1. The True Church and the Unity of Believers
1. The Church’s Maternal Care
In the last book I showed that through faith in the gospel Christ becomes ours, and we share the salvation and eternal blessedness he obtained. But our ignorance and laziness, and even our minds’ vanity, require outward helps. Through them faith can arise in us, grow, and progress to completion. Accommodating our weakness, God has provided these helps and secured effective gospel preaching by entrusting this treasure to the church. He appointed pastors and teachers to build up his people through their words (Eph 4:11). He gave them authority and omitted nothing that could promote holy agreement in faith and proper order. In particular, he instituted sacraments, which experience shows to be most useful in nourishing and confirming our faith.
We remain imprisoned in the body and have not yet reached the rank of angels. In his wonderful providence, God therefore provided a way suited to our capacity, by which we can approach him despite our great distance. The proper order is to discuss the church, its government, offices and power; then the sacraments; and finally civil government. Throughout, we must guard godly readers against the papacy’s corruptions, through which Satan has adulterated everything God appointed for our salvation.
I will begin with the church, into whose embrace God chooses to gather his children. Her help and ministry nourish them as infants and children, and her maternal care guides them into maturity and finally to perfect faith. Let no one separate what God has thus joined (Mark 10:9). Those who have him as Father must also have the church as mother. This was true under the Law and remains true after Christ’s coming, since Paul calls us children of a new, heavenly Jerusalem (Gal 4:26).
2. Believing the Universal Church
When we profess in the Creed to believe the church, we mean both the visible church discussed here and all God’s elect, including those who have died. The word is “believe,” because we often cannot distinguish God’s children from the ungodly, his own flock from the untamed herd. The preposition in is often inserted without adequate grounds. I admit this is the more usual form and has ancient support: the Nicene Creed quoted in Ecclesiastical History adds it. Yet early writers show that the expression accepted without controversy in antiquity was to believe “the Church,” rather than “in the Church.”
Augustine uses this expression, as does the ancient writer, whoever he was, whose De Symboli Expositione survives under Cyprian’s name. They expressly say the preposition makes the expression improper and give good reasons. We declare that we believe in God because our minds rest on him as true and our confidence is fully satisfied in him. We cannot say this of the church, any more than of forgiveness of sins or bodily resurrection. I do not wish to quarrel over words. Still, I prefer the proper form, which better expresses the meaning, to terms that needlessly obscure it.
The expression teaches us that Christ’s grace cannot be extinguished, however tirelessly the devil seeks its destruction and however violently God’s enemies pursue the same end. Christ’s blood cannot become barren or be prevented from bearing fruit. We must therefore consider both God’s secret election and his inward calling. He alone “knoweth them that are his” (2 Tim 2:19). As Paul expresses it, he holds his people enclosed under his seal, though they also wear his insignia and are thereby distinguished from the reprobate. They are a small, despised number hidden in a vast crowd, like a few wheat grains buried in a heap of chaff. Knowledge of his church, founded on his secret election, must therefore be left to God alone.
Nor is it enough merely to include the elect in our thoughts and intentions. We must understand the church’s unity as a unity into which we are persuaded we ourselves are truly grafted. Unless united with all the other members under Christ our head, we have no hope of the future inheritance. Hence the church is called catholic or universal. We cannot invent two or three churches without dividing Christ, which is impossible. All God’s elect are joined in Christ. Depending on one head, they form one body, bound together like its different members. They are truly one through life under the same Spirit of God in one faith, hope and love. Their calling is both to the same eternal inheritance and to participation in one God and Christ.
Even if the distressing devastation everywhere seems to proclaim that no church remains, we must know that Christ’s death bears fruit. God wonderfully preserves his church while keeping it, as it were, hidden. Thus he told Elijah, “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel” (1 Kgs 19:18).
3. The Communion of Saints
This Creed article also concerns the outward church to some extent. Each of us must maintain brotherly harmony with all God’s children, give the church its due authority, and behave as sheep of the flock. Hence the added expression “communion of saints.” Although ancient writers usually omit it, we must not overlook a clause that admirably expresses the church’s character. It means that saints are united in Christ’s fellowship on this condition: all the blessings God gives them are shared with one another.
