The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand forever.”—Isa. 40:8
When ought Christian people to withdraw from a church with which they have been connected and seek to lead other people to withdraw with them? That is certainly a timely question just now. A good many people are earnestly considering it in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. The question of separation has ceased to lie in the dim and indefinite future and must be settled in a very few weeks. The General Assembly meets at the end of next month. At the General Assembly the church’s decision on the great issue of the day will probably be made.
If the Permanent Judicial Commission declares the mandate of the 1934 and 1935 Assemblies to be constitutional or on any of the other grounds alleged confirms the condemnation of any one of the members of The Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions or of the Rev. Arthur F. Perkins or of the Rev. John J. DeWaard, and if the General Assembly, sitting as a court, confirms this decision, then the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. will have dethroned Jesus Christ and placed the word of men above the Word of God.
That is true no matter what is thought of the particular persons involved. If they were the most insignificant or the most unworthy persons in the whole church, the principle would remain exactly the same.
What shall be done by other Christian people in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. after their brethren have thus been ejected? Shall they remain in that church or shall they depart?
Is Every Separation Schismatic?
That question is a very serious question indeed. It ought not to be lightly answered.
Unquestionably there are times when separation from a church organization with which one has been connected is a sin. That sin is called the sin of schism. It is a very heinous sin. In saying that, I agree with those who denounce the Covenant Union, and who denounce the pledge, looking to separation in the event that efforts of reform fail, which the “covenant” of the Covenant Union contains.
But if I agree with the opponents of the Covenant Union in holding that there is such a sin as the sin of schism, I think they in turn ought to agree with me when I maintain, on the other hand, that by no means every separation from an existing church organization is the sin of schism.
Can it be seriously held by anyone that every separation is sinful schism?
Well, that could be held by a Roman Catholic, but I do not for the life of me see how it can be held by any Protestant. All Protestants have made themselves party to a separation from an existing church organization. Are we going to abandon the Protestant principle and go back to the Roman Catholic position? That is just exactly what we do if we hold, as many persons seem to hold today, that “splitting the church” is necessarily sinful.
If we are not going to take that step, if we are not going to abandon Protestantism and unite ourselves with the Roman Catholic Church, then we must inevitably admit that there are times when separation from an existing church organization is not the sin of schism but an inescapable and very solemn Christian duty.
The Example of the Reformation
When does such a time for separation come? I think the example of the Reformation again will give us the answer. The time for separation comes at a time when the existing church organization ceases to heed the Word of God and follows some other authority instead.
The early Protestants did not just appeal from authority in general to some general human right of liberty. They appealed from false authority to true authority. They appealed from the usurped authority of ecclesiastical machinery to the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures.
It was to the Bible as the Word of God that they owed allegiance. That is the reason why they were not schismatics when they left the Church of Rome. That is the reason, indeed, why they would have been schismatics if they had remained.
Here, then, is the principle of the thing—it is schism to leave a church if that church is true to the Bible, but it is not schism if that church is not true to the Bible. In the latter case, far from its being schism to separate from the church in question, it is schism to remain in it, since to remain in it means to disobey the Word of God and to separate oneself from the true Church of Jesus Christ.
What Is Our Present Duty?
It is the latter case which will prevail in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. if the Permanent Judicial Commission takes the action which it is expected to take. If that action is taken by the Permanent Judicial Commission at the end of next month and is then confirmed by the General Assembly sitting as a court, some earnest people, at very great sacrifice of worldly goods and with bleeding hearts, will leave church buildings hallowed for them by many precious memories and will sever their connection with a great church organization.
Why will they take that step? I will tell you. They will take that step because they are convinced that if they did not take it, if they did not depart from the existing church organization, they would be guilty of the sin of schism. By their continuance in a plainly apostate church, they would be separating themselves from the true Church of Jesus Christ and would be unfaithful to Christ the Head.
Editor’s Note
This essay first appeared under the title, “The Changing Scene and the Unchanging Word” in the Presbyterian Guardian, Vol. 2, Number 2 (April 20, 1936).
