Matthew 16:13-23
As he is about to leave his disciples, Jesus says to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Then he gives them a certain authority with regards to his message, “Go therefore into all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
Here is the fundamental calling of the church, a calling in which God charges the overseers of his church with his body, a body that includes literal bodies. Why is that important? While the civil magistrate is given the sword of vengeance and so has authority over bodies according to one aspect (particularly in relation to violence toward person and property (Romans 13)) the church is given the word and sacrament. God sanctions ecclesiastical authority over bodies in another aspect, different than that of the civil magistrate (particularly the administration of reconciliation).
I argue that the church failed to exercise the authority God gave her if she complied with the recent lockdowns. I speak generally; there are many factors, including the severity of the lockdowns, level of compliance, and our place in the particular ecclesiastical and social orders we happen to inhabit. These all complicate things and give a reason for caution against over-generalization.
My purpose in arguing this is not to go through the past and rehash what action was right and what was wrong, but instead to provide a firm foundation for moving forward. I believe that the church has grown lazy in her primary calling before Christ to preach the word and administer the sacraments, to labor in the work of reconciling all things to Christ.
There is a reason that God sent Covid. Through the experience, I’ve seen my movement toward a greater determination to defend and expand the kingdom of God; this Theopolitan order is itself a result of this.
I want to bring out two truths that should ground any decision concerning the worship of the church. Both realities were often undervalued or even forgotten in the decision-making process of the church. These are Christ’s gift of the keys of the kingdom to the church and Holy War. They are intricately connected; For Jesus brings them together in Matthew 16. The church has the keys in order to combat the gates of hell.
“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” In the reformed tradition especially, these keys are interpreted as the preaching of gospel and church discipline. Although we don’t see this explicitly, it is a reasonable deduction from the words of Jesus in Matthew 16 and 18.
In Matthew 16, this work of binding and loosing is given in the context of the Peter’s confession of the Christ. Peter has just proclaimed that Jesus is the Christ, the son of living God. He is the anointed one for whom the Old Testament church is hoping. It is in that proclamation, in preaching Christ, that the church opens the doors of the kingdom to the believer.
In Matthew 18, the language of binding and loosing is given in the context of removing the unrepentant sinner from the fellowship of Christ. If the sinner does not repent, the church has the authority to remove the sinner from the fellowship of Christ, which physically manifests itself in removing the body of the said person from the table of Christ.
It’s not hard to see the connection to the authority that Jesus gives to the church in Matthew 28, “Disciple the nations,” “Baptize,” and “teach.” This work that Jesus calls the apostles to is what the Apostle Paul calls the ministry of reconciliation, calling more and more men to the path of the Spirit, which leads to Christ and the Father.
Within the church, God entrusts these keys to the officers of the church. They are to see that they are faithfully carried out from day to day, from week to week, through the preaching of the word and the sacraments.
It is essential to see that this call is entirely distinct from the call to the civil magistrate. The source of the church’s authority is direct from Christ himself, even as the civil magistrate himself is direct from Christ himself. The language of spheres is somewhat unhelpful here because these points of authority certainly do overlap. And they overlap in terms of bodies as well.
This means that they are bound to come into conflict at the best of times, when the civil magistrate claims allegiance to Christ, just as the church does. They will certainly come into conflict when the civil magistrate does not recognize the church and even seeks to undermine the ministry of the church.
And when they come into conflict, we, as the church, especially if we are officers of the church, must remember our calling before God. It’s easy to point fingers at the ministry of vengeance and note their failures. Let us begin with the household of God. Just because the world is paused does not mean the ministry of reconciliation must pause. As we will see, in moments of judgment, we must all the more dedicate ourselves to the ministry of reconciliation.
Look at Jesus and Paul. They were single-minded in fulfilling their ministry. I particularly think of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 4, “To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.” This is what Paul did for the sake of the gospel. What moved him was the promise that Christ was reconciling all things to himself, and Paul was a tool for the sake of that hope.
Compare that to the relatively minor inconveniences we may have experienced if we had even some of the dedication of Paul.
But why? Why do we need such a fire for the work of God? The civil magistrate isn’t explicitly targeting churches at this point? For the sake of argument, let us grant this. However, we are at war with the gates of hell. The devouring, roaring lion, Satan isn’t going to take a break during a pandemic, and neither should we. We are in a holy war against the principalities and powers of this age. This is Paul’s perspective: as he wastes away in prison, he speaks to the Ephesians, “Put on the full armor of God.” And “put it on with prayer.” To dress for the battle, we need the worship of God.
The righteous man shall live by faith. It is particularly in the moment of crisis, in the moment of judgment that the people of God must gather to recommit themselves to him.
Worship is warfare. It is the shouting of the people of God in worship that brings down the walls of Jericho. It is the singing of the people of God that strengthens the people of God to bring down the foreign armies that attack Jehoshaphat. The corporate worship of God strengthens them against their demons, and for us, God strengthens us against the lies and ideologies that have a hold on our age.
Worship is the weapon God has given us; through prayer, through scripture, through the sacrament, we dress for battle so that we might willingly sacrifice ourselves for the sake of God and one another.
It is worship that is the center of this holy war. It isn’t court battles or protests. It begins with coming together to confess what Peter confessed. “On this rock,” which I understand as Peter’s confession,” I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” The church is tasked with attacking these gates of hell, and they cannot ultimately stand.
Unless of course, the world convinces them to put aside their weapons. That’s what Peter was doing by calling Jesus from his task of going to the cross, “Put aside your weapon of making yourself a sacrifice of praise, instead use worldly means to promote the kingdom.” In communion, the church participates in that sacrifice. Satan would like nothing better than for us to put that weapon aside.
I don’t think it is just happenstance the passage of Bill C-6 and Bill C-7 happened alongside the closure of the churches. Perhaps it would have happened anyway because we are not faithful in fighting holy war in our worship. Maybe God shut down the churches to show how useless our worship is. Perhaps the more conservative-minded were pushing to worship out of pride and self-righteousness and not out of the honor of God and love of neighbor. Perhaps this was necessary for the church. In each case, we find the strength to stand against this, again, in corporate worship. The answer in all these scenarios is the same, “repent and worship God calls you too.”
There was an interesting article that went around Facebook from a fellow named Jonathan Von Maren. He was arguing that the church should prioritize the obvious attacks on family and gender, not the Covid-19 Lockdowns, which were not directed against the church. He missed this very important point. The civil magistrate was calling the church to lay down her worship warfare at the very moment she was most under attack. Political realities cannot take precedence over the call of the church to the work of reconciliation with God.
The truth that we have the command to administer the work of reconciliation straight from our Lord Jesus Christ and the truth that we are involved in a holy war for the sake of the kingdom of our Lord does allow for a variety of responses on the part of the church. I am not one of those who says we may never shut down church for a week or two. I don’t pretend to have figured out the best answer myself. Personally, I don’t trust our legal process, so while I am happy that churches have used that, I don’t put a lot of hope in that struggle. Personally, I don’t believe that direct resistance is wise as in the cases of James Coates and Aaron Rock, yet I do not condemn it. But neither should the church simply comply with the lockdown. I know there are many different situations and vulnerabilities, but I encourage you, as much as possible, to find a way to worship corporately.
We must resist, not through violence and cursing, but through the good work of worshipping God.