This does not exclude differences in gifts, since the Spirit distributes his gifts variously. Nor does it exclude civil order, which allows each person private possessions. Distinct property rights are necessary to preserve peace among people. Yet a community is asserted, as Luke describes: “The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul” (Acts 4:32). Paul likewise reminds the Ephesians, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling” (Eph 4:4). If persuaded that God is their common Father and Christ their common head, they must be joined in brotherly love and share their blessings.
We especially need to understand the benefit we receive. We believe the church so that we may be firmly persuaded we belong to it. Our salvation thereby rests on a foundation so firm that even the collapse of the whole world could not destroy it. First, it stands with God’s election and can no more change or fail than his eternal providence. Next, it is in a sense joined to Christ’s stability. He will no more allow his faithful followers to be severed from him than allow his own limbs to be torn apart. Moreover, while remaining in the church’s embrace, we are sure the truth will remain with us. Finally, we know we have a share in promises such as “In Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance” (Joel 2:32; Obad 17) and “God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved” (Ps 46:5). Communion with the church is thus powerful in keeping us in God’s fellowship.
The word communion itself gives great comfort. Everything God bestows on his members belongs to us, so every blessing given them confirms our hope. To embrace church unity in this way, however, we need not see it with our eyes or touch it with our hands. Its being an object of faith reminds us to dwell on it as much when it escapes our perception as when it appears openly. Our faith is no worse for apprehending something unknown. We are not commanded to distinguish the elect from the reprobate; that belongs to God alone. We must instead be firmly assured that all who share in Christ through God the Father’s mercy and the Holy Spirit’s power are set apart as God’s own special possession, and that, belonging to their number, we also share this great grace.
4. We Remain in the Church’s School
Our present subject is the visible church. Her title mother alone teaches how useful, indeed necessary, knowing her is. We cannot enter life unless she conceives and gives us birth, nurses us at her breasts, and keeps us under her care and government until, freed from mortal flesh, we become like angels (Matt 22:30). Our weakness does not permit us to leave school until we have spent our whole lives as students.
Outside the church’s boundaries we can hope for neither forgiveness of sins nor salvation, as Isaiah and Joel testify (Isa 37:32; Joel 2:32). Ezekiel agrees: “They shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel” (Ezek 13:9). Conversely, those who turn to true godliness are said to enter their names among Jerusalem’s citizens. Hence the psalm says, “Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people: O visit me with thy salvation; that I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance” (Ps 106:4-5). These words confine God’s fatherly favor and the special evidence of spiritual life to his own people. Abandoning the church is therefore always fatal.
5. God Teaches Through His Church
Let us explain this more fully. Paul says our Savior “ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph 4:10-13). God could perfect his people instantly, yet chooses to bring them to maturity only through the church’s education. The method is stated: pastors are entrusted with preaching heavenly doctrine. Everyone without exception enters this same order, to accept with a gentle, teachable spirit the direction of teachers appointed for this purpose.
Isaiah had long before described Christ’s kingdom this way: “My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever” (Isa 59:21). Those who reject the spiritual food God offers their souls through the church’s hands deserve to perish from hunger. God inspires faith, but through his gospel’s instrumentality, as Paul reminds us: “Faith cometh by hearing” (Rom 10:17). He reserves the power to sustain it to himself, yet brings it forth and develops it through gospel preaching, as Paul also declares.
For this reason God anciently commanded sacred meetings in the sanctuary, so that doctrine from the priest’s lips might nourish agreement in faith. The temple’s magnificent titles, God’s rest, sanctuary and dwelling, and the description of him dwelling between the cherubim (Ps 132:13-14; Ps 80:1), serve to give respect, love, reverence and dignity to the ministry of heavenly doctrine. Otherwise a seemingly insignificant human being might greatly diminish its standing. To teach us that this treasure offered in earthen vessels is priceless (2 Cor 4:7), God himself appears. As author of the ordinance, he requires us to recognize his presence in his own institution.
After forbidding his people to consult familiar spirits, wizards and other superstitions (Lev 19:30-31), he adds a sufficient provision for everyone: he will never leave them without prophets. He did not entrust his ancient people to angels, but raised up earthly teachers to perform a truly angelic office. Likewise, he chooses human means to instruct us today. Formerly he did not provide the Law alone, but added priests as interpreters, from whose lips people might inquire into its true meaning. Today he also requires more than attentive reading and appoints teachers to assist us.
This brings two benefits. First, he wonderfully tests our obedience by having us listen to his ministers as to himself. Second, he considers our weakness. Speaking in a human manner through interpreters, he draws us to himself rather than driving us away with thunder. All the godly know how well this familiar manner of teaching suits us, from the dread his divine majesty rightly inspires.
