This article speaks of the marks of the true church. Article 27 spoke of the essence of the church; Article 28 about the members of the church; and here we find the marks of the church.

In the days of our fathers there were not as many churches and sects as we find today, especially in the United States. Yet our fathers felt the necessity to define clearly what the true church is, as distinct from the false churches. They felt that, although we are bound to seek unity with other true believers, we must separate from the false church. And that is based on the Word of God. We read in 2 Corinthians 6:17, "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you." However, this does not mean that we must separate from a church in which there are false believers or in which there is no perfection. Nor does it mean that we must strive for a church of only true believers, as the Donatists taught in the history of the early Christian church, and later the Labadists in the days of the Second Reformation.

The previous article stated that the Lord Himself has made clear that we will never have, nor should seek, such a church. The church will always be a net with good and bad fishes, a field with tares and wheat, a company with wise and foolish virgins. There was even a Judas among the disciples of the Lord Jesus; and for Paul there was a Demas, who left and returned to the world. We should not separate from the church because of the fact that there are many unbelievers in it. There may be so many that you can hardly find the good fishes in the net, that you can hardly find the wheat on the field, that you see very few wise virgins.

However, although we may not separate from a church because there are false believers, tares, and foolish virgins, we must separate from the false church, as we read in 2 Corinthians 6. Therefore we must know what the false church is and what the true church is in its revela­tion. We need a standard, a norm, in order to make that clear.

The Roman Catholics say the norm is what the church says. It is the church which says what God's Word means and what the marks of the true church are in that Word. This determination is according to the exegesis of the Pope and his bishops. You will then understand that there is the great danger of permitting the Word of God to say what we want to hear, what we want to believe, what fits us, and what pleases us.

The Reformers emphasized that Christ, the Head of the church, teaches by His Word what and where the true church is. That is what we read here in this article: "We believe that we are diligently and circum­spectly to discern from the Word of God which is the true church." All that we say about whether a church is true or false must be based upon the Word of God, for all sects which are in the world assume to themselves the name of the church. And then the article says, "We speak here not of the hypocrites, who are mixed in the church with the good, yet are not of the church," for they do not belong to it. Calvin used the illustration of a body which, for instance, has kidney stones; they are not of the body, and they do not really belong to the body, although they are in it. He compared the outward members, the hypocrites, to those stones. He spoke of many who, though they were in the church, did not really belong to the church.

That is what our fathers said also. The hypocrites are mixed in the church with the good, but they are not of the church, though externally in it. That presents a question for each one of us. We are in the church; we are in the house of God; we are in the membership books; we are in the visible manifestation of the church. But who are now the hypocrites? They are all those who bear the Name of Christ, but not in truth. They are all those who confess with their mouths the greatness of God, the beauty of Christ, and their own sinnership, but do not confess it with their hearts.

The true church is known by three characteristics. When we consider these marks, we must keep in mind that the Lord Himself speaks of the fact that the church in this world is always surrounded, and often pen­etrated, by the enemies of the church, by the instruments of Satan. Satan often disguises himself, puts a mask on, and begins to undermine the foundations of the church in a very subtle way, thus breaking down the walls of the church. He breaks open the defenses of the church and spreads his lies. We read in the Word of God that the Lord Himself warns against it. He says in Matthew 7:15, "Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." False prophets are those who some­times come in sheep's clothing. They are most dangerous. "But inwardly they are ravening wolves." They are not what they appear to be. Their outward deeds and talk and clothing do not show what their hearts are. There is an inconsistency; there is a dualism; they are not what they seem to be, but they are false prophets.

Acts 20:29 says, "For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock." Paul saw them coming; he was touched by the danger to which his flock would be exposed; and he warned them. In 2 Peter 2:1 we read, "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." We see that we must not just trust man, even if he comes in sheep's clothing, but we must go to the Word of God and say, "What are the marks of the church of God according to His Word?"

Our fathers have given three marks:

1. The pure doctrine of the gospel;
2. The pure administration of the sacraments as instituted by Christ;
3. The exercise of church discipline in punishing sin.

