Church Marks vs Church Purity

Augustine arguing with donatists by Charles-André van Loo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In response to Rome's claims, at the time of the Reformation, to be the one true church outside of which there was no salvation, the Reformation defined simple objective criteria by which the true church could be recognized. The Belgic Confession gives us a helpful example of this:

The marks, by which the true church is known, are these: if the pure doctrine of the gospel is preached therein; if she maintains the pure administration of the sacraments as instituted by Christ; if church discipline is exercised in punishing of sin: in short, if all things are managed according to the pure Word of God, all things contrary thereto rejected, and Jesus Christ acknowledged as the only Head of the church. Hereby the true church may certainly be known, from which no man has a right to separate himself [which implies also the positive responsibility to join].

This gives us three marks, with a simple summary. The summary is that for the true church, Christ is acknowledged as the only Head, especially in the subjection of all things to the authority of Scripture. The three marks in particular are:

1. Gospel preaching
2. Administration of sacraments
3. Church discipline

In highlighting these three in particular, the Reformed were taking a stance that the true church ought to be recognized by its institutions, so that any institute claiming to be the true church without these three marks (e.g. Rome) could be rejected and those with these three could be accepted. The confession makes the point that these three were instituted by the Lord Jesus Christ. The three marks are institutional marks and therefore more clearly objective, but also these three are the key institutional forms which are the ordinary (and official) means in our salvation (other important but non-official means, such as fellowship with believers, prayer and Scripture reading/study are not mentioned because the church institute is not required for these).

These three marks represent the benefits of the church institute to the believer from Christ by His Spirit, underscoring the need for believers not to separate themselves from these means as one should not cut himself off from the means whereby he receives his daily bread. In pointing out these three marks, the Reformed confession draws the proper connection between membership in the church and salvation so that Rome's claim about no salvation outside the church of Rome is exposed as empty and meaningless.

By gospel preaching, we are instructed as to the content of our faith, and admonished to faith and repentance. Christ comes and speaks to us in the preaching. By the sacraments, we are given visible signs and seals to assure and strengthen our faith. Christ comes and shows us in the sacraments. By discipline, we are brought back to the right path when we stray. Christ comes and corrects us in discipline. Christ is present in living fellowship and saving power through these means.

The Reformed also distinguished the recognition of organized local congregations as institutional manifestations of the true church from the recognition of people as Christians or members of the church:

With respect to those, who are members of the church, they may be known by the marks of Christians: namely, by faith; and when they have received Jesus Christ the only Saviour, they avoid sin, follow after righteousness, love the true God and their neighbour, neither turn aside to the right or left, and crucify the flesh with the works thereof. But this is not to be understood, as if there did not remain in them great infirmities; but they fight against them through the Spirit, all the days of their life, continually taking their refuge in the blood, death, passion and obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ, "in whom they have remission of sins, through faith in him."

Significantly, the confession does not suggest looking for members of the church in order to recognize the true church. In fact the article opens with a reminder about hypocrites in the church: "But we speak not here of hypocrites, who are mixed in the church with the good, yet are not of the church, though externally in it." Those whom we think may be members of the church may only be external members, that is, hypocrites. But where we find the three marks, we have found what Christ instituted for our good in our salvation and may enjoy the presence of Christ in these means, even if all around us turn out to be mere hypocrites.

This was one of the important lessons that may be derived from the sad history of the Donatist schism. To grossly simplify, one of the key issues in this controversy was that the Donatists claimed that the ordinances instituted by Christ were worthless if administered by an ungodly man (or by extension, a man who later turned out to be ungodly). They had in mind office-bearers or ministers who had compromised their confession of Christ in times of persecution. Whether such men ought to have been permitted to retain their office, or be restored to their office, is a secondary issue for our purposes here. A church may have failures in church discipline without altogether losing that third mark. Augustine's genius was to realize that the efficacy of the official means of salvation in the church (preaching, sacraments, and discipline) did not strictly-speaking depend on the holiness or moral uprightness of the office-bearer administering these means.

