§ 65. The Church and the Kingdom of Christ.
§ 65. The Church and the Kingdom of Christ.
Thus the apostolic church appears as a free, independent, and complete organism, a system of supernatural, divine life in a human body. It contains in itself all the offices and energies required for its purposes. It produces the supply of its outward wants from its own free spirit. It is a self-supporting and self-governing institution, within the state, but not of the state. Of a union with the state, either in the way of hierarchical supremacy or of Erastian subordination, the first three centuries afford no trace. The apostles honor the civil authority as a divine institution for the protection of life and property, for the reward of the good and the punishment of the evil-doer; and they enjoin, even under the reign of a Claudius and a Nero, strict obedience to it in all civil concerns; as, indeed, their heavenly Master himself submitted in temporal matters to Herod and to Pilate, and rendered unto Caesar the things that were Caesar’s. But in their spiritual calling they allowed nothing to be prescribed or forbidden to them by the authorities of the state. Their principle was, to "obey God rather than men." For this principle, for their allegiance to the King of kings, they were always ready to suffer imprisonment, insult, persecution, and death, but never to resort to carnal weapons, or stir up rebellion and revolution. "The weapons of our warfare," says Paul, "are not carnal, but mighty through God." Martyrdom is a far nobler heroism than resistance with fire and sword, and leads with greater certainty at last to a thorough and permanent victory.
The apostolic church, as to its membership, was not free from impurities, the after-workings of Judaism and heathenism and the natural man. But in virtue of an inherent authority it exercised rigid discipline, and thus steadily asserted its dignity and holiness. It was not perfect; but it earnestly strove after the perfection of manhood in Christ, and longed and hoped for the reappearance of the Lord in glory, to the exaltation of his people. It was as yet not actually universal, but a little flock compared with the hostile hosts of the heathen and Jewish world; yet it carried in itself the principle of true catholicity, the power and pledge of its victory over all other religions, and its final prevalence among all nations of the earth and in all classes of society.
Paul defines the church as the body of Jesus Christ.744 He thus represents it as an organic living system of various members, powers, and functions, and at the same time as the abode of Christ and the organ of his redeeming and sanctifying influence upon the world. Christ is, in one view, the ruling head, in another the all-pervading soul, of this body. Christ without the church were a head without a body, a fountain without a stream, a king without subjects, a captain without soldiers, a bridegroom without a bride. The church without Christ were a body without soul or spirit—a lifeless corpse. The church lives only as Christ lives and moves and works in her. At every moment of her existence she is dependent on him, as the body on the soul, or the branches on the vine. But on his part he perpetually bestows upon her his heavenly gifts and supernatural powers, continually reveals himself in her, and uses her as his organ for the spread of his kingdom and the christianizing of the world, till all principalities and powers shall yield free obedience to him, and adore him as the eternal Prophet, Priest, and King of the regenerate race. This work must be a gradual process of history. The idea of a body, and of all organic life, includes that of development, of expansion and consolidation. And hence the same Paul speaks also of the growth and edification of the body of Christ, "till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."745
This sublime idea of the church, as developed in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and especially in the Epistle to the Ephesians, when Paul was a prisoner chained to a heathen soldier, soars high above the actual condition of the little flocks of peasants, freedmen, slaves, and lowly, uncultured people that composed the apostolic congregations. It has no parallel in the social ideals of ancient philosophers and statesmen. It can only be traced to divine inspiration.
We must not confound this lofty conception of the church as the body of Christ with any particular ecclesiastical organization, which at best is only a part of the whole, and an imperfect approach to the ideal. Nor must we identify it with the still higher idea of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. A vast amount of presumption, bigotry, and intolerance has grown out of such confusion. It is remarkable that Christ speaks only once of the church in the organic or universal sense.746 But be very often speaks of the kingdom, and nearly all his parables illustrate this grand idea. The two conceptions are closely related, yet distinct. In many passages we could not possibly substitute the one for the other without manifest impropriety.747 The church is external, visible, manifold, temporal; the kingdom of heaven is internal, spiritual, one, and everlasting. The kingdom is older and more comprehensive; it embraces all the true children of God on earth and in heaven, before Christ and after Christ, inside and outside of the churches and sects. The historical church with its various ramifications is a paedagogic institution or training-school for the kingdom of heaven, and will pass away as to its outward form when its mission is fulfilled. The kingdom has come in Christ, is continually coming, and will finally come in its full grown strength and beauty when the King will visibly appear in his glory.
