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Historical Introduction

The year was 1572. Arguably the most important theological development of the time in Elizabethan England was a duel—a literary one—between Archbishop of Canterbury John Whitgift and Presbyterian theologian Thomas Cartwright.1 This debate would last until 1577 and center around the six propositions Cartwright set forth in his exposition of the model of the primitive church based on the first two chapters of Acts. Cartwright’s propositions dealt with orders of clergy and with their offices, duties, and calling.2 At the center of the controversy was the governmental form of the church. Was it to be Episcopal or reformed, in the direction of the Presbyterian model?3

John Whitgift, adopting a relativistic stance on church polity, considered experience and convenience to be appropriate yardsticks for a viable form of church government.4 With his stringent view of human depravity, Cartwright argued that episcopacy had no foundation in Scripture and that a system not commanded by God should not be tolerated.5 In response, Whitgift claimed that the Scriptures were authoritative for all things pertaining to redemption, but permissive in matters indifferent to it.6 Or, in the words of Stephen Brachlow, “Since he could find no evidence in the New Testament that Christ had delineated an organizational structure for the church with the precision and clarity Christ had employed in other doctrinal matters, Whitgift reasoned that ecclesiology must therefore be an adiaphora7 issue, an indifferent matter, secondary to the more substantive doctrinal teachings of the gospel.”8 Cartwright believed that the Scriptures revealed a model for church organization—a single pattern for the church that amounted to a perpetual and immutable law for all succeeding generations living under the gospel.9 Thus, people were to put into practice what was in the Bible and abstain from doing what was not in it.

Who was right and who was wrong in this theological duel? Was Whitgift right in his more adiaphorist, or normative, approach to biblical treatment of church polity? Or was Cartwright correct in using Scripture as a regulative principle in this debate?10 And if Cartwright was right, then what does this imply about the more adiaphorist stance that he himself took in his later controversy with such separatists as Robert Browne and Richard Harrison?11

There seems to be a degree of arbitrariness about Cartwright’s approach. Having professed that the practice of biblical church discipline was a matter of salvation in his debate with Whitgift, Cartwright conveniently failed to mention the soteriological significance of ecclesiology in his correspondence with Harrison. This same type of inconsistency is apparent in most major Protestant denominations’ exposition of church polity today, for although they all look to the same source of support for some or all of their views, each seems to emerge with a different argument.

The aim of this work is to provide assistance in eliminating the fog of random exegesis by fleshing out hermeneutical assumptions shared by the adherents of all polity models and grounding these in the word of God, and in so doing, present the most biblically defensible model of church government.

Sufficiency of Scripture and Church Polity

Prior to diving into the deep waters of theology, a more foundational matter must be addressed—that of Scripture’s sufficiency in the area of polity. To put it in the form of a question: Is the Bible sufficient to address the issues of church polity? Or is Schweizer right in asserting that “there is no such thing as the New Testament Church order?”12 The same notion is echoed by Frost: “In the New Testament and the early church up to the second century, in spite of incipient legal thinking, there was no fixed form of church government.”13

The arguments put forth by Schweizer and Frost must be rejected for at least two reasons. The first reason is biblical and the second is theological. Biblically, careful examination of the New Testament provides ample evidence of specific set patterns or frameworks within which early church members structured their time together. They gathered together at set times for worship and prayer (Acts 2:42, 47), practiced the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper (Acts 2:41–42, 46), received offerings in an organized fashion (1 Cor 16:2), sent letters of recommendation from one church to another, maintained official lists of those who needed care or assistance from the church (1 Tim 5:9), and practiced church discipline (1 Cor 5; 2 Cor 2:5–11), among other things.14

Theologically, if the church is indeed the body of Christ, then Waldron is correct in stating that it is unthinkable that God would leave it here on earth without any distinguishable organizational blueprint.15 That church polity is significant to God is evidenced by the fact that “for every time that Paul used the word ‘church’ of the organism” in Scripture, “he used it six times of the organization.”16 Furthermore, “if Paul can say of the Old Testament Scriptures that ‘everything that was written in the past was written to teach us’ (Rom 15:4), how much more so is it true that the principal instruction that the apostle gives concerning church government in the New Testament applies to us?”17

