What Church?
The Great Dilemma
Introduction
The true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has had a
fundamental inward heart change. God has plucked him from the wide and
broad way that leads to destruction, which is the way of the world, of
the natural man; and placed him on the strait and narrow way that leads
to life (Matthew 7:13,14). God has given him a new heart and a new
spirit has been put within him (Ezekiel 36:26), so that he no longer
follows the way of the world, but begins to love and follow the things
of God instead.
“Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby,
convincing us
of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of
Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to
embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.”
(Westminster
Shorter Catechism Q.31)
Once set upon this path, the believer now spends the rest of his days
on this earth in pursuit of learning more and more about God and His
ways and, with the knowledge thus attained, in trying to put this into
practice in his life. He will never become perfect on this earth, but
with the aid of the Holy Spirit teaching him through the Scriptures, he
will be continually improving, being led along the right path and
growing “in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus
Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).
“Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we
are renewed
in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more
to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.” (Westminster
Shorter
Catechism Q.35)
Only upon his death will he then be translated directly by God to a
place where he will finally be freed from sin, and be able to live a
perfect life.
“At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory,
shall be
openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made
perfectly blessed in full enjoying of God to all eternity.”
(Westminster Shorter Catechism Q.38)
In the meantime, he has to live down here, in this world, with all
these visible organisations calling themselves churches, every one
claiming to be the true church with all the right answers. The poor
man! What is he to do?
Millions of people throughout the world profess Christianity as their
religion. The vast bulk of them are ensconced in the errors of either
popery, with its continually sacrificing Christ again and again in the
mass, or in Eastern Orthodoxy, with its elevating of all the decisions
of the first seven Ecumenical Councils above the Scriptures. Both of
these huge organisations have degenerated so much that the true way of
salvation has been completely obscured. Most of the poor wretches in
these churches (who we can have nothing but pity for) are there either
ignorantly, or because they were born into the church and know nothing
else, or out of fear of reprisals from the clergy or their own families
if they ever considered leaving.
When we then look at the Protestant churches, do we find much
different? We ought to find God's blessing there, after all, they
became the "keepers of the oracles of God" (Romans
3:2) and the "pillar
and ground of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15) at the
Reformation. They saw
these abuses in the church and began to correct them, putting the Bible
back into its true authoritative position once again. But what do we
now see? The Protestant churches have fragmented a thousand different
ways, each group having nothing to do with any of the others, and each
having their own set of theological beliefs which they are convinced is
the truth. An "infallible" pope has been replaced by an army of
"infallible" preachers speaking "ex cathedra" from
their pulpits, whom
nobody is allowed to question.
But this cannot be possible. There is only one truth that exists in
reality, the truth of the Bible. But just as every individual believer
in the world makes mistakes in his interpretation of Scripture by
reason of the infirmity of his sinful flesh, so, no one church can ever
claim a monopoly on truth. Otherwise we have a sect, not a true church.
So, as we are faced with a plethora of churches around us, which one do
we join?
The Impossibility
of a True Visible Church
First of all, we need to get into our heads two facts with regards the
doctrine of the church:
(1) It is
impossible to have a visible church that has all the truth.
On 18th April 2008, the pope visited New York. Faced with a nation
where there are thousands of little groups all claiming to be
Christian, he said: “Allowing individual congregations to
interpret the
gospel undermines evangelism at a time when the world is losing its
bearings and needs persuasive common witness to salvation in Christ.”
What is wrong with that statement? On the face of it, it appears good.
You only have to watch the religious channels on television, or look on
the internet to find thousands upon thousands of tinpot groups all
claiming to be Christian and to have the truth, none of which has any
connection with any of the others. The fact is that none of them have a
monopoly on truth at all. The best we can say is that some have more
truth than others. And this is where the pope is wrong. He believes (as
do many people) that he is that “persuasive common witness”
that is
needed, whereas in reality he is just another leader of a tinpot group
like all the rest. Just because the Roman Catholic church is large
numerically, this makes no difference. Nobody, not even the pope,
should ever be arrogant enough to claim that he has a monopoly on truth.
