Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Guest (Male): The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Oh, how wonderful it is to love all believers in Christ, even if they are in denominations that we have thought to be liturgical, cold, or silly and too hot. And as I have come to know more and more believers, my horizons of love have been so expanded that my life has been further transformed by it. May I make bold to say that there are multitudes of believers who know nothing about loving all other believers.

Guest (Male): Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God’s Word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio ministry, which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God’s Word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago.

The message we’ll be featuring on today’s edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled, "What is the Church?" When you mention the word church, many people think of a building with a cross and a steeple. Others might think of a particular denomination or religious organization. But the church is a building not made of bricks and cement, but of living stones. It is not an organization but an organism, a spiritual body comprised of born-again believers around the world. Are you a genuine member of the church of Jesus Christ?

The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 12. We’re looking at verses 4 and 5. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse with a message entitled, "What is the Church?"

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto thee, our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. We praise thee and acknowledge thee to be our Lord. There is none like unto thee, infinite in thy power and thy majesty, thy love and thy grace, and eternal in all thine attributes. Use the word as it goes forth in this hour to build thy people in Christ, in whose name and for whose sake we ask it. Amen.

We come now in our study of Romans 12 to the fourth and fifth verses. "For as we have many members in one body and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ and every one members one of another." Our attention is now called in this text to the relationship that should exist between those who are truly trusting in Christ.

Early in the epistle, we had the horrible lesson concerning the anatomy of those who are yet joined to Adam and know nothing of Christ. Their throat is an open sepulchre, we read in Romans 3. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

And now that we have been taken out of Adam and placed in Christ, we believers have a new spiritual anatomy. Christ is the head, and we are the body, and we are members one of another. In addition to our text in Romans, we have Paul’s enlargement of this same thought in his first epistle to the Corinthians.

Guest (Male): For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many.

If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?

But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single organ, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you."

On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body which we think less honorable, we invest with the greater honor. And our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so adjusted the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Now with our text in Romans and this passage in Corinthians and this subject of the body of Christ, we come squarely to one of the greatest questions of the 20th century. It is the problem of the church. And by the church, I do not mean the churches, for there is a great difference between the two terms. Some time ago, the famous Swiss theologian Emil Brunner published a slender volume, "The Misunderstanding of the Church." And this book deserves a very wide reading.

Now, I am aware of Brunner’s false position on some very important questions, but his treatment of the doctrine of the church raises many questions which should cause us to think deeply about our individual place in the church, our relation to all other believers, and their relationship to us. Moreover, in his book, Brunner answers many questions which we must consider. I do not believe that it is possible to find all the answers, but we must face the fact and agree with Brunner that the question of the church is the unsolved problem of Protestantism.

I am convinced that if the problem is to be solved, even partially, it will be in no other way than by finding out what the Bible has to say about it and submitting ourselves to its teaching. However, in the preface to his book, Brunner shows that men are not always willing to bow before the Word of God.

Guest (Male): In the last 50 or 100 years, New Testament research has unremittingly and successfully addressed itself to the task of elucidating for us what was known as the ecclesia in primitive Christianity. Ecclesia is the Greek word which is translated church in the New Testament. This ecclesia is so very different from what is today called the church both in the Roman and the Protestant camps. It is, however, a well-known fact that dogmatists and church leaders often pay but small attention to the results of New Testament research and are only too ready to bridge the gulf between then and now by a handy formula, such as that of development, or by appealing to the distinction between the visible and invisible church, and thus to give a false solution to this grave and distressing problem.

But while many theologians and church leaders are able to quieten their conscience by such formulas, others are so much the more painfully aware of the disparity between the Christian fellowship of the apostolic age and our own churches and cannot escape the impression that there may perhaps be something wrong with what we now call the church.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: I confess that I am among the latter and that my own painful awareness of the problem has had a tremendous effect upon my own life and has radically transformed my ministry during the past few years. This has distressed some people with whom I walked very closely in the earlier years of my ministry. They think that I have turned aside from the way. I am convinced that they advanced to a certain point and came to a full stop and were not willing to continue with me as I advanced along the road with the Lord Jesus Christ toward deeper comprehension of the truth of God.

In my earlier years, I had the great joy and blessing of being associated with large groups of deeply spiritual people who had fixed answers to almost every religious question and who had reached the place where seemingly it was not necessary to think anymore because the problems were, they thought, all solved. But as I lived with the Lord, and as I lived with the Word of God, and as I lived with myself, I soon learned that I must go on thinking because there were questions that could not be solved by a pat answer or by quoting a single verse of scripture. All the scripture relative to a specific problem must be brought together, and the Holy Spirit would not allow me to rest on conclusions drawn from one or two texts while many other texts were thereby thrust into second place or ignored altogether.