The coming of this kingdom in and through the visible churches, with varying conflicts and victories, is the proper object of church history. It is a slow, but sure and steady progress, with many obstructions, delays, circuitous turns and windings, but constant manifestations of the presence of him who sits at the helm of the ship and directs it through rain, storm, and sunshine to the harbor of the other and better world.
Comp. Matt. 16:18; 18:18; 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Luke 22:19; John 20:21-23; Eph. 2:20 ff.; 4:11 ff.
2 Cor. 2:16.
Acts 20:28.
Acts 6:6; 1 Tim. 4:14; 5:22; 2 Tim. 1:6.
Pet. 2:5, 9; 5:3; comp. Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 20:6. The English "priest" (the German Priester) is etymologically a harmless contraction of "presbyter" (i.e., elder), but has become a synonyms for the Latin sacerdos (iJereuv", wjk ), meaning an offerer of sacrifices and a mediator between God and the people. Milton said rather sarcastically, " presbyter is priest writ large."
In Eph. 4:11, he adds "pastors and teachers." In 1 Cor. 12:28 he enumerates first, apostles; secondly, prophets; thirdly, teachers; then powers, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, kinds of tongues. Neither list is intended to be strictly methodical and exhaustive.
So Calvin, Inst. IV. ch. 3, § 4: "Secundum hanc interpretationem (qua mihi et verbis et sententiae Pauli consentanea videtur) tres iliae functiones [Apostoli, Prophetae, Evangelisttae]non ideo intitutae in ecclesia fuerunt, ut perpetuae forent, sed ad id modo tempus quo erigendae erant ecclesiae, ubi nullae ante fuerant, vel certe a Mose ad Christum traducendae. Quanquam non nego quin Apostolos postea quoque, vel saltem eorum loco Evangelistas interdum excitarit Deus, ut nostro tempore factum est."Most Protestant historians hold substantially the same view. The followers of the "Catholic Apostolic Church," usually called "Irvingites," claim to have apostles, prophets, evangelists raised up by the Lord himself in these last days preparatory to his Advent; but these "apostles" died one by one, and their places remain vacant. See my Hist. of the Ap. Church, pp. 516 sqq., and Creeds of Christendom, I. 905 sqq. In a very substantial sense the original apostles survive in their teaching, and need and can have no successors or substitutes.
Some commentators wrongly hold that the election of Matthias, made before the Pentecostal illumination, was a hasty and invalid act of Peter, and that Christ alone could fill the vacancy by a direct call, which was intended for Paul. But Paul never represents himself as belonging to the Twelve and distinguishes himself from them as their equal. See Gal., 1 and 2.
Acts 11:28; 21:19; 13:1; 15:32
1 Tim. 1:3; 3:14; 2 Tim. 4:9, 21; Tit. 1:5; 3:2; 1 Pet. 5:12. Calvin takes the same view of the Evangelists, Inst. IV., ch. 3, § 4: "Per Evangelistas eos intelligo, qui quum dignitate essent Apostolis minores, officio tamen proximi erant, adeoque vices eorum gerebant. Quales fuerunt, Lucas, Timotheus, Titus, et reliqui similes: ac fortassis etiam septuaginta quos secundo ab Apostolis loco Christus designavit (Luc. 10. 1)."
Lightfoot, p. 197. Other Episcopal writers, accepting the later tradition (Euseb., H. E. III. 4; Const. Apost. VII. 46), regard Timothy and Titus as apostolic types of diocesan bishops. So Bishop Chr. Wordsworth: A Church History to the Council of Nicaea (1880, p. 42), and the writer of the article "Bishop," in Smith and Cheetham (I. 211).
The presbuvteroi correspond to the Jewish zekenim; see above, § 51. It was originally a term of age, and then of dignity, like Senators, Sennatus, gerousiva (comp. our " Senate," "Alderman"), for the members of the governing body of a municipality or state. Aged and experienced men were generally chosen for office, but not without exceptions. Timothy was comparatively young when he was ordained (1 Tim. 4:12). The Roman Senate consisted originally of venerable men, but after the time of Augustus the aetas senatoria was reduced to twenty-five. The use of presbyter in the sense ofsacerdos, iJereuv", priest, dates from the time of Cyprian, and became common from the fifth century onward to the Reformation. In the New Test. there is no trace of any special sacerdotal office or caste.