As Christians, we believe that truth (or at least all the truth that
God has decreed for us to know in this world) is supernaturally
revealed by God in the Bible. The 66 books which make up the Old and
New Testaments in the original languages are directly inspired of God
and are “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for
instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect,
thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy
3:16,17). This is
the only source of truth we have. God does not speak directly to men
any more (“to seal up the vision and prophecy”
(Daniel 9:24); “God, who
at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the
fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his
Son” (Hebrews 1:1,2)). All the truth we need to know is here
in all the
logical statements of the Bible and all the logical conclusions that
can be deduced by good and necessary consequence from them. This is our
final source of authority.
But there are two problems. The first one is that many people do not
stop there, and introduce other information from other sources into the
system. The obvious example of this is the Roman Catholics adding “the
traditions of the church” to operate alongside Scripture, with
supposedly equal authority (although these “traditions” will always end
up usurping Scripture when the crunch comes). Again, if we start to
introduce archaeology, science or history from sources outside the
Bible into our thinking, we are adding material that MAY be in error –
we can’t be sure whether it is true or not, because the source is
fallible (unlike the Bible). So, consequently, we MAY go astray from
the truth at this point.
Now, it is possible for a totally unbiased person to open a Bible and,
with the use of reason and logic alone, come to a knowledge of the
truth. And here we come across the second problem, in that nobody is
unbiased. We are all fallen in our forefather Adam having eaten the
forbidden fruit, and:
“All mankind, by their fall, lost communion with God, are
under His
wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to
death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever”
(Westminster Shorter
Catechism Q.19).
So in our wretched, enslaved state, which is our life in this world,
all men only ever see what they want to see, which is invariably not
the truth, because the truth is unpalatable to men by nature because it
condemns them as sinners against a holy God. So again they go astray
from the truth.
Hence, because of these two problems, we see that nobody can search out
truth perfectly, we all make mistakes, not least because of our natural
bias. So we can conclude that no one person, and (note especially) no
one church (which is made up of a collection of people) has a monopoly
on the truth. All we can say is that some have more truth than others.
Now as Christians, the truth is important to us, because it is our
guide. Without it, we would, by definition, be living a lie. We need to
know the truth so that we can order our lives in the light of it. This
is the life long, ongoing pursuit of the Christian, which will not be
complete until death takes him away. We all grow in the faith as
individuals, and we all die as individuals. True believers will all be
heading the same way, but at the same time there will always be
differences between them whilst they are in this world. All of us are
wrong somewhere.
Blindly following a church, or any individual, right or wrong, is not
true religion; it is rather the religion of blind faith, from which the
Reformation was supposed to have cleansed us.
Very few people had books in previous generations, and the Bible was
only found in scriptoriums in monasteries etc. People had to rely on
the priest. Where he stuck to Scripture they had the truth in their
heads. But most priests either didn’t have access to the Bible or
deliberately kept it from the people, for their own ends – i.e. so the
people would get to rely on the priest himself for all their spiritual
needs. It is similar in Evangelical circles today. People are reliant
on preachers telling them what to believe, because the preachers are
the only ones who supposedly know the original Hebrew and Greek, and
have been “educated” in these things, so they are blindly followed.
Nobody ever thinks of actually looking up the Hebrew and Greek words
for themselves (which is easy enough to do, with today’s
Bible aids).
No, blindly following that nice man in the pulpit is a far easier
option than actually thinking through things for oneself. Preachers in
Protestant circles are far too highly exalted these days.
(2) It is
impossible to have a visible church that has every true
believer in it
We have been given details in the Bible as to how to organise visible
churches. So, ordinarily, we should do so. But, once we start
organising, things start going wrong! Apart from the fact that
hypocrites will want to get in and take over (which is another problem
altogether, which we are not dealing with here); a church, quite
understandably, wants to formulate a Creed, or Confession of Faith, in
order to define and keep the testimony of the truth. But once just one
doctrinal item is accepted by the church as true, that church can no
longer cater for every single true believer that there is in the world.
Some, who are genuinely born again of the Spirit of God, will not yet
have come to embrace the truth on this one doctrinal item that has just
been introduced. So as soon as one doctrine is accepted by the church
as true, we automatically begin to exclude true believers from the
visible church.
