The real question should not be “where does the bible teach church membership?” but rather, “where, after 1500 years of history in which there were church members before Acts, did the New Testament revoke church membership?” The history of Israel, the history of God’s old covenant people, is instructive. In the Old Covenant, God is a bookkeeper. In Exodus 32:32 we see a very interesting phrase. In a prayer, Moses pleads with God not to blot him out of “the Book you have written.” The Lord replies to Moses that He will indeed blot anyone who sins out of His “Book.”

“I am a member of the church universal. I do not need to be a member of an organized church.” “Our church does not believe in church membership.” “Church membership is unbiblical. It is a man-made tradition.” These are but a few of the objections to church membership that I and other pastors have heard and read. It would be easy to meet this challenge were there a verse in Scripture that says “there is church membership” or “join the nearest true church” but of course there are no such verses in Scripture. There are also no verses that say, “Do not stab your sister in the eye with a pencil” yet I cannot imagine a Christian arguing that he has the right to do so? Why not? Because most Christians realize, if only intuitively, that it is ungodly and unbiblical intentionally to stab someone in the eye. How do we know that? We know it by “good and necessary consequence” (WCF 1.6) from Holy Scripture. We do not need a passage to tell us explicitly not to attack other people violently because we have the command to love our neighbors as ourselves. We draw inferences from that command. We apply that general command to this particular situation. That there was such a thing as “church membership” in the history of redemption is another “good and necessary” consequence from Scripture.

Breaking Down Unwarranted Assumptions

One reason why American Christians doubt the legitimacy of church membership is that they assume a narrative about the Apostolic and early Christian church which is without foundation in Scripture or history but that is nevertheless widely held. That narrative says that our Lord never instituted a visible church, that there was a sort of loose affiliation between the disciples both during our Lord’s earthly ministry and after his ascension. According to this narrative, what changed after his ascension is that the Holy Spirit was poured out with the result that this loose affiliation of Christians became Spirit-empowered and Spirit-led in such a way that institutions were not necessary. According to this account, institutions are set against the Spirit and against the notion of a dynamic, free association of Spirit-led Christians. The rise of the institutional church is said to be evidence of corruption, spiritual entropy due to the loss of the direct operation and influence of the Spirit.

Again, this narrative, however widespread, is almost entirely false. The prima facieevidence against it is very strong. Our Lord Jesus himself gave “the keys of the kingdom” to his disciples and charged them to use them. Scripture says:

And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 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” (Matt 16:17–19; ESV).

Upon his ascension, our Lord Jesus constituted his 12 disciples as apostles. This is an office with genuine spiritual authority. That office is to be exercised in some organization. The very image of keys entails admitting and excluding. Keys open and lock doors. A door exists in a physical structure. It is a metaphor for some organized entity. We need not guess what that organized entity is. In Matthew 18 our Lord called his “church.”

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matt 18:15–20; ESV)

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