The Church, Salvation and Apostasy

The Church, Salvation and Apostasy

Quotes compiled by Rich Lusk

Therefore he who would find Christ must first of all find the church.  How would one know where Christ and his faith were, if one did not know where his believers are?  And he who would know something of Christ, must not trust himself, or build his own bridges into heaven through his own reason, but he must go to the church, visit and ask of the same…for outside the church there is no truth, no Christ, no salvation.

                                                                                    -Luther

When,  according to Christian belief, lost souls are saved, the saved ones become united in the Christian Church…true Christians must everywhere be united in the brotherhood of the Christian Church.

                                                                                    -J. Gresham Machen

A man without a country (a citizen of no nation) would be considered an anachronism in civil society.  A professing Christian who is not a member of any Christian body should be just as much a rarity.  There are three institutions and three only — family, church, and state — that can rightfully claim the allegiance of every living person.  He who refuses, or evades, enrollment in the church of Christ is a traitor to Christ as surely as he who refuses or evades duty to the land in which he lives is considered to be an enemy or a rebel.  “He that is not with me,” said Jesus, “is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad” (Mt. 12:30).

                                                                                    -Roderick Campbell

And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

                                                                                    -Acts 2:47

He cannot have God for his father who does not have the church for his mother.

                                                                                    -Augustine

Apart from the church, salvation is impossible.

                                                                                    -Luther

Because it is now our intention to discuss the visible church, let us learn even from the simple title “mother” how useful, indeed necessary, it is that we should know her.  For there is no other way to enter into life unless this mother conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourish us at her breast, and lastly, unless she keep us under her care and guidance until, putting off mortal flesh, we become like the angels (Matt. 22:30).  Our weakness does not allow us to be dismissed from her school until we have been pupils all our lives.  Furthermore, away from her bosom one cannot hope for any forgiveness of sins or any salvation….God’s fatherly favor and the especial witness of spiritual life are limited to his flock, so that it is always disastrous to leave the church.

The Lord esteems the communion of his church so highly that he counts as a traitor and apostate from Christianity anyone who arrogantly leaves any Christian society, provided it cherishes the true ministry of Word and sacraments.

                                                                                    -Calvin

[God] mercifully chooses to speak to us through the Church.  The Church is therefore, according to Calvin, a divinely ordained institution, whose purpose is to accomplish among us the work of the risen and exalted Christ, who, having, instituted certain ordinances, wills that we recognize in them His divine presence.  Those who disdain the fare the Church provides when the Gospel is preached and the Sacraments rightly administered deserve to ‘perish from terrible hunger.’  In keeping with his patristic and medieval heritage, Calvin treats such people as children who despise their own mother’s milk.

                                                                                    -MacGregor

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.

                                                                                    -I John 2:19

It is clear that in the days of the apostles it was universal practice to receive believers into the visible church.

What could be more logical?  He who believes in Christ is united with Christ.  Faith binds him to Christ.  He is a member of Christ’s body, the invisible church.  But the visible church is but the outward manifestation of that body.  Every member of the invisible church should as a matter of course be a member of the visible church…

The Scriptural rule is that, while membership in the church is not a prerequisite of salvation, it is a necessary consequence of salvation.  Outside the visible church “there is no ordinary possibility of salvation” (WCF XXV.2).

                                                                                    -Kuiper

First, all safety resides in Christ alone; and then we cannot be separated from Christ without falling away from all hope of safety; but Christ will not and cannot be torn from his church with which he is joined by an indissoluble knot, as the head of the body.  Hence, unless we cultivate unity with the faithful, we see that we are cut off from Christ.

                                                                                    -Calvin

It is worthy of observation that none but the citizens of the church enjoy this privilege [of having their sins forgiven]; for, apart from the body of Christ and the fellowship of the godly, there can be no hope of reconciliation with God.  Hence, in the creed we profess to believe in the Catholic Church and the forgiveness of sins; for God does not include among the objects of his love any but those whom he reckons among the members of his begotten Son, and, in like manner, does not extend to any who do not belong to his body the free imputation of righteousness.  Hence it follows that strangers who separate themselves from the church have nothing left  for them but to rot amid their curse.  Hence, also, an open departure from the church is an open renouncement of eternal salvation.