Those who think the teachers’ insignificance diminishes the doctrine’s authority betray ingratitude. Among the many noble gifts God gave humanity, one of the most remarkable is his willingness to consecrate human mouths and tongues to his service and make his own voice heard through them. Let us therefore obediently receive salvation’s doctrine, delivered by his command and mouth. His power is not confined to outward means, but he has confined us to his ordinary teaching method. Fanatics who refuse it entangle themselves in many deadly snares.
Pride, fastidiousness or rivalry persuades many that private reading and meditation suffice. They despise public assemblies and consider preaching unnecessary. By doing all they can to loosen or break unity’s sacred bond, they bring upon themselves the just punishment of this ungodly divorce. None escapes being captivated by destructive errors and the foulest delusions. If pure, simple faith is to flourish among us, we must practice this exercise of godliness, which God instituted as necessary and so highly commends.
Even the most insolent person would not dare say we should close our ears to God. Yet in every age prophets and godly teachers have struggled against ungodly people whose perversity refuses instruction through human lips and ministry. This amounts to destroying God’s image as presented in doctrine. Ancient believers were repeatedly commanded in the Law to seek God’s face in the sanctuary (Ps 105:4) because the Law’s doctrine and the prophets’ exhortations were a living image of God to them. Paul likewise declares that in his preaching God’s glory shone in Jesus Christ’s face (2 Cor 4:6).
How much more detestable, then, are apostates who delight in causing church divisions, as though driving sheep from the fold into wolves’ jaws! According to Paul’s passage already quoted, the church can be built up only by outward preaching. The saints have no other bond to hold them together than agreement in observing God’s appointed order for learning and progress in his church.
Especially for this purpose, as I have said, believers under the Law were commanded to gather at the sanctuary. Moses calls God’s dwelling the place of his name, where he will record his name (Exod 20:24). This plainly teaches that without godly doctrine the place has no use. Undoubtedly this also explains David’s bitter lament that his enemies’ tyrannical cruelty kept him from the tabernacle (Ps 84). Many consider his complaint childish, as though exclusion from the temple caused little loss or deprivation of pleasure if other amusements remained. Yet David laments this one deprivation as filling him with anxiety and sorrow, tormenting and almost destroying him. Believers prize nothing more than this aid, through which God gradually raises his people to heaven.
God always presented himself to the holy patriarchs in doctrine’s mirror so that their knowledge might be spiritual. The temple is therefore called both his face and, to remove superstition, his footstool (Ps 132:7; Ps 99:5). Faith’s unity is happily realized when everyone, from greatest to least, aspires to the head.
Gentile temples built for a different purpose merely profaned God’s worship. The Jews fell into this profanation too, though less grossly. Stephen reproaches them with Isaiah’s words: “Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as
saith the Prophet, Heaven is my throne” etc. (Acts 7:48). God consecrates temples to their proper use only by his Word. Whenever we rashly act without his command, we begin from a bad principle and introduce inventions that spread evil without limit.
Xerxes acted thoughtlessly when, following the magi’s advice, he burned or demolished Greece’s temples. He thought it absurd to enclose within walls and roofs the God to whom everything should be free and open. But God can, in a sense, descend and draw near to us without changing his place or confining us to earthly means. Rather, he can use them as vehicles to raise us to his heavenly glory, whose immensity fills everything and whose height surpasses heaven.
6. The Spirit Makes Ministry Effective
There is now great controversy about ministry’s effectiveness. Some extravagantly overrate its dignity. Others wrongly claim that we transfer to mortal people what belongs to God’s Spirit when we say ministers and teachers reach minds and hearts, correcting the blindness of the former and hardness of the latter. We must put this controversy on its proper footing.
Both sides’ arguments are easily answered if we distinguish the passages where God, preaching’s author, joins his Spirit to it and promises beneficial results from those where he separates himself from outward means and claims for himself alone both faith’s beginning and its entire course.
