Dennis Tuuri

# Acts 6:1-7

Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

And in those days the number of the disciples was multiplied. There arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Then the twelve called a multitude of the disciples unto them and said, “It is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

And the saying pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith of the Holy Ghost, and Philip and Prochorus and Nicanor and Timon and Parmenas and Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch, whom they set before the apostles. And when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them, and the word of God increased. And the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.

We thank God for his word and pray that he would illuminate our understanding. Please be seated.

—

From last week we were discussing ordination from the chapter section of Acts, chapter 6. And we’ll look at two elements we really didn’t deal much with last week.

One is an overview of the doctrine of ordination or office found in the four churches or strands of the church coming out of the Reformation. Then we’ll look at the priesthood of all believers on the basis of this and identification with the ministry. And then we’re going to have some closing comments rounding off this whole section from Acts, chapter 6, dealing with the institutional church.

The general topic of course has been for five weeks now the ordering of the church for the feeding of the world. And the subtitle today—the title I have on the outline is “the day of small beginnings.” And of course that’s very appropriate to Acts, chapter 6.

While there were a great number of people converted at that time—20 or 25,000 or more—nonetheless, these are small beginnings. Seven men to complement the twelve apostles in the ordering of the church for the evangelization, the feeding of the world with the gospel, and then also of course the physical ministration of grace in Jerusalem for the Grecian widows.

—

Now, in terms of ordination, the concept of formal ordination really with the imposition of hands is mentioned very infrequently, particularly in the New Testament. It’s really not stressed at all. There are a few instances such as the one we have here and a couple more in the book of Acts specifically, but it is remarkable that it’s mentioned so little since the ministry is so important in terms of the institutional church according to the scriptures.

The word ordination itself is never used in the New Testament, or even ordain in the sense of rulers is not used in the technical sense. In the non-technical sense, of course, there are more occurrences of ordination of officers or selection of them.

Reading from Unger’s Bible Dictionary, it says, giving a definition of ordination, that in the limited and technical sense, ordination is the ceremony by which a person is set apart to an office or order. But in a broader and in fact more important sense, ordination signifies the appointment or designation of a person to a ministerial office with or without attendance ceremonies.

And you remember we have said before in other sermons and in the explanatory notes to our constitutional draft that we’ve handed out before, that Charles Hodge, for instance, in his writings on church polity in the 1800s, says that ordination essentially is just simply a group of people selecting for themselves who are going to minister to them, particularly the sacraments—baptism, the Lord’s supper ordinance—and Baptist churches. And it can be accompanied by a wide variety of ceremonies and the selection process itself may be quite different.

I know of a church, and there probably are many of them like this, but I know of a large Bible-believing church in Portland. I’ve done some political action with one of its members and she’s told me that in their church they appoint elders. The pastor and the sitting elders appoint other elders. There’s never a congregational vote on anything, including elders. And you can see evidence of that instance happening in various portions of the New Testament scriptures.

Other scriptures, such as the one we see here, clearly have the congregation have a role in selecting their own officers. So there’s a wide variety of forms that people have used, and ordination, while usually conferring the idea of the laying out of hands or some form of ceremony or selection, really in its broadest sense is simply selection of officers in an institutional church.

Having said that, of course, we don’t want to do away with the concept of the laying out of hands. It’s important. It’s recorded for us here in Acts, chapter 6. Augustine said that the imposition or laying out of hands is simply praying over a man. And so Augustine wanted us to understand in his writings relative to ordination that the laying out of hands is important, but essentially it represents a prayer over a person.

Now, the laying out of hands is particularly prominent in the New Testament writings of Luke, of which of course we are in the context now in Acts, chapter 6. And it is interesting that Luke has more references to the laying out of hands in various ways than any other New Testament writer. And frequently this goes back to Old Testament writings.

And certainly in Acts 6 here, we’ve talked a great deal the last three or four weeks about how Luke is drawing upon several Old Testament sources and really is writing to an audience who understands all of scripture. So he describes what happens here while giving an accurate account. He writes it in such a way as to stress those elements that produce an understanding of continuity with the Old Testament. And the same can be said about Luke’s use of the imposition of hands.

The Old Testament of course has a great deal more instances and imagery of God’s hand, and particularly in putting men into office or in healing them, etc. It is significant, as one commentator has pointed out, to remember that God’s mighty hand is really one way of speaking of who God is.