Now consider a church that has many doctrines accepted by that church
as true. Take the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland for example,
which not only has the whole Westminster Confession of Faith as its
standard, but it also holds to a lot of other church practices as well,
most of which are indeed correct Scriptural practices. The church would
rightly agree on the one hand that the only criterion for membership
into the church would be a credible profession of Christ, but on the
other hand they would then refuse into membership those who do not
agree with them on all these other issues. In fact, by denying
membership to people who do not hold their view on just two practices,
exclusive psalm-singing and Sabbath transport, they are denying
membership to 99.999% of all truly born-again Christians, just on these
two issues alone. Again, I have to emphasise that I am not using this
church to criticise their practices, I believe most of them to be
right, good and Scriptural; but I use this church simply to highlight
the problem. No matter how much a church tries to hold to the truth and
defend it; the more it tries to do so, the larger the number of true
believers who will be excluded from it, because these true believers
themselves are still growing in the faith and haven’t yet come to a
right knowledge of every one of these truths. These folk are indeed
very welcome in such congregations, but they are also welcome in many
other churches, and if they have a choice, they will always end up
migrating to the church nearest in belief to what little light they
have received so far. Hence the multitudinous variety of churches
exists and continues.
Church councils do not make truth. E.g. It is common to believe that
the church decreed what books should be in the canon of Scripture, and
that this was supposedly eventually done at the Council of Carthage in
396AD. This idea is particularly used by Roman Catholics to defend
their (false) belief that the church comes before Scripture, and so is
the higher authority. In fact, the Council of Carthage did not decree
what Scripture was at all. Scripture was Scripture as it came off the
pen of the writer, not when a church council decreed it to be so.
Indeed, Carthage got it wrong, because when it came to the Old
Testament, they decreed that the Greek translation of the Septuagint
(which includes the Apocrypha) was canonical, which is not true. The
Hebrew Scriptures are canonical, not a Greek translation with additions
to it. E.g. Similarly, the Council of Nicea in 325AD decreed the
doctrine of the Trinity. The film/book The DaVinci Code
rightly
ridicules the idea of a church council decreeing truth by arguing that
this would mean that one day Christ was not God, and the next day
(after Nicea had decreed it), He was God, and that all those who
disagree with the church today (but didn’t yesterday) can now be hunted
as heretics. This all goes to prove that councils do not decree truth,
God does. Christ always was God, whether a church council has decreed
it or not.
In any case, although language is the only tool we have to describe
things, language is limiting. How can you adequately define the
Trinity? The Nestorians left the orthodox religion because they
couldn’t agree on the wording that the church
councils came up with
regarding the two natures of Christ. But they shouldn’t be completely
dismissed because of this. You don’t need to believe the official
wording of the doctrine of the Trinity to be saved, but the problem is
that you are not considered to be a member of the visible church if you
don’t.
Many people think that what is needed is for true believers everywhere
to all come out of the old denominational structures and form pure
churches, and everything will be all right. But here we have just
proven that the whole concept of calling out a pure church from amidst
gross error is a complete impossibility. So we shouldn’t try.
Diagramatic
Representations of the Church
Two diagrams may or may not help here.
(1) First of all let us look at a graph with truth on the x-axis and
number of truly born-again believers on the y-axis. Remember, all true
believers are growing in the truth all the time, so they should all be
slowly heading along the x-axis in a positive direction.
At any one time, only some true believers will be within a visible
church. People will be outside either (A) because they are ignorant
(infants, imbiciles or new believers) or (C) because they have embraced
so
much truth that no church can satisfy them, and they feel they cannot
join any without becoming culpable in knowingly propagating error.
Orthodox churches range from being very liberal, which would attract
mostly ignorant believers (as there would not be much truth there, but
lots of error), to very strict, which would have lots of truth
(although still some error, as no church is perfect) but would only
attract believers who have come to agree with that particular church on
most or all of the issues concerned, i.e. these
churches would always
be small.
True believers will inevitably have to change churches every so often,
as they come to embrace more and more truth. In the end, though, if the
Lord does not take them away first, they will eventually come into area
C, where no church is found to satisfy. Praise the Lord that our real
home is in the heavens and not down here!
"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the
earth. For ye
are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."
(Colossians 3:2-3).
(2) The other diagram is in the form of a cone:
This diagram needs more explanation.
The cone represents the visible church. Unregenerate men are
represented as those who can’t “fly,” so they can’t even begin to head
towards the apex of the cone “ALL TRUTH,” or “PERFECTION” if you prefer
it to be called. Their hearts and minds are darkened “Having
the
understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through
the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart”
(Ephesians 4:18).