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J. Gresham Machen
The Rev. J. Gresham Machen, D.D. Litt.D. (1881–1937) was Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary and the founder of Westminster Theological Seminary (1929) and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (1936). He authored The Origin of Paul’s Religion (1921), Christianity and Liberalism (1923), and The Virgin Birth of Christ among other works. He was the most important American defender of historic Christianity in the first half of the twentieth century. He died in Bismarck, ND on a speaking tour to rally support for the OPC.
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Dr. Clark,
I don’t see a button to reply to your reply so I’ll write it here.
I don’t disagree that many of the WCF framers were ‘hostile’ to particular baptists. But there was a set shift with the pure/less pure language.
“As to the Baptists having the marks, that’s a point of division between the Reformed and the Baptists, isn’t it?”
From what I’ve seen, no. I have not in person met a reformed or particular baptist person who says that the other group does not have the three marks, albeit it imperfectly. I have met one pastor who argued stuff but even he admitted that his position was seen as a very vocal minority of his denomination. I do not doubt that this position is accepted by many, I just bring this up to say that the division is there for some, but certainly not all.
Regardless of the historical attitude the church had towards a group, we need to evaluate churches and individuals in the light of scripture, confessions, and life. I certainly believe Particular baptists are in error, but I was just trying to point out that I find the Particular Baptist = false church is more of an interpretation disagreement of the confession than a set in stone argument.
Ben,
The Belgic Confession explicitly condemns the denial of baptism to the children of believers. One of the marks is the “pure administration of the sacraments.”
We confess: “It makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them….”
We also confess:
Neither the Anabaptists nor the Baptists have the “pure administration of the sacraments.” All Baptist congregations lack a mark of the true church. A damnable error is not the pure administration of the sacraments.
As to the Baptist view of infant baptism, isn’t that the point of being Baptist?
Do you believe that a baptized professing person who holds an erroneous scruple about believer baptism can be a blood-bought member of Christ’s body? If so, how can you withold the communion of the saints from your brother or sister in Christ who is willing to commune with you? Isn’t that exactly the kind of division between the faithful that Paul urged the Corinthians to avoid? Many people talk about schism in terms of Christians separating from a denomination, but isn’t the actual schism when fellowship between the faithful is destroyed?
Evan,
I’m not sure how to you got to this conclusion from what Machen wrote. He was defending the necessity of withdrawing from an apostate church (the PCUSA).
See these resources on fencing the table.
I’m sorry Dr. Clark, I was trying to reply to JP below.
Thanks Evan.
I see that now. From my view I can’t always see the context of the comments.
It is not our place to decide which individuals are members of Christ’s body. But we can judge theology. If an individual ascribes to a theology that is unscriptural, these issues should be resolved before they are admitted to the supper. The matter of covenant is a major issue within our confessions, and grave warnings were given against the error of believer baptism over and against infant baptism. One can use the same reasoning against allowing a Roman Catholic to partake. Our confessions and church order were set in place to protect the purity of the church.
Presbyterians and 1689ers confess that the saints are bound by profession to maintain a holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God and to extend such communion as God gives opportunity to all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. We cannot judge hearts, but if that were the standard for fellowship, there could be no church. We are called to evaluate confessions and lives of those who confess Christ for outward evidence of him, and those who bear the outward signs of faith we ought not to treat like the world.
Covenant is not theology – that is to say the study and knowledge of God himself. Misunderstanding covenant is not the same as not knowing God. Covenant is the instrument by which Christ has made all those he redeemed members of his own body, including many in reformed baptist churches. Since we do consider it a major issue, how can we hold at arms length someone who bears the marks and evidence of being a member of Christ through his covenant? Are we not the ones who care so much for the covenant that we dare not neglect the sign and seal of it upon our unprofessing and unregenerate children? How much more should we care for the covenant fellowship of those who bear all the signs and evidence of being God’s chosen people?
Yes our confessions protect the outward purity of the church by identifying and suppressing open heresy, but we extend fellowship to Christians who do not understand or live up to our Confessions every Sunday in our own churches. So long as they do not speak heresy and sow disention we do not treat them as heretics.
Evan,
This is a paradigmatic difference between the Reformed and the Baptists. We begin with the external visible church and the outward administration of the covenant of grace. This is why, in Belgic art. 29, we give the marks of the true church first and then the marks of the true Christian.
