The Decline of Church Discipline

Mark Dever on the history of church discipline, and the cause and effect of it’s decline: 

Historical data on the life of the church immediately after the New Testament period is only intermittent and partial. The church was, after all, a small and sometimes illegal group. Written sources multiply greatly after the Christian church was legalized throughout the empire under Constantine. For the 1200 years between Constantine and the Protestant Reformation, church discipline, whether by individual excommunication or interdict (withholding the sacraments from the population of a political entity), was often used more to protect the church’s corporate interests against the claims of the state than to reclaim Christians from sin and protect the gospel’s witness. 

When the leaders of the Reformation began to recover a more biblical understanding of preaching and administrating the sacraments as the two marks of a true church, the recovery of church discipline as a consequent mark followed. Implied in the right administration of the sacraments was the correct practice of church discipline. After all, if marking out the church from the world is one function of the sacraments, then discipline becomes the mechanism for enforcing that mandate. The right discipline of the church became so significant that it began to be presented as a third mark of a true church. 

The twenty-ninth article of the Belgic Confession (1561) stated:   Continue at Thirsty Theologian

The ‘Gospel’ According to Rome

In Romans 11:6, Paul says of salvation, “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.”

By contrast, Roman Catholicism finds itself in the impossible position of advocating a gospel in which salvation is offered both by grace and also on the basis of works. The Catholic church promotes a synergistic sacramental soteriology in which human good works, along with God’s grace, contribute to the sinner’s justification.

This is in distinct contrast to the evangelical understanding of the gospel, in which salvation is received by grace through faith alone.

Despite the eccumenical efforts of some, the difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestant Evangelicalism is one of substance not merely semantics.

Today’s post is intended as a summary of Roman Catholic teaching with regard to the essence of the gospel (in order to demonstrate how it strays from the biblical message of salvation). Catholic sources are included under each of the following points.

I. According to Rome, salvation is not by grace through faith alone; it does not come through the sole imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the sinner.

Council of Trent, Canons on Justification, Canon 9: “If anyone says, that by faith alone the impious is justified . . . let him be anathema.”

Council of Trent, Canon 11: “If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins, excluding grace and charity which is poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit and inheres in them, or also that the grace which justifies us is only the favor of God, let him be anathema.”   Continue at Nathan Busenitz

Calvin on Radical Individualism

The Inseparability of Covenant-Renewal with Covenant-Ratification

Article 35 of the Belgic Confession affirms:

To represent to us this spiritual and heavenly bread Christ has instituted an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body and wine as the sacrament of his blood. He did this to testify to us that just as truly as we take and hold the sacraments in our hands and eat and drink it in our mouths, by which our life is then sustained, so truly we receive into our souls, for our spiritual life, the true body and true blood of Christ, our only Savior. We receive these by faith, which is the hand and mouth of our souls. Continue reading HERE

Marching Orders