete agreement as to what that truth is. Now unless it is attempted to solve the problem in a purely arbitrary way, a key to its solution must be sought in the Scripture itself. Although the Scripture does not present a body of doctrine already formulated in logical, systematic form, still it does present not merely an aggregate of individual doctrines, but a system of doctrine which possesses an organic character. Now if we regard the Scripture in its entirety as special divine revelation, and discover in it an organic system of doctrine, and if the visible Church is to bear a corporate witness to divine truth, then at least the system of doctrine presented in the Scriptures, in its integrity, must be insisted on as the content of the visible Church’s corporate witness for the truth. Nothing that is essential to that system of doctrine may be disregarded or omitted. (We are not of course considering what is necessary for a person’s salvation, but what is logically essential to the system of doctrine).
There are indeed professing Christians who deny that the Bible presents a system of doctrine. Some hold that it presents elements of mutually contradictory systems of doctrine. Others say that the doctrine contained in the Bible is incidental and “the life” is the important thing. And of course there are those who maintain that Arminianism, Socinianism or even “Christian Science” is the system of doctrine presented in the Bible. We can only say that we believe they are profoundly mistaken and that their convictions are not substantiated either by express statements of Scripture or by valid logical inference from the Scriptures. But among Calvinists (not necessarily among members of Calvinistic Churches) there is general agreement that the Bible presents a definite system of doctrine, and also general agreement as to what that system of doctrine is. There exists a certain organic complex of doctrine, every element of which is logically essential to the system, which every Calvinist will insist must be exhibited in its integrity in his Church’s confession as a matter of public corporate witness.
There are also certain truths revealed in the Scripture — even truths generally recognized as such — which are not essential to the system of doctrine. For example it is generally recognized among Calvinists that defensive warfare, “upon just and necessary occasion”, is sanctioned by Scripture. There is also perhaps general agreement that Scripture teaches that pastors are justly entitled to adequate compensation for their services. Few Calvinists would question the Scriptural character of either of these principles, yet it can hardly be maintained that they are essential to the system of doctrine set forth in the Scriptures. That system would still possess its organic integrity even though neither of these principles were found to be taught or implied in the Bible. On the other hand, it is universally recognized by Calvinists that the doctrines of election, creation, providence, total depravity, the limited and substitutionary atonement, and many others, are not only Scriptural but also essential to the system of doctrine revealed in Scripture; if any one of them were to be omitted, the system would be deformed and inconsistent, or it would fall to the ground.
To affirm that the Church’s corporate witness must at least be a witness for the system of doctrine set forth in its integrity in the Scripture still does not eliminate all difficulties. There remain some divergent views with respect to various elements of the system of doctrine itself. For example, all Calvinists believe that the doctrine of election is essential to the system of doctrine, yet among them some hold the supralapsarian view of the logical order of the divine decrees, while others accept the infralapsarian view on the same question, and there are those who hold a post-redemptionist scheme. What shall be our attitude toward such divergences as these? No doubt the great majority of Calvinists would readily agree to dispose of post-redemptionism at once by saying that while it may indeed be logically capable of being fitted into the framework of Calvinism, still it is so plainly unscriptural that it cannot be regarded as an open question. With respect to the other two views of the logical order of the decrees, the Westminster Standards are prudently non-commital, thus leaving this an open question on which diversity may exist within the Church. Similarly the question of the origin of the human soul, with the three competing views of creationism, traducianism and pre-existentism, has generally, and no doubt very properly, been left as an open question, not only because the Scripture does not afford sufficient data for a confident decision concerning it, but also because no one of the three views, as over against the others, is essential to the system of doctrine. To select one of these views and exalt it to be an element of the Church’s public corporate testimony would amount to an unjustifiable sectarianism.
There will also inevitably remain a whole series of problems arising from the difficulty of attaining agreement concerning the implications and legitimate applications of those doctrines which may have been agreed upon as being essential to the system of doctrine. Here the Church must face the danger of affirming too little and also the contrary danger of affirming too much in its corporate testimony. What is the bearing of the doctrinal system of Calvinism on evangelism? On foreign missions? On the civil magistrate? On the family? On the realm of economics? Since Calvinism is precisely that system of doctrine which recognizes the sovereignty of God and the authority of Holy Scripture in every sphere of life, its implications and applications in these various spheres cannot be neglected or regarded as matters of indifference, nor can they be entirely omitted from the Church’s corporate witness and left to the individual convictions of ministers and people. As a matter of fact it is just such questions as these that have occasioned some of the historical divisions among Churches holding the Reformed Faith. It is not the purpose of the present article to attempt to solve, or even to state, all these problems, but it is in order to call attention to their existence and the difficulty of their solution. It may be suggested that there has been a tendency, especially among some of the smaller Calvinistic denominations, to elevate to the status of public corporate testimony points of doctrine concerning which there is not only no general agreement among Calvinists, but for which the Scriptural proof may be exegetically or logically doubtful. For example, when a denomination makes a matter of corporate witness the proposition that it is sinful to observe the Lord’s supper in a kneeling posture, its zeal against the Romish Mass has exceeded its exegetical sense and logical consistency. There should always be a thorough searching of the Scriptures before anything is made a matter of public corporate witness, but when the matter in question is one on which there is general disagreement even among those who hold the Scriptural system of doctrine, then there exists far more need for an extremely thorough and deliberate searching of the Scriptures. Under such circumstances to adopt a point of doctrine as an element of corporate witness after a hasty and superficial study of the Scripture bearing on it, or no study at all, is inexcusable. There are always those who would like to make a requirement of the practice of tithing, or of abstinence from certain amusements, or peculiar and highly debatable eschatological views, or special views on economic questions, matters of corporate witness for the Church, who yet evidence little or no grasp of the doctrinal and exegetical problems that are involved, and who quite fail to appreciate the real difficulty — or it may be impossibility — of presenting a really relevant and cogent Scriptural proof for their doctrinal specialties. On such naive oversimplification of problems sectarianism thrives.
It has been stated that for the visible Church to bear a corporate witness to the truth involves at least a testimony for the system of doctrine set forth in the Word of God, and that it is desirable for a Church to bear corporate witness to some of the implications and applications of that system of doctrine. This is not to be taken as implying that the Church’s witness must stop with these. The system of doctrine forms not the maximum but the minimum content of a corporate witness. There is certainly no valid reason why other doctrines should be excluded. Nor have the historic Reformed creeds so limited themselves. The Westminster Confession, for example, deals with a number of matters which are not elements of the system, nor, in the strict sense, implications or applications of it. Yet these matters are unquestionably teachings of the Word of God. Mention may be made of the Confession’s teaching on war, on oaths, and on marriage and divorce, for example. Certainly nothing revealed in the Scripture can be regarded as without importance, and the visible Church may properly maintain a corporate testimony for any proposition which can be demonstrated to be a real teaching of the Word of God. But when we are off the beaten path of the system of doctrine and its implications and applications in the strict sense, the danger of falling into unwarranted and erroneous interpretations of Scripture is greatly increased. We have only to think of the diverse views which exist on some details of the subject of prophecy, and in particular of the maze of interpretations of the Apocalypse, to realize that this is so. It has long been recognized as a sound principle that no creedal doctrine should be based solely on symbolic portions of Scripture, because of the danger of misinterpretation. It is of the greatest importance that the Church confine its witness to propositions which can be clearly and unanswerably shown to be the truth of God. Where the teaching of the Scripture is not clear the Church should maintain reserve, and wait for further light from the sacred volume before venturing to bear a public testimony. Needless to say, where the Scripture is silent on a question the Church has no right to utter any testimony. To do so would amount to a presumptuous attempt to improve upon the revelation of God. To respect the silences of Scripture is a sign of true reverence.
We have been considering the problem of the visible Church’s public corporate testimony to the truth. Such testimony of course is to be embodied in confessions and other creedal standards. These set forth the Church’s official doctrine and constitute not only the norm of truth, subordinate to the Scriptures, for its own life, but its manifesto to the public. We must now consider the question of the degree of conformity to a Church’s testimony that is to be required of its own membership. It is generally recognized as sound in principle, and it is certainly unavoidable in practice, that a less complete knowledge may be required of members as such than is properly required for ordination to ecclesiastical office. Should members as such be required to profess their acceptance of the confession or creed of a denomination? The practice of Churches holding the Reformed Faith has varied in this matter, the majority, including the large bodies, having no such formal requirement, but some of the smaller ones maintaining it. Even in the latter it is unavoidable that some dissent on the part of members be tolerated. It would be out of the question for any Church to require of every communicant member an ex animo acceptance, without permitting any dissent whatever, of every proposition contained, let us say, in the Westminster Standards. To attempt to enforce such conformity would inevitably lead to one or the other of two results. Either the membership would readily profess acceptance of the whole by an implicit faith, and the matter would rest there as a mere formality, or (in the case of more conscientious and serious-minded persons) some proposition or other would be likely to prove a stumbling block to the member, and being forced to choose between his conscience and his Church, he would have no alternative except to leave the denomination. Some dissent on the part of members, then, must be tolerated. How much, and what kind, will in some cases be very easy, and in other cases extremely difficult, to decide. In any case, this decision must be made by the judicatories of each denomination. Such decisions by Church courts, made originally in specific cases that have arisen, will in the course of time develop into a body of precedent having the effect of common law in dealing with similar cases which may arise later. Where the judicatories of a denomination take no cognizance of the doctrinal conformity of the membership as such, a condition of doctrinal indifferentism is likely soon to prevail. It is easy to think of specific examples of dissent which may have to be faced by Church courts. For example, a man and his wife wish to join a denomination holding the Westminster Standards. They profess general acceptance of the Standards and give evidence of an intelligent understanding of them, but have scruples on the subject of infant baptism. May they be admitted as members with the understanding that their children are to remain unbaptized until they reach an age when they can make their personal profession of faith and thereupon be baptized? Obviously unless there is to be an anarchic condition in which every man does that which is right in his own eyes, a denomination must have a definite policy concerning such matters. Suppose that several such families, each with children growing up unbaptized, were to be admitted to a Presbyterian congregation. Each in turn might be regarded as an exception to the ordinary rule; but what would then become of the Church’s corporate witness for the doctrine of infant baptism, and for the doctrine of the covenant of grace which lies back of it? Clearly it would be hazardous to admit members who oppose infant baptism, even in exceptional cases. But suppose an applicant for membership gives a satisfactory account of his faith except that he is a convinced pacifist, and is therefore opposed to the affirmation of the Confession of Faith that to wage war, upon just and necessary occasion, is not inconsistent with Christian duty. Although, from the standpoint of the Confession, pacifism is an error, still, so far as the Church itself is concerned, to tolerate this error will not necessarily destroy the corporate witness of the Church, for the doctrine concerning which error exists directly concerns neither the system of doctrine nor the Church as such, but the sphere of the civil magistrate. To admit a member who is a pacifist would not of itself introduce an element of anarchy into the life of the Church as would the toleration of a family with children growing up unbaptized.
