“God gave us plurality because he’s a big fan of humility.” I was struck by how often Dave Harvey mentions humility in his new book The Plurality Principle on building and maintaining church leadership teams.

It’s not a new thought that a plurality — a team of pastor-elders, as opposed to just one — both requires and encourages humility. But what I did not expect is how often Harvey would sound the refrain for the pride-crucifying, humility-cultivating power of team leadership.

Harvey, like many of us, has seen and heard a lifetime’s worth of pastoral shipwrecks in recent years. Some of these leaders were formally peerless in their churches and ministries, but many others had fellow pastor-elders in name, and functionally little accountability, operating with special privileges and a long leash. In the end, too often one man was at the helm, when it could have been a team, and in time, the church, its witness, and the pastor himself came to suffer because it.

“When difficulties arise, do the elders suspect themselves first, not others, and serve others first, not themselves?”

“All Christian community tests our humility,” Harvey writes, “but being part of a leadership team is like sitting for the bar exam” (127). Then he observes, “Humility must be learned over time as individuals both suspect themselves first, not others, and serve others first, not themselves.” Suspect self first. Serve others first. That’s insightful, and a watershed of good leadership in the church: When difficulties arise, do the elders suspect themselves first, not others, and serve others first, not themselves? And what will determine which way the pastors will go?

“Humility is the oil that lubricates the engine of plurality,” writes Harvey. “If you want to know the foundational secret that lies beneath great teams, meetings marked by unity, personal elder care, and lovingly accountable relationships, it’s this: humility” (98).

How Plurality Humbles

Unlike the world’s vision of leadership as self-actualization and the accrual of privilege, a Christian vision of leadership has God, not self, at the center. Pastor-elders are not in it to build their own sense of confidence and self-worth. Rather, their calling is to make additional sacrifices, to bear extra burdens and costs, to point our fellow church members Godward in Christ.

Our need for humility grows the more we are surrounded by other people, especially when yoked in a calling to lead together. While humility is first and foremost a creaturely virtue in relation to our Creator, many of the great texts on humility come in the context of community (Philippians 1:27–2:5; Ephesians 4:1–3; 1 Peter 5:5–7).

Consider four ways, among many others, that team leadership humbles us.

1. Teams expose selfish desires and unholy ambitions.

The apostles warn us of the dangers of “selfish ambition” (Greek eritheia). James writes, “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice” (James 3:16; also James 3:14). Paul lists selfish ambition as one of “the works of the flesh” alongside “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, . . . dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Galatians 5:19–21; also 2 Corinthians 12:20; Philippians 1:17; 2:3).

“Selfish ambition,” or “self-seeking” (Romans 2:8), is tragic in any human, and any Christian, and all the more in Christian leaders. And it is a special threat for lone rangers. Who will smell it out, and can challenge it, even in its subtle forms? Teammates. Men who are peers, of the same standing and similar perspective, and can tell when directions and decisions are self-seeking, rather than church-seeking.

There is often a fine line between putting self forward and the willingness to serve in visible, celebrated positions of leadership. Good pluralities (teams not just in name but in function) tend to expose such selfish desires and unholy ambitions and challenge them before they become deep-seated. As Harvey writes,

If you’re new to working with a team, you’ll soon see how often plurality uncovers and forces you to deal with the heroic dreams and fleshly desires you have for ministry. . . . To serve as part of a healthy elder plurality, a pastor must know his role, be willing to come under authority, learn humility, traffic in nuances that are neither black nor white, and be willing to think about his gifts and position through the lens of what serves the church rather than his personal agenda. Leading in community puts us under the spotlight. (29–30)

2. Teams encourage the right kind of disagreement.

Disagreements are inevitable in the church, and in every sphere of life. The question is not if they will come, but when and how. Healthy teams encourage the right kind of disagreements to happen early and often, in the context of trusting, regular relationships. Better to first hear the opposing perspective in private, from a brother and peer who manifestly loves you, than publicly, or from a tense call or letter, after a rash decision has been implemented.

