Systematic Theology - Church

One Flock, One Shepherd

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 25

Dictation Name: 25 One Flock, One Shepherd

Year: 1960’s – 1970’s

Let us bow our heads in prayer.

We thank thee, O God, that as we face the powers of darkness, of unbelief, and of humanism, we have the blessed assurance that this is the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith. We pray for those who are persecuted. We remember especially this day Pastor Everett Sullivan{?}, and we pray that he may speedily be delivered from any further threat of prison, and be released from prison, and may serve thee in freedom and in thanksgiving. We pray for the other states in which persecution is taking shape. Raise up men to resist. Bless us in our efforts, that we may continue to aid the resistance, fueling{?} the attorneys, resources, and becoming witnesses in the trials. Bless us now as we give ourselves to the study of thy word, and grant that we behold wondrous things out of thy law. In Jesus name. Amen.

Our scripture today is from Ezekiel 31:22 following. Our subject, continuing our studies in the doctrine of the church, is One Flock, One Shepherd. “Therefore will I save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle. And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the Lord have spoken it. And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods. And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing. And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them. And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid. And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more. Thus shall they know that I the Lord their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people, saith the Lord God. And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord God.”

The doctrine of the unity of Christ’s church is a very important one. There are two factors which very commonly govern a theological analysis of the subject of the unity of Christ’s church.

First, the discussion too often centers on union rather than on unity. Now, union of itself is not wrong. It is a real virtue, provided that unity precedes and is seen as basic to union. When we have unity, we are one in Christ. When we have union, we are institutionally organized into one body. Now, unity is a theological fact, union, an administrative one.

Then second, the goals of union and unity are too often divorced from the world task of the church. The life of the church must be ruled from start to finish by the purposes of God.

Now, in our scripture, God speaks through Ezekiel concerning his purpose for the church. He shall be their shepherd. He, as their shepherd, will send a prince to be their shepherd on earth, the Son of David, Jesus Christ. Then, he proceeds to describe what that prince, the Messiah, will do. This is a messianic prophesy concerning Jesus Christ, also concerning the flock of Christ, his holy congregation. God says he will, in faithfulness to his covenant, provide the covenant prince, the covenant deliverance, protection, and prosperity, and then he specifically outlines what this means.

First, God will save his flock. He will set up a shepherd over them, the promised one, to whom he will entrust the care and the feeding of the flock.

Then second, God’s covenant of peace will mean the extermination of everything which can harm them. The wild beasts will be restrained or eliminated, so that covenant man will be able to sleep in the woods in safety. There will be natural consequences of a supernatural origin, in man’s very relationship to the animal creation.

Then third, we are told in this text, these consequences will extend to the weather itself. There will be showers in season. IN other words, the weather will minister to covenant man. There will be showers of blessing. By this is meant rain when it will be a blessing, not when it will be a curse, cause a flood or damage the crops. The fertility of the earth, we are told also, will be greatly enhanced.

Then fourth, God declares there will be safety from human enemies. Instead of being a prey to their enemies, they are safe, and none shall make them afraid.

And fifth, they are promised freedom from bad shepherds, as well as from outer enemies. They will be safe and there will be none to make them afraid.

In other words, what this prophesy tells us is that the coming of the Messiah means the beginning of the new creation. This is the plain meaning of this text and others which call the church the flock of the prince. Now we come to a key fact, the meaning of the word “flock.” What does it mean?

It is an important word theologically. In the King James Version, we have in John 10:16, a very serious mistranslation which reflects a mistranslation that goes back to St. Jerome. The English revision of 1881 corrected it, and as it is corrected, in terms of the Greek original, it reads, “And other sheep I have which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice and they shall become one flock, one shepherd.” Now, in Jerome’s version as well as the King James, that last phrase reads, “one fold, one shepherd.” What’s the difference? A very important one, but scholars, because they are not farmers or sheep men, do not catch the difference. This is why it has commonly been misinterpreted over the centuries. There is a difference between a fold and a flock.

