The Autonomy of the Local Church

Herman C. Hanko

[Originally published in the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, vol. 30, no. 1 (Nov. 1996), pp. 24-38]

Introduction

The Reformed system of church government is unique. It cannot be compared with any system of government in this world. It is not, e.g., a democracy where final authority rests with the people, even though matters in the church are decided by majority vote. Nor is it a monarchy or oligarchy where one man or a few men rule, even though elders have authority to rule in the church.

The unique character of the government of the church is derived from its biblical origin. As the Scriptures are the only rule for the faith and the life of the saints and of the church, so they are the rule for the government of the church. The unique character of the government of the church is most evident in its delicate balance, both on the local and denominational level. Within the local congregation the rule of the church is a balance between the office of believers and the special offices of minister, elder, and deacon. On the denominational level, the balance is between the autonomy of the local congregation and the necessary authority of the broader assemblies, such as Classis or Synod—or, as they are sometimes called, Presbytery and General Assembly.

This balance is not so easy to maintain. Failure to recognize the special offices in the local congregation leads to a democratic form of rule in the church, repugnant to Holy Scripture. Failure to recognize the office of all believers leads to tyrannical rule and dictatorial power in the special offices of the church.

The same balance is difficult to maintain on the level of church federation. Failure to maintain the principle of the autonomy of the local congregation leads to hierarchy, failure to recognize the authority of the broader assemblies leads to independentism. Both are wrong. Both are equally condemned by Scripture.

Two conditions must be present in the church of Christ for the balance of Reformed church polity to succeed. Where those two conditions are not present, a Reformed church polity cannot long last. The history of the church is often characterized by a (sometimes wild) swinging of the pendulum from one extreme to the other. The proper balance can be maintained only when, in the first place, those within the church are willing to submit to the instruction and direction of Scripture. This must be emphasized because submission to Scripture is submission to Christ Himself who is the Head and Sovereign in the church. Church government is nothing but an implementation of Christ’s rule in the church. The proper balance can be maintained, in the second place, only when within the church is found a mutual trust among the members. Only when there is mutual trust and a mutual desire to seek the welfare of the church will Reformed church government be observed and maintained. Such church government as Scripture requires, is not something which can be imposed upon a church; nor is it something which will work itself out on its own power; nor can even the strictest observance of rules bring it about. Trust is the key element. Without it, all fails.

What is Meant by Autonomy?

In this article we are interested in one aspect of Reformed church government, namely, the autonomy of the local congregation.

It is necessary, first, to define terms.

The word “autonomy” comes from two Greek words which mean “itself” and “law.” The simple and direct meaning of the word autonomy is, therefore, to be a law unto oneself. That which is autonomous makes, executes and enforces its own laws and does so without outside interference.

But, of course, the very nature of the church requires that the word autonomy be applied to the church in a limited way. No church or congregation is absolutely autonomous. The church belongs to Christ as His possession. Christ rules in the church. The laws by which the church is governed are made, executed, and even enforced by Christ Himself. He is sovereign within the church. The church is subject to the law of Christ. But the autonomy of the church means that the church is directly under the law of Christ; that no other body or institution may come between it and Christ; and that it is responsible only to Christ in determining the will of Christ and enforcing Christ’s rule.

The word “autonomy,” therefore, as applied to the church, means, “self-governing under the rule of Christ.” Because the church is given to Christ from eternity by God the Father; because Christ purchased the church as His possession with the price of His own blood; because the church is called into existence by the irresistible call of the gospel; because the church is preserved and protected by Christ’s power until the church is brought to live with Christ in glory—because all this is true, the autonomy of the church is under Christ. No kings or princes may rule the church. No ecclesiastics, prelates, popes, or bishops may sway their scepter in her life. No councils or synods may dictate to her. No ecclesiastical body may determine her calling.

So jealously is this to be guarded by the church that the saints of God were ready to die for this truth at the hands of the enemy, and suffer cruel tortures inflicted by those who would take Christ’s rule in their hands. The very life of the church depends upon her autonomy.

What is Meant by the Church?

