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Let's have a word of prayer and
ask the Lord to bless us tonight as we come together and come
to study. Let's just seek the Lord. Our
Heavenly Father, we bow humbly and reverently in thy holy presence
this evening. We come before thee in and through
the name of our blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. We rejoice
that we are found together the purpose of studying thy word. We rejoice that we can come together
in fellowship and that we can learn of thee and we just ask,
O God, that as we come to study this evening that thou wilt bless
our hearts, prepare our hearts to meet with thee, grant us a
teachable spirit and grant, O God, that we will learn much of thee
tonight. Bless our brother, who has come
into our midst, we ask that thou wilt be to him all that he needs.
Undertake for him and grant, O God and Father, that he might
know the blessing and the leading of the Spirit of God upon his
ministry this evening. Put a covering of the precious
blood around us and we ask, O God and Father, that we will know
thy presence and thy blessing. Undertake for all that is said
and done and grant again, O God, that in all things Christ may
have the pre-eminence. Do us good, meet with us. We
pray these things for Jesus' sake. Amen. Well brethren, we
are glad to have you tonight and we are very glad to welcome
our brother the Reverend Ian Smith into our midst. He is coming
to speak hopefully on what is the first of a series of four
lectures And this evening, Mr. Smith's going to deal with the
subject of the foundations of Presbyterianism. So we're going
to let him go. Thanks. Thank you, Mark. I'll take off
my jacket because he made me wear a tie. I sent him a text
this morning and I asked him, was the meeting a formal one
or a non-formal one? And of course, being Irish, he
read the message form, didn't he? He insisted I should wear
a collar and tie. No, I didn't. He said it was
a formal, but he misunderstood my question. Anyway, thanks for
the invitation, brethren. And I do pray that the Lord will
be glorified in our midst tonight. Now, I wasn't sure what the setup
was going to be here. I wasn't sure if you had an overhead
projector, but I don't think you have. Oh, that's that old-fashioned
now, isn't it? You have a... We have a wall
projector. Yeah, it's too late anyway, because
I didn't prepare sheets for it. What I have done, I'm going to
leave a copy of the paper I'm going to deliver with you, and
if you wish you can put a copy in and circulate it if you wish.
What I've done is I've prepared these headings so you can perhaps
follow me along just as I nurse you with the dust. Don't be over-concerned about
all these headings, because although there are nine of them, they
really refer to fairly short paragraphs dealing with each
particular... Perhaps we can turn to the Word
of God, New Testament, Scriptures, Acts of the Apostles chapter 15 and we can read from verse 6
down to verse 29 now this concerns what we have come to know as
the Council of Jerusalem where the Apostles and others gathered
to discuss a problem, or more than one problem actually, that
arose particularly amongst the gentile churches in Asia and
Southern Europe. And this is their meeting to
discuss these problems. And the apostles, verse 6, and
the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this
matter. And where there had been much disputing, Peter rose up
and said unto them, Men and brethren, You know how that a good while
ago God made choice among us that the Gentiles, by my mouth,
should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, which knoweth
the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even
as he did unto us, and put no difference between us and them,
purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore, why tempt ye God
to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither
our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that
through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved,
even as they." Then all the multitude kept silence and gave audience
to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God
had wrought among the Gentiles by them. After that they held
their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken
unto me. Simeon Halford declared how God
and the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people
for his name. And to this agree the words of
the prophets, as it is written, After this I will return, and
will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down,
and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up,
that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all
the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who
doeth all these things, known unto God are all his works, from
the beginning of the world. Wherefore my sentence is, that
we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turned
to God, but that we write unto them that they abstain from pollution,
from virus, from fornication, and from things strangled, and
from blood. For Moses of old time hath in every city them
that preach him, being read in the synagogue every sabbath day.
