The proposed amendment does not so much revise BCO 32-20 as it removes one provision and substitutes it with another. It removes the requirement binding the church to act in a timely manner to uphold the honor of Christ in cases of scandal. In its place, it leaves the question of what constitutes a timely matter to uncertain whims of individual church courts resulting in differing actions based on undefined variables.

The Book of Church Order (BCO) 32-20, as it presently stands, binds the Church to act in a timely manner in cases of public scandal where the reputation of Christ is at stake. The question is: do we really want to remove this requirement for the Church to act in a timely manner in cases of scandal? The proposed amendment does so. For the honor of Christ, we should preserve this requirement, vote down the proposed amendment, and seek an amendment that better addresses the valid concerns raised in the original overture.
BCO 32-20
The present version of BCO 32-20 reads, “Process, in case of scandal, shall commence within the space of one year after the offense was committed, unless it has recently become flagrant” (emphasis added). Timely action is not optional: in cases scandal the Church shall act within the space of one year.
Ramsay and Smith’s Comment on BCO 32-20
In commenting on this paragraph in the PCA’s BCO, both F. P. Ramsay and Morton Smith say the purpose is to incite the church to the prompt prosecution of scandal (a flagrant public offense of practice which is bringing open disgrace on Christ). Ramsay explains:
The principle is that, if the Church neglects to commence process against scandal (which is any flagrant public offence of practice bringing disgrace on the Church) within a year, she is debarred from thereafter doing it. This is not to shield the offender, but to incite to the prompt prosecution of such offences. Offences not so serious or scandalous the Church may bear with the longer while seeking to prevent scandal; but for no consideration is the Church to tolerate such offences as are scandalous.
Do we really want to remove this incitement, this incentive?
Context
Overture 22 was brought before the PCA General Assembly past midnight on Thursday night. We were informed by the stated clerk that the venue was requiring us to leave by 12:45AM. Consequently, the Assembly didn’t have much time or energy to give this overture due consideration. A substitute motion was made to refer Overture 22 to the following year’s Overtures Committee, but (predictably, given the time), there was no discussion. The substitute motion was defeated and the proposed amendment passed.
A revision to BCO 32-20 deserves better consideration.
The Proposed Amendment
The proposed amendment does not so much revise BCO 32-20 as it removes one provision and substitutes it with another. It removes the requirement binding the church to act in a timely manner to uphold the honor of Christ in cases of scandal. In its place, it leaves the question of what constitutes a timely matter to uncertain whims of individual church courts resulting in differing actions based on undefined variables.
The proposed amendment reads: “There is no statute of limitations, per se, for prosecuting offenses. However, the accused or member of the court may object to the consideration of a charge, for example, if he thinks the passage of time since the alleged offense makes fair adjudication unachievable. The court should consider factors such as the gravity of the alleged offense as well as what degradations of evidence and memory may have occurred in the intervening period.”
Why One Year?
Overture 22 treated BCO 32-20, in effect, as a statute of limitations. It recognized that BCO 32-20 does not establish a statute of limitations for all offenses. Then it went on to argue that a statute of limitations of one-year makes little sense for cases of scandal. “Expeditious process is certainly important in such a case, but if the cause of Christ is jeopardized by the Church’s neglect of timely discipline, how would disallowing prosecution on day 366 repair the matter? The scandal would continue, unabated.”
Ramsay does say that the effect of BCO 32-20 is that, if the Church fails to act within a year in a case of scandal, she is debarred thereafter from doing it. But then he points out that the intent is not to shield the offender (the main purpose is not to establish a statute of limitations): the purpose is to incite the Church to act to uphold the honor of Christ in cases of public scandal.
Still, the question stands: what is the point of debarring the Church from acting after one year? The point of acting within a year is to ensure that fair adjudication takes place while it is still achievable—before degradations of evidence and memory make it impossible. In less serious matters, as Ramsay points out, the Church may risk the passage of time while it labors to avoid scandal. But in cases where Christ’s name is already being drug through the mud, the Church must take prompt action. It cannot risk degradations of evidence and memory making adjudication impossible: then the scandal really would continue, unabated!
What about Cases of Abuse?
Overture 22 did point out a valid concern: cases of alleged abuse. It is difficult to commence process within the space of one year after the offense was committed, since allegations of abuse often surface and become scandalous well after the alleged abuse took place. The present version of BCO 32-20 does seem to make adjudication impossible in such cases, and this weakness in the PCA’s BCO should be addressed.
But a better revision should continue to bind the Church to address allegations of abuse promptly. It could, for instance, be revised to say the church shall act within the space of one year after the offense has become scandalous. In the case of scandal, the “start time” is typically definite: there was a time the scandal broke and become public. In the case of abuse, there is a definite time when the allegation was made. We should bind ourselves to take those allegations seriously and commence process in a timely manner while fair adjudication is still possible—both for the honor of Christ and the good of alleged victim.
Precedent Cases
There is no need to amend BCO 32-20 in such a drastic way. The Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) found the present wording in BCO 32-20 useful in deciding a number of recent cases.[1] If the proposed amendment were in force these cases might have been judged with different outcomes. This provision has been tested and found useful, not wanting as is alleged in the reasoning for changing it.
Conclusion
For the honor of Christ, we need to amend the present wording of BCO 32-20, let us offer wording that does not remove the principles that have guided the PCA since its beginning. We can seek to address those valid concerns raised by Overture 22 without eviscerating the entirety of the present wording, and at the same time will continue to bind the Church to act promptly in cases of scandal, including abuse. Overture 22 recognizes that expeditious process is important in such cases, but the proposed amendment may actually be fighting against itself by effectively removing this requirement. In reality, the proposed amendment lets church courts off the hook by allowing them to delay acting when justice demands speedier judicial process.
Since we as can do better than what the BCO 32-20 amendment proposes, presbyteries should vote not to approve the amendment, and then let us work on drafting a more effective one.
Anton Heuss is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Bethel PCA in Dallas, Texas.
[1] Here are two cases decided by the Standing Judicial Commission using the present wording of BCO 32-20. These precedents have already proved useful in guiding lower church courts in their conduct of cases. See SJC 2016-05, Troxell v Southwest Presbytery (https://www.pcahistory.org/pca/ga/45th_pcaga_2017.pdf, pp. 514-520), and SJC 2019-08, Ganzel v Central Florida Presbytery (to be published in the Minutes of the 48th General Assembly).

