In an earlier comment on a previous post, Steve requests a more detailed defense of the position I had taken concerning how the "minimum" requirements for recognizing a "genuine" Church of Christ can be understood.
Steve says:
What I would specifically like to see you talk about more deeply are the criteria that you propose (Gospel, sacraments, discipline) as they relate to the following questions:
1. You stated in your post (response to Mike Russell) that "love" was too subjective, and gave an example of how only 10% of the congregation may be loving in a true way. But then you proposed the criteria I mentioned above by saying they a) stood the test of time, and b) are more objective. How are they more objective? What if only 10% of the congregation are taking communion with pure motives?
INTRO: mounting the soapbox for a moment.
I think ecclesiology is one of the most under-valued and abused Biblical doctrines in modern day Evangelicalism. Because of the centuries long trend away from "man in community" toward "exalted individualism", Christianity has suffered greatly in its witness and influence within the social structures of recent history. As the focus of Christianity, through a variety of influences, has tended toward a spirituality which is almost exclusively understood in terms of "me and Jesus", the corporate aspects of salvation, of anthropology itself, and of God's Kingdom purposes has lost much of the power to shape and govern lives that God intends for His people to possess. So, even to approach the excellent questions Steve asks is to have in mind the larger imperative of God's Sovereign purpose and intentions for His Church. There is no possibility that a full blown exposition of these things can even be attempted in this type of format, but as I address the specifics, it is the larger picture which shapes, governs and assigns priorities to the individual issues being discussed.
Main Body:
In this post, I will try to come at Steve's first question. He asks how the criteria of (1) rightly preaching the Gospel, (2) rightly administering the Sacraments and (3) rightly administering discipline, are more "objective" in demarcating a genuine Church than "love of God" and "love of each other."
I will begin an answer with the idea of "mensuration." For something to be objective in any sense, it must possess the possibility of being measured. The degree to which something can be measured is the "measure" of its objectivity (can't think of any other way to say it). In an earlier post with Mike, I commented that the problem with "love" being used as a guage in determining the presence of a "true church" always comes down to the statement: "love as demonstrated in ...." (fill in the blanks). In other words, for Mike or Steve or anyone else to use "love" in any kind of objective sense, they must first put it in terms of something that can be measured. These people love each other as is evident in the way they......... (fill in the blanks again.)
So, mensuration, must always be present in order for any degree of objectivity to be assessed. The decision to classify a group of people as a "true church" or as "not a true church" cannot reside in simple "feeling" about that group unless (See Warnock's stuff on Charismatics) one has a subjectively experienced "message from God" - and now you have to worry about how to distinguish (measure) what constitutes a "message from God" from what are the effects of last night's pizza working in my intestines.
So, as I commented to Mike, when someone attempts to use "love" as the criterion, it always results in some objective manifestation that actually become the basis on which the determination is made. Thus it is not "love" but the activities of "love" that constitutes the true demarcation.
Now, given that, we deal with the problems raised by 1 Cor. 13 where the activities of "love" - giving our bodies to the flames, etc. profit us "nothing" if love is not actually present. Here we understand that "love" can be counterfeited by activities. So a person or group of people can do "loving things" without "loving". How does one truly know when the things being done flow from heart that is truly loving? Simply put, one can't. Only God (Christ) knows the heart. Even the individual may be deceived into thinking that he or she are actually being motivated by "love" and therefore think they are serving God, when actually they may be being used by God but not to their own eternal benefit.
So, I think it is clear, that "love", "true love", "genuine love" requires an assessment far beyond the reach of any individual to determine whether or not it is even present in a group. One may "experience" love, one may "feel loved", within a group, but one cannot speak authoritatively in such a case anything other than that is the effect that certain actions have had on me. They cannot truly declare that the motive of the actions actually were loving.
But, one can say that the actions themselves, the measurable activities that communicate love, were present. And therefore, we can say that these activities can be used to determine whether a group of people can be called "a loving group" or not.
