Church Identity and Perpetuity Part 19

The eighth Mark of the Apostolic Church was the fraternal equality, the essential priesthood, of all the members…the fraternal equality of all the members involving the fraternal equality of the ministry. –Hassell

Hassell quotes a secular historian, Ernest Renan, on the history of ecclesiastical hierarchy being called “The history of a triple abdication: first, the community of believers committed their power to the presbyters; then the corps of presbyters abdicated to the bishop; and last, the Bishop to the Pope (in the Vatican Council, A. D. 1870)."  He refers to the hierarchy as something that developed because there’s no evidence of it in Bible times, and that development is an abdication because it makes presbyters answer to a bishop whereas by biblical order they were answering directly to Christ.

The traditional catholic churches have three degrees of holy orders: deacon, priest, and bishop. The bishop, in this view, is the fullness of holy orders, while deacon and priest are degrees underneath the full degree of bishop. Then there are different levels of jurisdiction for bishops, where they preside or even direct other bishops that are under their administrations. The Bible does give us an order of offices with requirements to rule, so I want to discuss the order that Christ placed in the continuing leadership of his Church.

First consider the function of priest. Read Hebrews 3:1 and 7:23-28.

Jesus Christ is the one and only High Priest in the Church. He’s the only one that made an offering to put away sins and this he did once, so that there is no need for continual offerings of sacraments meant to confer eternal life. There is no other mediator between God and men but the man, Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5), who forever lives to make intercession for us. Any church that has additional priests in the sense of mediating between God and men, is moving believers farther away from God than Christ did when he organized his church and is therefore regressive and not the true Church.

Once we have been cleansed by the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, we have the authority to enter the priesthood of the church. Peter says ye (the elect, sanctified strangers who have tasted that the Lord is gracious and are coming to him) are an holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices by Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:5,9). Priests have a responsibility to offer sacrifices to God, which we are commanded to do. Praising God is explicitly listed as a sacrifice that we offer from our lips (Heb 13:15). We are also told to draw near to God because Jesus Christ has consecrated a way for us to go through the veil and given us boldness to enter the holiest place. There is no higher level of priesthood to be obtained if we already have boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus (Heb 10:19-22).

Next let’s consider the function of Apostle. It’s clear that Apostles had a special kind of authority in their day that commanded the deference of all the other elders in the church. I believe Matthew 16:19 is teaching that Christ gave apostles a special gift to teach authoritatively so that what the Apostles taught the church was the same as Christ teaching them from heaven. John 16:13 shows that the Holy Spirit was present with them bringing all the teachings of Christ back into remembrance so that they remembered and taught “all truth” in the sense of everything the church needed.

Apostles were set apart by their direct commission from Christ in person, they were eyewitnesses of his resurrected body, and they had the ability to work miracles and to confer ability to work miracles in a way that has never been here since they left the earth (Mt 10:5-7; Gal 1:1; Ac 1:22; 1Co 9:1; Mt 10:8; Ac 8:14-19; Ac 19:6). Apostles are regarded as foundational to the establishment of the church with Christ (Eph 2:19-20; Mt 19:28; Rev 21:14). Now the question is what became of their authority and role in the church when they left the earth?

I believe that their teachings, which were committed to writing and kept by the churches as scripture, carry apostolic authority (2Pe 3:16; 2Ti 2:2). So, there is no need for, nor example of, the authority and supervisory role of apostles to be passed to other members. Notice how Paul says in Galatians 1:8-9 for churches to compare what anyone preaches (even if it be someone with him, or an angel) to what we have already preached. This requirement is given here to the churches. So, there is a pattern within the Apostolic Church for the congregations to appeal to what has already been taught under inspiration, and to let those false teachers be accursed. That proves that Paul was expecting that the authority of the apostles to be on permanent record and that the church was to refer to it (scripture) and not to authoritative bishops—even if they had traveled with the apostles.

Notice again Jude, the brother of the Apostle James, tells us to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered unto the saints (Jude 3). This alludes to a body of faith that was delivered once and not progressively or gradually delivered. If the faith was once delivered, then it makes sense that the scriptures are sufficient to teach the whole body of faith—including the order of the ministry. Then there is no need for a man or group of man to be present in every age to teach doctrine on the authority of their office like they did before the scriptures were complete.

