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Holy Joys Podcast
W. B. Pope on Preparations for the Church in the Gospels (Part 1)
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David Fry and Johnathan Arnold continue their discussion of William Burt Pope's doctrine of the church, looking at the first half of his section on "The Preparations in the Gospels."
Certainly for Pope, there's that strong link between Jesus saying, you know, my kingdom, and of course, Matthew 16, you know, my church. So that the church and the kingdom are not identical, but the kingdom is manifested in the church.
SPEAKER_02At the close of his ministry, throwing off all reserve, he termed it my kingdom.
SPEAKER_01You're listening to the Holy Joys Podcast, co-hosted by Jonathan Arnold and Dr. David Fry. Visit us at holyjoys.org and stay tuned for weekly discussions of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church.
SPEAKER_02So we're continuing our discussion of William Burt Pope's Doctrine of the Church, and we are in the third volume of his compendium of Christian Theology, second edition, beginning on page 259. And in our last episode, which we'll link in the show notes, we looked at the very brief introduction that Pope gives to his doctrine of the church. So now the next section is on the historical foundation of the church. And Pope begins by saying that a large portion of the New Testament is occupied with the details of the establishment of the church, Christ's new institution. And this is the first place that that word new is used. And Pope's going to go on to talk about the new community, the new name that's been given to this community, mentions that several times, the new congregation, the new community, the new fellowship, uh, that which is not yet founded, yet to come, the new church kingdom. So just very strong emphasis here on something new happening. So I tend to stress continuity between the Old Testament people of God and the New Testament people of God, and Pope does that too. Um I'm I'm reacting against views which stress discontinuity. Pope here is emphasizing, though, there is discontinuity. So, kind of big picture here. How do you understand the church in relationship to the Old Testament people of God? Is it new in the sense of being something totally different? Uh, is that what Pope is saying here? That the church is is not in any way uh you know Israel in any sense the Israel of God? Uh, how do you understand this theme of the newness of the church being being used here?
SPEAKER_00Uh no, I don't understand Pope to be making a uh hard break here between the Old Testament people of God and the New Testament people of God, uh, but he is still pretty emphatic on the newness of uh the of the church as a new manifestation of the kingdom of God on earth. And I think what's important, or that maybe what distinguishes the church from, say, the nation of Israel, is that this is a closer uh manifestation to the final kingdom of God. And uh we'll want to keep an eye on some of the language that he uses again through these hundred or so pages as he is leading us to eschatology in the next section. Uh, we'll want to keep this question in mind uh in what sense is the church new? And and I don't know that I can answer it all right now, but uh I think that will become clear as we go through this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so he he says here in the next sentence um that we can kind of continue, consider the history, the historical foundation of the church. Part one is the preparations in the gospels, part two is the actual foundations of the day of Pentecost. So I think when Pope refers to a large portion of the New Testament, he's really talking about the Gospels here. And so in the uh in the Gospels, we have always the anticipation of the church in the form that Christ envisions it being something yet future. And uh there definitely is going to be something uh new about it. It doesn't have the same national and political character that Israel had, at least as an institution on this earth. So I think that has to, that accounts for some of the discontinuity here. So the first section is the preparations in the gospel. And what's interesting is here we're talking about the church, but the very first thing he says is once again, our Lord proclaimed the advent in his own person of the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. His new revelation to mankind was the gospel of the kingdom. How in the gospels you read about the kingdom constantly. You know, every couple paragraphs, it's the kingdom, the king, discourse on the kingdom. Um, Jesus comes proclaiming the message of the kingdom. You hear very little about the ecclesia, right? That comes towards the end of Matthew, those two occurrences which Pope is going to spend a lot of time with. Once you get past Pentecost, you hear a lot about the church, but frankly, not as much about, at least explicitly, about the kingdom. So you have this massive emphasis on the kingdom, and then you have this transition and a massive emphasis on the church. And the question is, what exactly is the relationship between these two things? So when Pope talks about the preparations for the church, he begins with the kingdom, which I think is interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and notice this uh what's not here, I think is important, and that is he he pretty much skips over the entire Old Testament, right? He jumps right to uh Jesus' message of the kingdom, but there's an important uh sentence here on page 260, uh about a quarter of the way down through that first paragraph, which says, by this term, the term meaning the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God, Jesus He linked his own government with the ancient theocracy. That is his summation of the Old Testament. And so uh he what he's doing here is he's simply saying uh the message of the Old Testament is the kingdom of God. So we're gonna go ahead and just jump forward to the message of our Lord and proclaiming that the kingdom of God has come in his person. And uh that is going to be a summation of everything that has happened in Revelation up to this point, uh, through through divine revelation. Uh, so that's his summary of the Old Testament. It's all summed up in in Christ.