Reformed Doctrinal Development: Christ's refining of his Church, washing her in the Word
The necessity of confessionalism, retrieval, and further doctrinal clarity
Theological depth and love of tradition and church history have taken a steady decline in the last couple of centuries. This is both a cause and symptom of the rise of things like Dispensationalism, Fundamentalism, Biblicism, and woodenly “literal” hermeneutics. Most of Christendom, either rejecting confessionalism or, ignoring their confession, lean toward either a free-grace antinomianism or ascetic legalism. Not to mention liberals always trying to get branches cut off of the tree by their rotten fruit. The modern mindsets of individualism, feminism, and materialism have infected institutions and watered down confessions. Many are coming to realize the need to return to the higher theology and practice of the reformers. A retrieval is underway.
Preparing a Spotless Bride
I believe in protestant version of doctrinal development. Over the millenniums, and for centuries to come, the church has been tested against heresies that have entered into the Church via the culture and false teachers. No era has been free from this. Christ is preparing a pure Bride for himself, but She is still riddled with blemishes. She is not being further sullied through history, but purified.
That he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. - Ephesians 5:26-27 (ESV)
While one may object that this is about holiness, I answer that doctrine, or faith, and practice cannot be so separated. The Church in every age must respond to the challenge it faces with the Word in order to live and worship in Spirit and Truth. We must believe rightly in order to live rightly. When Christ returns, he will return to a bride prepared and a kingdom whose enemies have been subdued, ready to be handed to the father. Are doctrines that lead to unholy lives and unbiblical practice his enemy?
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. - Revelation 21:2
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” - 1 Corinthians 15:24-27
The Advancing Already But Not Yet
The Reformed should be well acquainted with this concept: Christ has put all things under his feet; yet all things are not currently under his feet. The already but not yet.
This does not come about in an instant as the premillennial would suppose, but is a process of subjugation, preparation, and purification. The new creation broke in to the old at Christ’s resurrection, and is growing like a rock cut without hands to fill the whole earth (Dan 2:35), or a mustard seed filling the garden and providing rest to every creature (Mat 13:32), or leaven that fills the whole lump of dough (Mat 13:33). The consummation will certainly be at his coming, but until then his kingdom will expand, and “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Hab 2:14).
As the knowledge of the glory of the Lord grows, so is it further clarified in the Church universal, to his ever increasing glory. There is no new revelation; yet it would be hard to argue that doctrinal clarity was not added through the council of Nicaea regarding the Trinity, or regarding Christology in other ecumenical councils. The same should be said about soteriology and bibliology post-reformation. Yet to claim every area of theology was clarified to perfection by the reformers or puritans would be flagrant. It is plain that there is still work to do and much unity to attained. The perfect will come at the end, but Scripture is clear that until then peace will increase.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. - Isaiah 9:7
Neither Antiquity Nor Modernity
This should do two things for us.
We should abandon any “chronological snobbery” toward saints of the past to whom the Spirit had not given the level of clarity as we have regarding doctrine. Augustine was wrong about a lot, but he was certainly brilliant and led by the Spirit to teach much truth to the church. Nor does his lack of Reformation clarity anathematize him. A rejection of antiquity is not the answer.
We should be carful of our use of historical theology and temper our use of Church Fathers and others. They were certainly led by the Spirit, but they were wrong and lacked unity on many things which have since been clarified. A return to the early church is not the answer.
So antiquity does not equal truth, but modernity certainly does not either. At times we do need to look back into the past to recover aspects which have been lost to a present madness. When the Church rejects any anchor to the past, it loses most of the benefit that have been achieved through the work of righteous men by the Spirit.
Creeds, Confessions, and Traditions: Faithful Yet Fallible
This is the reformed balance of Scripture and Tradition. Solo Scriptura (biblicism) unwittingly makes human intellect the highest rule. Sola Scripture does not reject tradition wholesale, but realizes that no authority outside of the word of God can act as a supreme rule of faith. Yet traditions1 (confessions, creeds) preserve what has been hard fought for while enabling the Church to push forward for the kingdom.
I hold to the Westminster Confession because I believe that it is an accurate representation of what Scripture teaches. But it would be wrong to affirm that it is infallible or inerrant. The Westminster divines certainly did not believe this, and American Presbyterians in 1788 certainly did not think so when they revised it. Nor does the confession speak thoroughly to all areas of theology, but mostly the ones that were under controversy in their time alongside of what is deemed essential to the faith.
Conclusion
Since the reformation, the Church has fought many battles, and we now face battles about nationhood, anthropology, human sexuality and being, and the role of women in all spheres to an extent that is unprecedented in history. The Church is being refined as through fire, not drowned in a cesspool of sin and waiting to be saved. The kingdom pushes forward, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Mat 16:18) but Christ’s body will have the victory he purchased.
We may lose for a time; history ebbs and flows. The Church of America may have its candlestick removed. But the gospel and the great commission will not fail, and Christ will wash his bride in the water of the Word. At the marriage supper of the Lamb, when “the Bride has made herself ready” (Rev 19:7), she will be without spot or blemish, including false doctrine. All fruitless branches will be cut off from the tree.
Consequently, we should be reformed, and always reforming. The Church should desire greater insight into the things of God, guided by the Holy Spirit, to be led into the right affirmation and application of truth, yet using the insight of the past as an anchor. As the Lord brings trial and divisions, we can thank him for his grace in the refining fire, not just individually but corporately.
Side note: Postmillennial eschatology is not required to affirm this. Amillennials and a certain type of Premillennial may as well. A clear look at church history should make this plain to any protestant, excluding anabaptists or restorationists. But it certainly rules out a pessimistic interpretation of redemptive history.
Tradition is not used by the reformed in the same sense as the papist. Rome’s traditions are man made doctrines that, at times, they don’t find necessary to root in Scripture (or only loosely) but in “oral tradition.” Reformed tradition is a certain understanding of how the Word of God is to be interpreted which is passed down. Everyone has tradition, weather they choose to realize this or not. “No tradition” is a tradition.