Church Ministry and the Ecclesiastical System

Church Ministry and the Ecclesiastical System

Our first object in the following pages is briefly to consider the divine provision for that part of the constitution of the churches which relates to their spiritual care as developed in the churches themselves, and the influences which were largely responsible for a departure from the New Testament pattern and teaching. The departure was so pronounced that in post-apostolic times Christendom soon presented, and has ever since presented, something widely different from that which is set forth in the New Testament.

The question arises whether what is therein revealed was intended to be complete and permanent, or simply introductory and subject to modification. Either the Scriptures, God-breathed and divinely preserved, give us a full revelation of the mind of God for our instruction, or we are left to the notions and propaganda and dictates of men, with all the bias of their natural ideas and inclinations; in other words, we are left to be the subjects of ecclesiastical tyranny and of misguided human tradition. The Scriptures themselves testify to their completeness and finality, as a divine revelation. “The faith,” the body of Scripture doctrine, was “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3, r.v.). That “once for all” is a plain statement. A confirmatory intimation is provided in the apostle Paul’s exhortation to Timothy to guard the good deposit of the truth and to commit what he had received to faithful men that they might in their turn be able to teach others the same (1 Tim. 1:13; 2:12). No fresh article of faith was to be revealed. What had been taught must be handed on from generation to generation without addition, diminution or modification.

In church matters, as in other respects, the teaching of the New Testament is complete as a revelation of the will of God. While no ecclesiastical code, no list of doctrines, no formal set of regulations were issued, what is presented in the Word of God is uniform and consistent throughout, in matters both of doctrine and of practice, and has been proved sufficient under all conditions, however varied they may be, whether from the racial or any other point of view.

In connection with the spiritual gifts provided by the Lord as the head of the church for the discharge of the responsibilities of the care of the churches, a comparison of the various passages relating to the appointment of men for such service makes sufficiently clear what was the divine intention. It is necessary to distinguish between the ministry of missionaries on behalf of the churches and the ministry of those bishops or elders who were raised up from within the churches themselves to discharge the requisite functions therein. The churches were formed as the result of missionary activity, and the missionaries exercised a temporary care over them, both by visitation and correspondence, but the spiritual care of the churches was also developed from within them.

In the earliest development of the work of the gospel, the church at Antioch, for instance, was cared for by the ministry of several men apart altogether from apostolic jurisdiction (Acts 13:1–3). Again, when churches had been formed in other places, the apostles “appointed for them elders in every church” (14:23, r.v.). It is clear that this was not an ecclesiastical ordination in the generally accepted sense of the word, but an appointment of men who had already been raised up by the Spirit of God and qualified to attend to the spiritual welfare of the churches with which they were identified, and who had already shown by their spiritual work that they were fitted for public recognition. The phraseology indicates, too, that the responsibility of such recognition was enjoined upon the churches. Another point of importance lies in the plurality expressed in the phrase “elders in every church.” So again in the case of Ephesus, the apostle Paul sends for “the elders of the church,” and in his admonitions to them he states that the Holy Spirit has made them “bishops [overseers] to feed [or rather to tend, i.e., to act as shepherds, or pastors over] the church of God” (Acts 20:28). A number of bishops over one local church is significant. Yet this is what is consistently presented throughout the Acts and the epistles as the divine design for the exercise of spiritual care in the churches.

That they were viewed not only as elders and bishops but also as pastors, is indicated by the fact that the apostle speaks of the church under their care as a flock. They are represented in a threefold capacity. As elders they were men of mature experience in the things of God. As bishops they exercised spiritual oversight over the local church. As pastors they were to give heed to the flock. They had no single ecclesiastic over them. They were jointly responsible for the care of the church. So with the church at Philippi. Paul’s epistle is addressed to the saints there “with the bishops [margin “overseers”] and deacons.” To the church in Thessalonica he says, “But we beseech you, brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you [obviously the ministry of overseers or bishops]; and to esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work’s sake” (1 Thess. 5:12, 13). In the churches in the island of Crete, where matters had fallen into disorder, Titus was left to rectify the evil by appointing as elders men who were manifested as fitted to act as bishops (Titus 1:5–9), a plurality in each church, “elders in every city.”

