Now follows the second article by prof. J. Geertsema (first part) from the Clarion.
A closed Lord’s Supper Table is not proof of a sectarian spirit but shows ecclesiastical faithfulness – Prof. J. Geertsema, From the Clarion Volume 35, No. 7 April 4, 1986
The invisible church concept as basis for the rejection of the closed Table
In the article in the previous issue, we saw that there are three different ways of celebrating the Lord’s Supper, the open Table, the restricted Table, and the closed Table. The question is: must we have a restricted or a closed Table. That question is urgent since maintaining a closed Table is called sectarian. This accusation of sectarianism is not only heard today. Professor H. Bouwman, we saw, says the same thing in his Gereformeerde Kerkrecht (Reformed Church Polity), vol. 11, p. 558. We read there that “unity in church life requires unity in confession and church organization. Otherwise cooperation is practically impossible. There is a higher unity, namely, the unity in Christ. A church in a certain region or country may never overlook this unity because otherwise she is in danger of becoming a sectarian circle!’
When we analyse what Bouwman says, it is clear that the basis for his speaking of “a higher unity, namely, the unity in Christ,” is the doctrine that there is an invisible church, to which all the true believers belong, all those who by a true faith are ingrafted into Christ. This doctrine speaks about the visible and the invisible church, about the church as institute and the church as organism as two different things.
Closely related with this view of the church as visible and invisible is the doctrine of the pluriformity of the church. The pluriformity concept is that the invisible Church of Christ reveals itself visibly on earth in many forms (pluri-form), namely, in the many different local and regional church institutes, that is, in many different denominations, which all have and emphasize their own special aspect of the truth of God. Hereby the one visible church form or denomination can be a little more pure than the other, but they are all branches of the one, worldwide, Church of Christ.
According to this concept, this line of thinking, the invisible church is the true body of Christ; it is the church as an organism, the worldwide, catholic church. In this body, according to this concept, all the true believers, all those who are born again and ingrafted into Christ, have automatically a place. They are its members. This is then the true Church of Christ. It is in this invisible church that we have the “higher unity in Christ.”
In the reasoning of Bouwman, we have, on the one hand, a visible church organization. This visible, instituted, church needs a confession and a church organization (e.g. with a consistory and broader assemblies) for its proper functioning. With other words, such a confession and organization are essential for the functioning of the visible church, but they are not essential for the church as such. In this visible church the believers have, of course, also this higher unity in Christ, but they have a unity in confession and in organization as well. By implication, the latter is a unity of a lower level, because the “higher unity” is the unity in Christ. And this higher unity exists, then, also beyond the denominational church walls. It is the “higher unity” in the invisible church. For this higher unity in Christ, unity in confession and organization is not essential. It would be nice, even desirable, but it is not really necessary.
It can be readily understood that within this concept of a pluriformity of the church and of an invisible church with its “higher unity in Christ” a closed Table does not fit and gets the label “sectarian.” A closed Table, per logical consequence, must be seen in this line of thinking as a denial of that “higher unity in Christ.”
Is this invisible church concept with its “higher unity” the correct approach?+
Through the Liberation, under the leadership of Professor K. Schilder and others, we learned that our confessions do not speak of an invisible church as the total number of the elect or the born again besides or over against the visible church institute. We learned that we should reject a thinking in terms of, and a working with, the distinctions of the church as organism and the church as institute, of an invisible church and a visible church, as two different entities. We learned that Scripture itself does not speak in these distinctions.
The Scriptures teach that the church on earth consists of living, visible, people who gather visibly together in visible gatherings. The Scriptures also distinguish between true and false prophecy, and herewith, between a church that abides by the truth as revealed and a church that follows false teachings. The Scriptures warn very strongly against false teachings and deviations. The Apostle Paul, inspired by the Spirit of Christ, speaks His “accursed” against those who preach a gospel that differs from his own (Gal.1:8). He commands the believers in Rome to note and avoid “those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught” (Romans 16:17). These words of the apostle contain the inherent command of separation. Giving to deviations from the truth the same place and rights in the church as to the truth is clearly disobedience to the Lord of the church. The church is bound to the norms of Christ for the gathering and the preservation of the church.
This normative speaking of the Scriptures is followed in our Confession of Faith, Art. 28, 29. And it has been the gain of the Liberation in 1944 that this normative speaking of Scripture and confession was clearly seen again, in line with the Reformation in the 16th century and the Secession in 1834. We learned that church membership should not be a matter of taste but of faith, that is, of obedience in love to God’s holy will; obedience in love to Christ’s norms for the gathering of the church in truth. We learned that it is important to maintain that those who “draw away from the [visible, true] church or fail to join it act contrary to the ordinance of God” (Art. 28).
For those who followed the Reformation, or the Secession, or the Liberation, church membership was a matter of obedience to the Head of the Church. At the same time, it was for them a matter of obedience to the Second Commandment: serve and worship the LORD in accordance with His revealed will. This obedience of faith to God’s requirement in His Second Commandment is background and aim in the Art. 28 and 29 of the Belgic Confession. A true church which “governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting ail things contrary to it and regarding Jesus Christ as the only Head,” is a church that takes this requirement seriously. Not joining, or withdrawing from, the true church is acting contrary to the ordinance of God, especially as that is expressed in the same Second Word of the covenant.
It is clear, then, that our confession as it speaks in Art. 28 and 29 and as it is based on God’s Word, has to be maintained and applied also in the matter of the Lord’s Table and who can be admitted.
It is, therefore, such a heartwarming, joyful thing to read in the report of the brothers of the Blue Bell Church that they want to abide by this obedience to the Scriptures, in faithful, adherance to the confession, also on the point of the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and therefore restrict the Table communion to “those who have professed this true Reformed religion, have made this profession credible in their lives, and are members in good and regular standing in the true church.” Here the norms expressed in Art. 28 and 29 and based on, among others, the Second Commandment are taken seriously.
(to be continued)