Vol.
XLI
The
Divine Pattern for the Lord’s Church (9)
The Form of Teaching
by Tom
McLemore
Underlying this entire series of
studies has been the mandate of Jesus given to his apostles: “teaching them to obey everything I have
commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). We have
stressed that this is the basis of the divine pattern for the Lord’s
church. We have seen how this was
manifested in the story of Christ’s building of his church contained in the
book of Acts and other New Testament writings.
These manifestations provide a portrait of the pattern in practice, and
when the Lord’s church follows this pattern today, we proceed with confidence
that the Lord is pleased.
A very important phenomenon
encountered in the New Testament is reference to a particular form of
teaching. This form is presented as the
standard to which all Christians adhere.
It is described in various ways, and we begin with the passage that
contains the words of the title of this article. In Romans 6:16-18, Paul wrote, “Do you not
know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are
slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of
obedience which leads to righteousness?
But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have
become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which
you were entrusted, and that you, having been set free from sin, have become
slaves of righteousness” (emphasis supplied).
Several vitally important observations
may be made regarding this fundamental declaration. First, we may observe that the term “form”
translates the same Greek word (typos) that we encountered earlier in
our study of the pattern in Hebrews 8:5 (quoting Exodus 25:40): “....for Moses,
when he was about to erect the tent, was warned, ‘See that you make everything
according to the pattern [typon] that was
shown you on the mountain.’”
Second, this form of teaching is
represented as having significance for becoming Christians and continuing
to be Christians. In other words,
the form of teaching obeyed from the
heart in being set free from sin and becoming children of God is the same form
of teaching that Christians obey from
the heart in living the Christian life and being slaves of righteousness! In beginning to obey this singular form of
teaching, one is being entrusted to it as the guide for the continuation
of the Christian walk. The Christian
life begins with the form of teaching, and the same form of teaching leads the
Christian through to the end.
We shall see that what is contained in
the New Testament is an application of this form of teaching in terms of
particulars. That is, all of Christian
instruction and living is fundamentally an elaboration and a putting into
practice of the form of teaching. What
is this form of teaching? We might
expect the answer to be found in the same epistle in which the phrase under
consideration is found, the epistle to the Romans. In fact, the epistle begins with the
declaration of the form of teaching: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called
to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand
through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who
was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son
of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the
dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and
apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for
the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus
Christ...” Romans 1:1-6).
Thus, it is the gospel which is
the form of teaching under consideration.
This is exceedingly significant, because it seems that many members of
the Lord’s church view the gospel as having significance for their overcoming
their past sins but do not seem to understand that it also informs present
living as a Christian. However, when
Paul seeks to instruct Christians about present living as a Christian,
he consistently directs their gaze toward the gospel, their initial experience
of it, and its meaning for the present.
In the immediate context (Romans 6),
Paul refers to obedience to the gospel in order to show that what happens to believers as they
are united with Christ informs them of how they are to live in Christ. In Romans 6:1-7, Paul writes, “What then are
we to say? Should we continue in sin in
order that grace may abound? By no
means! How can we who died to sin go on
living in it? Do you not know that all
of us who have been baptized into Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by
baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the
glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united
with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a
resurrection life his. We know
that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed,
and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.
For whoever has died is freed from sin.”
We might also observe that gospel obedience (being baptized
into Christ) is a form of the gospel itself.
(Paul does not use typos, but he does describe gospel obedience
as a “likeness”– homoioma. Note how Paul uses homoioma
in Romans 8:3 and Philippians 2:7).
According to Paul (1 Corinthians 15:1-4), the gospel in its fundamental
terms is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In baptism, the believer
dies with Christ, is buried with Christ, and is raised
with Christ. In baptism, the Christ’s
death becomes the believer’s death, Christ’s burial becomes the believer’s
burial, and Christ’s resurrection becomes the believer’s resurrection. The profound implications of that death,
burial, and resurrection are summarized by Paul as follows: “[Y]ou...must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God
in Christ Jesus...[J]ust as
you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and
greater impurity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for
sanctification” (Romans 6:11,19).
Having established the gospel as “the
form of teaching,” we may consider some other passages in which Paul alludes to the gospel and see how they relate to what we
have learned from these passages in Romans.
For instance, after having specified some activities that Timothy ought
to stress to the church in
There are several ideas pertinent to
our study that emerge
from this statement. First, it is
obvious that the gospel is in accord with godliness, i.e., if a person
considers the implications of the gospel and gospel obedience, one will be
instructed and directed toward piety and devotion to God. When one does not fulfill the duties implied by the
gospel itself, there is a fundamental failure to understand the gospel.
Second, it ought to be observed that the
gospel is described also as “the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The gospel is ultimately the teaching of
Jesus himself and carries in it all of the implications of everything he
commanded (Matthew 28:19, 20). He is the
source, the center, and the subject matter of the gospel, and thus the gospel
supplies the form of teaching which the church is to believe and obey from the
heart.
Third, this form is uniform and
universally applicable. Paul’s stern
warning suggests that all must teach this form of teaching and must not teach
otherwise. In like manner, John has
written, “Everyone who does not abide in the teaching of Christ, but goes
beyond it, does not have God; whoever abides in the teaching has both the
Father and the Son” (2 John 9).
This is our pattern of doctrine (form
of teaching), and when we believe it, teach it, and obey it, we are following
that to which we have been entrusted, and Christ is pleased to dwell among us
and have us call ourselves by his name. In our next installment in this series, we
will consider how Jesus himself is our pattern for daily living and
service.
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