The New Testament Scriptures use the word “church” in two different senses. The word is used to refer to the church in its entirety—the church as the body of Christ, the whole company of the elect. This is the sense in which the term is used in the Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 54, where the article in the apostolic confession concerning the church is explained:

What believest thou concerning the ‘holy catholic church’ of Christ?

That the Son of God from the beginning to the end of the world, gathers, defends, and preserves to himself by his Spirit and word, out of the whole human race, a church chosen to everlasting life, agreeing in true faith: and that I am and forever shall remain, a living member thereof.

This church, the body of Christ, is sometimes referred to as the church organism.

But Scripture also uses the word “church” to refer to a local congregation.[1] In no single place is the word “church” used to describe a group of individual churches or congregations, or to groups of individual believers.[2] The Protestant Reformed denomination has always insisted on its proper name, Protestant Reformed Churches, and has insisted on that name out of the principle of the autonomy of the local church. When, therefore, we speak of the autonomy of the local church, we are referring to an individual congregation where believers and their children gather under the rule of officebearers to worship God through the preaching of the gospel, the administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of discipline. In this congregation, Christ is present in the fulfilment of His own words: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

De Ridder writes:

The church is not in the first place a holy institution, but the body of Christ. The essence of the church is thus invisible and spiritual. However, that church becomes visible wherever true believers in Christ are found. These believers must in turn appear in the visible institute of the church. The invisible church of Christ does not become visible therefore by establishing some external kind of priestly service. The principle for Rome and in part also for the Lutherans is: if there is a priest present, then the church is present that brings the sacrifice or, according to Lutheran principle, that administers the Word and Sacrament, whether there are believers present or not. According to the Reformed principle, believers must first be present, otherwise the offices cannot be instituted and the church cannot become visible. The unchangeable position of the members of the congregation is bound up with this principle.[3]

The relation between the whole church as organism and the local congregation is close. The one great, universal, catholic, church manifests itself in this world in the local congregation. From a certain viewpoint, a local congregation is a microcosm of the whole church. It possesses all the attributes of the whole church: oneness, holiness, catholicity, apostolicity; it is itself Christ’s body, Christ’s elect, organized into an institution for a specific purpose and calling.

That local church or congregation is autonomous.

What is Meant by the Autonomy of the Local Church?

In order to understand the principle of the autonomy of the local church, we must first of all consider that the autonomy of the local church is directly connected with the marks of the church.

At the time of the Reformation, every branch of it was compelled by its own historical circumstances to define the distinction between the true church and the false church. This had to be done by virtue of the fact that the Reformation itself had to be justified over against the charge that it was creating schism in the body of Christ. It had to be shown that the Roman Catholic Church was the false church, and that the Reformation was a re-institution of the true church of Christ. This was necessary to justify the Reformation against the charges of Rome, for a description of the marks proved that Rome was the false church and that the churches of the Reformation were the true church of Christ.

Articles 28 & 29 of the [Belgic] Confession of Faith most clearly define those marks of both the false church and the true church; but these articles do so, not abstractly, but in the very real context of a solemn word to all God’s people that it is their calling to separate from the false church and join the true; that, indeed, this is so important that nothing or no one may prevent them from doing so. Those marks of the true church, so the confession maintains, are the pure preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments according to the command of Christ, and the exercise of Christian discipline.

Now it is not our purpose to discuss those marks as such in this article; but it is our purpose to point out that these marks of the true church are exactly the same as the church’s calling in the world. They are the reasons why Christ has established the church. They are the reasons for its existence as the church. They constitute the marching orders of Christ the King. The church has no other calling than this.

It is s0mewhat in passing that we remark at this point that the church of today seems to have little understanding of its Christ-given calling. The church is quick to take on all sorts of tasks, some of which are frivolous and nonsensical. The church considers it its business to solve the social problems of the world, to meddle in politics, to engage in medical work, etc. But, while the energies of the church are wasted in work that does not belong to it, the true work of the church goes undone.

But, however that may be, Christ has formed His church into an institute here in the world for the purpose of preaching the gospel, administering the sacraments, and exercising discipline. The church has no other calling than this. For this purpose, the church is formed into an organization with its own constitution, its own officers, its own members, and its own raison d’etre.

