Pseudorthodoxy

The Church exists to serve the Gospel. That is the point. The church exists to make known the forgiveness of sins. Everything else the church might do, or is even supposed to do is worthless if it isn’t serving the gospel. And by serving the gospel I mean delivering it the way a waitress serves food. Everything needs to focus on that, for as Paul says “ For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor. 9:16 (ESV).
And so the Gospel needs be the focus of the pastors life. Everything he does and doesn’t do in the office of pastor, his study, his conduct, his speech, as well as his sermons and administration of the Sacraments needs to keep this in focus. Where it doesn’t happen the church is dead, and no longer orthodox. All orthodox churches live by the gospel. But there is a tendency for a pseudo orthodoxy that is just as dead, as any liberal or fundamentalist church. And it is painful to watch, painful to see.
I remember a Sem. Prof say that the reason Jesus had such a hard time with the Pharisees, wasn’t so much because they were wrong, but so close to the truth and yet still wrong. They had the law right, but they missed the gospel that was supposed to govern it in the Christian’s life, the Pharisees being members of Israel, being “proto” Christians. Gospel not law should govern.
I mean by that, not that we ignore the law, not by any means. If love is the fulfillment of the law, even as it is an expression of faith, than the Christian will never ignore the law and claim that this is love. Rather the Christian will love by paying attention to the law, yet with the intention of sharing forgiveness, serving the gospel, and thereby bringing others to have the same confidence in the salvation of Christ as the Christian himself does.
Christians know that they are saved, that it has been done for them already, and nothing can snatch them out of the hands of God. They are governed by a spirit of peace in this knowledge, a peace that surpasses all understanding and not a spirit of fear, rather power, love, and self-control (2 Timothy 1:7, and note this most specifically addresses a pastor.) A Christian lives knowing that the Sabbath was made for man, not the man for the Sabbath.
And that is the problem with psuedorthodoxy that is dead. It isn’t so much that the pastor “guards the rail” or that the pastor champions doctrinal purity etc. Orthodox pastors will do the same. But it is the reason behind it. No pastors aren’t around to tickle the ears of the masses, neither are they supposed to be trying to earn their salvation by grabbing at the red badge of stupidity, masked as courage for the gospel. Guarding the rail shouldn’t become some sort of contest to see who can do it better than another pastor. It is a weighty thing to turn one away from the supper, to excommunicate an individual, or put him or her under the “minor” ban. There is a factor in there, no matter how you cut it, that by doing this you are denying an individual the forgiveness of sins, and in some part the grace of God. That is if one really believes that the Lord’s Supper is a means of Grace. So even the admonitions that you find in the New Testament regarding the Lord’s Supper, that it is a two edged sword that can bring grace and healing or condemnation, and therefore the rail ought to be guarded, needs to have the gospel as its focus. We guard the rail, not out of love for ourselves, our desire to be known as orthodox, or to earn some crown of glory. That sort of thing is a practicing of righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. And it stinks the same stink as all self-righteousness. The goal is to preserve the gospel for that person. Communion is a double edged sword, it can bring condemnation. It can harden a person in their sin. And every pastor that has been around for more than a year, can see the ugly results of that. We just can’t look into a person’s heart, and no matter how much we admonish them to examine themselves there is no stopping them from taking the Lord’s Supper in a frivolous manner. The Pastor can only be held responsible for instruction, and even that has to be forgiven by Christ if the pastor is to be saved. Yes the gospel needs be applied to pastors also.
When a pastor begins to fear his own salvation based on how well he proves himself trustworthy as a steward of the mysteries of God, then legalism and psuedorthodoxy have taken over. Orthodoxy hears the admonitions of Paul that there are certain people we should not even eat with if they call themselves brothers. Pastors know that. We know that the altar rail cannot be opened to everyone, that we need to be pastors to those that commune at our rails, and that means being concerned for their welfare. The Lord’s Supper cannot be a cattle call to the food troughs. People need to be baptized and instructed, they should be taught what it is before they commune. They should too know that their lives should manifest love in how they interact with one another, and gross manifest sin needs to be avoided that others may know the gospel. But neither should the altar rail become the place for confrontation, or power plays with the elders and other members of the congregation. Care needs to be taken when there are visitors to explain why we do what we do in a way that conveys love to them and not condemnation. It should never be done in such a way that makes it out to be nothing but a manner of denominational loyalty, but perhaps in a way that shows why we are so loyal to our denomination, and why it matters what church you attend and support, or why it should.
Well I write that, because every once in awhile I get the feeling some think the gospel doesn’t apply to pastors. And when it isn’t applying to the pastors, it isn’t being fed to the sheep either. Communion can’t become a thing of the law, when it does this, when the law surrounds it, whether it be cloaked in doctrinal purity, or looking to judge fruit, then the salt begins to lose its saltiness.