A clear understanding of and a thorough commitment to the regulative principle of the church is, I am convinced, absolutely crucial if biblical church reformation is ever to become a reality in our churches. The regulative principle is intended, as we have seen, to govern the whole of the church’s life both as an institution and as an assembly. Let me trace out its significance for four areas of church life in this and following blogs.
I. For the Government of the Church
Puritans who held the regulative principle have historically been committed to the jus divinum. In other words, they have been committed to the concept that there is a divinely ordained form of church government given us in the Bible. Historically, Anglicans (beginning with Hooker’s treatise on the government of the Church of England) and many others since then have argued that God has left the church free within very general principles to construct its own government. Richard Hooker in his work, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, expressly denies the regulative principle of the Puritans. One writer says, “Its object is to assert the right of a broad liberty on the basis of Scripture and reason.”1
Hooker’s views have simply anticipated the views of many evangelicals today. But such views can only be entertained while one remains in ignorance of the identity of the church as the house of God and the special regulative principle appropriate to the House of God. Once these things are understood the superficial and even profane character of the view espoused by Hooker is obvious.
Thus, my first observation is simply this. In all your ordering of the order and government of the churches over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers see to it that you remember that your church is the house of God. It is not your house to be ordered in accord with your own traditions, imaginations, or whims. It is God’s house to be ordered as He has expressly revealed in the Scriptures. Your elders’ meetings, your church meetings, your ministerial commands, have no right to alter or add to the government of the church revealed in the Bible. You must impress on yourself, your fellow-elders, and your church the great reality that only God has the right to regulate the proceedings of His house.
My second observation grows out of the first. If you are to remember that the church is the house of God and conscientiously endeavor to order it according to the mind of Christ, you must believe that the Word of God is a sufficient revelation of the way the church is to be ordered. Only a deep-rooted confidence in Scripture will make you search the Scriptures as you must so that your ministry will properly order the church of Christ.
My third observation is that there ought to be no standing office in the church of Christ, but those two standing offices appointed and regulated in the Scriptures. If you are not a biblically qualified and recognized elder or a deacon, you have no true office in the church of Christ. I am, of course, not denying that the church through its elders may designate persons who will assist the pastors and deacons like book-keepers, secretaries, and even Sunday School Superintendents. I am not denying that the elders of the church may have certain specialized ministries like pastor for theological education in my case. I am simply saying that if you are not an elder or deacon, you have no right to rule and by right no authority in the church of Christ. You are simply a servant of the officers of the church. New offices must not be created in the church.
My fourth observation is that the two offices of elder or deacon must be ordered in the way God has ordained in the Scriptures. Those who hold them must be biblically qualified. The relations between the elders and deacons must be biblically ordered. Deacons must understand their peculiar tasks and that they are subordinate to the elders in the execution of their office. Wherever it is biblically possible there ought to be a plurality of elders in any local church. The relation of the officers and members of the church must be biblically ordered so that the church understands both its duty to submit to its officers and its duty to take congregational action on issues like church-discipline and the election of church-officers.
1The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, (Funk & Wagnalls, New York, 1909), vol. V, p. 360.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
