Benefits of Redemption

Precisely what do the means of grace accomplish? How do they communicate grace to us? The Shorter Catechism, for instance, says that the Word read and especially preached, the sacraments and prayer are the "means by which Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption" (Q&A 88). What are these benefits? Earlier in the Shorter Catechism, the divines identify these benefits as "justification, adoption, and sanctification" (Q&A 32). As strange as this may sound, there is a sense in which we can say that we are justified, adopted, and sanctified through worship. And this is not all. There are additional benefits that "accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification." These are "assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end" (Q&A 36).

What more could we need in the pilgrimage and difficulties of the Christian life? What could be more blessed than to receive these benefits on the Lord's Day when throughout the week we experience suffering and persecution, and fight the residue of sin and temptations of the flesh? What could be more comforting than to receive God's blessing? And how else are we to obtain his mercy and reassurance than through the diligent use of the means of grace?

The instrumentality of worship in communicating these benefits is explained in the Shorter Catechism. It is "the Spirit of God" who makes "the reading, but especially the preaching, of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort, through faith, unto salvation" (Q&A 89). This is a bold claim. But it is exactly what Paul teaches when he writes that faith comes through hearing the preached Word of God (Rom. 10:13-15). This also seems like an archaic claim. In a media-saturated and increasingly visually-oriented culture, communication experts are telling church leaders that the sermon is an ineffective and outmoded means of communication. After all, people cannot devote sustained attention to anything, much less a "talking head," for more than five to ten minutes. Yet here the church must be countercultural and trust in the promises of God, even if it appears foolish according to the wisdom of our age. As Paul also writes, "...God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe" (1 Cor. 1:21). Ultimately, the work of salvation belongs to the agency of the Holy Spirit who applies Christ's work of redemption. So too the effectiveness of preaching depends not on the pastor but on God. Relying on "foolish" means is nothing more than trusting in the power of God.

What is said here of preaching applies to the other means of grace. They also convince and convert, and sustain us in the faith. Baptism, the Shorter Catechism says, is a "partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace" (Q&A 94). Moreover, in the Lord's Supper believers "are ... made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment, and growth in grace (Q&A 96). Notice again the language of benefits. Believers receive these benefits through the means God has appointed.

In this teaching the Westminster divines are simply following Calvin. He wrote that "the sacraments bring the clearest promises; and ... they represent [the Word] for us as painted in a picture from life." The sacraments, Calvin argues, are sermon illustrations from God. They are the images he uses to show us the gospel. Moreover they confirm us in the good news of God's saving promises. According to Calvin baptism and the Lord's Supper, along with the Word read and preached, "have been instituted by the Lord to the end that they may serve to establish and increase faith."

Finally, prayer as a means of grace also comes with the promise of God's blessing. When we offer up our requests to God for things agreeable to his will, then our prayers will be a blessing to us and cause us to grow in grace. This can happen of course, in private prayer. But corporate prayer knits the hearts of church members together. The Lord's Prayer is a "we" prayer, a model for praying together, with and for others.

But the Word, sacraments, and prayer do not become means of grace on their own. We are not advocating the Roman Catholic idea that the sacraments or other ordinances confer grace whenever a man rightly ordained performs them, that is sacerdotalism. Instead, what we are talking about is the communication of grace through means that ultimately depend for their efficacy on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit accompanies the preaching of the Word. The Spirit enables the spiritual presence of Christ in the sacraments. And the Spirit prays with us, translating our groaning into words pleasing to God and edifying to us. The Reformers stressed the work of the Spirit in order to avoid the errors of Rome. Grace is not dispensed by any virtue in the means themselves or in those who administer them, as if by some automatic or magical way. Rather, grace only comes as God works through these means. The reassuring teaching, though, is that our loving and merciful God has ordained these means for the good of the ones whom he has graciously saved. Ultimately, the means of grace are only effective through "the blessing of Christ, and the working of his Spirit in them that by faith receive them" (WSC Q&A 91).

D.G. Hart and John R. Muether, With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2002), pp. 140-143.

The Marks of the Church

A ... way of illustrating how worship constitutes the church is to consider the marks of the church. The doctrine of the marks of the church is indeed precious to Protestants because it asserts fundamental differences between Roman Catholicism and the Protestant Reformation. By the marks of the church, according to the Belgic Confession, we can discern the true from the false church. The Belgic Confession goes on to define the marks of the church in the following manner:

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 chastening 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 (art. 29).

The marks of the church indicate where the true church may be found. Wherever we see and hear preaching, the sacraments, and church discipline truly performed, we know we are in the presence of the true church.

It is important to notice that the marks of the church are bound up with corporate worship. One might even summarize the doctrine of the marks of the church by saying that the true church can only be found when she is at worship. Of course, the preaching of the Word and the administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper are obviously central parts of worship. Worship is where ministers preach the Word and administer the sacraments. Discipline is harder to discern in corporate worship since the believers who gather on the Lord's Day for worship do so not as a court of the church (consistory, session, classis, or presbytery) but rather as a congregation. Still, preaching itself is a form of discipline, in its manifestation of the ministerial and declarative power of the church. For Protestants, the keys of the kingdom to which Christ refers (Matt. 16:18-19; 18:18), are not the basis for Roman Catholic teaching on papal superiority but rather divine sanction for the holy work of preaching and discipline. As the Heidelberg asserts, "The kingdom of heaven is opened by proclaiming and publicly declaring to each and every believer that, as often as he accepts the gospel promise in true faith, God, because of what Christ has done, truly forgives his sins" (Q&A 84). Preaching, then, is a way that opens and closes heaven. Furthermore, when churches fence the Lord's Table they perform an act of discipline. Even the man who preaches and administers the sacraments may do so only after he has passed the scrutiny of the church's courts. So the mark of discipline is part of worship even though not obviously on display.