And I’m going to read now from Genesis 49:24-25. We read there:

“By the hands of the mighty One of Jacob, by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel, by the God of your father who will help you, by God Almighty who will bless you.”

It’s from the best blessings given in Genesis 49. So we see that the hands of the mighty One of Jacob are related to God Almighty who will bless you. In other words, the hand has significance not because of its isolation from the person of God, but because it represents the person and work of God for those upon whom his hand lays.

Continuing on from this commentator, he says that God’s right hand is God’s power, as in Exodus 15:6. It is his hand that accomplishes the redemption of his people. “I will lay my hand upon Egypt and bring forth my hosts, my people, the sons of Israel” (Exodus 7).

At the institution of the Feast of the Passover, Moses repeatedly reminds the people that with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt (Exodus 13, etc.). “Israelite fathers are to teach their sons their history,” in this quote from Deuteronomy 6: “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.”

And so repeatedly in the Old Testament we have these references to the hand of God, his power, his saving power, his redemption of his people and deliverance. And Luke includes all of that thought when he gives us this picture of the imposition of hands relative to the setting aside of the seven, and specifically for the organization of the church, for the conquering of the world, the discipling of the world, for the preaching of the gospel.

The mighty hand of God, as this commentator goes on to say, redeemed his people and he committed the promised land to the Israelites, giving the nations one after another, quote, “into their hands” (Deuteronomy 7, Joshua 2). So this idea of conquest of a land is also represented by giving people into the hands of those whose hands represent God’s work in the area. “Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands” (Joshua 21:44).

And so our hands are seen as the active work of God through his people, as they were during the time of Joshua.

For Luke, as this commentator goes on, speaking of Luke’s use of the term hands throughout the scriptures and also here in Acts 6, the events of the new age are in continuity with those of the old. The hand of the Lord, whether immediately or mediately through the hands of his servants, is intimately bound up with the advance of the gospel. Thus in the New Testament, as in the Old, the mighty hand of God is at work redeeming a people for himself.

The plan of redemption is in the hand of God. And so when we consider ordination and we consider the ordering of the church through its special officers to equip the people for the work of ministry, we consider then that what this is linked to is the entire biblical history that God’s hand is powerful to save and to redeem. And God’s hand then becomes, by way of extension, the immediate hands of his church as they go forth and all enemies are placed into their hands as they use their hands to rule for God.

And so ordination has that significance.

—

Now the concept of ordination is one that differentiates different churches that came out of the Reformation era. And I want to talk a little bit about what these different churches are, how they exercise ordination, or what they think about ordination. And much of the material I’ll be dealing with now is from the book that I mentioned last week, “The Apostolic Ministry: Essays on the History and Doctrine of Episcopacy.”

So this is written from a conservative episcopal position. And this is specifically from a chapter within that work written by the Right Reverend K.D. McKenzie, that section entitled “Sidelights from Non-Episcopal Communions,” and what he does is he goes over Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, and dependency and relates those to episcopacy, and he has a good attitude as he does it.

One of the first quotes he has in this particular section of this book is this. He mentions that the Faith and Order Conference held in Lausanne in 1927 stated this in their findings. I’m going to quote now:

“In view of the place which the episcopate, the council of presbyters, and the congregation of the faithful respectively had in the constitution of the early church, and the fact that episcopal, presbyterial, and congregational systems of government are each today and have been for centuries accepted by great communities in Christendom, and the fact that episcopal, presbyterial and congregational systems are believed by many to be essential to the good order of the church, we therefore recognize that these several elements must all have their appropriate place in the order and life of a reunited church.”

And so you’ve heard that from us before, but back in 1927 a group of men in Lausanne talked about the unity of the faith in catholicity. They talked about how each of these systems then are seen in scripture. They believe episcopacy is seen, Presbyterianism is seen, and then the importance of the congregational government itself.

And each of these different strands then in history from the time of the Reformation has contained a significant number of the elect of Jesus Christ. And so the body of Christ has to be seen in relationship to each of these different views of ordination, ministry, and church polity. And as a result, if we’re to move toward a better ordering of the church, we must have an open appreciation for those things within these systems that are biblical and good and proper.