Written by Stanley D. Gale |
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
It is the Spirit who opens eyes to His beauty and opens ears to His call. Whether at the tomb of Lazarus or before the Athenian philosophers or to the hearers assembled before us, the response of the congregation is not elicited by the preacher but by the One preached.

A group of pastors was talking about preaching, evangelistic preaching in particular. The question was raised about the appropriate way to urge people to profess faith in Christ. How do we appeal to our listeners so that they know a response is necessary for them to realize the benefits of the gospel?
The group was theologically savvy enough to know that they could not cajole anyone into the Kingdom. They fully believed the apostle when he says: “My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor. 2:4–5).
They recognized that they were not to be spiritual salesmen but spiritual midwives, working in tandem with what God would bring about.
The question then remains. How do we preach to the will? Knowing that many in our congregations are without the Spirit of God and thus do not have ears to hear (1 Cor. 2:11, 14), how do we speak to them with an eye to their confessing Christ?
Let’s examine our personal experience. How did you come to Christ? For me, I had heard the gospel in full or in part many times. But there came a point when what was at one time absurd to me began to make sense, what was repugnant began to be savory, when that which I resisted became irresistible.
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Nothing is offered for those who seek Christ by images. Thomas Vincent summarizes the argument in this way: “Images or pictures of God are an abomination and utterly unlawful because they debase God and may be a cause of idolatrous worship” (Vincent, p. 147). Have you put away images of any or of all of the three persons of the Godhead?

