Alright, good morning. Today is part 6 of our series through the Puritan John Cotton's book, The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. And next week, actually, will be the seventh and final lesson in this series. As you know, if you've been here, John Cotton's book on the keys of the kingdom, it breaks down Matthew 16. What does Jesus mean when He says to you, Peter, I give to you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven? And as we've seen over these past six or seven studies, we've considered how these words are directly related to the government and order of the church. And these words involve each and every member of the church in some respect, which is why we're studying it here at CRBC. So, to recap where we came from, two weeks ago, in chapter 5, we considered the rule and authority of pastor-elders. We considered from Scripture, as John Cotton lays out, 11 areas of rule and authority that Christ has entrusted to pastors. What are these? Really briefly, again just to recap, Christ has entrusted to elders the rule and authority to preach the gospel publicly and administer the Lord's Supper and baptism. He's given them rule and authority to call the church to assemble, to examine prospective teachers, officers, and members, He's entrusted them with the ordination of deacons and elders. He's entrusted them with regulating the speech in the assembly, preparing church business, declaring and judging discipline, blessing and dismissal in worship, private admonition and correction, authority in the association, and the authority to separate from apostate churches. This is what we covered last time, and if you wanted more detail on that, of course, you can go back and find our teaching on the sermon audio page. But today we look at chapter 6. It's a long chapter. We're not going to cover it in great detail, but it focuses on the power and authority that Christ has given to synods. And that's the old word that Cotton uses. For our purposes, it's the power and authority that Christ has given to associations. You know, we are a part of an association. We are part of the Southeastern Association of Confessional Reformed Baptist Churches, a collection of local churches in the Southeast that hold to our doctrinal distinctives that we are formally united with. And so in that sense, this chapter lays out a little bit about the power and authority that is given to that association and how it differs from government here in the local church so before we jump in actually I Have a handout for you guys Ethan would you help hand these out in fact if I could get you and David would you help on this side? Make sure everyone gets a copy. Oh, thank you Jordan for your help there. I Want to Before we jump into chapter one, I've prepared a brief handout for you. I'm gonna read through it so you understand and we cover everything that's listed here. I want to begin by making sure you understand the differences, as you'll see on this right here, between an association, a Presbytery, Presbyterianism, an episcopate or diocese, I said that right, diocese, there we go, sorry, that's deacon, a denomination and a fellowship or a network. So I'll wait just one second while those go back to make sure everybody has them. Let's go ahead and look at the top there, an association. What is an association? A brief summary is that it's a voluntary cooperative relationship, thanks David, between autonomous local churches of like faith and order, gathered or assembled or associated for mutual counsel, help, and encouragement, but not for government or control. If you're looking for our confessional or doctrinal basis for this, it's in the London Baptist Confession, chapter 26, paragraphs 14 and 15, which I've listed right there. But again, to summarize, it's voluntary. We choose to associate. It's not obligatory. It's non-authoritative. That means associations provide counsel and advice, not absolute commands. Self-governing of each local church is maintained and preserved. And the purpose, there's many purposes, but there's mutual encouragement, theological clarity, cooperation in missions, ministerial training, resolving disputes by advice and counsel. How does that differ from Presbyterianism? Presbytery is a governing assembly composed of elders, which are presbyters, from multiple churches that together exercise binding and ultimate authority over those churches. So churches are under this shared government, we might say. Each church, again, I'm reading the summary here, is represented by elders who participate in higher courts. So you'll have the local session, which is the session of elders in a particular region. And then that jumps to a synod, which is a bigger region. And then the general assembly is the entire presbytery. Before Presbyterianism made its way to America and before the Declaration of Independence, the Presbyterian Church was just one church. like, in the world. There wasn't multiple. That's kind of how the system is designed, actually, to work, as one church. Now it's been fractured into, you have the OPC, the PCA, the PCUSA, you have independent Presbyterian churches, like all of these other, the Reformed Presbyterian, but it's ultimately designed, doctrinally, to function as one church. It doesn't really do that anymore, but you can kind of see the Kind of the remnants of that here in the second bullet point under summary. The presbytery has real jurisdiction and authority. It can ordain ministers. It can install or remove pastors. It can decide disputes and discipline churches, pastors, and members with or without the cooperation of the local church. Authority flows from the collective body of elders down. not from each local congregation independently. How does this differ from Episcopalianism or the diocese model which is present in Anglicanism, Methodism, the Methodists, Catholic, the Orthodox, and of course Episcopalian? Their