As you pursue
communicant membership, rest assured that he who has begun a good work in you
will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6). “May the
God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and
soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who
calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thess. 5:23–24). Amen.
Apart from the terminology and conceptualisation of
'communicant membership', the statement is not unsound. And yet it is lacking.
To be fair it was not the author's intent to provide an exhaustive statement
and yet I think this is important. He rightly emphasizes the need for good
works and the Philippian exhortation is tied to the concept of perseverance –
an idea that permeates the New Testament and yet must be distinguished from the
deduced and popular but erroneous concept of eternal security.
While we can with hope have confidence and rely on the Spirit
to bring us to the end, to finish our race – at the same time Communion carries
a warning. What is a meal of life can become a meal of death and condemnation.
So it is with all the holy rites. Those who grow weary, those who are choked by
the cares and riches of this world, those who do not continue in the faith
grounded and settled and are moved away from the hope of the gospel, those who
fall away and fall from grace have abandoned this hope and the Church expresses
this by marking them as 'out of communion' – excommunicated. Being out of the
Church and out of communion, they are necessarily 'handed over' to the prince
of the power of the air, the god of this world, as they are no longer part of
the eschatological Kingdom that is 'not of this world'. You're either a citizen
of the Kingdom or you're a citizen of cursed Babylon, the present evil age.
You're either in communion feeding on Christ or you're of those who belong to
the god of this world.
The membership system has confused this by conceiving the idea
of 'excommunication' as a ritual act in which the person is removed from
'membership'. As such the proponents of the system cannot conceive of excommunication
apart from their bureaucratic membership regime. And yet their membership
system despite their claims, functions as if those outside it (and those other
bodies their bureaucracy recognises) are lost. They deny this and yet exclude
such persons from Communion. And yet when this is pointed out to them as being
a form of unwarranted excommunication, they cannot understand it. How can
someone be excommunicated without first being a member?
How indeed. They've tied themselves into knots and the
membership system has blinded them to their de
facto practice – basically a tacit claim to being the only expression of
the Church or the True Church. They deny this but at times function as it were
true – again generating more confusion.**
Of course the membership system doesn't exist in the New
Testament. It didn't arise for many centuries and the Presbyterian system while
finding some resonance in the post-New Testament period as a stage on the way
to episcopacy, it is really a creature of the Magisterial Reformation.
As Christians we assemble with a congregation as we are bound
to do (and want to do) and the elders there have every right to examine and
exhort and discipline us if need be. But if the profession is sound (in terms
of Scripture) they must welcome that believer into communion. They pretend they
cannot do this without their membership system and yet this is little more than
a rope they use to bind their own hands and in other cases (as I've seen firsthand)
it provides a cover for what is little more than dereliction of duty. I have
not as this juncture even considered the way it is utilised as a means to abuse
power. The great irony of the system is that it results in a scenario in which
the Biblical powers that are granted are instead limited and yet powers that
are nowhere granted are claimed and appropriated.
Adding on the requirements of canon law (or a Book of Church
Order) ranges beyond the Scriptural requirements and when people with viable
professions attend and yet are denied because they haven't gone through the
extra-Scriptural rite and bureaucratic hoops of denominational membership –
that denomination is effectively excommunicating these people. They don't have
to be 'members' to be excommunicated. They are credible baptised believers who
are being effectively rejected (even if it's done with a handshake and a smile)
and as such they are being considered as those 'outside the Kingdom' and those
of the realm of Satan.
It is a grievous error, the error of schism and yet sadly it
is one they glory in.
New Testament polity is actually quite simple but it requires
the elders to actively lead and give of their time and energy. Instead the
denominational system ties their hands where it shouldn't – and yet takes upon
itself powers and prerogatives the Scriptures do not grant.
While the semi-episcopal polity of the OPC is perhaps closer
to the Scriptures than say full-blown Roman Catholicism it nevertheless
represents a substantial deviation.
----
**One of my first aggravating experiences with the
Presbyterian system was when I was overseas as an imperial stormtrooper in the
American legions. I had embraced Calvinism and the larger corpus of Reformed
theology and yet as someone who had months earlier professed Christ in a
non-ecclesiastical context, I had not yet been baptised. This grieved me to no
small degree.