And so the view with which I want to look now at these different strands coming out of the Reformation is one that looks to see what we can gain from these positions, not necessarily what we should critique in them. The idea is one of having humility then as we seek to learn from these things as opposed to simply critiquing them and saying they’re different than us.

Catholicity is the game. Catholicity is seen as wholeness or oneness in terms of the church organically, but then growing in an institutional sense. Catholicity, however, also speaks to the whole word of God. And so the need here is for catholicity with integrity to gather whatever of these systems has integrity biblically and then to try to seek to reform our own view of church government and to assist the body of Christ at large in reforming its view of church government in relationship to each of these elements.

—

So let’s look then at these different systems that came out of the different wings of the Reformation.

The first one we’ll consider is Lutheranism. This one we have never really talked about much in this church. We have tried to take a very self-conscious position here that we’ve tried to reform whatever we’ve done, reconstruct what we’ve done on the basis of what the scripture teaches about a thing, and that is good and proper. That is one of the reasons why we have not really done a lot in terms of study of Lutheranism.

Lutheranism of course comes from Luther, and we’ll be celebrating in a couple of weeks what some see as the event that typifies the beginning of the Reformation: the nailing of his 95 Theses in the door of the church at Wittenberg in 1517, which was done on October 31st. And that’s why we have a Reformation Day party every year on that day.

As an incidental note, it also helps to help us avoid the increasingly bad effects of Halloween celebrations, but essentially it’s a positive statement to remind us of the Reformation and of Luther himself.

Luther was a very interesting man. I was reading last night some of his commentaries on the martyrdom of Stephen, for instance, and I may share some of that next week as we deal with Stephen’s martyrdom. But the man has a particular context in which he wrote, of course, and lived as we all do. And throughout his writings are peppered many references to the papacy and how bad it is.

I mean, in this commentary on Acts, chapter 7, the martyrdom of Stephen, he talks about how you’ll understand why lightning storms and lightning strikes hit papist churches more than they do our churches, because God is angry at them and they don’t understand what Stephen was telling. He relates everything that he goes to frequently back to justification by faith and then the abuses of that in the papal church.

Well, in much the same way in terms of polity, Luther was reacting against an ordination system that had produced men who did not preach the gospel. Luther’s emphasis of course was on justification by faith. His emphasis was not on institutional structures so much. In fact, it was a reaction against institutional structures to the end that the purity and the organic truth of the scriptures might once again reform men’s lives.

So Luther’s system of polity that developed in Lutheranism really was not aimed particularly at the organizing of Lutheranism early on, and nor has it been since. There was no real attempt then to take a scriptural position in terms of what the scriptures say about polity. It was sort of said that whatever works, and it isn’t really required to be based explicitly on scripture.

We’ll see when we get to Calvinism and Presbyterianism of course, and the reverse is true. There you had an attempt to look at polity specifically based on the word of God. But with Luther that wasn’t the stress in his position.

Quoting now from this article, and I’ll do this many times in the next few minutes:

“Luther’s interest in the doctrine of holy orders was that the current teaching about the priesthood appeared to conflict with Augustinian soteriology, or justification by faith. Strictly speaking, Luther came to think ordination was unnecessary. Preaching was the essential thing.”

Quoting now from Luther: “He that does not preach the word is in no way a priest, and the sacrament of orders is nothing else than a ceremony for choosing preachers.”

So he said if the point is choosing preachers, and you end up choosing men that don’t preach, then the ordination thing is really unnecessary totally. It’s an interesting perspective of course, because today as you look at ordination groups who look at whether or not ordinations are acceptable, the primary thing that many groups look at is not the gospel that’s being preached. It’s rather the formal ceremony that was performed relative to the person’s ordination.

And so Luther brings the emphasis back to basics—the gospel—and says that really the way to find out who a preacher is, not through ordination, it’s through who’s preaching the gospel. That being so, it was immaterial whether ordination was conferred by a bishop or by anybody else. So they did not believe that a particular group of people had to be involved in the ordination of ministers. Rather it was the call of God that was evident.

Quoting from the Augsburg Confession, we read: “No one may teach publicly in the church or administer the sacraments except he be rightly called.”

And the idea there is of the internal call of God upon a minister, as opposed to the call by a group of bishops. Luther, for instance, said this about the credentials of Paul. Again, the emphasis was upon the divine calling or the call of the Holy Spirit.