It is humbling to hear a brother you admire and respect disagree with you. Then, it’s additionally humbling to realize you were short-sighted, or wrong, and to admit it. Leadership pluralities encourage healthy disagreement, in the right time and context.

3. Teams show us the joy of not doing it all.

It’s one thing to admit, as a leader, that you’re human and can’t do it all (in theory); it is another to go about your daily and weekly work as if you can indeed do it all. Teams play out that humbling truth before our eyes, moving it from theory to reality in our own heads and hearts.

For team leadership to thrive over time, writes Harvey, “Each man must believe that he needs the other men.” And seeing our need for each other, lived out before our own eyes, serves to dispel pretenses in us that we deserve the credit for ministry successes.

4. Teams try our patience, and produce better results.

Team leadership is typically not efficient, but it is effective — which is how God wants his church to be led.

“Team leadership is typically not efficient, but it is effective — which is how God wants his church to be led.”

When the “senior pastor” is essentially the church’s CEO, decisions and next actions can happen very fast. Teamwork, on the other hand, takes time. We need to synch schedules, have conversations, provide rationale, answer objections, write drafts, add appropriate nuances. Team leadership is typically not efficient.

But apparently, God isn’t all that interested in efficiency in local-church leadership. Which is worth pondering carefully in our day, when other organizations in society emphasize efficiency, not without good reasons. Yet not so with the church. The clear, unified testimony in the New Testament to plurality of leadership in the local church signals that Christ is more interested in effectiveness than efficiency in his body. Again, Harvey writes,

God loves unity, so he calls us to a team — a place where we must humbly persevere with one another to function effectively. God loves making us holy, so he unites us to men who will make us grow. God loves patience, so he imposes a way of governing that requires humble listening and a trust that he is working in the lives of others. God loves humility, so he gave us plurality. (99)

Harder, and Better

Teamwork in ministry is a precious gift. Surely, thousands of solo pastors around the world long for fellow elders and do not yet have them. May God be pleased to answer their prayers and steady their hands. There is grace too for a lonely calling.

Those of us who do enjoy the priceless gift of teammates, it can be all too easy to take them for granted. Team leadership is not always easy. Often it doesn’t feel efficient. Fellow leaders can feel inconvenient. At times, it may seem like leading alone would be better.

But leading together challenges and chastens our pride. It costs us personal comforts and convenience, but the gains for the church, and for our own long-term joy, far surpass the discomforts.

I’ll never forget meeting up with a mentor of mine at Starbucks shortly after becoming a Christian. We regularly met there to read and study the Bible. One day, a person walked by and was elated to find Christians. But during our conversation, my mentor began asking some pretty forthright questions, and I couldn’t quite understand why.

“Do you believe that a person is justified by faith alone?” he said. The stranger hesitantly responded, “No, I believe that a person is justified by faith and works.” My mentor graciously but strongly insisted, “Then you don’t have a biblical view of justification.” A lot of back-and-forths followed, but because I was a recent convert, I found it immensely difficult to understand what was going on. I barely understood what the term justification meant!

Eventually, I discovered the importance of this vital doctrine. Martin Luther and other Reformers considered the doctrine of justification by faith alone the article on which the church stands or falls. It is at the core of the gospel, and the church needs to embrace it as such.

What Is Justification?

So then, what is justification? This is a crucial starting point. How one defines justification will determine not only how one thinks and believes but also how one lives.

Roman Catholic dogma, for example, defines justification as synonymous with sanctification,1 and the result is detrimental. One’s standing on the final day is determined by the growth of Christ’s righteousness, which is imparted to a person through baptism and increases through participation in the sacraments.2 In a word, justification is essentially a clean slate that one needs to maintain to enjoy a favorable verdict at the final judgment.

Diametrically opposed stands the Reformed understanding of justification, which is carefully, succinctly, and biblically defined in the answer to question 33 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism:

Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.3

Notice that justification is an act, not a work or process.4 It is not a hopeful destination. It is God’s gracious, once-for-all verdict — his declaration of a person to be righteous in Christ, and therefore fully accepted by God.

