Decisions of the latest Christian Reformed Synod have startled many people. They make it plainer than ever that we who by the grace of God want to hold and maintain the Biblical and therefore Reformed Faith will have to do much more than try to expose increasing errors of faith and life. We will have to redouble our efforts to state positively (as well as negatively) what the Biblical Faith is and requires. At a National Presbyterian and Reformed Fellowship meeting in Atlanta before the new Conservative denomination (PCA) developed, another attendant remarked that they sought to be a Reformed church, but that they had gotten so far away from being one that they hardly knew where to begin. The plight of our denomination is becoming surprisingly similar. When even a synod majority needs special study committees to help them decide such elementary questions as whether Christians should pay taxes or whether little children should take the Lord’s Supper, we obviously have to begin trying to reteach the Biblical faith and life from the ground up.

The Issue Isn’t Women’s Rights But The Bible’s Authority

Much more significant than the fact that a Liberal minority have succeeded in driving through the synod the church order change* required to legalize admitting women as deacons into their governing consistories is the fact that in getting that decision they have succeeded in setting aside the Bible as our authoritative guide to church practice. The decision was made at the cost of ignoring, contradicting and sometimes deliberately perverting the Bible’s plain teaching. Any listener to the debates must have been struck by the fact that conservative opposition usually appealed to the Scriptures while the liberal promoters usually did not even attempt to do so.

The decisions of the last synod have, no doubt, startled many people. They become much less mystifying if one considers the fact that developments in the church have long beer. moving in the direction of such an anti-Biblical decision. What we are seeing in 1984 is only a most recent and most flagrant example of dismissing the Bible’s authority as irrelevant to our church life.

That our churches are now officially doing this could hardly be made more obvious than it was by the editor of their church paper, The Banner in his January 23 propaganda issue. One of the key Bible passages that has often appeared in the discussion is that found in I Timothy 2, the apostle’s outline of the way the Lord would have His church organized around its special offices, ending with the explanation (3:14, 15) “I am writing you these instructions so that . . . you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.” Because the passage contains the prohibition, “I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man” (2:12), the editor frankly stated, “There is no doubt in my mind that Paul was prescribing a restricted role to women in the service of worship when be wrote . . . . 1 Tim. 2:12. “Paul could appeal to what was in his day a common moral judgment . . . . But when such an appeal could no longer be made, the special apostolic prescription is also removed.” When one can so casually dismiss the authoritative ruling of God’s Word, as first the editor and now the synod (although with certain ambiguities) have done, can the church which is officially doing the dismissing still consider itself to be “the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth”? Or is it, according to its own confessed and generally forgotten definition (Belgic Confession Article 29) becoming “the false church” which “ascribes more power and authority to itself and its ordinances than to the Word of God, and will not submit itself to the yoke of Christ”? That is the question which the synod decisions compel us to face.

An Honest Objection: All Christians Are Prophets!

At this point we can anticipate and need to face an honest objection. The apostle Peter on Pentecost (Acts 2:16ff.) explained, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy . . .. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days and they will prophesy.’” Doesn’t this mean that since the Holy Spirit’s outpouring on Pentecost, all believers, men and women alike, are called and should be permitted to exercise whatever “gifts” the Holy Spirit has given them in all church offices including that of “preaching”? This is perhaps the most plausible and has become the common argument to which advocates of the present movement appeal.

In order to try to understand and evaluate it we need to quickly review the Bible’s doctrine about mankind (“Anthropology,” if you like the technical term). The Bible teaches that man (including both men and women) was created in the image of God to know, love and serve Him as His prophet, priest and king. After the fall into sin, mankind lost the ability to properly know, love and serve God. To save and restore him God promised and sent His Son, the Christ (meaning “anointed” to, “our chief Prophet,” “our only High Priest” and “our eternal King” (H. Catechism XII). Christ, in saving us restores us to this believer’s office of prophet, priest and king (Catechism question and answer 32; compare Ephesians 4:24, Colossians 3:10). This restoration to office, the office of the believing Christian, applies to all Christians, both men and women, as the scriptures (Acts 2; compare Galatians 3:28, “There is neither . . . male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”) and the creed, (the Catechism, “Why are you called a Christian? Because I am a member of Christ by faith and thus a partaker in His anointing . . . .”) make plain.

The Neglected Office

This office of the believing Christian, which is the basic office in the Christian church, was through over a millennium of Roman Catholic Church development, increasingly obscured and almost disappeared from sight, as the church came to be thought of as primarily the clergy. A common representation portrayed the church as a ship of which the clergy were the crew; members were merely passengers (who went along for the ride and paid the fare). In the Protestant Reformation there was a return to the Bible’s teaching about the calling and office of the believer. Think of Martin Luther’s appeal to the priesthood of believers to challenge the rule of the clergy and pope. Soon, however, that office of the believer, misused to justify a peasant revolution, was obscured also in Protestantism, so that the church again came to be regarded as primarily the special offices. A 1965 introductory catechism book, Teach Me Thy Way, written by Snapper and Spykman, and issued by the C.R. Board of Publications, in its chapter dealing with church offices (23), devoted most of4 pages and 4 illustrations to the pastor, the big officer, 9 lines and 1 illustration to his assistants, the elders, and about the same amount to the deacons, finally admonishing the children to love , respect and pray for these important people who are “doing Jesus’ work!” It is ironic that this unconscious caricature of the church, so like that of Roman Catholicism, even concludes with a quotation of Ephesians 4:11, 12a “and he gave some to be . . . pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints.” One would never suspect that that quotation, terminated so abruptly, goes on in the Bible (vv. 12–16) to describe the purpose of all of this structure of special offices, to prepare all of the believers to fulfill their varied calling and office, the great office of serving Christ as Christians in the world!

