The Marks of the True Church

John Knox, the great Scottish Reformer, gives us the marks of the true church in the Scots Confession, 1560:

“The notes, signs, and assured tokens whereby the immaculate spouse of Christ Jesus is known from the horrible harlot, the Kirk malignant, we affirm are neither antiquity, title usurped, lineal descent, place appointed, nor multitude of men approving one error.

The notes, therefore, of the true Kirk of God we believe, confess, and avow to be:

First, the true preaching of the word of God, in the which God has revealed Himself to us. . 

. .

Secondly, the right administration of the Sacraments, which must be annexed to the word and promise of God, to seal and confirm the same in our hearts.

Thirdly,ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, as God's word prescribed, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished.

Wheresoever, then, these notes are seen, and of any time continue, be the number of the persons never so few above two or three, there, without all doubt, is the true Kirk of Christ, who, according to His promise, is in the midst of them.”  (Chap, xviii.)

As Binnie points out in his excellent “Handbook for Bibleclasses – The Church “ :

“While thus far keeping close by the earlier Confessions, the Scots Confession differs from them in making faithful church discipline a third note of the true Church. Curiously enough, this was done also, about the same time, in the 28th of the Homilies, printed by public authority to be preached in the English Church.”

The words of the Anglican Homily 28, to which Binnie refers, are, “The true Church is an universal congregation or fellowship of God’s faithful and elect people, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner stone (Ephesians 2.20). And it hath always three notes or marks whereby it is known. Pure and sound doctrine, the Sacraments ministered according to Christ’s holy institution, and the right use of Ecclesiastical discipline. This description of the Church is agreeable both to the Scriptures of God, and also to the doctrine of the ancient fathers, so that none may justly find fault therewith.”

This past week I was reading a blog which made reference to the birth of PCA, the largest conservative Reformed denomination in the United States. The PCA came into being on December 4, 1973, when delegates from 260 congregations who had left the liberal PCUSA met together to constitutes the new denomination that would be “faithful to the Scriptures, true to the reformed faith, and obedient to the Great Commission.”

They had been driven out of the PCUSA by the denomination’s continuing failure to exercise biblical discipline against those who denied basic tenets of the faith and biblical ethics.

The newly formed denomination, initially calling itself the Continuing Presbyterian Church and then the National Presbyterian Church before settling on the Presbyterian Church of America, penned a letter to other churches explaining the reasons for their stand:

A MESSAGE TO ALL CHURCHES OF JESUS CHRIST THROUGHOUT THE WORLD FROM THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE NATIONAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

“Change in the Presbyterian Church in the United States came as a gradual thing, and its ascendancy in the denomination, over a long period of time. We confess that it should not have been permitted. Views and practices that undermine and supplant the system of doctrine or polity of a confessional Church ought never to be tolerated. A Church that will not exercise discipline will not long be able to maintain pure doctrine or godly practice.

When a denomination will not exercise discipline and its courts have become heterodox or disposed to tolerate error, the minority finds itself in the anomalous position of being submissive to a tolerant and erring majority. In order to proclaim the truth and to practice the discipline which they believe obedience to Christ requires, it then becomes necessary for them to separate. This is the exercise of discipline in reverse. It is how we view our separation.”

The PCA were acutely aware that not all evangelicals had joined them.  They addressed those who remained within the liberal denomination:

“Some of our brethren have felt that the present circumstances do not yet call for such a remedy. They remain in the Presbyterian Church in the United States. We trust they will continue to contend for the faith, though our departure makes their position more difficult. We express to them our hope that God will bless their efforts, and that there may come a genuine spiritual awakening in the Presbyterian Church in the United States.”

The reality was far from the hope! The PCUSA continued in its downward spiral, denying foundational truths of redemption and culminating in 2013 with the presbyteries ratified the General Assembly's 2012 vote to allow the ordination of openly gay persons to the ministry and in 2014 the General Assembly voted to amend the church's constitution to define marriage as the union of "two persons" instead of the union of a man and woman.

110 congregations left the liberal PCUSA in 2012 in order to join other more biblical denominations; in 2011, the reported number was only 21.

Knox said that a mark of a true church is biblical discipline. The chaotic decline of the PCUSA into apostasy shows that rarely, if ever, does a church that renounces the authority of Scripture and the exercise of biblical discipline turn itself around by biblical reformation. The PCA embraced the necessity of biblical discipline. It has grown from the initial 260 congregations in 1973 to the 2013 figure of 1,808 congregations  with 367,033 members served by 4,416 ordained ministers.