How holy does a church member have to be?
Posted at Reformation Scotland:
It’s the state of our hearts that tells whether we are saved or not. But only God knows for sure what our hearts are like. When someone is being assessed for whether or not they should be accepted as a church member, it is essential that they know it’s their heart that counts. But the church can’t make a decision on membership based on investigating their heart — only by looking at humanly observable information. Pastors and elders have the responsibility of maintaining the highest standards in belief and practice among church members, but they are not required to pass judgment on people’s hearts for the purpose of granting or withholding church membership. When a popular English preacher published a piece arguing the opposite, the Covenanter James Wood (d.1664), Professor of Theology at St Andrews University responded with his own pamphlet. In the following updated extract, Wood explains the careful distinctions we must make in order that those with responsibility for overseeing church membership will be able to carry out their work with integrity.What is required for someone to meet the qualifications to be a member of the visible church? There is a difference of opinion between us and the independent brethren. They say that people must be truly converted in God’s eyes, as far as others who are converted are able to discern.
This seems resolve the matter into ‘the judgement of charity.’ Yet this does not sufficiently to salvage the situation, for technically it expresses only the means by which persons with the necessary qualification (i.e., they are truly converted) are to be identified, rather than expressing anything about the objective qualification of the matter of a visible church.
Different senses of “required”
For membership of a visible church, the term “required” has a double sense. It could either mean (a) what is incumbent on an individual himself by way of duty before God, or it could mean (b) what is requisite in him by way of qualification in the outward church court (i.e., the basis on which the church may and ought to admit him to the external communion of the church).
In the first sense, I confess that none are qualified for membership of a visible church except those who are (not only so far as the most spiritual people can discern or judge, but also in reality) true converts and believers. It is every individual’s duty, in professing Christianity and adjoining himself to the church of Christ, to believe with his heart as he professes with his mouth. Otherwise he is not approved, not allowed, by God.
But I believe it’s another thing to enquire what is required in the second sense.
