Written by W. Robert Godfrey |
Thursday, May 11, 2023
Among the Reformed churches, eventually three marks were identified: faithful preaching of the Word, faithful administration of the sacraments, and faithful exercise of discipline. In focusing on the marks of the church, the Reformers were not saying that all a good church needs to have are the marks of the church. They focused on the marks because the marks make the true church recognizable. The church of Christ has many more characteristics than the three marks. But these characteristics—we might mention prayer, fellowship, devotion—are not so easy to observe. The marks are important because they display the faithfulness of the church.

If you move to a new town, you have to find a new church. The search for a new church can be difficult and frustrating. If you pick up the Yellow Pages and look under “church,” you are likely to confront a bewildering array of possibilities. Perhaps you already have some fairly definite ideas of what you want in a church. You may be looking for a good youth group or active senior citizens group. You may want a powerful preacher or a certain kind of music. You may be very loyal to one denomination or you may like to “shop around.”
What should you be looking for in choosing a new church? Your first concern should be that the church be a “true church.” You do not want to choose a church that is part of a sect or a cult. You do not want a church that still bears the name of church, but whose lampstand Christ has removed (Rev. 1–3). How do you recognize a true church? This question was acute at the time of the Reformation. The Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century basically argued that Christ preserved the true church through the work of the pope, the bishop of Rome. The true church is easy to recognize because it is in fellowship with the pope. Any church that does not submit to the pope is a false church.
The Reformers did not accept Rome’s approach. They argued that the true church is not marked by submission to a supposedly infallible apostolic office—the Papacy—but by acceptance of apostolic truth. Luther declared that “the sole, uninterrupted, infallible mark of the church has always been the Word.” The true church is marked by submission to the Scriptures.
Anyone familiar with the Reformation knows the importance of the Bible in the formation of Protestantism. Against the claims of the medieval church that tradition, bishops, and councils were authoritative along with the Bible, the Reformers insisted that the Bible is the only absolute authority for Christians. The Bible must judge all traditions and church officers and assemblies. It is not surprising then that the Reformers taught that the centrality of the Word is the key mark of the true church. As one of the Reformation confessions put it, the true church is known “in short, if all things are managed according to the pure Word of God, all things contrary thereto rejected, and Jesus Christ acknowledged as the only Head of the Church” (Belgic Confession, Article 29).
This general recognition of the Word as the mark of the true church came to specific expression. Among the Reformed churches, eventually three marks were identified: faithful preaching of the Word, faithful administration of the sacraments, and faithful exercise of discipline.
In focusing on the marks of the church, the Reformers were not saying that all a good church needs to have are the marks of the church. They focused on the marks because the marks make the true church recognizable. The church of Christ has many more characteristics than the three marks. But these characteristics—we might mention prayer, fellowship, devotion—are not so easy to observe.
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Let your soul lose itself in wonder, for wonder, dear friends, is in this way a very practical emotion. Holy wonder will lead you to grateful worship; being astonished at what God has done, you will pour out your soul with astonishment at the foot of the golden throne with the song, “Blessing, and honor, and glory, and majesty, and power, and dominion, and might be unto Him who sitteth on the throne and doeth these great things to me.”

