The Fellowship of the King

Dear Fallen Brothers:

It is with great joy that I am able to refer to you both as my brothers. Both of you, friends of mine, and ministers of the gospel, zealots for the Reformed faith, have fallen into gross and heinous sexual sin. But both of you have been restored by those in authority over you, to the fellowship of the King. Your repentance has been judged to be sincere, and for that, I rejoice. You must know that, as with many other men who are familiar with your circumstances, my thinking, my prayers, my emotions have been jolted by the revelations of your sins. In short, while my suffering cannot compare with the central victims that lie in your wake, I have anguished over you both.

It is a good and prudent thing, as I'm sure you now know, in times of suffering to look for the lessons. I have been reminded of the importance of guarding my marriage, and of guarding my eyes. I have remembered that my success or failure is measured not by my own public ministry, but by my ministry to my wife and children. I have learned the importance of prayer. I have come face to face with what I already thought I believed, that we all have feet of clay. I have been reminded of the power of the gospel, that it can cover even the deepest betrayals.

What I have been wrestling with, however, is what the watching world might learn from these events. I don't think they will be reminded of their own sin, and their own need of repentance. Instead, I presume that the watching world is simply delighted at this pair of black eyes. They must rejoice to see the holy, catholic church behaving in such an unholy way. I wouldn't be surprised if they simply laugh off our claim to be the holy church.

Which is why it is so important that we be so clear in our affirmation to be the holy church. We do long to be holy, strive to be holy, pray to be holy. But we are a body of people who are, until we die, simul justus et peccatore, at the same time just and sinner. While we deny that all sins are equally unholy, we affirm that long before you committed your egregious sins, the church was already full of sinners. We are still the holy church.

We are holy first because we are living stones, being built into a spiritual house. The Holy Spirit dwells in that spiritual house. We are the new temple, that place where God is, and like the ground on which Moses trod, where God is is always holy space. While your personal, fleeting, wood, hay and stubble glory may have vanished into the fire of your ordeal, we cannot and will not cry "Ichabod" about the bride of Christ. The Spirit has not departed our corporate body. And so we remain holy. Were there ten thousand such betrayals, and there yet may be. nevertheless the One promised as our Helper will never desert the church.

Still more, we are holy because we have been declared to be holy. We as a body are the bride of the great King. He is our covenantal covering. He has born our shame. Indeed He has born your shame. But He has likewise covered those in the faith in His own righteousness. We are the holy church because we wear His holiness. This is the justus of the chant justus et peccatore. It is an alien righteousness to be sure. But it is ours by the power of the Word of God. The judge of all the world, when He judges us just, though we are yet in ourselves sinners, still judges rightly. This is the glory of the gospel.

I pray we will gird up our loins. I pray that like Peter, your sins will strengthen the brethren. The same God who used the only true act of injustice to bring us to Him can in fact use your sins for the greater good of your own well-being, the well-being of your families, of your churches, of your friends, even of your victims if indeed they have tasted the He is good. But more importantly, your sins, even if they should cause the wicked to mock, will be used for the greatest of goods, the glory of God. He will not only not share His glory with another, He will not allow it to be diminished by another.

May we also learn this lesson. Not only are we still holy, but we are still one church. We are one body. Your sin is my sin. I cannot say, "Oh, those guys over in that denomination, they have a tendency to fall into that kind of thing," as if our denominational differences make us part of different bodies. But in like manner, your forgiveness is my forgiveness. The grace that you have been shown is the same grace that I have been shown. It flows from the same riven side of our common Lord. I can therefore, just as I mourn the sin with you, celebrate the forgiveness with you. I mourn because we are all still sinners. I rejoice that all who are in Christ have been forgiven.

But I rejoice also in this. We are the holy church because He has so promised. God spoke to Joshua, on the east side of the Jordan, prior to Jericho and all that would follow and said, "See, I have given this land into your hand." The heathen may scorn at us, and laugh at our sin. But we are holy, because He who cannot lie, whose word is truth, whose future is certain, has promised that we will be holy. Let us, as we struggle with our sin, as we seek to put to death the deeds of the flesh, as we continue living in the already, but waiting for the not yet, kindle this flame, the flame of faith that believes we will be made pure again. We will be holy, all of us who are in Christ.

In the King's Service,

R.C. Sproul Jr.