Isaiah 59:20-21 - Homiletics

The Church indefectible.

The Church of God, being a body of men and women, each one of whom is weak, fallible, and liable to fall from the truth, ay, even to apostasy, must, by the nature of things, be of itself and in itself detectible. A weakness which attaches to all the individuals of a body must attach to the body which those individuals make up. The Church, therefore, is not, per se , indefectible. If indefectible in fact, it can only be so by the will of God, and can only be by us known to be so if God had declared to us his will. But this has been done—

I. GOD DECLARED BY THE PSALMISTS AND THE PROPHETS THAT HE WOULD SET UP ON EARTH AN IMPERISHABLE KINGDOM , CITY , OR COMMUNITY OF MEN . A promise to this effect was first given to David. God said to him, by the mouth of :Nathan, "I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever " ( 2 Samuel 7:12 , 2 Samuel 7:13 ); and again, "Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever " ( 2 Samuel 7:16 ). Hence David himself spake of "the city of the Lord of hosts, which God would establish for ever " ( Psalms 48:8 ). And Ethan the Ezrahite spoke of the promise as a "covenant" to which God had "sworn:" "His seed shall endure for ever , and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven" ( Psalms 89:34-37 ). Isaiah's declarations as to a coming kingdom are to the same effect. "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end , upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever " ( Isaiah 9:6 , Isaiah 9:7 ). And the declaration of the present chapter: "My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed … from henceforth and for ever. "

II. God ATTACHED THESE PROMISES , THROUGH THE DECLARATIONS OF HIS SON , TO THE PARTICULAR COMMUNITY WHICH HE CALLED HIS CHURCH . "Thou art Peter," said our blessed Lord, "and upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it " ( Matthew 16:18 ); "Go,… teach all nations," our Lord said again, "and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world " ( Matthew 28:19 , Matthew 28:20 ). The apostles are confident, therefore, that the Church will always continue. St. Paul, in his directions concerning the Eucharist, declares that, through their partaking of it, Christians " do show the Lord's death till he come " ( 1 Corinthians 11:26 ). And he speaks of the members of the Church who are living at the last day as "caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air" ( 1 Thessalonians 4:17 ). St. John traces the fortunes of the Church from his own time to the consummation of all things, and finds a remnant of faithful ones upon the earth to the last, who give testimony for Jesus ( Revelation 2:21 .). Christians are therefore justified in believing that the Church of Christ is practically, if not ideally, indefectible—that in point of fact, it will never fail, but will continue to the end of the world Christ's great witness upon earth, testifying to his Godhead, to his redeeming love, and to the sufficiency of his one sacrifice.