Then pleased the apostles and elders, with the whole church,
to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch, with Paul
and Barnabas, namely Judas, surnamed Barsabbas, and Silas, chief men
among the brethren. And they wrote letters by them
after this manner. The apostles and elders and brethren
sent greeting unto the brethren, which are of the Gentiles in
Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia. Forasmuch as we have heard that
certain which went out from us have troubled you with words,
subverting your soul, saying, You must be circumcised and keep
the law, to whom we gave no such commandment. It seemed good unto
us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto
you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men that have hazarded
their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have sent
therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you the same
things by mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy
Ghost unto us to lay upon you no greater burden than these
necessary things, that you abstain from meats, offered to idols,
and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication,
from which, if you keep yourselves, you shall do well, fare thee
well. May God bless to us that reading
of the scriptures. Well, let me turn then to the
paper, friends, and the first item is just a brief reference
to a brief introduction. As with all things Christian,
the important matter for us is what say the Scriptures. We must
begin at what the Word of God says. The Church of Christ can
only teach and impose on the conscience of men. that which
the Bible itself teaches, and that which is authoritatively
stated in the Word of God. And if Presbyterianism, or for
that matter any form of church government, is lacking in that
respect, the church has no right to impose this upon its people,
thereby binding them by the authority of men rather than the authority
of God. Now having said that, it must also be recognised that
the Bible doesn't provide fine detail on the matter of church
government. It only lays down broad principles,
fairly broad principles, but they are laid down quite clearly
for us. Now to discover what even these
are, attention must be given first of all to the basic rudiments
of the Christian church as these are stated for us in the scriptures. And that leads us to our first
main heading, the church. Now, if we don't get this right,
then we're going to go wrong in everything else. We have to
be clear in our minds and perhaps more so in our day than since
the Reformation times because there is more and more effort
at undermining the traditional definition of what the church
is in the world. So let's consider its basic concept
as the Bible teaches it to us. The Greek word for church is
Ekklesia and it is found on numerous occasions throughout the New
Testament scripture and its biblical usage and I emphasize the biblical
usage because you could find this word Ekklesia in for example
classical Greek and it simply means a gathering of people but
in the biblical usage of Ekklesia it is always referring to a gathering
of people for the worship of God. That is the only sense in
which it is used in the Holy Scriptures. The Old Testament
has a similar word, quall. It's frequently translated as
assembly. Let me give you one example of
this, Exodus 12 verse 6 referring to a sacrifice, you shall keep
it up until the 14th day of the same month and the whole assembly,
the Quo of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. Now, unlike many of our Baptist
and brethren friends and particularly dispensationalists that refuse
to acknowledge that there is or that there was a church in
the Old Testament times, only the nation state of Israel, Presbyterians
and others argue and insist that there was indeed a church from
the earliest times of the Old Testament era. As sure as there
was a covenant, there was a church. Because where the one is, the
other necessarily must exist. You cannot have a covenant and
not have a church. So where you will find the one,
you will find the other. and therefore we find New Testament
writers referring to the Old Testament church in the sense
of acknowledging the reality of a church. Let me give you
an example of this, Stephen shortly before they killed him, in Act
7 he gave that wonderful address to those who were opposed to
him Acts 7 verse 38, particularly, this is he that was in the church,
in the ecclesia, in the wilderness with the angel which spoke to
him in Mount Sinai. Now, due to the problem which
particularly dispensationalists have introduced into the Christian
church in our day, we have to lay down some presupposition. we have to insist on certain
things being in situ before we proceed to establish our arguments
whether it's about church government or about baptism or a number
of other things including salvation. Let me give you a number of these
presuppositions and I'll give them to you in a series of ones. First of all, from Genesis to
Revelation there is but one inspired, infallible Word of God from Genesis
to Revelation of equal authority, of equal value. Secondly, there
is only one way of salvation from the dawn of history until
the end of the world. a way of salvation which of course
was differently administered perhaps in the Old Testament
era because of types, shadows and symbols whereas we have the
clarity of the New Testament on the cross. Third one, there
is but one covenant of grace in both Old Testament era and
the New Testament times. there is but one Redeemer of
God's elect in every age. And finally, there has only ever
been one Ecclesia on earth, one Church of the Living God. Now,
it would be untenable to suggest, as dispensationalists do, that
the Hebrew people of the Old Testament, that they had the
oracles of God, that they had salvation by free grace alone,
that there was a covenant of grace, that there was one Saviour
for God's people, Jesus Christ, whether it's in the economy of
tax symbols or otherwise, but that there was no church. It
doesn't make sense. in any way whatsoever. It violates
every principle of unity and purpose that are usually associated
with the divine rationale of redeeming a people as the family
of God. Now, this becomes infinitely
more acute when the definition of Ecclesia is that of a people
whose redemption was accomplished by the blood of Lamb. It then
becomes de facto that a church did exist in the Old Testament
and that it was this church that the disciples belonged to and
that they began to expand. Now friends, this is a terribly
important point in our day and generation that we must insist
that there has always been the Church of God on the face of
the earth in whatever day which we live. because of the forces
that are at work nowadays, we have to defend this point. Let's
move on then to our next heading, the New Testament. Now the suggestion
of some that the roots of the Christian Church go no deeper
than the incident concerning Peter at Caesarea Philippi where
he was the first man to profess openly the Lord Jesus Christ.
