EPC interested in pursuing possible alignment with New Wineskins churches, stated clerk says
By Craig M. Kibler, February 9, 2007
ORLANDO, Fla. – The stated clerk of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church assured participants in the New Wineskins Association of Churches’ convocation Thursday that his denomination is pursuing a possible realignment to accommodate New Wineskins churches that disaffiliate from the Presbyterian Church (USA).
“We are interested in you and we want to pursue the possibility,” said the Rev. Dr. Jeffrey J. Jeremiah, “because we believe Christ is working and moving in you and he is working and moving in us.”
Jeremiah was elected stated clerk in September 2006 after serving 26 years as a pastor, most recently at First Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Renton, Wash. To great applause, he told more than 500 people crowded into the sanctuary at First Presbyterian Church that, “Where the action is in our denomination is not in the General Assembly office.”
The old role of the stated clerk’s office, he said, was “oversight and leadership of the General Assembly office.” Now, Jeremiah said, that is his third priority. “And the operation of the office has not collapsed. We have a great staff in place.”
His second priority, he said, is to “represent the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in the United States and the world. We recognize that the spirit of God is moving in dramatic, life-changing and historic ways throughout the world. The Evangelical Presbyterian Church is committed to doing all we can to be a part of that great work.”
Jeremiah said his first priority is to “cast and mold a new vision that God has for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in the 21st century – a church that is missional in outlook.”
The work of the General Assembly office, he said, is to serve the local church. The work of the presbyteries is to serve the local church. “All this is to say,” he said, “is that there is a cultural shift where God is working in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. I am excited and energized by this new era” in the denomination.
Jeremiah then compared the “Declaration of Ethical Imperatives” previously approved by delegates to the New Wineskins convocation with his denomination. Those 13 imperatives begin with this verse from John 14:23: “Jesus said, ‘If anyone loves me he will obey my commands.'”
The Evangelical Presbyterian Church “does not have a document such as” this one, he said. “When I read it, it strikes me this way. First, we are committed to thinking in a Biblical way. What does the Word of God have to say to us? This is very similar.”
“Secondly, we are thinking confessionally,” Jeremiah said, citing the Westminster Confession of Faith as the confessional document in his denomination.
Third, he said, “we are thinking constitutionally – but faithful to God’s Word. The confessions and the constitution are always subordinate to the Word of God. Our commitment is to be consistent with the Biblical faith.”
Jeremiah then discussed the New Wineskins’ ethical imperatives 1-6. They are:
- 1. Genuine Christian faith is more than mere assent to propositions of truth. Saving faith issues forth in an ethical life: a life of love, obedience and holiness.
- 2. Christian ethics are grounded in the character of God the Father. Neither an abstract formulation nor an arbitrary rule of conduct, our ethical standard is nothing less than likeness to the holy God whom we love and serve.
- 3. As Jesus is the Divine Exemplar, “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3), his life of love and self-sacrifice becomes the pattern for our own. The follower of Christ is called to conform to the character of Christ.
- 4. As the Holy Spirit is the Divine Counselor, sent by the Son from the Father to convict of sin (John 16:8-11) and to guide into truth (John 16:13-15), his presence empowers us for transformed living. It is the work of the Spirit to transform us into the character of Christ.
- 5. We also confess that we are incapable of meriting the love of God through any effort of our own. Right standing before God is his gift apart from any holiness, love or obedience that may be present in our lives. The ethical life is the fruit of, not the basis of, our reconciliation with God through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
- 6. We likewise confess that we are incapable of producing holiness in ourselves. Holy living is possible only as we cooperate with the transforming work of God’s Spirit within us. The ethical life is God living his life through us by his Spirit.
These imperatives, he said, are about the “sanctification of the believer in Jesus Christ. They speak to God’s vision of how we are to live.” Jeremiah quoted from Romans 8:29:
- For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
“Imagine,” he said, “that we could be conformed to the likeness of God’s own Son,” then cited 2 Corinthians 3:18: “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
Chapter 13 of the Westminster Confession, Jeremiah said, “speaks to sanctification, particularly in section 1. It interacts beautifully with what you’re stating here.”
He then discussed the ethical imperatives 7-10, which are:
7. Ethical living involves more than mere avoidance of wrongdoing. We are called not only to shun what is hurtful and wrong, but also to seek what is good and right. The moral life is one that vigorously pursues the good.
8. The parameters within which God desires us to live as his children have been lovingly revealed for us in the Scriptures.
