Christ is the Only Head
of His Church
Since the church belongs to Christ and he is its Head, it must be governed according to his will, that is, by the precepts of the Bible. Christ never commissioned a Pope to rule as vicar in his place. In fact, Peter, whom many claim to have been the first Pope, wrote that this kind of church polity is bad (1 Pet. 5:1-4). Neither is the government of independent churches much better; lacking mutual accountability, pastors of these congregations tend to usurp the headship of the church just as much as the Pope.
The type of church government that pleases Christ, which Christ himself commands, is rule by elders who are mutually responsible to each other. In Acts 15, when the church was confronted with a serious question of practice, the elders of the local congregations met as a synod and passed resolutions based on Scriptural precepts which were binding on all congregations. Today we call this type of government Presbyterianism, or Reformed polity.
Not all Presbyterian denominations are pure; not all of them believe the Bible. The unbelief of many has excluded them from the true church. But, even among those Presbyterian denominations that teach and preach sound doctrine, once in a while poor decisions are made. But this cannot be used as a reason for discarding Reformed church polity. For one thing, we must keep in mind that Presbyterianism is the polity Christ commanded; we are not free to change it. Secondly, can we reasonably suppose that independent or episcopal churches are free from such errors?
