The previous three articles in this rubric were concerned with the matters of hierarchy and implicit faith. It has been noted how these two cooperate with each other for mutual advancement and support and how they lead further and further away from Christ, the only head and king of his church. It has also been made evident that together they push out the truth of the gospel and introduce in the place of the truth the doctrines and commandments of men.

It becomes evident then that an important part of the work of church reformation is to break completely this cycle of hierarchy and implicit faith. To break this cycle requires the work of the Holy Spirit through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Only that gospel, applied graciously to the hearts of God’s people, brings freedom both from the tyranny of hierarchy and from implicit faith’s reliance on that hierarchy. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).

The gospel itself is indeed the proclamation of freedom. That this is the character of the gospel of Jesus Christ is clear from the words by which the Lord proclaimed himself at the very beginning of his earthly ministry:

18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

19. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. (Luke 4:18–19)

This gospel, publicly and promiscuously declared by our Lord, is also itself a stumbling block. The reaction of the assembly in the synagogue was deep offense. They drove Christ out of the synagogue and attempted to throw him to his death. When and where he proclaimed himself to be the only savior, the only life in the midst of death, the true bread of God from heaven, he caused similar stumbling and offense. He was contradicted. He was slandered. He was forsaken by the multitudes who had previously followed him for the sake of his miracles. Finally it was this offense and scandal that aroused such hatred that he was crucified. The tyranny of the leaders of the people hatefully labored to this end. The implicit faith of the people cooperated to cry out for his death. “Let him be crucified! His blood be on us and on our children!”

Such continues to be the reaction of hierarchy and implicit faith against the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. The false charge of antinomianism is brought against the gospel of salvation by grace alone without works. Those who labor to bring the correction of the truth and to restore the freedom of the gospel are falsely charged with slander and schism, disrupting the peace and unity of the church.

“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

Only the Son can bring freedom indeed. Only the Son liberates. The preaching of the gospel of freedom, even as Christ himself preached it, brings true freedom by his gift of the Spirit into the hearts of those for whom he died. Only for some is the gospel the savor of life unto life, while for others it is a savor of death unto death (2 Cor. 2:16). Not all have ears to hear (Luke 8:8). Not all have hearts to understand (Deut. 29:4). The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14).

The truth about the gospel, that it is a savor both of life unto life and of death unto death, is what makes the work of church reformation so painful and difficult. The freedom it establishes is contrary to the flesh. The flesh prefers bondage: bondage to sin and Satan; bondage to men, no matter how oppressive or abusive they may be. The flesh finds in all of them a perverse refuge from the freedom of the gospel. Confronted with the gospel of freedom in Christ, the flesh fears that freedom greatly. In the gospel the citadel of human pride faces its complete destruction. The flesh contrives to drive out that freedom of the gospel by many means. It compromises the gospel by means of introducing elements of law. The flesh will claim that the law is necessary as a safeguard to keep grace from becoming licentious. The flesh will introduce conditional theology to maintain the relevance and value of human work and effort. The flesh will maintain that conditional theology is necessary lest the doctrines of grace alone make the church one-sided or imbalanced in preaching and life.

In the above manner the work of church reformation faces many impediments. As church reformation involves a remnant that follows the gospel (Rom. 9:27–29; 11:1–6), the majority can be expected to cling to the church’s compromise of that gospel and vigorously defend that compromise as the truth. It makes no difference how much the majority experiences oppressive and abusive circumstances: the lie of oppressive hierarchy is preferred to the truth that brings freedom. Compromise is not only maintained but also developed further in the way of apostasy. That apostasy is further justified by majority vote and rule, no matter how far the departure is from the truth of the gospel. The majority will bring its pressure to bear on the minority. The majority will always raise the questions of how so many could be wrong and so few right.

How encouraging and comforting it is for those following the truth to see their place according to the word of God in Romans 9 and 10. Their position of laboring for the cause of the purity of the truth in the church of Jesus Christ is by grace alone. They, according to their love for the truth, have their places in that remnant by grace alone. Their devotion to the truth is the work of God according to his word. The work of church reformation is the divine demonstration that salvation is not by works (represented by the majority) but by grace alone!