Historically, there have been three basic responses to the question, “What is the relationship between the New Testament and church polity?” First, there is the view that the New Testament provides no “system” or “pattern” of church government, and thus churches in later centuries should be guided by “expediency” in matters of polity, often conforming to the political order or the societal norms under which particular churches exist.18 Second, others have held that the New Testament provides a single, divinely-given “precise model” of church polity, which is applicable to “all ages and circumstances” and is to be rigidly enforced, leaving nothing to be determined in later centuries and in diverse cultures.19 Third, there has been a mediating position which finds in the New Testament “a pattern of ecclesiastical organization and discipline in outline, not in detail,” according to which certain “principles” or essentials are clearly taught, although their application is left “to the judgment of Christians” in diverse contexts according to a “wise expediency.”20

Here I will argue for a position that lies somewhere between the second and third views; namely, that Christ has gifted the church with all that she needs to pursue her ministry, and this gift is presented within the context of how the Lord established his church from the beginning.21 Careful examination of the New Testament provides ample evidence of the early church’s understanding of polity.22

The importance of reevaluating biblical data in the area of church polity is clearly evidenced by the wide variety of different Protestant approaches to structuring church. As was the case some 450 years ago in Whitgift and Cartwright’s day, so it is today: Any given Sunday morning reveals a plethora of ways in which God’s people understand and practice church polity. They all look to the Bible to derive support for all or some of their beliefs and practice. But can the Bible truly support all of their different views?

A close evaluation of the various models of church polity yields a number of hermeneutical issues that each model has to address, even if just on the level of assumption. The particular positions taken by the proponents of each specific government style with regard to these hermeneutical issues influences their exegesis and affects their conclusions.

Therefore, in order to assure an accurate understanding of the biblical passages on polity, we must line up this position on the guiding theological parameters and issues against Scripture. This will assure that the New Testament passages on polity are understood, interpreted, and applied carefully and faithfully in accordance with the intent of the original authors.23

First, however, a quick definition of some frequently used terminology is in order.

1. Credit and appreciation for this introduction should go to Dr. Malcolm B. Yarnell III, who suggested the parallel between the events of Elizabethan England and the focus of this project. As a result, the Whitgift-Cartwright-Harrison debate makes, in my opinion, an interesting introduction to the present work.

2. The six propositions may be summarized as follows: “(1) The names and functions of archbishops and archdeacons should be abolished. (2) The ministry of the church should be brought in line with the apostolic church. There should be only two orders of clergy, bishops to preach and pray, and deacons to care for the poor. (3) Each church should be governed by its own minister and presbyters, not by bishops, chancellors, etc. (4) Ministers should be confined to the care of particular flocks. They should not be at large. (5) No man should be a candidate for the ministry, or solicit an appointment. The ministry is a divine calling. (6) Bishops should not be appointed by secular authority; they should be selected by the church” (Gane, “Sixteenth-Century Puritan Preachers,” 26). See Jones, Thomas Cartwright 1535–1603; Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 112; Carlson, “Archbishop John Whitgift,” 295.

3. New, “Whitgift-Cartwright Controversy,” 203.

4. Ibid., 205. Since the question of church government lay outside matters of salvation, Whitgift felt justified in exercising more freedom upon arriving at his position. Additionally, the Archbishop’s somewhat soft view of human depravity, which he likened to a spiritual infirmity that impaired man’s natural capacity for reason, contributed to the development of his understanding.

5. The Presbyterian-Reformed tradition, as affirmed by Cartwright, insisted on a stricter standard: A biblical command was needed for anything that was to be included in worship. See Frame, “Questions about the Regulative Principle,” 357. Cartwright distrusted human intellect because his notion of man’s corruption was far more thorough—he considered every faculty deficient. Man could and should not frame a church organization because “the infirmity of man can neither attain to the perfection of anything whereby he might speak all things that are to be spoken of it, neither yet be free from error in those things which he speaketh” (Whitgift, “Works of John Whitgift,” 148, 176–77).

