Does the Scripture or Reformed theology have anything to say directly or indirectly about where the pulpit is to be placed in the church? This question has received some attention lately. A bit of added attention is possibly in order.

The question has become divided into two closely related questions. In the first place we must ask whether the pulpit belongs in the center of the front of the church. Does the strong Reformed insistence on the primacy and authority of Scripture require that this insistence be reflected in the central position of the pulpit?

It is not my intention to deal with this question as such. Bather, I would deal with the other aspect of the matter, namely, that of the divided chancel. Is such an arrangement in harmony with biblical and Reformed principles? In such an arrangement a lectern from which Scripture is read is placed on one side of the platform, and the pulpit from which the sermon is delivered is placed on the other side of the platform.

Again, it is not my intention to deal with this whole matter. Rather, my purpose is somewhat more restricted. I wish simply to deal with one argument that has been advanced in defense of the divided chancel. On two different occasions this argument has come to my attention, once in personal conversation and once on the printed page. The latter instance presents the point well. Under “voices in the church” in The Banner of March 2, 1962 we read as follows:

The divided chancel means something else to me as well. It reminds me of the purity and infallibility of the Word of God. The Scripture lesson is read from the Word of God, which is on the lectern. The sermon is preached by a human being on the pulpit. When the Bible is read it is, if we believe in infallibility, God himself speaking to us. When the preacher, with his human frailties and capacity for mistakes. preaches from the pulpit, he is giving us his interpretation of Scripture. It is proper that there be a distinction between the two. The double chancel helps me to grasp this distinction.

No minister of the gospel can read such a statement without feeling keenly the actuality of his own “human frailties and capacity for mistakes.” And no minister of the Word worthy of the name is unmindful of the high and exacting requirements that are placed on him to be a faithful, diligent. and true minister of the Word of God. Therefore all that is said below is meant to be said in the spirit of humility that must characterize the person and work of the minister of the Word of God.

But, is this kind of separation between the infallible Word and the preaching of that Word valid? It seems to me that the only answer we can give to that question is a flat no.

It seems incontrovertible that the churches that have adhered and do adhere to the Reformed faith have made very clear that the task of the minister is to be minister of the Word. The whole basis, substance. and orientation of his preaching must be the written Word of God. The preaching must be exposition of the Word by sound exegesis, and whatever else is said from the pulpit must be by way of explanation, illustration, and application of that exegetical core. In such preaching errors may occur due to the “human frailties and capacity for mistakes” on the part of the preacher. But these blemishes in no way undercut the fact that the preacher has been ordained as the minister of the Word of God and that he must be listened to as such.

There can be no reasonable doubt that so far as the Christian Reformed Church is concerned the separation seen by some in the divided chancel is without validity. By way of support for that declaration we turn first of all to the well-known admonition of the Apostle Paul to minister of the Word Timothy. Listen again to this clear. cut charge to the minister of the Word: “I charge thee in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the Jiving and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be urgent in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts; and will turn away their cars from the truth, and turn aside unto fables” (II Timothy 4:1–4).

Clearly this passage underscores the authority of the preaching of the Word as that authority which is inherent in the Word of truth, the “scripture inspired of God” referred to in II Timothy 3:16. The conclusion is inescapable that the “fables” referred to are avoided only as the Word is preached by mere men like Timothy, men set aside by God and ordained by his church for that purpose. There is no allowance for the presence of “fables” in the preaching itself except, of course, by way of illustration of Satan’s perversion of the truth of God’s Word.

When we turn to the Confession of Faith, articles XXX and XXXI, we read that “there must be ministers or pastors to preach the Word of God and to administer the sacraments.” And three times we read of “the ministers of God’s Word.” The same emphasis appears in the Church Order. Always there is reference to “the minister(s) of the Word” or to “the ministry of the Word.” This is the office of the minister or preacher. His whole task, in preaching, in shepherding the flock, and in teaching the youth, is in terms of the communication and application of the Word of God. This is his office, even though as mere man he discharges that office imperfectly. Separation of the minister’s work at any point of its official performance from that Word which alone gives character and substance to that work destroys the minister’s office and labor. He is a minister or preacher only in that he as a human vessel carries the Word of God.