My options were limited and in terms of viable congregations
all I had to attend was an Arminian Dispensational Baptist congregation that
was located off-base – but attend there I did. I knew the Mainline-affiliated
base chapel was apostate and I couldn't bring myself to call upon those
compromised men to perform the rite.
I didn't really want the minister at the Baptist congregation
to baptise me as I was already a paedobaptist and had rejected the
Dispensationalism of my youth. I was not a Donatist and though I attended there,
the whole tone and tenor of the place rubbed me wrong. It was a stop-gap, not
an ecclesiastical home and seeking Baptism there and from that man just struck
me as wrong-headed. Additionally the Baptist polity requires full agreement in
order to become a member which they tie to baptism. To have him baptise me
would be problematic.
I knew that within a few months I would be returning to the
United States on leave and I knew of an OPC near the town where I lived. I
innocently thought that the minister there would baptise me while I was home
for a period which would comprise two Sundays. How naive and innocent I was in
the labyrinthine wiles of Presbyterianism.
Rightly put under theological pressure by a friend to get
baptised as soon as possible, I went ahead and had the Baptist man immerse me.
He was derelict according to his own polity for had he properly interviewed me
he would have certainly denied me and six months later when he discovered that
I was a Calvinist he was quite upset and argued that I had deceived him – which
in a sense I did – but not out of intention or by design. I had simply wanted
to be baptised. I had urged my friend to baptise me at the time and looking
back I wish had been able to persuade him. It wouldn't have been ideal but
given my circumstance and the maddening factionalism of the clerics I
encountered – it would have been the best option and the one with the most
integrity.
Upon visiting the OPC in the States I spent a good amount of
time with the minister who in addition to being unqualified for the office,
later proved to be a liar and backstabber – but I didn't know this at the time.
And in terms of Presbyterian clerics, he was hardly unique.
He made it very clear that there was no way he would have
considered baptising me while I had been home on leave as I was not going to be
a part of that congregation and there wasn't time to bring me on board as a
member.
I remember being rather disgusted with him and later
disgusted with the Baptist pastor as I realised both of these men – contrary to
every indication in the New Testament – would readily and happily deny me the
simple rite of baptism due to their polities – which they elevated above the
doctrine and simple example of the New Testament. But by far the more slippery
and deceitful position was the one held by the Presbyterian. That said, I did
eventually liberate myself from the legions and returned to the United States
and (though I wince to say it) joined the OPC.
I would encounter this again some years later when married
and when my first child was born. Due to our geography we were all but
compelled to attend a theologically baptistic congregation which of course
would not baptise our child in accord with New Testament doctrine and example.
I telephoned a PCA man in a nearby city and asked for help.
He wouldn't help me and when visiting his congregation (over 90 minutes away)
we couldn't even commune as we were not 'members' of the baptistic congregation
we attended. Of course we couldn't be 'members' (even if we wanted to be) as
they would require us to believe as they do – which we did not. And yet we
wanted to be faithful and attend a church and one that (while problematic) had
a degree of soundness and preached a form of the gospel. And yet since we
couldn't 'join' – even though we were clearly considered to be a vital part of
the congregation and participated in all the meetings, put in the directory
etc. – we were stuck in limbo so to speak.
It wasn't the first or last time that I encountered a Presbyterian
quick to elevate his polity over the gospel and doctrine of the New Testament.
Eventually our child was baptised but not in the Reformed setting. We were
forced to go elsewhere in order to find someone that believed Baptism wasn't
tied to denominational polity.
Attending a Presbyterian-affiliated seminary was for me (in
many ways) the final straw. I was more or less done with the system and yet for
years, even after being married with kids – I kept coming back and would
eventually drive up to that city and join the PCA.
But theologically I had already broken with the system and when
I finally left the PCA I came to rejoice that I had been liberated from it and
its unscriptural tyranny. At one time, as a new Christian I gloried in Presbyterianism
and emotionally gave myself to it. I eventually came to despise it as the
unbiblical episcopacy that is and not a day passes that I don't rejoice in my
breaking from it. I do not miss it.