Now, what is a sheep fold? Well, a sheep fold is a limited number of sheep under a particular under-shepherd. Thus, let us assume that all of us men here were sheep herders, operating under a sheep rancher, and each of us were given some of the sheep to take out into the mountains. What each of us would have would be a fold. What all of these folds together would be is a flock. In other words, a fold is a subdivision of a flock. That’s a very important distinction, and a very controversial one, because our Lord says, there shall be one flock, one shepherd, and many versions read “one fold, one shepherd.” The way this has been interpreted by some is that since it is all one fold, therefore, everyone must be in one church together. Others have held to the branch theory that there are many folds, each under its own under-shepherd, but the one flock is under Christ.

Now, let’s take a little time to analyze this, pro and con, and to see which is right, if either of them are. What is our Lord saying? What is the essential meaning? He says, other sheep I have which are not of this fold, this fold, the Jews, the Galileans among whom he was ministering. Other sheep I have, out there in the Gentile world, which are not of this fold, but they shall hear my voice in due time, and they shall become one flock, one shepherd.

Now, as I indicated, there is a division of opinions here, but the division is much more far-reaching than just Catholic or Protestant. There are many Protestants who have affirmed there must be one united church, although they’ve differed from the Catholics as to the nature of that church. In John 7:35, on one occasion, the Pharisees and the chief priests asked, with contempt, concerning Jesus, “Will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles and teach the Gentiles?” Now, our Lord, in John 10:16, makes clear indeed, he will, through his church, reach out to the Gentiles, that he has his elect ones all over the world. “Them also I must bring,” or more accurately, “Them also I must lead,” but the Gentiles are not yet a separate fold. “They shall become one flock, one shepherd,” is the literal reading.

Now, as this has been interpreted, one of the great fallacies in the interpretation, which I spoke about when we began our series of studies in the doctrine of the church, is that people begin from the present and go back and read the Bible in terms of the present, in terms of their church and their situation. Let’s see some of the interpretations that result. Here is one from an Anglican bishop, Jay Stephen Hart{?}. Let’s see what he says. “The fold is a necessity of administration with a view to the safety of the sheep. We must read ‘one flock, one shepherd,’ not one fold. The fold is a necessity of administration with a view to the safety of the sheep, and because of the existence of a hostile environment, a shepherd with so large a flock in a worldwide pasture, might well have more than one fold, but if he does, unity will be preserved because they are all his, provided by his one loving purpose, and usable by any of his sheep when he moves them from one place to another. As applied to the Catholic church, the figure{?} justifies local or national churches, with independent features and organization, but not seismatic divisions. Even so, we must notice that Christ hints only at many folds by speaking of other sheep which are not of this fold, and of a unity still to be created. Unity is his concern.”

Another contemporary scholar, Dr. Leon Morris, gives a somewhat similar reading, and he says, “The other sheep are not to remain distinct from the existing sheep, as though there were to be a Jewish church and a separate Gentile church. They are to become united in one flock, and they all stand under the leadership of one shepherd. The unity is not a natural unity, but one brought about by the activity of the shepherd in bringing them.”

Now, it is interesting that St. Augustine, when he dealt with this text, put the emphasis not on the outward unity, but on this aspect of the verse. “They shall hear my voice.” This, said Augustine, is the ground of the unity.

Calvin followed Augustine with a like emphasis, and he said, “That is, all the children of God must be gathered and united into one body. As we acknowledge that there is one holy, universal church, and there must be one body with one head. There is one God, says Paul, one faith, one baptism. Therefore, we ought to be one as we are called into one hope. Now, though this flock appears to be divided into different folds, yet they are kept within enclosures which are common to all believers who are scattered throughout the whole world. Because the same word is preached to all, they use the same sacraments, they have the same order of prayer, and everything that belongs to the profession of faith, and they shall hear my voice, we must observe the way in which the flock of God is gathered. It is, when all have one shepherd, and when his voice alone is heard, these words mean that when the church submits to Christ alone, and obeys his commands and hears his voice and his doctrine, then only is it in a state of good order.” Now, Calvin very obviously believed in a united and catholic church, but he went on to say that he did not believe the Roman Catholic Church was that church.