Malachi says the second Elijah’s office was to “turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the
children to their fathers” (Mal 4:6). Christ declares he sent the apostles to produce fruit from his labors (John 15:16). Peter briefly defines that fruit: we are born again from incorruptible seed (1 Pet 1:23). Hence Paul boasts that through the gospel he fathered the Corinthians, the seals of his apostleship (1 Cor 4:15). His ministry was not merely of the letter sounding in the ear. The Spirit’s effective agency was given him so that his doctrine would not be fruitless (1 Cor 9:2; 2 Cor 3:6). In this sense he elsewhere says his gospel came in power rather than words alone (1 Thess 1:5). He also affirms that the Galatians received the Spirit through hearing the message of faith (Gal 3:2). In several passages he calls himself God’s fellow worker and even attributes to himself the work of bestowing salvation (1 Cor 3:9).
Certainly he never meant to claim the slightest thing apart from God, as he briefly explains elsewhere: “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but (as it is in truth) the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (1 Thess 2:13). Again: “He that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the
Gentiles” (Gal 2:8). Other passages show he grants ministers nothing more: “So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase” (1 Cor 3:7). Again: “I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Cor 15:10).
We must keep these statements in view. By claiming illumination of the mind and renewal of the heart for himself, God reminds us that any human claim to a share in either is sacrilege. Yet everyone who listens teachably to God’s appointed ministers will learn from the beneficial result that God has good reason to favor this teaching method and to place believers under this modest yoke.
7. The Visible and Invisible Church
What we have said should make sufficiently clear how to judge the visible church before us. Scripture speaks of the church in two ways. Sometimes it means the church as it truly exists before God. Only those who are God’s sons by adoption and Christ’s true members through the Spirit’s sanctification belong to it. It includes both saints living on earth and all the elect who have existed since the world began.
Often church also means the entire body of people scattered worldwide who profess to worship one God and Christ. Baptism initiates them into the faith; participation in the Lord’s Supper professes unity in true doctrine and love. They agree in holding the Lord’s Word and observe Christ’s appointed ministry for preaching it. This church contains a great mixture of hypocrites with nothing of Christ except his name and an outward appearance. It includes ambitious, greedy, envious and slanderous people, and some whose lives are still more impure. They are tolerated for a time because their guilt cannot be legally established or discipline is not always sufficiently strict. Just as we must believe the invisible church, seen by God alone, we are commanded to respect the church as known to people and cultivate communion with it.
8. Recognizing God’s People
Since recognizing the church matters to us, the Lord has distinguished it by certain marks or signs. Knowing his own people is God’s special prerogative, as Paul declares in the passage already quoted (2 Tim 2:19). This doubtless restrains human rashness. Daily experience reminds us how far his secret judgments surpass our understanding. His goodness restores to life even those who seemed utterly abandoned and beyond hope, while seemingly steadfast people often fall. Hence Augustine says, “In regard to the secret predestination of God, there are very many sheep without, and very many wolves within.” God knows and marks those who know neither him nor themselves. Among those openly wearing his badge, his eyes alone see who is sincerely holy and will persevere to the end, which alone completes salvation.
Yet he foresaw that we would benefit to some extent from knowing whom to regard as his sons, and accommodated himself to our capacity. Full certainty was unnecessary here. Instead, he gave us the judgment of love: we acknowledge as church members all who join us in acknowledging the same God and Christ through a confession of faith, orderly conduct and participation in the sacraments. Knowledge of his body, which he knew to be more necessary for our salvation, he made available through surer marks.
9. The Church’s Recognizable Marks
Thus the church’s form becomes plainly visible. Wherever God’s Word is sincerely preached and heard and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, we can have no doubt that God’s church has some existence. His promise cannot fail: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt 18:20).
To bring the subject together clearly, we must proceed in these steps. The universal church is the multitude gathered from every nation. Although scattered far apart, they agree in the one truth of divine doctrine and share a common religion. It includes individual churches in towns and villages, established according to human society’s needs. Each rightly bears the church’s name and authority. It also includes individuals whose religious profession counts them as belonging to these churches, although they are actually strangers to the church and have not been excluded by public decision.
We judge individuals and churches somewhat differently. In practice, people we consider not entirely worthy of believers’ fellowship may still have to be treated as brothers and regarded as believers. The church’s common agreement tolerates and bears with them in Christ’s body. We do not endorse them as church members by our own vote. Rather, we leave them their place among God’s people until they are lawfully deprived of it.
We must judge the body as a whole differently. If it possesses the ministry of the Word and honors the sacraments’ administration, it undoubtedly deserves to be counted as the church. These things certainly bring beneficial results. We thereby preserve the universal church’s unity, which malicious minds have always eagerly sought to break, while granting due authority to lawful assemblies distributed as circumstances require.
