← Doctrine Matters with Kevin DeYoung
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Hello, I'm Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina. And you are listening to Doctrine Matters. Each week on Doctrine Matters, we explore the rich doctrine of the Christian faith. We'll pull from the church's long history, complex debates, and over the course of the year, the hope is that we'll begin to frame out what is a clear, accessible, systematic theology, be looking at different Christian doctrines and their relationship to each other. And the hope, Lord willing, is we will grasp more and more the riches and the beauty of God's word. Thanks for listening. Let's turn to this week's Doctrine Matters.
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We continue this week on Doctrine Matters with the doctrine of the church ecclesiology. When we read in the Nicene Creed we believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic church. We have there a summary of the four attributes of the church. We are used to thinking about the attributes of God, but there we have unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity. We can move through those quickly. So one holy, catholic and apostolic church. So first we talk about the unity of the church, because God is one, the church is one, though diverse in many ways. 1 Corinthians 12 the Church is bound together as one body. The unity of the church ideally can be expressed in an external way, but even more importantly, internal and spiritual in character. That is to say, the presence of many congregations or even denominations may not necessarily be a violation of one church. Or to put it another way, not all distinctions are schismatic. Many are caused by differences in language, culture, location. So when people say, look at you, Christians, or you Protestants have 10,000 denominations. Well, some of those are unfortunate and on this side of heaven are to be lamented. And yet many of them have to do with different origins in language or culture. You come from one country that speaks. And even if you come to say, America, you still have that tradition. You came out of the Korean church or the Dutch church or the German church, and those are represented. Now, yes, some of the the divisions we can look and say that was unnecessary. We wish that there was greater unity. And yet I would even say that a good Presbyterian and a good Baptist can and often do believe 90% of the most important things the same. And I think genuinely have a unity in the body of Christ, even though on this side of heaven you say, well, there are some things we just can't come to agreement on. And we have different communions, different traditions, different churches. And yet there is a real oneness in the body of Christ. That's the logic of Ephesians 4. That unity is a relational good we are called to maintain where true spiritual unity is present. We're not talking about a papered over unity, a unity of the Spirit where there is a shared allegiance to one Lord Jesus Christ and a shared commitment in one faith. The holiness. So one holy. The holiness of the Church is a present positional reality through our union with Christ. And it is something that we labor and toil for. The Church is holy and called to be holy. We can also talk about the Church's indefectibility. That means God's holy Church will not ultimately fail. Now, certain churches or denominations may fail and close their doors. It may be because they lost the Gospel or they were faithful and simply the Lord doing a new work in a new way. But ultimately there is no institution except the Church that has given this promise that Christ will build it and she shall not fail. The one holy Church. We are holy. We are also striving after that holiness and then catholicity. I've lost track of how many times someone asks me when we read the Apostles Creed. Why do we profess one holy Catholic Church? I didn't think we were Catholic, but Catholic there, meaning general, universal or pertaining to the whole. We can think of the Church's catholicity with respect to places that the Church is not limited to one location with respect to persons, that we are a global body, various tribes, language, people, nations with respect to times. So the Church is diffused across geographic, political, cultural boundaries. It's diffused across centuries. And it's Catholic with respect to truth. The word Catholic is not found in the New Testament, but was used often by the Church Fathers to distinguish the Church that was bound by the Apostles teaching from various sects and heretical groups. So to be Catholic, small C does not mean we are in allegiance to an ecclesiastical hierarchy, let alone to the Bishop of Rome. It means we are in allegiance to the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints and then apostolicity, that is that the Church is rooted in the teaching of the apostles, not an apostolic succession of bishops through men, but an apostolic succession of truth. The New Testament is infinitely more concerned that the Church remain fixed to the Gospel handed down by the apostles. That is absolutely clear, especially in the pastoral epistles. Are you handing down the Tradition? Have you remained firm? Are you keeping what I have given to you? This Gospel, this good deposit, Are you guarding it? Are you standing firm in it? The New Testament is very concerned with that. We do not see any concern with a supposed hierarchy of ecclesiastical primates descended from Peter. It is A unity and a holiness and a catholicity around the shared apostolic deposit of truth, not an apostolic succession of bishops. These are the four attributes, one holy, catholic, apostolic church. So think about the attributes of the Church, not to be confused with the marks of the Church. And this is not to be confused with a more general colloquial sense. In our day, there's nine marks ministry. I benefit from that ministry, particularly aimed at Baptist. That was Mark de saying, what are 9 marks of a healthy church? Just what, what there should be A good doctrine of conversion and membership and discipline and prayer has been added. And that's a fine way to talk about what are the elements of a healthy church. But this discussion of the marks of the Church is a bit more technical. The question is not whether the Church is healthy, of course we want that, but what is necessary for the Church to be a true church. So the debate is not about the bene esse, that is the well being of the Church, but rather about the essay, the essence of the Church. So if we were to consider what constitutes a healthy church, the bene esse, the well being, we could talk about lots of things, from prayer to missions to expository preaching. But the Reformers were interested in this particular narrower question of what determines the essence of the Church, what constitutes that that's a church in reality rather than just a church in name? Some Roman Catholic theologians taught only one mark of the Church