Sojourners and Strangers

The Doctrine of the Church

Gregg R. Allison, John S. Feinberg

• Publisher: Crossway
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781433536038
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Théologie et éthique systématiques

What is a church? This can be a difficult question to answer and Christians have offered a variety of perspectives. Gregg Allison thus explores and synthesizes all that Scripture affirms about the new covenant people of God, capturing a full picture of the biblical church. He covers the topics of the church's identity and characteristics; its growth through purity, unity, and discipline; its offices and leadership structures; its ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper; and its ministries. Here is a rich approach to ecclesiology consisting of sustained doctrinal reflection and wise, practical application.

Part of theFoundations of Evangelical Theologyseries.

I

FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES

CHAPTER

ONE

INTRODUCTION TO ECCLESIOLOGY

ECCLESIAL BACKGROUND AND EXPERIENCE

To begin with the obvious, if you are reading this book, you are probably involved in a church, so you have already experienced the reality of the doctrine that I am treating. The same is true of most other doctrines: we experience the reality of the doctrine of God as we relate personally to him as Father, the doctrine of humanity as bearers of the divine image, the doctrine of sin as those fallen from what we should be, the doctrine of salvation as those rescued from our depravity and corruption, and the like.

These experiences shape our theology of God, humanity, sin, salvation, and other doctrines.

Because this may sound reasonable to some but disconcerting to others, let me clarify what I mean by it. As a systematic theologian and contributor to this Foundations of Evangelical Theology series, I firmly maintain that the source—the sole source—and the starting point of our theology is Scripture, the Word of God. So when I affirm that our experience shapes our theology, I am not advocating that experience should contribute to the content of our doctrinal formulation or be the jumping off point for it, because Scripture holds those honored positions. But our experience does influence our theology. And this is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the doctrine of the church: our weekly engagement in our church’s worship service, our observation of how our church baptizes people, our participation in our church’s celebration of the Lord’s Supper, our engagement in our church’s missional endeavors to make the gospel known, our involvement in our church’s compassionate concern for the poor and marginalized, and much more influences our ecclesiology.1

If our ecclesial background, our church experience, shapes our theology, then it has influenced my formulation of the doctrine of the church that you are about to read. Accordingly, I want you to know the broad contours of my ecclesial background. I was raised in a “liberal” church in which a good Sunday would find my minister reading from the latest Time magazine, while a bad Sunday would feature an interpretation of his dreams. Congregational and denominational money was funneled to support such radical movements as the Black Panthers and Students for a Democratic Society. Yet, it was in that church, through a parachurch movement of that very denomination, that I was genuinely confronted with the gospel of Jesus Christ and experienced the saving work of God in my life. And I was not alone in this; scores of people in that church had similar experiences and made professions of faith in Christ. When we turned to our pastor for guidance in how to continue and grow in this newfound Christian life, he dismissively assured us that our recent experience would pass in a matter of a few weeks or months. And he was correct. Lacking any follow-up and discipleship, I and most of my friends shelved Christianity and drifted away from our conversion experience.

The following year, however, I became involved in another parachurch movement, Campus Crusade for Christ, through which I learned to make progress as a Christ-follower. I also became seriously involved in evangelism and discipleship of others, while minimally being connected with a local church. Eventually, this element of church involvement became more pronounced, and I even became co-pastor of a small evangelical Baptist church in Switzerland while continuing my work with Campus Crusade. Primarily, this increased local church association was with Baptist churches (Italian-Swiss Baptist, Baptist General Conference, Conservative Baptist) and the Evangelical Free Church of America. Most recently, my teaching career has brought me into association with churches in the Southern Baptist Convention.

This quick tour is intended to highlight one thing: my association with parachurch movements and my membership in various churches and denominations has shaped me and influences this present work on ecclesiology. This ecclesial background forms part of the preunderstanding2 that I bring to my formulation of doctrine, including my theology of the church. Certainly, many other factors contribute to my theological worldview: my deep appreciation for historical theology, particularly that of the early church and the Calvinist wing of the Reformation;3 my strong commitment to the first five ecumenical councils (Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon, and Constantinople II; I also lean favorably toward Constantinople III); my cross-cultural experience; my complementarian view of human genderedness; my continuationist (not cessationist nor Pentecostal) view of spiritual gifts; and many other elements. But important for the purpose of this book, my ecclesial background and experience exert an influence on my doctrine of the church.

And so it surely is with all who read this book. Your ecclesial experience influences your ecclesiology, whether that is a well-developed, studied conviction concerning the church, or a subconscious, intuitive sense of what constitutes the church and its ministries.

To the degree that your church background intersects with some aspects of my experience, you will likely feel at home with my presentation. Likewise, to the degree that your ecclesial experience diverges from some aspects of my background, you will likely find yourself at odds with my ecclesiology. In either case, it is my hope that you will follow appreciatively the development of my ecclesiology—particularly as I ground it on Scripture, the source and starting point of theology—and that you will be benefited by the work at hand.

BASIC IDEA OF THE CHURCH4

So that you may know the basic direction in which I am heading in this book, I offer at its outset a summary of my ecclesiology, beginning with a definition of the church.

