Historical Pastoral Theology

By the above term I am not referring to a discipline of theology which looks at pastoral theology in the light of history. I want to draw our attention to the fact that, so often, we become used to the distinctions made in systematic theology because of the debates of the past. Then we tend to use these distinctions when it comes to dealing with people in the real world. This has an unfortunate side effect. The Bible authors do not actually always follow the same distinctions we use. If we want to pattern our pastoral theology on the example (say) of the Lord or even the Apostles we need to decide how, if at all, we are going to use historically conditioned distinctions.
It has become common to think, in Reformed circles, of describing the members in the Church as either members of the visible or members of the invisible Church. The distinction is useful for understanding why some who appear to have never been “born again” should be accepted as a part of the congregation. It is based on the division Paul makes in Romans, for example, between those who are physically of Israel but not Israel according to the Promise. He gives a number of examples – Esau and Ishmael among them. In Paul’s day there were also Ananaius and Sophyra and certainly others.
But, useful though the distinction may be, when it comes to dealing with individual members of the congregation, is it necessary for us always to be checking to see if other members (or even we ourselves) are actually members of the invisible Church? Does it not, at the least, make us less concerned to have those we consider lost do what they ought to be doing about living holy lives?
In a significant passage in I Corinthians 1:2 Paul calls the members of the Church he is writing to “saints.” And, in chapter 6:9-11 of the same letter Paul shows that, though they had been sinners of many sorts, they had all been washed, sanctified and justified. They had, in short, become members of the body of Christ. And, if we accept that the “washing” refers to their baptism, that happened when they were baptized. They had, according to Paul, been baptized, sanctified (set aside for God’s use) and justified (declared free from sin’s dominion) and should now live out that reality.
This is significant when we consider what was going on in Corinth at the time. If we had to deal with members of the congregation who despised one another because of “spiritual gifts;” who claimed that one preacher was better than another and he should be followed so the Church was divided; who claimed they were holier than others because they lived a more “Biblical” life; or who were so incensed with another member they took that person to court, we might be tempted to class the whole lot as members of the visible Church but certainly not of the invisible one. Yet Paul makes no such distinction – he treats them all as truly members of the body of Christ, though sinful members.
Evangelism might seem to be the best solution to such problems. Call upon the sinful ones to repent and believe so that they might be saved and not suffer the condemnation due to them because they (obviously) were not believers. But Paul treats them as already believers and exhorts them to change lest they lose the blessings they already have in Christ. This would tend to make us look at evangelism and the Church differently. It should also have an effect on how we see the task of missions. More on these subjects later.
What has this to do with history and pastoral theology? I would contend that, occasionally, we need to re-examine our theological tools and decide if they are actually able to be used as the Bible indicates we should. That there are some who are members of the visible Church and will not make it to heaven is a reality. The reality on which the visible/invisible distinction is made. Yet, when it comes to reacting to sin in the congregation pastorally we need to treat all as equally responsible members of the congregation – we do not (after all) know for certain who is, or is not, a member of the invisible Church. The trouble is that attempting to discern who is actually born again leads to a form of legalism that was common in the Church and has its roots firmly embedded in the Judaism of Paul’s day.
I recently read a book called The Baptized Body which makes a slightly different distinction. That between the historical and eschatological body of Christ. The historical body of Christ is the Church as she appears in history and the eschatological body is that form she will have at the end of time. The writer, Peter J Leithart, makes the point that the Apostles dealt with Church members as truly a part of the body of Christ because they were made a part of him by their baptism. While not agreeing with everything in the book the point is well made. We need to treat all members of the Church as truly members of Christ by their incorporation (in baptism).
To use a different metaphor there are no second class citizens in the Kingdom of Heaven. You are either a member or you are not. You can be a faithful member or a sinful one. Either way, you are answerable to the King of the realm for the way you behave. It seems that, in this case, perhaps we should be setting aside some historical distinctions in order to be more effective in our pastoral work. After all, it is possible to see that the Reformers did the same with medieval scholarship in some areas so that a clearer grasp of the Gospel could be recovered.