Having considered the Biblical case against images of Christ in Part 1, we will continue to the modern arguments promoting images of Christ.
In 1981 the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod (RPCES) published a report “On Images of Christ.”[1] In 1983 the RPCES merged with the Presbyterian Church in America. The report presents three objections to the Westminster Standards’ presentation of the second commandment and images that are commonly held today.
First Objection: One Part or Two?
Make and Bow Down

“The [second] commandment does not prohibit the making of pictures… the commandment does prohibit the making of shaped objects for the purpose of worshipping them or worshipping God through them. Therefore, L.C. 109 is not justified in forbidding any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever.”
RPCES, On Images of Christ
The Lord does not prohibit the making of all pictures or images. In certain contexts, God even requires making images as was the case of the cherubim facing the mercy seat in Exodus 37.
However, the premise of the RPCES statement assumes one or both of the following arguments: 1) That images of any or of all the three persons of the Godhead are the same in Scripture as images of created things. 2) That images of any or of all the three persons of the Godhead and images of the creature are only a violation of the second commandment when worshipped.
Response From Scripture
The first assumption is refuted on Scriptural grounds and the Creator-creature distinction. From Scripture it is evident that Christ the Son of God is not to be compared to the visible or invisible creature. “To which of the angels did He ever say: You are My Son, Today I have begotten You… Your throne, O God, is forever and ever…Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool” (Hebrews 1:5, 8, 13).
From the Creator-creature distinction we understand, “The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part” (WCF 7.1). Scripture teaches that God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is high above the creature and cannot be compared truthfully to a creature.[2] The creature is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). God is not made in the image of man which is to bring God down. Packer notes that the second commandment “compels us to take our thoughts of God from his own holy Word, and no other source whatsoever… to make an image of God is to take one’s thoughts of him from a human source, rather than from God himself; and this is precisely what is wrong with image-making” (Packer, Knowing God. pp. 48-49). Therefore, we may conclude it is idolatry to make representations of Christ in the image of a creature.[3]
The second assumption is refuted on the grounds of misunderstanding the second commandment. In his sermon on Deuteronomy 4, John Calvin said, “For God has forbidden two things. First, the making of any picture of him because it is a disguising and falsifying of his glory, and a turning of his truth into a lie. That is one point. The other is, that no image may be worshipped” (Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy. p. 298). The Scripture positively divides the second commandment into two parts, making and worshipping. In relation to God, both making and/or worshipping images is forbidden. In relation to the creature, the making is not necessarily forbidden. The making and worshipping is always forbidden.
Second Objection: The Person and Worship Dichotomy
The RPCES report laid out a second objection to the Westminster[4] view of the second commandment by creating a divide between the person of Christ and the worship of Christ. The report made the following recommendation:

That synod warn against the violation of the Second Commandment (Ex. 20:4-6 and Deut. 5:8-10) by the worship of visual depictions of Jesus Christ, while at the same time recognizing the legitimacy of usual depictions for other purposes, such as instruction or artistic expression.
RPCES, On Images of Christ. Recommendation 2
The report further stated that pictures of Christ are not just permissible but to be encouraged. [5]
Look but Not Worship
The RPCES argument is that the person of Christ can be separated from the worship of Christ. God’s people can look at manmade depictions of Christ for their help and devotion while not worshipping the image. Worship of the image breaks the second commandment; however, using the image outside of worship does not (Ibid). In this way, the argument is in line with Lutheran practice. [6] Are these things true?
Response From Scripture
The Scriptures know of no separation of the person of Christ and the worship of Christ. Assuming Joshua met the pre-incarnate Christ when he met the Commander of the army of the Lord, he fell on his face to the earth and worshiped (Joshua 5:13-15). When Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on His throne and the angels worshipping, he confessed his unworthiness before the Lord (Isaiah 6:1-3). When the blind man whom Jesus healed knew that Jesus was Lord, he worshiped Him (John 9:38);  When Jesus ascended to Heaven, His disciples worshiped Him (Luke 4:52). The angels of God worship Him (Hebrews 1:6). The testimony of Scripture is that those who believe God worship God.
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