All right, we're going to pray together, and then I've been assigned, with the assistance of Rex Samrod, over the next five weeks, to teach chapter 26 of the Confession of Faith, as we continue our studies in the Confession of Faith, and look to conclude that sometime, I guess, in the middle of the summer, right? Pastor Ben, something like that. Yeah. So let's pray together, and then we'll get started. Father, we are so grateful for the promise of your Holy Spirit. We come to acknowledge, confess that a man can receive nothing unless to be given to him from above, but that through your Son we may receive the Spirit of God as the Spirit of life and truth and holiness and wisdom. And so we earnestly pray for his help for teacher and learner alike this morning. We ask this in Jesus' name. So what I want to accomplish in this first of five classes on chapter 26 is to deal with an introduction to the chapter and the four chapters on the universal church. And so we're going to start by talking about the uniqueness and importance of this chapter. Now let me encourage you, especially here at the beginning, to take a copy of the Trinity Hymnal Baptist edition and look up chapter 26 in the back. I'll give you a page number here in a moment. Yes, this page is 683 to 685. So I want to say a few things about the uniqueness and importance of this chapter in the Confession of Faith. Chapter 26 differs widely from the Westminster Confession of Faith. On the church in the Westminster Confession of Faith, there are six paragraphs, while you'll notice that the 1689 Confession has 15 paragraphs. The doctrine of the church separates what we might call the Baptist Puritans from the Presbyterian Puritans. Baptists, however, were not the only ones to differ from the Presbyterians on this subject. While the Westminster Confession of Faith exemplifies a Presbyterian church polity, There are many of these paragraphs in the present chapter of the Confession that are from a platform of church polity which is published with the Savoy Declaration of Faith by Congregationalist Puritans in 1658. And one of the things I think it's important to note is that Reformed Baptist polity is very similar to that of the Congregational Puritans. There were a few minor differences. in the paragraphs that are incorporated here from the Savoy platform of church polity, but the polity is very similar, and John Cotton's Keys of the Kingdom is a very important book for understanding biblical church polity, not only for congregational Puritans, that's what he was, but for us as well. Now, the only thing that's different, and from the Congregationalists then, or one of the major things that is different, I should say, is that the Baptists placed these paragraphs on church polity, church government, in the Confession itself. In the Savoy Declaration, they were not incorporated into the Confession proper. They were placed as an appendix, on church polity after the conclusion of the Savoy Declaration. But the Baptist took the unique step of placing these paragraphs in the confession itself. And this really, among other things, shows the importance of the doctrine of the church for our Baptist forefathers that they would take that step. Well, that's something about the uniqueness and importance of the chapter by way of introduction, but notice as well the analysis and outline of the chapter. This chapter of the Confession is divided into two clear sections. Paragraphs 1 to 4 deal with the universal church, while paragraphs 5 to 15 deal with the local church. So this whole paragraph is is based upon the distinction between the universal and local church. And this division is indicated not only by the respective emphases of these two parts of the chapter, but by their respective origins. As I've just said, paragraphs one to four are derived from the Savoy revision of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Paragraphs 5 to 15 are derived from the platform of local church polity published with the Savoy. That's a generalization. There are some things in there that aren't from the Savoy, but generally that's true. In the exposition of this chapter, the outline provided above will generally be followed. This morning, we're going to study paragraphs 1 to 4. Here's a simple outline, especially of the first part of this chapter. So you have the universal church as Roman numeral one, and three headings under that, its identity in paragraphs one and two, its perpetuity in paragraph three, and its authority in paragraph four. And then paragraphs five to 15, really the second part, and it deals with the local church. All right, so I want to come immediately then to deal with the universal church and, first of all, its identity, the identity of the universal church. And this really comes to us in two parts, the identity of the universal church as invisible and then the identity of the universal Church as visible. Here's the first paragraph. The Catholic or universal Church, which with respect to the internal work of the Spirit and truth of grace may be called invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect that have been are or shall be gathered into one under Christ, the head thereof, and is the spouse, the body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. But then this universal church is spoken of as visible, In paragraph two, all persons throughout the world professing the faith of the gospel and obedience unto God by Christ according unto it, not destroying their own profession by any errors averting