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, February 27, 1994.

and we are beginning with verse 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 5, we are beginning at verse 1. Give your attention to the word of God. I will be reading from the New American Standards. It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles. if someone has his father’s wife. And you have become arrogant and have not mourned instead in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst. For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that the spirit may be preserved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, just as you are, in fact, unleavened. For Christ, our Passover, has already been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people. I did not mean at all with immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he be an immoral person, or a covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.”

We are praying, Father, that we may have integrity in our confession, that we would not then be those who would confess your word to be true and then live in a way contrary to that word. Father, we have embraced the doctrine of your Word in keeping with the testimony of your Church. The Word indeed is inspired and infallible. We ask our Father that we would take heed to ourselves in light of your Word and help us, Father, so that we might embrace your word in truth, living in light of our confession with respect to that word. Truly, Jesus Christ is our guide in this matter, and he is our strength. Bless us for his sake. Amen.

The intention of this sermon is to catch us up a bit. And such sermons are necessary when you find yourself in an extended series as we find ourselves presently. We have been considering the matter of the Church for some time now. I have set before you a passage, 1 Corinthians 5, that we will not get to this morning. But believe me, we will get to it in time. We will be dealing with the matter that it raises.

But it is important for us, in an extended series such as this present series, to step back and to catch our breath, to see where we’ve been and even anticipate where we are going with this series of messages. Our approach has been somewhat topical, and I know that that has made some of you uncomfortable and a bit uneasy, but my effort here has been to set the topical discussion of this matter within the context of a biblical theological orientation, so that we would be well grounded in the Word and the flow of the Word. It has been my hope that the effect of these messages would be cumulative, one building upon another, as we make our way specifically through a number of New Testament texts. And that’s for the purpose of confirming us with regard to certainties that we have embraced about the Church, convictions that we have. convictions which we have judged to be right, but now seeing the confirmation of these convictions as we take up particular texts in Scripture.

But not only that, not only the confirmation, it’s not as if we have everything right after all, is it? No. the series has as its intention as well that we might be corrected. Do you labor with your own souls with regard to this dimension? As you hear the preaching of the Word week after week, not simply so that you can resonate with regard to the things with which you already agree, but that you might be corrected even through the reproof of the word with respect to those things that are true, yet those things which you have not properly, rightly, adequately embraced. So, lest we be proud. lest we be arrogant about this whole matter.

Yes, confirmed, but also corrected. Now, believe it or not, my interest in all of this is to be evangelistic. Now, I mean that in two senses. One, I am evangelistic for the Reformed faith. Now I want to be gracious in that, but I’m not going to be apologetic.

I have contact with a number of people throughout this country in various Reformed churches. They are in contact with me regularly. And I was there. And one of the griefs that they share with me time and time again in their Reformed congregations is this. There seems to be embellishment about the Reformed faith.

To pick up the creed, of course, the Church is Calvinistic. that there seem to be apologies offered repeatedly for holding to such strict doctrine in our day and age, or even insisting upon the truth of that doctrine. And what a grief it is to these people if they find themselves in these situations.

So yes, I’m an evangelist, and while I wish to be gracious about this whole matter, I am not going to apologize for my commitment to the Reformed faith. Nor am I going to apologize for the fact that I am evangelistic in light of my commitment to the Reformed and Presbyterian view of the Church. Now, if you think that I might be odd in this regard, I want you to think about what J. Gresham Machen said during his battles in the twenties with the forces of liberalism, and with those forces that were relatively indifferent to ecclesiastical identity. This is what he said in 1927 in his battle for Orthodoxy at Princeton Seminary.

He said, as over against a reduced Christianity, we stand for the full, glorious gospel of divine grace that God has given us in his word, and that is summarized in the confession of faith of our Church. We cannot agree with those who say that although they are members of the Presbyterian Church, they have not the slightest zeal to have the Presbyterian Church extend through the lengths and breadths of the world. As for us, we hold the faith of the Presbyterian Church, the great Reformed faith that is set forth in the Westminster Confession, to be true. And holding it to be true, we hold that it is intended for the whole world.

This nation was an evangelist. He was an evangelist, yes, for the Reformed faith, for Presbyterianism, and so am I. This means that I have an agenda. This means that I am prejudiced. This means that I am biased. This means that I have presuppositions.

A number of years ago, a radical scholar by the name of Rudolf Moltmann wrote an essay entitled, Is Exegesis Possible Without Presuppositions? Now, his radical character and theology aside, the man was right. It’s impossible to engage in exegesis without presuppositions. Dr. Van Til has made this plain to us, has he not? He’s told us that we cannot operate apart from presuppositions, commitments that we bring to even the matter of the proclamation of the faith.

So yes, I am setting in front of you an agenda, and I am an evangelist with regard to that agenda. to encourage you with respect to convictions that you may properly hold, and at the same time, my agenda is to convince those of you with regard to my position that you might come to share the position that I hold.