system is a series of bishops. who hold jurisdictional authority over a region of churches called the diocese. So again, it's a hierarchical, monarchical, like one man kind of thing structure. Bishops and archbishops oversee priests and pastors and congregations. Churches are under absolute Episcopal authority, even down to the point where their buildings aren't even owned by the local congregations. Apostolic secession is their doctrinal claim for this authority, which is not something we're going to cover. They believe this goes back to the authority of the apostles. The government is top-down, so decisions flow down from the bishops to the parishes. And in this system, the congregation has no say whatsoever on any matter. Nothing. Not on any matter whatsoever. Not even on the budget. In fact, the budget isn't even handled at a local church level. It's handled at a national or, again, the diocese level. Turn this over and you see a denomination. How does this differ from a denomination? A denomination is a large, organized body of churches sharing a common name, structure, and confession, and I will qualify that in a second, this confession part, with varying degrees of central governance. Denomination is a really broad term because it could refer to congregational churches. It could refer to Presbyterian churches. It could refer to Episcopal churches or Anglican churches that are not formally connected to the Church of England. They just like the Anglican tradition. In this sense, there's formal membership, there's leadership boards, committees, and financial systems that are very business and corporation-like. There's a bureaucratic structure. So the denomination is going to assign just boards of people. They don't have to be elders. They don't have to be officers. They don't have to come from a specific amount of churches or whatever. They just assign like a corporation to make decisions. And in a denomination, the decisions are usually very, very broad. So they're for the purposes of missions. They might be for the purposes of doctrine. Some denominations have ordination at that level where you have a man who's ordained, and he can go to any church he wants. He just carries his ordination with him. That's not what we believe as congregation. We believe that ordination is always at the local church level. Like if I were to leave as pastor of this church, I can't just go to another church and pastor. They would have to ordain me. My ordination stops as soon as I step down from the office here. That's different. Domination is, well, you got your certificate, you can go to any church and be a pastor. So many Baptist churches are denominational. And I would say most, like for example, the Southern Baptist Convention, there's a very loose doctrinal kind of grounding to it. just the bare fundamentals. So you have a great diversity in a denomination. You might find one church that's really conservative or really reformed, for example, in the Southern Baptist Convention, and then you might find one that's absolutely charismatic and seeker-sensitive and pragmatic and, you know, you find the spectrum. But that's how a denomination is purposely put together because they want a big tent in order to put more money to missions and stuff. So it's more like where can we find the least common denominator so that we can together work together on these things. Finally, a fellowship or a network. This is more of a modern, informal, and non-confessional term for churches that cooperate around shared values, or style, or mission. Acts 29 Network, if you've ever heard of them. The Gospel Coalition. Nine Marks. FIRE, Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals. RBNET, which is the Reformed Baptist Network. These are some Calvinistic or Reformed Baptist fellowships or networks. This is very voluntary. They also center basically on relationships. It's more about relationships than anything. Let's get together with people that we agree with on some of these fundamental things so that we can have encouragement and so that we can join hands for church planning and for missions. In that sense, there's no really function of the network beyond these things, no real function or formal structure for counsel or advice beyond just interpersonal relationships. I get together with a group of pastors, and I get their counsel and advice, and they help advise on issues of the church. But there's no formal structure for what if we really formally need to petition the network or the group of churches for an official statement or an official investigation in this matter or whatnot. So that's how a fellowship differs from an association. So all that to say. If you have questions about this, we're going to come back to it in the end, and I'll let you look at the handouts. That's why I gave a handout, so you can ask questions about this. All that to say, I break this down so that you understand what's going on in this chapter when John Cotton describes the authority of a synod, and in this sense, he's describing what we hold to as associations. Associations, as defined in this handout, is the closest thing for what he's advocating here. So let me spend the next 15 or 20 minutes at most breaking down his chapter, and then we'll have some discussion about that. So a kind of thesis statement for this chapter. Associations, when rightly ordered, are an ordinance of Jesus Christ, They have real authority, though it's limited. They have this authority to counsel, correct, and in some manner, order matters among the churches. And this is for the sake of truth and peace and reformation, always reforming. And that scripture justifies these associations, defines their lawful purpose, and limits their authority according to the word. That's what he argues. It's an ordinance of Christ, it's for these purposes, it has these limits, it's defined by God's word. So, with