The Right Preaching and Hearing of the Word
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
The year is 1520. We are parishioners of the Great Cathedral in Zurich, Switzerland. Our language is German, and we’ve just heard it powerfully spoken from the pulpit again this morning. Ulrich Zwingli, our new pastor, the People’s Priest, has been preaching at us in a way that is transforming.
It seems that much is newly liable to change. It was started three years ago, we’re told, by an Augustinian monk when he nailed 95 theses on a door in Wittenberg. The news spread by rumor, the ideas by preaching. Now it has come here by way of the proclamations of Pastor Zwingli.
We can see the changes all around us, especially within the cathedral. The stained glass is gone, the icons removed, the organ disassembled. What remains is a space simplified so as not to distract from the preaching. The word read, explained, heard and obeyed is now the measure of our formation. We are being reformed.
It is neither the first nor last time the church will be reformed. The Apostle Paul wrote to a very new church at Corinth in the middle of the first century for the purpose of their reformation. Abuse of the Lord’s Supper was the occasion. In their brief history they had perverted the purpose of communion with the persistent divisions within their fellowship. The Apostle, who was himself, it seems, received well by only some of the congregation, wrote a letter to them in the hopes of correcting their error.
Further argumentation by the Apostle in an argumentative environment would not by itself be a help. An appeal to his own authority, considerable though it was, would be insufficient. A higher authority, a final arbiter, would be introduced.
With the simple words, “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you …” the Apostle claimed his words of judgment and correction to the Corinthians are “from the Lord,” and his work is to transmit that of which he is himself a recipient. What follows is as long a quote of the Savior as the Apostle makes in all his letters. And the letters of the Apostle, including this one to the Corinthians, are a proclamation of the word; the reading of the letter in Corinth (always aloud in the ancient world) would be its hearing. Rightly done, not only would the Corinthian errors be corrected but the assembly would be, for all its continuing faults, a true church of Jesus Christ.
The Apostle presumes and practices that the word, rightly preached and heard, would assist and define the reformation of the Corinthian church and that the word, rightly preached and heard, would mark the recognition of the church.
Zwingli presumed and practiced the same in Zurich.
The abuses of the sacraments were in 1520 again an occasion of controversy and division. Proposed amendment of those current abuses by appreciation of and appeal to the word of the Lord in the preaching of the reformers and in the obedient hearing of the reformed was central to the work of reformation.
Beyond the right preaching and hearing of the word to correct current abuses, was the recognition that the right preaching and hearing of the word was itself a mark of the church. Abuses in many areas of church life were frequent, persistent, and, one is tempted to say, almost normative in the church whether first or sixteenth or any century. But what is important, the reformers argued, is that the word be given full sway in the correction of those abuses always. That is how we may know, however disordered its common life may be, that that church is …well is, a church.
Some churches had progressed far on the path of reformation from centuries of abuse in a brief three years leading up to 1520; some less so; some had not begun in earnest at all or gave any promise of beginning. The question arose among the reformed and reforming concerning the ecclesiastical status of those churches which remained unreformed, especially so concerning those which resisted the reformation. Were they churches at all? The ever widening distance from one congregation to another in practices, worship, and doctrines intensified the anxiety in the hearts of many that what some may call a church might be no church at all if it remained persistent in its abuses and resistant to amendment.
Zwingli, as the other reformers in due time, would need to answer the question: What marks the true church of Christ?
The first answer given by the reformers was the right preaching and hearing of the word. It is not meant to be an aspirational or constitutional standard as are the Nicene marks—one holy catholic apostolic. It is a minimal standard. If absent, a church does not exist; if present, there is a church. The church present may be an unreformed church, it may be an errant church, it may not be much of a church but, it is not to be doubted, it is a church if in it the word is rightly preached and heard.
This initial preference for discovery of the work of the word when deciding the ecclesiastical status of any entity claiming to be a church was justified by this logic: the word is the word of Christ—the apostles are his apostles, the prophets are his prophets—where the word is rightly preached and heard, Christ’s own and Christ’s word is present, and where Christ’s own and Christ’s word is present, Christ is present, and where Christ is present, there is the church.
The reformers announced their commitment to this mark of the church—the right preaching and hearing of the word—in their confessions. Hear this quote from the Second Helvetic (Swiss) Confession written by Heinrich Bullinger, Pastor Zwingli’s successor at our church in Zurich.
…we teach that the true church is that in which the signs or marks of the true church are to be found, especially the lawful and sincere preaching of the Word of God as it was delivered to us in the books of the prophets and the apostles, which all lead us unto Christ, who said in the Gospel: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life. A stranger they do not follow, but they flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” (Second Helvetic 5.134)
May the right preaching and hearing of the word mark our church as true.
