A Further Thought

I like Rutherford’s distinction of the power of the keys and a power about the keys.

Christ, the King and Head of the Church, has committed the power of the keys, that is the authority, power, and exercise of church government, to the ministers of His Word, together with the elders who are joined with them. This power is given to office-bearers immediately by Christ and mediately by the consent and election of the church.

Christ, the King and Head of the Church, has also committed to the visible church a power about the keys. This is a popular or virtual power, not an authoritative or formal power. According to Second Reformation writers, this power about the keys extends to:

1. The tacit approval of the people. “Not only the solemn execution of ecclesiastical power and authority, but the whole exercises and acts thereof, do properly belong unto the officers of the kirk; yet so that, in matters of chiefest importance, the tacit consent of the congregation be had before their decrees and sentences receive final execution.” (From a 1641 letter from the General Assembly to some brethren in England quoted by Cunningham in “Historical Theology” Vol 1, p 58. Quotes from Henderson and Gillespie follow.)

2. The election of office-bearers. This is not an exercise of the power of the keys, but an antecedent to the presbytery’s authoritative act of ordination and/or installation.

3. In the extraordinary circumstance that an isolated congregation is bereft of office-bearers, election is sufficient to constitute a lawful calling and thus replace them.