Guest (Male): I was like the scientist or the philosopher in the Middle Ages who took for granted that the astronomy of Ptolemy was correct. When the Polish astronomer Copernicus brought out his theory that the earth and planets revolve around the sun, there was tremendous controversy. Some people have imagined that the controversy was a religious one, but this is not the entire case. Although some religious personalities were involved in the struggle, the chief warriors against the Copernican theory were men who were the scientists and secular philosophers of that day.

The old ideas had to be abandoned in order to make way for those which were correct. And on these, the whole of modern science has been constructed. Now, there are still many people who cling to ancient ideas about the doctrine of the church and the churches, doctrines which simply are not true. If we are to grasp the great reality of what the true church actually is, it will be necessary to discard many ideas that have been widely held and to return to the simplicity and complexity of the Word of God.

Guest (Male): The early church was a fellowship of believers. When they met together, they knew that they were one in Christ Jesus. In the beginning, there was no thought of divisions. The entire thought was of unity. They were one in Christ. They all knew that they had been touched by his divine power and brought out of death and into life. They all knew that each one had believed in the great historic facts that centered in the person and the work of Christ.

There were none present who denied that Jesus Christ was the Lord Jehovah God. They all knew that he had died on the cross to pay the price of their sin and to redeem them. They all knew that he had come out of the tomb alive. There were no doubters among them. They all knew that he had ascended into heaven. They were all living in the light of the fact that he was coming again and that he had said that no other event in prophecy would occur before his return.

Guest (Male): In the beginning, there was no organization. At first, there were 12 apostles, but they met together as one and waited for the moving of the Holy Spirit. When the number of the believers became too great for the 12, they called upon the church to pick out seven men filled with the Holy Spirit who could carry on the administrative work of caring for the poor so that they, the apostles, might give themselves to prayer and the teaching of the Word.

Later on, as the truth spread from town to town, there arose the necessity for an overseer in each community, and they were told to ordain elders to take spiritual oversight of each group. But these outward forms were certainly unimportant, and the thing that really characterized the early assemblies of believers was their sense of oneness in Christ. It is this oneness that the individual Christian must seek with all other Christians.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: The idea of gathering groups of individuals into separate meetings is alien to the common spirit of oneness which the Holy Spirit engendered among the early believers. It was thought of as essentially wrong for one to say, "I am of Paul," while another said, "I am of Peter," and a third, "I am of Apollos." The anguished cry came from Paul, "Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?"

Within these last few years, it has been a positive pain to me that Christ is divided in the midst of the churches today. It ought not to be so. Some time ago, I published a New Year’s resolution in which I expressed regret that I had had differences with men who are truly born-again. I did not withdraw any criticisms that I had written concerning published statements of men who had denied the faith, but I did say that I wanted to grant full liberty to those with whom I might be only 95% in agreement.

The results of that resolution have been astounding in my own life. It might be correct to say that the years which followed this statement have seen my ministry transformed. I was beginning to know the fellowship of true believers. Oh, how wonderful it is to love all believers in Christ, even if they are in denominations that we have thought to be liturgical, cold, or silly and too hot. Yes, how wonderful it is to love all believers in Christ. And as I have come to know more and more believers, my horizons of love have been so expanded that my life has been further transformed by it.

May I make bold to say that there are multitudes of believers who know nothing about loving all other believers. I know that this is true because for many years I moved in the fellowship that was restricted to far narrower bounds than those laid down in the scriptures. But in these late years, I have found Christ in the hearts of so many men who belong to organizational groups very different from my own, that it has given me greater vision of the wonder-working power of the Holy Spirit who moves in places where I had never moved and who knows the hearts of men as I can never know them.

I remember an instance that thrilled me as I came to know how Christ was working in the hearts of a certain group of men. Several years ago, I was holding a week of meetings in a church in Southern California. During the course of my message, I made some very slighting remarks about a certain denomination on the fringes of organized Christianity. At the close of the meeting, a man came to me and told me that he had been deeply grieved by what I had said. He gave me his card, which identified him as a minister in this denomination, which I had always looked upon as being composed of uneducated people with very shallow views of Bible truths.

At once, I told him that I was sorry that what I had said had hurt him. At that instant, I recalled what I had written in my New Year’s resolution concerning my desire to fellowship with all who were true members of the body of Christ. I asked him if he knew leaders of his denomination in that area, and he replied that he knew them very well. I asked him to invite four or five of them to be my guests at luncheon.