While every denomination will have a growing body of precedent for dealing with such matters, obviously no body of precedent or formulation of rules can prove adequate for all cases which will arise. Cases are bound to come up which will tax the Christian wisdom and prudence of those whose office it is to govern the house of God.
To affirm that the Church must unavoidably tolerate some degree of dissent on the part of members as such, does not at all imply that the Church may tolerate a contrary propaganda. The applicant for Church membership who has scruples about this or that point of doctrine in the Church’s creed is in the position of the weak brother of Romans 14. As such he is to be treated with sympathy, and if it can be consistently and honestly done, he should be received into membership, but always with the understanding that he has no right to carry on a propaganda within or without the Church for his personal convictions which are at variance with the corporate testimony of his Church. The “weak brother” who claims, and exercises, a “right” to engage in propaganda against the official standards of his Church, thereby claims to be not weak, but strong, and to regard the Church as occupying the position of the “weak brother”. The Church may properly receive a weak brother and tolerate his weakness and the error associated with it, but the weak brother who claims to be strong, and acts accordingly, becomes intolerable. For the Church to tolerate a weak brother is one thing; to tolerate a contrary propaganda is quite another matter. Even with respect to minor points of doctrine which are denned in the official standards of a Church, to tolerate a contrary propaganda amounts to tolerating anarchy in the ecclesiastical sphere. It is true here as elsewhere that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
Lest this be misunderstood, it should be explained that by “a contrary propaganda” is not meant any discussion of an issue whatever, nor any effort to have the Church’s standards amended to bring them into line with the dissenter’s personal convictions. These may be entirely legitimate and proper provided they are carried on in a lawful rather than a lawless manner. The Church member who has scruples about, or dissents from, a point of doctrine set forth in his Church’s creed certainly has the right to seek to have that creed altered, by addressing the judicatories of the Church with a petition setting forth his reasons for the desired change. Such a petition may of course properly be supported by discussion before the appropriate judicatory, and the latter may decide that the question shall be discussed, pro and con, in writing in some Church periodical for a certain period of time. None of this legal and orderly procedure is to be regarded as “a contrary propaganda”. Rather, “a contrary propaganda” is one which disregards and by-passes the judicatories of the Church and addresses itself to the public just as if the matter were not one already defined in a certain way in the creed of the Church. Even worse is that form of contrary propaganda which addresses the public, within or without the Church, in denouncing the standards of the Church themselves because of their statements on some matter. Thus a minister who has scruples about some doctrine set forth in the creed of his Church may properly bring the matter before the judicatories of his denomination, but for him to preach from the pulpit against official doctrines of his Church is intolerable. A denomination which tolerates this practice is indeed a house divided against itself, and cannot long stand. It may continue to exist as an organization, but it will no longer bear a real corporate testimony.
The question of the form of subscription to the doctrinal standards of a denomination which should be required of ministers is an important one but too large to be taken up in any detail in this article. Among Churches of the Presbyterian family in America the prevalent form of subscription has been one to the Confession of Faith, or to the Confession and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Scriptures. The question as to the meaning of the expression “the system of doctrine” — whether it means every proposition in the Confession, or the “substance” of doctrine, or the Calvinistic system of doctrine — has been thoroughly discussed in the past.[9] The first of the views listed cannot be defended, for it would amount to claiming infallibility for the Confession. The second, which would define “system” as “substance”, distorts the meaning of words, and would open the door to serious errors; a candidate for ordination could reject doctrines which are essential to the system of Calvinism, and yet claim to hold the “substance” of doctrine taught in the Scriptures. The third view, namely, that which defines “the system of doctrine” as consistent Calvinism as set forth in the Confession of Faith, is undoubtedly correct and should be insisted on.
Something should be said about preaching and teaching on the part of ministers in its relation to the corporate witness of the Church. It is not necessary to state that a minister should faithfully teach and preach the body of truth set forth in the Standards of his Church. But what about the portion of Scriptural ground which lies beyond the area of confessionally defined dogma? Is a minister limited to preaching truth embodied in his Church’s corporate witness? Must he refrain from handling matters on which his Church’s standards are non-committal? For example, may a minister in preaching advocate the “Restitution theory” of the meaning of Genesis 1:1, 2? The traducian view of the origin of the soul? The Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews? The view that the earth is to be destroyed as to form only, and not as to matter, or the contrary view that it is to be destroyed as to both form and matter?
With respect to this problem it may be said, first of all, that a minister is ordained to proclaim the whole counsel of God, and therefore is not limited to that portion which has already been defined as dogma by his Church; indeed no doctrine would historically have been defined as dogma unless it had previously been preached by ministers and thus had come to be recognized as Scriptural by the Church. Yet a minister in his preaching and teaching must never contradict anything which he has professed to accept in his subscription to the Standards of his Church at his ordination.[10] In the second place, he may never represent any doctrine as an element of the corporate witness of his Church unless it really is set forth in the Standards. Common honesty would seem to involve this, yet it is not infrequently violated in practice; ministers who hold some extra-confessional doctrinal specialty with great zeal sometimes preach it so fervently and so persistently that the public gets the impression that it is a chief point of the denomination’s testimony. When a minister preaches an extra-confessional doctrine he owes his hearers a statement that what he is about to preach is not a part of the public testimony of their Church, that it is not in conflict with that testimony, and that he believes it to be a doctrine of God’s Word. In the third place, preaching of extra-confessional doctrines should be kept in strict subordination, as to time and emphasis, to the task of preaching the doctrines of the Church’s corporate testimony. The main burden of every minister’s pulpit work should always be the doctrines which his Church holds as a body. The practice of some denominations of requiring ministers to devote one service each sabbath to doctrinal preaching following the order of the Church’s catechism has much to commend it. There could hardly be a better safeguard against the exploitation of extra-confessional doctrinal specialties in the pulpit.
The principles just outlined cannot of course be applied to expository preaching in exactly the same way as to doctrinal preaching. In the nature of the case, much expository preaching will deal with the historical and biographical portions of the Bible. It would be absurd to expect a minister who preaches on the life of Joseph, for example, to explain to his hearers that what he is about to say is taught in the Bible, but is not mentioned in the Standards of the Church. Church members of ordinary intelligence understand that their Church’s Standards present a formulation of doctrine, not a condensed summary of everything in the Bible. Still it must be remembered that expository preaching, while not formally doctrinal, cannot be divorced from doctrine. The doctrines which a minister holds will inevitably come to the surface even of expository preaching. And surely if in the course of expository preaching a minister wishes to emphasize some extra-confessional doctrine, he should take care to make its status clear to his hearers. The minister is not merely an individual proclaimer of the Gospel; he is also an organ of the visible Church, and this fact involves an obligation to maintain a distinction between that which he holds and proclaims merely as a matter of personal conviction concerning the meaning of the Scriptures, and that which he holds and proclaims as also the corporate witness of the Church of which he is a member, and in which he is a servant.
Finally, something may be said about the question of whether the corporate witness of the visible Church is to be regarded as static or progressive. There sometimes appears a spirit of blind and complacent conservatism which would regard that witness as static, as if the Holy Spirit’s work of leading the Church into all truth had come to a conclusion in the seventeenth century and no further development could be expected. This excessively conservative spirit tends to look with suspicion on anything new. While conservatism is enjoined in the Scriptural command to “hold fast that which is good”,[11] the same text also requires us to “prove all things”. Certainly the promise that the Holy Spirit would lead the Church into all truth is rightly understood as referring to a process which must continue until the consummation of the age. Clearly, too, the Church’s grasp of the doctrines of special revelation hitherto has come through such a process. There has been a progressive development, not indeed without its ups and downs, but still a line of progress from the age of the apostles to the present. One area of doctrine after another has been clarified and has become a matter of corporate testimony, especially on the part of those branches of the visible Church which have been located nearest to the “line of orthodoxy”, which can be traced from the apostles, through Augustine, the Reformers and, later, the Puritan divines, down to the Reformed theologians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This has been a wonderful, fulfilment of our Lord’s promise, but we show scant appreciation of it if we regard it as already complete. Clearly there remain some areas of Christian doctrine in which further clarification and development are needed. The areas of eschatology, the Church, and the civil magistrate may be regarded as such. There are also some particular parts of doctrines which need further clarification. For example, the manner of the transmission of the corruption of original sin has remained rather obscure, and the statements of the Reformed confessions on this subject perhaps leave something to be desired. The same is true of the matter of marriage and divorce, in several particulars.