This is not to excuse some of the errors that Augustine made (or perpetuated/developed) in his doctrine of the church at this time, or to excuse office-bearers who bring disrepute to their office, to the church, and to Christ. Such office-bearers ought to be disciplined when their faults are uncovered, and deposed if they have shown or made themselves unfit for office. Also, moral failings often work through into a minister's (weak or false) preaching, or an elder's (lack of or corrupt) discipline. Nevertheless, the means themselves, if faithfully administered, retain their benefit to Christ's flock, since their nature is not dependent on the man administering them.

But this also means that the presence of the three marks in a local congregation does not in itself imply that the office-bearers are not hypocrites, or that the members of that congregation are Christians. That the confession gives separate criteria as the marks of Christians also indicates this. In other words, there is no inherent correlation between the three marks and church purity, spirituality, or holiness. This is worth emphasis because the confession speaks repeatedly about the purity of the three marks. Why is the purity of the three marks important, and why is this distinct from church purity?

The purity of the three marks concerns the faithfulness in which they are administered, and has therefore a direct correlation with their potential benefit for God's people. The more pure these marks are therefore, the more important it is for the believer not to separate himself from them, and the easier it is for the believer (ordinarily) to recognize them. This is distinct from church purity because the purity of the marks does not depend directly upon the spirituality of the members of the church. Of course, in the ordinary case, an unfaithful, unholy, and unspiritual church will typically lose the marks very quickly. But there are various reasons why the marks may linger or be administered even when a church as a whole becomes unfaithful. The reasons may be basically the same as the motivations of a hypocrite.

Particularity in the purity of the marks may become a matter of pride for a church, just as the Pharisee who boasts that he pays tithes of all manner of herbs. All the while, just like the hypocrite who secretly hates God and his neighbour, they neglect weightier matters as long as their performance puts on a good show. Christ had much to say about these religious hypocrites:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? (Matt. 23:23-33)

Prior to the captivity in Babylon (and afterwards, leading up to the Pharisees), Judah, in contrast to Samaria which did not have such purity in the outward forms or institutions, practiced this show-religion. Isaiah decries this evil:

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. (Isa. 1:11-17)

Christ's warning for us as individuals is also for churches:

In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. (Luke 12:1-3)

Some of the letters in the book of Revelation are addressing churches with precisely this kind of evil, and Christ threatens to take away their candlestick. The church that boasts in the purity of its marks, ought to take heed how its purity of life should correspond with these marks. Else, God who abases the proud and lifts up the humble, will remove the source of pride and replace it with everlasting shame.

And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. (Rev. 3:1-6)

The church of Sardis had a name that it was living. We might say it exhibited the three marks very clearly and purely, and its hypocritical members made a convincing show. But Christ walks amidst the candlesticks, and He says it is, as a whole, to be considered spiritually dead because its works were not perfect before God. The church had some things that remained, which needed held fast to and strengthened. There were some also who had not defiled their garments. The rest had. Those that did not repent and overcome would be blotted out of the book of life. So much for their boasts of church membership in such a supposedly living (or "pure") church. But those who have an ear are called to hear and watch and repent.

The church of Ephesus was not in nearly so bad a condition, and receives various commendations, including for their works, but they had forsaken their first love. The spiritual problem was not that they had preached poorly or administered the sacraments incorrectly (by all accounts, both Sardis and Ephesus were blameless in outward forms). Ephesus was even commended for their discipline of false apostles and Nicolaitans. But like Sardis, Ephesus is warned that unless they repent, Christ would come swiftly, taking them by surprise, to remove their candlestick. The candlestick in this vision is what most closely relates to the three marks we have been examining.

Purity in the three marks is important, and believers must join and not separate from the church which bears these marks, despite the presence of many other faults, but this is no substitute for church purity. Knowing all the right theology is no substitute for personal holiness in a walk of daily repentance and faith. A church having the best doctrinal positions on all points of dogma is not any whit purer because of that, than a hypocrite is purer than a heathen just because he knows the Bible from cover to cover. May we therefore pray:

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar. (Psalm 51:14-19)

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (I Thess. 5:23)