Episode 225: The Church's Spiritual Essence — Jason Ruis

“He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial…If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which there are for us all in Jesus Christ.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Transcript of Episode

The next portion of Bavinck's’ ecclesiology is talking about the Church’s Spiritual Essence. Now, I don’t plan on covering everything in this talk. These talks at the beginning are really designed to prime the pump for the small group and large group discussions to come.

As I was preparing for this session, I found myself repeatedly thinking, “We’ve gotten to this place in the CRCNA because we haven’t been living into the realities of these doctrines.” Again, this is why we’re focusing on these themes at this conference. Many of the issues we’re facing on local and denominational levels boil down to what we believe about the church—how God has designed it and how we are to be functioning.

One of the common ways theologians have distinguished aspects of the church is to talk about the church as organism and the church as institution. The church as institution has been called the church gathered and the church as organism has been called the church scattered. The church as organism is the life of believers living out their faith in the world in their various vocations and relationships. The church as institution is focused on the believers gathered together for worship and functioning together as a body. There’s always a temptation to emphasize one of these over the other.

One of the issues we’ve seen in the CRCNA is an overemphasis on the institutional aspects of the church. There’s been a fear from many in the denomination that if we take a strong stand on particular issues we may lose the denomination. Or we’ve seen people working diligently to soften every decision made by Synod in order save the institution. Bavinck would say they are falling into the error or Rome—identifying the church so completely with the institution that it becomes more important than the purpose of the institution. It’s very much a mentality that says, “As long as we have buildings, budgets, and bureaucracy, we have a church.” This is a very dangerous place to be.

We don’t just see this problem in denominations, we also see it in churches. I’ve spoke with numerous churches who are willing to sacrifice things simply to keep the institution alive. They are willing to sacrifice solid, biblical preaching to “save the church”—which won’t happen. They are willing to sacrifice faithful discipline to “save the church”—which won’t happen. The conversation in the church changes from what does God want us to be doing and how can we be faithful to Him? To What must we do to save the institution? Sadly, when you become more focused on saving the institution that simply fulfilling it’s purpose, you will definitely lose the institution.

Yet, I’ve also watched the opposite error spread throughout the CRCNA. I’ve repeatedly heard these words from pastors and members of the CRCNA, “I don’t really have to be involved in classis or Synod. My local church is enough.” That’s a comment that stems from a neglect of the institutional aspect of the church. This is also why the CRCNA is in the position it is in. Some were so desperate to save the institution that they were willing to sacrifice anything, and others we so apathetic to the institution that they were willing to allow anything to happen as long as they were able to focus on their local church. This is also a dangerous place to be.

I'm sure many of you have heard someone say, 'I can worship God as well in the woods as I can in church!' The problem isn't that God can't be worshiped in nature—He can be. The problem is the individualistic assumption that we don't need the gathered community. Now, when we apply this same logic to denominations, we are falling into the very same error on a different scale. This is especially crucial in the CRCNA, where congregations have covenanted together much like individual members covenant with their local church. We've made promises to one another that create mutual responsibilities. We have a responsibility before God to be involved in the broader institutional work of the church.

Bavinck seeks to get us to hold the balance. He says, "The church on earth is both passively a gathered community or organism, and actively the mother of all believers, an institution. Neither must be played against the other; both are the work of Christ."

Because we’ve failed to live into these realities the church has become a mess and we’ve been fighting a lot of battles lately seeking reformation. That has brought us to the point of asking some fundamental questions: What is the true Church? Or more accurately, what are the marks of the true church.

In answer to that question many have been quoting the Belgic Confession. It says, "We believe that we ought to discern diligently and very carefully, by the Word of God, what is the true church—for all sects in the world today claim for themselves the name of 'the church.' 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.” So, many people have said that there are three marks of the true church: Pure Preaching, Pure Administration of the Sacraments, and practicing Church Discipline.

Obviously, we believe that is correct, but Bavinck boils it down even further. He says there is only one true mark of the church—the Word of God. He doesn’t disagree with the Belgic, but shows that the other marks of the church are simply applications of the one true mark. Preaching is proclaiming the Word of God. We believe the sacraments are the Word of God made visible. We also believe the proper discipline is simply the Word of God applied to the life of believers. This is why Bavinck says, "The Word and the Word alone is truly the soul of the church. All ministry in the church is a ministry of the Word."