But the work of church reformation is deeper and far more difficult than a faithful minority’s separating from a compromising majority. The flesh is not only the majority that is characterized by compromise and apostasy from the truth, but the flesh is also the corruption of total depravity that lives in the remnant as well as in the majority. This totally corrupt flesh carries in its bosom the pride that seeks to destroy the rule of Christ by substituting the rules of men. This totally corrupt flesh also cherishes rebellion against the rule of Christ by following the rules of men. The flesh will seize the work of church reformation in order to impose a new hierarchy with a new implicit faith. Those who stood courageously against the hierarchy and implicit faith will face the temptation to build anew for their own sakes. Those who benefitted from their leadership will be tempted to trust in them rather than in the only king and head of the church, Jesus Christ.

In light of the above, there is only one power that avails to keep all hierarchy at bay. There is only one weapon that has the power to keep pride from dominating in the church. Likewise, this same weapon has the power to break implicit faith. That power is the gospel of full salvation by the grace of God in Christ, the only head and king of the church.

The gospel is this power because it brings about a freedom that is as powerful as it is precious. It gives freedom from the power and condemnation of sin. It brings the freedom of the kingdom of God, making servants of God those who formerly were the servants of Satan. It brings joy and peace to the hearts of God’s people, giving them delight in their hearts to serve their blessed redeemer. So precious is the joy and peace of this freedom that God’s people must abhor anything that endangers it. The liberty of the gospel has such value to them that they must stand fast in it, refusing to be entangled in any yoke of bondage (Gal. 5:1).

That gospel brings about the one fundamental office in the church of Jesus Christ. That one office, when properly held and regarded, stands against the encroachment of hierarchy. The very exercise of that one office is in sharp contrast to the implicit faith which complies with hierarchy. That office is the office of every believer. To use the language of the Heidelberg Catechism, it is the office of Christian (LD 12). To use the language of the Protestant Reformation, it is the priesthood of every believer. How can there be hierarchy when every member, by faith in Jesus Christ, possesses full salvation in him alone? How can there be hierarchy when the Christian has the foundation of the kingdom in his heart, the righteousness of Christ with its results of true peace and everlasting joy (Rom. 14:17)?

Against all hierarchy and lording is also the truth of the church according to its spiritual character. Under the eternal government of God, the church is the company of the predestinated, so that no man or assembly can change its number. It is the glorious body of Christ, the church that he builds so that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). The church is the gathering of believers and their spiritual seed, those gathered by Christ into his hand so that no man can pluck them out (John 10:28–29).

The implications of this nature of the church are powerful. The hierarchical exercise of tyranny means that men must oppose Christ and God. Every attempt they make to rule and control the flock of Christ by their government puts them in conflict with the only king and Lord of his church. How loathsome it appears to the flock when men would substitute themselves for their Lord, who has purchased them with his own blood, who has loved them to the end, and who loved them even when they were enemies. It is also for these reasons that the scriptures that enjoin elders to care for the flock remind them that those over whom they have rule are the flock of God, purchased with his own blood (Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 5:2).

In the above are two important matters for officebearers to remember, to help them against all hierarchical abuse of their authority. The first is that their offices depend upon the office of every believer. Officebearers are themselves members of the flock of Christ. Their fundamental place in the church is not that of minister of the word or of elder or of deacon. It is that of believer, alongside their fellow saints and alongside their brothers and sisters in the Lord. As the officebearers receive and carry on in that office of every believer through faith alone in their head, Jesus Christ, so they must receive and carry on in their special offices. Their offices exist only because of the church that is beloved of and cared for by Jesus Christ her head. The special offices are for the spiritual care and maintenance of the flock of Christ, as appointed by the head. The labor of their offices is not in their own behalf but in behalf of the church. They cannot be lords who are servants appointed by the Lord of the church. They cannot exercise their own minds or wills toward the flock but only the mind and will of the one who has called them.

For the prevention of hierarchy in the church, there is also only one means to be used in all the work of the special offices of the church: the word of God.