                     

Particularly instructive and plain on the point at issue is the Form for the ordination or installation of ministers in the Christian Reformed Church. In describing the work of “pastors and ministers of the Word,” also called “spiritual shepherds,” the Form teaches us that “the pasture with which His sheep are fed is nothing else but the proclamation of the gospel, accompanied with prayer and the administration of the holy sacraments. The same Word of God is also the staff with which the Rock is guided and governed.”

“Consequently,” the Form proceeds, “it is evident that the office of pastors or ministers of God’s Word is: First: That they thoroughly and sincerely present to their people the Word of the Lord, revealed by the writings of the prophets and the apostles, and apply the same, as well in general as in particular, for the benefit of the hearers…All this is clearly signified to us in Holy Writ; for the apostle Paul says that these labor in the Word; and elsewhere he teaches that this must be done according to the measure or rule of faith. He writes also that a pastor must hold fast and handle aright the faithful amI sincere word which is according to the teaching…”

A final word from this Form sets forth with unmistakable clarity just how the membership of the church is to view the preaching of the Word. Every time a minister is ordained or installed in a Christian Reformed Church this charge is given to the members of the congregation: “And you likewise, beloved Christians, receive this your minister in the Lord with all fay; and hold such in honor. Remember that God Himself through him speaks unto you and entreats you. Receive the Word, which he, according to the Scripture, shall preach unto you, not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the Word of God.”

This solemn charge, under which the membership of the church is called upon to listen to the preaching of God’s Word, should weigh heavily on the minds of those who make a false disjunction between the Word of God written and the ‘Word of God preached, and who see this false dis· junction symbolized in the divided chancel.

A final quotation will show that the above citations from the official declarations of the church have solid precedent in a precise deliverance by none other than John Calvin. The Genevan Confession of 1536 contains the following article entitled Ministers of the Word:

We recognize no other pastors in the Church than faithful pastors of the Word of God, feeding the sheep of Jesus Christ on the one hand with instruction, admonition, consolation, exhortation, deprecation; and on the other resisting all false doctrines and deceptions of the devil, without mixing with the pure doctrine of the Scriptures their dreams or their foolish imaginings. To these we accord no other power or authority but to conduct, rule, and govern the people of God committed to them by the same Word, in which they have power to command, define, promise, and warn, and without which they neither can nor ought to attempt anything. As we receive the true ministers of the Word of God as messengers and ambassadors of God, it is necessary to listen to them as to him himself, and we hold their ministry to be a commission from God necessary in the Church. On the other hand we hold that all seductive and false prophets, who abandon the purity of the Gospel and deviate to their own inventions, ought not at all to be suffered or maintained, who are not the pastors they pretend, but rather, like ravening wolves, ought to be hunted and ejected from the people of God.

Two concluding observations would seem to be in order. In the first place let those who use the divided chancel and who are enamored of it make sure that the very pulpit arrangement and the use thereof in no way prompts or encourages the sort of thinking which we believe to be so very faulty in its evaluation of the preaching of the Word of God.

Then, in the second place, let the sort of thinking we have found seriously wanting be a warning to the ministry. Let them wrestle humbly with the magnitude of their calling. Let them study, toil, and pray that their preaching may always reflect the awesome truth of God and the terribly inescapable seriousness of that truth. Let no passion for mere novelty or cleverness prompt the worshippers to sec and hear so much that is of man in the pulpit that they find it hard to sense that they are listening to the Word of God. As the Apostle Paul tells us, it is possible to make void the cross of Christ through a kind of preaching that is mere “wisdom of words” (1 Corinthians 1:17).