Ad Finem Illum
Vol. 3 Issue 5
Vol. 3 Issue 5
May 2016
How do we measure the church’s success? There are
two ways of going about this. The first way is to judge the church according to
human reason, which looks at the church in the same manner as one would look at
a business. Human reason uses these diagnostic questions: “Are there more bodies in the pews than there
were a year ago?” “Is the budget bigger than it was a year ago?” “Do we have a
big enough building to accommodate the ministry?” “Do we offer more programs
and services than we have in the past?” Human reason examines the church
according to worldly criteria of success. Bigger is always better. Years ago, a
phrase was coined which summarizes what human reason thinks success in the
church is: more bodies, bigger buildings, and more bucks in the offering plate.
If we are left to our own human reason, this becomes the only metric for
determining success.
But human reason is tainted by sin. Jeremiah
writes that “The heart is
deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are
foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” This means that
man cannot look at the things of God and understand them without the aid of the
Holy Ghost. This includes the church, what it is, its purpose, and its success,
since the church is a creation of the Holy Ghost. We cannot, we must not, judge
the church according to the earthly metric. To judge the success of the church
according to a worldly metric only invites us to view the church as the
creation of man rather than the creation of God. If we start with human reason,
we will have a church based on human reason.
So what is our metric for measuring the church’s success? Jesus tells His
disciples in John 6:63, “It is the
spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak
unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Looking at the church through
the “eyes of flesh,” that is, human reason, profits us nothing, just as living
according to the flesh profits us nothing. Instead we are to live by the Spirit
and also judge the success of the church by the Spirit. So we measure the
church’s success according to the words of Jesus, since “they are spirit, and
they are life.”
What does Jesus say about His church?
He says nothing about its size, the buildings in which it meets, its programs, or
its revenue streams. Jesus locates the church in its marks, its
divinely-ordained tasks. These marks help Christians locate the true church.
Christians can then evaluate the church’s success based on whether or not they
are faithful to these marks.
The first mark of the church is the
pure preaching of the Word of God. Jesus says in John 10:27, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” What is the
voice of Christ but the gospel? St. Paul says that it is the church’s task to
make sure it’s doctrine is pure from human opinion when he writes in 2 Corinthians 2:17, “For we are not as
many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the
sight of God speak we in Christ.” Therefore the church must be on guard against
corrupting its doctrine. The first mark of the church is the pure teaching of
the gospel without corruption.
The second mark of the church Christ identifies is that sins are loosed and
retained according to His command. The church is the only place on
earth preaching the gospel of the forgiveness of sins. If sins aren’t being
forgiven and retained, that place isn’t the church. If the forgiveness of sins
is not being given and received, then that church is not successful. The third
mark of the church is the proper use of the Sacraments, Holy Baptism and Holy
Communion. Are they being used as means by which God gives grace and
forgiveness to His saints? This is simply stated in the seventh article of the
Augsburg Confession:
The Church is the congregation
of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly
administered.
The corollary to this is that there must also be people present to use the
sacraments, hear the Word, receive the absolution, and confess Christ. But how
many people are present is of no consequence. Martin Chemnitz, senior editor of the Book of
Concord, writes in his Enchiridion:
The true church of God on earth is not determined by the
multitude of people (Mt 7:13-14), even as it is not to be determined by power,
nobility, and wisdom according to the flesh (1 Co 1:26-28). Nor does this
assembly always represent the true church, which carries and bears before
itself the name “church.” (Question #326).
He goes on to say:
And these
signs [the church’s marks and people to receive them] are sometimes more in
evidence, sometimes less evident. For on this foundation some build gold, some
stubble (1 Co 3:12-13). And yet if the foundation remains intact, God has His
church there (1 Kings 19:18).
Success, according to Christ and the Scriptures, is not the increase in
communicant membership, although we do pray that the Lord grants that. Success
is judged only by whether or not the church is faithfully to its marks. Do we
maintain the pure gospel? Do we celebrate the sacraments according to Christ’s
institution? Are there people gathering around the Word and the sacrament? Even
“two or three” gathered in Christ’s name? If the answer is “yes,” if we are
faithful to the tasks which Christ has given the church, then we are
successful. Whether we have lots of bodies in the pews or few is not up to us,
but up to God, who gives the increase. St. Paul teaches us in 1 Corinthians 3:7, “So then
neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that
giveth the increase.”
Do not judge the church by human reason and the eyes of flesh. Most of what
is deemed “successful” today is an abject failure in God’s sight. Christ’s
metric is not “The Three B’s” of bodies, bucks, and buildings. Christ’s metric
is fidelity to the gospel in ALL of its articles, not just some of them or that
ones that popular. Success is holding fast to our confession of Christ despite
the worldly outcome (Hebrews 10:23).
Is Holy Cross successful? Perhaps not to the eyes
of human reason. But there are people present to hear the Word and receive the
sacraments, “and these signs [including the people] are sometimes more in
evidence, sometimes less evident.” Currently we have less people than we’d like
hearing the pure Gospel. But we have the pure gospel and the sacraments.
Faithfulness to the marks of the church is true success. Rejoice that we have
the gospel free of human corruption and pray that it remains so. Ad Finem
Illum! Amen.
