Thoughts on pursuing a Biblical Ecclesiology (6.15.24)
By Jay Wegter
The Lord truly is our “dwelling place in all generations” (Ps 90:1). And author Tom Wells words this truth as follows, to come to God through Christ in faith and repentance is to come home forever, to find our true home. (“Come Home Forever” is the title of one of Wells’ books). The necessity to ‘come home forever’ presupposes that unregenerate man is spiritually homeless, thus, an inveterate wanderer. The natural man craves security and belonging—and does so because he was created to find love (security) and belonging (significance) in his Creator. But since he is alienated from God by sin, in his wandering and spiritual homelessness, he is drawn to a host of counterfeits (false religion, and the lusts and idols offered by this world).
As author Paul Zahl has stated, the gospel touches down like a Texas tornado, bringing justification and forgiveness, and thereby creating supernatural communities which collectively make up the church universal. But argues Zahl, like a tornado, it can lift again if people imagine that the church is a living entity which has been ‘jump-started by Christ’ and can therefore continue to exist in health through its religious forms (which Zahl says is deadening because it is an attempt to objectify that which cannot be objectified).
In this brief reflection, this present author proposes that heretical ecclesiologies sow to, or are designed to appeal to, mankind’s hunger for a true home. For, with that hunger for a true home comes a natural desire for security, stability, importance, esteem, and belonging—and even an identity borne of holding to a common set of values. But how does a heretical ecclesiology appear to provide the chronic wanderer with a true home? And again, by wanderer, I do not mean a church hopper, but a fallen human who is disconnected from his created purpose.
The point I intend to propose is that there is a sub-text commonly issuing from the staff pastor’s pulpit—a kind of sub-audible ‘dog whistle’ that says, “you will find your security and belonging here.” “It is God’s will for you to be here.” “Settle in, you can be spiritual as a supporting spectator of our programmatic structures.” “Your restlessness ends here.” Now the content of that pastoral sub-text above is not blatant ecclesiological heresy, for believers are indeed to bind themselves to other believers in local churches.
But what this present author is contending is that there is a world of difference between seeking to find ‘true home’ in an institution versus finding true home in Christ Himself as He is exhibited, taught, and communicated through discipleship in a faithful local church. As P. T. Forsyth has stated, the Lord is calling church leaders to settle believers upon Christ as their secure foundation—for that is the prerequisite of wisdom and fruitfulness. It is a daily, week by week task to settle believers upon Christ (and not upon influential church leaders). Forsyth warns that it is possible to be converted to one’s religion—to literally worship one’s religion! As David Wells cautions concerning the current sick state of the church in the West, “the church has replaced God.”
As John MacArthur has stated, genuine believers are to be always about the business of translating the vertical love coming down to us from the Lord into the horizontal of our relationships with one another in the Body. That sounds rosy enough, but how is that to be carried out? The answer is found in several texts, Romans 12; 1 Corinthians chapters 12 to 15; and Hebrews 10:19-25 to name a few (the Hebrews passage beautifully illustrates how the vertical is translated into the horizontal).
A church spectator is the opposite of a genuine believer who forms close relationships for the purpose of mutual edification (a form of the word ‘edify’ is used six times in 1 Cor 14). But why don’t more pastors acknowledge that a spectator-filled congregation is the index of an infirm church? The answer touches upon a point vital to biblical ecclesiology: how we do church must reveal Christ’s relationship to His church. He owns it, rules it, indwells it, gives moment to moment life to it, builds it up, disciplines it, loves it, and is enthroned upon its praises. No wonder Paul could say to the Corinthians, “For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin” (2 Cor 11:2).
A spiritually strong church leader is utterly committed to bind believers more closely to Christ and to one another. A weak leader (no matter how engaging his personality and influence) seeks to bind believers to himself. Horror of horrors! For our God warns that He will require/demand His sheep from the foolish shepherds who have coopted the sheep for themselves for selfish reasons (Ezek 34:10). On judgment day, the secrets of the heart will be revealed (Rom 2:16). It will not go well for ministers who have used the local church as their own ‘sand box’ in which to establish their self-esteem.
Do the Scriptures support a professional ministry; a ministry in which the clergy-laity gulf is precipitously wide, and the priesthood of the
believer is invisible? We know the answer is no. But the clergy-laity split can take subtle forms. One of most subtle is arrogating to pastors and elders the authority to make the final decision regarding who is to exercise his or her giftedness in the Body. Does the exercise of giftedness ultimately turn upon the hierarchal authority of a body of elders? To some degree, elders do exercise discernment in determining that a desire to exercise one’s verbal gift ought to be matched by Christian character. But the breakdown by vocational pastors to encourage lay ministry is to be laid at the feet of another cause.
Professional pastors tend to resent being regarded equal to lay ministers. Some have argued that the deeper source of this animas is that laymen ought to unequivocally regard pastor-teacher as an office rather than merely a spiritual gift. That may contribute to the ‘looking over the shoulder’ suspicion held by vocational pastors, but there is something plainer and more evident. This author suggests that vocational pastors have put far more energy into consolidating their positions than in “equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the Body of Christ” (Eph 4:12).
Christ rules His church by the proclamation of His living Word through exegetical, contextually driven, exposition of Scripture. It is Christ’s authoritative word to His people. And as Forsyth has admonished, don’t make your pastor a golden calf. Don’t make him the light, for he is but a bearer of the light. Like Israel of old, God’s covenant people were vying for a human king in whom they could take pride. Through Samuel, God gives the reproof that it was His theocracy, His throne that was being rejected. The parallel today is that in wanting a dynamic pastor, upon which to ‘imprint’ like a security-seeking gosling, church members are short-circuiting their quest to grow in their knowledge of Christ. Paul’s rebuke is, “so then let no one boast in men” (1 Cor 3:21).
Christ has coopted the Holy Spirit, and so much so that the Holy Spirit has an added title under the new covenant, the ‘Spirit of Christ’. As such the Spirit of Christ distributes spiritual gifts as He wills (1 Cor 12:11, see also Eph 4:8-11ff.). This means that Christ not only rules and directs His church by His inscripturated Word, but also by the giftedness of the Body. For He decides which gifts are given, and to whom (1 Cor 12:7, 18). This presupposes that He fully intends the exercise of these gifts in the local assemblies in which He has placed the gifted individuals (Rom 12:3-16).
Can we admit therefore, that control by professionals tends to be in tension with Christ ruling, building, and leading through the
exercise of the gifts He has given? For, the biblical model of ecclesiology embraces the following paradigm. Through interview, opportunity, and discipleship, identify how the Lord has gifted the Body. Next, equip the gifted members to do the work of ministry. Next, release the members to ministry by way of encouragement, opportunity, and in many cases financial support.