being in submission to and in communion with the Roman Pontiff, while others, like Cardinal Bellarmine, increase the number to 15. So this was a very live debate. Not surprisingly, Reformed theologians insisted on a different set of marks of the true Church. You might say, well, they all agreed. Well, I think they basically agreed, but they certainly even in the Reformed tradition, did not explain this in the same way or land in exactly the same place. Reformed theologians have all agreed that right doctrine is the fundamental mark of the Church. They have not always agreed on the exact number of marks. So some have said three marks, right preaching of the word, right administration of the sacraments, right exercise of discipline. Others have preferred two marks, preaching and sacraments. And then some have argued there's really only one mark, and that is the pure preaching of the word of God. Turretin, helpful as always, sees more harmony than discord in these different schemes, so long as each one, he says, is really centered on right doctrine. So if you have three marks, right preaching, right administration, right exercise of discipline, that word right there is key to say that the preaching is according to the word of God and the sacraments are administered according to the Word of God and understood according to the Word of God. And discipline is done with the boundaries set forth in the Word of God. The, the centering element there is the Word of God. Right teaching, right doctrine. So here's Turreton in the first degree of necessity is the pure preaching and profession of the Word, since without it the Church cannot exist. But the administration of the sacraments does not have an equal degree of necessity, which so depends upon the former that I may nevertheless be wanting for a time. The same is the case with discipline, which pertains to the defense of the Church, but which being removed or corrupted, the Church is not immediately taken away. In other words, sacraments and discipline are. Are essential, but they are dependent upon the Word in a way that the Word is not dependent upon the sacraments and the discipline. The, the sacraments may. Turin says, you may be patient for a while for their final purification or even discipline. I don't think people should, you know, the first time a church misses a discipline case, or even for a period of time, that the church or even a denomination may be lackluster in administering discipline. That you say, well, this is no longer a true church. Puritan says we have to have some patience. If over a long stretch of time it becomes absolutely clear that they have rejected this mark, and therefore the Word of God is no longer having any binding and loosing effect in the congregation or in the communion of churches, then the essence of the true church has been compromised. But Turretson's point is that these two elements, sacrament and discipline, depend upon the Word in the way that the Word does not depend upon sacraments and discipline. The essence of the true Church, we can say in its simplest form, is its proclamation and profession of the whole counsel of God, that is the preaching of the Gospel. It is so important. And you say, well, of course you're a preacher, Kevin, but every Christian needs to need to get this and believe this, that the mark, certainly one of them, and maybe you could even argue the mark of the true Church is the faithful proclamation of the Word of God. This thing we call a sermon. Let's be clear, this was not stolen from the pagans. It was not a product of the Enlightenment. The sermon came from Judaism, which developed and refined the practice of exegesis, expositional preaching for centuries leading up to Christ. It was the cardinal characteristic of Jewish worship, the reading and preaching of inspired scripture. And we see this in seed form in the Old Testament. The Levites taught Israel the law. The true priest was a teaching priest. 2nd Chronicles 15. Ezra read the law to the returning exiles, giving the sense of it. Nehemiah 8 We see the development in the New Testament. John the Baptist preached. Jesus preached. When you think about it. So we're so used to it that we miss just how important it is that Jesus, his ministry was to go to town to town to preach. Now you say, well, didn't he do miracles? Yes. And he cast out demons and he healed people. Yes. But there is never an instance where Jesus went into town with the purpose of casting out demons or setting up a healing clinic. He went from town to town, Mark 1 says, in order to preach. That's what drove him on. Now he did the other things out of compassion for people, in order ultimately to demonstrate his messianic power and identity and the in breaking of the kingdom. But what drove him from town to town was to preach. And that ought to tell us something about the essential, crucial nature of preaching and in the life of God's people. We see this in the early church. The Didache, one of the earliest writings after the Bible, speaks of daily services of the Word, a large body of prophets and teachers devoted to full time preaching and teaching. Justin Martyr, early church father, describes a worship service on Sunday as people coming together to read the writings of the apostles and the prophets and then for someone to instruct and exhort based on those things. So this has been going on since the beginning because our God is a revealing God, a God who speaks to his people by the Word he created the heaven and the earth by the Word he formed the nation of Israel at Sinai. By the Word he instructed his people through the prophets by the Word, he gathers and instructs the church today. And Christ is the Word made flesh. So God meets with his people. He rules over his people through the authoritative preaching of of the Word of God. The Greek word for preacher, K. Rex is a herald, a messenger, one who declares as God's appointed mouthpiece a message from on high. Faithful gospel preaching is not an optional extra or a nice bit of the worship service that's secondary to the music. No, it is God's plan for the church. Indeed, there is no true church without it.
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Thanks again for joining us on doctrine matters.
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I'm your host, Kevin DeYoung.
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Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our theological tradition as Christians. Please consider subscribing to Doctrine Matters. And if this has been encouraging, consider passing it on to others. If you'd like to learn more about this week's doctrine. You can ask your pastor for good resources or check out my year long mini systematic theology book called Daily Doctrine.
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It's available in print or audio from.
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Crossway.org the Doctrine Matters podcast is produced by Crossway. To learn more, visit Crossway.org.