the foundation or unholiness of conversation, are and may be called visible saints and of such ought all particular congregations to be constituted. Now, there are really three key words here that I want you to think about as we study, especially the universal church, as invisible. And the three words are Catholic, invisible, and elect that I want to comment on. First of all, the term Catholic here simply means universal. The Catholic church is not the Roman church. It is simply the universal church. That's the meaning of the term Catholic. So the Confession's talking here about the universal church and calls it Catholic in that sense. Invisible, as you may have already picked up from the reading of these paragraphs, must be qualified and not misunderstood. It may be easily misunderstood and misapplied. And notice the language of the confession is quite qualified, which it says may be called invisible. We'll talk about why that qualification, that distinction, that clarification is necessary for our Baptist forefathers. And then elect, that's the third key word. And elect, the word elect says that the universal invisible church consists, you see the confessions language, of the whole number of the elect that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one. Now, those three key words are important in that they teach us three things. They teach us, firstly, that there is a universal church. Secondly, that this universal church consists of all the elect. And thirdly, that the universal church understood in this way is invisible. That's what the confession asserts, that's what the confession teaches. But are these assertions, are these teachings biblical? So we want to come on and ask the question, Does the Bible teach that there is a universal church? Particularly here in the old south of our country, that assertion is not without controversy. Does the Bible teach that there is a universal church? Who knows what group of Baptist churches, what they're called, which have historically denied the doctrine of the universal church. the landmark Baptist. That's right, and those kind of churches are still around today in several different configurations. Now, let's talk about then, does the New Testament actually teach the doctrine of a universal church? Well, the New Testament uses the term ecclesia, church, 115 times. There's one text where there's a textual variant, but approximately 115 times. and most refer clearly to the local church or to local churches. I don't even want to dispute that, I won't turn you to passages, but 2 Corinthians 8, 23 and 24, Galatians 1, 22 talk very clearly about local churches. But nevertheless, though the vast majority of the occurrences of the term church refer to the local churches, We don't do exegesis by those kind of statistics. The most common meaning is therefore the universal meaning. That's really a bad way of interpreting the New Testament. Words have different meanings in different contexts, and the New Testament does speak of a universal church. I don't know how many of these texts actually to turn to, Matthew 16, 18, of course, is the first and perhaps classic reference here where Christ says, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church. And the most surface acquaintance with that text will illustrate, I think, to most people that Christ cannot be talking about a local church there. This is a church that's going to be built throughout the world until the end of the age. consummated in the age to come. It must be a reference to what we call the universal church. And then a lot of the classic text for this doctrine are found in Ephesians. Pastor Joe, would you get me Ephesians 1.22? And Pastor Ben, would you get me Ephesians 4.11-15? Just to illustrate this, if we get too bogged down with all the proof texts, we won't get out of here in time at all. But Ephesians 1.22, Pastor Joe. head over all things to the church. Now, I think it's fairly evident to most people that he's not saying he's head over all things to the local church at Ephesus. This is clearly a reference to the universal church of Christ. And then Ephesians 4, 11 to 15, Pastor Ben. the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up And so when we read of the ascended Christ giving gifts to the church, and they are apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastor-teachers, however you exactly understand those things, it's clear they didn't give apostles and prophets all to one local church. He gave them to the church universal. And of course, in chapter 5, verses 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 32, you have the church likened to the bride of Christ. You have these two analogies then. The church is the bride of Christ. How many brides does Christ have? Just one. And the church is the body of Christ. And how many bodies does Christ have? Just one. And so the New Testament does teach in these places, and other passages are mentioned there, that there is a universal church. So such passages refute landmarkism and its denial of a universal church. Now we're gonna come back to this. I think I have, An idea by landmarkism has wanted to deny the universal church, and it's because they've held a strong Baptist view of the independence of the local church, and haven't wanted the idea that there is some universal church government governing this universal church. And we're gonna talk about what is the government of the universal church, but that question's gotta wait for a few moments. Now, the next question that