Only a few moments’ thought will show how this calling of the church stands related to the autonomy of the local congregation. Only the local church can have the marks of the true church; but those marks of the true church are also, at the same time, the calling, the task, the work assigned by Christ to it.

Only the local church may perform these tasks, which, at the same time, constitute the marks of the church. No other body may preach the gospel. No para-ecclesiastical organization, e.g., may preach. No Classis or Synod may administer the sacraments. And no broader assembly may exercise discipline. These things are the task of the local congregation alone. When para-ecclesiastical bodies do this work, non-authorized bodies usurp the task of the church of Christ. When broader assemblies engage in administering the sacrament or exercising discipline, hierarchy results.

When the local church fulfils the calling which Christ has entrusted to it, then Christ Himself is present in the church. The fulfilment of His promise, “Lo, I am with you alway even to the end of the world,” takes place when a local congregation preaches, administers the sacraments, and exercises discipline. Then, when two or three are gathered in Christ's name, Christ Himself is present.

The principle of the autonomy of the local church goes back to the very beginning of the history of the Reformed churches. These churches expressed the principle in a very firm, yet practical way. At the Synod of the Walloon Churches, held in Paris in 1559, it was decided as a rule in the church that, “No church may assume primacy or domination over another.”[4] This same principle was repeatedly set forth. It was expressed in the French Confession of Faith and in the Netherlands Confession of Faith. The Synod of Emden expressed the principle in the very first article of its Church Order: “No church shall lord it over another church, no minister of the Word, no elder or deacon shall lord it over another, but each one shall guard himself against all suspicion and enticement to lord it over [others].” And that principle has been incorporated into the Church Order of Dordrecht, which is the church order used by Reformed churches throughout the world. It defines the principle of autonomy.

Richard De Ridder calls this the fundamental principle of Reformed church polity—bearing in mind, as he makes clear, that the most fundamental principles are the work of God in gathering His church, and the Headship of Christ over the church. One writer calls the principle of autonomy, “The Golden Rule of Reformed Church Polity.” De Ridder defines this rule as

the protestant position over against the Roman Catholic Church, which, at the Council of Trent had clearly stated that there was only one church to which all believers must belong and within which there is a divinely ordained hierarchy of office holders. If the Reformed are not granted this principle and the right to organization apart from the Roman Church, the entire church polity of the protestant churches is done away with and such churches have no right to claim either separate organization or existence.[5]

In the Netherlands, this principle of autonomy was further expressed in the earliest gatherings of the church by giving to each congregation the right to call and ordain its own officebearers. And so the principle has been zealously guarded and kept, and the church flourishes only in those places where it is studiously maintained.

Autonomy and the Offices in the Church

Christ is present in the church through the work which the church is given to perform. From this it follows that Christ is present in the church through the offices of the church. Christ establishes His church, but He also establishes the offices; and through these offices Christ does the work which the church is called to do. That is, Christ gathers, defends, and preserves His church, to use the words of the Heidelberg Catechism, through the offices, which offices in turn are responsible for the preaching the Word, the administration of the sacraments, and the exercise of discipline.

It is for this reason that we must now turn to the idea of offices in the church.

Louis Berkhof, in his Reformed Dogmatics, writes:

Who are the first and proper subjects of Church power? To whom has Christ committed this power in the first instance? Roman Catholics and Episcopalians answer: to the officers as a separate class, in contradistinction from the ordinary members of the Church. This view has also been held by some eminent Presbyterian divines, such as Rutherford and Baillie. Diametrically opposed to this is the theory of the Independents, that this power is vested in the Church at large, and that the officers are merely the organs of the body as a whole. The great Puritan divine, Owen, adopts this view with some modifications. In recent years some Reformed theologians apparently favored this view, though without subscribing to the separatism of the Independents.[6] There is another view, however, representing a mean between these two extremes, which would seem to deserve preference. According to it, ecclesiastical power is committed by Christ to the Church as a whole, that is, to the ordinary members and the officers alike; but in addition to that, the officers receive such an additional measure of power as is required for the performance of their respective duties in the Church of Christ. They share in the original power bestowed upon the Church, and receive their authority and power as officers directly from Christ. They are representatives, but not mere deputies of the people. Older theologians often say: “All Church power, in actu primo, or fundamentally, is in the Church itself; in actu secundo, or its exercise, in them that arc specifically called thereto.” This is substantially the view held by Voetius, Gillespie (in his work on Ceremonies), Bannerman, Porteous. Bavinck, and Vos.[7]

The office of believers stands at the very heart of the autonomy of the church, and the final authority of the congregation rests with the office of all believers.

