“The history of the Patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and the history of Israel is the history of the institutional church. To be sure, Israel was a national church, and we are not. The national promises and conditions given to her have been fulfilled by our Lord Jesus. Still, the pattern is instructive.”

In a recent book, church growth guru George Barna seems to suggest the end or irrelevance of the local congregation.¹ He speaks for a significant number of people who find their congregation unsatisfying or who cannot find a church at all. It is not hard to understand such ambivalence and frustration. The church is divided and broken. It is filled with sinners and hypocrites. R. R. Reno and others have said that we are living in the “ruins of the church.” ²  This is how it has always been and exactly as Jesus said it would be.

Welcome to life in the church. It is not perfect and, in this life, it will never be perfect, but it is nevertheless instituted by God. The ministry of the Gospel (and sacraments) and the exercise of discipline are the evidences that the church is Christ’s.

Church: Since the Beginning
The history of the Patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and the history of Israel is the history of the institutional church. To be sure, Israel was a national church, and we are not. The national promises and conditions given to her have been fulfilled by our Lord Jesus.³ Still, the pattern is instructive. Israel was constituted as a “covenant assembly” (e.g., Deut 31:30). She had offices (prophet, priest, and king) and even membership records (See Gen 5, 11; Matt 1; 1 Tim 5:9–16).⁴

God has always entrusted his gospel, the ministry, and the sacraments to redeemed sinners, and he expects those who bear his name to be united to a particular congregation. This was the early apostolic pattern. The early Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42; ESV). Such a congregational life, organized around Word and sacrament, would be impossible without some form of mutual accountability and organization.

Church: Instituted by God
In the 19^th century, however, some influential scholars argued that the original church was an informal, Spirit-led association of believers without structure, offices, or institutions and that the notion of a structured, institutional church is unbiblical. This belief fits well with our American, democratic, egalitarian, and individualistic instincts but it is a serious misunderstanding of Scripture. In Matthew 16, Jesus queried his disciples, “‘…who do you say that I am?’” (v.16). Peter answered, ^“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v.17). To this Jesus replied, in part, “I will build my church…I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (vv.18–19). The keys to which our Lord referred are symbols of authority given to officers who are to exercise that authority in a particular institution: the church. Christ has given to the church genuine, spiritual authority to make decisions, which, when they agree with Scripture, are binding on earth and in heaven. The church does not make persons believers or unbelievers. Rather the church’s authority is ministerial: it recognizes what is true and announces that truth with God-given authority. It is this very church to which Jesus gave authority to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments (Matt 28:18–20).

Jesus could not have been clearer about his intention. The noun for “church” used in Matthew 18 was drawn from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (e.g., Deut 4:10; 9:10). It means “the covenant assembly” and denotes a divinely constituted gathering of God’s people with officers, members, sacraments, and discipline.

Against this background we can understand why the Apostles followed the ancient pattern by gradually instituting three new covenant offices broadly corresponding to the Old Testament offices: prophets/ministers (1 Tim 4:6, 11–16; 6:11–12), priests/deacons (Acts 6:1–7; 1 Tim 3:8, 11–13) and elders (1 Tim 3:1–7; 1 Tim 5:17-20).⁵

It is clear that the New Covenant church was Spirit-led, but the Spirit works through the Word (Rom 10:14–18) and sacraments (1 Cor 10) to bring his elect to faith and to confirm to them the promises of the gospel (Heidelberg Catechism Q. 65).⁶ The pattern of the New Covenant church was established very early (Acts 2:42). The life of the early church was Spirit-led, but it was so in a structured, disciplined assembly with officers, sacraments, and discipline.

Not only did the Apostles obey Jesus’ instructions in regard to the local congregation, but in Acts 15 we even see an example of a regional gathering of delegates to make binding decisions (that they called a “decree”) about the nature of the gospel and about membership in the church (Acts 15). “Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question” (Acts 15:2). Here is the first synod or general assembly. At this synod there were missions reports, speeches, discussion over the meaning of various passages of Scripture, even heated theological argument (vv. 7–11), and finally, agreement.

The Marks of a True Church
It is with these passages in mind that the Reformed and Presbyterian churches confess belief in an institutional church. The Belgic Confession says in Article 27, “We believe and confess one single catholic or universal church—a holy congregation and gathering of true Christian believers, awaiting their entire salvation in Jesus Christ being washed by his blood, and sanctified and sealed by the Holy Spirit.”⁷ The Westminster Confession of Faith likewise teaches that there is a “catholic or universal Church” (25.1) and also “a catholic visible church” (25.3).⁸ Notice that the church is both universal and particular. One cannot belong to the catholic church without belonging to a particular congregation. Thus the Belgic Confession (Art. 28) agreed with the early church father Cyprian (200–258) in saying, “Outside the church there is no salvation.”

In Article 29, the Belgic Confession recognized that, in this life, every congregation will contain “hypocrites who are mixed among the good in the church and who nonetheless are not part of it, even though they are physically there….” Even though the church is mixed, it is possible to distinguish a true church from the “false church” and from “sects” (Art. 29). A true church “engages in the pure preaching of the gospel; it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them; it practices church discipline for correcting faults.”

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