                                                                                                -Calvin

The spouse of Christ cannot be adulterous; she is uncorrupted and pure.  She knows one home; she guards with chaste modesty the sanctity of one couch.  She keeps us for God.  She appoints the sons whom she has born for the kingdom.  Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church; nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ.  He is a stranger; he is profane; he is an enemy.  He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.  If anyone could escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside the Church.  The Lord warns, saying, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who gathereth not with me scatereth” (Matt. 12:30).  He who breaks the peace and the concord of Christ, does so in opposition to Christ; he who gathereth elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ….He who does not hold this unity does not hold God’s law, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation.

                                                                                    -St. Cyprian

We receive our faith from the Church and keep it safe; and it is as it were a precious deposit stored in a fine vessel, ever renewing its vitality through the Spirit of God, and causing the renewal of the vessel in which it is stored.  For this gift of God has been entrusted to the Church, as the breath of life to created man, to the end that all members by receiving it should be made alive.  And herein has been bestowed upon us our means of communion with Christ, namely the Holy Spirit, the pledge of immortality, the strengthening of our faith, the ladder by which we ascend to God.  For the Apostle says, “God has set up in the Church Apostles, prophets, teachers” (I Cor. 12:28) and all the other means of the Spirit’s working.  But they have no share in this Spirit who do not join in the activity of the Church….For where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and every kind of grace.  The Spirit is truth.  Therefore those who have no share in the Spirit are not nourished and given life at their mother’s breast; nor do they enjoy the sparkling fountain that issues from the body of Christ.

                                                                                    -St. Irenaeus

[The Church] is an institution founded by Christ, proceeding from his loins and animated by his spirit, for the glory of God and the salvation of man, through which alone, as its necessary organ, the revelation of God in Christ becomes effective in the history of the world.  Hence, out of the Church, as there is no Christianity, there can be no salvation.

                                                                                    -Schaff

As we believe in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, so we firmly believe that from the beginning there has been, now is, and to the end of the world shall be, one Kirk, that is to say, one company and multitude of men chosen by God, who rightly worship and embrace him by true faith in Christ Jesus, who is the only Head of the Kirk, even as it is the body and spouse of Christ Jesus.  This Kirk is catholic, that is, universal, because it contains the chosen of all ages, of all realms, nations, and tongues, be they of the Jews or be they of the Gentiles, who have communion and society with God the Father, and with his Son, Christ Jesus, through the sanctification of his Holy Spirit.  It is therefore called the communion, not of profane persons, but of saints, who, as citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, have the fruit of inestimable benefits, one God, one Lord Jesus, one faith, and one baptism.  Out of this Kirk there is neither life nor eternal felicity.  Therefore we utterly abhor the blasphemy of those who hold that men who live according to equity and justice shall be saved, no matter what religion they profess.  For since there is neither life nor salvation without Christ Jesus; so shall none have part therein but those whom the Father has given unto his Son Christ Jesus, and those who in time come to him, avow his doctrine, and believe in him.  (We include the children with the believing parents.)  This Kirk is invisible, known only to God, who alone knows whom he has chosen, and includes both the chosen who are departed, the Kirk triumphant, those who yet live and fight against sin and Satan, and those who shall live hereafter.

                                                                                    -Scots Confession

There is therefore great need today for laying fresh emphasis upon the doctrine of the Church…. We must correct the widespread notion that Christianity is merely an affair of the individual soul…. We must therefore teach men afresh that the blessings of the Gospel cannot be enjoyed by the single individual in his singleness, but only in his incorporation into Christ’s Mystical Body, the Holy Catholic Church.

                                                                                    -John Baillie

The visible Church, which is also catholic and universal under the Gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children:  and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.

                                                                                    -WCF  XXV. 2

No man is a schismatic for removing  from one congregation to another, but he that shall separate himself from all church communion, and shall rend himself from the catholic church, he is schismatic, he is an apostate.

                                                                                    – Samuel Hudson

So closely does Calvin identify incorporation in Christ with incorporation in the church that he regards the activity of the church towards its individual members as being identical with the action of Christ towards the individual.  The response of the individual to the ministry of the church is thus identical with his response towards Christ.  Under certain conditions the authority of the church is nothing less than the authority of Christ himself, and obedience to Christ involves obedience to the church.