But progress in developing a Scriptural corporate witness must always be kept in balance with a true conservatism. True progress means building on what has come to us from the past. This does not imply that nothing which has come from the past as a matter of corporate witness may ever be torn down. “All synods or councils, since the Apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred”,[12] and therefore we must recognize that there has always been an element of error in the visible Church’s witness to the truth. Therefore no creed or confession is to be regarded as sacrosanct; it may really need to be amended, even by the striking out of some item. But it should be realized that such changes will affect only minor details, and also that future additions to the Church’s witness must necessarily be comparatively minor ones. The great work of building up a corporate witness to the truth has already been done; it stands today in the historic Reformed creeds, not indeed as infallible, nor as complete in every element nor in detail, but as substantially complete. In its main outlines and in all its principal features, this work has been done for all time, and can never be improved upon. We should remember, too, that the anti-doctrinal temper of our age, which has to some extent infected even the best Churches, will make real progress in further development of the Church’s witness very difficult, at least for a time. The Church has to struggle desperately today to maintain her grip upon the confessions which followed the Reformation. We should hope and pray for the dawn of a better day when the development of the Church’s witness can go forward with new confidence and vigor.
Notes
Clay Center, Kansas.
I. The Nature of the Visible Church
THE visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the Gospel (not confined to one nation as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.”[1] Thus according to the Westminster Confession the criterion of membership in the visible Church is profession, whereas the divine election and gathering “into one, under Christ the Head thereof” is the criterion of membership in the invisible Church.[2]
While of course the ideal condition of the visible Church would be complete coincidence with the invisible Church (or more precisely, with that portion of the invisible Church which at a given time is present on earth), still it must be recognized that this ideal will not and cannot be attained in this age, but must await its full realization in the age to come when the distinction between the visible and the invisible Church will have passed away in the state of glory. The visible Church, being visible, must of necessity be essentially a professing body, for profession is a visible phenomenon, whereas divine election and vital spiritual union with Christ are not. For this reason all the attempts which have at various times and in various circles been made to limit the membership of the visible Church to the regenerate, or to such as profess to have assurance of regeneration or real piety, must be adjudged to be wrong in principle and harmful in tendency.
No doubt these attempts have been motivated by a praiseworthy and pious desire to promote the purity and holiness of the visible Church by excluding unregenerate persons from her membership. But such attempted exclusion of the unregenerate is, and always has proved, impossible to carry out in practice. Who shall say with certainty whether a particular applicant for membership is regenerate or not? Certainly no Protestant ecclesiastical judicatory can claim to be infallible. The Scriptures teach that it is possible for a Christian to attain full assurance, or certainty, concerning his own salvation, but this is something quite different from attaining certainty about another person’s salvation. If it be admitted that ecclesiastical judicatories cannot pronounce concerning an individual’s regeneration, what shall we say about the proposal to throw the burden of responsibility on the applicants, and admit to membership only such as profess to have assurance of their own regeneration? Not only is there no warrant in the Scriptures for such a criterion of Church membership, but the effect in actual practice must be, as it has been, to exclude many who no doubt are true believers, but who, because of diffidence, or because of misunderstanding of the grounds of assurance, or because of lack of spiritual maturity, do not or cannot claim assurance of their own regeneration. Thus persons who ought to be members of the visible Church, and who need the benefits of such membership even more than those mature Christians who have attained full assurance, are excluded from the household of God and placed on a par with unbelievers. The practical evils which must result from such a condition are obvious.
The visible Church, then, is a society composed of those throughout the world who profess the true religion, together with their minor children, and the criterion of membership in it is not election, regeneration or “real saintship”, but a credible profession of faith in the true religion. By a credible profession is not meant a profession which compels belief, but one which it is possible to believe, that is, a profession which is adequate in content and which is not contradicted by known facts of the applicant’s life. In The Larger Catechism the Westminster Divines affirm that “Such as are found to be ignorant or scandalous, notwithstanding their profession of the faith, and desire to come to the Lord’s supper, may and ought to be kept from that sacrament.. . .”[3] Thus those who are found to be ignorant, that is, whose profession lacks an adequate and correct content, and those found to be scandalous, that is, those whose profession is contradicted by their manner of life, are to be authoritatively debarred from the Lord’s supper, and no doubt such persons should also be excluded from actual membership in the visible Church until their ignorance or scandalous living has been corrected. But apart from persons whose profession is rendered incredible by reason of ignorance or scandal, those who profess the true religion are to be received as members of the visible Church. The fact that there has been, and no doubt will continue to be, diversity of opinion as to what constitutes ignorance or scandal of such a nature and degree as to render a person’s profession incredible, does not militate against the validity of the principle outlined above. As in all matters of faith and practice the Scriptures must be the source of guidance, but obviously reasonable latitude must be allowed ecclesiastical judicatories in the difficult task of applying the Scriptures to this problem. Although some deficiencies or aberrations of faith and life can with general agreement be pronounced “ignorance” or “scandal”, yet there are many matters of faith and especially of life concerning which it is far from easy to decide confidently, and about which there is little unanimity even in “the best Reformed Churches”. The temptation to try to formulate a cut-and-dried, classified list of all forms of ignorance and scandal must be resisted because in the nature of the case such a formulation cannot be complete, and moreover cannot take account of the varying circumstances of life which may affect the question of the credibility of an applicant’s profession.
The Scriptures teach, and it has been generally accepted throughout the history of the Church, that the members of the visible Church are to be associated in particular local congregations under officers who sustain a special relation to their respective congregations. The Church being a visible body must necessarily have some form of organization or government. Although it seems to be common at the present day to regard the form of Church government as a matter of indifference, to be determined according to human prudence or preference, the Reformed Churches historically have taken higher ground than this, and have held that the government of the Church is a matter of divine appointment in Scripture, and that the form appointed in Scripture is to be continued in the Church jure divino until the end of the world. Of the four historical forms of Church government, episcopal, papal, congregational and presbyterian, generally only the last two have claimed to be founded exclusively on the teachings of the Scriptures. While a superficial reading of the New Testament might seem to favor the congregational or independent polity, a more careful study reveals data which cannot be reconciled with independency, and discloses the basic elements of presbyterian government in the New Testament documents and in the apostolic Church which they portray. It is well known that the Westminster Assembly spent a great amount of time wrestling with the problem of the divinely appointed form of Church government. The product of the Assembly’s labors, The Form of Presbyterial Church-Government and of Ordination of Ministers, sets forth, with a closely reasoned discussion of the relevant portions of Scripture, the Bible basis for the presbyterian form of Church government. Clearly the Westminster Divines believed that presbyterian government exists jure divino; their view of the matter was far removed from that of a professor in a well-known American Presbyterian seminary who said to his students: “Presbyterianism is a form of Church government set forth in Scripture, but that is very different from affirming that presbyterianism is the form of Church government set forth in Scripture”.
Yet to affirm that the presbyterian form of Church government is appointed in Scripture and to be continued jure divino in the Church does not imply that this form of government is essential to the being of a Church. No doubt every adherent of the Westminster Standards will agree that presbyterian government is essential to the well-being of a Church. But it would be going too far to assert that bodies of professing Christians which maintain other forms of Church polity are therefore no Churches, nor parts of the true visible Church of Christ. The true Presbyterian will avoid, on the one hand, the error of allowing that Church government is a matter of indifference to be arranged according to human prudence, and, on the other hand, the error of insisting that presbyterian government is essential to the being of a Church. Avoiding both of these extremes, he will stand on solid Scriptural ground.
It should be said that the modern trend toward independency, whether in fact only or in name also, is wrong and to be deplored. That such a trend exists, and among Christians whose heritage has been Presbyterian for generations, can hardly be questioned. There are today not a few but very many persons, including a considerable number of ministers, who are members of denominations holding the presbyterian form of government, who yet conduct themselves very much as if they were independents. This attitude may be termed the delusion of virtual independence. There is a widespread tendency on the part of conservatives in some formerly conservative denominations to disclaim all responsibility for the acts and policies of presbyteries, synods, general assemblies and their boards and agencies, and to take refuge, so to speak, within the four walls of a comparatively orthodox congregation which exists as an evangelical island in a denominational ocean of Modernism. This delusion of independence may go so far that ministers and elders seldom or never attend the stated meetings of presbyteries and higher judicatories, and claim that by reason of non-participation in the deliberations of these bodies they are exempt from responsibility for their acts and policies. Such an attitude can only be regarded as wishful thinking. A denomination having the presbyterian form of government has a corporate existence as a denomination, and is no mere loose voluntary association of separate independent congregations. Every member and minister of such a denomination sustains a necessary relation to the denomination as a whole, and is ipso facto responsible, to a greater or less degree, for the doctrines, policies and acts of the denomination as a whole. The idea that a member, minister or congregation may be enrolled in a denomination having presbyterian government and yet be virtually independent is simply a delusion, which may perhaps be explained psychologically as a rationalization by which evangelical Christians seek to justify their continued membership in denominations which have corporately succumbed to the deadly virus of modern unbelief.
