Editor’s Note: One of my requirements for my class on Ecclesiology and the Sacraments with Professor Sinclair Ferguson, which will commence on the 24th of January, is to read R.B. Kuiper’s 367-page book entitled: The Glorious Body of Christ. What follows is a five-part series summary of this 53 chapter-book. In the end, I shall present a brief evaluation of this book.
The Glorious Body of Christ
By R.B. Kuiper
R.B. Kuiper was a professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary for many years. However, his interest for ecclesiology led him to this project, which we will discuss. The book is a contribution of many articles (precisely 53) from October, 1947, to February, 1952 to the Presbyterian Guardian on “The Glory of the Christian Church.”
Kuiper finds great delight in the expression of the Church as glorious. To him, “the Christian Church is glorious in its very nature (13).” Throughout his writing the author’s main focus is to draw back the attention of the Church to its centrality in the plans of God in redeeming His people. Professor Kuiper realizes that the Church has always been under assault from the evil one. “The struggle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent is not only perennial but perpetual (15).”
The underlying theme throughout this piece is to accentuate the extremes taken during the centuries of Church History and to minimize the abuses of some by offering helpful alternatives to extreme measures. For instance, in matters of membership there has been great tumult. Some, as John Nelson Darby, argued that a church member had to give a “glowing account of their conversion (28)” in order to be accepted into the Church. Kuiper argues that since only God is aware of the true condition of the heart, a profession of faith from a person is a sufficient expression to enter membership.
R.B. Kuiper is convinced that the well-known Reformed distinction leads to a more Biblical formation of the Church. He defends vigorously that the “visible church is glorious insofar as it resembles the invisible church (29).” He argues that as long as there is impurity in the Church and false professions prevail, then the church is far from its sacred goal. But how this goal is to be accomplished is how he solves this dilemma. The visible Church needs to be a militant Church if it ever desires to resemble the triumphant Church which is the Church in heaven. The visible Church needs to oppose the evils of this present world both outside the Church and inside.
Kuiper argues that the Church is the most glorious of all of God’s institutions. Whether it is the institution of the family or the state, the Church is far superior to the previous two institutions. The Church itself is the guardian of God’s sacred nourishment found in the sacraments and it is the privileged means through which the Word must be preached faithfully.
In regards to the eschatological view of this glorious Church, the author sees that the “compromising ecumenism of our day is contributing to the hastening of that event (48-49).” He sees this as a strong possibility that will eventually lead to the “unification of practically the entire human race under Antichrist (48-49).” However, though unity in compromising the gospel is the trademark of the final stage of the Church, genuine unity in the body is a trademark of the glory of the Church. This is the fulfillment of Christ’ prayer in John 17. “In John 17 Jesus is praying for the spiritual unity of believers (42).” Kuiper sees this unity possible in only one way: “… the one and only way in which true peace can come is by the destruction of false peace (52).” The body of Christ has introduced deception into its members and thereby breaking the unity of the body by polluting its members and causing further division. Rather, Christ’s prayer according to Kuiper is a call to true unity not based on the compromise of the gospel’s message, but on the furtherance of that message to the ends of the earth.