Believers hold the office of prophet, priest, and king within the church, that threefold office which Adam lost in Paradise, which was pre-figured in the Old Testament, and which is restored through Christ and by Christ’s Spirit.

Christ is the Officebearer of God who accomplishes all the purpose of God with respect to the church. But Christ bestows His divine office upon the members of the church through His Spirit which He poured out upon the church at Pentecost. This is the clear teaching of Q&A 32 of the Heidelberg Catechism. The catechism asks, in Q&A 31, concerning the significance of the name “Christ” as a name for our Mediator. And the answer is given that “He is ordained of God the Father, and anointed with the Holy Ghost, to be our chief Prophet and Teacher, ... our only High Priest, ... and our eternal King ...” But then the catechism, in a penetrating question, asks: “But why art thou called a Christian?” That is, Why do you bear the name of Christ? And the answer is given: “Because I am a member of Christ by faith, and thus am partaker of his anointing ..," and then goes on to explain that, as partaker of Christ’s anointing, I have the Holy Spirit as well, and can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, live as prophet, priest, and king under God.

Thus, because the office of believer is the most basic office in the church, all the work of Christ in the church is through the office of believer. We must understand this if we are to understand Reformed church government. The office of believer preaches, administers the sacraments, rules and exercises discipline, and distributes alms as testimonies of the mercies of Christ. In other words, the office of believer performs all the work which Christ has assigned to the church. The local congregation, therefore, which is the gathering of believers and their seed, is the manifestation of the body of Christ and the instrument through which Christ accomplishes His purpose in the world in the gathering, defense, and preservation of His church.

At the same time, the church of Christ in the local congregation is not a democracy. That the church is a democracy is basically the position of all Congregationalism or Independentism. The rule of the congregation rests with the [male] members, and they periodically elect a “Board of Trustees” of “Board of Deacons” to which is entrusted the affairs of the church, but who are always answerable to the congregation itself. Such notions have been consistently abhorrent to Reformed church polity, and have been strenuously and rigorously rejected by all who wish to be Reformed.

Although the office of believers is the basic office in the church, the believers always perform their tasks through the special offices. Christ has ordained that in the church are to be found ministers (who carry the office of prophet), elders (who are the church’s kings), and deacons (who reflect in their work the office of priest). At congregational meetings, the male members meet together to elect those who shall hold the special offices.[8] But those who are elected are called by Christ Himself to serve in their offices because Christ calls through the office of believers. All officebearers in Reformed churches are asked to answer in the affirmative the following question: “Do you feel in your hearts, that you are lawfully called of God’s church, and consequently of God himself, to your office?”

In describing this aspect of Reformed (or Presbyterian, which means, “rule by elders”) church polity, De Ridder writes:

Furthermore, the presbyterian system demands that all three offices must be instituted in the congregations. And that is in direct contrast to all hierarchy. No church can have only a minister of the Word. Besides the minister, there must be elders, who with him constitute the consistory, and the deacons, who are called to the ministry of mercy. There is no overlording by the ministers, and among the ministers there is complete equality. In various ways, care is taken so that there is no such thing as clericalism. At the level of the higher assemblies there are as many elders as ministers (when there are vacant churches in a classis, then there is a greater number of elders). All have equal voting rights. This development of offices is seen only among the Reformed. All other systems (except the Congregational) are more or less clerical in orientation.[9]

And so the believers preach through the called and ordained ministry; they rule through the elders; and they distribute Christ’s mercies through the deacons. But, more importantly, Christ does all this work—through the believers who, in turn, do it through their officebearers.