The term ejpivskopo"occurs about a dozen times in the Septuagint for various Hebrew words meaning " inspector," "taskmaster," "captain," "president" (see Trommius, Concord. Gr. 492 LXX. Interpr. sub verbo, and also sub ejpiskophv and ejpiskopevw). It was used in Egypt of the officers of a temple, in Greece of overseers or guardians in general, or of municipal and financial officers. In Athens the commissioners to regulate colonies and subject states were called ejpivskopoi. The Spartans sent ejpimelhtaiv in the same capacity. The term was not only applied to permanent officers, but also to the governing body, or a committee of the governing body. The feminine ejpiskophv is not classical, but passed from the Sept. into the Greek Test. (Acts 1:20; 1 Tim. 3:1) and patristic usage with the meaning: the work or office of a bishop (inspectio, visitatio). See Lightfoot, Philippians, 93 sqq., Gebhardt and Harnack, Patr. Apost. Op. p. 5; Hatch, l.c., 37 sqq., and Hatch, art. "Priest" in Smith and Cheetham, II. 1698 sqq.
The distinction between them, as two separate orders of ministers, dates from the second century, and is made a dogma in the Greek and Roman churches. The Council of Trent (Sess. XXIII., cap. 4, and can. vii. de sacramento ordinis) declares bishops to be successor of the apostles, and pronounces the anathema on those who affirm "that bishops are not superior to priests (presbyters)." Yet there are Roman Catholic historians who are learned and candid enough to admit the original identity. So Probst, Sacramente, p. 215; Döllinger (before his secession), First Age of the Church, Engl. transl. II. 111; and Kraus, Real-Encykl. der christl. Alterthümer (1880), I. 62. Kraus says: "Anfangs werden beide Termini [ejpivskopo" and presbuvtero"] vielfach mit demselben Werthe angewendet (Act 20:17, 28; Tit. 1:5; Clem. ad Cor. I. 42<cbr>, 44</cbr>, 47). Noch im zweiten Jahrh. findet man die Bischöfe auch Gr. presbuteroi genannt, nicht aber umgekeht. Sofort fixirt sich dann der Sprachgebrauch: der B. ist der Vorsteher der paroikiva, dioivkhsi" ,als Nachfolger der Apostel; ihm unterstehen Volk und Geistlichkeit; ihm wohnt die Fülle der priesterlichen Gewalt inne."The sacerdotal idea, however, does not synchronize with the elevation of the episcopate, but came in a little later.
The only apparent exceptions are 1 Tim. 3:2; Tit. 1:7, but there the definite article before ejpivskopo"is generic.
Acts 20:17 (presbyters), 28 (bishops). In the English version the argument of the identity is obscured by the exceptional translation "overseers," instead of the usual "bishops." The Revised Version of 1881 has mended this defect by adopting "elders" and "bishops" in the text, and "presbyters" and "overseers" in the margin. The perversion of the passage, under the unconscious influence of a later distinction, began with Irenaeus, who says (Adv. Haer. III. 14, 2): "The bishops and presbyters were called together (convocatis episcopis et presbyter) at Miletus from Ephesus, and the other neighboring cities (et a reliquis proximis civitatibus)."The last addition was necessary to justify the plurality of bishops as distinct from presbyters. The latter alone are mentioned, Acts 20:17.
Phil. 1:1: pa'sin toi'" aJgivoi" ... suvn ejpiskovpoi" kai; diakovnoi"
1 Tim. 3:1-13; 5:17-19; Tit. 1:5-7.
1 Pet. 5:1, 2: presbutevrou" ... parakalw' oJ sunpresbuvtero"_ poimavnate to; ejn uJmi'n poivmnion tou' qeou', ejpiskopou'nte" … The last word is omitted by a and B. Tischendorf (8th ed.), Westcott and Hort, but poimavnate implies the episcopal function, the oversight of the flock.
Clem., Ad Cor. c. 42 ("bishops and deacons "), c. 44 ("bishopric ... the presbyters"). The Didache (ch. 15) knows only bishops and deacons, as local officers, the former being identical with presbyters. Irenaeus still occasionally calls the bishops "presbyters," and uses sussiones episcoporum and successiones presbyterorum synonymously, but he evidently recognized the episcopal constitution. The higher office includes the lower, but not conversely.
L. c., p. 194. He illustrates this usage by a parallel instance from the Athenian institutions. Neander has the same view of the origin of the episcopate. It dates, in fact, from Jerome.