this, let's consider three things from this chapter. The first is, why do we need associations? Why do we need them, and a follow-up question to that, what are the scriptural bounds for this need? Cotton argues three reasons why we need associations. To help troubled churches, to correct erring or scandalous churches, and to reform, if needed, regions of churches if they fall into grave error. Where do the Scriptures get this? Here, I want to open up Acts chapter 15, if you'll turn there with me. Acts 15 is the basis for everything in this chapter that follows. I will say as well, we don't have time to go into it, but Presbyterianism is founded upon a particular interpretation of Acts 15. We interpret this chapter differently, but this is where they would go as well. And there are some similarities between us and Presbyterianism, but there are also some differences based upon what we perceive going on here. But in Acts chapter 15, we have the Jerusalem Council. The churches in Antioch appealed to the believers in Jerusalem for guidance concerning false teachers. We see this in verse 1. Some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. We then read in verse two that Paul and Barnabas disputed and debated these men from Judea, but to no avail. They could not solve it on their own. They had no small dissension with them. This was a heated debate and disagreement. It is noteworthy in this sense that Paul didn't just solve it for himself as an apostle. Instead, we see in verse two, that they appointed a group, see? They appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. They appointed a group to go to Jerusalem to discuss these things, and then in verse three we see, being sent on their way by whom? By the church. This is where we get our doctrine of messengers and associations and general assemblies. The church, not just the elders, not just the apostles, but the church as a whole has the authority, as I argued two weeks ago, or Cotton argued, we covered, has the authority to send representatives to solve disputes. Okay, we are appointing this man, this man, this man. You go, you meet with this synod, these associations, to solve this dispute and come to resolution on these matters. So then we read in verse four that they came to Jerusalem. They were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders. So what's functioning? Who's making these decisions? The church, the apostles, and the elders. Together. Even members of the Pharisees were present there. Disputing and discussing this issue. So, we're going to come back to this, but this shows that when the church faces confusion, when there's division in the church, when the church is not at peace, we ought to have a greater, wider body of believers to appeal to and to get help from. This helps the peace of the church. Our confession identifies that group as an association. Okay? That's why we've joined, so that we can do that if something comes into our midst that disturbs the peace and unity of the church to that level. So why the need of associations to help troubled churches, to correct scandalous or erring churches? The last point here is that Cotton also argues that we need associations for the general reformation of all churches in a region. He appeals to the Old Testament here under some of the various reform movements led by Hezekiah and Josiah and Ezra. He just simply argues that if false doctrine or corruption spreads widely, the churches need associations to come together and call each other to say, we need to shape up, we need to shape up, we need to come together and put together a plan for reformation. Why do we need associations? For those three reasons. To help troubled churches, to correct scandalous churches or erring churches, and maybe even to reform entire regions of churches if we fall into grave error. The second point today, Cotton then turns to discuss the authority and function of associations. What power do they have? What authority do they have? How do we as congregants or churches, a local church, participate in this authority and rule, and what are the limits of it? Again, the question here is on the authority of associations beyond the local church. How does Cotton answer this? Well, Cotton answers it through, again, three points. He's a great Puritan. He's got a point and then subpoints, always. So he gives three points here. First is, what power does an association possess? He argues that associations hold a real spiritual authority, and that spiritual is key there, within the proper boundaries for the proper ends. Back in Acts 15, look at verse 28. At the end of the matter, We read that it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements. It's noteworthy here that in this Jerusalem council, they did not interfere with a church's government, the local church, beyond publishing a letter saying this is right doctrine and right living. That is, they came together to clarify matters of the faith. to answer a dispute and publish a letter, and they trust the local churches themselves to shape up and to abide by that and to govern themselves through that. In this sense, our association plays this role as well. You can go on our association's website, but we've published several position papers, as we call them, over the years, that discuss and clarify various doctrines and controversies. One of the first ones was on the charismatic gifts. Our association came together and we were like, what do we do about prophecy and tongues and healings and some of the charismatic gifts that some people see as normative for the church age? Well, the churches appointed some men of pastors from the association to study the issue, publish a report, and then the churches voted to accept those as kind of like the doctrinal standard of the church. The church is, I should say. Another position paper was on the doctrine of impassibility about 10 years ago. you're