John Frame on Church Denominations

As I continue to grapple with the decisions made at May's General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, I was challenged by John Frame's Evangelical Reunion which I found online here.

Which evangelical in the Church of Scotland would not be heartened and challenged by some of what Frame has to say?

For example, in chapter three, "Towards a Post-denominational Ecclesiology," Frame draws sharp distinctions between the biblical concept of the Church and the man-made concept of the Denomination in four ways mentioned in the Nicene Creed.

1. The Church is one; denominations are many.
2. The Church is holy; denominations per se are not "set apart" by God as his people.
3. The Church is catholic or universal; denominations - even Rome - are restricted.
4. The Church is apostolic; denominations are only so in so far as they are built on the apostolic foundation.

He also maintains that only Christ's church and the officers he has called have authority over the people of God. Denominations only ever have some kind of derived authority in so far as they are congruent with the Church; they have no authority over God's people, nor are God's people called to be loyal to denominations, except where they act as God's Church - in obedience to God's word.

Similarly Frame doubts that modern denominations can claim the New Testament promises of all the gifts that are granted to the Church. This is evidenced by the fact that not all denominations are fully equipped in the gifts of the Holy Spirit: some have better teachers than others, some have better leadership than others, some have better evangelists than others. The Church on the other hand, has all the Spirit's gifts granted to it (Ephesians 4:12; Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12).

Frame then goes on to say a series of remarkable statements that made me raise my eyebrows, especially when read in light of recent events (I quote them in full):

We owe to our fellow Christians a special love ("love of the brethren," I Pet. 1:22; cf. I John 2:10, 3:10ff, 4:20f), a special care, which takes precedence over our duty to help unbelievers (Gal. 6:10). Is there a special love that we owe only to members of our own denominations and not to other Christians? To ask such a question is virtually to answer it negatively. But we often act as if it were true. Yes, there are legitimate obligations which we incur to our denominations in our membership vows. And we tend to form our closest friendships within our denominations, and friendships make legitimate claims on our affections. But the Christian Philadelphia, brotherly love, is for the church, not for one denomination above another.

These comparisons should indicate to us that there are great differences between the church and the denominations: differences in oneness, holiness, universality, apostolicity, power, foundation, authority, gifts, love. Yet it seems that in the ecclesiological literature and in our usual thinking and speaking we tend to equate the church with the denominations. When Jesus says that the gates of Hell shall never prevail against the church, preachers routinely apply that text to the Free-Will Baptist Church or whatever denomination they may belong to. That is bad exegesis and bad preaching.

We need an ecclesiology that makes some careful distinctions between the attributes, powers and gifts of the church, on the one hand, and those of particular denominations, on the other. We should not any longer develop doctrines of the church which are written as if the schisms had never taken place, or as if we were all still living before 451.

When someone seeks to stir up in us passions of denominational loyalty, then, by pointing to Scripture's very high view of the church, we must raise questions. The church is a wonderful thing, deserving our deepest loyalty. It is that for which Jesus shed his own blood. But denominations are another thing altogether. I am not saying that we owe no loyalty to our denominations. I am saying that our loyalty to our denominations must be tempered by the understanding that these organizations are the result of sin, inadequate human substitutes for the God-given order of the one, true church. Somewhere in each of our hearts ought to be the conviction that denominations should work, not to their own glorification, but to their own extinction.

He concludes the chapter with these words, equally applicable in Scotland today as in the United States where Frame is writing from:

"We are in a post-denominational age, and we must apply the scriptures to the times in which we are living, not to a time that is long past. It is not easy to find the precise continuities and discontinuities between the church and the denominations. But we must be willing to take up that task."

The question for us in Scotland - not just in the Church of Scotland but in all the Churches in Scotland - is are we willing to see the Body of Christ is more, much more than our denomination, and see it not just in theory but in daily practice too?