Now, the question that is being addressed is - "what measurable qualities are to be understood as being the most basic elements that will distinguish a group of people as being a true or genuine church, when present and will exempt a group from being a true or genuine church when absent?"
The activities of "rightly preaching the Gospel, righly administering the Sacraments, and rightly exercising discipline" are, on inspection, capable of being measured, at least to some extent, because they do not depend on the motive or impetus behind them. As Steve correctly notes, "what if only 10% of the congregation are taking communion with true motives?" does that mean that criterion of "right sacramental administration fails?" - I say "No" because, prima facie, the criterion is not the motive of administering or receiving, but on the actual adminstering itself.
Throughout the ages, God has honored the sacraments to be "means of grace". They, like preaching, work in the lives of people to change them and cause them to grow. If the sacraments are being "rightly" administered, then the promises of Scripture that God's Word will not return to Him void (Isa. 55:11) come into play. I am not saying that the efficacy of the sacraments are divorced from the necessity of faith, but I am saying that the power of God will be present in the sacraments, as it is in preaching, to cause faith to spring forth and grow, when, like with preaching, it is rightly and properly done.
So, the sacraments become the means by which "love of God" and "love of the brothers" is caused to grow. They are instruments of "God's Love" which is alone the foundation of all hope of there being a Church in the world at all. To the extent that God Loves, then His Church will prosper through His means of Grace.
Now, the actual idea of mesuration itself. How does one measure the idea of "rightly", either in preaching, administering the sacraments or in exercising discipline? This brings into the equation the standard of measurement.
Love, cannot be measured by anything except in the demonstration. Ask a person to measure out a pint of love, or a yard of love, and one cannot even come close to making sense. Steve or Mike might demur and say, but, one could distinguish between "rightly loving" or not. The problem with "rightly loving" vs its opposite is that the opposite of "rightly loving" is "not loving" or using the Biblical term, "hating." If one does not love "rightly" then one cannot truly be said to love at all. "Lust" is what we call failing to love rightly when one is overly concerned with sensuality. The argument can be multiplied.
Now with the Sacraments, preaching and discipline, we are not only able to measure whether or not they are rightly being observed, but we have been given the standard by which to make the determination. Any and every criterion that is advanced by which one is to measure the presence of a true church, will always reduce to one statement - The Scriptures as the authority by which the determination is made.
The Scriptures describe love in terms of how it is manifested which is all they can do ("For God so loved the world that He gave....") But, again, it is accurately, inerrantly and infallibly defining something which we would not be able to measure if the Scripture did not tell us that this action by God constituted a truly loving action. If we were to give our son, or our lives, for someone else, it would not be ultimately a measure of love.
So, even Scriptures do not provide the ability to measure whether or not love is truly present but they do a much better job when it comes to measuring whether or not preaching, sacraments and discipline are "rightly" present. The things God says to preach are being preached. The Sacraments are being observed as God says to observe them. Discipline is being exercised in those areas God says to exercise it and is not being exercised where He doesn't say to do it.
A full blown description of what those limits are would require a separate paper on each (Preaching, Sacraments & Discipline) but I think this suffices for a basic defense of the position.
Conclusion:
In Summary - the right use of Preaching, Sacraments and Discipline, constitute a more objective standard for distinguishing a true church from one which is not, than "love of God" and "love of the brethren" because they are capable of being measured. The right use does not depend on right motives in either the one doing them or the one receiving them, whereas loving activities may or may not be reflective of actual love being present.
One can argue that right use of Preaching, Sacraments and Discipline are themselves "loving actions" and I would agree. The question yet remains - "why these three and not another set of loving actions" and I will try to remember to get to that in another post.
Lastly - I would like some solid feed back on the style and content of this post. Being relatively new to blogging, I have no "feel" for what is "too much" or how abstract or concrete, the medium can handle. Let me know whether this post communicates well or not and give me some advice about how to do it better.
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