The pure administration of the sacraments is one of the marks of the true church. According to the Belgic Confession no congregation that denies the external administration of the sign of initiation into the visible covenant community is a true church. It lacks one of the marks of the true church. In the Belgic the Reformed churches condemn this error in the strongest possible terms. The force of the syllogism is unavoidable. The same condemnation of the Anabaptists necessarily applies to the Baptists. That’s why the original Reformed reception of the Particular Baptist movement was to call them Anabaptists. It wasn’t because they could see no difference between the Anabaptists and the Baptists but because on the issue of whom to admit to the visible covenant community the Baptists and Anabaptists are one.
It’s not as though the Baptists (with a few notable exceptions) spare the Reformed. Most of us are, by Baptist lights, unbaptized. Why do Baptists want to commune with unbaptized people? The Didache is explicit about this. It condemns communing the unbaptized and quotes Matt 7:6 as grounds: “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you” (Matt 7:6; ESV).
As to ecumenicity, we recognize your baptism but you cannot (logically) recognize ours. I keep reminding my Baptists friends that, according to Cyprian, whom the Belgic quotes, “outside the church there is no salvation.” Unbaptized persons are (formally at least) outside the church.
To be sure, I know of very few Reformed churches who still follow the Church Order of Dort. Presbyterians admit Baptists to membership in their churches. All of our NAPARC churches commune Baptists. So, this discussion is almost purely theoretical.
I are not saying that Baptists don’t know God. I knew God when I was a Baptist. I have dear Baptists friends who know God but the chasm between the Baptists and the Reformed on the nature of the church is profound as Baptists themselves admit by refusing to acknowledge the validity of infant baptism.
We determine, formally anyway, who is redeemed by their relation to the external church, even though our private judgment complicates that.
We live with that tension.
Dr. Clark, you may want to check with your Canadian Reformed friends on the accuracy of this statement: “All of our NAPARC churches commune Baptists. So, this discussion is almost purely theoretical.”
I can think of at least two other NAPARC denominations in which local churches might allow rare cases of admitting some of the strictest of the Particular Baptists to communion after a detailed examination as to their personal conversion, but would not ordinarily admit a person to the Table who does not have what they would call a “church right” to come, i.e., being a member of a local church in a denomination in formal ecclesiastical fellowship. In the case of those two denominations, being Baptist would be less of an issue than being a member of a local church that is not in ecclesiastical fellowship.
This is a live issue today, not just historically.
Even apart from the three NAPARC denominations I’m thinking of, I’ve personally seen Baptists barred from the Lord’s Table in your own denomination, though it would, of course, be a matter for the local elders to decide. Some take a far stricter view of communing Baptists than others.
Darrell,
This is interesting. The practice of admitting Baptist to the table is, to my knowledge, fairly widespread in the URCs. There are URCs, I’m told, who admit Baptists to membership. That question came to Synod (c. 2012) and there was some sentiment to revise the church order. We ended up adopting pastoral advice. I can imagine maybe one congregation in Classis SWUS that might not admit Baptists to the table.
You’re right. Art 61 of the CanRef CO mirrors Dort’s:
The OPC admits Baptists to membership and to the table. That’s true of the PCA. That accounts for the vast majority of congregations in NAPARC.
What are the NAPARC denominations that don’t admit Baptists to the table?
In response to this question, Dr. Clark: “What are the NAPARC denominations that don’t admit Baptists to the table?”
The Canadian Reformed Churches are NAPARC members, which can be verified by this list:
https://www.naparc.org/icr-contacts/
I do not want to speak for other denominations as to their current practice because synods have been known to modify their positions over the years, and more relevantly for the situation of an occasional Baptist who might be attending the church for a long period, perhaps studying at university for years, to allow some flexibility on the local level for unusual circumstances.