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's helpful. And that word form, that might be the key word uh as to getting to the the answer of this question. What does Pope mean when he says that it's new? The newness lies in its new form, it's not taking the same earthly form. So we still have the same God, we still have God one God with one people, uh, and his reign centers in this people, but it takes now a different form. Uh, for his was the kingdom of heaven. Right. And so he's making a contrast here between the earthly, political, national nature of ancient Israel and the more heavenly, spiritual quality of the church that he that he founded. Not that it's not visible, not that it doesn't have a real presence on earth, um, but there's definitely there's definitely a transition here. So what do you how do you understand that that contrast between the earthly and the heavenly, the kingdom of heaven? Because we can over-spiritualize the church too, right? And that and Pope's not doing that because he emphasizes his visibility. So how do you what is he doing there?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I think this is yeah, I think this is an important part of understanding the newness of the church, and that is that the church begins with the presence of the kingdom's head in the incarnate word. And so it is new in the sense that it has become, for the first time in history, incarnate. And uh the and so there's a different form. Jesus Christ Himself, you know, who who comes from heaven, right? That's a big emphasis uh through the gospels, especially in Matthew. Uh, he's the one who who is able to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth and to say the kingdom is is at hand, the kingdom is here. And so we have we we move from a national form uh which was loosely formed. There's still there was formation there, but it was still a little bit loose, uh, to now a very specific personal individual form in Jesus Christ, and then moving to the spirit-formed organic uh church. Uh and so I think that's a difference between the church and Israel is that now we have the church has a reference point that Israel uh in one sense did not have. They were looking forward to it, so there's still a reference point, but uh not in earthly form. And and so that's something that I think will distinguish uh the church from Israel as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that ties back to that opening line: our Lord proclaimed the advent in his own person of the kingdom of heaven. Yeah, interesting. So Pope says the new kingdom, however, was a mystery revealed. So this is um this is, I think, the first place that Pope uses the word mystery in this section. But you know, a mystery is not for Pope or in Scripture something that's confusing or well, it's a mystery to me, right? But mystery specifically speaks of something um in God's eternal plan, purposes, or decrees, which has not was not always fully known or revealed, but has been made known or revealed in the gospel. And the main secret of that mystery lay in the fact that while it was still the kingdom of God, it was also the Messiah's, the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, the kingdom of Jesus, the Son incarnate. Now, this is really interesting because I've heard some evangelical theologians say that the church is the body of Christ, but the kingdom is the kingdom of God. And here Pope is emphasizing that the kingdom is the Messiahs, it's a kingdom which God has committed to his son, and that that is the mystery revealed. So, what do you understand Pope to be doing there?
SPEAKER_00Okay, yeah, so I think uh minimum, uh part of the mystery to Israel was uh the eternality of the kingdom, right? Because there's no, they have no reference point for what it looks like to have an eternal existence. Uh, you know, what does it mean to have a king that reigns for longer than 40 years, right? You know, what's it mean to have a not not just a dynasty, but to have a messiah, a king who whose kingdom will never end? And that's and and they understood that to mean, you know, not just you know, this this king's sons and descendants are going to be on the throne, but no, this is going to be a king who rules and reigns forever. You know, what's that look like and and how can this be? Uh so I think that is part of the mystery that's revealed uh through, of course, through Christ. Um and then uh this maybe the second point to connect with what I was uh circling here. Uh you have uh again keep a word uh eye on the the words, uh uh the appearance of the word new here. So the new kingdom. Uh a little later, it was not, however, his purpose that it, the kingdom of God, should be retained as as the denomination of his new community. And then here, the next sentence I think is important. The company of his people is the sphere of his reign to the end of time. And so I think that is part of the mystery. How can we, God's people, be the sphere of his reign to the end of time? What's it mean for him to reign over a weak, a small, weak people uh who cannot possibly uh overcome the Egyptians or the Babylonians or the Assyrians or any of the other world powers? How what is that? So I think that's part of the mystery as well that's revealed.