But they can “jump” a bit. Some will come into contact with the truth
(through the Bible) and get to understand some of it correctly. So they
may get off the ground to some extent, they might even be held there
for a time by a church or SECT (see later), but they will quickly
return to earth, as they don’t embrace any of it. The natural bent for
man is downwards. He hasn’t got “wings.”
Upon regeneration, God gives a man a new heart, and he now, for the
first time, is able to head upwards on the “wings” of faith. His
natural bent is still downward, but as God enables him, he can begin to
head toward the ideal “ALL TRUTH.” “Be ye holy for I am holy”
(1 Peter
1:16). Nobody can reach that point in the distance called “ALL TRUTH”
at the apex of the cone, but that is what all true believers should at
least be aiming for.
Long before anyone reaches “ALL TRUTH” they will die, as God cuts them
off from the land of the living and translates them directly to heaven
to inhabit new bodies that will know “ALL TRUTH” and will be perfect,
i.e. that no longer have a bent downwards.
Each individual new believer starts from a unique point in space,
whether outside the cone (visible church), or within. Many
start from the ground, but some, with some background knowledge of the
Scriptures, will have a “jump” start, others will start well by being
born into a family where truth has been imbibed since birth. As God
reveals truth to them through the Scriptures, they head upwards towards
“ALL TRUTH.” They all grow “in grace and in the knowledge of
our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). This is not
necessarily a
straight road, because we get influenced by other people.
In theory, we should all be trying to help each other forwards on our
journey towards “ALL TRUTH.” But people, being people, tend rather to
try to attract other people towards themselves and their own ideas of
what is right, which is not necessarily the same as helping them
forwards towards “ALL TRUTH” at all.
But as we stay close to Christ and His Word, we will see our mistakes
and correct ourselves and continue on the journey.
Note at this point that because we all start from different positions,
and are all heading towards the same point, so by definition no two of
us on this earth are ever fully agreed. We should never expect this to
be the case. This is important to know, because in many churches it is
drummed into the members that we should never disagree with one
another, but always at least outwardly show perfect agreement with each
other and with the church at all times, otherwise the witness of the
church is supposedly ruined. This is not so. It is perfectly normal to
have differences whilst we are on this earth. We need to understand and
accept that. Of course, the nearer we all get to “ALL TRUTH,” the
nearer we will naturally come to each other, without even thinking
about it.
The blobs in the diagram represent SECTS. They can be cults, or
denominations, or evangelical churches – all of these I have defined as
a “SECT.” They all have one thing in common which is that they have all
been started by particularly dominating individuals who have persuaded
other people that they have a monopoly on truth, and that everyone
should be following them, rather than heading towards “ALL TRUTH.” In
fact, they believe that they have already arrived at “ALL TRUTH.”
Examples of this in real life include the pope (the largest sect leader
in the world), television evangelists with their smooth words, or a
dominating preacher. All of these I have
defined as a “SECT,” because they lead people away from their path of
following “ALL TRUTH,” claiming they in the “SECT” have all the truth
themselves. Once entrapped by a “SECT,” people think they have arrived,
and blindly follow the “SECT” wherever it goes. This is, sadly, the
state of most true believers today. The Lord may keep them in that
state for a long time, but eventually, if He doesn’t terminate their
lives first, He will lead them out again and back onto the right path.
Note that all the “SECTS” have some truth. That is why they are so
dangerous. They also demand error to be embraced by demanding blind
implicit faith in the church, or leader. But people who are caught up
in them cannot see that, until or unless the Lord reveals it to them.
These “SECTS” are like blood clots that get in the way and restrict the
path to “ALL TRUTH.” As they linger, future generations are born and
grow up in them, who are not born-again true believers, but they are
held in the “SECT” and don’t easily float back down to the ground
again, which, because they are without “wings,” they otherwise would
do. Once they renounce the “SECT,” they fall to rock bottom – unless
they have renounced the “SECT” because they have been born-again of
God’s Spirit, of course.
All of us need good teaching, but a “SECT” that sets itself up as the
only church with ALL the truth, must be a lie, because nobody in this
world has “ALL TRUTH.” Never blindly follow a “SECT.”