The church is the people of God who have been saved through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and have been incorporated into his body through baptism with the Holy Spirit. It consists of two interrelated elements: the universal church is the fellowship of all Christians that extends from the day of Pentecost until the second coming, incorporating both the deceased believers who are presently in heaven and the living believers from all over the world. This universal church becomes manifested in local churches characterized by being doxological, logocentric, pneumadynamic, covenantal, confessional, missional, and spatio-temporal/eschatological. Local churches are led by pastors (also called elders) and served by deacons, possess and pursue purity and unity, exercise church discipline, develop strong connections with other churches, and celebrate the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Equipped by the Holy Spirit with spiritual gifts for ministry, these communities regularly gather to worship the triune God, proclaim his Word, engage non-Christians with the gospel, disciple their members, care for people through prayer and giving, and stand both for and against the world.

Each element of this definition requires a brief explanation at this point and will be discussed more fully as the book progresses.

The definition emphasizes at the outset that the church is the people of God or, in the words of the Apostles’ Creed, “the communion of saints.” In keeping with the title of this book, the church is composed of a particular people: “sojourners and strangers” (see 1 Pet. 2:11). In contrast with some common notions today,5 it is not a building (e.g., the red brick colonial-style building with white pillars and a steeple just a few blocks down from where we live), a denominational tag (e.g., the Presbyterian Church USA), a national or state church (e.g., the Lutheran Church of Sweden), avatars worshiping together in the virtual world of Second Life, or the Catholic Church (with its claim that “the one Church of Christ . . . subsists in the Catholic Church”).6 Rather, the church is people; specifically, the church is the new covenant people of God. Though the people of God have existed from the beginning of the human race (one thinks especially of the people of Israel who lived under the old covenant), the church (adhering to the new covenant) did not exist prior to the first coming of Jesus Christ.7 He is the Redeemer who accomplished salvation through his atoning death and resurrection for the people of God who compose the church. It is through the gospel, and a response to it of repentance from sin and faith in Christ, that Christians have been saved (and by this term I mean all aspects of the mighty work of God that are commonly regarded as comprising salvation, including election, effective calling, regeneration, justification, union with Christ, adoption, sanctification, and perseverance). An additional aspect of the salvific work of God—one that is often overlooked but relates directly to the identity of the members of the church—is the incorporation of Christians into the body of Christ as he baptizes them with the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, all who are “in Christ” are de facto “in the church” and constitute its members.

The church consists of two interrelated elements, commonly referred to as the “universal” church and “local” churches. The universal church is the company of all Christians stretching from its inception (accomplished by the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, and created by the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost) to Christ’s second coming at the end of this present age (or, more specifically, the rapture of the church prior to his return).8 It incorporates both the deceased believers who are currently in the presence of Christ in heaven and the living believers scattered throughout the world.9 Whereas the former aspect of the universal church is gathered together as the “heavenly” church, the latter aspect does not assemble, does not possess a structure or organization, does not have human leaders, and does not have a specific space-time address. These intangibles do not render the universal church any less real, however, as the next point demonstrates.10

This universal church (at least its living members) is manifested (by Christ, its head, and the Spirit) and manifests itself (through Christians associating themselves with one another) in local churches,11 which are characterized by seven attributes.12 The first three are characteristics regarding the origin and orientation of the church: it is (1) doxological, or oriented to the glory of God; (2) logocentric, or centered on the incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ, and the inspired Word of God, Scripture; and (3) pneumadynamic, or created, gathered, gifted, and empowered by the Holy Spirit. The final four are characteristics regarding the gathering and sending of the church: it is (4) covenantal, or gathered as members in new covenant relationship with God and in covenantal relationship with each other; (5) confessional, or united by both personal confession of faith in Christ and common confession of the Christian faith; (6) missional, or identified as the body of divinely called and divinely sent ministers to proclaim the gospel and advance the kingdom of God; and (7) spatio-temporal/eschatological, or assembled as a historical reality (located in space and time) and possessing a certain hope and clear destiny while it lives the strangeness of ecclesial existence in the here-and-now.

Local churches are led by qualified and publicly recognized men who are called pastors or elders (or bishops or overseers) who have the responsibilities of teaching sound doctrine, governing (under the headship of Christ), praying (especially for the sick), and shepherding (leading through exemplary lifestyles). These assemblies are also served by deacons, qualified and publicly recognized men and women who serve Jesus Christ in the many church ministries. Because of divine grace and provision, local churches possess both purity and unity; because of sin, however, they must also pursue greater purity and maintain unity through both divine aid and Spirit-empowered human effort. When their members persist in sin, churches exercise discipline for the purposes of restoring erring members and rectifying entrenched sinful situations, restraining such sin-saturated realities, and preserving the honor of Christ and their own reputation. Churches also develop strong connections with other churches for the purposes of cooperative and more effective ministry, the sharing of resources, mutual accountability, and the like. And they celebrate the two ordinances of their covenantal relationship with God through Christ: the initiatory new covenant rite of baptism and the continuing new covenant rite of the Lord’s Supper.

Church members are equipped with gifts, given by the Holy Spirit, and they exercise those spiritual gifts in carrying out the ministries of the church. These ministries are: worshiping the triune God, proclaiming his Word through the preaching of Scripture, engaging non-Christians with the gospel, discipling their members through education and sharing in community life, caring for people through prayer and giving, and standing both for and against the world by helping the poor and marginalized through holistic ministries and denouncing the evils wrought by sin.

From this definition one can see my basic orientation to ecclesiology: from the ontology or nature of the church flow the church’s functions. As will be discussed later, a third category of approaches to this doctrine—teleological approaches—exists. I will subsume this category under my ontological orientation for reasons to be discussed then.

My task throughout this book is to explain and support this doctrine of the church. Before embarking on this task, however, I must address a number of foundational issues. These introductory matters will set forth how I will construct my ecclesiolog...