It is noteworthy that the Protestant Reformation was governed by two important principles. Both of these principles worked together to overthrow the hierarchy of the papacy. The formal principle, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, not only brought to the church her proper freedom, the freedom of the gospel. It also brought to the church her freedom from the enslaving doctrine of merit. The Romish doctrine of merit kept the church in bondage to fear, a fear that kept the people in dependence upon the teachings of the church. The church held the treasury of merit. The church determined who was and who was not to receive grace. The doctrine of justification by faith alone, without works, brought assurance and peace from the gospel of the righteousness of Christ alone.

The other principle of the Protestant Reformation, the formal principle, more directly addressed itself to the hierarchy of the papacy. The papacy had a basis for the doctrine of justification by faith and works. That basis was not the word of God but the papacy’s own authority. The Roman Catholic Church had taken to herself the authority to determine the doctrine taught in the church. What was true in the church was true because the church declared it to be so. Even more, the papal church taught that the reason the Bible had any authority at all was because the church authoritatively declared so.

The formal principle was scripture alone. There was to be only one authority operating in the church: holy scripture. There was only one authority for believers for faith and for life. There was one authority for them to read, to know, to understand, and to obey. The preaching of the gospel, freed from its Romish interpretations and applications, brought freedom from the hierarchy of the papacy.

What was so powerful in the Protestant Reformation must be as powerful in the church at present for proper reformation: the sole authority of scripture. Such is the requirement of proper Reformed church government, according to article 32 of the Belgic Confession. The Reformation principle of scripture alone is referenced with the following words from the article: “Yet they ought studiously to take care that they do not depart from those things which Christ, our only Master, hath instituted.” The deliberate rejection follows, presenting a confessional boundary for Reformed churches: “And therefore, we reject all human inventions, and all laws which man would introduce into the worship of God, thereby to bind and compel the conscience in any manner whatever” (Confessions and Church Order, 66).

What does all of the above mean practically? What does it mean for believers in the church? What does it mean for those called by God to the special offices?

It means that believers must obligate themselves to the truth of scripture alone. They must recognize only one authority to operate in the church: the Bible. They must expect and demand to hear only one thing presented to them in the preaching they hear from Sunday to Sunday: the word of God. They must expect that when they must hear words from those appointed by God to care for them personally and individually, they will hear those words coming from the word of God. Whether it is the work of the deacons, the work of the elders in family visitation, or the work of Christian discipline, the people of God must hear and know that always what is brought to them is the word of God.

That obligation of believers also means that they bring their officebearers often before God in their prayers, that he will keep them faithful to his word alone. Believers pray that their pastor, elders, and deacons may not succumb to the temptations to be tyrannical, to rule by the wisdom or power of men, or to rule by fear of man or respect of persons.

Believers’ obligation to scripture alone must be so strong that they find every effort to rule by other means troublesome and alarming. They must know their obligation immediately to labor for reform. If reform becomes impossible, they must flee from all tyranny as the calling to flee from the false church.

The same obligation falls on those in the special offices of the church. Called by God to these special offices, the servants of God must know their callings to carry out the duties of their offices by means of the word of God alone. Their care must be to see that the scriptures are prominent and clearly set forward in all their work. They must not expect those they serve to follow long and complicated arguments that sound more like the confusion of men than the wisdom of God. They must be careful to rule not by the power of their personality; by manipulation; or by intimidation, bullying, or other tactics of man’s wisdom. Where they find members trusting in them, they must carefully labor to turn that trust to God’s word alone.

While the above efforts have their importance in the efforts of officebearers individually in their callings, special attention must be paid to deliberative assemblies. Proper deliberation in assemblies does not mean getting fellow officebearers to agree with this or that officebearer, who can easily dominate a meeting. Nor does it mean simply deliberating until there is unanimity or a strong majority to vote. True deliberation is to ensure that the word of God is the clear ground for any decision taken in behalf of the church. Through good deliberations, the opinions and judgments of men must all fall away, together with all the good ideas, as good as they are. The efforts for peace and unity as ends and goals must fall away until left standing is the word of God alone, the only foundation for the church’s peace and unity.

All in all, the church of Jesus Christ thrives only in the freedom of her gracious inheritance in the gospel. The word of God alone is the power to keep her in that blessed freedom. Delivered from the tyranny of men and from the bondage of implicit faith, may the church of Christ continue to cherish and protect her freedom by holding high the word of God alone!