The Forgotten Office

This subject has gotten a great deal of attention in recent years. A growing number of books have been written about it-some of them with arresting titles such as, Enemy in the Pew; God’s Frozen People; Pete, You’re God’s Man. Most of them seem to reveal a deep concern about the weaknesses and confusion of the churches in our time and suggest that if somehow the ordinary church members or “laymen” can be more widely and deeply involved in the churches’ life and activities, this may be the road to church renewal. It is a curious fact that this subject, the focus of so much current attention, has been remarkably neglected throughout much of the churches’ history. Hendrik Kraemer, one of the more orthodox (Barthian) leaders of the World Council of Churches, observed in his 1958 A Theology of the Laity (p. 10), that a systematic study of “the laity’s place and meaning, as inherent in the nature and calling of the church, has not so far been undertaken” at least among non-Roman Catholics, and his little book was intended as a first such study. (He entitled his Dutch version of this material, Het vergeten ambt in de kerk, or “The Forgotten Office in the Church”). Later, in 1963 The World Council’s study, The Layman in Christian History is prefaced with the rare claim that it is “a genuinely original book” in which “unmistakably new ground has been broken!” On the basis of the research of many collaborating scholars, the writers state that they “have gathered together a vast amount of information such as has never before been brought within the covers of a single book.” It may seem almost unbelievable that in nearly 2000 years of the churches’ history a matter as elementary as the proper role of the ordinary church member had never been given a systematic and thorough study. Yet these specialists conclude that, although there have been limited surveys of areas and periods, “church history has been written almost exclusively in terms of prelates, councils, movements and heresies,” so that the role of the ordinary church member has been grossly neglected.

I became especially intrigued with the strategic role of the ordinary believer almost four decades ago when involved with a mission in mainland China. Later, the growing confusion about the proper order and functioning of the churches and the current questions and controversies about our Christian responsibilities in our society and world made it steadily more evident that we must give more attention than we have to the role that God’s Word assigns to the ordinary believer.

What have others done to help us study this subject? As has already been observed, there is surprisingly little . My own interest in the subject arose long before the comparatively recent flood of writing about it. As Kraemer observed, much of that volume of writing has been “practical,” concerned with getting more action in the church, rather than founded on Christian doctrine, let alone the Bible. It is remarkable that most of this material has come from Roman Catholic, Liberal Protestant, or, at best, Barthian sources, and the resulting work, though sometimes useful, has been generally disappointing. In 1927 the Lutheran commentator, R.C.H. Lenski wrote a good little book, Kings and Priests, though its range of interests is somewhat limited. From a Reformed perspective, Harry G. Goodykoontz’s (1963) The Minister in the Reformed Tradition has value, but its focus is not on the layman. When I looked for material on this subject years ago the only suggestion I could get was K. Sietsema’s (pre-World War II) Ambtsgedachte, which has been translated by Dr. Henry Vander Goot and published this year by Paideia Press as The Idea of Office. This is a valuable book, stressing the fact that office involves God’s appointment and authorization, not merely human ability, ambition and function. It too, however, is focused primarily on the church and that from a pastor’s perspective. Abraham Kuyper concluded the third and last volume of his Encyclopedia with the observation that the office of the believer was a subject that should get some special attention but he did not in this massive survey of Christian doctrine supply it! This was still “the forgotten office.”

It would be incorrect to say that the office of believers has been totally forgotten in the churches’ history. We need only to recall the Heidelberg Catechism’s 12th Lord’s Day, 32nd question and answer: “But why are you called a Christian?” “Because by faith I am a member of Christ and so I share in his anointing. I am anointed to confess his name, to present myself to him as a living sacrifice of thanks, to strive with a good conscience against sin and the devil in this life, and afterward to reign with Christ over all creation for all eternity.” The catechism’s statement is a good summary of a great deal of Biblical teaching about this important subject. We, however, need to give that Biblical teaching a great deal more attention than we usually do. To suggest that is the purpose of this writing.

What Is a Christian Believer?