You remember that incident when the Lord Jesus asked a general
question, who do these people say that I am? And of course
the answer came back, well some are saying you're Elijah, some
are saying you're a prophet or whatever. And then he asked,
who do you say that I am? And it seemed to be directing
it at Peter. And then Peter responded with that marvellous profession
of faith, thou art the Christ of God. That led to Jesus' response,
Matthew 16, 18, I say unto thee, thou watch Peter, and upon this
rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it. Now, to suggest that this is
the root of the New Testament Christian Church is nothing if
not a Popish idea, and we've heard much about this over the
recent weeks since the Pope's death that the first Pope was
of course Peter and this is the text that they have built their
evil system upon. Now the whole ethos of thought
and practice amongst our Lord and amongst his apostles is one
of presupposing an entity known as the Ecclesia everything about
the Gospel, the ministry of Jesus and the missionary work of the
Apostles, everything gives this aura of recognizing and accepting
the reality of the Church as something already in existence. And nowhere in the New Testament
is it introduced to us as a new concept, as a new idea, rather
as a structure and an organization that was embedded even in the
Judaism that was familiar to the Lord and his followers. The words of the Lord on the
subject of church discipline demonstrate this to some degree
that his own mind was firmly church oriented. Matthew 18 verse
17 If ye shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Ecclesia."
Tell it unto the Church. The blessing of God on the Apostles'
labors has a similar focus in Acts 2.47. The Lord added to
the Ecclesia, to the Church. such as should be saved. Now, we could refer to many other
instances of New Testament writings that would further reinforce
this argument, but I think the point is made. So, accepting
the presupposition of a church existing before the finished
work of the cross, we then look to how this church was to be
organised in terms of its government. how it was supposed to be administered
in not just in a Jewish environment but also in a Gentile one. It would be natural for us to
expect such protocol as they have already recognized in Judaism
to find something similar to it in the New Testament Christian
Church because God is a God of order. God is a God who does
things in a specific manner and Paul was deeply convicted of
this, he makes reference to it in 1 Corinthians 14.33 and again
in verse 14. The injunction in that last verse,
let all things be done decently and in order, that begs the question
that the New Testament Ecclesia should be formally stated, governed
by an administration that is approved by God in the Scriptures. So, we'll move on to the offices,
our next heading. When the missionaries began to
establish the churches in non-Jewish countries, in Asia and Europe
particularly, they complied with that requirement for order. And
this comes through time and time again and in a number of different
ways. But we have to recognize that
the transition period from Old Testament Church, from Old Testament
format of worship, from Old Testament administrative ideas to the slick
and more sophisticated New Testament Christian Church. That transition
period was not going to be easy. It wasn't going to be the mere
turning over of a leaf. and the more I think about this
actually, the more amazed I am at how few problems there arose. I thought it would be much, much
more difficult for them. Nevertheless, there were things
in that period, particularly from the death of Christ until
the end of the first century, until the end of the apostolic
era, that were unusual and that were designed by God for that
period to reinforce the infant Christian Church as it was in
its Gentile phase, or should I say Jewish Gentile phase. And when you read through the
Acts of the Apostles you find a number of these strange incidents
such as them taking napkins from an apostle and giving them to
somebody who was ill and the people being cured thereby. It was the gift of tongues and
much else besides. I want you to take your attention
to the plurality of offices that were introduced at this phase
of the church's development. Such as we find for example in
Ephesians 4 verse 11 He gave some apostles, some prophets,
some evangelists, some pastors, and teachers. Now, Calvinists
have always considered the first three mentioned in that verse
as temporary offices designed to overcome the many difficulties
that these missionaries came across as they walked their way
through the Gentile world. The more regular offices, the
ones that were to be of perpetual significance to the church were
the offices of Elder and Deacon. So we find these missionaries
at the first opportunity choosing men suitable for those offices,
men of sound conviction, men of good character, men of experience
that could fill that role. And they are called, in the first
instance, elders, prasputeros in the New Testament Scriptures.