The Greek words for justification and righteousness, along with their cognates,5 belong to the legal sphere.6 Consider, for example, Romans 8:31–34:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 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? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies [Greek ho dikaiōn]. Who is to condemn?

Justification language belongs to the courtroom; it is forensic. Accusations are met with God’s justifying verdict spoken over his elect (see also Romans 5:16–19) — a spoken word that melts the hardened hearts of sinners.

Whose Righteousness?

God, the holy, just, and perfect Judge, finds sinners not guilty and declares them righteous. How? On the basis of the person and work of Jesus Christ — by forgiving our sins on account of the substitutionary death of Christ in our place (Romans 3:21–26) and imputing or reckoning Christ’s righteousness to us (Romans 4:1–9; Philippians 3:9; 2 Corinthians 5:21).

What is this righteousness? His perfect obedience to God, rendered in his life and death, often referred to as the active and passive obedience of Christ. He perfectly fulfilled the law (Galatians 4:4–5; Romans 8:1–4) and also died under the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13), in love for his people (Galatians 2:20).

Nevertheless, death could not keep its prey, and so Christ tore the bars away and arose a victor from the dark domain.7 Jesus’s resurrection was not only proof that his sacrifice satisfied God’s wrath; it was also his own justification or public vindication (1 Timothy 3:16; cf. Romans 4:25). On Resurrection Sunday, God declared the verdict of righteous over his Son, and through union with him, we too receive that unchangeable righteous standing (2 Corinthians 5:21).

How Do We Receive It?

What is necessary to receive this righteous standing? Faith, works, or a combination of both? The answer is faith alone. Paul makes this clear in Galatians 2:16: “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” Justification is not a both-and matter. It’s either by faith or by works.

Paul fleshes this out in Romans 10:3–4. He speaks of his Jewish kinsmen as those who are “ignorant of the righteousness of God,” are “seeking to establish their own [righteousness],” and thereby do “not submit to God’s righteousness.” Then he provides this explanation: “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” We submit to Christ’s righteousness by faith.

Just breaths later, in Romans 10:9–10, Paul writes, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” No wonder Paul, in the very next chapter, helpfully explains that “if it is by grace [that we are chosen, saved, and presumably justified (see Romans 10:10)], it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Romans 11:6).

“Justification is not a both-and matter. It’s either by faith or by works.”

A biblically Reformed understanding of justification by faith alone is indeed comforting to the sinner. “How can I be righteous before a holy God?” is an appropriate question to ask for those outside of Christ. The only acceptable answer is found in Christ. He is the basis of our justification, and he can be received only by the empty hands of faith. And this doctrine is at the core of the gospel.

More to the Gospel than Justification?

In loving and declaring the doctrine of justification by faith alone, some can begin to think that justification is the gospel. But that is not true. Simply saying, “Jesus died for my sins so that I can receive Christ’s righteousness” does not capture the entire gospel.8 Paul doesn’t stop there when he lays out the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1–4. Jesus also was buried and rose from the dead. In fact, the resurrection of Christ plays a crucial role in our justification (as we’ve seen in Romans 4:25; see also Romans 1:3–4; 1 Corinthians 15:20–23, 42–49; 1 Timothy 3:16).9 The gospel also includes Jesus’s ascension, enthronement as Lord, and outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Romans 1:3–4; Acts 1:11; 2:1–21; 2:32–33). We therefore should not say that justification is the gospel.

And yet, neither should we welcome the persistent emphasis of those who downplay justification, whether by minimizing it to a “subsidiary crater” in Paul’s theology10 or, even more drastically, by insisting that “our justification by faith is not part of the gospel.”11 In the end, justification is not the gospel, but it is undeniably at its center.12 If you exclude justification from the gospel, then the gospel ceases to be “good news.”

Solely by Faith?

The Reformed tradition has consistently promoted a threefold definition of faith: (1) knowledge of the content of the gospel that we believe (Latin notitia), (2) intellectual assent to the gospel of Christ (assensus), and (3) trust in the person and work of Christ on our behalf (fiducia).