It is true that the office of believers continues to function in its own right. It does not, having elected its officebearers, sit down in a rocking chair and twiddle its collective thumbs. Believers witness to the truth of the gospel in the world. They admonish one another with the Word and encourage one another in the faith. They participate in discipline by the approbation of the work of elders and have responsibilities towards the penitent or impenitent sinner. They bestow their own goods to feed the poor and comfort their suffering and sorrowing brothers and sisters. But they do the official work of the church through the offices which Christ has instituted.

And so those who have been appointed to the special offices are appointed by Christ and answerable to Him. In fact, the believers within the congregation are called by Christ to submit to their officebearers.

This is the delicate balance of which I spoke earlier as one element in the genius of biblical and Reformed church polity. The office of believers is the basic office, and yet the ones holding this office submit to their officebearers (for whom they vote and who hold an office of authority over them). Scripture is clear on this matter of submission: “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you” (Heb. 13:17). “And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake” (I Thess. 5:12-13). These are but two of the many passages which speak of or imply the same truth. When believers submit to the rule of their officebearers, they submit to Christ, because Christ is present in the congregation through the officebearers. Christ comes to dwell with His people. He comes with His Word and Spirit to speak to them through the ministers. He comes through the elders to rule over them by His grace and power. He comes to them in His tender mercies in their need through the deacons. And the believers, receiving their officebearers from Christ, receive Christ and live under His gracious and loving care.

This is the fulfillment of Christ’s promise to be with His people always. Christ saves them through the church so that the local congregation becomes the mother of the saints who gives them birth, nourishes them, cares for them, disciplines them, and prepares them for heaven where they may be with Christ forever.

The Purpose of the Autonomy of the Local Congregation

By virtue of the autonomy of the local congregation, Christ’s sovereign authority is exercised in and over the saints.

This does not negate or nullify the authority of the broader assemblies in the church.[10] The federation of churches is important, and Independentism is anathema to a Reformed man. Churches of like precious faith must join together that they may work together in the cause of Christ and express the unity which they have in Christ.

Berkhof writes:

Thus the Reformed system honors the autonomy of the local church, though it always regards this as subject to the limitations that may be put upon it as a result of its association with other churches in one denomination, and assures it the fullest right to govern its own internal affairs by means of its officers. At the same time it also maintains the right and duty of the local church to unite with other similar churches on a common confessional basis, and form a wider organization for doctrinal, judicial, and administrative purposes, with proper stipulations of mutual obligations and rights. Such a wider organization undoubtedly imposes certain limitations on the autonomy of the local churches, but also promotes the growth and welfare of the churches, guarantees the rights of the members of the Church, and serves to give fuller expression to the unity of the Church.[11]

But the authority of the broader assembles is fundamentally different from the authority of the local congregation. No broader assembly may do the work of the special offices in the church: preach the gospel, administer the sacraments, and exercise discipline. It may advise on all these things, and it is good that it does. But its authority is advisory. It may not usurp this calling which the local congregation alone possesses.

All authority is vested in Him who is the Head of the church and the Savior of the body, and that authority which belongs to Christ, He Himself has received from God. The authority over the church is given to Christ to save the church by His blood, to do all that needs to be done that the church may become God’s everlasting possession, and to bring God’s just judgments upon the wicked so that the church may be delivered from the clutches of evil.

Christ accomplishes all the purpose of God for the church by all His work. Christ accomplishes all the will of God in the church by His rule over the church through the offices which He has ordained for the church. Christ calls them (through the preaching) out of darkness into the light of salvation. Christ exercises the sovereign discipline of grace (through the keys of the kingdom) so that the church may be preserved and protected in the world of countless and powerful enemies. Christ cares tenderly (through the alms of the diaconate) for the church in all the needs of the saints. Kept safely within the church, God’s people are preserved until they arrive at their eternal destination, the house of their Father.

After all, the church is, to use the words of Isaiah, a hut in a garden of cucumbers, a very small remnant, a besieged city. It is a small group surrounded by enormous and powerful enemies from the world and from hell. It is a little band of huddled sheep out in the vast, howling wilderness surrounded by ravening wolves. No earthly reason for her continued existence can be found. But she belongs to Christ! And Christ cares for His church, protecting her, guarding her, saving her, preparing her for glory. That is the work of the officebearers in the church. And it all takes place through and in the local congregation.