And so Luther said this about Paul: “He who is called, he is consecrated and may preach to him who gave the call. That is our Lord’s consecration, and that is the proper chrism.”

Chrism means consecration through the setting aside of a person through the laying out of hands, either at baptism in Eastern Orthodox churches or in the ministry as well. And Luther’s point is: if you want to look for ordination, you look at somebody who God has empowered to preach the gospel. That’s God’s consecration. That’s his ordination.

And so Lutheranism took that position. Indeed, in the history of Lutheranism, early on Luther seemed almost self-consciously to reject available bishops when it came to ordination. Particularly in Nürnberg, where he was, there were Prussian Lutheran bishops available to be consecrators of those to office, and these were men whose episcopal succession—in other words, the laying out of hands to them, that they were ordained by other bishops in the history of the church tracing back to the early church. There were men available to Luther to use to consecrate ministers whose episcopal or apostolic succession was very clear and sure, but Luther decided not to use those men and instead appointed people independently of this who could consecrate or ordain ministers. So there was almost a self-conscious attempt to break with the idea of apostolic succession.

And of course this is all in reaction primarily to the Catholic Church. Real authority according to Lutheranism is derived primarily from the Christian community as a whole, as opposed to a special group of clerics. And again, it’s easy to see why he would think that in the context in which he lived.

As a result, more and more Lutheranism came to be controlled by the civil state. And whatever the civil state saw in terms of how ministers should be ordained, that was pretty well okay with many Lutheran ministers. The void left through a lack of scriptural attempt to get at church polity, and specifically who would be ministers, was filled by the civil state.

You had different Lutheran churches in different countries then whose ordination procedures would be quite different. Some countries for quite a long time, and still to this day, would try to hold to apostolic succession. In other words, you need men to consecrate other men to ministry who have themselves been consecrated by men who trace their roots back to the apostles. But when that would break down in a country, it was not seen as a big deal. And the civil magistrate could then appoint people to ordain ministers, and it was not seen as any big deal.

And indeed historically you see countries move from one position to the other.

Again, quoting from this article: “All church authority was consecrated eventually then in the person of the civil ruler.”

“We must remember then that every Lutheran church decides its own form of government, and the idea that the validity of sacraments can depend upon a particular form of order is to the Lutheran mind quite incomprehensible. It seems to them to be a deliberate preference of supposed apostolic order to veritable apostolic doctrine.”

And of course they wanted to stress doctrine—teaching the centrality of justification by faith. What matters to Luther is not order, but rather faith, the essence of the gospel.

And so that’s the Lutheran concept of ministry.

—

Let’s move on and talk briefly about the reformers. Most of us are more familiar with this form of course, but I’ve broken it out in your outline into three different groups: Calvin and Knox, denominational Presbyterians, and reformed.

And let me just say that Calvin, unlike Luther, was not an ecclesiastic. He himself was not apparently ordained to any kind of office. Now while he did seek an explicitly biblical reference to ministry, his context was not the then existing institutional church for himself personally.

Now I’ll just read a section here of Calvin’s early life:

“Calvin was never ordained either by a Catholic bishop or by a presbyter. Now that’s an assumption, but I think it’s an assumption that remains historically accurate as far as we know. Nor is there anything in his life which could constitute a call. He himself assumed the ministry in a way that can only be described as casual. As a young man of 25, he found himself at the crossroads. His father had obtained for him various ecclesiastical benefits in the early years. At the age of 25, he must either resign them or be ordained.”

Talking of Calvin now: Refusal of ordination made him a marked man, and he had to leave his home. He went to Poitiers, where he then moved to where he had taken temporary refuge. He became one of a group who met at first for religious conversation, later for more formal conferences, and at last for acts of corporate worship. Before long he had assumed a pastoral position and began to act as the dispenser of communion.

So there’s almost an organic growth in his life in terms of getting together. We might say in our day and age they get together for a Bible study, talk about the scriptures. They began to hold some conferences and speak about them in a wider group of people, and then they began to worship together. And in the context of that, he just sort of started administering communion, as far as we know.

So for Calvin, his stress lies upon the call. In all ordinary cases, Calvin lays great stress on the necessity of the call, meaning thereby not the internal or interior testimony of the heart, but the external formal call which relates to the public order of the church. This call is to be given through the consent and approbation of the people. Though the conduct of elections should be in the hands of pastors.

