This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Considering the Church” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, July 4, 1993.
About this sermon
J. Gresham Machen’s reading of Acts 20:28 and Christ’s own words in Matthew 16 are set side by side, both converging on Peter’s confession as the church’s foundation. A church built on that confession cannot expect to avoid controversy or confusion; it has never had that luxury. What it can do is actually live the gospel it confesses.
Sermon transcript
We read today from Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 16, and we begin at verse 13. Let us listen to the word of God. When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, He asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
And I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offense unto for thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
How rich and wonderful your mercy, Lord, even in the temporal affairs of life. How you give us the bread of this creation. How wonderfully, Lord, you give us homes, you grant us peace within our homes. You grant us those about us who love us. And Father, you set us in a land that is most dear to us. If we ask you, Lord, that your mercies may continue with us as we live in this land, that we would be respectful of its laws, that we would also pray for its well-being, and pray for the well-being of those who are in authority over us. O Father, we ask also that we would keep in mind that such things as you give us in this creation, those are things of which we are to be stewards and faithful stewards.
So Lord, may we have regard to the liberties, the temporal liberties that have been given And Lord, may it please you to continue those liberties, that we might live without harassment, that we might worship you freely, that we might in fact be free to give unto you and to others in the name of Christ. This we ask for the sake of our Savior, the Lord, who surveys all of creation and all of the nations. On June 14, 1936, in the evening as the first General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was being brought to a close, J. Gresham Machen, the Church’s first moderator, rose to preach.
His text that evening was 20, verse 28, which speaks about the Church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood. In that sermon, Manchin mentioned many of the obstacles and attitudes which the new Church would have to face, especially those rising from the ranks of the old Church. the Presbyterian Church, USA. Machen was quite direct in his remarks.
He was, after all, speaking out of the background of his own upbringing, having been raised in the lap of fashionable Presbyterianism. But he also spoke against the background of a century in which Presbyterians had spent much time building cathedral-like structures. So it was in June 1936 that very expensive cathedral-like structures dotted the landscape, many of them raised up by Presbyterians.
And this led nature then to say, in his sermon these words, “‘How often in these days, when men put church buildings on one side and Christ on the other, do they choose the building and let Christ go?’ Nathan’s words that night mark out one dimension of the cataclysmic crisis that has overtaken the American church in this century. Booths, edifices, and real estate are judged more important than the truth of the gospel. In fact, it seems the gospel and its truth are virtually acquainted with buildings and properties as if they mutually bind and define each other. Now, such thinking is an old heresy. An old heresy that has wormed its way into the religious sensibilities, even of those who otherwise are most devout and doctrinally straight.
Few in this church today remember Ralph Cameron. a godly, elderly Scotsman from Bellevue, who joined this congregation in its early days in the late sixties, and then shortly afterwards passed away. Mr. Cameron, so I am told, had great difficulty initially coming to Grace Church. You see, at that time, Grace Church was meeting in what is now the Switly Country Inn down on the boulevard. Mr. Cameron’s feelings were these.
Motels are not churches, and people who meet in motels can’t be meeting in the church. One of the things for which Mr. Cameron was grateful before he died was how God used this church for him even in his latter years to correct his thinking at this point. The church is the people of God. who are made by him to be a living temple. It is they who sanctify the place where they meet, not the place that sanctifies them.
So it doesn’t matter whether it’s a motel, or a storefront, or as was the case in the early days of the OPC, a chinchilla farm, or a hayloft, or someone’s backyard. Shortly after I arrived here to pastor this congregation, a well-meaning friend told me, Swickley and Osborne will never accept Grace Church as a church. Since you are not really a church, just a group of people meeting in a renovated schoolhouse. Sadly, my friend’s words have proved all too prophetic.
Still, I continue to pray that God will be gracious to the people in this area. by showing them that buildings and property are not the church, and by convincing them through his word and spirit to let such things go for the sake of the gospel and its truth. As much as we might understand As much as we might understand that the building, the property, is not the church, neither is it adequate for us simply to identify the church as the people of God or as that living temple, as electrifying as those truths are when properly grasped. Too often, the notion of the Church remains for us quite indefinite, quite nebulous, and people, even we ourselves, allow our minds to be numbed by talk about the Church.
