The perception that many Christians have of church membership is simply this, that the church they attend regularly is the church where they are members. They reason that it is enough to simply regularly attend and participate in the activities of a local church, and so why should one enter into a formal covenant with that local church? These essentially use the same rationale that many couples use in our time who live together, but see no reason for actually getting married, which involves the exchange of vows. “We love each other, who needs a piece of paper?” they say. What they’re really saying is that if this relationship becomes tiresome, or unattractive, they want a way out. The taking of a marriage vow would legally commit them to remain together “for better or for worse.” Certainly there is Scriptural evidence for divorce under certain extreme conditions, but at the same time, Jesus was not sanctioning some of the frivolous and selfish reasons that many Jewish husbands were using for the putting away of their wives. It all boils down to commitment.
Pastor Mark Dever has written, “All the statistics seem to point to our age being an age of ‘commitment-phobia.’ Commitment-phobia is the fear that in promising to do something good we will miss out on getting something even better. And so, although we see many good things we could be doing, we would rather just ‘keep our options open’… Church membership is our opportunity to grasp hold of each other in responsibility and love. By identifying ourselves with a particular church, we let pastors and other members of that local church know that we intend to be committed in attendance, giving, prayer and service. We allow fellow believers to have greater expectations of us in these areas, and we make it known that we are the responsibility of this local church. We assure the church of our commitment to Christ in serving them, and we call for their commitment to serve and encourage us as well.”
In all of the activities of the church at Jerusalem discussed above, we read that they were “continuing” in them. They were not only coming together, they were committed to one another as shown by their continuing with one another. A church covenant is a means of giving expression to the commitment that local church members make with one another before God. Ultimately, it is an expression of the believer’s covenantal relationship with God. During the course of new membership classes, I tell prospective members that covenanting with a local church is very similar to the covenantal vows of marriage. I remind them that many couples on the day of their marriage have no real idea of the “for better or for worse” part of their vows. They often are under the illusion that their marriage will somehow be free of all the difficulties and challenges other married couples encounter. But after a number of years, they eventually discover that marriage has its ups and downs, sometimes some big downs, and takes work, self-sacrifice, forgiving, and being forgiven. In short, it takes long-term commitment, and so too the local church.
The idea of comparing local church covenantal membership to the covenantal nature of marriage is the very way God describes His relationship to His people. Ezekiel, in describing God’s love for His chosen people Israel, wrote, “‘When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into covenant with you, and you became mine’ says the Lord God.” (16:8) God essentially declared that His everlasting jealous love for His people is like the love of a husband for His wife. To enter into covenantal membership with a local church, and to come together as God’s people is an outward picture of that relationship. Its an outward picture of why He sent His Son so that there would be a people raised up, called out of this world, who don’t behave like they’re part of the world anymore. Still in it, not out of it, but not of it anymore. They actually love one another in a self-sacrificing way. There’s a unity that one simply cannot find in the world. And that’s attractive. When Jesus prayed for the unity of His people, it was so “that the world may believe that You sent Me.” (John 17:21) The Lord’s Supper pictures that for us. In presiding over the first celebration of this supper, Jesus lifted the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” (1 Corinthians 11:25) That cup vividly represents to us the high and precious cost that was paid in order that we might come together in covenantal love.
As members of the body of Christ, we are to love what God loves. And what God loves is His blood-bought church. That is exactly what John meant when he wrote, “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us.” (1 John 3:16) And that was because of God’s covenantal love for the elect, His church. But John then added, “And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren,” and that is demonstrated by entering into the love-based covenantal commitment to our brothers and sisters in a local church environment.
Pastor Mark Dever has written, “All the statistics seem to point to our age being an age of ‘commitment-phobia.’ Commitment-phobia is the fear that in promising to do something good we will miss out on getting something even better. And so, although we see many good things we could be doing, we would rather just ‘keep our options open’… Church membership is our opportunity to grasp hold of each other in responsibility and love. By identifying ourselves with a particular church, we let pastors and other members of that local church know that we intend to be committed in attendance, giving, prayer and service. We allow fellow believers to have greater expectations of us in these areas, and we make it known that we are the responsibility of this local church. We assure the church of our commitment to Christ in serving them, and we call for their commitment to serve and encourage us as well.”
In all of the activities of the church at Jerusalem discussed above, we read that they were “continuing” in them. They were not only coming together, they were committed to one another as shown by their continuing with one another. A church covenant is a means of giving expression to the commitment that local church members make with one another before God. Ultimately, it is an expression of the believer’s covenantal relationship with God. During the course of new membership classes, I tell prospective members that covenanting with a local church is very similar to the covenantal vows of marriage. I remind them that many couples on the day of their marriage have no real idea of the “for better or for worse” part of their vows. They often are under the illusion that their marriage will somehow be free of all the difficulties and challenges other married couples encounter. But after a number of years, they eventually discover that marriage has its ups and downs, sometimes some big downs, and takes work, self-sacrifice, forgiving, and being forgiven. In short, it takes long-term commitment, and so too the local church.
The idea of comparing local church covenantal membership to the covenantal nature of marriage is the very way God describes His relationship to His people. Ezekiel, in describing God’s love for His chosen people Israel, wrote, “‘When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into covenant with you, and you became mine’ says the Lord God.” (16:8) God essentially declared that His everlasting jealous love for His people is like the love of a husband for His wife. To enter into covenantal membership with a local church, and to come together as God’s people is an outward picture of that relationship. Its an outward picture of why He sent His Son so that there would be a people raised up, called out of this world, who don’t behave like they’re part of the world anymore. Still in it, not out of it, but not of it anymore. They actually love one another in a self-sacrificing way. There’s a unity that one simply cannot find in the world. And that’s attractive. When Jesus prayed for the unity of His people, it was so “that the world may believe that You sent Me.” (John 17:21) The Lord’s Supper pictures that for us. In presiding over the first celebration of this supper, Jesus lifted the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” (1 Corinthians 11:25) That cup vividly represents to us the high and precious cost that was paid in order that we might come together in covenantal love.
As members of the body of Christ, we are to love what God loves. And what God loves is His blood-bought church. That is exactly what John meant when he wrote, “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us.” (1 John 3:16) And that was because of God’s covenantal love for the elect, His church. But John then added, “And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren,” and that is demonstrated by entering into the love-based covenantal commitment to our brothers and sisters in a local church environment.