So for Calvin, apparently from early on in his life and then from his early writings, the essential thing was the call extended, or rather testified to, by a particular group of believers—a local church representing the church at large.

Now the pastors would conduct the election, but the essential thing was the call by the people themselves.

Again, then at Geneva, for instance, the imposition of hands in terms of ordination was not practiced. Now you can’t draw too much inference from that because Calvin didn’t have full control of Geneva. But nonetheless, he did not see the imposition or laying out of hands as a formal necessity of ordination as important enough to insist upon when he was at Geneva.

Knox as well—you know, we can move from Calvin on the continent to Knox with Scottish Presbyterianism, the father, so to speak, of Scottish Presbyterianism. He himself also did not at first see the great necessity for the imposition of hands. Actually in his first Book of Discipline from 1560, there was no imposition of hands in ordination in that order.

And now quoting from that order of discipline:

“Knox: Ordinary vocation consists in election, examination, and admission. Each congregation may elect its own minister, who is first to be examined as to fitness and then admitted. Other ceremonies we cannot approve, for albeit the apostles used imposition of hands, yet seeing the miracle is ceased, the using of the ceremony we judge not necessary.”

So they saw that specifically in relationship to the apostolic era and the transmission of a gift or special calling—and that is now replaced in the early book of Knox’s church polity with the call or election of the local church.

So essentially then, both with Knox and Calvin, we have the emphasis upon call. That call is testified to or identified through the local church and the election of those people. And there is involvement by men who are pastors or elders in that church. But there is no necessity for the laying out of hands. And so the idea of tactile succession—that hands must be laid upon people who then lay them on others, etc.—was certainly not part of the early Reformation and of early Presbyterianism.

—

Then we have denominational Presbyterianism. Again, quoting from this article, they then in Scotland began, a few years down the line, to re-see. They began once again to use the laying out of hands, and eventually Presbyterianism did do that. But as this writer says, as late as 1597, the general assembly in Scotland was still trying to enforce the practice that they now were trying to move back to—the laying out of hands.

And so as we move toward, you know, 20, 30, 40 years of the Reformation in Scotland, then we see more of an emphasis upon the ordination ceremony itself.

Quoting from this article: “It was quite clear that to Presbyterians of the 16th century, as to all Calvinists everywhere, the call was the essential thing. The right or admission that we usually call ordination, although itself necessary, was entirely invalid without the preceding and more important elements of the call.”

And so Calvin and Knox in terms of Presbyterianism emphasize call. Later, of course, the situation as it exists today—and has for 100 or 200 years—denominational Presbyterianism has insisted that presbyters ordain officers. However, what that means is not exactly agreed upon either. Charles Hodge, writing in the mid-1800s, said that presbyter can be a single presbyter. They did see that the normal way of calling was to have elders ordain other elders in denominational Presbyterianism.

But that, as I point out in the outline, is almost to step away from its origins in Calvin and Knox. But certainly by the time of the 17th century, denominational Presbyterianism emphasized strongly the ordination through the laying out of hands of presbyters through their involvement in the local church’s call.

Now I see a third thing on the outline, and that is reformed. As we pointed out after our trip to Chicago, you really have to sort of look at the reformed side of the Presbyterianism in two categories: reformed and Presbyterian.

The reformed side of this split, so to speak, and reformed churches are those churches that have their secondary standards in what’s called the continental reformed church. The secondary standards being the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the findings of the Synod at Dort—the Canons of Dort. And then you have Presbyterianism, which has its standards in the Westminster Standards.

Okay, so it’s real important to understand that there are churches that are Presbyterian and reformed. They might call themselves Presbyterian. Then there are churches that are reformed. Well, they all come back really—and that’s, you could see it by way of analogy here—to Calvin and Knox. The CRC, Christian Reformed Churches in America, which are the reformed churches who are not Presbyterian, they see their lineage back to Calvin specifically, whereas Presbyterianism sees its lineage pretty much more to Knox and to Ireland, Scotland, and England, and the Westminster Assembly.

The Westminster Assembly itself, of course, which produced the Confession and the Catechism, had both congregationalists and Presbyterians in it, although the Congregationalists were in a minority. But in any event, I wanted to spend a couple of minutes talking about reformed as opposed to Presbyterian.

