by Dr. Dan LightI searched the websites but could not locate what I was looking for. Somewhere, I thought I would find an example of the type of certificate that was presented to those who were ordained to the gospel ministry such 50 or 60 years ago and before. Inscribed on the certificates to which I refer are the words first found in Philippians 1:7, “Set for the defense of the gospel.” The documents that I found for sale or free download on the internet had all sorts of wording which one way or another made it clear that so and so had been approved for ordination by the authority of so and so to perform such and such, signed, sealed and delivered. Nowhere could I find the traditional “set for the defense of the gospel” in the text of any credential of ordination.
I may be risking indulgence in speculation but I have a suspicion that somewhere back there in church history there arose a need to point out and certify the person being ordained as a defender of a gospel that was, in some shape and form, under attack from those who were attempting to flavor that gospel with too much or too little ingredients. Some committee somewhere introduced the policy that the phrase first used by Paul in Philippians to protect the purity of the gospel be included in the description of the calling of an ordained minister of that gospel. If that is the case, would I be guilty of further speculation to suppose that the elimination of that phrase from the wording of ordination certificates was an attempt to downplay the role of the minister as a defender? Was it an attempt to cast the ordained ministry in a less belligerent light? Allow me one further question. Due to the fact that the gospel of Jesus Christ is being challenged today in more ways than ever, should we not resurrect the lost phrase and put it back where it belongs?
If you are still with me the point is not so much the composition of certificates as it is the recovery of a very important issue that is as crucial to today’s church as it was to the first century congregations to whom Paul wrote. The Apostle Paul was a man of love and sensitivity as we see reflected in his letters. It was he who wrote the “Love Chapter” of I Corinthians 13 and, on more than one occasion expressed his willingness to give up his own salvation if that would save his people. When it came to guarding the security of the gospel, however, the veteran of beatings, imprisonments, stoning, and shipwrecks spared no words or pulled no punches toward anyone who distorted the good news as Jesus had delivered it, attempting to communicate “another gospel.” When Paul sent a warning to “beware of dogs” who had shown up in Philippi, he referred to those who had polluted the purity of the gospel either by adding something to it, such as requirements of Pharasaic legalism, or subtracting from it by removing grace through faith. Such adding or subtracting perverted the good news and became bad news for anyone who, in any way, shape, or form, fell for it.
Twenty centuries after Paul encouraged Christians to repudiate those who tampered with the biblical gospel the same trumpet sounds for the true church of today to resist the tendency to add or subtract from the authentic gospel, especially for the sake of multiplication, attempting to draw more people into the sanctuaries by defiling the sanctity of the true message. The peril in practicing the “arithmetic of a false gospel” is that adding or subtracting from the real gospel in order to achieve multiplication only leads to division. That really upset Paul and, like him, we need to be alarmed enough to be “set for the defense of the gospel.” Make sure that is indelibly inscribed on the certificate of your mind and heart.
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