If we are to see clearly the Bible’s teaching about the office of the Christian believer, we first need to consider what is meant by a “Christian believer.” Both the growing religious confusion of our time and a look at some of the many books about the office of the believer or “layman” show that we need to do that. A little 1960 book by Karl H. Hertz, Every Man a Priest, nicely illustrates that need. In a promising arrangement of material, an introductory chapter on “What it Means to be a Christian” is followed by three on the Christian as priest, as king and as prophet. The Christian is characterized as open to radical change as we are “victims of the tides of human history,” which currently seem to run against the Gospel. The writer suggests grasping the doctrine of “the universal priesthood” as a possible “Christian answer to the confusions and contradictions of our time.” The Christian is then identified as “God’s man, his handiwork through the redemptive deed of Christ.” By an “encounter” he is, a “picked representative of the new humanity,” “restored to the image of God himself,” to be like Christ, a priest, king and prophet. The book’s development of these three roles to show the Christian living as “the new humanity” obscures the difference between Christian and non–Christian, and stresses social action such as working for inexpensive open housing and removal of race discrimination. “The heart of the Christian priesthood is just this intercessory action on behalf of others.” “The universal priesthood is universal. It includes all men in all the activities of life” (p. 24), so that even non–Christians, when they engage in this social action, are also “priests” (p. 19). In fact, the book repeatedly finds non-Christians seeking its “progressive” (priestly, kingly and prophetic) social objectives, while Christians and churches do not. Thus the believer’s office, proposed in this and similar books as a remedy for the current secular confusion and demoralization of the church and society, is interpreted to wipe out the difference between believer and unbeliever and really make worse the confusion that it was supposed to remedy. A look at this book and the prevailing ideas it expresses underscores the fact that if we are to talk about the office of the believer in today’s confusion, we have to begin by defining and distinguishing what it means to be a Christian believer.

The Bible’s Definition of a Believer

Let’s turn to a passage in which the Apostle Paul anticipates and describes the kind of confusion that characterizes the church and society of our times, the third chapter of his second letter to Timothy: “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (vv. 1–4). Do you know of a better description of the demoralization and violence that are tearing apart our communities and civilizations? The accompanying religion is described as “having a form of godliness but denying its power” (v. 5).

The remedy prescribed for this condition is the Christian faith. That “faith” does not mean only some vague experience. It is defined as believing “the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” We can and must trust those writings because “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (vv. 15–17). This definition by the Divinely in spired Scriptures is exactly what is lacking in the popular slogans which urge laymen to work at saving dying churches. Because the definition by God’s word has been discarded, the action being promoted , despite its religious trimmings, often turns out to be, no Christianity at all, but only a weak copy of the secular ideals of the unbelieving world that are destroying those churches. These “progressive” programs of the main–line churches are still disturbingly like that of the missionary we once heard preaching in 1948 in Peking, China. His sermon did nothing but glorify the progressive ideals of the Communists and deplore the backwardness of the churches in failing to support their revolutionary social program.

While, just as in Paul’s day, “evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (v. 13) believers , like Timothy, are urged to “continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”

These Scriptures, however necessary and important, are not ends in themselves, but they are God’s sure way to lead us to realize our sin and need of a savior and to turn to Jesus Christ as that only Savior. The Lord had to state that plainly to the learned theologian s he encountered (John 5:39, 40), “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”

Our use of the Scriptures does not stop when they have led us to come to Christ. They continue to be our complete guide to the life of faith in Him, “teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Both James (1:18) and the Apostle Peter (1 Pet. 1:23) wrote of the believer being “born again . . . through the word of God.” In connection with that we notice the currently popular claim of many to be “born again Christians.” But the Scriptures aim at much more than only bringing people to rebirth. They are also designed to nourish and guide them in growing from birth to maturity and to equip them for adult Christian service—“so that the man of God may be equipped for every good work” (cf. I Pet. 2:2–5). If we are ever to begin to fulfill the calling and office of Christian believers we will have to be the kind of believers who are born and nourished by the Word of God.

The only reformations that have brought real renewal to the churches and societies in any time have been those that like King Josiah’s, Augustine’s, Luther’s and Calvin’s, De Kock’s, Kuyper’s, and Machen’s received their motivations and direction from God’s Word. In the further attention we hope to give to the office of the believer, let that be our starting point and guide. Further articles are intended to deal with the office of the Christian believer, its role in the church, in missions and in our duties in the world.