And what I’m going to do is read you a couple of points from a paper I was given by Reverend Jim Graveling from Independent Reformed Church in Salem. There are more handouts downstairs today from the Reformed Believers Press Service that talk a lot about more and more churches leaving the CRC and what these churches are doing. Independent Reformed Church in Salem split off from a CRC church, and it is a good thing for us to see locally—right down the road from us, so to speak—a picture of much of what is happening in the reformed churches.

The CRC is busting apart, and this is due to its position now that women can be ordained to office as elders in local churches, and it also has homosexual ministry that refuses to discipline or do anything about. So it drifts into liberalism, and then the conservatives in the denomination are coming out. Independent Reformed Church is part of that movement.

And I just want to say that church, its elders and pastor, came up with several statements on church government. And these statements really may help you to understand the difference between Presbyterian polity and reformed polity, even though we’re kind of lumping them both together as reformed for the purposes of today’s talk.

And let me just read you these points from their paper. There are just, I think, eight points.

First of all, they say that reformed church government—this is point number one—is presbyterial. My copy isn’t very good here, but it is presbyterial, so that each congregation is governed by its own elders, not by broader assemblies. Okay? And they cite some scripture references here.

In other words, they’re saying: We’re Presbyterian, not because we believe in a system of graded courts or the necessity of being part of a denominational Presbyterianism. We’re presbyterial in that each church is governed by presbyters or elders. Okay? Presbyter is one way to look at it—rule by elders. And so they’re saying: We’re Presbyterian, but by that we mean in the reformed sense that each church is governed by ministers and elders, but not by broader assemblies. Okay.

Secondly, each congregation is independent from rule by sister churches. All churches are in subjection to our only bishop, Jesus Christ.

So the second point they want to make is that each congregation is independent, it’s self-governing and autonomous, so to speak. It is not ruled by sister churches. And all churches are in subjection to our only bishop, Jesus Christ.

Three, each congregation is fully equipped by Christ to pursue her proper calling as a church. Each local congregation, in other words—without need for denominational affiliation, for entrance into or departure from a federative relationship of congregations—is strictly a voluntary matter.

Federative relationships exist for the well-being of the church, not for her existence. In other words, they belong to the well-being of the church but not its being or essence. And then they quote or they cite the Belgic Confession there.

So what they’re saying is: You can enter into federative relationships. And I think on your outline, with Calvin and Knox we have calling. With denominational Presbyterianism we have presbyter. And then with reform we have federation. I think that’s what I have on your outline.

They have this concept of federation. But this is a voluntary coming together or union, and there is no power—apart from that—in that denomination or federation, rather—apart from the consent of each individual church. Okay? They exist for the well-being of the church, not for existence.

Just so you’ll know, there is a long history. This relates to terms that have a history in reformed churches. There has been much discussion since the time of the Reformation as to what belongs to the essence of a church as opposed to what belongs to its well-being. What determines if a church actually is in existence as opposed to other things that may be good, but they’re for the well-being of the church, not the being?

The Latin is the “esse” or the “bene esse”—the existence or the good existence of the church. And they would say that for the existence of the church—the reformed community—now you do not need a denominational affiliation or even federative affiliation. But for its well-being it’s good to enter into voluntary relationships with other churches. That’s what they’re saying in point four.

Then point five: “This is not to say that independent churches should avoid federative relationships. In fact, each congregation has a calling to exercise federative relationships implied in her confession of the communion of saints.”

So they’re saying that the unity we have—the communion of saints—means we should move toward an increasing institutional catholicity or federative relationships. It’s the term they like to use.

Six: “Nor is this to say we believe in independentism, which says the majority in the congregation rules based on one man, one vote, and which recognizes no broader assemblies which can make mutually binding decisions. Churches should independently or stand independently alongside one another but not disconnectedly.”

So they’ve chosen to put the word “independent” in their church name, but then they want to make sure you don’t understand with that that they think the churches don’t have a responsibility to cooperate with other churches. Nor do they believe in the majority in the congregation ruling.

We’re going to talk a little bit about congregationalism, but you’ve got to understand that all these terms have shifted. When in the 16th and 17th centuries, when you spoke about Scottish Presbyterianism, you spoke about a situation where if a person or a church wanted to leave that denomination, they would lose property. In some countries or in some stages, they would be thrown into prison. In some areas, some years in the history of the churches, there were real and dramatic consequences to churches desiring to leave Presbyterianism.