Now, how shall we react to these diverse opinions? All understand the text, as I pointed out earlier, in varying degrees in terms of the present church scene. They look at the present world scene, Catholic or Protestant, and they postulate a necessary union, or they develop the branch theory of the church and say there must be the many folds, rather than the one flock on a human level, the one flock is in Christ, the one shepherd, and others insist that the one flock must be also on the human level, but the fact is, both interpretations, the so-called Catholic and so-called Protestant versions, rest on an unsound hermeneutical principle. They look at the present church scene and read the scripture in terms of that. Our Lord simply says here that his church will transcend the national boundaries on Israel. It is greater than any national or racial limitation, and neither the Catholic nor the Protestant versions are in his mind and in view of this text. The centuries of interpretation, pro and con, do not mean that either version is, of necessity, correct. Our Lord here was quoting from Ezekiel 34:22-31. He was declaring that he was that shepherd and that he had come, but that his flock was bigger than Israel. It included all the world.

Now, what was the meaning of his statement that, “other sheep I have which are not of this fold. They, too, must be brought into the fold,” into the flock, made one flock. He was saying that the promises that God the Father gave through Ezekiel are to be fulfilled, not in terms of national Israel, but in terms of his flock, which included all peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations. Remember what it was that God said through Ezekiel. He will set up his promised prince, his Messiah. He will destroy all things that threaten his people, that in due time, all their enemies will be destroyed, all false shepherds removed, all natural enemies, the wild beasts that can harm them, bad weather. What is he talking about? Why, precisely what is prophesied in Isaiah, that there will be a glorious order from one end of the earth to the other, that God’s righteousness shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. So that our Lord is telling his disciples, “When you look to the work that you have, remember, you are to go to all nations, to all peoples and command them, bring them in and make them a part of my realm, my kingdom, and establish my justice, my peace, amongst all nations.” The Lord spoke thus, in terms of Ezekiel 34:22-31. Also, in terms of Isaiah 56:8, Isaiah 60:3, Zechariah 2:11, and many, many other of the messianic prophesies concerning what his world order would be. He was not talking about the institutional form of the church.

Now, this does not mean that the institutional form is not important. What it means is that the institutional form is not in view in these texts, and it is sad that too often, the church approaches scripture in terms of an institutional presupposition, in terms of God’s justice, God’s righteousness, God’s plan for peace, God’s plan which includes all people, tongues, tribes, nations, the weather, the ground beneath our feet, all things. What God was saying was that when the Messiah comes, it will be the beginning of the new creation. What Paul tells us when he speaks of Christ and his resurrection, that this is the beginning, the firstfruits of the new creation.

The function of the church, therefore, is to expand the scope of that new creation, so that one thing after another becomes a part of that new world, so that the curse recedes, and the blessing abounds and goes forth. Too often, the church has reduced the meaning here, but the church is an instrument, not a goal. Only in being faithful to the calling of the Prince of Peace, the Good Shepherd, can the many folds indeed be one flock, one flock, one shepherd, because they have one calling, and see that, because they are made in Jesus Christ members of the kingdom of God and citizens of the new creation, it is that new creation they must usher into their lives, their homes, their callings, and the world around them. Let us pray.

Glory be to thee, O God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, who of thy grace and mercy has made us members of thy new creation, and has set before us such glorious promises concerning the things that shall be. O Lord our God, fix our eyes upon those things which thou wouldst have us to do, that we as individuals, and we as churches may be instruments of thy new creation, of thy kingdom, and of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. In his name we pray. Amen.

Are there any questions about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] Where do you think there would be grounds to work for an institutional union between denominations and churches?

[Rushdoony] When will there be grounds to work for the institutional union between churches? I think we have a duty to work towards that, but I believe the great evil of our day is that people have been working in terms of institutional union rather than theological unity. They’ve given priority to the wrong element. Now, this is the great difference between the early councils of the church and every church council since then, because the councils such as Nicaea and Chalcedon were not working for union. They were insisting on unity in terms of the truth. That was fundamental, and they were ready to fight sometimes, bitterly and intensely, over the primacy of truth, but what has happened since then is that union, institutional union, has been given the priority. Institutionalism has prevailed on both Catholic and Protestant sides. Both Vatican councils put a heavy emphasis on institutionalism. All the World Council of Churches council have put the emphasis overwhelmingly on institutional union, and really made it almost a fetish that, let not the truth disturb us. Now, that’s clearly an evil.

