Calvin the Peacemaker

Breaking the bond of fellowship between brethren is no small matter. In fact, it is so serious that Paul could declare, "As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned" (Titus 3:10-11).

Aside from foundational doctrinal differences, churches in fraternal relations, I would think, have no valid grounds for cutting off communion with each other.

Regarding the matter, the ff. piece exposes John Calvin's heart:

G.I. Williamson: 60 Years of Tending Christ's Sheep

A brief but edifying account of G.I. Willimason's ministry can be found here.

Ministry wisdom from the man himself, undoubtedly utilized by him all these years and ignored to a pastor's detriment, follows:

The Beard of Brotherly Unity

I dedicate this post to my beloved pastor, Nollie Malabuyo, and fellow elder, Albert Medina, with whom the bond of brotherly unity is both a pleasure and a privilege.

Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore. (Psalm 133)

A body in the process of disintegration is a grotesque sight. The order with which God has stamped nature impels us to recoil at disease, especially those of the kind that leaves the physical body disfigured. So it is in matters spiritual.

The church militant, that part of the body of Christ still embroiled in the warfare and struggles of this age, is at its comeliest when those that comprise it are integrated. The disease of disunity leaves it scarred and ugly. What is the foundation of this unity? Calvin writes in his commentary on the passage cited above:

All true union among brethren [is] to take its rise from God, and to have this for its legitimate object, that all may be brought to worship God in purity, and call upon his name with one consent. Would the similitude have been borrowed from holy ointment if it had not been to denote, that religion must always hold the first place? Any concord, it is thus insinuated, which may prevail amongst men, is insipid, if not pervaded by a sweet savor of God’s worship. We maintain, therefore, that men are to be united amongst themselves in mutual affection, with this as the great end, that they may be placed together under the government of God...We must hold, that when mention is made of the Priest, it is to intimate, that concord takes its rise in the true and pure worship of God, while by the beard and skirts of the garments, we are led to understand that the peace which springs from Christ as the head, is diffused through the whole length and breadth of the Church.

Unity is first and foremost founded on true religion, i.e., the pure and undefiled religion passed down from Christ, to the apostles, to the early church, and reclaimed by the Reformation. There may be unity in the basest essential doctrines shared by other professors, but the Christian religion permeates all of life, and all of life can only come under the righteous rule of Christ if true religion is the foundation. We do not aim for a "passing grade" in the school of Christ, we aim for excellence, to the glory of His name.

It must also be observed that unity promotes the fruitfulness of the church. As the sweet moisture of dew hastens the growth of vegetation, so does unity among the elders and constituency of the church provide the fertile soil upon which maturity in Christ is attained. Once more, Calvin observes:

David suggests, that the life of man would be sapless, unprofitable, and wretched, unless sustained by brotherly harmony. It is evident, that mount Hermon must have been rich and fruitful, being famed amongst places for pasture. Mountains depend principally for fertility upon the dews of heaven, and this was shown in the case of mount Zion. David adds in the close, that God commands his blessing where peace is cultivated; by which is meant, that he testifies how much tie is pleased with concord amongst men, by showering down blessings upon them. The same sentiment is expressed by Paul in other words, (2 Corinthians 13:11; Philippians 4:9,) 'Live in peace, and the God of peace shall be with you.' Let us then, as much as lies in us, study to walk in brotherly love, that we may secure the divine blessing.

For the glory of the Head, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the health and growth of His body, the Church, let the elders of the local body be united in doctrinal purity and love, and as they are such, the members shall in turn be united with them, and so shall Christ be "all and in all" (Colossians 3:11).

An Aesthetically-Burdened Theology

Man, as made in the image of God, is a connoisseur of beauty. Every eminent feature of the created order is reflective of the perfections of God; hence, it is but fitting for man to appreciate His various creaturely analogies. However, when the comeliness of natural revelation begins to impose upon one's apprehension of special revelation, problems arise.

Somehow, the recent anomalies of "conversions" to Rome by prominent names in Reformed circles are instances of a specific kind of swimming goggles already worn years in advance, even before the Tiber was actually swum. A certain predisposition to beauty, commingled with religious convictions, lends these people weak to the transcendent, and what is it that Roman pomp and pageantry offer but the transcendent mediated through architecture and ritual. Given the almost irresistible tug of these sense-pleasers, the mind, and the theology it once held dear and defended, give in and conform (mutate), in accommodation to the aesthetic presupposition.

But are we promised grace from the both-immanent-and-transcendent God through such means? No. The presumptuously immanentistic trajectory of the low-church modern evangelical is no better countered by the awe-inspiring transcendentalism of the high-church Romanist.

But how is grace from God mediated to His worshippers? Through the Word of God.

The Word of God is communicated to God's people as grace through its faithful preaching and its proper administration as the Sacraments (the tangible/material Word).

I think it is in keeping with the humility of God that present age grace is delivered in a package of meekness, i.e., weak and faltering human ministers and the mundaneness of water, bread, and wine. However, thrill-seekers will not be disappointed at the glory and grandeur that will accompany Christ's second coming—something that will reduce today's incredible cathedrals to yesterday's crumbled bastions of idolatry.

But that is for a future day. Today, those faithful to the Gospel must content themselves with the beauty of holiness as it is presented in a run-down church.

The Way to the Unregenerate's Heart Is Through His Stomach?