                                                                                    -R. S. Wallace

They who wish to become partakers of so great a benefit must be a part of Israel, that is, of the church, out of which there can be neither salvation nor truth.

                                                                                    -Calvin

But we esteem fellowship with the true Church of Christ so highly that we deny that those can live before God who do not stand in fellowship with the true Church of God, but separate themselves from it.  For as there was no salvation outside Noah’s ark when the world perished in the flood; so we believe that there is no certain salvation outside Christ, who offers himself to be enjoyed by the elect in the Church; and hence we teach that those who wish to live ought not to be separated from the true Church of Christ.

                                                                                    -Second Helvetic Confession

Lawful excommunication…is the cutting off from the body of Jesus Christ, from participation of His holy Sacraments, and from public prayers with His Church, by public and solemn sentence, all obstinate and impenitent persons, after due admonitions, which sentence, lawfully pronounced on earth, is ratified in heaven, by binding of the same sins that they bind on earth.  The danger is greater than man can suddenly catch hold of: for seeing that without  the body of Jesus Christ there abideth nothing but death and damnation to mankind, in what estate shall we judge them to stand that justly are cut off from the same?

                                                                        -Scottish Form of Excommunication

The Cyprianic formula, extra ecclesiam nulla salus, is vital to the Reformed tradition…The Church [is] the one Body of Christ on earth and the unique instrument of Christ’s redemptive process…Only in the Church can we be ingrafted into Christ and fed by him so that we become organically united to Him and to one another.  As there is but one Christ, so there is but one Church.  There is no other place whither we may go to find the life that He alone can and does impart.

                                                                                                -MacGregor

And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as in the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.  For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.

                                                                                    -Hebrews 10: 24-27

Such as forsake the church…wholly alienate themselves from Christ.

                                                                                    -Calvin

The Lord has not promised his mercy, save in the communion of the saints.

                                                                                    -Calvin

There can be no greater privilege than to regarded as belonging to the flock and people of God, who will always prove the best of fathers to his own, and the faithful guardian of their welfare.

                                                                                    -Calvin

It is obvious that for Calvin the sanctification of the individual, and the growth, nurture, and discipline of his Christian life take place within the life of the church, and the attitude and loyalty of the individual towards the church is an extremely important factor in this matter…Our salvation within the church is constantly furthered by the mutual care which the members, gathered together in one body under the same head, have for each other…Our sanctification flows from our election and incorporation into the membership of the church…Sanctification is therefore a work which God accomplishes in his providential dealings with the church, and in this respect also we participate in sanctification not as isolated individuals but especially within the fellowship of the church and as members of the church, for it is in such fellowship that our lives can be made outwardly conformable to the death and resurrection of Christ…Calvin identifies departing from the church with ‘falling away from the living God’….He says, ‘They cannot be God’s disciples who refuse to be taught in the church.’…Calvin, of course, would warn us that as individuals we must not rest our confidence of salvation in the mere fact of belonging to the church.  It is vain to belong to the church if we have of ourselves no living connection with Christ through faith and prayer.”

                                                                                    -R. S. Wallace

Whosoever tears asunder the church of God, disunites himself from Christ who is head and who would have all his members united together…We thus understand that God ought to be sought in order to be rightly worshipped by us; and also that he ought to be thus sought, not that each may have his own peculiar religion, but that we may be united together, and that everyone who sees his brethren going before, excelling in gifts may be able to follow them, and to seek benefit from their labors.  It is indeed true that we ought to disregard the whole world, and to embrace only the truth of God; for it is a hundred times better to renounce the society of all mortals, and union with them, than to withdraw ourselves from God; but when God shows himself our leader, the prophet teaches us that we ought mutually to stretch forth our hand, and unitedly to follow him.

                                                                                    -Calvin

Better to belong to the worst possible congregation than to no church at all.

                                                                                    -Torrey

It is a dangerous temptation to think there is no church where perfect purity is lacking…Anyone who is obsessed with that idea, must cut himself off from everybody else and appear to himself to be the only saint in the world — or he must set up a sect of his own along with other hypocrites.

                                                                                    -Calvin