Listen to these two examples of this, and I'm only giving
you examples, Acts 14 verse 23. When they had ordained them elders
in every church, Now it would seem that this term was familiar
to the apostles familiar to the missionaries
of the New Testament. And in all likelihood they would
have referred, they would have been familiar to them because
they referred to older men, it was a term for
seniority, but it was also a term associated with the position
of Jews in the courts of the Old Testament Church. In, for
example, the Sanhedrin, they would have been referred to as
elders of different ranks. Now, perhaps for that reason,
that when they moved into the Gentile world, taking with them
this idea of the prosbyteros, because of how steeped it was
in Old Testament format, Maybe that's the reason that Paul saw
wise to introduce another term, the term that is familiar to
us as Bishop, Episcop. Now, that word by usage of the
Apostles has become far churchier, far new testamentish than the
Presbyteros. And the Bible, the New Testament
goes on to use both terms interchangeably, with perhaps more of an emphasis
regarding the ability to teach on the office of the Bishop.
Now let me give you an example of this. 1 Timothy 3, 1 and 2. This is a true saying, if a man
desires the office of a Bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop
then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober,
of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach." Now, as an example
of the use of this word, bishops, in the greeting Paul gives to
the church at Philippi, in the opening verse of Philippians
chapter 1, we find these words Paul and Timotheus the servants
of Jesus Christ to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at
Philippi were the bishops and deacons now let's suppose that
the three tier rank of elder, bishop and deacon existed would
Paul greet the bishops and the deacons, and miss out the all-important
rank of the elder? There is no mention of elder
here. And in Paul's mind, and to the whole ethos of the New
Testament, the radical office is the office of the prosbyteros. So it would be inconceivable
that Paul would greet bishops and deacons and not mention elder. So we have to conclude from this
that there was no such three tier ranking in the mindset of
the apostles. There was only the two, with
the bishops and the elders being used interchangeably. Furthermore,
what is not commonly referred to are the other titles or terms
in the New Testament which refer to office bearers in the Christian
Church. There is one term translated
in 1 Thessalonians 5.12 as those that rule over you. The paper
gives you the Greek words as well. There is another one in
1 Corinthians 12.28 translated as government. There is another
one in Hebrews 13.7 translated as those that rule. Three distinct
titles referring to office bearers in the Christian church. But
these carried no weight in the thinking of the apostles, only
the term elder and bishop and deacon. Now you may very well
ask, well, why don't we continue using the idea of the bishop?
Well, I believe the reason for that is that the early church
recognized how the church which eventually developed into the
Roman church abused the system which the New Testament taught
and exalted the rank of the bishop and therefore the early church
ceased to use the word bishop in favour of the term elder. Now, perhaps these two offices
of elder and deacon correspond with a distinction between Old
Testament roles of priest and Levite. I'm not sure, but I think
there may be something in that. In Enochus, the office and work
of the deacon has always been broadly understood in terms of
what we find in Acts 6, verses 1-6. I'm sure that's familiar to you.