Somewhat less ominous than the widely cherished delusion of virtual independence, but still serious, is the widespread trend, among persons with a Presbyterian background and training, to forsake the presbyterian polity altogether and join independent Churches. There exist today even such anomalies as “independent” or “denominationally unrelated” “Presbyterian Churches”. It is hard to see wherein such “Presbyterian” Churches differ greatly in polity from the Congregational Churches established by the Puritan settlers in New England in the early years of the seventeenth century. These Churches were indeed originally “presbyterian” in the sense that each possessed a number of ruling elders associated with one or more ministers of the Word; but historically it has always been recognized that normal presbyterian polity involves the association of a plurality of congregations in a corporate life under common superior judicatories, although of course exceptional circumstances may exist under which such association is impossible, at least for the time being.[4]
It is obvious that a great many Christian people whose background and religious nurture have been Presbyterian are today in independent congregations of varying doctrinal complexion which may generally be classified as “Fundamentalist” Churches. No believer in the jus divinum of presbyterian government can justify this state of affairs. But how is it to be explained? Certainly it must be regarded as the end-product of a long and gradual declension from the strictly Reformed view of Church government held by Presbyterians in general in times past. Presbyterian government could not be so easily and so completely abandoned in favor of independency unless those who make this change had already lost their conviction of its Scriptural character as a matter of divine appointment for the Church. Along with this gradual loss of conviction which must have taken place, there may exist in many cases a certain illogical conclusion drawn from the premises of existing conditions. Because certain denominations, while adhering, in general, to the presbyterian or some other form of government, have been guilty of apostasy from the essential truths of the Gospel itself, the conclusion has apparently been drawn by many persons that apostasy from the Gospel itself is somehow inevitably linked with the fact of a corporate denominational organization as such. Because some denominations in their corporate capacity have become apostate, many earnest Christians have become disgusted with corporate denominational organization itself and have taken refuge, with other like-minded persons, in independent congregations of a generally “Fundamentalist” character. This tendency to forsake denominations as hopelessly corrupt, and on forsaking them to establish independent congregations rather than to combine congregations in doctrinally sound denominations, is one of the major developments in the ecclesiastical situation of our day. A great multitude of such independent congregations have sprung up across America during the past few years. This tendency is to be deplored, because in many cases it marks the end of a decline from Calvinism to a general evangelicalism, and from presbyterian government, regarded as existing jure divino, to independency held on grounds of mere expediency.
II. The Unity of the Visible Church
The visible Church being a divine institution, the question of its unity cannot be an unimportant one. Nor is it an easy problem to solve, for besides the distinction between the invisible and the visible Church, that between the visible Church as an organism and the visible Church as an institution must be kept in mind. Obviously the modern “church union” movement greatly over-simplifies the problem. An instance of the superficiality with which it is often faced is the frequent quotation of I Corinthians 1:10ff. as if this passage were a direct condemnation of denominationalism.
Now it is perfectly clear that the four parties mentioned by Paul in verse 12 were not competing denominations, but rival factions within one and the same congregation, “the church of God which is at Corinth” (verse 2). Factions such as the apostle condemns may occur in any Church, and have occurred even within the supposed uniformity of the Church of Rome. This passage has no doubt an indirect bearing on the question of denominationalism, especially by reason of its insistence upon the Christian duty of cultivating unanimity (verse 10), but it does not prove that for which it is often cited, namely, that denominational divisions can never be legitimate.
It is very common to cite such Scriptures as our Lord’s petition in John 17:21 (“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and 1 in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”) and assume without proof that such texts are directly applicable to the visible Church as an institution, and that every separate denominational organization must therefore be inherently wrong, and ought to be abandoned as soon as possible in the interest of obedience to the requirement of unity involved in such texts of Scripture.
What John 17:21 and similar Scriptures really require is not necessarily organic union of the visible Church as an institution, but rather unity of the visible Church as an organism in this world. The rhetorical question of Amos,[5] “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” implies a negative answer, and certainly any form of Church union which is not founded on true unity is without value and moreover is no real fulfilment of the ideal set forth in our Lord’s petition. He prayed that his people might all be one with a mutual unity similar in some way to his own reciprocal unity with the Father. He prayed also that his people might be one in himself and the Father. While the ontological unity of the Son with the Father is of course unique and cannot be fully paralleled by any unity among Christians, still it is clear that our Lord’s prayer requires something quite different from, and much more than, a mere indiscriminate union of professing Christians, of various divergent shades of belief, in one organization. Certainly what is required first of all is a true unity of doctrinal conviction; not a mere walking together, but a real state of being agreed; and in the second place this condition of unity must have its root and strength in the relationship of Christian people to God the Father and God the Son. There can be no real and worthy horizontal unity which is not itself the product and expression of a real vertical unity — a unity with the Triune God on the basis of the self-revelation of God given in the Scriptures.
It is clear that the current church union movement, despite its many pious phrases and its apparent moral indignation against the alleged evils of denominational divisions, falls far short of embodying the Scriptural ideal of Christian unity. The modern church union movement must be adjudged to be far less holy than it seems and claims to be. In reality it is not the product of an ardent desire for obedience to Christ and conformity to his revealed will. On the contrary, it is the offspring of widespread religious skepticism and general depreciation of the importance of doctrinal truth. A well-educated layman recently told the writer that he had been successively a Presbyterian and a Methodist, each for a period of years, yet he did not know the doctrinal difference between the two. This may illustrate the state of affairs which seems to be prevalent in contemporary American Protestantism. It is from such soil that the current urgent demand for organic union has sprung. If people who have been members of a denomination for years do not know wherein it differs from other denominations, of course they will see no reason why immediate union should not take place. We face today a situation in which the ordinary denominational labels have largely become meaningless, because of the general abandonment of doctrine: not merely this doctrine or that doctrine, but the abandonment of doctrine as such. This is extremely serious, for it means that the product of the current church union movement, in so far as it attains its objective, will not be a compromise between the distinctive tenets of various denominations, nor even a setting-forth of a minimal substratum of evangelical Christianity which may be supposed to be common to them all, but rather the ecclesiastical expression of a spineless non-doctrinal religion which will be called, but will not really be, Christianity. The real issue is not Presbyterianism versus Episcopalianism, nor Lutheranism versus Methodism; it is historic Christianity versus a vague, non-doctrinal religion which can only be labelled pseudo-Christianity, a religion which at bottom can only be pure humanism. The non-doctrinal and even anti-doctrinal tendency of the modern church union movement was clearly seen by Dr. B. B. Warfield more than half a century ago when he wrote:
“What is ominous in the present-day drift of religious thought is the sustained effort that is being made to break down just these two principles: the principle of a systematized body of doctrines as the matter to be believed, and the principle of an external authority as the basis of belief. What arrogates to itself the title of ‘the newer religious thinking’ sets itself, before everything else, in violent opposition to what it calls ‘dogma’ and ‘external authority.’ The end may be very readily foreseen. Indefinite subjectivism or subjective indifferentism has no future. It is not only in its very nature a disintegrating, but also a destructive, force. It can throw up no barrier against unbelief. Its very business is to break down barriers. And when that work is accomplished the floods come in.
“The assault on positive doctrinal teaching is presented today chiefly under the flag of ‘comprehension.’ Men bewail the divisions of the Church of Christ, and propose that we shall stop thinking, so that we may no longer think differently. This is the true account to give of many of the phases of the modern movement for ‘church union.’ Men are tired of thinking. They are tired of defending the truth. Let us all stop thinking, stop believing, they cry, and what a happy family we shall be!”[6]
Having decided that the modern church union movement is in essence really anti-Christian because it is anti-doctrinal, shall we also affirm that union of the visible Church as an institution is not a valid ideal, and need not be sought even as an ultimate objective? By no means. That the current church union agitation is subversive of real Christianity does not imply that there cannot be a legitimate and worthy church union movement. Certainly the Scriptural emphasis on unity of the visible Church as an organism implies the validity, as an ultimate objective, of the ideal of union of the visible Church as an institution. Certainly very few Christians would venture to defend denominationalism as good in itself. It may be inevitable; it may be a necessary evil under existing conditions; it is certainly far less of an evil than would be an indiscriminate organic union of denominations on a vague, non-doctrinal basis; but after all, it is an evil; it is not inherently good.
By denominationalism is not meant all co-existence in the world of distinct ecclesiastical bodies each possessing autonomy subject only to God and his Word. Two communions may be organically separate because of geographical, linguistic or other reasons, and yet be of identical faith. Such are not really different denominations. They are in no sense rivals the one of the other. Rather they are one in all respects except their actual external organization. Real denominationalism, on the other hand, exists where of two or more bodies occupying, in whole or in part, the same territory and seeking to present their message to the same public, each claims to be more faithful to the Scriptural pattern than the others, and therefore competes, more or less, against the others. On the other hand, various examples could be cited of true “sister Churches”, of identical or virtually identical faith, each of which is nevertheless ecclesiastically fully autonomous. Such co-existence of separate communions is not to be regarded as something evil; rather it is in itself morally indifferent, and in view of actual conditions in the world, may be quite proper and necessary for adequately carrying out the functions of the Church.