However, let’s be specific on a situation where I have direct firsthand knowledge. When my wife and I visited Dr. Joel Beeke’s church back in the late 1990s, on a week when he had been meeting with me, my wife, and the managing director of a large Korean Christian publishing company who had flown to the United States to meet Dr. Beeke because he wanted to have my wife translate one of Dr. Beeke’s books — this was when Dr. Beeke was far less known than he is today — there was no question that we could not come to the Lord’s Table in his church even though my wife was going to translate some of Dr. Beeke’s work and the managing director was going to publish it in Korean.
Why? We were not members of a church in ecclesiastical fellowship. My wife and I were then members of a very conservative Congregational church on the East Coast; the managing director was an elder in a church in Seoul of the Hapdong Presbyterian denomination.
The lack of formal ecclesiastical fellowship was the issue, not baptism. All three of us believe in infant baptism. But, almost by definition, a Baptist church is not going to have formal ecclesiastical fellowship with a very conservative Dutch Reformed denomination, apart from really unusual situations.
Again, I do not want to speak for current practice or formal synodical decisions. It is entirely possible that local allowances have been made in the two NAPARC denominations with Nadere Reformatie roots for Particular Baptists who share their Puritan distinctives. My understanding of ecclesiastical history in the Nadere Reformatie tradition is that such decisions were in fact made, historically, with regard to some members of prominent Particular Baptist churches in Britian when traveling in the Netherlands in the 1800s and 1900s, on the grounds that occasional exceptions were warranted. However, it was understood that a rare exception could not be allowed to become normalized.
Like you, I’ve seen furious Baptists walk out of a URC when barred from communion. The specific situations are messy and I do not want to say more in public, beyond that I strongly disagreed with the decision and the elders of the churches were just as strong in their insistence that they had made the right decision. The damage was serious and long-term in each case, but the elders involved would presumably consider it to be a necessary mark of Reformed faithfulness.
The URC, as you know, allows local elders considerable latitude and some consistories are considerably stricter than others on their fencing of the Table.
This is helpful.
I did quote the CanRef Church Order. I understand that they are members of NAPARC. I wasn’t aware until tonight that they still held the old church order.
To clarify, it was a Roman Catholic lay woman whom I was describing but I take your point.
Covenant is indeed theology. It is who God is. Reformed doctrine acknowledges this. If an individual denies this, or belongs to a federation that denies this, the Reformed church has a duty to deny them the table. Denying the covenant is a heresy. God comes to us. He knew us before we were conceived. We do not choose Him, He chose us. Covenant. And we receive a sign of His promises though the sacrament of baptism, reiterated through the sacrament of His supper
JP,
None of our confessions say that covenant is “who God is.” He is a covenant making God but it is not attribute of God. It is who is to us because it how he has chosen to reveal himself to us.
Have any of our Reformed churches confessed that to deny our covenant theology is heresy? I don’t think so. Historically, narrowly, heresy is reserved for denying the articles of our undoubted holy catholic faith as summarized in the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed.
We should be careful about dropping the H-bomb casually.
Our Particular Baptist friends confess a covenant theology but they don’t agree with us on the continuity of the covenant of grace nor about the external administration of the covenant of grace.
That’s a mistake but it’s not heresy.
R Scott Clark
Denying the covenant as the reformed confess it and acknowledging the we have the ability to choose God is a heresy, isn’t it? That is more than error in my estimation.
JP,
The Particular Baptists agree with us regarding the decree. They aren’t Remonstrants.
R Scott Clark
“I did quote the CanRef Church Order. I understand that they are members of NAPARC. I wasn’t aware until tonight that they still held the old church order.“
This is my federation, hence my grave concern, as they are moving towards the open table, some admitting non members to the table. Deformation
JP,
That’s interesting.
What is an apostate church? In our current climate, the reformed churches have become very lax in their holding to the three forms of unity and by extension, scripture. Inviting Baptist visitors to partake in the Lord supper is rather common in the NAPARC circles and is becoming more acceptable. During the time of the reformation, this was a big battle. The argument is “they confess Jesus as Lord” or “their reformed Baptists“ or “it’s not as bad as it was during the reformation, they’re not AnaBaptist”. Is protesting against this creating a schism?
Im trying to read your claim here.
Are you saying that the decision of many to extend the table to fellow believers makes them… apostate?
Your arguments are not the arguments given. There are many substantial arguments, but really it boils down the idea that reformed/particular Baptist churches are true churches albeit in error.