So that makes up then the two tiered system we find in the
New Testament scriptures and that are familiar to Presbyterian
churches. Elders looking after the spiritual
side of things and deacons looking after the more practical issues. Let's move on then to our next
heading, Authority. Now that these officers had responsibility,
authority and power is evidenced from the, if I can put it this
way, the Ecclesia speak, the church speak of the New Testament.
The Lord placed huge responsibility on the shoulders of men when
he spoke these words to them recorded for us in Matthew 16
verse 19. and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom
of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be
bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall
be loosed in heaven these are awesome words my friends words
that imply a responsibility that is staggering in its potential. They refer, of course, to the
disciplined life of God's people here on earth. And in the observation
and execution of that discipline, God does not expect any single
individual to cope with that kind of responsibility, to carry
out on one's own the requirements of church discipline in the New
Testament Church. There wasn't a greater mind since
Christ himself than the mind of the Apostle Paul. And there
wasn't a greater man to cope with responsibility than that
man. Yet, when a major decision had
to be made with respect to the Gentiles participating in gospel
privileges, that very man inspired apostle that he was, refused
to take an executive role and speak authoritatively on the
matter. He looked to the collective wisdom
of the brethren that would gather at Jerusalem in that portion
we read in Acts 15. And he let that collective wisdom
make the decision rather than speak on it himself. Other words
from the Lord Jesus also imply a collective decision making
process, particularly in matters of discipline. Listen to these
words, Matthew 18 verse 17, talking about discipline. If he shall
neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Ecclesia, tell it unto
the Church. Now Paul's sentiments echo this
when writing to the Church at Corinth, as well as at Thessalonica
or Thessalonica if you wish. Let me give you two texts, 1
Corinthians 5, 4-5. In the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, when you are gathered together in my spirit, with the
power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such a one unto Satan,
for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved
in the day of the Lord Jesus. to Thessalonians 3, 14 and 15,
If any man obey not your word by this epistle, note that man,
and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count
him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. Now these words
aren't talking in the first instance about how you as a Christian,
as a member of this church should treat another person. They're
talking in the first instance, or addressing in the first instance,
the church, the ecclesia, in the process of church discipline.
That will have implications for you, how you are to consider
that person that the church may or may not have to discipline.
But in the first instance, they are addressing the church. Now
this and much more besides imply that the church of God on earth
should be characterized by a mechanism that would have an oversight
of the flock. Further, this system was not
to be some toothless watchdog, nor was it to rest on any one
person, as I said earlier, but rather be an effective expression
of the collective wisdom of the Ecclesia. Which brings us to
a very brief paragraph on the courts. This structure should
evidently be in place to carry out the pastoral and disciplinary
obligations of the gospel. Now we have come to know these
structures as church courts and I think it's a reasonable expectation
to look in the New Testament church for something akin to
what went before in the Old Testament era. There the organisational
administrative procedures were well ordered. For example the
Jewish High Court which we know as the Sanhedrin it could not
meet on an ad hoc basis it had to meet formally constituted
by acknowledging God. Paradoxically the meeting in
Jerusalem referred to in Matthew 26 would have convened in the
name of God even if it was to plot the death of his beloved
son Matthew 26.3 Then assembled together the chief priests and
the scribes and the elders of the people unto the palace of
the high priest that was called Caiaphas. Now ever since Moses
was first counseled to take on board the benefits of collective
wisdom and responsibility in Exodus 18 the principle has constantly
raised its head in the course of God's business here on earth. and its natural offspring are
the church courts which we associate with the Christian church. Hence,
we as Presbyterians have our deacon's courts, we have our
church sessions, we have our presbyteries, and in some cases,
for sheer size demands, there are synods and also assemblies. These all meet in a formal manner
just as the Old Testament courts met. Which brings us finally
to Presbyterianism. So far we have identified the
existence of a church, we have identified the biblical mandate
for office bearers and also the principle of a church structure
within which the business of the church should be conducted. Presbyterianism is based on a
manner in which the apostles came together, in that incident
we read about in Acts chapter 15, responding to a crisis that
arose particularly in the churches of Southern Europe. The missionaries
were hounded by religious zealots, by Jews that would not accept
the Messiah, and even when some of them did accept and became
part of the Jew-Gentile Church, they could not see themselves
free to have fellowship with Gentiles unless the Gentiles
accepted some of the most basic rudiments of Judaism. such as
some other food laws and the right of circumcision in particular. Now, one imagines that Paul,
being the forthright, inspired apostle that he was, one imagines
that he could have spoken authoritatively on this matter, as he did for
example in the controversy on the Church of Corinth concerning
the woman's headwear business. There he did speak authoritatively
and gave his view on it. Instead, in this instance, he
left the whole matter to the collective wisdom of his brethren
that came to Jerusalem. Acts 15 verse 6, the apostles
and elders came together for to consider of this matter as
we read a moment ago. And they came from far and wide
representing the various churches with whom they had been labouring
in the Gospel. And this, as I said earlier,
became known and is still known as the Council of Jerusalem.