Denominationalism properly so-called, however, must always be regarded as an evil. It is only because of the fact of sin that error exists, and it is only because of the fact of error that real denominationalism exists. Where two denominations hold mutually contradictory doctrines, clearly at least one of them — perhaps both of them — must have deviated from the path of truth. Because error is sinful per se, we must hold that the denominationalism which results from error is something evil. The modern church union movement sheds many tears over the “shameful divisions” which exist among Christians, but it never sheds any tears over the sinful error which must lie at the basis of these divisions. It is perhaps characteristic of Liberalism to be more concerned about the consequences of sin than about the sin itself. But as Christians we should be much more concerned about the sin itself than about the consequences of the sin. The really deplorable thing in denominationalism is not so much the external divisions as the sinful, even though sincere, adherence to error which has produced and perpetuated the divisions. This is what most needs to be repented of.
It follows that there can be no real remedy for denominationalism without facing the fact of error and dealing with it. Any program of Church union which starts out by assuming that opposing views are inherently equally valid and equally true is doomed to failure so far as really remedying the trouble is concerned. The prevalent skepticism concerning the existence of absolute truth tends to result in regarding the creed of a denomination as possessing only a relative value as the tradition or preference of that denomination, instead of its being regarded as that denomination’s understanding of the absolute truth given in the divine special revelation. It is quite true of course that absolute and final authority may not be claimed for any creed or confession; only the Scriptures constitute the absolute and final authority for faith and life, and the creed of a denomination has at best the value of a limiting concept or landmark of progress already made in understanding the Scriptures. Thus no creed may ever be regarded as complete and final, that is, not subject to future revision or additions as more light is gained from the Scriptures. But thus to recognize that no creed can be absolute, complete and final, is something quite different from the attitude toward creeds which modern skepticism has produced. That attitude is begotten of the notion that truth itself cannot be absolute and permanent, but changes with the times. Thus there are those who say that the Westminster Confession was an excellent expression of Christianity for the seventeenth century, but is not suitable for the twentieth century, because today men think in other categories than those of the seventeenth century. For our own day, it is said, there must be a new construction of Christianity in terms of modern thinking. Now those who think thus of the creeds which form their denominational heritage will of course not venture far in defending those creeds, nor will they be inclined to insist upon the doctrines formulated in them. Rather the tendency will be to regard the creeds as pieces of antique furniture, not indeed without interest and importance, but hardly relevant to the issues of the present day. If two denominations are negotiating a merger, where this attitude toward creeds prevails, even flatly contradictory propositions in their respective creeds will not prove a real barrier to union. Creeds which are not held to be landmarks of attainment in the grasp of absolute, unchanging truth, can easily be treated as material for bargaining and compromise, or even be relegated to the museum of curious antiques as possessing a historical interest only.
Wherever this perverse skeptical attitude toward creeds prevails there can only be failure to provide any real remedy for the evil of denominationalism. For this attitude of indifferentism fails to face the fact of error and take it seriously. Any real remedy must start out with the recognition of the supreme, absolute and permanent authority of the Scriptures, and with the assumption that the creed of one’s own denomination, as far as it goes, is a faithful formulation of the teaching of the Scriptures. It must then be recognized that various denominations have creeds which, in some points at least, are mutually contradictory. The fact must then be faced that where two creeds are contradictory, at least one of them must be in error. Although every denomination must necessarily start by assuming that its own creed is true, and must therefore also necessarily start by assuming that the other denomination’s creed, in the contradictory points, is false, still these assumptions must be regarded as provisional only. That is to say, if there is to be any real progress in providing a remedy for denominationalism, all parties must recognize that, after all, only Scripture is the absolute and final authority; no party may claim infallibility over against other parties; no party can absolutely rule out the possibility that it is in error and the opposing party is holding the truth on a particular matter. Otherwise even discussion of contradictory points would be impossible; there can be no real discussion where each party insists that its own rightness, and the other party’s wrongness, are matters beyond dispute. To take such an attitude would be to assume that which, for a real remedy of denominationalism, requires proof, namely the actual Scriptural character of doctrines which one or another party alleges to be Scriptural.
Even where the above-mentioned presuppositions of a remedy for denominationalism exist, it is obvious that any real progress in this matter will require a great deal of effort, much patience and a high degree of Christian humility on the part of the denominations concerned. The temper of our times is against it. The Westminster Assembly of Divines, representing all parties of English Protestanism except the high episcopacy of Archbishop Laud, sat for about seven years, during which time 1163 sessions were held. Ample time was taken for the unhurried and thorough investigation and discussion of the matters under consideration. There was a patient and painstaking effort to ascertain the real sense of the Scriptures on these matters. No doubt the Assembly’s work, for industry, patience, thoroughness and whole-hearted devotion to the Word of God, has never since been paralleled. There seems little reason to suppose that any present-day assembly called to attempt to resolve denominational divisions would equal or even approach it. The hurried sessions of synods and assemblies of the present day, with their ready-made dockets and pressure of business and inevitable struggle to finish their work by a fixed closing date, afford but an unfavorable climate for the calm, deliberate investigation and discussion of doctrinal matters which is so urgently needed today. Mutual agreement among the people of God in their confession of the truths of his Word is a plant that cannot be forced; it must grow slowly, even in the most favorable soil. The impatient, pragmatic temper of the twentieth century is too much in evidence, even in the most orthodox denominations, to permit sanguine expectation of any early or marked progress toward a real elimination of denominational divisions. Not that such an elimination of divisions should be regarded as impossible, in whole or in part; it is only that the Churches do not value truth highly enough to make the necessary efforts and sacrifices. No doubt most Church members of today would regard a contemporary Westminster Assembly of Divines, called to meet for seven years and hold over a thousand sessions in the pursuit of mutual agreement on doctrinal truth, as a waste of time and money which ought to be devoted to more “praccal” ends. But we may rest assured that there is no short-cut to the desirable goal. There can be no real progress toward Church union on a truly Scriptural basis without the payment of a heavy price by the parties involved. Comparatively few would be willing to pay that price.
III. The Witness of the Visible Church
Scripture affirms that the Church is “the pillar and ground of the truth”,[7] and it must be the visible Church that is referred to, for in the same verse it is called the house of God, in which persons are to conduct themselves according to the instructions Paul had just written concerning public worship, the silence of women, and the qualifications for the offices of bishop and deacon. But in what sense is the visible Church the pillar and ground of the truth? Although Roman Catholic commentators naturally take the phrase as relating to the alleged infallibility of the Church, most Protestants who have interpreted the phrase as referring to the Church rather than to Timothy have followed Calvin in holding that the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth because it is the divinely appointed instrument by which the truth is perpetuated, lest it perish from the memory of men. The visible Church is thus the custodian, defender and proclaimer of divinely revealed truth. Although this proposition will be readily accepted by orthodox Christians in general, a problem inevitably arises in connection with it. Of what truth is the Church the pillar and ground? To how much divinely revealed truth is the visible Church to bear testimony? Human fallibility results in diverse and conflicting views of divinely revealed truth. In view of this diversity of faith, how can the visible Church really bear witness to the truth?
The problem under consideration at this point should not be mistaken for the problem of the degree of conformity to the Church’s creed which ought to be required of officers, members or applicants for membership. That is indeed a real and important problem, and it will be discussed later in the present article. But the question before us now is how the visible Church, in view of the diversity of faith which inevitably exists among those who profess the true religion, can have a creed at all. We are raising not the question of what should be required of candidates for Church membership or office, but the question of how those who are already members can express their Christian faith not merely as so many individuals, but in a corporate testimony for the truth. It is true, of course, that the Church decides who can be its members; but it is also true that the members determine what the Church shall stand for. This may perhaps be illusstrated by considering the civil government of a nation. The government indeed decides who is qualified for citizenship in the nation; but it is also true that the citizens determine what shall be the character of the constitution and government itself. Similarly there exist two reciprocal functions in the visible Church: (a) the function of determining the membership of the Church itself; and (b) the function of the members in determining what shall be the character of the Church’s corporate witness to the world. The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth, certainly; but after all, the Church is not an abstract ideal; it is a real body made up of individual members each of whom is subject to error and therefore views the truth somewhat differently from all others. If the Church is in any real sense the pillar and ground of the truth, it must bear a corporate witness to the truth. But that witness cannot be merely an ideal detached from the actual beliefs of the Church’s members. In some sense it must be the collective product of the doctrinal convictions of individual persons as these view the divine special revelation. How can the visible Church, made up as it is of fallible individuals, bear a corporate witness to the truth?
The fact that every Christian is subject to error must always be reckoned with. Just as every Christian, even the most holy, has within him a remaining element of the corruption of original sin which inevitably finds expression in actual transgressions, so every Christian, even the most enlightened, has within him a remaining element of intellectual perversity which inevitably finds expression in some degree of doctrinal error in his personal convictions. Every Christian, it must be realized, has within him the germs of heresy. Just as the corruption of original sin, and its expression in actual transgressions, are subdued, but not eradicated, by the process of sanctification, so the germs of heresy in the Christian, and their tendency to find expression in actual errors, are kept under control, but not eradicated, by the gradual process of illumination by the Holy Spirit which accompanies the work of sanctification. And like sanctification, illumination cannot be total in the present life. There are also those in the visible Church who are only professing Christians, and who lack the Spirit’s work of regeneration, sanctification and illumination. Such persons have only those operations of the Spirit which pertain to the realm of common grace. Yet they exist and have an influence among the regenerate members of the visible Church, and will inevitably have an effect on the character of its witness to the world.