The Followed and
the Followers
As we have seen, at any time, on any one subject, some people have been
led (by God) into more light than others. Consequently, nobody on earth
has all the truth. All of us embrace truth and error as a mixture, and
then we have to weed out the error as we receive light from the
Scriptures to do so. As we grow in the faith, we hope we are growing
more and more in embracing the truth and rejecting the error, but we
never on this earth achieve that completely.
This is a vital concept to understand. This is because, in all churches
(whatever denomination), two types of people exist, neither of which
seems to understand this concept at all. These two types are the
“followers” and the “followed.” Because of our totally depraved nature,
we all have a propensity to worship the creation rather than the
Creator. Today, in the Western world this manifests itself in our
following men, especially if they are charismatic, dominating,
smooth-talking orators, who have the ability to hold people’s
attention. These “followed” tend to attract a following, and the
“followers” tend to want to find someone to blindly follow.
In the church scene this problem is everywhere. The “followed” know
what they believe, think they are right, and will not budge for anyone.
These pushy people will force themselves into positions of authority in
the church, and attract their own followers. The “followers” think that
those they follow are right on everything. This leads them into holding
a tradition, and having the threat of being ostracised by their
families and friends hanging over them if they ever dare criticise “the
vain conversation received by tradition from your forefathers”
(1 Peter
1:18). Even if their forefathers taught the truth, we should not
blindly follow them; but so many people do, because they can’t bear to
believe that their fathers were wrong. This is back to the world before
the Reformation, when men followed men blindly, rather than the
ploughboy having the Scriptures to read and think through for
himself.
If two of the “followed” in a church ever clash, what tends to happen
is that eventually a split or disruption occurs in the church, and the
two eventually go their own separate ways – each taking their blind
followers with them. Hence we have the fragmentation of the church. So
when we walk down the street and see so many different denominations,
then this is invariably what has happened.
It is wrong to blindly follow men. We should be neither followed, nor
blind followers. We should instead be people who want to know truth,
and are prepared to change our beliefs as soon as we receive more light
as we become convinced by Scripture and guided by the Holy Spirit of
the truth.
This is not to say that we should be wishy-washy, changing our minds
every five minutes – the Holy Spirit does not convince of truth like
that. Neither should we not be willing to be taught and helped by
others, as long as we realise that no man has all truth, and that no
man should be blindly followed. In fact, if we blindly follow, and have
to rely on someone else all the time to know what to believe, then we
don’t really know it for ourselves, and therefore we don’t believe it!
It will also do us no good whatsoever on Judgment day, when we are all
set before God as individuals. No other man, or church will be able to
help us then.
Nobody is 100% right, yet in the church (whatever denomination), you
are expected to believe everything you are taught, or else you
eventually get into trouble, without looking for it. This is indeed the
lot of the true believers in this world. Cf. the
man born blind (John
9).
We are constantly changing, and the churches are too (they occasionally
add to or take away from their constitutions), but not in the same way
or at the same time as we are. So we will never be in agreement with
the church we are in – unless we are blind followers of course, in
which case we will follow the church (and its leaders) wherever it goes.
The “followed” will tend to make sure that their own little church
fully embraces 100% their own theology. (How convenient!) The
“followers” will blindly follow. But every church, no matter who starts
it, will still have errors in it, because all of us are wrong
somewhere. In history, whenever a church has experienced the Lord’s
revival to some degree, ordinary believers did not “come out” and start
a new denomination, but rather brought their revived religion into the
already existing churches, with all their foibles. Christ Himself said
“The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: all
therefore
whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye
after their works: for they say, and do not.” (Matthew
23:2,3). Knowing
all the corruptions in the church, He never told them to come out and
form something new.
The “followers” will always look to “mother church” to give them all
the answers, so they can follow blindly. This is not faith, but the
blind leading the blind into a ditch (Luke 6:39). The
Protestant
Reformation occurred in an attempt to get us away from exactly this
kind of thinking. Our duty is to repent and believe, not repent and
blindly follow anyone.
What then shall we
do?
So, again, the big question is: What church do we join? No church can
be recommended because that would be recommending error. So what do we
do?
Time is short. This life is a preparation for the next world. It is not
church politics. Whereas we should do all we can to promote truth and
righteousness, both in ourselves and in the church, our great comfort
is that the true church is invisible, and not a visible manifestation
of a church at all, and Christ will build His church
(invisibly to the
human eye), and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it (Matt.
