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The Doctrine of Preaching According to the Reformed Confessions

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The Doctrine of Preaching According to the Reformed Confessions MTJ 10 (1999) 135-183 THE DOCTRINE OF PREACHING IN THE REFORMED CONFESSIONS by Cornelis P. Venema Introduction DURING A RECENT teaching stint in the ancient Baltic city of Riga, Latvia, I had the opportunity to visit Rigas Dom, the largest and most prestigious church in the city. A Lutheran church today, it was originally built in the thirteenth century as a Roman Catholic facility. As I walked through this massive cathedral, I was struck by the large, ornate pulpit that was centrally located and dominated the sanctuary. The placement of this pulpit spoke eloquently of the centrality and indispensability of the preaching of the Word to communicate Christ and his saving work to his people. The Reformation’s restoration of preaching to the center of Christian worship and life could not have been more dramatically illustrated. If the worship of the Medieval Roman Catholic Church was focused upon the altar and the sacrament of the mass, the worship of the Reformed churches was focused upon the pulpit. Christ’s dwelling in the midst of his people was understood to be primarily mediated through the proclamation of the gospel, and only secondarily through the administration of the sacrament.1 1Karl Adam, in his classic study, The Spirit of Catholicism (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1954), p. 19, expresses well the historic Catholic view of Christ’s presence in the church: “Thus we see that in the sacraments, and especially in the Sacrament of the Altar, the fundamental idea of the Church is most plainly represented, the idea, that is, of the incorporation of the faithful into Christ.” 136 • MID-AMERICA JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY If this restoration of preaching to a place of centrality in the worship of God’s people was a feature of the Reformation, embracing Lutheran and Reformed churches alike, it was most especially a distinctive feature of the Reformed churches. Though the Reformed churches did not abandon the historic Christian view of Christ’s real presence in the sacraments, they insisted that the pre-eminent means by which Christ exercised communion with his people was through the Word preached. The sacraments are an indispensable accompaniment of the Word, but they depend for their use and efficacy upon the Word and its promises. Without the Word, the sacraments would be empty and useless. In spite of the historic and uniform conviction of the Reformed churches regarding the centrality of preaching as a means of grace, this conviction does not enjoy a lively and ready reception among many Reformed churches today. The Reformation’s view of preaching has been seriously challenged in recent years, even in churches and communions that fall within the Reformed tradition. On the one hand, there is a spirit of democratization and egalitarianism that chafes at the notion of an ordained ministry whose administration of the Word of God in preaching has a place of pre-eminence in the church. When this spirit captivates the churches, all of the members alike become equally “ministers” of the Word of God, the minister of the Word and sacraments being only a specialized expression of a more general activity. And on the other hand, there is a growing prejudice that preaching no longer serves as an effective means of communicating the gospel. This prejudice can give birth to an almost endless proliferation of new devices or strategies for preaching the gospel—from a kind of neo-sacramentalism among some evangelicals to alternatives to preaching in drama, music and other, sometimes esoteric, worship practices. The only In the new Catechism of the Catholic Church (Liguori, MO: United States Catholic Conference Inc., 1994), the exposition of “the sacramental economy” (par. 1076ff.) makes clear that this feature of Catholicism remains unchanged: Christ’s presence is essentially mediated through the sacraments. The preaching of the Word merits hardly any attention at all in this Catechism. PREACHING IN THE REFORMED CONFESSIONS • 137 common thread holding these devices together is that they constitute an alternative to preaching. The sorry image of preaching today can easily be illustrated by noting that the expression, “to preach to (at) someone,” is generally thought to be objectionable.2 There are many approaches that could be taken to the subject of preaching in the Reformed tradition. None is more important, however, than one which examines the most important documents of the Reformation: the confessions of the churches. Even though many evangelical churches and traditions have forgotten their catholic inheritance in the faith, expressed as it is in the confessional documents of the churches, the Reformed churches have always had a high regard for the authority and place of the confessions in the life of the church. The confessions constitute the corporate and traditional understanding of the Scriptures on the full range of doctrinal subjects. Though these confessions do not have the kind of infallible