In seeking a solution of this problem, two extremes must be avoided as destructive of any real testimony to the truth. In the first place, it is necessary to avoid the conception of the Church bearing witness to the truth by means of a total body of dogma issued by an inner hierarchy and published to the world as an infallible statement of truth, to be accepted by all men with an implicit faith. This is the Roman Catholic conception. In criticism of this it may be said that it is destructive of a real testimony to the truth because in this system everything is made contingent upon the validity of the hierarchy’s claim to infallibility. Moreover in this system it is not really the visible Church that is the pillar and ground of the truth, but a select inner hierarchy headed by the Pope. The lay members, even though constituting perhaps more than ninety-nine percent of the total number, have no part in the Church’s corporate witness except by an unquestioning and absolute acceptance of whatever is placed before them by the hierarchy. As the Westminster Confession asserts, this is “to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also”,[8] and we may add, it is to destroy all real corporate witness to the truth on the part of the Church. Rome virtually equates the Church with the hierarchy, so far as testimony to the truth is concerned; the laity is not regarded as essential to this function.
In the second place, it is necessary to avoid the extreme which lies at the opposite pole from that of Rome, and which would give full play to the so-called atomistic tendency of Protestanism. If we reject the claim of the Pope of Rome to be infallible, we must also avoid that disproportionate recognition of the right of private judgment which would allow every individual Christian to claim to be a pope. While it is certainly true that Rome is wrong in virtually excluding the lay Christian from participating in the corporate witness of the Church, and that there must be a real, and not merely a fictitious, relation between the Church member as such and the Church’s testimony to the world, nevertheless it must be realized that as long as human fallibility exists there will be no two Christians, who think at all seriously about divinely revealed truth, who are in complete agreement in their view of the truth.
Now if the principle of private judgment is to be exalted above measure, every individual Christian can demand that the visible Church as a body bear witness to the entirety of revealed truth as he sees it. Since every other Christian could with equal right make the same demand, and the various demands thus made would conflict with each other, the result of this tendency would be only confusion and anarchy. There being no agreement concerning the extent and content of the truth to which the Church is to bear witness, and every Christian naturally being unwilling to surrender his own private judgment to some other Christian’s view of the truth, a corporate witness to the truth would be impossible. The logical end of this state of affairs would be the existence of as many denominations as there are individual Christians in the world. Only so could each be a member of a denomination which would fully bear witness to the truth as each, in the exercise of his right of private judgment, views the truth. That is to say, if the right of private judgment is to be allowed unlimited scope, there can be no visible Church on earth, but only a multitude of individual, and individualistic, Christians. Now this “atomistic tendency” of Protestantism is only too real, and while it would be unthinkable to surrender the right of private judgment to Rome’s demand for an implicit faith, still this does not mean that private judgment may be allowed to assert itself without any limits, and demand an ecclesiastical confession of every element of doctrine that any individual Christian believes to be truth. If every Christian were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to be a member of any Church that did not bear a corporate witness to everything that he held to be divinely revealed truth, all agreement and hence all corporate testimony would be impossible. Again, if every Christian were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to be a member of any Church that bore a corporate witness to anything that he regarded as error, all agreement and hence all corporate testimony would be out of the question.
Thus it is clear that the Scriptural doctrine of the visible Church as a witnessing body requires a balance to be struck between the concept of corporate ecclesiastical testimony and the concept of private judgment. Somewhere between the two extremes represented by Rome and by the atomistic tendency of Protestantism in its full logical development, the true course must lie. A line must be drawn, an area must be defined, within which unity of confession exists and is insisted upon even at the cost, if need be, of excommunicating those who dissent, but outside of which divergence of belief is tolerated. Thus in the nature of the case no Church can really bear a corporate witness to all the truth which God has revealed in his Word, nor may any denomination make such a claim. To claim such a total testimony to divine truth would amount to claiming infallibility as Rome does. And in the nature of the case no Christian can expect to find a Church which will bear a complete and exact testimony to his own personal faith. Inevitably there will be divergence, at least at the periphery which lies outside the area of ecclesiastically denned dogma. Those zealous persons who look for a visible Church on earth which will fully and precisely embody their personal faith — no more and no less — as its corporate witness, are looking on earth for what can exist only in heaven. They overlook the truth that even the best Christians are still subject to error, and that neither in individuals nor in Churches can there be such a thing as total orthodoxy on earth. The removal of the intellectual effects of sin, like the removal of the moral effects of sin, is a gradual process, and can never be complete in this life.
Just where this line is to be drawn — just what area is to be marked off — constitutes the confessional problem of Protestantism. Divergent ideas on this question have produced denominationalism, at least in its creedal aspect. This is a very serious and difficult problem. The present generation is not even inclined to face it frankly. We live in an age when creeds are seldom taken very seriously, and are more often by-passed than honestly accepted or rejected. Men are not seldom ordained to ecclesiastical office who have not even read the confessions which they profess to accept, and who after they have been ordained go blithely on their individualistic way in utter disregard of the express statements of the creed they have solemnly vowed to defend and propagate. Where such conditions exist, the problem stated above cannot really be faced, much less can it be solved. When men are indifferent to truth as such, or when they have lost all interest in corporate testimony to truth and care only about their individual witness, there will be no serious concern about the problem of just what and how much doctrine a denomination is to bear witness to in its confession.
Nor can the problem be solved by the short-cut of concentration on a few generally recognized “essential truths”. Such a solution would be an unscriptural over-simplication. Moreover it cannot solve the problem because there will inevitably still be disagreement as to which truths are to be regarded as “essential”. One Christian insists that the doctrine of Christ’s two natures is of the essence of Christianity; another holds that it is unimportant, and may be omitted. One asserts that the so-called “Apostles’ Creed” is an adequate statement of the “essential truths” of Christianity; another replies that it is inadequate because it leaves out everything that was gained by the Protestant Reformation. One maintains that the doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture must be included in a Church’s confession; another counters by saying that it is only a “theory” and by no means to be insisted on. The inevitable result must be that any creed pared down to such a few “essential truths” as to suit the generality of professing Christians would in reality suit very few of them, and would leave the visible Church to bear a corporate witness to almost nothing. No Christian who believes that the Bible as a whole, with its wealth of divinely revealed truth, is the Church’s supreme authority, will be satisfied with attempts to solve the confessional problem of Protestantism by concentration on a few selected “essential truths”. This is a false trail which must necessarily result in the rejection as “non-essential” of the greater portion of what God has committed to the Church in his Word.
There can be no short-cut or easy solution to this problem. To say that the Church as the pillar and ground of the truth ought to bear witness to all that God has revealed in his Word is axiomatic, but does not solve the problem we are considering. For the problem consists precisely in the fact that Christians differ in their conceptions of the content of the system of truth revealed in the Word. If all were in agreement there would be no problem. The Church is faced with the task of bearing a corporate witness for divine truth while no two of her members are in complete agreement as to what that truth is. Now unless it is attempted to solve the problem in a purely arbitrary way, a key to its solution must be sought in the Scripture itself. Although the Scripture does not present a body of doctrine already formulated in logical, systematic form, still it does present not merely an aggregate of individual doctrines, but a system of doctrine which possesses an organic character. Now if we regard the Scripture in its entirety as special divine revelation, and discover in it an organic system of doctrine, and if the visible Church is to bear a corporate witness to divine truth, then at least the system of doctrine presented in the Scriptures, in its integrity, must be insisted on as the content of the visible Church’s corporate witness for the truth. Nothing that is essential to that system of doctrine may be disregarded or omitted. (We are not of course considering what is necessary for a person’s salvation, but what is logically essential to the system of doctrine).
There are indeed professing Christians who deny that the Bible presents a system of doctrine. Some hold that it presents elements of mutually contradictory systems of doctrine. Others say that the doctrine contained in the Bible is incidental and “the life” is the important thing. And of course there are those who maintain that Arminianism, Socinianism or even “Christian Science” is the system of doctrine presented in the Bible. We can only say that we believe they are profoundly mistaken and that their convictions are not substantiated either by express statements of Scripture or by valid logical inference from the Scriptures. But among Calvinists (not necessarily among members of Calvinistic Churches) there is general agreement that the Bible presents a definite system of doctrine, and also general agreement as to what that system of doctrine is. There exists a certain organic complex of doctrine, every element of which is logically essential to the system, which every Calvinist will insist must be exhibited in its integrity in his Church’s confession as a matter of public corporate witness.
There are also certain truths revealed in the Scripture — even truths generally recognized as such — which are not essential to the system of doctrine. For example it is generally recognized among Calvinists that defensive warfare, “upon just and necessary occasion”, is sanctioned by Scripture. There is also perhaps general agreement that Scripture teaches that pastors are justly entitled to adequate compensation for their services. Few Calvinists would question the Scriptural character of either of these principles, yet it can hardly be maintained that they are essential to the system of doctrine set forth in the Scriptures. That system would still possess its organic integrity even though neither of these principles were found to be taught or implied in the Bible. On the other hand, it is universally recognized by Calvinists that the doctrines of election, creation, providence, total depravity, the limited and substitutionary atonement, and many others, are not only Scriptural but also essential to the system of doctrine revealed in Scripture; if any one of them were to be omitted, the system would be deformed and inconsistent, or it would fall to the ground.