But my interest is evangelistic in another sense as well, and I think that you understand this quite well. Does anyone think that I am interested in preaching the Church, or even as if Presbyterianism were the objective of my preaching? or that the Church herself were the content of my message, it is imperative that I make it plain that I am called upon as a minister of the gospel to preach Christ. While it is true that the saved assemble as the Church, it is Most certainly true that we are not saved apart from the Church, it must as well be clear to all of us that it is not the Church herself that saves us, right?

And only Christ saves us. Therefore, with Paul, I say we preach Christ and Him crucified. It is my hope, therefore, even as I preach on the Church, as I have been doing for quite some time now, that I would always be understood as one who is preaching Christ to you, one who is preaching Christ and Him crucified to you, and this even for the purpose that those of you who do not know Christ, do not know Him truly, who have not genuinely believed in Him or repented of your sin before Him, might in fact come to know Him, giving evidence of your rebirth, your regeneration, the fact that you have been born again by your faith and repentance, giving evidence of this new birth by your faith and repentance, and by your godly walk with God. People is part of Christ’s Church.

But even here, as I make that statement, it should be apparent to all of us here that even in our proclamation of Christ, The Reformed character of our preaching is unmistakable. You heard it, didn’t you? As I said it before you, the objective, the interest being with regard to those who have not come into a saving relationship to Christ, that they might in fact know him, giving evidence of their rebirth. Listen to this. of their rebirth, their regeneration, by their faith and their repentance, and by their godly walk with God’s people.

It is not then your faith and repentance that saves you, you see. It is not even by your faith and repentance that you are regenerated. Your faith and your repentance are testimony to you that you have been regenerated. So even here, as we proclaim Christ, it is impossible for us to escape the Reformed and Calvinist character of our proclamation. We do not preach Christ as if the reception of Jesus Christ were within our power as sinners, as if we were regenerated by our believing and by our repenting. as if we who were dead in our trespasses and sins have within ourselves the power to believe and to repent. No, as sinners we are as dead as Lazarus in his tomb. And God has chosen to bring us to life through the preaching of the gospel, our faith and our repentance then being the evidence, not the cause, of our new birth. The preaching of the gospel calls sinners to Christ, and if they come, it is because God, by the Holy Spirit, has given to those sinners new life.

Edmund Plowmey used to say that Jonah 2.9 closed the case for him as far as Reformed faith was concerned. I see some of you reaching for your Bible, because you don’t know that one by heart. It’s a good verse to know, especially the last line. That last line reads, Salvation is from the Lord. Dr. Crowney said, as far as he was concerned, it was that verse that closed the case. And if you read the account of what goes on before the conclusion of that ninth verse, you can’t help but be overwhelmed with the testimony. What is Jonah saying in his psalm of praise?

This man is sinking like a stone in the ocean. He is swallowed by a great fish. As he gives testimony in his psalm of praise in Jonah 2, you see, he considers himself as good as dead. It’s not as if there’s the possibility of him getting out of this at all. Therefore, his deliverance is nothing short, in his estimation, of a resurrection, life from the dead. Do you see why it’s so appropriate for Christ, then, to use Jonah as an illustration with respect to his own coming, resurrection?

Salvation is from the Lord. It is utterly impossible except God do it. But further still, we cannot deny the Reformed character of our proclamation of our Savior when we consider that none of us is saved alone, nor saved to be alone. Are you grasping why I’m spending so much time on the doctrine of the Church? and why I consider it to be such an important issue for us. Even in our proclamation of Christ, even as we evangelize, we must take into account the fact that none of us is saved alone, nor are we saved to be alone.

God does indeed deal with us as individuals. We rejoice in this personal and intimate love and fellowship. But He deals with us as individuals just as He deals with all of us who are His own. His dealings with us, therefore, are not for the purpose of leaving us detached, separated, isolated, orphaned, but in order to include us in the body, in the Church. But the question comes up, does it not? What does the body look like? You have to ask the question. What does the body look like? What does the church look like?

Unfortunately, much evangelism that is taking place presently is summarily unconcerned about that issue. It’s almost as if they don’t care what the church looks like. The most important thing is that you exercise your individual rights and choose one that suits you. You might even choose the church that you’ve been a part of. You might even go back to it, even though it’s apostate. Doesn’t matter. The form and the shape of the church doesn’t matter. Do you believe that? Do you think that’s what the word teaches? to what then will we direct the converts? What will we tell him or her to look for?

