Is the Church Necessary?
The church visible is necessary to bring the means of salvation to sinners. This applies particularly to the preaching of the gospel, which imparts to us the knowledge of Christ. Paul encourages us that “whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13). He then added a simple piece of logic:
How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Rom. 10:14–17)
We must believe in Christ in order to call upon Him. We must believe in Him through hearing Him since “of whom” is added to the translation. Christ addressed Paul’s hearers through him by speaking in him (2 Cor. 13:3). Ministers are Christ’s ambassadors who plead with men to be reconciled to God on His behalf (2 Cor. 5:20). We must hear Christ and be taught by Him in order to be saved (Eph. 4:21). Without denigrating one’s personal Bible reading, Paul notes that we hear Christ ordinarily through preachers. Like the Bereans, we must search the Scriptures as we hear Christ in preaching (Acts 17:11). Such preachers are sent by God, who gifts them, and the church recognizes them by ordaining them through the laying on of hands by the elders (Acts 14:23; 1 Tim. 4:14). These preachers bring glad tidings even if all who hear them do not believe. Paul concludes that faith must come by hearing and hearing by the word of God only.
Ministers are Christ’s ambassadors who plead with men to be reconciled to God on His behalf.
Where would the multitudes in Acts be without preaching? Would not many be left in darkness without light? Where would people be without the church, through which the knowledge of God in Christ comes by the Spirit’s power? Paul answered elsewhere, “Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:11–13). [1]
These verses mirror all that we have seen about the revelation of the church visible in the Old and New Testaments. People outside of the church lack membership in the covenant community through the covenant sign. They are without Christ and alienated from His visible body. They do not have access to the covenant promises needed to save them. Therefore, they are without hope. “Without God” is literally “atheists,” neither truly knowing the right God nor the right way to Him. Such people must draw near to God in Christ alone, but they do so in the context of the church. This is why Paul concluded that now God was building them in the church (Eph. 2:20) as a dwelling place of God in Christ through the Spirit (v. 22). Christ promised to bless these means with His personal presence through word and sacrament (Matt. 28:18–20).
Without the church, there would be no preaching. Without preaching, we would not know Christ. Without Christ, there would be no church in which we could draw near to God. As Paul’s gospel leads us to the church in Christ, so the church directs us to Christ through the ministry of the gospel. John Mitchell Mason wrote, “The whole administration of the covenant of grace proceeds upon the principle that there is such a church.”[2] In other words, the application of redemption to the elect would be impossible without the church visible, since the promises that God will bless the means necessary to apply redemption belong to the church rather than to the elect.
The church directs us to Christ through the ministry of the gospel.
Stuart Robinson taught that as man was created in the image of God in order to reflect God, so the visible church is made in the image of the invisible church and reflects it in some measure. This makes the visible church “an important, if not a necessary, means of revealing to men the whole counsel of God.”[3] Van Genderen and Velema observe that the reason why there is no salvation apart from the church is that there is no salvation apart from faith in Christ. They conclude, “Apart from the church as the body of Christ, to which we can only belong if we are joined to him in faith, there is not only no salvation to be expected, and there is not only no salvation as a rule, but there is absolutely no salvation.”[4] While the thief on the cross shows that this is overstated slightly, Paul’s connection between the church and the means of calling sinners to salvation shows that we must not underestimate how necessary the church is for salvation in almost all cases.
Daniel Hyde, commenting on the Belgic Confession, explained that, in the eyes of our Reformed forefathers, there was no salvation outside of the church because the church had the ordinary promised means of salvation.[5] Though God can save people apart from the church, God has not promised to do so.[6] This is the note sounded in Acts. Does it resonate with us?
We need the church.
Ryan M. McGraw’s book is available from Reformation Heritage Books.
[1] Many manuscripts have “the word of Christ” instead of “the word of God.” For our purposes, it is sufficient to note that we hear Christ’s words through the Word of God.
[2] Mason, Essays on the Church of God (New York: Robert Carter, 1843); Peck, Notes on Ecclesiology; Reymond, New Systematic Theology.
[3] Stuart Robinson and Thomas E. Peck, The Church of God as an Essential Element of the Gospel: And the Idea, Structure, and Functions Thereof; a Discourse in Four Parts; with an Appendix, Containing the More Important Symbols of Presbyterian Church Government, Historically Arranged and Illustrated: Also Including Peck’s Life of Robinson (Willow Grove, Pa.: Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2009).
[4] J. van Genderen and W. H. Velema, Concise Reformed Dogmatics, ed. Gerrit Bilkes and Ed M. Van der Maas (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 2008), 729.
[5] Daniel R. Hyde, With Heart and Mouth: An Exposition of the Belgic Confession (Grandville, Mich.: Reformed Fellowship, 2008), 379.
[6] Hyde, With Heart and Mouth, 380.