To affirm that the Church’s corporate witness must at least be a witness for the system of doctrine set forth in its integrity in the Scripture still does not eliminate all difficulties. There remain some divergent views with respect to various elements of the system of doctrine itself. For example, all Calvinists believe that the doctrine of election is essential to the system of doctrine, yet among them some hold the supralapsarian view of the logical order of the divine decrees, while others accept the infralapsarian view on the same question, and there are those who hold a post-redemptionist scheme. What shall be our attitude toward such divergences as these? No doubt the great majority of Calvinists would readily agree to dispose of post-redemptionism at once by saying that while it may indeed be logically capable of being fitted into the framework of Calvinism, still it is so plainly unscriptural that it cannot be regarded as an open question. With respect to the other two views of the logical order of the decrees, the Westminster Standards are prudently non-commital, thus leaving this an open question on which diversity may exist within the Church. Similarly the question of the origin of the human soul, with the three competing views of creationism, traducianism and pre-existentism, has generally, and no doubt very properly, been left as an open question, not only because the Scripture does not afford sufficient data for a confident decision concerning it, but also because no one of the three views, as over against the others, is essential to the system of doctrine. To select one of these views and exalt it to be an element of the Church’s public corporate testimony would amount to an unjustifiable sectarianism.
There will also inevitably remain a whole series of problems arising from the difficulty of attaining agreement concerning the implications and legitimate applications of those doctrines which may have been agreed upon as being essential to the system of doctrine. Here the Church must face the danger of affirming too little and also the contrary danger of affirming too much in its corporate testimony. What is the bearing of the doctrinal system of Calvinism on evangelism? On foreign missions? On the civil magistrate? On the family? On the realm of economics? Since Calvinism is precisely that system of doctrine which recognizes the sovereignty of God and the authority of Holy Scripture in every sphere of life, its implications and applications in these various spheres cannot be neglected or regarded as matters of indifference, nor can they be entirely omitted from the Church’s corporate witness and left to the individual convictions of ministers and people. As a matter of fact it is just such questions as these that have occasioned some of the historical divisions among Churches holding the Reformed Faith. It is not the purpose of the present article to attempt to solve, or even to state, all these problems, but it is in order to call attention to their existence and the difficulty of their solution. It may be suggested that there has been a tendency, especially among some of the smaller Calvinistic denominations, to elevate to the status of public corporate testimony points of doctrine concerning which there is not only no general agreement among Calvinists, but for which the Scriptural proof may be exegetically or logically doubtful. For example, when a denomination makes a matter of corporate witness the proposition that it is sinful to observe the Lord’s supper in a kneeling posture, its zeal against the Romish Mass has exceeded its exegetical sense and logical consistency. There should always be a thorough searching of the Scriptures before anything is made a matter of public corporate witness, but when the matter in question is one on which there is general disagreement even among those who hold the Scriptural system of doctrine, then there exists far more need for an extremely thorough and deliberate searching of the Scriptures. Under such circumstances to adopt a point of doctrine as an element of corporate witness after a hasty and superficial study of the Scripture bearing on it, or no study at all, is inexcusable. There are always those who would like to make a requirement of the practice of tithing, or of abstinence from certain amusements, or peculiar and highly debatable eschatological views, or special views on economic questions, matters of corporate witness for the Church, who yet evidence little or no grasp of the doctrinal and exegetical problems that are involved, and who quite fail to appreciate the real difficulty — or it may be impossibility — of presenting a really relevant and cogent Scriptural proof for their doctrinal specialties. On such naive oversimplification of problems sectarianism thrives.
It has been stated that for the visible Church to bear a corporate witness to the truth involves at least a testimony for the system of doctrine set forth in the Word of God, and that it is desirable for a Church to bear corporate witness to some of the implications and applications of that system of doctrine. This is not to be taken as implying that the Church’s witness must stop with these. The system of doctrine forms not the maximum but the minimum content of a corporate witness. There is certainly no valid reason why other doctrines should be excluded. Nor have the historic Reformed creeds so limited themselves. The Westminster Confession, for example, deals with a number of matters which are not elements of the system, nor, in the strict sense, implications or applications of it. Yet these matters are unquestionably teachings of the Word of God. Mention may be made of the Confession’s teaching on war, on oaths, and on marriage and divorce, for example. Certainly nothing revealed in the Scripture can be regarded as without importance, and the visible Church may properly maintain a corporate testimony for any proposition which can be demonstrated to be a real teaching of the Word of God. But when we are off the beaten path of the system of doctrine and its implications and applications in the strict sense, the danger of falling into unwarranted and erroneous interpretations of Scripture is greatly increased. We have only to think of the diverse views which exist on some details of the subject of prophecy, and in particular of the maze of interpretations of the Apocalypse, to realize that this is so. It has long been recognized as a sound principle that no creedal doctrine should be based solely on symbolic portions of Scripture, because of the danger of misinterpretation. It is of the greatest importance that the Church confine its witness to propositions which can be clearly and unanswerably shown to be the truth of God. Where the teaching of the Scripture is not clear the Church should maintain reserve, and wait for further light from the sacred volume before venturing to bear a public testimony. Needless to say, where the Scripture is silent on a question the Church has no right to utter any testimony. To do so would amount to a presumptuous attempt to improve upon the revelation of God. To respect the silences of Scripture is a sign of true reverence.
We have been considering the problem of the visible Church’s public corporate testimony to the truth. Such testimony of course is to be embodied in confessions and other creedal standards. These set forth the Church’s official doctrine and constitute not only the norm of truth, subordinate to the Scriptures, for its own life, but its manifesto to the public. We must now consider the question of the degree of conformity to a Church’s testimony that is to be required of its own membership. It is generally recognized as sound in principle, and it is certainly unavoidable in practice, that a less complete knowledge may be required of members as such than is properly required for ordination to ecclesiastical office. Should members as such be required to profess their acceptance of the confession or creed of a denomination? The practice of Churches holding the Reformed Faith has varied in this matter, the majority, including the large bodies, having no such formal requirement, but some of the smaller ones maintaining it. Even in the latter it is unavoidable that some dissent on the part of members be tolerated. It would be out of the question for any Church to require of every communicant member an ex animo acceptance, without permitting any dissent whatever, of every proposition contained, let us say, in the Westminster Standards. To attempt to enforce such conformity would inevitably lead to one or the other of two results. Either the membership would readily profess acceptance of the whole by an implicit faith, and the matter would rest there as a mere formality, or (in the case of more conscientious and serious-minded persons) some proposition or other would be likely to prove a stumbling block to the member, and being forced to choose between his conscience and his Church, he would have no alternative except to leave the denomination. Some dissent on the part of members, then, must be tolerated. How much, and what kind, will in some cases be very easy, and in other cases extremely difficult, to decide. In any case, this decision must be made by the judicatories of each denomination. Such decisions by Church courts, made originally in specific cases that have arisen, will in the course of time develop into a body of precedent having the effect of common law in dealing with similar cases which may arise later. Where the judicatories of a denomination take no cognizance of the doctrinal conformity of the membership as such, a condition of doctrinal indifferentism is likely soon to prevail. It is easy to think of specific examples of dissent which may have to be faced by Church courts. For example, a man and his wife wish to join a denomination holding the Westminster Standards. They profess general acceptance of the Standards and give evidence of an intelligent understanding of them, but have scruples on the subject of infant baptism. May they be admitted as members with the understanding that their children are to remain unbaptized until they reach an age when they can make their personal profession of faith and thereupon be baptized? Obviously unless there is to be an anarchic condition in which every man does that which is right in his own eyes, a denomination must have a definite policy concerning such matters. Suppose that several such families, each with children growing up unbaptized, were to be admitted to a Presbyterian congregation. Each in turn might be regarded as an exception to the ordinary rule; but what would then become of the Church’s corporate witness for the doctrine of infant baptism, and for the doctrine of the covenant of grace which lies back of it? Clearly it would be hazardous to admit members who oppose infant baptism, even in exceptional cases. But suppose an applicant for membership gives a satisfactory account of his faith except that he is a convinced pacifist, and is therefore opposed to the affirmation of the Confession of Faith that to wage war, upon just and necessary occasion, is not inconsistent with Christian duty. Although, from the standpoint of the Confession, pacifism is an error, still, so far as the Church itself is concerned, to tolerate this error will not necessarily destroy the corporate witness of the Church, for the doctrine concerning which error exists directly concerns neither the system of doctrine nor the Church as such, but the sphere of the civil magistrate. To admit a member who is a pacifist would not of itself introduce an element of anarchy into the life of the Church as would the toleration of a family with children growing up unbaptized.
While every denomination will have a growing body of precedent for dealing with such matters, obviously no body of precedent or formulation of rules can prove adequate for all cases which will arise. Cases are bound to come up which will tax the Christian wisdom and prudence of those whose office it is to govern the house of God.
