1 Cor. 11:2—“Now I praise you that ye remember me in all things, and hold fast the traditions, even as I delivered them to you”; cf. 23, 24—“for I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me”—here Paul commits the Lord's Supper into the charge, not of the body of officials, but of the whole church. Baptism and the Lord's Supper, therefore, are not to be administered at the discretion of the individual minister. He is simply the organ of the church; and pocket baptismal and communion services are without warrant. See Curtis, Progress of Baptist Principles, 299; Robinson, Harmony of Gospels, notes, § 170.
(d) From the election by the whole church, of its own officers and delegates. In Acts 14:23, the literal interpretation of χειροτονήσαντες is not to be pressed. In Titus 1:5, “when Paul empowers Titus to set presiding officers over the communities, this circumstance decides nothing as to the mode of choice, nor is a choice by the community itself thereby necessarily excluded.”
Acts 1:23, 26—“And they put forward two ... and they gave lots for them; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles”; 6:3, 5—“Look ye out therefore, brethren, from among you seven men of good report ... And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, ... and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus”—as deacons; Acts 13:2, 3—“And as they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.”
On this passage, see Meyer's comment: “ ‘Ministered’ here expresses the act of celebrating divine service on the part of the whole church. To refer αὐτῶν to the ‘prophets and teachers’ is forbidden by the ἀφορίσατε—and by verse 3. This interpretation would confine this most important mission-act to five persons, of whom two were the missionaries sent; and the church would have had no part in it, even through its presbyters. This agrees, neither with the common possession of the Spirit in the apostolic church, nor with the concrete cases of the choice of an apostle (ch. 1) and of deacons (ch. 6). Compare 14:27, where the returned missionaries report to the church. The imposition of hands (verse 3) is by the presbyters, as representatives of the whole church. The subject in verses 2 and 3 is ‘the church’—(represented by the presbyters in this case). The church sends the missionaries to the heathen, and consecrates them through its elders.”
Acts 15:2, 4, 22, 30—“the brethren appointed that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem.... And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church and the apostles and the elders.... Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men out of their company, and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.... So they ... came down to Antioch; and having gathered the multitude together, they delivered the epistle”; 2 Cor. 8:19—“who was also appointed by the churches to travel with us in the matter of this grace”—the contribution for the poor in Jerusalem; Acts 14:23—“And when they had appointed (χειροτονήσαντες) for them elders in every church”—the apostles announced the election of the church, as a College President confers degrees, i. e., by announcing degrees conferred by the Board of Trustees. To this same effect witnesses the newly discovered Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, chapter 15: “Appoint therefore for yourselves bishops and deacons.”
The derivation of χειροτονήσαντες, holding up of hands, as in a popular vote, is not to be pressed, any more than is the derivation of ἐκκλησία from καλέω. The former had come to mean simply “to appoint,” without reference to the manner of appointment, as the latter had come to mean an “assembly,” without reference to the calling of its members by God. That the church at Antioch “separated” Paul and Barnabas, and that this was not done simply by the five persons mentioned, is shown by the fact that, when Paul and Barnabas returned from the missionary journey, they reported not to these five, but to the whole church. So when the church at Antioch sent delegates to Jerusalem, the letter of the Jerusalem church is thus addressed: “The apostles and the elders, brethren, unto the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia” (Acts 15:23). The Twelve had only spiritual authority. They could advise, but they did not command. Hence they could not transmit government, since they had it not. They could demand obedience, only as they convinced their hearers that their word was truth. It was not they who commanded, but their Master.
Hackett, Com. on Acts—“χειροτονησαντες is not to be pressed, since Paul and Barnabas constitute the persons ordaining. It may possibly indicate a concurrent appointment, in accordance with the usual practice of universal suffrage; but the burden of proof lies on those who would so modify the meaning of the verb. The word is frequently used in the sense of choosing, appointing, with reference to the formality of raising the hand.” Per contra, see Meyer, in loco: “The church officers were elective. As appears from analogy of 6:2-6 (election of deacons), the word χειροτονήσαντες retains its etymological sense, and does not mean ‘constituted’ or ‘created.’ Their choice was a recognition of a gift already bestowed,—not the ground of the office and source of authority, but merely the means by which the gift becomes [known, recognized, and] an actual office in the church.”
Baumgarten, Apostolic History, 1:456—“They—the two apostles—allow presbyters to be chosen for the community by voting.” Alexander, Com. on Acts—“The method of election here, as the expression χειροτονήσαντες indicates, was the same as that in Acts 6:5, 6, where the people chose the seven, and the twelve ordained them.” Barnes, Com. on Acts: “The apostles presided in the assembly where the choice was made,—appointed them in the usual way by the suffrage of the people.” Dexter, Congregationalism, 138—“ ‘Ordained’ means here ‘prompted and secured the election’ of elders in every church.” So in Titus 1:5—“appoint elders in every city.” Compare the Latin: “dictator consules creavit” = prompted and secured the election of consuls by the people. See Neander, Church History, 1:189; Guericke, Church History, 1:110; Meyer, on Acts 13:2.
The Watchman, Nov. 7, 1901—“The root-difficulty with many schemes of statecraft is to be found in deep-seated distrust of the capacities and possibilities of men. Wendell Phillips once said that nothing so impressed him with the power of the gospel to solve our problems as the sight of a prince and a peasant kneeling side by side in a European Cathedral.” Dr. W. R. Huntington makes the strong points of Congregationalism to be: 1. a lofty estimate of the value of trained intelligence in the Christian ministry; 2. a clear recognition of the duty of every lay member of a church to take an active interest in its affairs, temporal as well as spiritual. He regards the weaknesses of Congregationalism to be: 1. a certain incapacity for expansion beyond the territorial limits within which it is indigenous; 2. an undervaluation of the mystical or sacramental, as contrasted with the doctrinal and practical sides of religion. He argues for the object-symbolism as well as the verbal-symbolism of the real presence and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Dread of idolatry, he thinks, should not make us indifferent to the value of sacraments. Baptists, we reply, may fairly claim that they escape both of these charges against ordinary Congregationalism, in that they have shown unlimited capacity of expansion, and in that they make very much of the symbolism of the ordinances.
(e) From the power of the whole church to exercise discipline. Passages which show the right of the whole body to exclude, show also the right of the whole body to admit, members.