If we are convinced that we cannot leave converts isolated from the body, that the scriptures do in fact mandate the church, do we not then tell them that the scriptures are concerned to set before them the pattern for the church and even for her structure, that these things do matter? to God, and they should matter to us. In other words, what we are saying is that there is a biblical doctrine of the Church to which we are bound, which we are to teach. We are then evangelistic that we are evangelistic with presuppositions, with commitments, and those commitments and presuppositions are Calvinist, Reformed, and Presbyterian. And we trust biblical until we are convinced by the Bible that they are not. Thus far in our study, and this by way of quick review as to where we have been, I know it might be very, very foggy in your minds right now. We have had a half-dozen messages on Matthew 16. That’s where we started.

And the great story there of Peter’s magnificent confession at Caesarea Philippi. Here in this passage, we learned about the proper context for a confession, that Peter’s confession stands over against the confusion of others or the various opinions that others have of Christ. And so it is for any confession, you see. that’s genuine. Many, in embracing Christ, do so saying to themselves, I hate discord. I hate debate. I hate arguments. Let me tell you, to be in the church of Jesus Christ is to be embroiled in controversy. You cannot escape it. And you do well to listen to your Lord when he said, I did not come to bring peace, I came to bring a sword.

So confession in context, in that passage, Matthew 16, but also there you hear Christ promising to build His Church, He there giving us seminal instruction about the relationship that His Church sustains to Israel over against Israel, the fulfillment of Israel, and the relationship that His Church also sustains to the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s the place you look to see the Kingdom of Heaven. After we finished out our messages on Matthew 16, we had three messages from John’s Gospel concerning the Church in John’s Gospel.

This is important because of the way in which some have viewed John’s Gospel as if that Gospel were the champion of an individualistic faith. me by myself alone.” Period. John’s gospel, Christ’s message presented in that gospel, is anything but the champion of an individualistic thing. Rather, it is wonderfully full of the doctrine of the Church. I cite only one passage as proof. Love one another. there is in any way for you to obey that command from Christ apart from the Church. None. Period.

We then have five messages from the Book of Acts that set before us the Church as God’s new creation, in which the realm of the ascended Christ lays hold of us. bathing us with indestructible joy in the Holy Spirit. Are you not impressed with the joy of that book? It comes from heaven. It touches down in the church.

Our sermons from Acts were followed by six from Romans. in which we expounded the doctrine of the Church in terms of its universality, as well as its local expression, adding content to what it means for us, the Church, to confess Christ, Romans 10.9, and what it means for us to be the body of Christ, Romans 12.5.

We also dealt with the thorny issue of the relationship between the Church and state in Romans chapter 13. This brings us to our present current messages from the Corinthian correspondence, in which we have handled the questions of Christian liberty out of 1 Corinthians 9, and the matter of Christians in relationship to their money, the Church in relationship to money.

So that’s where we’ve been. Now, where are we going? Our future messages will include sermons from the Corinthian Correspondents, additional messages from the Corinthian Correspondents. From there we will go to Ephesians, and from there to the pastorals, taking up such matters as church discipline. That’s why we read this morning 1 Corinthians 5. That’s our lead into that subject. We will progress from there to take up the issue of office and gender, a matter that is forced upon us in our time.

We will look at the matter also of biblical church order. We will deal with Christian unity and the relationship of the church as a whole to individual congregations, but also the whole question of denominations. We want to consider the Church in relationship to families and also the Church in relationship specifically to children. This will move us out of the Pauline material in the New Testament and into the rest of the New Testament writings, from Hebrews to Revelation we will be confronting issues like worship, the issue of suffering in relationship to the Church, the question of apostasy, the matter of corporate prayer, healing, final triumph, all of these matters.

And as we make our way through our Bibles on this glorious issue, with respect to the Church, let us remember that there are salient points that we are to keep in mind that are to be reinforced along the way, the cumulative effect having its fruit in us. Keep this in mind as we move through this material. The Church of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment and goal of God’s promises to Israel in the Old Testament. Keep this in mind.

Jesus Christ cannot be separated from His Church. And let this be an axiom for your thinking and for your living. There is nothing that Jesus Christ loves more in this world than His Church. Nothing. The popular idea that you can have Jesus Christ but not be in his Church is a lie out of the pit of hell. And remember this also.

The Church, while visible and local, while sojourning in this world, possesses a heavenly life and submits to a heavenly order. Therefore, to ignore, neglect, or rebel against the Church is an affront not to man, not to an institution invented by man, but to heaven and to the One who reigns in heaven. The way in which you treat the Church is the way in which you treat the Ascended Christ. For you see, the Lord has been pleased to call the Church His body. your attitudes and actions, therefore, with respect to the Church, do have eternal consequences.

Our Father, may we be strong in our faith and full in our confession of you. Full in our confession of all that you have done. And may we love what you love. Our souls and spirit disciplined by your love revealed in your word. And as you count your church dear, so dear that Christ dies for her, may we likewise count her dear and give ourselves to her. Indeed, Lord, may we love one another, and may we give ourselves one to another in the body of this fellowship. to the glory of your name, to the worship of our God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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.