10. The Church’s Authority and Unity
The marks distinguishing the church are preaching the Word and observing the sacraments. Wherever they exist, they bear fruit and flourish through God’s blessing. I do not mean fruit appears immediately wherever the Word is preached. Rather, wherever it is received and has an established home, it consistently displays its power. In any case, when gospel preaching is heard reverently and the sacraments are not neglected, the church’s presence is for that time unmistakable.
No one can spurn her authority, reject her warnings, resist her counsel or mock her censures with impunity, much less revolt from her and violate her unity (see chapter 2, sections 1 and 10, and chapter 8, section 12). The Lord values his church’s communion so highly that he regards as deserters of religion all who stubbornly separate themselves from any Christian community maintaining the true ministry of his Word and sacraments. He commends her authority so strongly that violating it impairs his own authority in his judgment.
The names “the house of God” and “the pillar and ground of the truth” carry great weight (1 Tim 3:15). Paul means that the church faithfully guards the truth so it does not perish in the world. God chose her as the means of preserving pure preaching of his Word. Through her he shows himself as our Father, feeding us spiritual nourishment and providing everything conducive to salvation. Nor is it slight praise to say Christ chose and set her apart as his bride, “not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing” (Eph 5:27), and as “his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all” (Eph 1:23).
Revolt from the church therefore denies God and Christ. We must take greater care to avoid so wicked a separation. By seeking, as far as we can, to destroy God’s truth, we deserve to be crushed by his anger’s full thunder. No crime can be imagined more atrocious than sacrilegiously and treacherously violating the sacred marriage God’s only Son has graciously contracted with us.
11. Test Every Claim to Be the Church
Let us impress these marks carefully on our minds and value them as before the Lord. Satan is intent on destroying or effacing one or both. Sometimes he tries to erase them and thereby destroy the church’s true distinction. At other times he makes them despised and drives us into open revolt. His schemes caused pure preaching of the Word to disappear for several ages. With the same dishonest aim he now works to overthrow the ministry. Yet Christ ordered his church so that removing the ministry collapses the entire building.
How dangerous, indeed fatal, even to entertain separation from an assembly bearing the signs the Lord deemed sufficient to identify his church! Great caution is needed on both sides. To avoid deception by the name church, we must test every congregation claiming it, as with a Lydian touchstone. If it maintains the Lord’s appointed order in Word and sacraments, there is no deception. We can safely grant it a church’s due honor. If it appears without Word and sacraments, we must be as careful to avoid its fraud as to avoid pride and presumption in the opposite case.
12. Differences That Do Not Destroy Unity
Pure ministry of the Word and pure celebration of the sacraments provide a reliable pledge by which we can safely recognize a church wherever both exist. We must never abandon it while these remain, even if it abounds in other faults. Defects may even enter the administration of Word and sacraments without justifying withdrawal from communion.
The different points of true doctrine do not all have the same standing. Some are so necessary that everyone must regard them as fixed, unquestionable essentials of religion: God is one; Christ is God and God’s Son; our salvation depends on God’s mercy; and similar truths. Other matters disputed among churches do not destroy faith’s unity. Suppose one church holds that the soul is immediately transported to heaven on leaving the body, while another declines to determine its place and simply holds that it lives with the Lord, or, in another formulation, lives in God. If neither contention, obstinacy nor perverse dogmatism accompanies the difference, why should they divide?
The apostle says, “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you” (Phil 3:15). He sufficiently indicates that differences on matters not absolutely necessary should not divide Christians. Perfect agreement is best. But everyone is enveloped in some mist of ignorance. We must therefore either have no church at all or tolerate error in matters that can remain unknown without damaging religion’s substance or forfeiting salvation.
I do not mean to defend even the smallest error or encourage it by flattery or toleration. My point is that every minor difference does not require abandoning a church, provided it preserves sound and intact the doctrine on which godliness rests, the fundamental doctrine of our salvation, and maintains the sacraments the Lord instituted. Meanwhile, trying to reform what is wrong fulfills our duty. Paul says, “If anything be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace” (1 Cor 14:30). Every member, according to the measure of grace received, is charged with seeking the church’s public edification, provided it is done decently and in order. We must neither renounce its communion nor, while remaining in it, disturb its properly established peace, order and discipline.