SPEAKER_02You mentioned this phrase, the company of his people is the sphere of his reign to the end of time. And then he goes on to say, but the name and character of the dominion is held in abeyance until the consummation of all. So he stressed continuity. Now he's gonna emphasize a point of discontinuity. So even though the church is uh where his kingdom reign is coming to bear, it's the sphere of his reign, it's not generally called the kingdom. There's it's given the name church rather than just referring to it as the kingdom, because the reign of God, while it's coming to bear, is not here yet, full, it's not fully realized. And so when Jesus speaks of the kingdom, he especially has in mind that kingdom as it's going to come to its consummation at the end of time. And to call the church or to give the church the titan the name kingdom uh as its primary title, because I'm I'm qualifying that because there are times when Pope almost seems to make an identity an identity statement. He is saying we we're avoiding an over-realized eschatology where we're over-emphasizing how much of the reign has been brought to bear. We're recognizing there's still much yet to come. Is that is that your understanding here? Yeah, yeah. And then it's interesting because he says at the close of his ministry, throwing off all reserve, he termed it my kingdom. So there he's he's acknowledging that the church is the kingdom of God in some sense, but it's given this new name of my church right here in section two, because there's still a distinction between the church until God's dominion is brought to bear fully, fully on the earth.
SPEAKER_00Right, yeah, but certainly for Pope, there's that strong link between uh Jesus saying, you know, my kingdom, and of course uh Matthew 16, you know, my church. Uh so that uh again, the the church and the kingdom are not uh are not uh identical, but the kingdom is manifested in the church. So the church is part of the kingdom, but the church is not all that there is to the kingdom of Christ. It is uh it is itself pointing to a greater reality.
SPEAKER_02So Pope is now making a transition to the times in which Christ, who has spent his entire ministry in the gospels, preaching and teaching about the kingdom, even after he's you know he's risen from the dead, he spends 40 days talking about the kingdom. Uh Pope makes this transition to say there are two times, twice and twice only, when he now begins to give his institution its new name of my church. Now, both of these appear in Matthew, um Matthew 16, 18, and these two occasions are closely connected, right? Because in both cases, we're talking about the keys of the kingdom. So the word ecclesia comes up specifically in relationship to the kingdom. And so these two verses, these two sections are kind of like the link, right? These are kind of the like the hinge point between what Jesus has been talking about in the in the Gospels, in the in his ministry, and what's gonna actually now happen after he leaves the earth and the spirit's poured out at Pentecost. This kingdom is gonna take the form of the church.
SPEAKER_00Notice here, he says, in the former, what he means there is in Matthew 16, which is the first time the word uh ecclesia is used in the Gospels. Uh, in Matthew 16, he says Jesus seems to be using it in the sense of a great temple and uh or or house of prayer for all nations, as in uh Mark 11. And uh, but then in Matthew 18, he says the sense seems to be the visible assembly of Christian people gathered together in one place for the administration of his laws. And of course, that's Matthew 18, 15 through 20, where the word appears twice in the context of church discipline and church gathering. And and so I think that's useful uh for uh a two-part uh emphasis in Jesus' use of it first as a temple, which we know Matthew 16, uh and in Matthew's gospel, uh later Jesus says that he will uh the temple will be destroyed, but he will rebuild it in three days. And he was talking about the temple of his own body. I think there is a definitely a play on words there. Um there's a theologically, there's a rich connection that Jesus is saying, I will build my church, and that will start with the resurrection, the the restoration of his own body, and then the spirit's formation of the body of Christ in the church, uh, the great temple, you know, as Paul calls the church the temple of the Holy Spirit. So that's all in the Matthew 16, and that's what Pope is seeing here. And then, of course, uh Matthew 18, there's a more there's more focus on what the church is doing, what it does, what it what it uh looks like visibly, not so much spiritually, and that is you know the visible assembly assembly, right, where two or three are gathered in Christ's name, uh, gathering together in one place for the administration of his laws. And so that I think is he's referring to the the enforcement or the authority exercise of the keys that we see in Matthew 18, uh binding and loosing uh that's taking place in Matthew 18. Uh, that means that binding and loosing is the administration of the keys of the laws of Christ. And he says in those two passages, then we have a summary of the Savior's will concerning his future congregation. And by future congregation, he's meaning the church that is yet to be formed or birthed at Pentecost.