See the patristic quotations in my Hist. of the Ap. Ch. pp. 524 sq. Even Pope Urban II. (a.d. 1091) says that the primitive church knew only two orders, the deaconate and the presbyterate. The original identity of presbyter and bishop is not only insisted on by Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Congregationalists, but freely conceded also by Episcopal commentators, as Whitby, Bloomfield, Conybeare and Howson, Alford, Ellicott, Lightfoot, Stanley, and others. It is also conceded by purely critical historians, as Rothe, Ritschl, Baur (K Gesch I. 270), and Renan (Les Evangiles, p. 332). Renan calls the history of the ecclesiastical hierarchy 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 bishops to the pope (in the Vatican council). "La création de l’épiscopat est l’aeuvre du IIe siècle. L’absorption de l’Eglise par les ’presbyteri’est un fait accompli avant la fin du premier. Dans l’èpître de Clément Romain, etc., ce n’est pas encore l’épiscopat, c’est le presbytérat qui est en cause. On n’y trouve pas trace d’un ’presbyteros’’supérieur aux autres et devant détrôner les autres. Mais l’auteur proclame hautement que le presbytérat, to clergé, est antérieur au peuple." Comp. also Renan’s Saint Paul, 238 sq., and L’Eglise Chrétienne, ch. VI. p. 85 sqq. This subject then may be regarded as finally settled among scholars. At the same time it should in all fairness be admitted that the tendency toward an episcopal concentration of presbyteral power may be traced to the close of the apostolic age.
See Hatch, Organiz. Lect. II. and IV., and his art. "Priest" in Smith and Cheetham, II. 1700. Hatch makes large use of the inscriptions found at Salkhad, in the Haurân, at Thera, and elsewhere. He advances the new theory that the bishops were originally a higher order of deacons and supreme almoners of the sovereign congregation, while the presbyters had charge of the discipline. He admits that bishops and presbyters were equals in rank, and their names interchangeable, but that their relations differed in different churches during the first two centuries, and that the chief function of the bishop originally was the care and disposition of the charitable funds. Hence the stress laid by Paul on the necessity of a bishop being ajfilavrguro" and filovzeno" . In the long series of ecclesiastical canons and imperial edicts, the bishops are represented especially in the light of trustees of church property.
Acts 11:30, at the time of the famine when the church of Antioch sent a collection to the elders for their brethren in Judaea.
Acts 14:23; comp. Tit. 1:5.
poimevne" kai; didavskaloi, Eph. 4:11.
Acts 14:23; Tit. 1:5; 1 Tim. 5:22; 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6. On the election, ordination and support of ministers, see my Hist. Ap. Ch. pp. 500-506.
Acts 11:30; 14:23; 15:2, 4, 6, 23; 16:4; 20:17, 28; 21:18; Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim 4:14; James 5: 14; 1 Pet. 5: 1.
1 Tim. 5:17: "Let the elders that rule well (oiJ kalw'" proestw'te" presbuvteroi) be counted of double honor ( diplh'" timh'"), especially those who labor in the word and in teaching (ejn lovgw/ kai; didaskaliva/)." Some commentators emphasize kalw'", some refer the " double honor" to higher rank and position, others to better remuneration, still others to both.
1 Tim. 3:2: "The bishop must be ... apt to teach (didaktikovn)." The same is implied in Tit. 1:9; Act 20:28; and Heb. 13:17. Lightfoot takes the right view (p. 192): "Though government was probably the first conception of the office, yet the work of teaching must have fallen to the presbyters from the very first and have assumed greater prominence as time went on." On the question of teaching and ruling elders, compare, besides other treatises, Peter Colin Campbell: The Theory of Ruling Eldership (Edinb. and London, 1866), and two able articles by Dr. R. D. Hitchcock and Dr. E. F. Hatfield (both Presbyterians) in the "American Presbyterian Review" for April and October, 1868. All these writers dissent from Calvin’s interpretation of 1 Tim. 5:17, as teaching two kinds of presbyters: (1) those who both taught and ruled, and (2) those who ruled only; but Campbell pleads from 1 Cor. 12:28; Rom. 12:8; and Acts 15:22, 25 for what he calls "Lay Assessors." Dr. Hitchcock holds that the primitive presbyters were empowered and expected both to teach and to rule. Dr. Hatfield tries to prove that the Christian presbyters, like the Jewish elders, were only to rule; the office of teaching having been committed to the apostles, evangelists, and other missionaries. The last was also the view of Dr. Thornwell, of South Carolina (on Ruling Elders), and is advocated in a modified form by an Oxford scholar of great ability, Vice-Principal Hatch (l.c. Lecture III. pp. 35 sqq., and art ."Priest" in Smith and Cheetham, II. 1700). He holds that the Christian presbyters, like the Jewish, were at first chiefly officers of discipline, not of worship, and that the fitness for teaching and soundness in the faith were altogether subordinate to the moral qualities which are necessary to a governor. He also remarks (p. 1707) that neither Clement nor Ignatius makes any mention of presbyters in connection with teaching, and that teaching was a delegated function committed to the wiser presbyters.
