You would be hard-pressed to find something Herman Bavinck has written that is not rich in insight, cogent, and bursting with theological significance. Of course, this is an exaggeration (and a clear indication that I have not read everything Bavinck has written), but I find that almost every time I open one of his books and start to read him, my soul is fed.

One of the areas of theology that captures my interest most is ecclesiology. Bavinck makes much of the Church, as any good theologian should, given that it is in the Church that God joins His covenant people together, having called them to Himself and redeemed them. A couple of years ago, I remember coming across this passage on pages 280-281 in volume four of his Reformed Dogmatics, in which he gives wonderful expression to the organic unity of the Church.

All [local] churches are conceived of as one ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia) and described as the body, the bride, or the fullness (πλήρωμα, plērōma) of Christ.

This oneness of all the churches does not come into being a posteriori by the establishment of a creed, a church order, and a synodical system. Neither is the church an association of individual persons who first became believers apart from the church and subsequently united themselves. But it is an organism in which the whole exists prior to the parts; its unity precedes the plurality of local churches and rests in Christ. It is he who, continuing his mediatorial work in the state of exaltation, joins his churches together and builds them up from within himself as the head (Eph. 1:23; 4:16; 5:23; Col. 1:18; 2:19), gathers and governs it (John 10:16; 11:52; 17:20-21; Acts 2:33, 47; 9:3ff.), always remains with it (Matt. 18:20), is most intimately connected with it (John 15:1ff.; 17:21, 23; 1 Cor. 6:15; 12:12-27; Gal. 2:20), and dwells in it by his Spirit (Rom. 6:5; 8:9-11; 1 Cor. 6:15ff.; Eph. 3:17). The assertion that the universal ἐκκλησία precedes the local churches is correct in the sense that while it is not historically prior it is logically so. Every local church is the people of God, the body of Christ, built upon the foundation of Christ (1 Cor. 3:11, 16; 12:27), because in that location it is the same as what the church is in its entirety, and Christ is for that local church what he is for the universal church.

In the various local gatherings of believers, it is the one church of Christ that comes to expression. Its essence, both as it concerns the church as a whole and each of its parts in particular, is grounded in that it is the people of God (Rom. 9:25; 2 Cor. 6:16, 18; Titus 2:14; Heb. 8:10; 13:12; 1 Pet. 2:9-10), consisting of people who have committed themselves to the Lord and have turned to him (Acts 5:14; 14:15), who bear the name of disciples, brothers and sisters, chosen ones, called ones, saints, believers (Acts 1:15; 6:1; 9:1, 32; Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2). In its broadest sense ἐκκλησία is the gathering of all the people of God, not only on earth but also in heaven (Heb. 12:23), not only in the past and present but also in the future (John 10:16; 17:20).

Bavinck is clearly talking here about the organic unity that lies at the very heart of the nature of the Church, speaking of the Church as God intended her to be. But I think there is a great deal of work to be done building on this foundation, both to understand what this unity would look like in reality and to begin to bring that unity to fruition. I have remarked before that the division and brokenness of Christ's Church grieves me so deeply that there are times I almost feel the effects of it physically. Although I recognize that we will never see this unity come to full expression before Christ returns, we are left with no excuse, on the one hand, to remain content in our division; neither, on the other hand, is it an excuse to force unity where there is none. There must be some way to make this organic unity more of a reality among the churches on earth.

To that end, I am thinking more and more that I should like to devote my life (or at least several years, initially) to begin the work of figuring this out. (On a side note, if someone over at Oxford, Edinburgh, the Free University of Amsterdam, or any other school is willing to pay me to do so, that would be even better).

Loading mentions Retweet