authority alongside of the Scriptures that has characterized the Roman Catholic view of the church’s magisterium—they are not Tradition in the sense of an infallibly determined dogma—they represent the confessional tradition of the Reformation, a distillation of the church’s common understanding of the Scriptures. The confessions are a repetitio Sacrae Scripturae, a repetition of Sacred Scripture, whose teaching has real, albeit subordinate, authority in the churches. In this article I will consider a number of the great confessions of the Reformed churches, commenting on their 2I mention this only for the purpose of illustrating the contrast between the historic Reformed conviction about preaching and what is often the case today. I do not intend to explore the variety of reasons—philosophical (in the development of post-modernism), theological (in the demise of Scriptural authority), cultural (individualism and relativism), and communicational (the triumph of image over word)—that may explain the demise of respect for preaching. See D. A. Carson, The Gagging of God. Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), for an extensive analysis of the philosophi- cal and conceptual environment that characterizes Western culture at the end of the twentieth century. The implications of that environment for preaching are aptly suggested by Carson’s evocative title. 138 • MID-AMERICA JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY summary of the doctrine of preaching. Rather than taking a synthetic approach to these confessions, treating them systematically under a number of distinct heads or topics, I will take a more analytic and diachronic approach, tracing the confessions in their historical order and considering the teaching of each on the subject of preaching. Needless to say, my interest in what follows will not be primarily historical. There are good studies of the historical background and occasion, as well as the distinctive contributions of these confessions, some of which will be noted along the way. However, my interest is primarily to summarize the doctrine of preaching set forth in these confessional documents. Furthermore, I will not be treating all of the important confessions (including catechisms) produced during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by the various Reformed churches. With the exception of the Scots Confession of 1560, my principle of selection will be to treat only those confessional documents that have become ecclesiastical standards among the Reformed churches since the time of the Reformation. Those confessions or symbols that have served the Reformed churches as ecclesiastically acknowledged and official “forms of unity” will be the focus of our attention. After having treated these great confessional statements on the doctrine of preaching, I will conclude with a series of observations and/or theses regarding the nature and importance of preaching in the Reformed tradition. The French (Gallican) Confession of 1559 XXV. Now as we enjoy Christ only through the gospel, we believe that the order of the Church, established by his authority, ought to be sacred and inviolable, and that, therefore, the Church can not exist without pastors for instruction, whom we should respect and reverently listen to, when they are properly called and exercise their office faithfully. Not that God is bound to such aid and subordinate means, but because it pleaseth him to govern us by such restraints. In this we detest all visionaries who would like, so far as lies in their power, to destroy the ministry and preaching of the Word and sacraments. PREACHING IN THE REFORMED CONFESSIONS • 139 XXVI. We believe that no one ought to seclude himself and be contented to be alone; but that all jointly should keep and maintain the union of the Church, and submit to the public preaching, and to the yoke of Jesus Christ, wherever God shall have established a true order of the Church, even if magistrates and their edicts are contrary to it. For if they do not take part in it, or if they separate themselves from it, they do contrary to the Word of God. XXVII. Nevertheless we believe that it is important to discern with care and prudence which is the true Church, for this title has been much abused. We say, then, according to the Word of God, that it is the company of the faithful who agree to follow his Word, and the pure religion which it teaches; who advance in it all their lives, growing and becoming more confirmed in the fear of God according as they feel the want of growing and pressing onward. Even although they strive continually, they can have no hope save in the remission of their sins. Nevertheless we do not deny that among the faithful there may be hypocrites and reprobates, but their wickedness can not destroy the title of the Church. XXVIII. In this belief we declare that, properly speaking, there can be no Church where the Word of God is not received, nor profession made of subjection to it, nor use of the sacraments.3 3The English translation of the Gallican Confession, cited here and in what follows, is taken from Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom.
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