Godfrey had has some good words on this.
According to article 29 of the BC, there is a true and false church. It does not address an erring church. Logically, if they are erring, they are false and need to repent.
I like many of the confessional reformed believe there can be true churches that still have some error this side of heaven. I firmly believe reformed/particular baptist churches hold the three marks.
I for good reason think the Westminster does a better job as it talks about the more pure and less pure church. The belgic was written at a time where really it was the united reformed churches against the false catholics, they would be shocked at all the different denominations we have.
Ben,
The framers of the WCF were just as hostile to the Particular Baptists as were the Reformed to the Anabaptists.
See:
As to the Baptists having the marks, that’s a point of division between the Reformed and the Baptists, isn’t it?
I pointed out in my essay in Matthew Bingham, Chris Caughey, Crawford Gribben, R. Scott Clark, and Darryl G. Hart, On Being Reformed: Debates Over A Trans-Atlantic Identity (Palgrave-Pivot, 2018) that the Dutch did not make a linguistic distinction between the Baptists and the Anabaptists. They’re all doppers. For rather recently, it was common for Reformed writers to describe both the Anabaptists and Baptists as “Baptists.” One sees this in 19th century literature regularly.
The Dutch Church orders made no allowance for Particular Baptists, even though the PBs were much closer to us than the Anabaptists.
In other words, I doubt that there was much distance between the Dutch and the Presbyterians on this point in the 17th century.
JP,
I agree that we should be clearer about who can come to the Lord’s table. The Synod of Dort was very clear:
The language to which you refer entered the CRC in the early 1970s after the CRC revised the church order in 1967. The URCs have more or less inherited the language of the early 70s.
My argument is that we should interpret the language of our church order (“biblical church membership”) in light of Belgic Confession art. 29:
This is an area of needed Reformation but it doesn’t rise to the level of apostasy! The PCUSA against which Machen was writing had abandoned the gospel and the Word of God. This is not remotely true of the URCs.
Our Baptist friends typically want to have it both ways. They want to deny that we are baptized but they also want to come to communion. In my experience they don’t seem to see the problem with this. For our part, because we are surrounded by Baptists, it’s psychologically and emotionally difficult to repeat what we confess and what we used to say in the church order because it puts us at odds with about 60 million Christians.
“ it’s psychologically and emotionally difficult to repeat what we confess and what we used to say in the church order because it puts us at odds with about 60 million Christians.”
Indeed, but preferable to being at odds with God. This laxness is creeping into several NAPARC churches. Denying the covenant (as the reformed originally confessed) is no small matter.
JP,
Reformation takes time.
Yes, it does. But in some cases, deformation is happening at a faster pace. Very concerning.
JP,
I’ve been in the URCs since 1998. I’ve seen a lot of progress. Don’t discount what the Spirit is doing through Word and sacrament ministry. It’s going to take time to persuade people that the most loving thing we can do toward our broadly evangelical neighbors is not to admit them to communion but, like the Lutherans, give them an opportunity to reflect on the differences between us. The confessional Lutherans don’t care if anyone else likes them. Because we are closer to American evangelicalism we tend to care more about what people think about us.
I served a congregation where we (briefly) implemented the policy taught in the Dort church order. It was difficult. One woman stormed out of the service when she realized that she could not attend the table. We’re not used to that level of discomfort. In order to endure it more people are going to have to become more deeply convinced that it’s the right thing to do.
It’s a little like baptizing infants. Every time we do it we have to explain to our Baptist friend why we do it (and explain that we’re not doing for the reasons they suspect we do it). It makes the administration of holy baptism more difficult. So, to fence the table per Dort adds another point of tension. People aren’t yet convinced that it’s necessary.
That doesn’t equate to apostasy or decline.
The Dutch churches have never had weekly communion even though Calvin argued for it strenuously. The Dutch weren’t convinced. That doesn’t mean that the Dutch churches are apostate. They’ve mostly not considered Calvin’s arguments. Most of us only learned about them in the last 40-50 years. Now there are some URCs following Calvin’s policy. It’s taken time but it’s happening.
Keep praying!