SPEAKER_02So I think the word build in Matthew 16, 18 is the key word that Pope is is drawing on here when he interprets this to be viewing the church as the great temple or house of prayer for all nations. Uh, because here we have Jesus, who is the king and who has been preaching and teaching about the kingdom, which you know, Pope has already said the advent of the kingdom is in his own person, saying, I will build. And the what the Davidic king does is build the temple, right? So when um Solomon, that was Solomon's task was to build the temple, and that's what marked him off as the promised Vedic offspring. And so Jesus is that the ultimate fulfillment of that. So what is he gonna do? He's gonna build the house, and this is gonna be a house that's not limited to one location, one ethnicity, one nationality, but it's gonna be this multinational, multi-ethnic people of God in which the Spirit of God uh dwells. And he has this cross-reference here to um to Mark uh 11 17, right where Jesus is teaching them and saying to them, Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it a den of robbers? So, you know, the the temple, uh, the physical temple building had been. Corrupted and Jesus here is anticipating that he is coming to establish his house as truly a house of prayer for all nations. And there's a hint there that um the Gentiles are going to be you know included in this in this body. So this is really emphasizing I will build my church, the Catholicity and the universality of the church, uh, and also you know, hints there of its of its invisibility, although you know already we see hints of visibility as well. Matthew 18 really brings into focus what it looks like for this reality to be manifested in a specific local congregation. So there's the emphasis here on visibility. And Pope's gonna go on here uh in his section on the attributes or notes of the church, 266, to talk about how the church is one and manifold, so forth, and it's gonna deal with the relationship between visible and invisible. But he sees here uh already all these major attributes or notes already being anticipated in those two statements of Christ. So I'm teaching a class on church and sacraments this fall, and I've actually been bouncing around the idea of what it would look like to put Pope's thesis to the test and spend the whole class on those two passages and see if everything that I think the New Testament teaches on the church can really be connected back to and drawn from those two passages because what it would it would be a it would be an exercise in theological reading that I think may have pretty pretty rich dividends.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, there is a lot there. I don't think that he is wrong. Um I I have never done that in-depth of a study of it. I have studied those passages uh fairly extensively, but not in the sort of comprehensive vision that he has here, uh that he gives. But uh I I have read enough to know that there are depths that uh theologians have have gone to just from those two passages, uh, even only from Matthew 18, 20, which is you know the well-known where two or three are gathered in in my name, there I will be in their midst. Uh, that is a profoundly deep line, you know, single line there that uh just has so many implications. Uh, I have seen uh lists of anywhere from six to ten uh theological principles drawn out just from that that line. And I and I definitely think that Pope is seeing uh that there is um a lot of depth there.
SPEAKER_02Just to make clear what I was saying when I said Pope's thesis, because I don't know that I really made that clear, he goes on. What we're referring to is at the end of this section, in section four there, he says the germs and principles of all that is to follow in this branch of theology are to be found in the gospels. Indeed, we may be more bold and say that nothing on this subject or any subject can go beyond the meaning of the Lord's own words. Yeah, he's basically saying there, if it's important to ecclesiology, you're gonna find it if only in germ form, in the words of Jesus, especially in Matthew.
SPEAKER_00So that's uh that's uh yes. So again, that's that is drawing from paragraph four on page two sixty-two, if you happen to be following along in the book. Now, going back to the end of section two, paragraph two, uh back on page two sixty-one, he says this. He says, No one can who considers this origin of the term will consent to allow it to be displaced by any other. Apparently, in uh you know, 1889, when the second edition uh was published, uh, you know, apparently there were churches that were calling themselves, you know, whatever, you know, fellowship or something of that nature. And he and he he comes pretty strongly. So he's having a sort of pastoral moment, uh, cultural, cultural uh philosopher moment there. Uh, I think that um is it it is important, and he what he's saying is uh how we name ourselves should not vary from how our savior named us. And it's again, it's not just in the letters, you know, C H U R S U R C H, but it's in the the meaning of ecclesia, it's in the meaning of what why did Christ take this word that was already in use in the Greek Roman culture uh that referred to just a any sort of civic gathering, why did he take that and apply it to his people? Well, he did so because of all of the history of the people of God being called out, uh called from their bondage and called to an assembly in his name. So there's a calling from and a calling to, and uh those aspects are are covered. I think he's saying that's what Matthew 16 and 18 uh encompass, uh the calling out and the calling to assemble.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I mean fellowship, right? Koinania, that's a theologically rich word. We're not saying that, but something more fundamental, the context in which that fellowship happens is the covenant assembly, you know, the ecclesia, which which also draws from the Old Testament, where the is it kahal uh is the word for the covenant assembly. And so you see, like in Stephen's uh speech in Acts 7 or his sermon, where he refers to the ecclesia in the wilderness, right? Church or the assembly in the wilderness. So this is the um this is the word of preeminence, and that's another thing our our church board discussed. You know, we're moving towards independence, and we have to discuss what is our church name going to be. And that's one of the things we we all were agreed upon. We want it to be church, not fellowship or whatever. We want to maintain the preeminence of that word. And uh as we see more and more independent churches, which may be a bad trend, but as we see it more and more independents forming, independent churches forming, uh, I think this is a point that's still very, very relevant today.
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