The whole point of the discussion of the “marks of the church” is to help ordinary people make judgments about the church–especially which one they ought to attend. Thus there are three things which should be present: 1). The pure preaching of the gospel 2). The pure administration of the sacraments 3). The practice of church discipline.
Reformed Confessional Teaching on the “Marks of the Church”
The discussion of the marks of a true church is important—especially in our day and age—because of the competing claims of various religious bodies and organizations to be “Christ’s church.” There are a myriad of churches who make such a claim–some associated with recognizable church bodies. Other groups who identify themselves as “churches” are more the product of the American entrepreneurial spirit, possess a trendy name, and an undefinable identity. They see themselves as radical and relevant, not stale and stuffy.
Reformed theologians have understood the marks of the church to be an especially important matter since multiple church bodies claim to be the only (or the true) church, yet their various claims are questionable in terms of biblical teaching and doctrine. This raises the question under discussion here: “how do we distinguish valid claims to be a true church from invalid claims?”
Louis Berkhof points out that there was not much of a need to consider the marks of the church when it was clearly one (i.e., during the apostolic church), but after heresies arose it became increasingly necessary to speak in the terms of a true/false, biblical/unbiblical dichotomy of any assembly of people professing to be Christians and followers of Jesus. Responding to heresies requires a response and doctrinal explanation. Oftentimes these explanations lead to further division.[1]
James Bannerman, a minister in the Free Church of Scotland, puts the matter well in his highly regarded book The Church of Christ (1869).
In the case of a number of organized societies, no less widely differing from each other in profession and in practice, in the confession of faith that they own, and the form of order and government they adopt, yet all of them claiming in common to be called Churches of Christ, and not a few of them denying that name to any body but their own, there must be some criterion or test by which to discriminate amid such opposite and conflicting pretensions . . . [2]
In our time, the traditional marks which were thought to identify the “true church” have been eclipsed by pragmatic, and experiential “marks.” Many now understand a church’s size, how they felt and what they experienced, a charismatic, celebrity preacher, and the church’s social media presence, along with a menu of activities as indicators of places where “God is working.” The category of a “true church” is long forgotten or ignored as a sectarian relic of the past.
The Belgic Confession (1561)
The longest statement on the question of the “marks of the church” in the commonly used Reformed standards is The Belgic Confession, Article 29. The article on the marks of the church makes clear the occasion for the questions: “What is the true church?” “How do we find it?” “What do we look for?”
To start with, the Belgic Confession (BC) clarifies that this is not a question about hypocrites within the church, but rather about how to distinguish among Christians assemblies which make competing claims to be “the church.” Then the BC lists three marks that give assurance of recognizing “the true church”
1). The pure preaching of the gospel
2). The pure administration of the sacraments
3). The practice of church discipline
After a brief discussion of the marks of true Christians who belong to this church (something not to be overlooked), the BC moves on to describe “the false church,” which manifests the following three characteristics:
1). The false church assigns more authority to itself than to the Word of God, and does not subject itself to the yoke of Christ
2). The false church does not administer the sacraments as commanded in the Word, but adds to or subtracts from them
3). The false church rebukes those who live holy lives and rebukes the true church
The last statement is striking: these “two churches” are easy to recognize and distinguish. This was true at the time the BC was written (1561), because the author knew only of the Roman Catholic, Reformed, Lutheran, and Anabaptist churches, a matter which is far more complicated now.
The Heidelberg Catechism (1563)
The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) does not address this issue explicitly, but Q&A 83 of the catechism calls preaching the gospel and discipline the keys of the kingdom
Q 83: What are the keys of the kingdom?
A. The preaching of the holy gospel and Christian discipline toward repentance. Both of them open the kingdom of heaven to believers and close it to unbelievers.
The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647)
The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) chapter 25 approaches the subject somewhat differently from the BC.
CHAPTER 25 – Of the Church
1. The catholic or universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.
2. The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.