not familiar with that doctrine, in recent years the doctor of impassibility that God has changing emotions, excuse me, impassibility argues that he does not have changing emotions, that's begun in many Reformed churches to be challenged. Our Confession says that God is without body parts or passions. Well, there are some people say, that doesn't really mean what it means, what it says. And so in this sense, our association, in fact, Addy, your dad played a role in this. He was a major role in this. I remember it was about 10 years ago or so, came together and studied the issue and published a report and in that sense it was voted and adopted by our association and it functions as a position of doctrinal clarity for our churches. In this sense the association doesn't interfere with church government beyond just stating the fact this is what we believe This is what we hold the Scriptures to teach, and to maintain fellowship, we are calling you to agree. And if you don't agree with this position, this doctrinal issue, you can leave, in that sense, to not agree is to leave our association, and we can still call you as brothers and sisters in Christ if it's a secondary issue, but to be in fellowship with us, this is what we hold and what we believe. So, that's how the voluntary aspect of it. Association doesn't come in and say, accept this or else we're gonna take everything from you. It says this is what we the churches have agreed upon and this is now serving as a boundary of fellowship in our association. So that's the answer to the first question. Associations have the authority to clarify matters of the faith. Secondly, Cotton asks, how do we, the churches, participate in associational authority? This again goes back to Acts 15. We have the right to participate in the discussion and the debate. I noted this before, but the apostles and elders did meet privately or exclusively. There was an entire assembly of folks there. Even in verse 22, if you look, at how they were to publish the report. Then it seemed good to the apostles and elders with the whole church to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas." The whole church was involved here in this sense. And not only were the apostles sent, and Barnabas as well, other leaders in the church, but they chose the men they wanted to go and represent them. So this is how the whole church is involved. And this again is where we differ from Presbyterianism. In the Presbytery, it's all elders and officers who decide the matter. While we recognize that elders and officers have a primary and central leading role, the church also has a role. They have a right to appoint messengers from the congregation to represent them. They have a right to participate in the discussion and the debate and have their voices heard. They have a right to vote even on some of these matters as well. You have a right to vote on what you think is false doctrine or true doctrine. It's not just the job of the pastor. Christ gives you that authority as well. That's what Congregationalism upholds. You have a matter in deciding what is true and false in the church. So Cotton here notes that officers hold the binding authority, but the church has the right and authority of participation and consent. We've talked about this before just in local church government, church discipline. Officers take a primary and binding authoritative role, but the congregation participates in that. They're not like cut off from that. So associations have the authority to clarify matters of the faith, The churches have the right to participate in these associational matters. Thirdly on this question, Cotton argues that they do not have the right or authority to command things indifferent. Associations, the limit of their authority, they do not have the right or authority to command in things that are indifferent. They cannot bind the consciences of the congregants. They cannot speak to issues that go beyond the Word of God. Again, from Acts 15, we read, only necessary things were imposed to avoid sin or offense. They didn't just call for external uniformity in this sense, but they imposed on them, this is what we seem to be necessary. They didn't speak to every matter at hand. Cotton uses an example here of ministerial gowns. or robes. In that day, there was a big debate. Should pastors wear the Genevan gown? That's still a practice in our day, of course. Should they wear a robe? Or is it okay to dress in a suit and a bow tie? Or whatever. What Cotton is saying is the association does not have the right to impose their opinion on the churches in different matters. external matters. Whether or not they wanted all the pastors in the churches to wear robes. Right? So, in this sense, they have, again, they have no right to go beyond Scripture. And we can think of it this way, as maybe our association This would stop our association from saying things like, we want all the churches to use the same hymnal. We want all the churches to use the same liturgy. We want all the churches to have both morning and evening worship. We want all the churches to only sing the Psalms. We want all the churches to only sing acapella. Cotton is saying, you know, it's good to have convictions on those things. And you have the right to have convictions on those things, but those are decided at the church level. It's not decided at the associational level. So the association can only speak to matters that Scripture, it's clearly commanded in Scripture. Doctrinal matters, matters of right living, not matters of external just uniformity or formality. So, they clarify matters of the faith, the churches participate in this, and they cannot intrude upon things that are indifferent. The church themselves is trusted with indifferent things. So, third, and finally then, this morning, Cotton addresses the matter of the association's role in ordination and church discipline. And