Part III
The Relation of the Covenantal Concept of the Church to Local Church Purity
Introduction
We have now advanced in our arguments and understanding to the point where we are ready to show a definite relationship between the covenantal concept of the church and the matter of local church purity. Though we stated the principle of purity which flows from this viewpoint of the doctrine of the church, we state it again and seek to discuss its application to the local church. The principle is this. The local church is to be composed, as nearly as possible, of the elect of God, that is to say, those who are included in the covenant of grace or redemption. That is, only those who are already members of the universal church with its basis on and in the covenant of redemption, and who have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit and have given evidence of such, are fit candidates for membership in the local and visible manifestation of the church.
The writer realizes that to some, who have never been introduced into such a realm of thought concerning the covenant of redemption, this principle may sound revolutionary and even impossible to implement in any sensible or practical way at the local level of the church. This writer contends that if applied properly, it can bring abundant benefits to a local church, but on the other hand it must be admitted, that if it were to be applied by novices in an improper manner, it could have excruciating results. But so does an improper view of the church in any manner bring ruin to a local church, as we have seen.
We now seek to discuss the application of this principle to the local church, noting the benefits and blessings it will bring in the purification of the local body.322
1. The Covenantal Concept of the Church Will Affect Our Evangelism---
Our Theology of Evangelism in Practice and Methods
The effect of such a viewpoint as the covenantal concept of the church on evangelism might very well be the fear that some would have of it. Some might even think that such a view would eliminate evangelism altogether. The writer would argue strongly that this fear is totally inaccurate. It is certainly not sensible nor Scriptural to do evangelistic work in any method or manner, just for the sake of being able to say we are practicing evangelism. On the contrary, our evangelistic practices must be consistent with the Scripture and its theology. It must be done in God's way by God's power, or otherwise we might very well create a monstrosity of methods and means, which get decisions but not true Holy Spirit fruit. Thus we have also created a monstrosity in our churches.
As one is fully committed to the Scriptural basis of the covenantal concept of the church, he will also realize it is not his responsibility, nor does he even have the power within himself, to convert men to Christ. God has a people! He has given them to Christ! We do not know who they are! We do not have the power to call them out nor to redeem them! But it is ours to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and by that means the Holy Spirit will call out God's people and apply the work of Christ to them.
2. The Covenantal Concept of the Church Will Make Us Better Preachers of the Word of God
as We Shall Be More Reliant on the Word and God's Power
and Less Reliant upon Any Power or Ability within Ourselves
Knowing that it is not within us nor even our responsibility to convert men, and knowing that God does His work through the preaching of the Word of God, we will be moved more and more away from the methods of the flesh to the solid preaching of the Word. The result of this preaching of the Word will be truer and more stable converts.
It is the writer's sad conviction that many pastors of our denomination preach very little of the Word of God, even though they may pride themselves on their conservative outlook. The do not take a text, a passage, or a theme, and study exegetically the verses involved, and then build a solid Biblical sermon from these labors. Instead they preach their experiences, others' experiences, and the main portion of the sermon becomes, not the meat of the Word, but stories and illustrations with possibly a verse or two thrown in along the way. One should not think he has preached the Word just because he has excited someone, or given out some information, or read a text, or even gotten some decisions of some kind, or talked about God, Christ or the Bible, or occupied a pulpit for a certain length of time, or emotionalized while in that place. One can do all of these and never preach the word of God.
To preach the Word is to study the Bible in depth, including its grammar, word meanings, the context, the parallel passages, and then to build a sermon from that labor and study. Obviously, to preach the Word one must spend time delving into the Word, and the man who rests in the covenantal concept of the church will joyously and confidently make this his task. He knows then as he goes into the pulpit or into the local field to witness that he has saturated himself in the Word of God and that God will use the Word to convict (Jeremiah 23:29, Hebrews 4:12, Ephesians 1:17), to regenerate and sanctify sinners (I Peter 1:23, James 1:18, Psalms 119:50, John 3:3, Ephesians 5:25-26, I Peter 2:2), according to His will and purpose.