Recently some have taken aim at the third part of that definition (trust).13 They argue that faith is not primarily “interior” or “emotional” but “exterior” and “embodied.” In other words, faith is active rather than passive, and it should be seen rather than felt. So they prefer slogans such as “justification by allegiance alone,” since allegiance underscores the active nature of faith.

Those who argue for this definition of faith make a major mistake. Since they redefine faith as a more active response, they argue that Paul’s either-or of justification is actually a both-and — both faith and works. To be clear here, they do not think a person can be justified by works that stem from self-righteous efforts. They believe Romans 3:20, that “by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight.” However, they underline the phrase “works of the law” and say, “Paul was not against Spirit-wrought good works contributing to a person’s justification.”

“Christ is the basis of our justification, and he can be received only by the empty hands of faith.”

At this point, you may be feeling the way I did in the conversation at Starbucks, not really understanding the fine distinctions. But this is significant. To say that Paul wasn’t against good works with respect to justification, you have to make a drastic move theologically. You have to reject the distinction between justification and sanctification.

What do I mean by that? Put simply, justification and sanctification are inseparable yet distinct, like the heat and light of a fire.14 You cannot have one without the other; at the same time, you can distinguish one from the other.15 Good works, as Paul commends them, are done in our sanctification, but they cannot contribute to our justification. If they do, justification is no longer by faith alone.

Is Christ’s Righteousness Imputed?

After the conversation with the stranger at Starbucks, I asked my mentor, “What does imputation mean?” The word was thrown around during our discussion but never really defined.

Imputation means that the righteousness of Christ — his active and passive obedience — is counted or reckoned to believers. Christ’s righteousness is imputed, counted, reckoned to you when you are united to Christ by faith (1 Corinthians 1:30; 6:11; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Philippians 3:9). As Calvin said, “We do not . . . contemplate [Christ] outside ourselves from afar in order that this righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are engrafted into his body — in short, because he deigns to make us one with him. For this reason, we glory that we have fellowship of righteousness with him.”16 When we talk about receiving righteousness, union with Christ is essential.

Imputed righteousness is distinct from infused righteousness. In the Roman Catholic view, Christ merited righteousness for us, and that righteousness is then infused into believers at baptism. It’s as if Christ’s seed of righteousness should be planted into your heart. It becomes your own. And it is up to you, in dependence on the Spirit and the sacraments, to water it and grow in personal righteousness.

By contrast, the imputation view intentionally uses the words count or reckon, as Scripture does (Romans 4:1–8; 5:12–19; Galatians 3:6).17 In justification, Christ’s righteousness does not become ours as some sort of personal possession. It is counted or reckoned as ours. Why? Because we do not perform the acts of justifying righteousness. Christ, as our substitute, lived the perfect life we couldn’t and died the death we deserved. The righteousness of Christ must therefore primarily and exclusively belong to him.18 It is therefore an alien righteousness — it comes from outside of us. And it is graciously imputed, counted, or reckoned to those who have no inherent righteousness whatsoever (Romans 3:9, 23; Ephesians 2:1–3). We are indeed “dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.”19 For nothing else avails before God.

Jesus Receives Sinners

Listening to the conversation my mentor had with that fellow at Starbucks was intimidating and a bit over my head. I heard many terms and distinctions that didn’t seem, at the time, to make much of a difference in the Christian life. But the more questions I asked, the more I learned that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is not only theologically essential but thoroughly practical.

Just think of Christians who question their salvation as they struggle with sin. In those times, they easily can turn inward. “Have I done enough to please God?” “Perhaps if I serve more at church, he will accept me.” “I need to stop sinning in order to be accepted by him.” They may never say these words out loud. After all, they wouldn’t want anyone to think they were weak in faith — or even worse, an unbeliever. But their knee-jerk reaction to turn inward reveals a deeper underlying issue. They need to turn outward toward the objective realities of the gospel. They need to trust in Christ Jesus, their righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30). They need to rest — not only in mind and mouth, but in heart and life — in the “word of surest consolation; word all sorrow to relieve, word of pardon, peace, salvation! . . . ‘Jesus sinners doth receive.’”20

What is Look at the Book?

You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.