Indulge me for a while.

I recently read in the news that the practice of the Roman Catholic Church offering indulgences is making a resurgence (read about this here). As I read the article, I began to wonder what Martin Luther would have thought. As many of you already may know, it was the issue over the selling of indulgences that Luther initially launched his public criticisms of the Roman Catholic church. Indulgences are defined as the removal of temporal punishment for sins that have already been forgiven. You see, since Rome distinguishes between the removal of guilt and the actual punishment for sin, there remains a necessary step in the Roman Catholic system that Christians must undergo prior to entering heaven (hence: Purgatory). In order to limit one's time spent in Purgatory, the church offered, for the right price, indulgences. As Johann Tetzel, the famed indulgence preacher said, "When a penny in the coffer rings, a soul from Purgatory springs!" This as you can imagine, was a huge money-making enterprise, and also, no doubt, part of the motivation for its modern-day reinstitution.  

But as heinous as this practice may seem to be, it was not the major issue over which the Reformation grew. The move to morally reform corrupt church practices did not begin with Luther, nor did it end with him. As a matter of fact, the Catholic Reformation (A.K.A. Counter Reformation) was all about moral reform, and it was quite successful in cleaning up Rome's act, so to speak. The major issue which the Reformation was all about is the doctrine of justification by faith alone. This is the teaching that Luther, whose theology had matured since the publishing of the 95 Theses, said the Church stands or falls upon. The Reformation was primarily motivated by theological concerns (soteriology in particular) and only secondarily, did moral, political, social, etc. concerns enter in.  Rome's answer to the Reformation, the council of Trent, understood this well. Trent did much to reform corrupt practices within, but perhaps its most emphatic denunciations were reserved for anyone who holds the doctrine of justification by faith alone (they receive an anathema).  This is what sets the Reformers apart from Rome as well as the Anabaptists; both denied any notion of imputation of Christ's righteousness in favor of a realist notion of salvation (i.e. God declare you righteous, only if you are really righteous). Moral corruption is nothing new (or unique to Rome, for that matter), what is important, however is the gospel. 

Sacraments and Discipline

We've already seen the inter-connected relationship that preaching has with the administration of the sacraments and discipline (see below), but what relationship, if any, do the sacraments have with godly church discipline? These two marks of a true church have much to do with one another in that they both are essential aspects of the Christian communion. 

Baptism, as it was instituted by Christ in Matthew 28, is obviously an initiatory rite for those entering into the church. Its covenantal significance is seen in Christ's choice of the preposition "into" (eis, in Greek). When we were baptized, we were not just baptized "in" the name, that is by divine authority, but we were also baptized "into" the name of the Triune God. This terminology is freighted with covenantal significance. In the ancient world, the name of the god that one worshiped would be called out durning one's initiation; it was said that the divine name was placed "upon" the devotee. This is the same language used of the Aaronic benediction in Numbers 6, when God says in verse 27, "So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them." In other words, when we were baptized, we were baptized into a relationship with God, where he promises that he will be our God and we will be his people (the essence of the covenant). 

If baptism gets us into the covenant people of God, so to speak, the Lord's Supper provides us sustenance once we are in. Unlike the act of baptism, which need only be done once, the Lord's Supper ought to be taken regularly in order to continue to nourish our souls to eternal life. It is a means of assurance for the believer because we know by faith that as certainly as we eat the bread and drink the wine, so certainly has Christ died for our sins. It is given to us because of our sin and failure to assure us of God's love and to strengthen us in our resolve to do good. 
With these things in mind, let us remember that godly church discipline is for those who are within the covenant community (Heb 12:6).  Discipline is not some arbitrary and judgmental task that consistories do to flex their spiritual power, rather, it is done in love and humility in order to restore a fallen brother. It is not for those who are outside, but is a necessary gift from God for his children. We should be thankful for discipline, for it is God's means to keep us in his church. Here we can see the intimate relationship that discipline bears to the sacraments. Discipline is only for baptized members of the covenant community who have gone astray in doctrine or life. Further, the consequence of Christian discipline is to be suspended from the table of the Lord's Supper. This means of assurance salvation is withheld from those who refuse to repent of their sins. Once a brother is brought to a place of repentance and restored, the Lord's Supper is once again offered.  

We see, therefore, that the three marks of a true church as defined in Belgic Confession  art. 29 are non-negotiable.  They are not three random aspects of church life that someone 500 years ago decided that everyone must agree upon. Rather, they are essential character traits that a church must have in order to faithfully carry out God's will. Further, I hope that I have shown how important it is for a church to not just have one of the marks, but all three, in that they bear such intimate relation to each other that in order for a church to carry out one task, the other two must also be present.