The Sacraments Administered According to Christ’s Institution
I Corinthians 11:17-22
The year is 1540. We are parishioners of the refugee church in Strasburg, France. Our language is French and we hear it preached daily by our pastor, Jean Calvin.
The reformation of the church is well underway now. But it has had its troubles. Our pastor, a great leader of this reformation, had served in the Cathedral Church in Geneva, Switzerland. That town had continued internal disagreements on the direction and pace of the reformation and sometimes showed signs of reversing its gains. Pastor Calvin had been dismissed and had come back to his homeland France, and begun as our pastor.
Strasburg, like Geneva, had many refugees. Reformed and unreformed parts of Europe are polarizing with the consequent displacement of many people. Our congregation has refugees from all over France, and Western Europe. Many have come here because of the growing reputation of our pastor. His publications are many; his reforms are seminal for other churches in other towns; his influence increases.
A question is asked often of him. What marks the church as a church of God? Refugees wondered out loud about the places, and the churches in those places, from which they had fled. Pastor Calvin would neither dismiss as false the congregations which were unreformed or were reforming according to principles other than those of his teaching, nor would he unquestioningly grant the status of church to any gathering that claimed the designation, even if it had long been known as such even, indeed, if it had once been such. The church had marks by which, in her visible forms, she could be seen and known. The first of these marks—the right preaching and hearing of the word—was well developed and practiced throughout the reformation. A second mark always accompanied it—the administration of the sacraments according to the institution of Christ.
The Apostle Paul had seen the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper administered according to some other institution than that of Christ and had insisted on its immediate amendment. Their unreformed pagan ways had made the celebration of the Lord’s Supper a source of death rather than life for themselves.
Corinth was at once both wealthy and full of slaves, sophisticated and bawdy, characterized by life and death, and, by first century standards, cosmopolitan and quite happy with itself. So too was the church of Corinth. Paul wrote more often with more words to this church than any other.
After congratulating them on whatever he could find in whatever area of their common life he could find it, he addressed their abuses of the Lord’s Supper. “I do not commend you in these matters. I can not.”
One might ask, what can go so wrong with the administration of the sacraments—Lord’s Supper or Baptism—to deserve such attention and severe judgment of the Apostle? The church at Corinth came together regularly at the time of the Lord’s Supper, it seems, and accentuated their many and deep divisions. Partisanship, fierce and sustained in the congregation, had entered the fellowship even at the time of coming together to celebrate their union with Christ, and with one another. The factions may be prelude to the clarifying of the true and the truth, the Apostle suggests, but divisiveness at the table is altogether without justification.
The most obvious illustration of this is that economic inequities within the congregation, (the result of both the presence of a remarkably wide gap between rich and poor in Corinthian society, as pronounced in this city as anywhere else in the empire, and the absence of any parallel practice to the broad and generous sharing of resources and needs as in the church in Jerusalem) was intentionally highlighted at meal time. Rather than overcome the gap, at least for this most holy of meals, or even attempt to diminish it by hiding the painful knowledge of the inequity, the wealthy members insisted on calling attention to inequity by conspicuous consumption in the presence of their humbler fellow congregants.
The Apostle, with the tone of disbelief makes the description the charge, “one goes hungry and another becomes drunk.” The rebuke is harsh by means of its ridicule, “What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in?” And the cross examination is withering, “Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” Had they really been proud of this? Had they really expected the Apostle to approve? Were they so far off the mark that they had offered this to the Apostle for his commendation? “What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!”
What follows is the simple appeal in soft confident tones to the words of Christ by recalling the manner in which Christ first instituted the sacrament. It is the Apostle’s longest quotation of the Savior known to us. In this moment and manner the two marks of the church are so approximate as to be seen at once—the right preaching and hearing of the word (that is, the deference of the Apostle to the word of Christ), and the administration of the sacraments according to Christ’s institution (Christ’s “Do this”).
Pastor Calvin and the other reformers had argued for a Lord’s Supper stripped of its many many medieval complexities which had (they believed wittingly) divided those wealthy (mistakenly thought to be so) in the things of God (namely the clergy) from the humbler fellow congregants who hungered for a visible reminder and means of God’s grace that they might live. The distant and unapproachable altar of the Mass would be amended and replaced by the proximate table of the fellowship of the people of God who come—sinners one and all, without distinction—to where a simple meal would be truly shared. Shared with each other, but what is more, shared with Christ.
Again the logic can be detected here: where the sacraments—the Lord’s Supper or Baptism—were administered according to the institution of Christ, Christ is present, and where Christ is present, there is the church.