9. The Scriptures define the good we are called to pursue. Prescriptive, ethical standards for Christian conduct, grounded in the covenant with Moses (Exodus 20:1-17) were summarized positively by Jesus in the Great Commandments:
- “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ Here is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” Matthew 22:37-38
10. The Scriptures also define the sin we are called to avoid. Prescriptive guidelines for Christian conduct, grounded in the covenant with Noah (Genesis 9:1-17), were summarized negatively by the Jerusalem council in its guidance to the Gentile church:
- “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything but the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.” Acts 15:28-29
These categories of prohibitions suggest useful boundaries for Christian behavior in all times and circumstances. In order to honor God, we discourage one another from the following sins:
IDOLATRY
Love of God requires that the Lord alone be adored and worshipped. We reject the worship of anything other than God, including: work; wealth; health; success; progress; family; race; nation; political ideologies; economic systems; religious institutions and structures.
We reject the practice of tolerance that refuses to discriminate between good and evil, and of embracing sin in the name of diversity. We reject those forms of pluralism and syncretism that misrepresent God as revealed in Scripture.
SEXUAL IMMORALITY
Love of neighbor requires that the sanctity of marriage be honored. The Lord our God is the source of our sexuality, which is to be cherished and expressed in the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman. All other sexual interaction falls outside of this Biblical norm.
We reject such practices as premarital and extramarital intercourse, homosexuality, bisexuality, adultery, polygamy, pornography, sexual objectification, predatory behavior and abuse.
BLOODSHED
Love of neighbor also requires that the sanctity of life be honored. The Lord is the author and giver of life. We affirm all human life to be sacred to God. We, therefore, reject all practices in which life is diminished, demeaned or indiscriminately destroyed. Abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, domestic violence, oppression, acts of revenge, unjust wars are symptoms of an ethos of death that repudiates God’s culture of life. So, too, are destructive speech, unforgiveness, treating people as objects, and all unjust partiality against persons based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender or social class.
We confess these behaviors to be sin, and urge our brothers and sisters in Christ to flee from these and other forms of disobedience.
These imperatives, Jeremiah said, “focus on ethics and the Christian life, and we certainly resonate with the Scriptures you cite there.” He then cited Galatians 5:19-26:
- “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
- “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
He said the 13th chapter of the Westminster Confession, “and especially section 3,” is most important in this regard.
Jeremiah said that, across the years, position papers and pastoral letters in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church have spoken to the issues of idolatry, sexual immorality and bloodshed. “Certainly,” he said, “as we interact with God’s Word and look at what the confessions tell us, we are on the same wavelength.”
Ethical imperative 11, Jeremiah said, “speaks to discipline.” It states:
11. Embracing the power of God’s love to overcome sin’s mastery and to heal sin’s wounds, we affirm a grace-filled, redemptive approach to discipline and restoration, one that leads to repentance, forgiveness and wholeness in Christ for those who fall prey to the idolatries and perversions of our age.
“When the idea of discipline comes up,” he said, ” I look at the issue within the context of the marks of the church.”
John Calvin had two principal marks of the church, as cited in his Institutes on the Christian Religion: “Wherever we see the word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists.”
The Scots Confession, the oldest Reformed confession in the Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church (USA), added a third mark: “Ecclesiastical discipline uprightly administered, as God’s Word prescribes, whereby vice is repressed and virtue nourished.”
“The challenge before us,” Jeremiah said in regard to discipline issues, “is whether we are really the church of Jesus Christ.”
The goal of discipline, he said, is in Matthew 18:15-19, which states:
- “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
- “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
- “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.”
The first goal of Biblical discipline, Jeremiah said, is “restoration and reconciliation,” which he repeated three times.
“Our Book of Discipline,” he said, “works. It feels cumbersome, but I’ve concluded that that’s a good thing in a disciplinary situation because it slows things down. It gives you the opportunity to go to that person and offer hope for restoration and reconciliation.”
Ethical imperative 12, Jeremiah said, “speaks to marriage and the responsibility of leaders in the church.” That imperative states:
12. Honoring God, marriage and life is a high standard of Christian discipleship, one for which we need and receive grace. While this is the standard for all the people of God, it is a requirement for leadership in the church.
Ordination vow 10 in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church’s Book of Order addresses this issue, he said. That section states:
- Will you seek to be faithful and diligent in the exercise of all your duties as a Christian and a Minister of the Gospel, whether personal or relative, private or public; and to endeavor by the grace of God to adorn the profession of the Gospel in your manner of life, and to walk with exemplary piety before the flock of which God shall make you overseer?
Ethical imperative 13, Jeremiah said, “speaks to freedom and accountability.” It states:
13. While we believe these ethical principles are universally binding, we also recognize that some may experience misgivings concerning some particular application or implication of these ethical imperatives that is not directly addressed in the Scriptures. It is expected that such scruples will be dealt with within the bounds of freedom and structures of accountability established by the covenant community.
“We certainly affirm this with you,” he said, adding that chapter 20 in the Westminster Confession of Faith addresses this issue.
“We understand that freedom is not absolute, not limitless,” Jeremiah said, “but exercised within the parameters of the Word of God.”
Craig M. Kibler is the Director of Publications for the Presbyterian Lay Committee and Executive Editor of The Layman and The Layman Online. He can be reached at cmkibler@layman.org.