The Lord’s Day should not be like the pep rally before the big game in which each team gathers in their home gymnasium in order to stir themselves up to fight the rival high school. The Calvinist Cougars prepare to claw the Baptist Bears. The Anglican Eagles soar high above the Lutheran Llamas. The Greek Orthodox insist that all of the other teams are ineligible to play in the league, being schismatics, the Roman Catholics claim their head coach is actually the head coach for all the other teams too, and the Divided Methodists and Lesbyterians show their ecumenical solidarity by joint displays of biodegradable Pride flags while shaking paper, climate-friendly pom-poms.
The fact is, the current state of the Lord’s Church is a mess. The Westminster Confession’s description of “more or less visible” doesn’t tell half the story. When you see what is going on in the Name of Jesus in some of these “churches,” you begin to think maybe the orcs really did descend from elves, as impossible as that seems.
I shared an elevator with a Lutheran this week. It was obvious he was making a pastoral visit, though I suspect he was not actually a pastor but a deacon, staff member, or volunteer. He saw my shirt advertising the Ezra Institute and its mission of “Informing Faith, Reforming Culture.” I saw the large silver cross around his neck. When I asked which synod he was with, he replied his church belonged to the ELCA. If the Lutheran team is the Llamas, the ELCA would be the ones on the roster with neurological disease and equine herpes. (Who knew that llamas could have neurological disease and equine herpes virus? You’re welcome.)
It occurred to me that we were two ministers riding an elevator at Children’s Hospital who have a lot in common and almost nothing in common. Both of us, presumably, have been baptized in the Name of the Triune God; we are covenantally Christian. We identify with Christian symbols and ideas. We visit hospitals in order to minister to the sick and afflicted. But the things that separate us almost seem to nullify all of the above, and I don’t mean our differences on confessional subscription, predestination, and the nature of baptismal regeneration. I’m referring to our almost certain disagreements on things like: the nature of the Triune God, the deity of Christ and his historical resurrection, the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, the historicity of Bible narratives and miracles, the exclusivity of salvation, and the necessity of a biblical ethic. The ELCA, as a general rule, doesn’t affirm any of those things. In fact, in most cases, they explicitly and proudly deny them. I think it is safe to say that I have far more in common with Martin Luther than any Lutheran who remains affiliated today with the ELCA.
The conclusion many fundamentalists and evangelicals reach is that the baptized Lutheran on the elevator is not a Christian. But, of course, he is a Christian, and that is the problem. He has been united to Christ in baptism. The fact that a husband acts like a whore does not mean that he isn’t a husband. It’s worse than that. It would be better if he were not married. But he is. That makes his whoring even more egregious. Fornication outside of marriage is a sin. Fornication inside of and against marriage is an abomination. It would be better to be an unbaptized Hindu on the day of judgment than to be a baptized Christian who insists sodomy is a moral and social good.
The Israelites in the northern kingdom were not Canaanites. They were worse. They were Israelites who acted like Canaanites. They worshiped false gods, persecuted the prophets, and broke covenant with God in every imaginable way, and in a few that Yahweh said even he had not imagined (cf. Jer. 19:5; 32:35, in fairness this was said about Judah!). Eventually the Lord divorced his covenant-breaking people, but he did not utterly forsake them. On the contrary, the promise of the prophets, the hope of the covenant God had made, was that one day Israel would be resurrected and restored, not merely to political existence, but to spiritual and covenantal life with their Lord.
What is the destiny of Christ’s Church? At the moment, she seems to have developed a multiple personality disorder and an addiction to substance abuse and self-harm. Will she continue to divide and devour herself until the Bridegroom returns? Will he come back to find a bride clothed in righteous beauty, or will he bring papers to annul the marriage before the honeymoon is over? The answer, of course, will depend on your eschatology and view of several biblical passages. My purpose is not to exegete or argue those verses here. This is a Lord’s Day devotional, not a speech in a theological debate. But to ask the question is, in some ways, to answer it. Yes, the Church will be winnowed, purified by suffering and trials. No, not every person (or denomination) visibly connected to Christ will remain until the last day. Unfruitful and diseased branches will be cut off and burned. The Lord of the vineyard will clean up his garden and make it healthy and beautiful, and that is the point here.
My sanctification is incomplete. It is easy for me to look down on the mainline Lutherans. Who wants to be a llama anyway? But there are places in my heart that are in even worse shape than their communion, because I have less excuse for my lack of holiness. I belong to a church that teaches the Bible. I know better. The only catechizing some of our mainline brethren have received is from Pastor Wolf in his rainbow colored sheepskin coat. Will the Lord abandon me because of my lingering sinfulness? No, and he will not abandon his Bride either. She needs a new diet, a gym membership, and some strong antibiotics, but she still belongs to him, and he will not allow Rev. Wormtongue and Deacon Grishnakh to have her.
There should be no pride that we are Presbyterians (or Baptists, or fill in the blank) when we gather on the Lord’s Day. If anyone boasts, let him boast in the Lord. I am grateful for my Reformed identity and heritage, unashamedly so. I am Reformed because I believe it is the best, most faithful, most biblical expression of the religion of Christ. I am happy to discuss, debate, and defend its basic convictions and distinctions as the correct interpretation of Scripture. But there is a big difference between being Reformed because we think it is biblical and being Reformed because we think it is cooler to be a Raptor than a member of the Pentecostal Peanuts team.
The scale of identity and priority ought to be Christian, Catholic, Protestant, Reformed, and so on. It should not start with our narrowest distinctives but our broadest ones. We should see ourselves, first and foremost, in relation to Christ as members of his Body. The mainline church down the street may be so compromised as to have lost their lampstand, and Pastor Jezebel is liable to be struck down at any moment, but the baptizands in the pews are still my brothers and sisters, and some of them will be redeemed and sanctified, just as the Lord still promises to do with me and with you.
I am Reformed, paedobaptist, presbyterian, postmillennial, and theonomic, but none of those are merit badges on my robe when we gather to worship. They are not the colors of my “team,” only conclusions I have reached as I continue to study Scripture. Some of those convictions may be wrong. Even if none of those are, it is inevitable that I am in error on something else I confidently believe. But I am not saved by having all of the right answers. I am not saved because I worship in the right church in the right way as I teach and believe the right things. We are saved by Christ and by his grace alone.
When the Church assembles on the Lord’s Day, she does not meet on opposite sides of the playing field, wearing different color jerseys and rooting for sectarian success on gameday. She stands before the Maker’s throne, clothed in white. Her skin is still marred, she’s limping badly, and there are a few tumors that will have to be removed. The Lord is not finished with her yet, but one day he will be, and then we will finally be able to see how beautiful she is and always was in God’s mind. That is the Body that gathers, the Body to which we are connected. That is the Church of the risen Christ and the living God: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, forever. --JME
