The Church of Jesus Christ
By: President Dr. Timothy C. Tennent
This year marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. There are countless observances unfolding throughout the year, culminating on October 31st when Christians all over the world remember the date 500 years earlier when Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenburg. The Reformation unleashed a seismic change in the church which we are still experiencing today. At the last count, there are over 44,000 Protestant denominations around the world, comprising about one third of all Christians. The theological hallmarks of the Reformation have been summed up in the famous five “solas” – sola fide, sola scriptura, sola gratia, solus Christus, and soli Deo Gloria (faith alone, Scripture alone, grace alone, Christ alone to the glory of God alone).
John Wesley and the Wesleyan revivals embraced all five of these, even as he expanded our understanding of sola fide to include, among other things, sanctification, and he provided a far more nuanced understanding of the grace of God. He also expanded solus Christus to become more Trinitarian. Nevertheless, even these Wesleyan distinctives were built on the foundation of the Reformation on the principle of ecclesia semper reformanda est – the church is always in Reformation (though it is debated whether that phrase goes back to Augustine, or was first used by Karl Barth). Nevertheless, the principle was active in Wesley and we will join wholeheartedly in thanking God for the Reformation along with Protestants all over the world.
However, it is also important that we reflect not only on the rich heritage we enjoy, but also whether there are areas where we need to continue to press for ongoing reformation. I would like to share at least one area where I think we could be strengthened in our life and faith as Christians. That area is ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church.
The most glaring omission from the five “solas” is, of course, that there is no mention of the church. There is no sola ecclesia. I think it is clear to all of us why Luther did not include such a phrase in the Reformation. The ecclesiastical structures of the church had become more of a hindrance than a help and, as we know even today, the church can sometimes obscure, rather than illuminate, the gospel of Jesus Christ. A few years ago a man named Jefferson Bethke put out a YouTube video entitled, “Why I hate religion, but love Jesus.” It has been viewed over 32 million times! It definitely struck a deep chord in millions of people who hope that there might be a way to embrace Jesus alone, but reject all the gathered, institutional embodiment of the church and religious structures.
However, we must remember that central to the Weslyan revivals was the emphasis on community. You might be able to be justified on a deserted island, but you cannot be sanctified apart from community. When we are baptized, we are not merely baptized by faith, i.e. a solitary person putting his or her faith in Jesus Christ alone. We are also baptized into a community of faith which stretches back through time, and around the world. This is why we must resist the popular notion to say “yes” to Jesus, but “no” to the church. The Church is what God is building in the world: “I will build my church” is one of the most formative and powerful statements of Jesus to his disciples (Matt. 16:18). The church is also the place where godly discipline is to occur. The church does not have a mere instrumental purpose in the world. In other words, the church doesn’t just have the “function” of preaching the gospel or caring for the poor, or anything else which the church does. The church has an ontological purpose in the world, i.e. it is what God is building in the world.
Denominations may falter. They may crumble and fail, but the true church of Jesus Christ around the world will go on. We live in a day when there is rampant distrust of institutions coupled with an exaltation of the autonomous, free self. The true church is not some burdensome bureaucracy of oppression but is the very bride of Christ which links heaven and earth together through the incarnation. I belong to a denomination which, by any honest measurement, is dysfunctional and, quite likely, on the verge of exploding. Perhaps we might be tempted to just give up on the church and embrace a more privatized faith which we can celebrate, if I can use the phrase, mihi solum, by myself alone. Let me encourage you to resist this, because the church is nothing less than our mystical participation in the body of Jesus Christ. The “invisible” Church phrase used by the Reformers was never intended to push us towards individualized faith, but was simply acknowledging that the final makeup of the true church is only known by God himself. We are, at times, forced, like the Pietists, to carve out a ecclesiolae in ecclesia (a true church within the structural church). But, in the end, the church must always take corporate, visible form as the community of those who belong to Jesus Christ. We may have to meet in catacombs, but we still meet together and share with words and songs our shared life together.
This is why Asbury is so committed to unleashing thousands of new church planters. Church planting is nothing less than evangelism in community. It is the Apostolic way of evangelism. Every time you hear someone wring their hands and tell you how many millions of members have been lost, remind them of how many more millions can be gained if we remember the gospel and roll up our sleeves and start building communities of the New Creation – little outposts of heaven right here on earth – the church of Jesus Christ!
Thank you for this article. I appreciate everything you write.
I am not sure I understand the statement, “You might be able to be justified on a deserted island, but you cannot be sanctified apart from community.” I assume this is using the meaning of sanctification to being “set apart” with others who belong to Jesus without reference to the internal cleansing work of the Holy Spirit.