6. New, “Whitgift-Cartwright Controversy,” 206. In general, his approach was common to Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran theologies in their agreement that the church’s worship practices ought to be scriptural in the sense of not contradicting the Bible.

7. From adiaphora, or morally indifferent.

8. Brachlow, Communion of Saints, 22. “Even where Scripture seemed to offer an apparently clear directive, Whitgift insisted that this did not mean Christ intended to shackle his church with ‘that precise form that is there set down.’ On the contrary, Whitgift argued that the form of ceremonies, orders, and discipline in the church depended largely upon historical conditions. Therefore, Christ intended that ecclesial matters should be left to the authority of the bishops, aided by the civil magistrate, who together could determine an appropriate polity for the church not according to biblical prescription, but by their good judgment” (ibid., 22–23).

9. Whitgift, “Works of John Whitgift,” 190–91. See also Brachlow, Communion of Saints, 23.

10. The idea of regulative principle comes from the Puritan “regulative principle of worship” by which whatever is commanded in Scripture with regard to worship is required, and whatever is not commanded is forbidden. See Smith, “What Is Worship?” 16–17.

11. Brachlow, Communion of Saints, 47–49.

12. Schweizer, Church Order, 13, emphasis Schweizer’s.

13. Frost, “Church Government: Church History,” 2.1.

14. Brand and Norman, Perspectives on Church Government, 3–4. See also Saucy, Church in God’s Program, 98.

15. Waldron, “Plural-Elder Congregationalism,” 66.

16. Ryrie, “Pauline Doctrine of the Church,” 65.

17. Knight, “Church Government,” 90.

18. Garrett, “Congregation-Led Church,” 171. Those who subscribe to this view include Knox, Early Church, 15; Schweizer, Church Order, 13; Frost, “Church Government: Church History,” 2.1. In addition, this is the de facto way that Russian Baptist churches were historically organized during the years of the Soviet Union—the structure of the Baptist Union of the USSR closely mirrored the civil organizational pattern of the country such that superintendents were appointed over regions of churches, thus bringing about an amalgam of congregationalism and episcopacy within the denomination.

As to the scholars who hold to a flexible form of church government, several recurring suggestions have been made as to why God has left us no definite order. Among these is the lack of evidence—the New Testament does not give enough clear evidence for us to decide how they organized their churches. See Davies, Normative Pattern of Church Life, 17; Morris, Ministers of God, 111; Fung, “Function or Office?” 36; Cox, “Emerging Organization,” 35. For the view that God never intended to use the New Testament to establish a blueprint for church government, see Harper, “Duplicating the New Testament Church,” 24; Von Schlatter, Church in the New Testament Period, 77. For the argument that our situation today is so different from the one in the first century that there is little relevance in seeking to emulate early church polity, see Schaeffer, Church at the End, 67; Lambert, “Church,” 1:650; Martin, “Authority in the Light of the Apostolate,” 81. For a more detailed discussion, see Daughters, New Testament Church Government, 10–14.

19. This view is represented by Reymond’s forceful presentation of Presbyterian polity discussed later in this chapter. See Reymond, “Presbytery-Led Church.”

20. Garrett, “Congregation-Led Church,” 172, emphasis Garrett’s. This is the view that Garrett himself endorses.

21. My view is more in line with those expressed in White, “Plural-Elder-Led Church,” 258; Saucy, Church in God’s Program, 118.

22. To be discussed in detail in chapters 5 and 6.

23. Liefeld is correct in his observation that when it comes to scriptural warrant for different ideas of church polity, “the issue is not simply between different forms of government, but between different appraisals of the biblical sources” (Liefeld, “Leadership and Authority,” 30). If this is so, then there is a great need to establish the rule for a more streamlined appraisal process, which is precisely the focus of this work.