On the other hand, if we feel it is our duty and responsibility to move upon men's wills in order to cause them to make a decision, we will become exciters and exhorters open to the possibility of attracting every foul and offensive method (foul and offensive to God, while possibly pleasing and alluring to men) of evangelism, worship and preaching. Such techniques may get the desired decisions, but not the stable spiritual fruit. Could this be why, as we pointed out in our introduction, so many of our converts go back to their old ways so soon? Could they be Ishmaels, the fruit of the flesh, instead of Isaacs? (see Galatians 4:27-31) Such is the writer's conviction.
3. The Covenantal Concept of the Church Will Bear a Strong Influence
on Our Methods of Receiving New Members into the Local Church
Realizing that only the elect and regenerate are fit candidates for membership in the local church, we will then receive new members joyously, but not with an overzealous blindness, simply because someone has made a profession of faith. Knowing that Satan is always busy seeking to counterfeit or falsify the work of God (see the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, as well as the parable of the wheat and tares in the same passage), we will be careful to warn those desiring baptism and membership of the possibility of a false profession. We will challenge them of the necessity to count the cost of becoming a Christian and following Christ. We will face them with the responsibility which will be theirs as members of the church. We will inform them of the urgency of the church to watch over their souls with a tender and loving care, after they have been received, even to the necessity of admonition and discipline of their lives, should they become unfaithful or lax in the Christian life or interest in the house of God. We will tell them they are uniting with a fellowship of God's people, and that such a union requires a withdrawal from extreme individualistic tendencies, in order to enter into the sacrificial commitment of their person to that local church fellowship, as part of their commitment to Christ. We will demand of them before receiving them some evidence of a true conversion experience and regeneration. We will share with them the standards, doctrines, duties, and obligations of church membership, expressing also what blessings they can expect of the church towards their life, family, and spiritual growth.
The statement that we will lovingly demand evidence of true regeneration may raise the objection that it is impossible to judge such a subjective matter as a man's personal salvation. The writer acknowledges that there is no absolute and infallible process to determine a man's true standing before God, but to say this is not to say we cannot come close or that we should not attempt such a determination. If the new birth is present, there will be a changed life and some evidence, and this changed life surely can be and must be our starting point.
Someone might further object that this is putting someone between a man and God, which is a violation of the priesthood of the believer. Not so! What we are speaking of presently has nothing to do with a man's standing before God, unless our judicial standing is determined by or aided by church membership. No, here we are speaking of determining a man's proper candidacy for membership in the local church, not salvation. The salvation, regardless of what the church says or does in receiving members, is either present or absent, depending on the truth or falsity of the profession. The church not receiving a person who is truly regenerated into the local church cannot make one unregenerate. On the other hand, the church receiving one who is unregenerate does not make such a one regenerate.
4. The Covenantal Concept of the Church Will Strengthen the Concern and Power
of the Local Church to Practice Reformative Discipline
With the concern to receive into the church only the elect of God, there will be also the burden for membership to evidence the truth of that election in their every day lives. It must be acknowledged that even though we might do the best possible task of seeking to determine the truth or falsity of salvation, we shall err at certain points. Therefore, some shall get into the membership of the local church who are not saved. In many of these lives it will become quite evident very soon. It must be admitted, however, that if and as the church applies the covenantal concept of the church, many will never enter the church's fold of membership, who are now received quickly and blindly. Far better to lose a potential member before he is in the church, than to lose him to the inactive or non-resident roll. But even with discipline, the unsaved will slip into the membership of the church at times. Others, who are true Christians, may fall away for awhile. It is here again that the covenantal concept of the church, which demands that the local church be composed of only the elect, comes into the situation to determine our action. In light of this view of the church, the church must go to these in love to deal with them (which may require much time and patience), yet the final outcome must be the purifying of the church, as they either repent and mend their ways or the church in time must discipline them by exclusion. Whatever the case, the church maintains her purity and God is glorified.