The Christmas season is a time of rest and celebration. But it is also a time of great opportunity. The workplace is filled with Christmas carols and decorations. Family gatherings bring Christians together with their unsaved loved ones. Neighbors exchange gifts and host neighborhood parties. Opportunities to serve the poor and needy abound. In all of this, what better way for Christians to celebrate Christmas than by imitating the example of their Lord and serving those around them, and by dwelling on the love of the Savior? Spurgeon writes,
We citizens of the New Jerusalem, having the Lord Jesus in our midst, may well excuse ourselves from the ordinary ways of celebrating this season; and considering ourselves to be “holy work-folk,” we may keep it after a different sort from other men, in holy contemplation and in blessed service of that gracious God whose unspeakable gift the new-born King is to us.
In his sermon, “Holy Work of Christmas,” Spurgeon unpacks Luke 2:17-20 and gives “four ways of serving God, four methods of executing holy work and exercising Christian thought.” What are four ways we can serve God during Christmas?
By Publishing Abroad What We Have Seen and Heard of the Savior
They had seen God incarnate—such a sight that he who gazeth on it must feel his tongue unloosed, unless indeed an unspeakable astonishment should make him dumb. Be silent when their eyes had seen such a vision! Impossible! To the first person they met outside that lowly stable door they began to tell their matchless tale, and they wearied not till nightfall, crying, “Come and worship! Come and worship Christ, the newborn King!” As for us, beloved, have we also not something to relate which demands utterance? If we talk of Jesus, who can blame us? This, indeed, might make the tongue of him that sleeps to move—the mystery of God incarnate for our sake, bleeding and dying that we might neither bleed nor die, descending that we might ascend, and wrapped in swaddling bands that we might be unwrapped of the grave-clothes of corruption. Here is such a story, so profitable to all hearers that he who repeats it the most often does best, and he who speaks the least hath most reason to accuse himself for sinful silence.
By Holy Wonder, Admiration, and Adoration
Let me suggest to you that holy wonder at what God has done should be very natural to you. That God should consider his fallen creature, man, and instead of sweeping him away with the besom of destruction, should devise a wonderful scheme for his redemption, and that he should himself undertake to be man’s Redeemer, and to pay his ransom price, is, indeed, marvellous! Probably it is most marvellous to you in its relation to yourself, that you should be redeemed by blood; that God should forsake the thrones and royalties above to suffer ignominiously below for you.
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In a day when the message of the cross is so often marginalised and its meaning so often undermined, doubling our efforts in proclaiming it could hardly be timelier and more relevant. Those who deny, distort, dismiss, and disparage the biblical doctrine of the atonement do injury to the gospel. Therefore, my brothers, preach the atonement. Preach it powerfully, passionately, and plainly.

“I advise you to keep close to the atonement. The doctrine of the cross is the sun in the solar system of truth.” Every gospel preacher would do well to heed this timeless counsel from John Newton. The atonement refers to the entirety of Jesus’ work of reconciling God and men, by dying as a substitute, and paying the infinite penalty for our sins. Christ died in place of sinners and bore the sins that God justly condemns and punishes. This teaching, that God himself has made full atonement for sinners (1 Peter 2:24), is unique to Christianity.
As such, it’s no hyperbole to say that the atonement is the real heart of the gospel—and the lifeblood of the Christian life. A crucified Saviour is what sets Christianity apart from all other world religions. This understanding is apostolic to the core. Even Paul preached as of first importance that “Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3). More tellingly, he identifies the gospel as “the message of the cross” (1 Corinthians 1:18). One can scarcely read the Gospels without seeing that this very idea was the orienting reality of Jesus’ life and ministry. He came to “give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
No Greater Theme
Worthwhile preaching doesn’t merely rake leaves across the surface of scripture. Rather, it drills deep to mine out the gold. Such ought to be our preaching of the atonement. We need to preach that the atonement is perfect (Hebrews 7:26-28), efficacious for all those who come to God and believe (John 6:37, 40; Isaiah 53:5). We also ought to preach its various motifs: reconciliation (Romans 5:10-11; 2 Corinthians 5:18-20); redemption (Romans 3:24; Galatians 3:13); propitiation (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2:17); sacrifice (Ephesians 5:2; Hebrews 9:1-10:18), forgiveness (Ephesians 1:7); and victory (Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8).
Those of us who preach are never at risk of being too atonement-centred. In fact, to preach the doctrine of salvation without properly spotlighting the atonement is to preach an emaciated gospel at best and a non-gospel at worst. Paul’s resolve was to “preach Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). The knowledge of Christ crucified stands perched above all other knowledge. We may also deduce that there can’t be true pastoral ministry apart from the cross.

In light of this apostolic precedence, we too must centre the cross in our preaching and pastoring. If we do, we will benefit ourselves and our hearers in the following five ways:
1. The Atonement Establishes Both Identity and Assurance
Our essential identity as Christians is tied up with Christ’s work on the cross. Martin Luther said that the sweetness of the gospel is found in the first person pronouns: “the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Jesus did not die for nameless, faceless people. He died for “me.” His cross stands as an eternal monument of God’s holy and infinite love towards believers, like me.
His love is such that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8)! The cross testifies to the matchless blessedness of every believer. So Paul asks: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).
That Christ died in our stead also cements our assurance of eternal forgiveness (2 Corinthians 5:15-21; Galatians 3:13). The words of Augustus Toplady ring ever so true: “Payment God cannot twice demand, / First from my bleeding surety’s hand, / And then again from mine.”
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