we have to ask is, does the Bible teach that this universal church consists of all the elect? This is particularly a controversial statement in our day, and we'll come on to say why in just a moment. Now, here I think it's crucial, and this is one of the things about the doctrine of the church, all sorts of distinctions need to be made. because the idea of the church in the Bible is multi-form. It has several different ideas connected with it and tied together in the idea of church. Here we must distinguish the visible church in history from what I would like to call the ideal invisible church. In fact, the more I've studied our confession in this subject, the more the idea of an ideal church as maybe even preferable to invisible church is growing on me. But anyway, the visible church on earth was typified in the church of physical Israel created by the Old Covenant. One of the things that I think is not recognized by a lot of Christians today is that the term church is in the Old Testament. At least if you read the version of the Old Testament that was read by early Christians, that is to say the Septuagint, which again and again and again translates the word assembly as ecclesia. And so you have language in the Old Testament like the day of the church, which is reference to the gathering of Israel at Mount Sinai. So you have language like the church of Israel. And so when we say that the visible church was typified in the church of physical Israel created by the old covenant, this is language that is thoroughly supported by the Old Testament and even by the New Testament where a couple of times Israel is called things like the church in the wilderness. Now the type is fulfilled in the New Testament church as a spiritual organism created by the new covenant. The New Testament church is not just, it is, a formal and legal institution, but it's also a spiritual organism. And in this respect, it differs quite drastically from the church of physical Israel. When consummated, all the elect will be a part of this church in the glory of the resurrected life and the age to come. But now, there are some biblical proofs that we need to go to here. So there was an important sense, and I'm still talking about this assertion that the invisible church consists of all the elect. There was an important sense, in which the church began in the complex of events surrounding Christ's first advent. It is certainly true that the apostles of Christ are the historical foundation upon which Christ is now building his church. We can't forget that Matthew 16, 18 says, I will build my church, and the language is future tense. And we can't forget that in Ephesians 2, 20, the church is being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. And if you'll study the use of the phrase apostles and prophets, especially in Ephesians, you'll see that it's talking about New Testament prophets and not Old Testament prophets. So the church is built on the foundation of the New Testament apostles and prophets. And so in that sense, the church is a new institution. anti-type fulfilling the type of Israel. This contradicts, by the way, this clear distinction between the Church of the New Covenant as a spiritual organism and the Church of the Old Covenant as a physical nation. This distinction, this contrast, contradicts the tendency of some covenant theology to flatten the difference between the church and Israel so as to teach infant baptism. But on the other hand, okay, so now I've been talking about the ways in which we might want to, if not qualify this assertion, at least understand how the Bible presents it. On the other hand, the church can be considered ideally or visibly, invisibly in scripture. And thus the church is equated with all who are in union with Christ. What is the cash value of the idea of the body of Christ? Well, the body of Christ are those who are in union with the head. And the church is equated with the bride of Christ. And of course, we've already said, Christ has only one bride. It's all those who are in union with Christ. How are people saved? By union with Christ. Have people always been saved? By union with Christ. Yes. And therefore, all those saved, all the elect who are brought into union with Christ by the Spirit of God, are part of the church, which is equated with the body and bride of Christ. And furthermore, the bride of Christ is composed in the last day of all the saved. Many texts there, you can study them for yourself. One of the most interesting of those texts is Revelation 21, nine to 14, where in the age to come, the new Jerusalem is pictured as having 12 foundations, which are the 12 apostles of the Lamb, and 12 gates, which are the 12 tribes of Israel. And all the people of God come in to that new Jerusalem. And throughout the New Testament then, the Bible teaches, that the New Testament teaches that all the elect are brought into the church and in the last day constitute the ideal universal church of Christ. Now, having said all of that, thus the visible church will one day be composed of all the redeemed. the invisible church will become visible in the last day, completely visible. As the people of God, the church then does consist of the whole number of the elect. These considerations then refute dispensationalism with its church's real distinction and its division of the people of God into two different peoples of God. And these considerations also refute its denial that the Old Testament saints are part of the church. Well, I'm gonna open it up for