While it is certainly the duty of the Christian to do good to his neighbor inasmuch as his capacity allows, there is a predominant view among many that it is the unqualified duty of the Church to help in the alleviation of poverty, and this as a pretext for evangelism.

Are we to extend aid to all the poor? Do we not prioritize the poor brethren over the poor unregenerate?

My pastor, in this excellent article, answers these questions and more.

Goat Membership for More Buck

Kevin DeYoung wrote the following letter to a colleague who was thinking of establishing two sets of memberships in his church, one for believers and another for unbelievers.

While Scripture tells us that external membership to the church is validated by public profession of faith in Christ, pressure to rake up the numbers has prompted many to accept as bona fide members those who do not even show the slightest hint that they have been acted upon by the Spirit through a faith that expresses itself in confession (Rom. 10:9), thereby deconstructing beyond recognition what it means to be a part of God's covenant people.

Doing Church

Contrast the rantings of this "young, restless, and reformed," Emergent type on his ideals for "doing church" with this treatment of the marks of a true church by Dr. R.S. Clark.

There are three marks of a true church:

1.) The whole counsel of God is preached (Law and Gospel).

2.) The sacraments are faithfully administered.

3.) Discipline is enforced among the membership.

The YRR guy may claim compliance to the first two marks, but his 8th point leaves more to be desired as it relates to the third mark:

"8. If you think this will be a nice little church that stays the same size, where everybody knows your name and you have my cell number on speed dial and we have a picnic lunch together every week (By God’s grace, we want to grow)."

How can discipline be enforced in the form of submission to the rule of elders, as these elders dispense of their God-ordained duties, when anonymity is encouraged and accountability frowned upon? He says they want to grow? By growth it seems is meant the bursting at the seams in terms of population when genuine fellowship then proves impossible.

He does get one thing right, though: I certainly wouldn't want to join his church.

Might Infrequency Lead to Lethargy?

In contrast to the mysticism that is the staple in broad evangelicalism, Reformed theology, piety, and practice recognize that growth in sanctification is wrought primarily through participation in the means of grace, i.e., the hearing of the Word of God (Gospel) preached and the partaking of the Sacraments, wherein the Holy Spirit unites the recipient of the water in baptism and the bread and wine in the Supper to the thing signified, the substance, which is Christ, hastening the growth of faith even as small as a mustard seed.

In the weekly Sabbath assembly, the proclamation of the promises of the Covenant of Grace is declared through the ordained mouthpiece of Christ, the pastor, and is ratified in the physical representation of the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. But what if the Supper is not administered weekly? Could this lack somehow account for some, if not many, of the instances of spiritual torpor among the sheep of Christ's flock? If it be in the capacity of the church to celebrate the Supper weekly, should it not do so for the love of those for whom Christ lived and died, that they may be conformed ever increasingly to His image and likeness?

"Calvin and other reformers argued that the Supper should occupy a central place alongside preaching each week. Yet its strange absence from the regular gathering of many churches today impoverishes the saints, weakens the diet and the sinews that connect us to our living Head and to each other as members of his body, and dampens the gratitude that feeds our missionary zeal. It is the Eucharist, along with preaching and baptism, that not only generates a church in the first place, but keeps its focus on Christ's presence in action as well as his absence in the flesh, generating our longing for his return." (Michael Horton, The Gospel-Driven Life [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009], 203).

Calvin on Church Discipline

1. Necessity and nature of church discipline

The discipline of the church, the discussion of which we have deferred to this place, must be treated briefly...Discipline depends for the most part upon the power of the keys and upon spiritual jurisdiction...

But because some persons, in their hatred of discipline, recoil from its very name, let them understand this: if no society, indeed, no house which has even a small family, can be kept in proper condition without discipline, it is much more necessary in the church, whose condition should be as ordered as possible.

You Can't Have Both Johns

"The abandonment of liturgical forms for heartfelt experience, so characteristic of low-church Presbyterianism, is a significant departure from the genius of the Protestant Reformation, and thus puts Presbyterians in the awkward position of trying to accommodate John Calvin and John Wesley. What many contemporary Presbyterians seem to forget is that the Reformation was just that, a reformation, not a revival.

You can tell the difference between the two, according to the Belgic Confession, Article 29, by determining whether the church uses the correct forms—namely, is the Word being faithfully preached, are the Sacraments being faithfully administered, and is discipline being properly administered? The Belgic Confession, along with the rest of the Reformed creeds from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, has nothing to say about the typical way we spot a revival, that is, by a large number of new conversions and greater earnestness on the part of believers. So for Protestant Reformers, the issue was not whether a church was dead or alive.

The Evangelical concept of dead orthodoxy was virtually unknown prior to the revivals of the eighteenth century. For the Reformers, the issue was whether a church was false or true. For Luther, Calvin, and Cramner, the way to distinguish the true Church was by looking above all at the forms used in worship and the ways in which ordination took place. These were matters that were unambiguous—either a prayer, sermon, or service of ordination conformed to the teaching of Scripture or it did not (conceding that Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Reformed Christians read the Bible in different ways at times on these points).

But to tell whether a church or person was spiritually alive, revived, or dead was not so certain. And unfortunately, ever since the First Great Awakening, Presbyterians have been more attentive to the invisible work of the Spirit rather than the visible work of the Church, an alertness that is doomed to frustration because of the Spirit’s mysterious movements."

— D.G. Hart, Rediscovering Mother Kirk