Consider Jesus’ statements in Matthew 16. Brief as they are, they are remarkably full and expansive, setting before us in short order a proper definition of the Church. Notice this as well. The context for these statements in Matthew 16 serves to drive home their content.
That context underscores the significance of Peter’s confession, which stands so central to this section. At first glance, we might not be overly impressed by Peter’s remarks, especially if we are alert to what has happened earlier in this very gospel. For you see, Peter is not blessed because he is the first to confess that Jesus is the Son of God. No, not at all. Turn, for instance, to Matthew 14, verse 33. Here we find the story about Jesus walking on the water, a story, I might add, in which Peter again plays a very important role. But notice that thirty-third verse.
When Jesus gets back into the boat with his disciples, they worship him and say, surely you are the Son of God. So the importance of Peter’s confession is not that he is the first to make such a confession. Indeed, the disciples as a group have confessed Jesus’ dignity and utter uniqueness prior to what we read in Matthew 16. This being the case, then, what is the importance of Peter’s confession? Why should it elicit such remarks from Jesus, especially such remarks about the Church?
Because it is precisely at this point that the ministry of Jesus has reached a critical stage, a crucial point. Matthew himself understands this, and shows that he understands this by the way in which he structures his gospel. There are two main divisions for Matthew’s account of Jesus’ ministry. The first division begins at the seventeenth verse of the fourth chapter, where we read these words. From that time, Jesus began thus and so. From that time, Jesus began thus and so. Notice what occurs immediately after the confession of Peter and Christ’s attendant We have there introduced to us the second division of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ ministry.
That second division begins at the 21st verse of that 16th chapter, a verse which we read this morning, where the very words that we found in Matthew 4.17 are repeated.
This means, then, that Peter’s confession is climactic. It is strategic. It comes at the critical juncture in the account of the ministry of Christ. Consider its importance. On the one hand, it comes when there is great confusion about Jesus and even widespread rejection of him. read through the opening verses of Matthew 16.
The disciples themselves are not immune to this confusion, as those verses prove. And as is proved by the exchange between Jesus and Peter after the initial confession, Peter himself is not immune to that confusion. So on the one hand, this confession by Peter comes at this strategic point. It comes when there is great confusion about Jesus and even widespread rejection of him. And that confusion and rejection have reached a crisis point in themselves.
On the other hand, Peter’s confession comes when Jesus is preparing now from this point on, that’s the point and force of that twenty-first verse, when Jesus is preparing from this point on to make his way to Jerusalem for the express purpose of fulfilling his father’s will, that is, to suffer at the hands of the Jewish leaders, to die and to rise again on the third day.
It is in this setting then, in this context, that Jesus chooses to draw from Peter’s confession in order to set before his disciples, and I may say by way of extension, set before us as well, the true nature of the Church. You see, Christ’s Church is specifically defined not just by Peter’s confession or anyone else’s confession, but by Peter’s confession in its specific context. That definition of the Church is no different now than it was then.
The confession standing central to the Church must then be the one that is articulate, bold, and resolute, specifically now, specifically in the face of confusion and in the face of the rejection of others. If your confession, if your confession as part of the Church is not standing over against the confusion of the world and the rejection of the world, yours is not a true confession. If a church’s confession is not standing over against mass confusion with respect to the person of God and His Son, Jesus Christ, and the rejection of God in all of His persons, then if That church is not standing over against such things, it is not itself confessing truly.
Now one need not go out and look for controversy. But the church of Jesus Christ by definition cannot avoid controversy. And some have made Christianity into a religion of non-controversy. And how odd that the church of this century should not only tolerate but embrace those who are so obviously confused. about who Jesus Christ is. Not only confused, but those who seem, those I might say who are the more intelligent, most articulate when they are rejecting the scriptural testimony to the fullness of Jesus’ personality and identity. Now where do you place Albert Schweitzer in the scale of things? Is he not the patron saint of Protestantism in the twentieth century? If he is for you, let me disabuse you of that attitude and idea. This is Albert Schweitzer’s confession.