Together, the marks of the church constitute the true church. Which is why the Westminster Confession of Faith states that "unto this catholic visible church, Christ has given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God." In the same way that the marks of the church tell us how to find the true church, so also corporate worship helps us identify the church. Worship is essential to the church's identity. If our Reformed confessional standards are correct, the church cannot be seen or known apart from worship that is Reformed according to the Word of God because worship is comprised of the ordinances that God has given to his church.

D.G. Hart and John R. Muether, With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2002), pp. 53-55.

The Promises are Attached to the "Food" We Partake on Sundays

Understanding the Christian life as a pilgrimage and worship as manna in the wilderness reminds us who live in an industrial culture that our walk in faith and obedience is not mechanical. Believers are not robots whose batteries are recharged by ambitious church programs, devotional retreats, or spiritual awakenings. Rather, God has made us into new creatures who need regular sustenance. The means of grace, that is, “the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God,” are the food he has provided to feed the church.

This organic metaphor should instill more humility in our understanding of the Christian life as well as greater gratitude for the privileges we enjoy as God’s sons and daughters when we gather for worship. We are in warfare and constantly tempted to sin…

In many Christian circles today believers are tempted not to avail themselves of the “ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God.” They sometimes think that lots of church activities and parachurch organizations will provide the substances God’s people really need. But God has only promised to bless the ministry of the Word that constitutes Christian worship. Undoubtedly, many nonchurch activities may be beneficial. But God’s promises are not attached to them in the same way that they are to elements of worship. In sum, the manna of worship both gathers and perfects God’s people who are in the wilderness of this world. The oracles of God are essential to the health of God’s pilgrim people.

D.G. Hart and John R. Muether, With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2002), p. 57-58

The Christian Pilgrimage

The following is an excerpt taken directly from the book entitled "With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship" by D.G. Hart and John R. Muether. It comes from the chapter about a "Worshiping Community" and is found on pages 55-57. (Note, this is also the book that our men's study has been using for their Saturday mornings).

The church in this world is a pilgrim people, in complete dependence on God for protection and sustenance as they cross through this wilderness on their way to the promised land. Believers need the manna of eternal life that only the “ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God” provide [in other words: the Word preached, the miraculous power of Prayer, and the Sacraments faithfully administered]. Here we need to remember how similar our circumstances are to those of the Israelites at the time when Moses sang praise to God for deliverance from the house of Egypt.

In 1 Corinthians the apostle Paul writes, “Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as [the Israelites in the wilderness] also craved” (10:6). In other words, the example of Israel’s pilgrimage in the wilderness was written for the church. And in worship Christians must see themselves as the wilderness people of God. Just like the Israelites, we have been saved, and we enjoy now the benefits of salvation. But we have not reached our final destiny, the promised land, which is to be with Jesus Christ in glory, to live and worship in the heavenly Jerusalem. In a spiritual sense, then, we are just like the Israelites. We live in the “in-between times,” what theologians describe as the “already/not yet,” the age between Christ’s ascension into glory and his second coming. Hebrews makes the connection between the Old Testament and New Testament church explicit. The Old Testament saints were “strangers and exiles on the earth” who “desire[d] a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:13,16). Christians, too, wait for the city which is to come. “For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come” (Heb. 13:14). Similarly, when Peter calls the church God’s chosen people, he also recognizes that New Testament believers live in a spiritual wilderness, by referring to them as “aliens and strangers” (1 Peter 2:9-11).

In this pilgrimage of being conformed to the image of Christ, believers find themselves in a condition like that of the Israelites. We are weak and frail, tempted and threatened by the hardships of the journey, and constantly tempted to give up. Here the account of the Exodus is again very instructive. What follows the narrative of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea (chap. 14) and Moses’ song (chap. 15) are instructions for the provision of manna, including the practice of Sabbath-keeping, reinstituted after centuries of neglect under slavery (chap. 16). Israel had to master these rules and follow God’s commandments precisely… Being an Israelite then would have been difficult; God’s instructions were new and unusual to that generation. Those who failed to prepare for the Sabbath would go hungry. They would also eventually grumble at Moses because the diet was monotonous. But this was the pattern that God designed to sustain his people throughout the wilderness. As the Bible records, “The sons of Israel ate the manna forty years” (Exod. 16:35). Here, too, are lessons for Christian piety and the practice of worship because the gathering of the saints in worship is the means that God has established to gather and perfect the church until united with her Lord in the new heavens and new earth. Like the Israelites, we need to master the rules for worshiping him. Like the Israelites, we avoid worship or ignore God’s instructions for worship at the peril of growth in grace.

D.G. Hart and John R. Muether, With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 2002), pp. 55-57.