30.Presbytery Elders
Presbytery Elders in the so-calledCatholic Epistles(James to Jude) In Jas 1:1; Jas 5:14f, needy Christians among all of the twelve tribes of Israel were urged to call in the Elders [plural] of the Church to pray for those who were sick. Too, in 1Pe 1:1; 1Pe 5:1-5, those scattered throughout Pontus and Galatia and Cappadocia and Asia and Bithynia were urged to obey the Elders among them. Indeed, also in 2Pe 2:1-5f & 3:2-7f [cf.Heb 11:2-7] Christians were reminded that Noah was a Preaching Elder and that the world should heed similar preaching throughout history. In 1Jn 2:9-14, the Apostle urges his beloved Christian addressees to maintain the bond of their covenantal solidarity with all of their brethren be they "little children" or "fathers" or "young men" etc. In 1Jn 2:19, he warns these groups not individualistically to backslide into
Independency. In 2Jn 1:1-13, that Apostle calls himself an Elder. He assures what seems to be a presbytery or "elect lady" and her congregations or "children" that "the children" also of her "elect sister" [presbytery] greet them. In 3Jn 1:1-11, the same Elder anticongregationalistically commends the connectional intercourse between the Congregation of Gaius on the one hand and his other brethren elsewhere on the other. Yet the Elder also reminds his addressees that he "wrote unto the
Church" in order to rebuke and to admonish the domineering Diotrephes. Dr. John Owen himself explains (XVI:199) "the ends of...Synods among the Churches.... The general end of them all, is to promote the edification of the whole Body or Church Catholic; and..."to relieve such by advice as may be by any Diotrephes unduly cast out of the Church." 3Jn 1:1-10f. In Jude 1:1, that holy author calls himself "the brother of James" apparently meaning the brother of the Moderator of the Synod of Elders described in Acts 15:13; Acts 12:17; Acts 21:18f. Jude 1:4 warns his addressees against "certain men crept in unawares"
(cf.Acts 15:24f & Gal 2:3-10).
Jude accuses such hyper-independent individualists, as having "gone in the way of Cain" rather than having stayed in the good way of the Presbyter Abel (Jude 1:11cf.Heb 11:2-4).
He even compares them with the unruly antediluvians who were preached against by Presbyters like Enoch and Noah (Jude 1:14cf.Heb 11:2-7 & 2Pe 2:1-5f).
Finally, Jude urges his addressees to heed the words previously spoken by the apostolic Elders (verses 17f). That would certainly include their words spoken at the Synod of Jerusalem. Cf.Acts 15:4f & Acts 15:13f & Acts 15:23f.
Owen says (XXII:37) that the pre-Mosaic independent hyper-individualists mentioned "in Jude 1:7...’are set forth for an example’...of what would be God’s dealing with provoking sinners at the last day." Indeed, the great Congregationalist Theologian even refers to "the Socinians" alias the hyperindividualistic anti-trinitarian Unitarians. "Many things concerning God and his essential properties" such as His Tri-unity, explains Owen (I:87), "they have greatly perverted. So is that fulfilled in them, which was spoken by Jude." To this, we ourselves would only add that once people depart into Independency from connectional Presbyteries reflecting the Triune God Himself as the Ultimate Trinity it is usually not very long before those Independents further lapse into at least a ’High Arianism.’ That curtails the full co-importance of the Second Person, and also especially the Third Person, within the Ultimate Presbytery of the Holy Trinity.
It also undercuts the full deity even of the First Person Himself by leaving Him, from all eternity, as a ’non-Father’ bereft of the filial companionship of a Co-eternal Son and devoid of perpetual fellowship with Him in the Holy Spirit. Indeed, in the very long run, Orthodox Trinitarianism and Orthodox Presbyterianism stand or fall together.