The Marks of the True Church
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John 4
John 4
23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
23 ἀλλʼ ἔρχεται ὥρα καὶ νῦν ἐστιν, ὅτε οἱ ἀληθινοὶ προσκυνηταὶ προσκυνήσουσιν τῷ πατρὶ ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθείᾳ· καὶ γὰρ ὁ πατὴρ τοιούτους ζητεῖ τοὺς προσκυνοῦντας αὐτόν. 24 πνεῦμα ὁ θεός, καὶ τοὺς προσκυνοῦντας αὐτὸν ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθείᾳ δεῖ προσκυνεῖν.
Known as “the man who sold the Eiffel Tower”, Victor Lustig was one of the most talented confidence tricksters who ever lived. In 1925, Lustig’s master con began when he was reading a newspaper: an article discussed the problems the city was having maintaining the Eiffel Tower. So he adopted the persona of a government official, and sent six scrap metal dealers an invitation to discuss a possible business deal.Lustig told the group that the upkeep on the Eiffel Tower was so outrageous that the city could not maintain it any longer, and wanted to sell it for scrap. So he sold the Eiffel Tower to one of the scrap metal dealers and took a train to Vienna with the suitcase full of cash. The buyer was too humiliated to complain to the police.
That scrap metal dealer could have saved himself a lot of money and embarrassment if he had taken the time to check whether Lustig’s story checked out - was he really a government official or was he an imposter?
The consequences for falsely identifying someone can be huge. Today we will see the great importance of being able to identify a true church. There have always been two kinds of Church in the world - the true and the false. Knowing how to tell the difference between the two is absolutely vital. We’ll begin in John 4 with Jesus and the Samaritan woman.
In Jesus’s conversation with the Samaritan woman He uses the phrase ‘true worshippers.’ The true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Why use that phrase? Why not just say that the time is coming when worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth? Well the reason for this phrase is best understood by the context.
Jesus is actually drawn into a bit of a theological debate with the Samaritan woman. Jesus reveals that the woman has had five husbands and that the man she is with now isn’t her husband. The Samaritan woman rather than being put off by this comes back with a comment about worship.
20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
Why bring this up? How is it connected? Well the Samaritans were also awaiting the Messiah, however they believed that the Jews worship of God was wrong, and that their way was the true way to worship him. Maybe she was testing Jesus!
The Jews believed God should be worshipped on mount Moriah in Jerusalem, the Samaritans believed He should be worshipped on Mount Gerazim in Shechem. The Jews believed that the holy scriptures were the law, the prophets and the wisdom books, the Samaritan holy book contained only the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible).
So you see - the debate here with the Samaritan woman was about true worship. Is there a right way to worship God? Is there a wrong way? Or does God accept all worship of Him so long as it’s done sincerely?
When Jesus says ‘the true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth’ he is also saying something else. If there are true worshippers then there must also be what? False worshippers.
This isn’t a comfortable thing to think about. The idea that it’s possible to worship God in a way that is false isn’t pleasant. The knowledge that there are certainly whole churches that worship falsely and are doing so very sincerely isn’t an easy thing to accept, but it is true. There have always been both true and false worshippers, and so until the Lord returns there will be both true and false churches present in this world.
I think because we have a very dim view of God’s holiness these days we struggle to conceive of Him actually rejecting any worship at all. We sort of think that He’s happy for people to muddle along and worship Him any way they please so long as they’re doing it sincerely. But that isn’t an idea that we’ve gotten from scripture.
Cain & Abel
3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.
The Golden Calf
1 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” 6 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
Nadab & Abihu
1 Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. 2 And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. 3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’ ” And Aaron held his peace.
The Dead Religion of Judah
11 “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
says the Lord;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of well-fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of goats.
12 “When you come to appear before me,
who has required of you
this trampling of my courts?
13 Bring no more vain offerings;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—
I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen;
your hands are full of blood.
16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
17 learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow’s cause.
The Samaritans
The Samaritans sincerely believed that they were the true people of Yahweh, His true church, they really believed that they knew God and that God approved of their worship. But Christ says to the woman
22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
You do not know the God you claim to worship, salvation is not from you but from the Jews. The Samaritans are a picture of the false church, an imposter church. A church in which there is no salvation, but yet believes that it has salvation. What a tragedy! To believe that salvation belongs to you and yet to be mistaken!
Belonging to the true church of God is therefore a matter of life and death.
And so we must know the marks of a true church, we must know her characteristics, know how to identify her. Just like that poor scrap salesman, we can’t just take her word for it when she says she is a true church, we must have a way of verifying her claims.
How do we do this?
Can we tell by her outward appearance? By the way she is governed? In the Patristic period of church history in the third and fourth centuries AD, they thought they could. nThe true church began to be identified as the institution which was governed by Bishops and clergymen and met in buildings. People spreading false teaching were simply excommunicated from the institution.
However, when Martin Luther arrived on the scene in the 16th century, that institution had become corrupt, and false teaching had found its way inside and had a stranglehold on the whole of the church. Rather than identifying the true church as the institution, Luther defined the true church as this:
“the congregation of saints in which the gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments rightly administered.” - Augsburg Confession - Article 7
Wherever we see the word of God purely preached and heard and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists. - John Calvin
Of course no church is perfect - no church is ever absolutely pure in it’s preaching and practice. But the mark of a true church will be that there is a consistent, clear and honest handling of God’s word.
This is why we don’t consider the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints to be a true church. Because the word of God is altered and or obscured. The same is true for the Watchtower Society.
“When the preaching of a church conceals the gospel message of salvation by faith alone from it’s members, so that the gospel message is not clearly proclaimed, and has not been proclaimed for some time, the group meeting there is not a church” - Wayne Grudem - Systematic Theology, pg 865
Can we tell a true church by how passionate the worship service is? A distinct lack of passion in worship should definitely be a red flag! However passion on its own doesn’t make a church true. The Israelites were extremely loud and passionate in their worship of the Golden Calf, but it didn’t make their worship acceptable, instead it was an abomination to God!
Can we tell a true church by how many people go along? There’s certainly nothing wrong with big churches, but numbers alone don’t make a church true. The Prophets of Baal vastly outnumbered Elijah on Mount Carmel, but only Elijah’s sacrifice was acceptable.
Can we tell a true church by right doctrine alone? A true church will always have solid biblical doctrine, which is preached clearly. But the presence of right doctrine alone doesn’t necessarily make a true church. Jesus said true worshippers will worship in Spirit and in Truth. Not just with the head, but with the heart! The true church not only knows the truth about God, she loves the truth about God. In the true Church truth transforms lives.
A true church will have evidence of the Holy Spirit at work. There will be lives radically transformed and you will experience the fruit of the Spirit in the lives of those at the church: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
God will only accept worship according to His word. It’s no use trying to worship Him your own way. We have to come to Him on His own terms or not at all - He is holy, and we are not. There is only one acceptable way to worship Him and that is through Jesus Christ. There is only one true church of God in this world and that is Christ’s church - His people who worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. There is no salvation in any other church, no salvation by any other means. We must humble ourselves, be prepared to drop our own traditions and ideas and preferences and submit ourselves entirely to the word of God. Whatever it says we must do.