Note that the spiritual condition of the pastor/priest is not the issue in any of this. Though our congregation loves and admires Pastor Calvin, against whom the priest back home is compared unfavorably, the quality of the clergy is never cited as a mark of the church; nor is the quality of the faith of the individual congregants. As Luther said, “Baptism is valid even though faith is wanting; for my faith does not make baptism but receives it.” Whether the sacrament was administered according to Christ’s institution would be its measure of validity, and would be second mark of the church.
Pastor Calvin would write in his Institutes (I.IV.9),
From this the face of the church comes forth and becomes visible to our eyes. Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists. For his promise cannot fail: ‘Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.’
But that we may clearly grasp the sum of this matter, we must proceed by the following steps: the church universal is a multitude gathered from all nations; it is divided and dispersed in separate places, but agrees on the one truth of divine doctrine, and is bound by the bond of the same religion. Under it are thus included individual churches, disposed in towns and villages according to human need, so that each rightly has the name and authority of the church.
If it has the ministry of the word and honors it, if it has the administration of the sacraments, it deserves without doubt to be held and considered a church. For it is certain that such things are not without fruit. In this way we preserve for the universal church its unity, which devilish spirits have always tried to sunder, and we do not defraud of their authority those lawful assemblies which have been set up in accordance with local needs.
May the administration of the sacraments in our church be according to the institution of Christ.
Discipline Rightly Administered
I Corinthians 11:27-34
The year is 1560. We are glad members of the High Kirk in St. Andrew’s Scotland. English is spoken here, and perfectly so, this is north Scotland. And no one speaks the language more passionately than our Pastor John Knox.
Pastor Knox had read Zwingli’s fiery sermons and modeled his own upon them. He had studied under Calvin after Calvin’s successful return to Geneva, and had carefully studied the thorough Genevan reforms. Fleeing to Geneva after escaping his captors, he had become a disciple of the reformation of the church, and had determined to be an apostle of its spread to his homeland. “Give me Scotland” had been his prayer. God had answered it affirmatively.
The English royalty had been defeated by the Scot nobility, giving Pastor Knox and we Scots the freedom to declare our faith and practice, ordering our common life—church and community—according to the reformed ideas and habits of our covenanting.
The successes and failures during a long generation of reforms on the continent had provided us with valuable lessons for the work of reformation here. The difficulty of sustained faithfulness and persistent progress in faith was noted with fear and trembling. Great efforts had sometimes failed. We determined to be bold in our efforts of reformation but have no confidence in these efforts apart from God’s help. We determined to keep both our sin and Savior ever before us. We determined to self administer discipline.
The Apostle had commanded the same of the Corinthians.
The necessary companion to the word and sacraments—rightly offered and received—was discipline rightly administered. The final paragraph in this section of the Apostle’s reformation of the Corinthian church insists on discipline.
Noting that they had acted “in an unworthy manner” he told them to “examine themselves” and only then act. For acting without “discerning” resulted in “judgment against themselves” which in turn had resulted in many being “weak and ill” and a few having “died.” They could and must avoid all this by judging themselves and therefore not need to be judged by another.
This self judging is “discipline.” It is part of Christ’s discipline. Christ’s discipline is for us rather than against us. It is always remedial, always restorative, always for our correction, and always “so that we may not be condemned along with the world.” It is for our salvation. It is for our reformation.
Pastor Knox insists on this.
This discipline will work against error in our common life and the ever present orientation of our lives toward sin. This discipline will encourage godliness within our church and community, and will reorient us, however slowly but nonetheless surely, toward life. This discipline will confirm the work of reformation in us and by us. Thus this discipline will be the appropriate companion to the first two marks of the church.
Zwingli and Calvin had presumed discipline implicit in each of the first two marks but we, to be careful of our own sinfulness, make explicit this third necessary mark of the church as completing and accompanying the first two.
When Pastor Knox writes our Confession we say,
The notes of the true Kirk, therefore, we believe, confess, and avow to be: first, the true preaching of the Word of God, in which God has revealed himself to us, as writings of the prophets and apostles declare; secondly, the right administration of the sacraments of Christ Jesus, with which must be associated the Word and promise of God to seal and confirm them in our hearts; and lastly, ecclesiastical discipline uprightly ministered, as God’s Word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished. Then whenever these notes are seen and continue for any time, be the number complete or not, there, beyond any doubt, is the true Kirk of Christ, who, according to his promise, is in its midst. (Scots Confession, 3.18)
May discipline be rightly administered in our Kirk.
May the three marks of the church be present in our church. Let there be no doubt.
This article first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Sep/Oct 2008).