questions because I think there could be some questions about how I've presented this. But I wanna go and deal with the last question. Does the Bible teach that this universal church is invisible? Well, as I've already said, the term invisible must, as the confession shows, be used very carefully. We remember the language of the confession, which may be called invisible. And the reason for this is that there is no invisible church that is absolutely distinct from the visible church. Or in other words, the church is always a visible institution. It may not be completely visible, but it is at least partially visible. John Murray says, there is no evidence for the notion of the church as an invisible entity distinct from the church visible. The universal church is always visible then, even if it is not perfectly or completely visible. The universal church spoken of in Ephesians is visible. It has given, as we read the text, it's given apostles and prophets, evangelists and pastors and teachers. Those gifts are visible. The universal church could be persecuted and so had to be visible. See Acts 8 and 9 in Galatians 1.13, Philippians 3.6. You can't persecute something that's completely invisible. One may not credibly then, here's the lesson, here's the important deduction we make from that, here's the cash value of it. One may not credibly profess membership in the invisible church and despise the visible. How many times have your people said, oh, I'm just a member of the invisible church. the universal church? Well, no. If you have real respect for the church of Jesus Christ, even though you may be in a strange situation, you are going to want to manifest that connection with Christ in a connection with his visible church. You can't credibly profess membership in the invisible church and despise the visible. So in what sense, then, is the church invisible? It is invisible for three reasons. It is invisible because we cannot directly see union with Christ. I can't look at you and say, I see union with Christ. I can see signs and evidences of it. I can see credible profession of it, but I cannot see union with Christ. We cannot perfectly assess another person's grace. That's another way of saying that. We can require a credible profession of faith to be a member of the visible church, but we cannot perfectly assess another person's grace. We may be terribly surprised sometimes. And then we also must say that it's invisible because the church is not yet a perfected earthly reality. In the new heavens and new earth, it will be a perfected earthly reality, and the universal church will be visible, but that day is not yet. So visible churches only partially manifest the invisible, your universal church. So perhaps a better phrase, as I was commenting earlier, that invisible church might be ideal church. But you can think about that. Now before I go on to talk about the universal church as visible with all those remarks, questions, comments, things that I've said that totally confused you. Yes, Nathan. I would say, yes, it is new. We're talking about the visible church, and the church is new, not in the sense that the way of salvation is new. People have always been saved in the same way, by faith, by grace, and through Christ alone. And that gospel's been the same since just outside the Garden of Eden. But the church is new in that the visible church in the Old Testament was a physical nation. And that physical nation has passed away in favor of the spiritual nation, the church. The kingdom of God, Gospel of Matthew says, it's Matthew 21 or 22, is taken from you and given to a nation, bringing forth the fruits thereof. And so there is a passing away of the old church in favor of the new church, but there we're talking about the visible church, and we're not talking about a new way of salvation. So yes, I would say that Matthew 16, 18, and many other passages in the New Testament does say that the church is new, but we have to make sure that we understand we're talking about its visible manifestation and the church and the fulfillment of the type of Israel, which was a physical church in a spiritual church. Am I helping you at all? What's the relation to what? Oh. Well, the term kingdom is a Let me put it this way, I think the term kingdom is a bigger word. Because the fundamental and root meaning of the term kingdom, although we could equate it with a realm, the fundamental meaning of kingdom in the Bible speaks to the sovereignty of God. God's kingdom is His rule. And because God's kingdom is His rule, the term kingdom can refer simply to the sovereignty of God, God's kingdom rules over all things, Psalm 103, 19. So God's kingdom can be a reference to his rule over the world, but sometimes then the term kingdom can come to refer to the things God rules over. And so it's not God's reign, which is often what it means, it becomes to me the realm over which he rules. And that realm idea, since it's a secondary idea to the term kingdom, that realm idea can refer to the whole world. The whole world is God's kingdom. but oftentimes the term kingdom can refer to the church, can refer to the church as those in whose hearts God rules, all right? So there's overlap, if I had a whiteboard here, I'd draw a circle and I'd say there are two circles, they overlap, all right? And in the overlap, you have kingdom equals church, but kingdom is a lot bigger word than church. Yes, go ahead. I have a comment and I have to admit I'm a visitor. Okay. And I have to admit also that I am a dispensationalist. And I would have to comment that one of the differences we have is because of hermeneutics. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. literally that somewhere in the New Testament that Israel is a type of the church. For instance, Jesus said Jonah is a type of the Son of Man rising from the dead. Okay, just as Jonah. That's a type. It's specifically named. Nowhere in the New Testament does it say that. Specifically, you're using allegory when you can't find it. Jesus also talked about the kingdom. So you have to be really careful about your hermeneutics. Well, thank you for that comment. That's very interesting. The huge difference here is between our hermeneutics. And we don't believe that historical grammatical interpretation is an adequate hermeneutic. A true interpretation of the Bible requires historical, grammatical, and theological interpretation. And I, and just to not get into an argument but just to briefly respond, I would have to say that the notion that you have to be, have the literal use or the explicit use of the term type to have a type I don't think is true. The New Testament does use the term Jew and Israel and circumcision, all these synonyms for Israel, in a way that clearly, I think, shows them to be types. And so I do think that there is evidence for Israel being a type in the New Testament. But I certainly don't want to take the position, and I don't want you to think I'm taking the position, that there has to be an explicit use of the term type in order for there to be a type. One of the things that I was taught in Bible college in Grand Rapids is that you have to have an explicit statement that something was a type for it to be a type. I completely disagree with that. It's just simply not true. And I think I could show that in the New Testament. But thank you for your comments. All right. Let's go forward then. And we have some other things to cover here. And this brings us to the universal church as visible. The universal church is not simply or completely invisible. Paragraph two teaches that it is visible. It asserts two things about this visible church. It asserts its identity, and it is described as those only who profess the gospel and do not contradict this by foundational errors or ungodliness. And then it asserts, too, that only visible saints should be members of local churches. And I've given you the references there. I think that you're familiar enough with the scriptures to see the validity of what's being said. I do want to talk about this phrase, which the Old English of may be a little confusing. What is it when the New Testament, when the confession talks about averting the foundation? Well, Averting the foundation means to turn, avert may mean, the old English word, to turn something inside out. But it also sometimes means to turn something upside down or to overthrow. And I think that's the way it's used here, especially because of the language of the foundation. It turns upside down the foundation. So the confession here is doing something really important. It doesn't say, it does not say that every error upsets the foundation. Stop calling people heresy, heretics, every time they disagree with something you believe. Stop it. Don't do that. Not every error is a heresy. The confession makes a really important distinction between heir and heirs that overturn the foundation. Charity, Christian charity, requires that we make a distinction between heresy and heir. And the failure to do that is the cause of much grief and sadness. Okay, well, we come to the perpetuity of the church. I am having to hurry now. The purest churches under heaven, this is paragraph three, are subject to mixture and air, and some have so degenerated as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, Christ always hath and ever shall have a kingdom in this world, to the end thereof, of such as believe in him and make profession of his name. Now, the confession makes two assertions in this paragraph. It talks about the seeming improbability of the perpetuity of the church, and then the actual certainty of the perpetuity of the church. Why does it seem improbable that the church will be perpetual? Well, the perpetuity of the universal visible church is introduced by reference to realities which seem to make such perpetuity, permanence, implausible. Local churches can sin. Local churches can even apostatize. Their candlestick and the vivid language of Revelation can be removed. We must not blindly follow the examples of any church or its leaders. We must hold all churches and all their leaders accountable to sola scriptura. We must watch carefully, this teaches us, against corporate sin and apostasy. If you love your church, you must watch and pray for your church. But now, the actual certainty. In spite of what may befall local churches, the universal church will always visibly continue. So teaches the New Testament. I will build my church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world, and then the end shall come. And of course, the parables of the sea, mustard seed in the leaven, the parable of the seed growing by itself, the promises of Psalm 72, and the prediction of Isaiah 9 that Christ's kingdom will know. And all of these things convey to us the actual certainty of the perpetuity of the church. The scriptures and confessions speak of the indestructibility of the visible universal church. Christ will always have a kingdom of such as make profession of his name. We need not fear then that the name and church of