To affirm that the Church must unavoidably tolerate some degree of dissent on the part of members as such, does not at all imply that the Church may tolerate a contrary propaganda. The applicant for Church membership who has scruples about this or that point of doctrine in the Church’s creed is in the position of the weak brother of Romans 14. As such he is to be treated with sympathy, and if it can be consistently and honestly done, he should be received into membership, but always with the understanding that he has no right to carry on a propaganda within or without the Church for his personal convictions which are at variance with the corporate testimony of his Church. The “weak brother” who claims, and exercises, a “right” to engage in propaganda against the official standards of his Church, thereby claims to be not weak, but strong, and to regard the Church as occupying the position of the “weak brother”. The Church may properly receive a weak brother and tolerate his weakness and the error associated with it, but the weak brother who claims to be strong, and acts accordingly, becomes intolerable. For the Church to tolerate a weak brother is one thing; to tolerate a contrary propaganda is quite another matter. Even with respect to minor points of doctrine which are denned in the official standards of a Church, to tolerate a contrary propaganda amounts to tolerating anarchy in the ecclesiastical sphere. It is true here as elsewhere that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
Lest this be misunderstood, it should be explained that by “a contrary propaganda” is not meant any discussion of an issue whatever, nor any effort to have the Church’s standards amended to bring them into line with the dissenter’s personal convictions. These may be entirely legitimate and proper provided they are carried on in a lawful rather than a lawless manner. The Church member who has scruples about, or dissents from, a point of doctrine set forth in his Church’s creed certainly has the right to seek to have that creed altered, by addressing the judicatories of the Church with a petition setting forth his reasons for the desired change. Such a petition may of course properly be supported by discussion before the appropriate judicatory, and the latter may decide that the question shall be discussed, pro and con, in writing in some Church periodical for a certain period of time. None of this legal and orderly procedure is to be regarded as “a contrary propaganda”. Rather, “a contrary propaganda” is one which disregards and by-passes the judicatories of the Church and addresses itself to the public just as if the matter were not one already defined in a certain way in the creed of the Church. Even worse is that form of contrary propaganda which addresses the public, within or without the Church, in denouncing the standards of the Church themselves because of their statements on some matter. Thus a minister who has scruples about some doctrine set forth in the creed of his Church may properly bring the matter before the judicatories of his denomination, but for him to preach from the pulpit against official doctrines of his Church is intolerable. A denomination which tolerates this practice is indeed a house divided against itself, and cannot long stand. It may continue to exist as an organization, but it will no longer bear a real corporate testimony.
The question of the form of subscription to the doctrinal standards of a denomination which should be required of ministers is an important one but too large to be taken up in any detail in this article. Among Churches of the Presbyterian family in America the prevalent form of subscription has been one to the Confession of Faith, or to the Confession and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Scriptures. The question as to the meaning of the expression “the system of doctrine” — whether it means every proposition in the Confession, or the “substance” of doctrine, or the Calvinistic system of doctrine — has been thoroughly discussed in the past.[9] The first of the views listed cannot be defended, for it would amount to claiming infallibility for the Confession. The second, which would define “system” as “substance”, distorts the meaning of words, and would open the door to serious errors; a candidate for ordination could reject doctrines which are essential to the system of Calvinism, and yet claim to hold the “substance” of doctrine taught in the Scriptures. The third view, namely, that which defines “the system of doctrine” as consistent Calvinism as set forth in the Confession of Faith, is undoubtedly correct and should be insisted on.
Something should be said about preaching and teaching on the part of ministers in its relation to the corporate witness of the Church. It is not necessary to state that a minister should faithfully teach and preach the body of truth set forth in the Standards of his Church. But what about the portion of Scriptural ground which lies beyond the area of confessionally defined dogma? Is a minister limited to preaching truth embodied in his Church’s corporate witness? Must he refrain from handling matters on which his Church’s standards are non-committal? For example, may a minister in preaching advocate the “Restitution theory” of the meaning of Genesis 1:1, 2? The traducian view of the origin of the soul? The Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews? The view that the earth is to be destroyed as to form only, and not as to matter, or the contrary view that it is to be destroyed as to both form and matter?
With respect to this problem it may be said, first of all, that a minister is ordained to proclaim the whole counsel of God, and therefore is not limited to that portion which has already been defined as dogma by his Church; indeed no doctrine would historically have been defined as dogma unless it had previously been preached by ministers and thus had come to be recognized as Scriptural by the Church. Yet a minister in his preaching and teaching must never contradict anything which he has professed to accept in his subscription to the Standards of his Church at his ordination.[10] In the second place, he may never represent any doctrine as an element of the corporate witness of his Church unless it really is set forth in the Standards. Common honesty would seem to involve this, yet it is not infrequently violated in practice; ministers who hold some extra-confessional doctrinal specialty with great zeal sometimes preach it so fervently and so persistently that the public gets the impression that it is a chief point of the denomination’s testimony. When a minister preaches an extra-confessional doctrine he owes his hearers a statement that what he is about to preach is not a part of the public testimony of their Church, that it is not in conflict with that testimony, and that he believes it to be a doctrine of God’s Word. In the third place, preaching of extra-confessional doctrines should be kept in strict subordination, as to time and emphasis, to the task of preaching the doctrines of the Church’s corporate testimony. The main burden of every minister’s pulpit work should always be the doctrines which his Church holds as a body. The practice of some denominations of requiring ministers to devote one service each sabbath to doctrinal preaching following the order of the Church’s catechism has much to commend it. There could hardly be a better safeguard against the exploitation of extra-confessional doctrinal specialties in the pulpit.
The principles just outlined cannot of course be applied to expository preaching in exactly the same way as to doctrinal preaching. In the nature of the case, much expository preaching will deal with the historical and biographical portions of the Bible. It would be absurd to expect a minister who preaches on the life of Joseph, for example, to explain to his hearers that what he is about to say is taught in the Bible, but is not mentioned in the Standards of the Church. Church members of ordinary intelligence understand that their Church’s Standards present a formulation of doctrine, not a condensed summary of everything in the Bible. Still it must be remembered that expository preaching, while not formally doctrinal, cannot be divorced from doctrine. The doctrines which a minister holds will inevitably come to the surface even of expository preaching. And surely if in the course of expository preaching a minister wishes to emphasize some extra-confessional doctrine, he should take care to make its status clear to his hearers. The minister is not merely an individual proclaimer of the Gospel; he is also an organ of the visible Church, and this fact involves an obligation to maintain a distinction between that which he holds and proclaims merely as a matter of personal conviction concerning the meaning of the Scriptures, and that which he holds and proclaims as also the corporate witness of the Church of which he is a member, and in which he is a servant.
Finally, something may be said about the question of whether the corporate witness of the visible Church is to be regarded as static or progressive. There sometimes appears a spirit of blind and complacent conservatism which would regard that witness as static, as if the Holy Spirit’s work of leading the Church into all truth had come to a conclusion in the seventeenth century and no further development could be expected. This excessively conservative spirit tends to look with suspicion on anything new. While conservatism is enjoined in the Scriptural command to “hold fast that which is good”,[11] the same text also requires us to “prove all things”. Certainly the promise that the Holy Spirit would lead the Church into all truth is rightly understood as referring to a process which must continue until the consummation of the age. Clearly, too, the Church’s grasp of the doctrines of special revelation hitherto has come through such a process. There has been a progressive development, not indeed without its ups and downs, but still a line of progress from the age of the apostles to the present. One area of doctrine after another has been clarified and has become a matter of corporate testimony, especially on the part of those branches of the visible Church which have been located nearest to the “line of orthodoxy”, which can be traced from the apostles, through Augustine, the Reformers and, later, the Puritan divines, down to the Reformed theologians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This has been a wonderful, fulfilment of our Lord’s promise, but we show scant appreciation of it if we regard it as already complete. Clearly there remain some areas of Christian doctrine in which further clarification and development are needed. The areas of eschatology, the Church, and the civil magistrate may be regarded as such. There are also some particular parts of doctrines which need further clarification. For example, the manner of the transmission of the corruption of original sin has remained rather obscure, and the statements of the Reformed confessions on this subject perhaps leave something to be desired. The same is true of the matter of marriage and divorce, in several particulars.
But progress in developing a Scriptural corporate witness must always be kept in balance with a true conservatism. True progress means building on what has come to us from the past. This does not imply that nothing which has come from the past as a matter of corporate witness may ever be torn down. “All synods or councils, since the Apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred”,[12] and therefore we must recognize that there has always been an element of error in the visible Church’s witness to the truth. Therefore no creed or confession is to be regarded as sacrosanct; it may really need to be amended, even by the striking out of some item. But it should be realized that such changes will affect only minor details, and also that future additions to the Church’s witness must necessarily be comparatively minor ones. The great work of building up a corporate witness to the truth has already been done; it stands today in the historic Reformed creeds, not indeed as infallible, nor as complete in every element nor in detail, but as substantially complete. In its main outlines and in all its principal features, this work has been done for all time, and can never be improved upon. We should remember, too, that the anti-doctrinal temper of our age, which has to some extent infected even the best Churches, will make real progress in further development of the Church’s witness very difficult, at least for a time. The Church has to struggle desperately today to maintain her grip upon the confessions which followed the Reformation. We should hope and pray for the dawn of a better day when the development of the Church’s witness can go forward with new confidence and vigor.
Notes
- The Westminster Confession of Faith, XXV, 2.
- Ibid., XXV, 1.
- The Larger Catechism, Q. 173.
- Cf. the section entitled “Touching the Power of Ordination” in the Form of Presbyterial Church-Government and of Ordination of Ministers adopted by the Westminster Assembly.
- Amos 3:3.
- B. B. Warfield: Studies in Theology, pp. 587f.
- I Tim. 3:15.
- XX, 2.
- Cf. Charles Hodge: The Church and its Polity (London, 1879), pp. 317-342.
- It has been generally recognized historically that there are certain minor points in the Westminster Confession, not in any sense pertaining to the integrity of the system of doctrine, the acceptance of which is not necessarily implied in subscription to the Confession. The statement of the Confession (XXV, 6) that the Pope of Rome is the fulfilment of the prophecy of II Thess. 2:3, 4, is of the nature of an obiter dictum, as it is obviously based not merely upon exegesis of the Scriptures, but upon ordinary fallible human records of mediaeval history, and thus departs from the Confession’s own principle that “The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men” (I, 6). Obviously the content of the phrase “the Pope of Rome” is derived not from Scripture but from human tradition. To contradict such a point should not be regarded as inconsistent with subscription to the Confession.
- I Thess. 5:21.
- The Westminster Confession of Faith, XXXI, 4.
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