What we need again is a renewed emphasis on truth, and unity in the truth. I believe that will be the next stage of development in the church because the thing that is appearing increasingly is that on all sides, because of the present world scene and the great crisis, whether people are Eastern Orthodox, or Catholic, or Protestant, the laity in particular are hungry for truth, and as a result, there is a concern for truth, and out of that, I believe there will develop a unity and some kind of union. Now, I can’t look into the future, even five minutes, so I don’t know how that’s going to happen, but I do see that happening on the grassroots level, a totally different emphasis that has existed previously.

Twenty and thirty years ago, I could talk to people. In fact, I was appalled on one occasion when I was at a meeting of scholars, a number of whom were historians, Catholic and Protestant. They did not know any theology, and when I expressed some dismay over that, they brushed my remark aside with just impatience. That was a matter of theologians, not for members. The members could safely leave that in the hands of the theologians. This was about twenty-five, thirty years ago, maybe not quite that long. Well, none of them dare leave it in the hands of the theologians now a days. As a result, they are studying and praying, and growing. It’s out of that that something will develop. Any other questions?

[Audience] Would you care to venture a guess as to what the possible denominational structure might be of the church given the progressive union of the flock in terms of unity? In other words, what would you expect of the various Baptist denominations, Presbyterian, and so on and so forth. How would you expect they might change, both in structure and in numbers?

[Rushdoony] That is asking a lot of me, but let me express rather a hope rather than anything else. Some months ago, I spoke about the structure of the early church, and of the synagogue before it. Ten heads of households, after the pattern laid down by Moses under inspiration of God, that there should be captains, or presbyters, or elders, or bishops over every ten, over fifties, hundreds, thousands, and so on up. That pattern was very extensively prominent in the early church. I do believe that as we see this lay revival, more and more men are going to assume the leadership in their families, and in various study groups, and that we’re going to see a revitalization of the church in terms of that pattern. The church will, therefore, get a new structure, or rather, the old structure will be revivified by this kind of development, and the results, I think, are going to be rather dramatic. What we see today is a growing gap between the leadership of churches and the membership. They’ve lost contact. The leadership is off in the clouds. The seminaries are the same way. The seminaries are not interested in producing pastors, but scholars, and that gap has been widening, and it’s destroying the leadership, so there has to be something from the grassroots to revivify it. Yes?

[Audience] This might be something of a hint along these lines. In the last few days, I was translating a sermon John Calvin preached from the original French, in 1555, and in this sermon, he was addressing the question of what was the ideal form of government. I remember someone asked you that a few week, months ago, and he was saying that God had given to Israel the ideal form of government at the first when it was under elders, and then over those elders were forty judges, but the ideal form of government had not been a king, or a monarchy, and still was{?}, the Christians, of course, could live under that {?}, but the best form of government God ever gave was that of choosing elders from among the men, and then among those elders, certain ones would be chosen to adjudicate cases.

[Rushdoony] Well, you recall last night we were discussing, you and I, and Howard, the fact of the nature of the church in France before the French Revolution, and how people find it difficult to believe that this actually existed, that there was more democracy in the local parish church in France than the revolutionist ever dreamed of, because in the parish, the members met together periodically to set a tax rate, to set up a volunteer work crew to repair roads and bridges, to take care of the needs in the community. Local self-government through the elders of the parish was phenomenal, and there isn’t a scholar that has touched that or dealt with it. It’s only through incidental references, as you read about, they were meeting to do this and that in the local parish church, and the revolutionists came in and suppressed these meetings. The local people protested, “We had more freedom than what you offer us.” Now, that isn’t too far away, you know, slightly less than two centuries when that prevailed. That’s the kind of thing that I believe we’re going to see revivified. Any other questions?

Well, if not, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Our Lord and our God, thy word is truth. Thy presence is peace, and thy Spirit is power. Therefore, we thank thee that thou hast given us the sufficiency with which to meet the world, to contend against the powers of darkness, and to be more than conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord. In his name we pray. Amen.

End of tape