13. Imperfect Conduct and True Communion
We must extend our tolerance much further regarding imperfect conduct. The danger of falling is great here, and Satan uses every scheme to trap us. Some have always imagined themselves absolutely holy, as though they had already become spirits of the air, or angels of Paradise. They reject everyone in whom anything human remains. The Cathari and Donatists were formerly deluded this way. Today some Anabaptists similarly wish to appear more advanced.
Others err less from this insane pride than from thoughtless zeal. Seeing that gospel preaching does not produce fruit matching its doctrine, they immediately conclude there is no church. Their offense has real grounds. In this most unhappy age, we give far too much occasion for it. Our accursed laziness cannot be excused, and the Lord will not leave it unpunished. He has already begun sharply chastising us. Woe to us whose unrestrained wickedness wounds weak consciences!
Yet our critics also sin by not limiting their offense. Where the Lord requires mercy, they abandon it for excessive severity. Believing no church exists without completely pure and upright conduct, they withdraw from a genuine church through hatred of wickedness, while imagining they merely avoid ungodly company.
They say God’s church is holy. Let them also learn that good and bad are mixed within it. Our Savior compares it to a net gathering fish of every kind, separated only on reaching shore. He compares it to a field sown with good seed but mixed with weeds through an enemy’s fraud, which remain until the harvest reaches the barn. Finally, it is a threshing floor where gathered wheat lies beneath chaff until winnowing and sifting cleanse it for the granary. The Lord says the church will remain burdened with many wicked people until judgment day. Seeking a church entirely without blemish is therefore vain (Matt 13).
14. Paul Recognized Faulty Churches
They cry that we cannot tolerate vice spreading everywhere like a plague. But does the apostle’s judgment not apply here too? Among the Corinthians, almost the whole body was infected, rather than a few people. Many kinds of sin prevailed, including abominable crimes rather than merely trivial mistakes. Doctrine as well as conduct was corrupted.
What did the holy apostle do, as the heavenly Spirit’s instrument whose testimony determines the church’s standing? Did he seek separation? Exclude them from Christ’s kingdom? Thunder a final curse against them? Far from any of this, he acknowledged and proclaimed them Christ’s church and a community of saints.
Envy, divisions and contentions raged there. Quarrels, lawsuits and greed prevailed. A crime even Gentiles would abhor was openly approved. Paul’s name, which they should have honored as their father’s, was insolently attacked. Some mocked resurrection, although rejecting it overthrows the whole gospel. God’s gifts served ambition rather than love. Many things were done without decency or order (1 Cor 1:11; 1 Cor 3:3; 1 Cor 5:1; 1 Cor 6:7; 1 Cor 9:1; 1 Cor 15:12).
If the church remained there simply because ministry of Word and sacrament was not rejected, who can deny the name church to people chargeable with less than a tenth of these crimes? How would those so harsh toward present churches have treated the Galatians, who had almost abandoned the gospel (Gal 1:6), yet among whom the same apostle still recognized some churches?
15. Unworthy Participants at the Supper
They further object that Paul sharply reproved the Corinthians for allowing a terrible offender into communion. He then declared generally that even eating bread with an immoral person is unlawful (1 Cor 5:11-12). They exclaim, “If we cannot eat ordinary bread with them, how can we eat the Lord’s bread?”
I admit it is deeply disgraceful to admit dogs and swine among God’s children, and still worse to prostitute Christ’s sacred body to them. Well-governed churches do not harbor the wicked or admit worthy and unworthy people indiscriminately to the sacred feast. But pastors are not always diligently watchful. Sometimes they are too lenient or prevented from acting as strictly as they wish. Consequently, even openly wicked people are not always excluded from the saints’ fellowship. This is a fault. I do not wish to minimize what Paul sharply rebukes in the Corinthians.
Still, the church’s failure does not give every private individual the right to decide separation for himself. A godly person must avoid private association with the wicked and not voluntarily bind himself to them. Avoiding wicked company, however, differs from renouncing church communion out of hatred for them. Those who consider it sacrilege to share the Lord’s bread with the wicked are stricter than Paul.
When he urges pure, holy communion, he does not require us to examine others or each person to inspect the entire church. Each must examine himself (1 Cor 11:28-29). If communion with the unworthy were unlawful, Paul would certainly have told us to ensure no impure individual could defile the whole body. By requiring only self-examination, he shows that others’ unworthiness does not harm us when they participate alongside us. Hence he adds, “He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself.” Damnation to himself, he says, rather than to others.