Let’s make a little syllogism to simplify the argument. 1. The scriptures are profitable for doctrine and instruction so that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2Tim 3:17). 2. Scriptures do not furnish the church with continuing apostolic authority. 3. Therefore, claiming apostolic authority for any bishop(s) is not a good work.

The advocates for apostolic succession often claim that it is necessary because scriptures do not explicitly answer every question. We do answer new questions from time to time, and they are recorded as confessions, creeds, and articles of faith; but the answers still rely on scripture. The inability to agree on these answers does not mean there is anything insufficient with the scriptural record. The fault is with the people making wrong interpretations, which is a fault that even having an episcopacy can’t solve. If having an episcopacy could solve the problem of division or misinterpretations, you’d think there would be one catholic church that agreed on these important questions.

Nevertheless, Christ and the apostles anticipated that there would be divisions and denials of the faith, so the crux of the issue is the order that they followed. Their answer was to withdraw from every disorderly brother (2Th 3:6), and to be separate from the world (2Co 6:17). There is no need for an episcopacy to do this. The episcopacy tries to solve a problem that Christ didn’t tell us to solve: outward or formal universal church unity. Our job is to contend for the faith once delivered, reject heretics after the second admonition, and to not walk with brethren that are disorderly or teaching another gospel. That is the order established in the Apostolic Church.

Deacon is an office that the apostles established to coordinate and distribute the temporal needs of the church so that the preachers could devote more time to prayer and the ministry of the word (Ac 6). It is a distinct and separate ministry and never were they put in subjection to bishops.

Moving on to bishops/elders. I think it’s not controversial to point out that the terms bishops and elders are used interchangeably in scripture so I will not try to prove it. By late second century or early third century, there became a distinction in the use of those terms and along with that development came the development of an hierarchy.

The term bishop in the New Testament is translated from the Greek word episkopos, which means overseer, and the term elder from presbyteros. The requirements of this office are to feed (spiritually), teach, care for, take the oversight of the people of God. They have a gift to preach the gospel with the Holy Ghost send down from heaven (1Pe 1:12) and by ordination the authority to baptize believers (Mt 28:19) and ordain other elders (Ti 1:5). They have the responsibility, by the influence they have gained through preaching and teaching, to ensure that the church behaves decently, in order, and as the pillar and ground of the truth (1Cor 14:40, 1Ti 3:15).

Each Primitive Baptist church elects a pastor to serve them which is kind of a president/moderator of the business meetings and has responsibility for ensuring that there is a sound preacher to deliver the word for each worship service. I think early church writings that distinguish between the use of the words elder and bishop were probably using bishop in a way that is consistent with how we use the term pastor. It relates the role that elder has to the local church: e.g. the bishop of the church at Antioch. It only makes sense that a church—even if multiple elders are members—elects one elder to have permanent responsibility to oversee that church and to preside over their business meetings.

Peter exhorts elders to feed the flock and take the oversight thereof, but not to be lords over God’s heritage, rather ensamples to the flock (1Pe 5:1-3). That is a contrast to the model of bishops ruling over several local congregations led by priests(presbyters/elders), in turn ruled by archbishops/patriarchs having authority over wider dominions. After James and John asked if they could sit on his right hand and left hand in the kingdom, Jesus contrasts a “gentile” or worldly way of exercising authority, using the Greek word árchōn to describe the princes of the gentiles, with how he expects his bishops to rule and lead. He says we are not to exercise dominion, or authority based on a greater status like the princes of the gentiles do, but we are to be ministers, servants. I do not find that the root word -arch- is ever used to refer to the proper role of leading and ruling to be done in the church by anyone except Christ himself.

There is a picture here of a king, his bride, and his servants. The church is the bride of Christ and he calls ministers to serve her and watch over her. Although they are absolutely required to teach her about her Husband and what pleases him, they are forbidden from lording over her. All ministers are members of the church and must answer to the congregational government of the church just like every other member. Since the church practices congregational government, as we discussed in the fifth mark, there is no privilege that being a minister is entitled to—he’s just here to serve her by the will of God.

In sum, the hierarchy we see develop in the mainstream Catholic Church in the first few centuries after Christ is not only absent in the Apostles’ day, it contradicts the order Christ established in his church. Although elders have varying levels of influence, they lead by example, not by rank, lording over God’s people.