Of these three marks, the first is the pure doctrine of the gospel. But what is the pure doctrine of the gospel? There are so many who claim to have the pure doctrine, to have the truth. Every heretic has his letter, has his text; everyone appeals to the Word of God.

How can we be certain and know that we have the pure doctrine of the gospel preached to us or by us? The preachers are not pure – they are fallible creatures; they are no saints; they are no angels; they are prone to err, to halt, and to stumble. If they go either to the left hand or to the right, they go astray. Therefore we cannot just look at the preacher and conclude that he brings the pure doctrine of the gospel if he is a reliable person or if he is one who knows his Bible very well and quotes many texts. There must be some marks which make it sufficiently clear what the pure preaching is. And I will share with you what our fathers stated about it.

In one commentary about this article I read, "The pure preaching is the preaching of Christ as being a perfect, complete Savior, which implies that nothing of man can be added to His work and in which all that is of man will fall outside." He is not only a Savior who merits salva­tion and sends His messengers to call you and try to persuade you to accept His salvation. For no one will accept. No one by virtue of persuasion will give heed to this calling. This calling does not come to people who are anxiously waiting for it.

There is not one of us who would like to be saved as the Lord saves His people. There are many who want to go to heaven and want to be saved from hell, to be saved from all kinds of unhappiness, to be perfectly happy. They want to sing and praise God. True praise to God and glorify­ing Him, however, means that we bow with our face in the dust; being saved as the Lord saves His people means going lost from our side. Being saved by Another means becoming bankrupt. There the enmity arises. Oh, yes, we want to be saved, but not with the loss of ourselves, but with the keeping and preserving of our life.

Christ is a complete Savior, who merited but also applies salvation. He must be preached in this way. The pure preaching exalts Him as One who finished the work for them, but also within them. For that pure preaching we need not just a good theological training, a good mind, a sound bringing up, a being well-versed in Scripture and in the dogmatic works of Rev. Kersten, Witsius, Brakel, Calvin, and many others. No; in the first place we need His Spirit of truth: "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself." He shall speak of the fullness of Christ, revealing it in the hearts.

The pure preaching, according to Smytegelt, one of our fathers and a minister for many years in Middelburg in the seventeenth century, has four marks. Some of them will sound very familiar to you, so I do not pretend to give many new thoughts, but will repeat those marks for you. Smytegelt asked, "Where do you find the pure preaching?"

His answer was: First, where God is exalted to the highest. The Roman Catholics do not do this, for they exalt man and his good works, putting man on the throne; nor do the Jews, for they reject Christ; neither the Socinians, for they reject the Trinity; also not the Remonstrants, for they exalt the free will of man and thus take the crown from the head of Christ. When God is exalted to the highest, that always implies something. It implies that God does not share His honor with man. That is a humiliating thing for natural man. True preaching gives all the honor to God, it gives all the credit to the Lord alone. It is as the old Christian, Klaas Kuipenga in Ulrum, said to his minister, Rev. H. De Cock, "If I had to add even one sigh to my salvation, it would be forever lost for me." Where God is exalted to the highest, He is given all the honor for His own work, and all human work and merits are placed outside.

Secondly, where the sinner is abased to the lowest. Smytegelt asked, "Where is he abased to the lowest? It is where he is preached as one by nature being cursed, being utterly poor, blind, and naked, and in need of all things." Thus it is where he is portrayed as one who is not just sick, not as one who is willing, waiting, and longing, but as an enemy of God, as one who can no longer bring forth any good fruits of himself. Even after having received grace, he is entirely dependent upon the vine, from which the branches draw their life and their fruit.

Then Smytegelt added, in the third place, "Where is that pure doctrine preached? It is there where the humble and perplexed sinner is comforted most powerfully, most effectively, with the sovereign grace of God, in Christ, according to God's Word."