Christ will ever vanish. If Christ doesn't come to the year 3000, the church will still be here, and it will be a better church than it is now. There's an old, I guess it's probably a line from a hymn, it's certainly poetry, that goes something like this. Oh, where are thrones and empires now of all that went and came? But Lord, thy church is praying yet, a thousand years the same. Now, the other thing this teaches us is that restorationism is always wrong. Restorationism is the idea, well, the church got lost, it completely, there wasn't any true church for thousands of years, and now we're gonna restore the church. The Reformation was not restorationism. The Reformation was Reformation. Luther and Calvin didn't think they were restoring the church. They were reforming the church. And they were right to say so. Well, but hastening on, the authority of the church universal. There are two assertions in paragraph four, the true head of the church and the false head of the church, the Antichrist. The Lord Jesus Christ, Is the head of the church in whom, by the appointment of the Father, all power for the calling, institution, order, or government of the church is invested in a supreme and sovereign matter? Neither can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof, but is that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalteth himself and the church against Christ and all that is called God, whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming? Now, first of all, and this is where I want to spend our time, the confession speaks of the true head of the church. Christ is repeatedly asserted to be the head of the church. And you see the text, it's all over the place in the New Testament. All of this sounds great, but of course, somebody might say something like this. How does this work out practically? Christ is in heaven, he's not on earth. And so, is this really just a title? It's not really anything that has any reality to it. Well, that's a good question. We need to respond to it. What really can such a headship mean? How is Christ head of this church today? How is this headship exercised? Well, the answer to the question is actually simple. Christ exercises his headship through his appointed representatives on earth. The Holy Spirit is the vicar of Christ on earth, sent to carry on Christ's work. And again, many texts in the New Testament, I think you're familiar with them. The apostles of Christ are appointed as universal overseers of the church. The church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and New Jerusalem has 12 foundation stones, which are the 12 apostles of the Lamb. So at least three times in the New Testament, the apostles of Christ are said to be the foundation and asserted to be the universal overseers of the church. Thus, the work of the ascended Christ is carried on through the witness of Christ's apostles. These witnesses still rule Christ's Church through their inscripturated witness. and the Spirit applies that word to the end of the age. So does Christ's headship have any cash value, any reality? Yes, its reality is that the Spirit of God gives life and power to the inscripturated witness of the apostles, and that Spirit and that word rules the church. Yes, there is cash value to this. The apostles of Christ, the universal overseers of the church, appointed local overseers in the individual churches. Key text, of course, Acts 14.23, the language of Ephesians 4.11, that Christ gave pastor-teachers to the church. On we can go, Titus is left in Crete to appoint overseers in every church, and so forth. The Holy Spirit, Acts 20.28, has made the Ephesian elders elders of that church. These leaders exercise, now here, you see the three words in yellow? It's very important words. They exercise a real but local and fallible authority in their local churches. This authority is real, but they are given authority over the church. The church is called in Hebrews 13, 17 and other places to submit and obey. its leadership, those local elders, but this leadership is local, as contrasted with the universal overseers, the apostles of Christ, and it's fallible, as also contrasted with the universal overseers, whose teaching was infallible. These elders' teaching is not infallible, but may be fallible. So it's real, but it's also local and fallible. Yet in those churches that are founded and built by Christ's Word and Spirit, these local overseers do exercise Christ's authority and they do rule over His church. Well, time is hastening away, so the confession also speaks of the false head of the church. If what we have said about the headship of Christ and its earthly representatives is true, then the claims of the pope are false. So also are any claims of authority over many local churches by anyone? Christ's vicar is the Holy Spirit, not the pope, The Pope is not an apostle. Genuine apostolic succession is found only in the scriptures of the New Covenant. Christ's only earthly personal representatives are the local overseers of local churches. Well, we have a lot of people to get all through the facilities and so forth this morning, so let me close in prayer, and then, Pastor Joe, you're gonna come and lead the hymn of the month, right? Let's pray. Father, we do come to you to thank you and to praise your name for the teaching of your word. The entrance of your word gives light to us, and we thank you for that. And we ask your blessing now as we prepare our hearts to worship you. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.