This should make sense to us when we think about what I mentioned in our last session. The Holy Spirit is at the core of the church. He’s the one gathering the church, building the church, and sanctifying the church. So, it shouldn’t surprise us that the Holy Spirit would place the Word he inspired at the center of the church as it’s one true mark.

Once we get this clear in our minds, we immediately encounter a different problem. I’ll explain this problem with a story from my life.

I became a Christian around the age of 10 years old. From that point on I was a believer, but a fairly apathetic one. However, in my early twenties God poured gasoline on my faith and I was on fire. Everything changed about me. I was passionate and excited to live out my faith to the best of my abilities. I want to be the Green Beret of Christians. I read as many books as I could and I read A LOT of scripture. I wanted to know everything I could about who God is, what he has done, who I am, and how I am to live out my faith. I also wanted to know how he had designed the church.

That’s where the problem began. I was reading scripture and books about how God had designed the church and was seeing how cool and beautiful and powerful it was. Then I was going to church and realizing that it didn’t look anything like the picture I was seeing in scripture. As that tension grew in me, I quickly found myself thinking things like, “I’m the only one here who cares about this stuff! I’m the only true believer here!” If you didn’t know, that’s the epitome of self-righteousness and it will kill you. Eventually, that self-righteousness turned into frustration, which turned into bitterness, which turned into alienation from the church. They were not as good as I thought they should be and I was angry about it. That’s a problem.

Then, God rebuked me through one of Deitreich Bonhoeffer’s books, Life Together. As he was explaining some dangers of doing life together, I noticed myself in some of his descriptions. He talked about the hypothetical person, "He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly…He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community…So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself." That cut me to the core because I saw myself in that image.

We can easily fall into that same trap not just in our own congregations, but in the denomination. Let me rephrase Bonhoeffer in that sense: He enters the Christian Reformed Church with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly…He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian Reformed Church…So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself. Have you found yourself in that position?

Much of this stems from a miscategorization between a pure church and a true church. Bavinck reminds us that, “A true church in an absolute sense is impossible on earth…In that way the concept 'true and false church' underwent an important modification...There was a difference, therefore, between a true and a pure church." Another way to frame this miscategorization is in the realm of sanctification. This is the perfectionist mistake. If we do not believe that believers will every be perfect in this life, then we also must believe that the church will never be perfect in this life, which means we must not look for a perfect/pure church, but a true one.

We must not also fall into the trap of thinking that simply because there is impurity somewhere in the church, that it’s a false church. That cannot be the case. No church is perfectly true and no church is perfectly false. I think this is one of the primary temptations that conservatives fall into. I think this is why conservatives leave denominations and institutions quicker than progressives. They fall for the perfectionist error and downplay the institutional aspects of the denomination. So, the moment they recognize impurity in the denomination, and it isn’t resolved as quickly as they like, the begin to believe they are being contaminated as a result of being part of the impure denomination. So they leave. This is a dangerous and unhelpful way to view the church, and it’s not in line with our understanding of Reformed Ecclesiology.

This is where Bonhoeffer’s rebuke comes in. It’s the rebuke that broke me and changed the way I view the church—although, I admit that I have to continually work on this on a daily basis. Here are a few quotes from him:

“Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.” (27)

“He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.” (27)

“If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which there are for us all in Jesus Christ.” (29)

There is no perfect church, classis, or denomination on this side of heaven. God calls us to be grateful—not bitter—for the imperfect fellowship he has given us WHILE we work for reformation according to his Word. This is that Joyful Warrior thing I talk about all the time.

Let us not fall into the trap of overemphasizing the institutional aspects of the church and lose it’s purpose along the way, but let us not underemphasize the institutional aspects of the church and simply neglect it and allow it to die. Let’s trust that the Holy Spirit is at the center of the church, using his Word to gather it and build it up, and then hold firmly to that word and apply it in the life of our churches and our denomination—doing that with a joy and gratitude for the fellowship God has given us. If we keep doing those things faithfully, we will see God, by the power of his Word and Spirit, bring about a beautiful, messy reformation in the CRCNA.