And it is universally recognised, by Presbyterians at least, as
the prototype for our Presbyteries. Now, while the Jerusalem meeting
heard much debate from various speakers and there seemed to
have been quite a few of them, they then proceeded to focus
in on the matter and by collective wisdom they came to a conclusion,
they came to a consensus and they dictated a letter and they
dispersed this letter by messengers to the various churches and One
of the key phrases in that chapter referring to this is in verse
22 of Acts 15. Then pleased did the apostles
and the elders and the whole church. They had the corporate
ecclesia in mind to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch
and so on. Now, it is argued that whatever
differences separate the various denominations of the contemporary
Christian church that adhere to the principle of the plurality
of congregations under one overarching umbrella such as a presbytery,
whatever our strengths and weaknesses in that respect, there is no
biblical foundation whatsoever for the mushrooming these days
of independency, of parachurches that are out there on their own,
accountable to no one and proceeding with an independent spirit. You
just cannot find that in the New Testament Scriptures. Now,
even when the general principle of many under one umbrella is
accepted, how that is then interpreted that is another matter altogether
because the notion of Anglicanism and perhaps even the notion of
Romanism isn't altogether that far removed from Acts 15 but
the embellishment of bishops and cardinals and popes pervert
the principle to such a degree that it is no longer recognisable
And the Baptist church, for their part, their inclination to grant
autonomy to the pastor, frequently resulting in a dictatorial rule,
also fails, as far as I can see, the principle of rule by party. So we come to the next heading,
the second last one, that of creed. And this will be very
brief because I rather think that Neil McKinley might be dealing
with this one. Now this has been a fruit of
the Jerusalem Council. The recognition of a creed or
a confessional standard. This is part and parcel of Presbyterianism. The Presbyterian form of church
government and the necessity of a creed go hand in hand. Church government by confessional
standard has become something of a byword in our day. it is
throttled very much under through the crisis. We only need the
Bible. That's all we need. We don't need the confession
of faith. We don't need standards that have been introduced by
men. Well, my friends, Paul and his fellow missionaries, they
have the Bible. They have the leading of the
Holy Spirit. They have even perhaps the beginnings of the New Testament
Scriptures in the first inspired epistles. Yet they saw it necessary
to come to Jerusalem and to seek the collective wisdom of the
Brethren. And without a shadow of a doubt
these men were more in tune with the mind of God than we are in
our generation. But God didn't allow the Jerusalem
Council to take any course other that come to a consensus, that
there is no suggestion that there was a pressing, if you like,
outpouring from on high, leaving them with no other course to
take. There are instances of this in
the Bible, where men were compelled, constrained to take a certain
route because of the compunction upon them by the Holy Spirit
of God. But in the Council of Jerusalem there was a lot of
debate went on in the beginning and the apostles and elders came
together to consider the matter, verse 7, and when there had been
much disputing there was a lot of debating and arguing going
on before the more experienced apostles eventually spoke. and the conclusion of this, the
fruit of it, was that letter that was dictated and circulated
to all the churches. That is the prototype of the
confession of faith and indeed all the confessions of the 17th
century they will appeal to this incident as their basis. Well,
let me say now just a brief word on the last point, the historical.