How can this be a comfort? How can a sinner be comforted with the sovereign grace of God in Christ? That is a mystery which only a humbled and perplexed sinner will begin to understand. That same gospel which is so cutting and so against man and his flesh, although his conscience says that it is the truth, now becomes his only hope. It is only in Him, from Him, and through Him, for if they had to add one sigh or think one good thought, it would be lost forever. When they have nothing anymore, and the gospel, which they have always heard, is opened to them, and they may hear that the Lord does not need anything from them anymore, but that every­thing is finished by the perfect, complete work of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the work of a triune God, then this encourages them. It gives them hope.

That is what we hear at Pentecost, when sinners cried, "Men and breth­ren, what shall we do?" There they stood in their guilt, under the wrath of God. But then there is hope, even for the worst of sinners, for to them that gospel must be proclaimed. The Lord has laid help upon One who is mighty. He becomes precious when I have no might anymore, when all my hope is gone, when I have no money, when I have no righteousness, when all my righteousnesses are as filthy rags, when I can only increase my guilt, when I lose my hope. Then, as Smytegelt said, true hope is "in the sovereign grace of God, in Christ, according to God's Word."

In the fourth place, he said, "The pure doctrine of the gospel is preached where the comforted sinner is exhorted and urged most of all to sincere godliness." That pure preaching does not make man an Antinomian; it does not say that because it is only sovereign grace, therefore the more sin, the more grace. No; it tells us that we cannot serve God and the world, that it is impossible to be a true child of God and to have your heart and your life in the world. Especially in our days there is so little visible difference anymore between the foolish and the wise virgins; there is so little separation between God's church and the way of the world; there is so much adjusting to the customs and fashions of these times. Many things may be changing, yet the Lord does not change.

The first mark was the pure doctrine of the gospel. That is a gospel not according to man, but for man. The purer the preaching of the Word of God, the more resistance it will meet in the natural heart, and the more it will cause enmity, if not subdued by God's common grace and by the convictions of conscience. It is understandable that our natural existence, our life, wants to live, not die, wants to increase and grow, but not go down, desires to merit some credit, and not to be bankrupt. It is all against our flesh. We read in God's Word, however, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. That flesh and blood becomes a burden to God's true children. But one day they will be delivered from it.

The Roman Catholics say that there are some other marks besides the pure preaching. They say that in the true church you see miracles, some mysterious things. They have places to which people make pilgrim­ages to see miracles. There is so much superstition. And even if we were to have a faith of miracles, it is not saving faith. They also say that the true church is where you have the most members; the multitude is another mark of the true church. But God's true church is called a little flock. They also teach that since their church is the oldest one, this old age is the mark of being the true church. But Satan and his followers are very old. Cain, one of our fathers said, was the first one of the false church, the first persecutor of the true church. How long ago was that? Longer than the church of Rome has existed.

The second mark was the pure administration of the sacraments. The Word is first; you may not adminis­ter the sacraments without the Word; but as a confirmation, as a seal, upon the Word of God, the Lord gave the sacraments. What is the pure administration of the sacraments? It is where the sacraments are administered as appointed by Christ, with nothing added to them and nothing taken from them. We may not add to the Word; we also may not add to the sacraments. Rome does so when it says that the sacraments really give grace to the sinner, who then receives it. They say that the sacraments give and work grace. But sacraments cannot do this; they only strengthen faith.

The Lutherans taught that sacraments do not give grace, but carry it toward you. That means that they also add to the sacraments. The Zwinglians, however, take from the sacraments when they say the sacraments are only a visible memorial of the work of Christ. They say that in the Lord's Supper we have only a memorial of the death of Christ. We think of Him; and in order to think better and more clearly of Him, we have this table with bread and wine. But, according to Zwingli, these are no more than signs and seals. In the Baptist view there is a tendency to put more emphasis on the faith of man than on that which God is saying in the sacrament. This leads to an undervaluing of the significance of baptism.

The third mark was that the church discipline must be administered according to the Word of God. This means it must be done in the way which the Lord described in Matthew 18, where secret sins must first be dealt with secretly; and public sins, or sins which have become public, must be brought to the consistory and dealt with, if there is hardening of the heart, in three steps, which can lead to excommunication. Discipline must be exercised to protect the sacraments from being defiled. Therefore this third mark cannot be lacking in order to have the pure administration of the sacraments.