Quote, the names in which men expressed their recognition of Jesus such as Messiah, Son of Man, Son of God, have become for us, modern people that we are, historical parables. We can find no designation which expresses what he is for us. Consider the confession of one of the more popular Roman Catholic theologians of our time, Hans Kuhn. The whole point of what happened in and with Jesus depends on the fact that for believers, God himself, as man’s friend, was present at work, speaking, acting, definitely revealing himself in this Jesus. as my father-in-law would say, weak as water. Both of these statements, one from Schweitzer the Protestant, one from Kuhn the Catholic, are outstanding for their theological dishonesty and cowardice. No less important from Jesus’ point of view as to what constitutes a true confession at the center of his church is the truth about his mission, not just his person, but his mission.
That mission was to suffer, to die, to rise again, and specifically, as is said elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel, for the purpose of saving his people from their sins, Matthew 1.21, and for the purpose of giving his life a ransom for many, Matthew 20.28. Here, too, is indispensable content for the confession by which the church is to be identified. Yes, with respect to the person of Christ, but also with respect to his mission.
What do we do then with those efforts in our own time, in our own century, to transform Jesus into the grand humanitarian? the famous writer and one-time missionary of the Presbyterian Church, contended that the notions of redemption and blood sacrifice were but hangovers of superstitious beliefs. What do we do about those who transform Jesus into a symbolic figure of human transcendence? that somehow humanity will make it through and will triumph in the end. That was the position of James I. McCord, former president of Princeton Seminary, for whom neither Jesus’s substitutionary death on the cross nor bodily resurrection were essential for the Christian message.
The Church then being defined by confession in context, wherein the confession, be it personal or corporate, stands over against the confusion of the world and even the rejection by the same. But of course, Jesus’ Church will not be defined by those who merely say the right things about Jesus’ person and work.
That is evident also from our text. The lives of those who truly confess and show in their confession and by their lives they understand will be lives then, as Jesus himself describes, lives of self-sacrifice after the image in the likeness of their Savior. If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it.” Fine words are not enough. Fine words must be joined with fine lives. in a proper definition of the Church. And finally, those who confess, those who then will unite themselves to Christ by way of confession, will be under his both with respect to their doctrine and their lives.
Such scrutiny comes to bear upon them through the living Christ, who is at work even presently through those to whom he has given the keys of the table. It may well be that you do not understand the full force of that 19th verse where Jesus speaks about the keys of the kingdom. But do not chase, do not automatically get your back up, but realize that if you are going to say that you have place in the true Church of Christ, that you have understanding with respect to a person in ministry, then understand this also, that that church is governed. It is necessarily governed by the living Lord, who exercises his rule in the church through those to whom he has committed the fees of the kingdom. Discipline is an undeniable, essential mark of the true church.
If you don’t like that, Will you not ask yourself the question whether or not you belong here? If it is your private opinion that verse 19 has no place in your life and that discipline should have no place in the Church, will you please reconsider your position here and save your elders the trouble?
Because it is truly a grief for us to deal with you. Why don’t you make it easy on us and just ask to be released. I like the confession part though. I enjoy saying nice things about Jesus that make me feel warm and fuzzy. So we move on to this living business and this discipline matter. That you fellows seem to slip into opinions and abandon what I judge to be the true meaning of Christianity. My friend, your living Lord is speaking to you here. Yes, we glory in our Savior, we thank him for the glorious body that is his, the Church. We rejoice in our union with him and in our knowledge that the Church is not a building but a living, confessing group of believers.
But we also acknowledge the pressure that being in such an assembly brings upon us with respect to the scrutiny and discipline that surveys us, that rightly surveys us, in our speaking and in our living. That scrutiny and that discipline spoil our complacency. They spoil our sham comforts, lest we too prove to mind the things of men and not the things of God.
Is your confession proper and true? Appropriate to the Church rightly defined as Jesus himself in this marvelous chapter sets before us. I pray to God that it may be so. O Lord, we ask you that as we are mindful of the greatness of your Son, we would consider the extensiveness that pertains to his work, not just to be confessed by men at one point during his earthly stay, not even just to suffer in Jerusalem, to die, to rise again, but to build his church of which we are a part. And if we are bold to confess him, then may we live him also. And if we are living him, may we also welcome the scrutiny and discipline that he has placed in his church for our well-being. We ask, Lord, that you would be pleased to work with us even to bring us to a proper submission so that you, the Lord, may be exalted.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.