Paul, in his letter to Timothy, calls the church “the pillar and ground of the truth” (I Tim. 3:15b). The church is established in the world that the truth may be made known here below in this world filled with sin and the lie. By that truth, upheld and maintained by the church, the elect are called out of darkness into light, both on the mission fields of the world and from the covenant seed of believers. This truth is the means by which the elect are saved, the means by which they come under the discipline of the Scriptures, the means of keeping the saints from erring or bringing them to repentance, the means for comforting them in their sorrow, strengthening them in their weakness, arming them for the battle of faith, encouraging them when their hearts falter, reprimanding them when they stray—in short, the truth is all the church needs, for in possession of the truth, the church possesses Christ who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. But this church, which is the pillar and ground of the truth, is the local congregation. Historically, to Timothy, it was the church of Ephesus in the midst of which Timothy had to behave himself wisely (I Tim. 3:15a). Throughout the ages it is each local congregation.

David Wells, in castigating evangelicalism for its failure to be faithful to its calling, writes: “The church is the pillar and ground of the truth, not a place to market the gospel in the name of growth.” And, quoting Niebuhr, Wells castigates the church and the gospel it preaches: “The church’s gospel is ‘a god without wrath bringing people without sin into a kingdom without judgment through a Christ without a cross.’”[12]

Christ’s rule is through the local church. That local church stands, therefore, for the cause of truth and righteousness. It is a witness to Christ and His truth, to Christ and His righteousness in a world gone mad with sin. It is a witness to the cause of Christ which shall ultimately triumph. It may seem as if the church goes down to defeat. And, indeed, in the days of Antichrist, the church shall exist no longer as a congregation. The church as institute disappears, destroyed by the beast. But God’s people need never fear, for the destruction of the church institute in those days is only because it has accomplished its purpose in the world and is needed no more. The last elect has been born and nourished at her bosom. The time is ripe for Christ to come to take His whole church into glory to be with Him forever.

Conclusion

Neither a hierarchical form of church government (as practiced, e.g., by Rome and apostate Protestantism) nor Congregationalism (as practiced in Congregational or Baptistic churches) is able to preserve the autonomy of the church. The only ways to avoid unbiblical and unReformed methods of church government of all sorts is to guard jealously the great truth of the autonomy of the local church.

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FOOTNOTES:

1.  A few of the texts are Rom. 16:5; I Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Rev. 1:4, 11, 20; 2:7, 11; Acts 5:11; 11:26; I Cor. 11:18; 14:19, 28, 35.

2.  The only possible exception is Acts 9:31, but the reading which uses “church” in the singular to refer to the different churches in Palestine is from the WH text; the plural reading is the reading of the TR, and is undoubtedly the correct reading.

3.  De Ridder, Richard R., Ecclesiastical Manual. Unpublished syllabus from Calvin Theological Seminary, 1982.

4.  The material which follows is taken from De Ridder, Ecclesiastical Manual, pp. 44ff.

5.  Ibid.

6.  It is sad that, also today, some who have been trained in Reformed church polity and its biblical principles have, out of fear of hierarchy, gone in the direction of Independentism.

7.  p. 583.

8.  While we cannot get into the question here, Reformed church polity holds that this responsibility is reserved for the male members only. The right to vote implies the right to rule. And only male members may be officebearers in the church of Christ on the basis of the principle of male headship laid down in Scripture. A Reformed church ignores these principles to its spiritual peril; i.e., a church which repudiates these principles commits spiritual suicide.

9.  De Ridder, op. cit., pp. 11, 12.

10.  See Prof. David J. Engelsma’s article, “The Authority of the Major Assemblies,” in Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 38-59.

11.  Berkhof, op. cit., p. 584.

12.  David E. Wells, God In The Wasteland (InterVarsity Press, 1994).

[NOTE: Picture at start: Randolph Protestant Reformed Church, Wisconsin, USA]