As the church is careful in it reception of members to warn, teach, and to challenge the candidates as they are united with the church, the power of discipline will be substantially greater. In other words, if one goes into the local church as a member with his eyes wide open as to his responsibilities and the church's responsibility towards him, these will be aids to discipline, if one were to go astray. For instance, there will be a deeper understanding of the necessity of discipline, when the church does act. There will be a stronger power and agreement in the church itself, when it acts. When, on the other hand, one unites with a church encased in its own individualism, not understanding the need of commitment to God and fellow believers (which may be altogether absent), the church is robbed of its power to discipline, because we have been negligent in our duty to practice formative discipline. We have sanctioned one's uniting with the church, while still couched in individualism with no evident commitment to Christ or the church that the person is joining. The job of discipline then becomes difficult, if not impossible, which seems to be the situation of our day.
It is admitted by the writer, and even warned by him, that the preceding measures, including the theology and practice of the evangelism, which we have advocated (the true preaching of the Word, the proper methods of receiving members, and formative and reformative discipline) will not be easy to instill nor install into the average Southern Baptist local church, especially one of many year's history and habit of its present weak theology and improper practices. The task would be far more simple when beginning a new work. But in the older church, it may take several and possibly many years of faithful preaching and teaching of the Word, especially the theological principles which are the foundation of the methods we have advocated, namely, the doctrine of the covenantal concept of the church and its related themes.
Further, not only must there be patience in the matter, as one seeks to establish a sound theology upon which one can install the Biblical practices, but it will also call for the sacrifice of some ministerial pride, as we may not have as many baptisms to report, nor such a rapid growth in membership. As conditions are now, this reduction in the addition of new members might bring some denominational or associational loss of face, as all the published statistics could not possibly tell the story of our effort to be faithful to the Word of God in building Christ's church. Furthermore, it could put a pastor under great pressure from his own people, because most churches have been trained and entrenched in a statistic consciousness, which causes them to judge the work of the pastor on the shallow basis of statistics, rather than spiritual growth.
Certainly, the one who holds to the covenantal concept of the church knows the Lord has a deeper means of measurement than numbers, and he has not been called to be a statistic counter, but a faithful preacher and witness of the Word of God, trusting the Holy Spirit to use that Word to accomplish the will of God. Such a preacher smiles, as others look at him sympathetically, thinking his lack of statistics and failure to receive large numbers of new members, as they do, proves him to be an inferior servant, who lacks God's power and blessing. He grieves and prays for these brethren, having been in their place and thus knowing the frustrations of a man-centered theology and ministry and evangelism. He prays for them and rejoices in the true Isaacs, which the Lord gives him, knowing he has more true children of God than the preacher working in the flesh (Galatians 4:27). He knows that anyone can produce Ishmaels by human fleshly means, and he even sorrows over the hours when he did the very same thing, which his brethren are doing now. Still, there is a special joy, as he works and labors in the Spirit, trusting God to produce the Isaacs by His supernatural power. Resting in the covenantal concept of the church, he preaches the word in season and out of season. He reproves, rebukes, exhorts using the Word with all long-suffering and doctrine, assured by faith that God will call out the Isaacs---His elect.
The result of it all may be a slower growth, but his church will be a purer church with a deeper fellowship among God's people, as they realize their duties to God and to one another, as well as the true meaning of salvation and regeneration. There will be a deeper worship and truer service rendered to God. In time there will be a stronger testimony to the community concerning the reality of Christ and the genuineness of the church.
Plus, the ministry itself will take on a new joy, which will without doubt benefit God's people, for it will not be a preacher coming to pastor a church to skim superficially the top of the gospel, so that he might wield it to produce a sudden rash of decisions, which have no meaning, and usually concludes with the preacher vaulting to another place of service, after he has shaken loose the easy and unstable souls of men to join his church in a false manner or for a false reason. But the servant of God preaching the Word of God in its depths will take his people ever and always deeper in the truths of the Word, and as a result, into a deeper experience with Christ, not experience for experience sake alone, but as the product of the true ministry of the Word.