The Present Reaction

The traditional and general neglect of this office of the believer, and concentration of church attention on special offices has especially in our time produced a reaction into the opposite direction from this erroneous tradition. Now the office of the believer, instead of being overlooked is coming to be regarded by many as the only office, and used as a ground for denying the proper existence of any other offices and especially, of denying the existence of any authority in them or in the church!

The 1972 and 1973 Caricatures of the Church

A prime example of and an especially mischievous contributor to this kind of reaction is found in the long report of a synod committee on Ecclesiastical Office and Ordination presented in 1972 and its even longer edition in 1973. It carried this reaction to the length of claiming that the only authority of offices in the church is that of service as even Christ’s authority is characterized by only “the authority of the supreme servant” (Acts 1973, p. 707)! (His “iron” rule of the nations of Ps. 2:8, 9; Rev. 12:5 is ignored.)—The 1973 Synod criticized the neglect of “authority” in the committee’s first report and instructed it to correct that deficiency. The committee, instead of complying, reported the next year with 20 more pages of argument for its notion that the only authority was service. The 1973 Synod then tried to patch up the glaring holes in this ostensibly Biblical study by adding some statements of. its own regarding the Bible’s teaching about authority, rule and obedience. (It is worth noticing that two of the authors of these 1972 and 1973 reports were Drs. Anthony A. Hoekema and Willis P. De Boer who, as the only two representatives of the more recent study committee at the 1984 synod, bear a good deal of responsibility for this synod’s actions on their report.)

The Bible’s Order or Our Disorder?

Is it not true that the Bible does not give us a complete church order with detailed rules regarding church life and worship? Indeed, it doesn’t! But it does give us inspired instructions, as we have seen, about “how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:14, 15). These include the requirements for holding the special church offices of elder and deacon. The Reformation was at this point also, a return to believing obedience to the Word ofGod. Our Church Order is nothing but a conscientious effort to return the church to obeying God’s Word with respect to its (1) Offices, (2) Assemblies, (3) I ts Task and Activities, and (4) Its Admonition and Discipline. In establishing this order our churches were following the lead of John Calvin who in his lifelong effort to help the church find its way back to the clear teaching of God’s Word, devoted the last of the four books of his Institutes to the subject of “the Means of Grace: The Holy Catholic Church.”

This whole mass of Biblical teachings, not only regarding eligibility for office, but regarding virtually all church life and activity we are seeing more and more cynically brushed aside as out of date. In 1973 the Synod, following the shabby anti-authority report already mentioned, decided that “the Bible leaves room for the church to adapt or modify its particular ministries in order to carry out effectively its service to Christ and for Christ in all circumstances” (Acts 1973, p. 64; applied to evangelists, Acts 1976, p. 62). Despite its pious sound, this simply means that the church officially assumed the right to multiply or alter the number and functions of offices as it might see fit! That is what it has more and more proceeded to do, if “necessary,” in defiance of Scripture, Creed or Church Order! This is the easy route by way of which we have more and more rapidly come to leave Biblical and therefore Reformation teachings about church offices, assemblies, the churches’ proper task and activities and its discipline far behind. In our May Outlook Rev. Henry Vander Kam informed us that in our churches’ seminary, of whose Board he used to be president, the Biblical teach ing about the church, “Ecclesiology, has not been taught . . . in the department of Dogmatics for the last 15 years!” How much more evidence do we need before we are compelled to acknowledge that our denomination is fast becoming one which “ascribes more power and authority to itself and its ordinances than to the Word of God, and will not submit itself to the yoke of Christ” (Belgic Confession Article 29 on “the false church”)?

All reports on our recent synod call attention to the radical division apparent in its membership and the contradictory character of some of its decisions especially on thi s matter. A Liberal minority by stacking committees and parlimentary maneuvering overrode the convictions ofa large majority of our church members. Our Lord has committed us to pray, work and fight for a church faithful to His Word in confession, order and practice. That means that our churchesand members will have to do everything they can to reverse the wrong course our denomination is taking. If that cannot be reversed, we will be compelled, like our forefathers and many contemporaries, to work for such a church outside of the unfaithful denominations.

*It ought not to be overlooked that legalizing the opening of offices to women requires not only a change in the Church Order, but also a change in the creed, the (Belgic) Confession of Faith. Notice Article XXX, “when faithful men are chosen , according to the rule prescribed by St. Paul in his epistle to Timothy.” Notice also the “himself,” “him” and “he” in Article XXXI. Will this too be revised, or will the denomination further demonstrate its indifference to its creed by ignoring this point. This might serve as grounds for protest.