Scottish Presbyterianism in its ancient sense, and those conservative ones in Scotland today, would look upon American Presbyterianism and see it more as congregationalism, because it’s all voluntary. Coming together, we can join this denomination. We don’t like it. We can go, leave that denomination. We can be independent. We can join this denomination. They see that more as congregationalism than Presbyterianism.

So it shifted left, so to speak. Congregationalism used to refer to churches that believed certainly in rule by presbyters. The scriptures clearly teach that. But as these people do—that each individual church is essentially independent and they can enter into these relationships with other churches. Now congregationalism means the congregation itself rules the church. But that’s not what congregationalism meant in the history of the church.

All these terms—Presbyterian and congregational—have shifted left, so to speak, more liberal. Well, in any event, in the reformed churches as opposed to Presbyterian denominationalism, there is much more of a sense of the autonomy or independency of the local church, although a need to identify in federations.

Seven: “A church can exercise federative relationships with other churches only when there is unity and like-mindedness in faith and confession. As scripture shows, our unity is in the truth of scripture, all of which reveals the one and true Lord Jesus Christ, who is himself the truth. Spiritual unity must always then precede organizational unity.”

This is a basic principle: spiritual unity precedes organizational unity. Richard and myself are going to meet with the elders and pastor from this church in November 3rd, I believe it is, in an attempt to look at the spiritual unity we have, to the end that we might then move toward more of an organizational unity and having some sort of covenant between our churches or federation.

Without unity in the truth, there is no Christian unity. There’s no Christian unity without unity in the truth of Jesus Christ, they say.

And then eight: “Based on this scriptural principle regarding unity and truth, when a congregation finds its federative or denominational relationships compromising the credibility of a witness to the truth or serving to lead her or her members into sinful practices or beliefs, that congregation is then duty bound to cast off such relationships which are not serving her well-being.”

And they relate back to the Belgic Confession.

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So the reform side of this is far less insistent upon ordination by a particular group of ministers. Rather, ordination is seen primarily as the act of the local church.

Now again, let me just read from the Belgic Confession that they refer to, and this is the secondary standards of reformed churches as opposed to Presbyterian churches.

Belgic Confession, Article 31: “We believe that the ministers of God’s word, the elders, and the deacons ought to be chosen to their respective offices by a lawful election by the church with calling upon the name of the Lord, and in that order which the word of God teaches. Therefore everyone must take heed not to intrude himself by improper means, but is bound to wait until it shall please God to call him, that he may have testimony of his calling and be certain and assured that it is of the Lord.

“As far as the ministers of God’s word, they are equally the same power and authority, whatsoever they are, as they are all ministers of Christ, the one universal bishop and the only head of the church.

“Moreover, in order that this holy ordinance of God may not be violated or slighted, we say that everyone ought to esteem the ministers of God’s word and the elders of the church very highly for their work’s sake and be at peace with them without murmuring, strife, or contention as much as possible.”

Now that’s the statement of the Belgic Confession on office. Yet in terms of ordination, it mentions nothing about the need for approval by a greater group or denomination or synod.

And again, to read their single paragraph on the order and discipline of the church:

“In the meantime, we believe though it is useful and beneficial that those who are rulers of the church institute and establish certain ordinances among themselves for maintaining the body of the church, yet that they ought studiously to take care that they do not depart from those things which Christ, our only minister, has instituted. Therefore we reject all human inventions and all laws which men would introduce into the worship of God, thereby to mind and compel the congregation of conscience in any matter whatsoever. Rather, we admit only of that which tends to nourish and preserve a concord and unity and to keep all men in obedience to God. For this purpose, excommunication and church discipline is requisite with all that pertains to it according to the word of God.”

The long and the short of it is that I think that Independent Reformed Church in Salem, with those eight points that I’ve just read, is markedly different really than Presbyterian denominationalism. It is probably an accurate reflection of the Belgic Confession as it relates to ordination, ministry, or orders.

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Well, let’s move on to congregational polity then, or independency, as some would call it. In independency, the local church rather is totally independent of all other churches. Synods and the like may be held if necessary or desired, rather, but are purely voluntary and have no authority.

