It’s the state of our hearts that tells whether we are saved or not. But only God knows for sure what our hearts are like. When someone is being assessed for whether or not they should be accepted as a church member, it is essential that they know it’s their heart that counts. But the church can’t make a decision on membership based on investigating their heart — only by looking at humanly observable information. Pastors and elders have the responsibility of maintaining the highest standards in belief and practice among church members, but they are not required to pass judgment on people’s hearts for the purpose of granting or withholding church membership. When a popular English preacher published a piece arguing the opposite, the Covenanter James Wood (d.1664), Professor of Theology at St Andrews University responded with his own pamphlet. In the following updated extract, Wood explains the careful distinctions we must make in order that those with responsibility for overseeing church membership will be able to carry out their work with integrity.

What is required for someone to meet the qualifications to be a member of the visible church? There is a difference of opinion between us and the independent brethren. They say that people must be truly converted in God’s eyes, as far as others who are converted are able to discern.

This seems resolve the matter into ‘the judgement of charity.’ Yet this does not sufficiently to salvage the situation, for technically it expresses only the means by which persons with the necessary qualification (i.e., they are truly converted) are to be identified, rather than expressing anything about the objective qualification of the matter of a visible church.

Different senses of “required”

For membership of a visible church, the term “required” has a double sense. It could either mean (a) what is incumbent on an individual himself by way of duty before God, or it could mean (b) what is requisite in him by way of qualification in the outward church court (i.e., the basis on which the church may and ought to admit him to the external communion of the church).

In the first sense, I confess that none are qualified for membership of a visible church except those who are (not only so far as the most spiritual people can discern or judge, but also in reality) true converts and believers. It is every individual’s duty, in professing Christianity and adjoining himself to the church of Christ, to believe with his heart as he professes with his mouth. Otherwise he is not approved, not allowed, by God.

But I believe it’s another thing to enquire what is required in the second sense.

Visible vs invisible

For consider that this controversy is not about the members of the mystical, invisible church, i.e., the church according to its inward state, but about the members of the visible church, as such, i.e., the church according to its external state.

The mystical, i.e., the invisible church, i.e., the church according to its inward state, is the society of those people who have been effectually called into saving communion with Christ. To them belong, in the intention and purpose of God, all the promises of spiritual blessings pertaining to life and salvation.

The visible church, i.e., the church considered according to its external state, is the society of people who profess true Christian faith and religion, for communion in the outward exercises of the worship and ordinances of God.

The work of admitting members into the invisible church belongs to God. He does this by the working of the Holy Spirit in effectual calling and ingrafting people into Christ.

The work of admitting members into the visible church is committed to the pastors and overseers of the church. They are men, and so do not see the inward constitution and condition of people’s hearts. So, in carrying out this work, they must look at things which are obvious to the senses. This is how it comes about that someone may be in admitted as a member of the visible church in an orderly and lawful way, even though that person is not a member of the invisible church.

“The right to” vs “the use of” visible church ordinances

We are to distinguish membership of the visible church in actu primo, and in actu secundo. I must beg your permission to use these Latin terms, and I’ll now explain what I mean by them.

By the actus primus of visible church membership, I mean the state and condition of a person which means that now he is not to be looked on by the church, pastors or professing believers, as ‘outside’ — not as a stranger and alien, but as a brother (1 Cor. 5:11–12). Consequently, that person may and ought to be (a) overseen, cared for, and fed by the pastors and elders of the church, as a part of the flock, and (b) interacted with in duties of Christian fellowship by church members according to their and his capacity.

The actus secundus of visible church membership is the actual enjoyment and use of church privileges, ordinances, and acts of outward Christian fellowship.

This distinction is necessary. For it is certain that someone may be actually a member of the visible church in actu primo, and yet not actually enjoy the use and exercise of all and every church privilege and ordinance to which church membership gives him a right.

This is because, in order to get the benefit of the actual exercise of some privilege and ordinance, a special condition may be required, which perhaps somebody may lack through some physical incapacity, or some moral defect.

For example, under the Old Testament, persons who were undoubted members of the visible church of Israel might nevertheless for some ceremonial pollution (such as an issue of blood, or touching a dead body, etc.). be debarred from the public assemblies of the church and the sacrifices for a time, until they were cleansed from the pollution.

So also, someone who is an acknowledged member of the visible church may be overtaken with a fault that causes reproach and stumbling, and submits himself to church discipline. He may be kept from the actual exercise and use of some ordinances, until the fault is sufficiently removed, yet still, as is acknowledged on all hands, he continues a church member in actu primo. Again, it has constantly been held by orthodox theologians (until Anabaptists arose), that children who are born in the Christian church are, even while under the years of discretion, members of the visible church, even though they are not capable of the actual use and exercise of all church privileges and ordinances.

Therefore, it is one thing to enquire what is requisite to constitute someone capable of church membership in actu primo; and another to enquire what is requisite to make someone immediately capable of the actual use and exercise of all and every church privilege and ordinance to which church membership entitles him.

God’s judgment vs church judgment

We must differentiate between (a) what is required of someone by way of duty in God’s judgment, in order that he may join himself to church communion, and participate in ordinances in such a manner as is necessary for his own salvation, and approving himself to God; and (b) what is required of him by way of qualification in the judgment of the church, in order that the church may in a lawful and orderly way admit him to their external communion, and thereafter respect, account, and deal with him as amongst these that are ‘within.’

The reason for this distinction is clear, because the duty of an individual that wants to join himself into the communion of the church in a way that is requisite for salvation, and for approving himself in it to God, without a doubt reaches the inward man (its frame and acting) formally and directly. But the qualification requisite in the church court, on which the church is to proceed in admitting or acknowledging people church members, consists (formally and directly, at least) only in something which is outward and apparent to other people.

Adherent holiness vs inherent holiness

There is a holiness which is relative and adherent, and a holiness which is absolute and inherent.

Relative and adherent holiness consists in a thing being separated from a common use and dedicated to some holy use or end. In this sense, even the stones which the temple was built out of are called ‘stones of holiness’ (Lam. 4:1). Likewise the children born of at least one parent who is a believer, i.e., someone who professes the Christian religion, are called holy, because they are included in the covenant made with and embraced by the parents for themselves and theirs, and so are to be esteemed as among Christians separated from profane people, and dedicated to God (1 Cor. 7:14).

Absolute or inherent holiness consists in the qualities or actions of a person which are agreeable to the law of God.

Inward vs external holiness

Again, holiness is either inward and true, or external.

Inward holiness consists in the inward renovation of the soul — faith, hope, love and other supernatural habits and their acts.

External holiness consists in making a profession of the true and orthodox religion, and a lifestyle which is ordered according to the rule of God’s commands, as far as can be known, and as far as is competent to human weakness (i.e., without bringing reproach on Christ or causing stumbling to others, or, at least, without contumacy and obstinacy in relation to such faults). It also includes in it that relative/adherent holiness just mentioned.

It is worthy diligent observation here, that when we say the church is ‘a society of visible saints,’ this itself may be understood in a double sense. The epithet ‘visible’ may either be taken as signifying not so much the form itself as the manifestation of it before other people. If we take it in that description, ‘visible saints’ are those who, by outward, manifest and evident signs and tokens, are perceived and acknowledged to be endued with true inward holiness and the grace of regeneration.

FURTHER READING

AUTHOR MENU