It is a misconception that Presbyterianism originated after Reformation,
or indeed with Calvin. It may have been fine-tuned then,
I think most Presbyterians would accept that, but its roots go
back to the New Testament times. The Popish idea or notion of
a particular system of church government, as I said earlier,
being based on patriarchal confession, It hardly warrants the time to
argue. It really doesn't. Even the view that the Palactic
or Anglican system ruled by bishops and cardinals was in place during
the Apostolic Era, that is untenable on the basis of the evidence
available to us. There are two extant documents
which have always been considered by Presbyterians and indeed by
historians as accurate and reasonably feared free from ecclesiastical
bias. And these two documents testify
in favor of Presbyterianism and the earliest times, even the
apostolic times. They came from men that overlapped
in time with the age of inspiration and infallibility. And the documents
have become known as Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians and
Polycarp's Epistle to the Church at Philippi. In both of them
there is clear evidence that it is the broad Presbyterian
ethic that was the practice in those two churches and we have
no reason to suggest that it wasn't the practice in other
churches of the time as well. Sadly, the perversion we know
now as the Popish system of government did take hold before too long
and it ruled the day until God stirred up a reformation in his
church. Martin Luther, one of the first
things that he realised was that the system whereby one office
bearer could hold rule and authority over others Luther realised that
this was not scriptural. It had no biblical foundation. But, for whatever reason Luther
was not able to take a matter much further forward, possibly
because God had other designs for him. It was left to John
Calvin to put the mechanics of Presbyterianism afoot and it
was on a great length. on this subject in Book 4 of
famous institutes of the Christian religion. It demonstrates quite
clearly that the offices Christ had appointed through the apostles
are indeed the offices we associate usually with Presbyterianism. John Knox, the Scottish reformer,
took this aspect of Calvinism, along with others of course,
he took it with him to Scotland and gave it a nephos that is
arguably distinct until this very day. Knox and his fellow
Puritans insisted that the reformational principle of sola scriptura would
be the guiding light of both their ecclesiology and their
theology. Not just the theology but also
in matters relating to the church. And that meant fighting the erroneous
view arising from the Romanist church and also from the Episcopalians
that church government should be ruled by bishops and cardinals
and so on. So that in the areas of faith,
order, discipline and worship, Knox and his followers they insisted
that appeal must be made to the scriptures. and this developed
into what has now become known as the Regulative Principle of
Worship. Everything we do as a practice
which we impose upon our people has to be regulated by the teaching
of the Word of God. The Ecclesiastical position can
be summed up under the following three headings. The Priesthood
of All Believers, a Parity of Eldership, and a conciliar system
of church government. That three-fold basis is sufficiently
robust to allow for necessary latitude in how Presbyterianism
is practised. For example, in Scotland there
tends to be only one overarching assembly for all the churches,
whether it's the Church of Scotland or the Free Church or whatever,
but there are a number of synods that are free in Scotland and
there is another one in Canada. In Australia, there can be a
plurality of assemblies, as there are with the general Presbyterian
church, and that is something that they had to introduce, I
suppose, to overcome the tyranny of distance. In smaller Presbyterian
denominations, like the one I belong to myself, a synod, or as in
our case, a presbytery, can be considered as the Supreme Court,
the Court of Final Appeal if you like. So that's Presbyterianism
as far as I can make out. I could have gone into much more
detail on the history part but I've already been going for almost
an hour so that's it. If you want to ask questions
I'm not very sure I'll be able to answer them but feel free
in any case. and the pre-prestiges. you
Foundations of Presbyterianism
Series Presbyterianism
| Sermon ID | 72005211642 |
| Duration | 58:02 |
| Date | |
| Category | Special Meeting |
| Bible Text | Acts 15:6-29 |
| Language | English |
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