he poses the question, what is the association's role in ordination in church discipline? We've talked about this before, so I'll just kind of summarize it briefly here. But Cotton notes that for quite a long time, the dominant practice was to give synods or presbyteries or bishops the power of both ordination and excommunication. Cotton acknowledges that's been the dominant practice, but he says, you know what, from the beginning, this was not so. He recognizes that early on it was different. In fact, if you go to the oldest church documents that we have, the Didache, for example, we find Congregational Church government. He recognizes that early on, things were one way and then they changed, and so he's saying we need a reform in our day. Of course, he's writing in the 1500s, so this is definitely very, very early on. But he summarizes his view by saying that associations may determine and declare what should be done. They can make a judgment on these matters. Who's fit for ordination? Who is worthy of censure or discipline or excommunication? They can publish a report, but the actual execution of that is left to the authority of the local church. The final decision lays in the hands of the church. Think of how, when we ordained Pastor Kim this past spring. At the end of last year, around this time, we made a petition to our association. We said, we have a man that we are considering to call and ordain for the office of Pastor Elder, but we want your counsel and advice. And so, on agreed-upon time, with an agreed-upon number of messengers, other pastors, We convened for an entire day where the men questioned and examined Pastor Kim, or Kim at that time before he was pastor, whether he was fit for the office of an elder. At the conclusion of that meeting, they made a decision and they wrote to us a letter with a recommendation saying we fully recommend Kim to be called as a pastor. I read this letter before we voted on Kim. This letter was counsel and advice. It was their judgment. And it was public, but it was only their advice. We had the freedom to go against the letter. Like what if you were sitting in the pew and you knew something or had something against Kim that you believed undermined or disqualified him, and the association, because they're not here, They're men of other churches. They don't know it. In a presbytery, it's, sorry, they make the final decision. We take that as, okay, we heavily value their opinion. We want their advice. But it's our decision ultimately. we could have gone against their judgment and voted another way, which is something that could not happen in other forms of church government. But in this sense, we take their advice and we value it, but ultimately, we believe it's our decision. We believe the Scriptures give us that right and authority. Now, I won't revisit all the scriptures for this because we covered it a few weeks ago, but the same is true for excommunication as well. And I will say what we haven't looked at is Acts 15, because this really does come up. Because in Acts 15, they declared the false teachers to be troublemakers, but the council did not excommunicate the false teachers. They did not defrock them, which is the term meaning removing their ordination. In a presbytery, or an episcopate, or in a denomination, because the ordination lies at that level, they can defrock the man. They can say, we remove your ordination. That's not what happens in Acts 15. They didn't excommunicate the man. They did not do anything. They just published the doctrinal standard, and they left the government to the churches themselves. Associations give advice and counsel. They can publish the judgments, whether on ordination or if a man's under discipline. They can say, we've looked into the matter. We think this is what the church needs to do. But the final decision has to rest with us. And of course, for example, if we make a decision that turns to be a poor decision, Like, again, hypothetically, what if we put a man forward and the council discovered that he was a heretic? Oh, he doesn't believe the Trinity, right? And we went ahead and ordained him. The association then has a right to withdraw fellowship with us, but they don't have a right to come in and remove the man from office or to interfere with our church government. They make judgments, they can voice their judgments, they can publish their judgments, they can even disfellowship from us. But ultimately, they have no right to march in our doors and pose their will. That is left to the churches alone. So, to conclude, why do we need associations? To help troubled churches. to correct and to maintain peace, to correct scandalous or erring churches, to reform entire regions. What are the boundaries of their authority? They can clarify matters of the faith, Their boundary of authority is limited by the participation of the churches themselves in these matters. And they cannot impose their opinion, right, or authority on things indifferent. Scripture doesn't speak directly. And what is their role in ordination and discipline? They can help determine. They can help declare what should be done. But the actual execution is left to the particular churches themselves. And so in this way, Cotton summarizes by saying Christ has given His churches liberty and order. Associations are legitimate gatherings for counsel and correction, and they possess a measure of authority and matters essential to faith and holiness. Yet they must never exceed Scripture, or impose their will on things indifferent, or undermine the rightful authority of the local church, They exist not to dominate and rule, but to serve for the peace, truth, and unity of Christ's body. That's the summary of chapter six. Next week will be our seventh chapter and final, where Cotton kind of summarizes the entire book and brings everything to a conclusion, and we'll end our study there as well.