Other interpretations of the apocalyptic angels: 1. Heavenly messengers, guardian angels of the several churches. Origen. Jerome, De Wette, Alford, Bishop Lightfoot. 2. Deputies or clerks of the churches, corresponding to the shelichai of the synagogues. Vitringa, John Lightfoot, Bengel, Winer. 3. Figurative personifications of the churches. Arethas, Salmasius. 4. Bishops proper. See my Hist. of the Ap Ch. pp. 537 sqq.
Rothe, Bunsen, Thiersch, and Bishop Lightfoot trace the institution of episcopacy to the Gentile churches in Asia Minor, and claim for it some sanction of the surviving apostle John during the mysterious period between a.d. 70 and 100. Neander, Baur, and Ritschl opposed Rothe’s theory (which created considerable sensation in learned circles at the time). Rothe was not an Episcopalian, but regarded episcopacy as a temporary historical necessity in the ancient church.
See §27, pp. 264 sqq.
Acts 21:18 comp, 11:30; 12:17; and Acts 15
diavkono", diaconus, in later usage also diavkwn, diacones (in Cyprian’s works and in synodical decrees).
Lightfoot (Hor. Hebr. in Act. 6:3) says: "Tralatum erat officium Diaconatus ... in Ecclesiam Evangelicam ex Judaica. Erant enim in unaquaque Synagoga !ysnrp ‘g , tres Diaconi quibus incubuit ista cura (pauperum)."
According to a letter of Cornelius, the Roman Church in 251 had forty-six presbyters, but only seven deacons, Euseb., H. E., VI. 43. The places were filled by sub-deacons. In Constantinople, Justinian authorized the appointment of a hundred deacons.
Acts 6:3; 1 Tim. 8:8 sqq.
hJ diavkono", afterwards also diakovnissa, diaconissa, diacona.
Rom. 16:1, where Phoebe is called (hJ) diavkono" th'" ejn Kegcreai'". Comp. 16:3, 6, 12. On the question whether the widows mentioned 1 Tim. 3:11; 5:9-15, were deaconesses, see my Hist. of the Ap. Ch., p. 536.
In the Roman Church, sisterhoods for charitable work have supplanted congregational deaconesses; and similar institutions (without the vow of celibacy) were established among the Moravians, in the Lutheran, Episcopal, and other churches. The Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity, and the Evangelical Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth are worthy of special honor. See art. Deacon, Deaconess, and Deaconesses in Schaff’s Rel. Cyclop., vol. I. (1882), pp. 613 sqq.
Comp. § 50, p. 450.
1 Cor. 5:5.
Comp. Matt. 18:15-18; Tit. 3:10; 1 Cor. 5:5.
Matt. 18:17. The words: "Tell it to the church," cannot apply to the church universal, as ejkklhsiva does in Matt. 16:18.
Acts 5:1-10.
1 Cor. 5:1 sqq.
2 Cor. 2:5-10.
Acts 15, and Galatians 2.
Acts 15:6, 12, 22, 23. See Notes.
744 Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 6:15; 10:17; 12:27; Eph. 1:23; 4:12; 5:23, 30; Col. 1:18, 24; 2:17.
745 Eph. 4:13.
746 Matt. 16:18. In the other passage where he speaks of the ejkklhsiva, Matt. 18:17, it denotes a local congregation (a synagogue), as in very many passages of the Acts and Epistles. We use the word church in two additional senses in which it never occurs in the New Test., because the thing did not exist then, namely, of church buildings and of denominations (as the Roman Church, Anglican Church, Lutheran Church).
747 We could not say "Thy church come " (Matt. 6:9); "to such (children) belongeth the church" (Mark 10:14); "the church cometh not with observation" (Luke 17:21); "neither fornicators, etc ... shall inherit the church " (1 Cor. 6:10); "the church is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 15:17). On the other hand, it would be improper to call the kingdom of God "the body of Christ " or "the bride of the Lamb."