The emphasis in congregationalism is the local church. The independents who were at the Westminster Assembly—congregationalists I should call them. They didn’t want to be independent, but they thought each congregation was self-governing and autonomous. There was quite a bit in the history of the Westminster Assembly. It records the battles back and forth between the congregationalists and the Presbyterians, both of whom comprised elements of the Westminster Assembly who produced the Westminster Standards.

Both sides played political games, trying to wait for their people to get into office, apparently, because the civil magistrate had to approve what was done by the Westminster Assembly. Suffice it to say that the document came out more Presbyterian than congregational. And what happened then was the congregationalists then drew up the Savoy Platform fairly quickly after the Westminster Assembly had finished with its work.

And so really it’s important to see that while we’re talking about congregationalism as opposed to Presbyterianism, they both come out of the Reformation. There were very many good men on both sides of this issue. And so you shouldn’t think of it as one would today, where congregationalism means the community rules. Rather it’s ruled by elders or presbyters in the context of a congregation, not a denomination.

Okay. Let’s see. Quoting off this article again: “Whereas to the Presbyterians the Catholic Church seems to be the primary conception and all particular churches are members of it, the congregationalist is clearly all the stress on the particular societies in which Christ commands the called to walk together.”

The Savoy Declaration states that: “Besides these particular churches, there is not instituted by Christ any church more extensive or Catholic entrusted with power for the administration of his ordinances or the execution of any authority in his name.”

“Office is not given by ordination but by calling. The essential elements in a call are election by the church, acceptance by the candidate, and separation by fasting and prayer. It is desirable that there should also be imposition of hands of the elders of the church, if any, but this is not essential.”

And so congregationalism sees ordination as the act of the local church.

Now see, it kind of blends over, doesn’t it? The reformed statement I read from Independent Reformed Church sounds very congregational. And so you see—if you got Presbyterianism here and congregationalism here—many of the reformed churches, as opposed to Presbyterian, are almost in between there. And the whole thing with ordination is all wrapped up in this concept of the local church.

Let me give you a good picture of all this. I know this is probably somewhat confusing. When Doug and I went to Chicago and we went to a Presbyterian denomination general assembly, all you had there were presbyters or elders—ministers—and some of them not from local churches. They’re ordained with no connection to a local church. Those men begin their general assembly with preaching and communion because when they come together in presbytery or in general assembly, they believe they constitute a church, just as this church is constituted.

We come together on the Lord’s day. We’re constituted as a local church of Jesus Christ. We’re to baptize, administer the sacraments, preach, etc. Well, their idea in Presbyterianism is that the presbyters—the presbyters, the elders that is, the ministers—are members not of the local church, but rather of this church called presbytery. Congregationalism says there is no church called presbytery and would not participate in a communion service like that.

They think communion is specifically the act of the local church because that’s where the church really is. You may have elements of it who come together to do things, but that’s not the constituting of a church. Presbyterians think that is the constituting of a church. And that helps you to see the difference somewhat.

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Now we could contrast all this, of course, with episcopalianism, which is even one step more removed from our experience. Episcopalianism believes, of course, that there is apostolic succession. There is an absolute requirement that only bishops ordain ministers to preach, etc. Those bishops are men who have themselves been ordained by bishops who have themselves been ordained by bishops going back to the apostles. So there’s a real stress in episcopacy on the apostolic succession of the ministry.

And as a corollary to that, many in the episcopacy believe in what’s called tactile succession. There must have been the imposition of hands at every step of that process or you don’t really have a truly ordained minister at the end result. Okay.

Now it’s interesting that early on in episcopacy—remember this developed out of the Reformation—they would accept ordinations from Presbyterians. They thought lowly of them, you know, Presbyterian ordination, but they would accept it. Now in the 1800s, at least, I believe into the 1900s, any Presbyterian minister who goes into an Episcopal church must be reordained because his ordination was not legitimate.

You see, so now it must be reordained. The only exception to that are people that come into episcopacy from the Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church, or from Eastern Orthodoxy. Now the Roman Catholic Church believes the Episcopalians are schismatics breaking off—you know, bad—breaking the unity of the church. The Episcopalians see Presbyterians and Congregationalists that way as well, even more schismatic, but they recognize the ordination of the Roman Catholic Church.