Marks of a Church

Lots of Marks

I was looking for a book on my shelves a while back and found, among the Baptist books, a Louis L'amour Hopalong Cassidy novel. I don't know what Hopalong's religious affiliation was, or his stance on the church, so I took it off the shelf and when I removed the Western, I joined two other books together in the process.

The one was JR Graves book, Old Landmarkism and a newer book by Mark Dever, 9 Marks of a Healthy Church. Since it had been a while since I read either of them, I took the pair down and started to skim. Dever's book talks about church health, and while I don't agree with all his marks, his concern is whether or not a church is healthy, is an important topic.

The Bible makes clear that scriptural churches can be unhealthy. Revelation 3:1-2, “And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.” Being on the verge of death is very unhealthy. And, it appears the issue at Sardis didn’t have anything to do with a particular doctrinal error, but practice. How they were living was killing the church.

I turned to Graves and noticed, he also had “marks” of the church, only his were 7 marks of a scriptural church. Is the church local and independent, does the church practice scriptural baptize, etc.

I chuckled at first, thinking about how unlikely a pair Graves and Dever would be and how they both had the “marks” in their book and now would have to dwell side by side on my shelf. I continued to consider the juxtaposition of their views on the church. Dever's book assumes that all assemblies and groups that claim to be a church, are a church, and the most important thing is to be in a healthy church. I know this because men of various denominations have blurbs on the back of my edition of the book. Graves makes no such assumption because there are clear identifying marks or requirements that an organization must have to be a church to start with.

Yes, a scriptural church can be unhealthy, but an unscriptural church will never be a healthy church. Sprinkling will never be baptism. Sacraments will never confer grace. And no matter how well functioning the assembly, no matter how good the preaching, or the style of preaching, or how concerned the assembly is for souls, if you are not scriptural, you are not healthy. Many organizations that call themselves churches of the Lord Jesus Christ do not bear the marks of a scriptural church.

Actually, I don't think it is one or the other. I think you should first desire to be a scriptural church and then work towards being a "healthy" church.