The last thing we have to consider is the third paragraph of this article, regarding those who are members of the church. We may be very clear about what the true church is, but the question comes to us, "Are we a true member of that church?" The Word of God says in 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves." And Lord's Day 21 confesses, "And that I am, and forever shall remain, a living member thereof." That is the question for you and for me. Our fathers gave a short, powerful expla­nation, or description, of some marks. These marks are not a resting ground, but they may help you to examine yourself in the light of what God's Word says of true Christians.

First, they are known by "faith, and when they have received Jesus Christ the only Savior." In Lord's Day 7 you can find a description of this true faith. Comrie says of this faith that it is a grace, not a work. If you receive something by grace, you know that it is of grace. You do not view it as a work; you do not say, "That is what I accomplished; I worked myself up to that level; after many struggles I came to that." But you know that it has been given; that it is as impossible for you to reach to the stars of heaven to take them from the firmament as it is for you to believe in the Lord Jesus, for instance. But you learned that as impossible as it was of yourself, so impossible it became not to believe when the Lord brought that faith into exercise. For faith is a grace, a gift in its planting; but it is also a grace, a gift in its exercise.

Then Comrie says, "True faith makes us poor and needy in ourselves, but causes us to behold Christ in all His fullness and sufficiency to receive out of Him all grace, benefits, and blessings … all what we need."

We need to know what we need and how poor and needy we are. But if that is all, then you have not enough. It is dangerous if you are resting in your poverty and your neediness. However, if it is true poverty, you cannot rest in it. If you are truly hungry, you will cry.

During the Second World War, in 1945, people in the Netherlands sometimes went 100 miles to get food for themselves and for their little ones. And thus, if we have heard that there is a Savior who is the Bread of life, and we are really hungry, we would flee to Him. I wish that many would hunger and thirst after Him, after that precious Bread of life, for there is a sufficiency, there is an all sufficient Savior. His Name is Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.

When we see how much there is in Christ, in all His fullness and sufficiency, then our soul becomes the more longing and the more hungry; and we cry, "Give me Jesus, else I die." So it is with a sinner going out to His fullness to receive all grace from Him. Remember what the word ''grace" means. It stands over against guilt and being condemned. For there are no rights in the guilty one, but everything received is of grace. They receive undeserved benefits and blessings. That faith unites with Christ. By faith they receive Jesus Christ, the only Savior.

That faith, however, is not only a being planted in Him, but also a living out of Him; to make use of Him. So they go out to Him. Faith seeks to live out of Him, in dependence on the operation of the Holy Spirit. Faith seeks to go in His footsteps and to walk as He did. Oh, faith works by love; and love does not want to grieve; love does not want to hurt; love wants to please, to praise, and to make glad. Faith seeks to "avoid sin, follow after righteousness, love the true God and their neighbor, neither turn aside to the right or left." It gives a careful, tender walk in the fear of His Name.

This article also speaks of the new life of the believer, a "crucifying the flesh with the works thereof." The way to heaven is a dying life; it is a painful crucifixion. It is dying more and more; going backward in yourself; dying to all your abilities, to all your expectations. When you were young, you used the words free grace; but now you learn to know what it means. You learn to know more and more that in you, that is, in your flesh, dwelleth no good thing. All that you can learn of yourself is that you become more and more disappointed with yourself. But then He, that blessed Redeemer, Jesus Christ, will be more and more surprising. He comes back when you can least expect Him, when you least deserve it. This life is a continual warfare. As our fathers have stated, it is a "doing less sin and becoming a greater sinner" before God. They stumble daily. They say with Paul, "But I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." These are the marks of the true members of the church. They fight against their many sins and infirmities through the Spirit all the days of their life and continually take their refuge in the blood, death, passion, and obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord give us such a life and enlarge His church also in the midst of our families.