The conclusion is inevitable. The divine intention was for a number of men to act in the capacity of bishops in every church.

This being so the question arises, what influences produced an ecclesiastical system so widely divergent from the divine pattern as that which had come into being by the third and fourth centuries, and has since continued? For though the Reformation effected a partial return to the teachings of the New Testament, and especially in regard to the fundamentals of the faith, yet the conformity to the scriptural arrangements was far from complete, and the system of ecclesiasticism has continued largely to characterize the various sects of Protestantism.

One of the dominant influences in the process of departure from the divinely appointed constitution of the churches was that of Judaism. Its antagonistic energies were as widespread as the gospel itself. “There are many unruly men, vain talkers and deceivers,” says the apostle, “especially they of the circumcision” (Titus 1:10). This subversive influence was not confined to matters of doctrine; its tendency was toward a reversion to Jewish ritual and the synagogal mode of worship, to those prepentecostal forms which were largely the outcome of mere human tradition. How different this was from that dependence upon the presence and guidance of the Spirit of God which characterized the worship meetings of the churches, consequent upon the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, is significantly intimated in the apostle’s warning to the Philippian church, “Beware of the concision, for we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God” (Phil. 3:3, r.v.).

The inception of another influence toward the establishment of the humanly devised ecclesiastical system developed after apostolic times is traceable in the New Testament. “I wrote somewhat unto the church,” says the apostle John, “but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not … neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and them that would he forbiddeth and casteth them out of the church” (3 John 10). There is ever a tendency for the man of strong character to dominate his fellows. Rivalry produces the despotism of the strongest. Peter warns the elders against lording it over the charge allotted to them (1 Pet. 5:3).

Again, those who promulgate some form of error naturally seek to gain and retain their ascendancy over their followers. There is an intimation of this in the marginal reading of 2 John 9, where the apostle warns readers against the one who “taketh the lead and abideth not in the teaching of Christ.” (The r.v. gives the true sense here.) The early centuries produced a considerable crop of heresiarchs. There is something suggestive, too, in the word Nicolaitans (“the subduers of the people,” who are the subjects of the Lord’s denunciations in Rev. 2:6, 15).

Carnal ambition, then, and lust of power, coupled with the other influences to which we have referred, were potent factors in bringing about a condition of things far removed from the pattern for the churches set forth in the New Testament. Another factor was the schismatic spirit by which church members associated themselves under party leaders. This development took place early and was particularly in evidence in Corinth. Of the many evils in the church there, this receives the first notice by the apostle Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians. The trouble did not cease. Years after the apostle’s death Clement writes to them about the quarrels still existent among them “from a weak partiality for one or two persons.” Such evils were by no means confined to Corinth.

Gradually there developed a system by which ministerial functions became vested in a single ecclesiastic over each church. Churches appointed their own presbyters by vote. This was a distinct departure from the teachings of the apostles, who first recognized and taught the churches to recognize the prerogatives and operations of the Spirit of God in raising up such spiritual gifts. *

For the remedy of disorders and abuses in doctrine and practice, resort was had, not to humiliation and confession and conformity to apostolic teaching and to the Scriptures, in dependence on the Spirit of God, but to the convening of church synods and the establishment of a clerical caste on an extended scale. In the second century the bishop became distinct from the elder, and exercised authority over churches in a district with the assistance of the presbyters, which were appointed by him, each over a church. The appointment of higher ecclesiastical orders followed. The history of the various church councils in the early centuries and the decrees which were issued therefrom is well-known.

* The question has sometimes been raised as to whether there is evidence in the New Testament that the members of a local church voted for the appointment of its elders. The occurrence of the word cheirotoneō in Acts 14:23 is referred to, as it literally denotes “to stretch forth the hand.” There is, however, no justification for pressing the literal meaning, for the same word, in compound form, is used of God Himself in Acts 10:41. The word became used in a general way for appointment, without any idea of voting.

R.V. Revised Version