In simple words the covenantal concept of the church with its basis in election will so change our thinking and practices in ministry and in the life of the church that the purity of the church will be guarded at every point---in evangelism, in the reception of members, in the teaching and training of prospective members and the membership also, and in reformative discipline. It was the covenantal concept of the church, which bred the doctrine of purity and regenerate membership into the life of the early English Baptists and the early American Baptists. It has been the loss of that concept, which has allowed the loss of purity in Baptist churches in America, even those of the Southern Baptist Convention.
It is the hope of this writer, that at some time in the near future, Baptist pastors and theologians, might once again open the discussion of the doctrine of the church with consideration being given, not only to our Bible, the supreme authority, but also that we might have the wisdom to search our historical backgrounds, noting once again the Scriptural reality of the covenantal concept of the church, as well as it accompanying blessings.
Hill and Torbet seem to feel that a new discussion of the church among Southern Baptists is almost impossible, as they say:
Because Southern Baptists measure success in numbers, any challenge to reappraise their concept of the Church is likely to be only half heard. So long as statistical progress continues, they hear only the challenge to preserve and improve the present conditions.323
To a large degree this writer must agree with this judgment of Southern Baptists. Yet, he has also sensed a searching and unrest among the pastors, at least some of them. Questions are being asked about the converts and their failure to persevere. Why don't they continue? Whose fault is it---mine or theirs? The agreement is that something is wrong, but no one seems to have given a sufficient or proper answer. Some pastors are leaving the ministry in despair and frustration. Is not the reason obvious? With a false concept of the doctrine of the church, which breeds a false concept of the ministry and a man-centered view of evangelism, many Southern Baptist pastors feel great pressure to produce quantity, not quality, in order to satisfy their churches and also that they themselves might advance in the ministry. Then, when pastors do produce quantity instead of quality, frustration often follows for two reasons. First, in using fleshly methods to gain the desired results, there cannot be the peace and joy in the ministry which only the Holy Spirit can bring to the pastor who works Scripturally. Second, additional frustration comes when these results melt and fade away, failing to give any solid evidence of being truly the regenerate people of God.
The covenantal concept of the church is the light and truth of God's Word, which will revolutionize a man's ministry and the local church he pastors. It is a Scriptural concept. It has proven itself in Baptist history. We have seen how and why Baptists left that covenantal concept and we have seen the results of such error. We have also shown what would be the results of returning to this conviction. Though an entire denomination may never return to such a doctrinal commitment, individual pastors and churches may do so, as God's Spirit enlightens and teaches. This paper is dedicated to that end.
(This paper was written in 1973, and it has been a great joy to see the burden of the writer's heart come to fruition in many Baptist churches of our day! The great doctrines of grace held by the early English Baptists have been revived among many Baptists, and with that the ideas of the necessity of the purity of the church have also been put in place in many churches as well. To God be the glory! May this only be the beginning of the purifying of Baptist churches!)
Notes:
322 In case one questions the legitimacy of the contention we shall make for purity in light of the Old Testament Israel, we must remember that though we have one universal church, there are two eras of its administration locally. Therefore, though it is the same church, made up of the elect of God only, in the Old and New Testament eras, not all matters are similar in the Old and New Testament manifestations of the local people of God. The great difference is that the Old Testament church was within a theocracy and a nation (not all Jews of the Old Testament were saved people---as Abraham and others were saved by grace though faith as we are). This does not change the overall clear reality of the two (the elect of all ages) being members of the universal or invisible church, but it does affect the local manifestation.
323 Samuel S. Hill and Robert G. Torbet, Baptists North and South (Valley Forge: The Judson Press, 1964), p. 70.
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