FBC Cracker Barrel, Part 2
Last week we began thinking through Christian Cracker Barrel Coffee Clubs and true, local, New Testament churches. You can read that article here.
The reason we need to get this right is because our definition of a true New Testament church will also guide us in our work in the church. What exactly is a church? How we define it is how we’ll live it out. Is the church a social club for moral support? Is it a Political Action Committee for social change? Is it first and foremost an engine for social good and human flourishing? Or is it something else?
Let me repeat what I said last week:
In His departing for heaven, Christ left certain structures in place. We can see this in passages such as Matthew 16:15-20, 18:15-20, 28:18-20, and we will examine these passages in greater detail in forthcoming articles. In summary, the church exercises its authoritative keys by baptizing people into the church and teaching them everything that Christ commanded.
Therefore, we must have (1) the pure preaching of the Word of God and (2) the right administration of the ordinances. There’s a lot that is bound up in that. There’s a lot that flows out of that. But you can’t say less than that. This is what makes a church ‘a church.’ You cannot take either of these two things away and still have a church: the pure preaching of the gospel and the right administration of the ordinances. These are the two marks of the church.
So taking it back to the beginning: at what point do a couple of dudes drinking coffee at Cracker Barrel finally become FBC Cracker Barrel? The short answer is when they make a commitment to the pure preaching of the Word of God in the gospel and they commit to administer rightly the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper together. In other words, they make a covenant together to obey God’s word in these specific ways. They commit to have the Word preached, and they commit together to obey that Word, which includes following Jesus in obedience to how He directed His church to exercise the two signs He gave to the church and then calling on others to do the same, joining them in obedience to Jesus, baptizing them and discipling them. It is the Word of God that changes men’s hearts to live together in obedience within the context of the church; or in other words, the preached word makes the matter fit for the form.
Where Did These Ideas Come From?
First, where did we get that language about the right preaching of the gospel and the right administration of the ordinances? Who first talked about the marks of a true church?
The Dutch Reformed Church published the Belgic Confession in 1567, which says this:
The true church can be recognized if it has the following marks: The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel; it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them; it practices church discipline for correcting faults. In short, it governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it and holding Jesus Christ as the only Head. By these marks one can be assured of recognizing the true church– and no one ought to be separated from it. [Belgic Confession, Article 29: The Marks of the True Church]
The Dutch Reformed Church gathered together to set forth their understanding of Scripture, and that included what they believed was the definition of a true church, in contrast to those people who falsely claimed to be a church. They identified two marks: (1) the pure preaching of the gospel, and (2) the pure administration of the ordinances as Christ instituted them. (I would argue that “practicing church discipline for correcting faults” is not a third mark, but the faithful administration of the Lord’s Supper, which is one of the two ordinances in “mark #2”. To fence the Table means to sometimes bar when necessary certain persons from taking communion; hence the term ex-communication; to no longer take communion.)
These two, outward, visible realities are objective markers that an outside observer can investigate to determine if a church is a true church or a false church.
First, we are able to compare a church’s preaching and teaching to the standard of Scripture to determine if they adhere to the faith once-for-all delivered to the saints. The Apostle Paul expected Timothy to “hold to the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.” There is a standard of doctrines that can be passed down, held to, and guarded. Paul calls this objective body of knowledge a treasure. “Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you” (2 Timothy 1:13-14).
Second, outside observers are also able to investigate if a church is rightly practicing the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper as they are faithfully presented in Scripture. I’ll write several forthcoming articles on this topic.
Another Trusted Voice in Church History
Let me direct your attention to a theologian that influenced the Dutch Reformed Church in their writing of the Belgic Confession. John Calvin, the French theologian, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), wrote this in book 4, chapter 1:
10. Marks and authority of the church. We have said that the symbols by which the Church is discerned are the preaching of the word and the observance of the sacraments, for these cannot any where exist without producing fruit and prospering by the blessing of God…When the preaching of the gospel is reverently heard, and the sacraments are not neglected, there for the time the face of the Church appears without deception or ambiguity…Wherefore let these marks be carefully impressed upon our minds, and let us estimate them as in the sight of the Lord. There is nothing on which Satan is more intent than to destroy and efface one or both of them…If [a church] holds the order instituted by the Lord in word and sacraments there will be no deception; we may safely pay it the honour due to a church: on the other hand, if it exhibit itself without word and sacraments we must in this case be no less careful to avoid the imposture than we were to shun pride and presumption in the other. [for more, see paragraphs 7-12)
In subsequent articles, I will spend time showing how these sorts of conclusions come from various passages of Scripture. But in the above quote, Calvin said that the two marks that allow the universe Church to become visible and seen as the local church are (1) the preaching of the word and (2) the observance of the sacraments (also called ordinances). A so-called church that does not faithfully preach the word or rightly observe the ordinances has no right to be called a church.
You might be asking at this point, why are the right preaching of the Word and the right administration of the ordinances given such prominence by these theologians? What gives them the right to determine what is the true church and what is not? Who do they think they are to declare which “marks” make the invisible, universal Church visible as a true, local church?
Some of you may also be thinking, What is the connection between the ordinances and the preaching of the Word? How are these two related? Why did Calvin and the Dutch Reformers tie these two marks so tightly together?
So What Is the Answer, Then?
Sorry. I’m leaving you on another cliff-hanger today. But let me give a brief outline for next week’s article: God expects His people to hear His Word and to do His Word. That is how we know which people on earth are His people.
When the pure preaching of God’s Word in the gospel is presented, some people will be saved and are united to Christ in the New Covenant. If they are truly God’s people, then they will be led by God’s Spirit to want to rightly practice God’s Word as He commanded. We’ll learn more about this, as well as about a particular Baptist, in the next article.