The matter was arranged, and a few days later they met me in the dining room of a fine hotel. I began by saying, "Now, we know that we have certain doctrinal differences, but I’m going to suggest that during our lunch, we talk about nothing but the things on which we agree. Then when we have finished, we’ll spend some time in talking about the things in which we do not agree."

First of all, do we agree that Jesus Christ is God? Oh, yes, there was unanimous assent, and we began talking about our Lord Jesus. Not my Lord Jesus or their Lord Jesus, but our Lord Jesus and what he meant to each of us. One could feel the relaxation of tensions in the group and a genuine mellowing, which came not from food but from the presence in each of us of the same Holy Spirit. It might be said that he was getting together with himself, and in doing so, he was drawing all of us closer to each other.

Oh, there were so many things in which we were one. We all agreed that Jesus Christ is God, that he had been born without a human father, and that he came in order that he might die for us. We all agreed that we had each trusted in him and that we had been saved by him. We all acknowledged our confidence that each man at the table was also trusting in Christ and that we were therefore brothers in our Lord.

In my mind, there was no doubt that these men were fellow members of the body of Christ and that as such, we were members one of another. We agreed in our faith that Christ had died for us, one and all, and that he had risen from the dead. We believed that he was at the right hand of God in heaven, praying for us. We believed that he had sent his Holy Spirit to us at Pentecost and that since the time of our new birth, the Lord himself was living in each of us by his Holy Spirit.

We all agreed that we had a blessed hope that the Lord Jesus Christ was coming again to receive us unto himself and that we would be in heaven together forever. Well, by this time, the meal was drawing to a close. We all seemed to realize that our field of agreement was so very great that the points on which we disagreed were indeed secondary.

These disagreements were mainly as to the method and manner in which the Holy Spirit operates in the midst of all believers. I didn’t try to convince them that I was right, and they didn’t try to convince me of their opinion. There was merely a statement of beliefs and the recognition that each understood the position of the other and his reasons for holding that position. The disagreements were not in an area involving the person or the work of Christ, and we left the table agreeing to pray for one another.

We’re now separated by the continent, but I have often prayed for these men. I would not be astonished to learn that they had prayed for me. We know that we are one in Christ. I feel that they had a distinct contribution to make to me, and I had a contribution to make to them. I would have been poorer if I had not become acquainted with them. I need to know all who have been redeemed by Christ. I will never know my Lord fully until I have seen him in every individual whom he has redeemed from this earth and saved through the pouring out of his life when he died for us on the cross.

This is true fellowship. And the Lord willing, in our next study, we shall look further into some of the joys to be learned through knowing these truths and through knowing other believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And our God and Father, we pray thee that the Holy Spirit will bless the truth to our hearts and use it to thy glory. How we thank thee for the oneness that we have in Christ. And we pray thee for all true believers, whatever their name or sign, whatever their country, tribe, or nation. Oh, God, bless all true believers in Jesus Christ. And as this age draws to a close, bring us closer one to another as we come closer to the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we ask it. Amen.

Guest (Male): Every member of the church of Jesus Christ has a unique role, purpose, and function. When we work together in fellowship and unity, we glorify the Lord and advance his kingdom. You have been listening to Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, a ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. We hope you’ve benefited from today’s message, "What is the Church?" Listen to additional Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse anytime via the internet at Alliancenet.org.

An audio copy of today’s teaching is available by calling us toll-free 1-800-488-1888. Today’s message again is entitled, "What is the Church?" Or simply request message number R12-10. We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled "All Things Work Together." Romans 8:28 declares, "We know that all things work together for good to them who love the Lord, even to them who are called according to his purposes."

Yet many times, we may feel that nothing good could ever come out of our problems and circumstances. This free booklet shows how this precious and powerful promise applies to any situation you may be facing and can fill you with hope and encouragement when you need it the most. Ask for your free copy of "All Things Work Together" when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview. Drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by, we seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

The Alliance also produces the radio broadcast, The Bible Study Hour, featuring the teachings of the late Dr. James Montgomery Boice, and Every Last Word, featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. For a full list of radio stations carrying our programs, visit us online at Alliancenet.org.

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Write to us at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Box 2000, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. Visit us online at Alliancenet.org. Be sure to ask for a free resource catalog featuring books, audio teachings, commentaries, booklets, videos, and a wealth of other materials from outstanding Reformed teachers and theologians, including Donald Grey Barnhouse, Dr. James Montgomery Boice, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Dr. Philip Graham Ryken. Thank you for listening. Join us again next time for more classic teaching on Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible.