Some Words of Wisdom from Iain Murray

While studying church government, I came across a transcript from an address given by Iain Murray on the topic of "Eldership".  It can be read in its entirety by clicking HERE.  The following are a few excerpts that are worthy of reading (if one doesn't feel compelled to read the entire article).

As a second reason for taking up the subject let me suggest that a measure of uncertainty, such as I have personally experienced, may not be altogether a bad thing. It is written of Dr. George Matheson, the last-century Scottish preacher and hymn-writer, that when he was young, 'He was confident that he could establish the intellectual coherence of religious and scientific truth . . . But as time went on he seemed to lose his confidence'.  The consequence, we trust, was that the author of 'O Love that wilt not let me go' became a humbler Christian. Similarly, some of us were once too ready to think that we could resolve all questions of church order and government. Uncertainty, with humility of mind, is better for us than a wrong dogmatism. For anyone to be hesitant when Scripture is definite is a sin. But we have also to recognize the danger that we may be definite when Scripture itself allows a greater latitude of opinion or practice than we are prepared to do.

Murray then outlines the three different biblical understandings of New Testament eldership.and concludes by stating:

These, then, are the three best-known views. As we review them, there is one thing which can be said with certainty, we will never resolve which is right simply by reading the theological authorities and taking our side with the majority or the most orthodox. The truth is that some of the best-known names in the reformed churches to go no further will be found on opposing sides. There is no consensus. Even William Cunningham, commonly regarded as one of the clearest champions of 'divine right' Presbyterianism, could write to Charles Hodge:

I have never been able to make up my mind fully as to the precise grounds on which the office and functions of the ruling elder ought to be maintained and defended. For some time before I went to America I had come to lean pretty strongly to the view that all ecclesiastical office-bearers were presbyters, and that there were sufficiently clear indications in Scripture that there were two distinct classes of those presbyrers, viz, ministers and ruling elders; though not insensible to the difficulty attaching to this theory from the consideration that it fairly implies that wherever presbyters or bishops are spoken of in Scripture ruling elders are included. I have been a good deal shaken in my attachment to this theory by the views I have heard from you, but I have not yet been able to abandon it entirely.

If men of Cunningham's calibre were uncertain, it can surely only mean that each of the three views I have outlined has its own point of weakness.

He ends the address with a several General Observations.  The following are those which seem of the highest importance for men leading churches to consider:

We have covered enough ground to establish at least one thing clearly: the question of the eldership is by no means straightforward. The subject has been handled by a number of the most eminent teachers of the Church including Calvin, Owen, Thornwell, Hodge to name a few and none is decisive in establishing a clear scriptural case. They are all unconvincing at certain points and sometimes they are inconsistent in the very views they advance.

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It has to be remembered that a great deal of the zeal manifested in the seventeenth century to establish uniformity in church government was driven by the belief that without it churches would be in a state of schism. But if Christ has imposed no one, unvarying form of government, and if schism is not a matter of external conformity, then that belief was a noble mistake. As A. A. Hodge writes:

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If the church be an external society, then all deviation from that society is of the nature of schism; but if the Church be in its essence a great spiritual body, constituted by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost through all the ages and nations, uniting all to Christ, and if its organization is only accidental and temporary, and subject to change and variation, then deviation of organization, unless touched by the spirit of schism, is not detrimental to the Church . . . All claims that our Church is the one Church and only Church, are of the essence of schism; all pride and bigotry are of the essence of schism; all want of universal love, all jealousy, and all attempts to take advantage of others in controversy or in Church extension, are of the essence of schism.

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This does not mean that matters of church government can be treated as unimportant. But it does warn us that all over-vigorous dogmatism, and all 'ultraism' for one 'orthodox' position on points of order, are more likely to distract churches with controversy than to do lasting good. In the winning of souls to Christ Scripture commends a higher duty to us. The supreme need is to see men and women belonging by faith to Christ himself and thus being united to the church which is 'the heavenly Jerusalem'. Apart from this, as Owen says, 'All contests about church-order . . . are vain, empty, fruitless.' 'If this only true notion of the catholic church were received, as it ought to be, it would cast contempt on all those contests about the church, or churches, which at this day so perplex the world. He who is first instated, by faith on the person and mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ, in this heavenly society, will be guided by the light and privileges of it into such ways of divine worship in churches here below as shall cause him to improve and grow in his interest in that above.

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We should not deduce from this that it is not worth struggling about questions of church order neither Owen nor the Haldanes believed that but our endeavours should ever be moderated by the consciousness that much imperfection and some uncertainties belong to the order of all churches. So Calvin, while preaching on the eldership, could say: 'There is yet a great distance between us, and the order that was practised in the apostles time. And therefore let us pray God to confirm us, that he bring things to a better pass . . . seeing we are not only not in the middest way, but to speak truth have scarce begun.'

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It may surely be that one reason why God has permitted difficulties with the subject we have discussed, as with other subjects, is that we might have further cause to learn humility. 'While we wrangle here in the dark,' writes Baxter, 'we are dying and passing to the world that will decide all our controversies; and the safest passage thither is by peaceable holiness'.