16:18). Not one of His flock will be lost, no man is able to
pluck them
out of the Father’s hand (John 10:29). Those who
reach glory
(by the grace of God) will be a number that no man could
number
(Revelation 7:9). These are the comforts of the true believer in this
life.
We also see in the Scriptures that we are to expect our fiercest
persecution to come from church authorities. Christ found most of His
persecution came from the church leaders, so His followers should not
expect anything less. Not that we should deliberately look for
persecution, but we should expect it, if we are following Christ – i.e.
truth and righteousness – and not men.
These days, whenever someone comes along and questions the status quo
in a church, they are never usually just thrown out. If the church did
this, it would make them look bad in the world’s eyes. Instead, the
favourite ploy of today’s churches is to sideline them, hoping that
they will eventually leave anyway. And it usually works.
It never ceases to amaze me that the words “truth” and “righteousness”
never emanate from the lips of the “followed.” Rather, if any difficult
matter arises, they tend to pray for “wisdom”– which, if devoid of
truth and righteousness, could mean wisdom to be able to do the
politically correct thing that will keep the boat steady, regardless
of
truth and righteousness.
In John 12:42,43, they did not confess Christ before the church leaders
in case they were cast out of the visible church. This was, we are
told, because they "loved the praise of men more than the
praise of God."
This implies that we should be prepared to be cast out if necessary, in
order to get praise from God.
In John 9, the man born blind was cast out of the synagogue because he
stood up to the church leaders. We are not told what happened to him
afterwards.
In John 16:2 “They shall put you out of the synagogues”
– A warning
from Christ, so we should all be ready for it.
Consequently, we should not be too bothered about our status in the
visible church. If we can join one and be able to do good, and even
learn something, then that’s fine. We should not forsake the assembling
of ourselves together if we can help it (Hebrews 10:25). But if not,
then that’s fine too.
God leads us as individuals, through experiences, in order to convince
us of the truth. This might mean embracing falsehoods for a time, in
order that we may learn and know from first hand experience that things
are false. Indeed this is the best way of getting us to learn.
Fellowship with other true believers is important too, as coming into
contact with others, who have had different experiences from ourselves
as the Lord has led them in the truth, is also a very helpful thing for
us.
Very importantly, we must always remember that the lines of those who
are true believers and those who are not, cut right across the lines of
those who are inside and those who are outside the visible church.
I am therefore rapidly coming to the conclusion that all these splits
in the church, and splits off splits, are a waste of time. Of course we
should have split from Rome in the Reformation, because Rome had become
totally corrupted, because it believed (and still believes today) that
salvation is received by “magic,” in simply taking the Mass. No
heartfelt inner change is required, no looking to the shed blood of
Christ, which is the only true source of salvation. All these things
are alien to Rome. And it demands blind obedience. But beyond that,
should anyone ever split from the one established church in their land,
no matter how bad it becomes? If there was only one official Protestant
church in your country, and everyone had to join it, all other
organisations being banned; then at least there you would meet all the
fellow believers that there are in your area, which you wouldn’t do
otherwise. If you insist on becoming a member of the most doctrinally
pure church you can find, you would never meet most of these people,
because they would never be allowed into membership. Yes, we all carry
baggage, and have plenty of error we need to get rid of, but we
shouldn’t isolate ourselves, even if the Lord really has convicted us
of more truth than most people.
Discussion Questions
Other questions we may wish to consider:
(a.) Is “church membership” in the Bible? After all, we are told “Let
a
man examine himself” (1 Corinthians 11:28), not “let the
elders
examine him.”
(b.) If the Westminster Confession is correct when it says that “the
visible church….consists of all those throughout the world that profess
the true religion, and of their children,” is an
excommunicated member
still in the visible church, if he still “professes the true religion”?
Do we have to be a “member” in a visible organisation which calls
itself a church to “profess the true religion”?
(c) Why should the church have to be “public” meetings and in “public”
buildings?
(d) How many individuals were true believers before the Reformation?
What church did they go to? How did they survive?
(e) How much baggage do we have, imbibed from our surroundings?
(f) The bishop of Milan before Ambrose was an Arian, and the Arian
controversy went on for a long time after the Council of Nicea, taking
in 75% of the visible church at one point. How would we have reacted if
we were alive in those days?