In a Christian wedding the vows that the husband and wife take are the pinnacle of the ceremony. They form the capstone of the wedding service and are the touchstone for all that will go on in their marriage that stretches out in front of them. They are the gateway, as well as the pathway, for married life. Similarly, membership vows formalize and begin our life with Christ and the members of his body in a local church, in this case Redeemer Church. They also teach and remind us of who we are and what we are to be about as we live within Christ’s church at Redeemer.
Let’s look at each vow with a brief explanation concerning the heart of each question:
1. Do you acknowledge yourselves to be sinners in the sight of God, justly deserving His displeasure, and without hope save in His sovereign mercy?
This is the starting place of the Christian journey: that we are sinners in need of a Savior. In this, we are acknowledging that we know that we are not basically good, but that we sin daily in our thoughts, words, and deeds; in fact, even our best deeds are like filthy rags before God. God would be just to judge us in anger, but there is hope—hope in the sovereign mercy of God; hope that God would not count our sins against. Redeemer is a gathering of sinners whose hope of salvation is not in ourselves, but in God who has sovereignly acted in history to deal with our sins.
2. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and Savior of sinners, and do you receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered in the Gospel?
The way that God dealt with our sins was by sending Jesus, the Son of God, to save sinners. He did this by living the righteous life that we could not live, by dying the death that we deserved to die as the penalty for our sins, and by rising from the dead in victory over sin, death, and the grave. This is the great exchange: Christ takes our sin and our death, and gives us his perfect life and the promise of life eternal. Our response to this good news is to believe, that is, to rest in the work that Christ has done on our behalf knowing that we cannot add anything to it or subtract anything from it. It is finished.
3. Do you now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that you will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ?
Because of the work of Christ on our behalf, we have been adopted into the family of God. And in this family, God wants us to witness well to the family name. That is, he wants us to take on the values of the family and incorporate them into our lives. Therefore, we want to put to death the former values of sin and death, and be raised to life with values that becomes the followers of Christ. But we are not left alone to this task, God has given us His Holy Spirit as the Helper to shape us into a new creation.
4. Do you promise to support the Church in its worship and work to the best of your ability?
You are committing yourself here to living out the Christian life in a particular church, Redeemer Church. This beckons you to support the church to the best of your ability. Supporting the worship of the church means presence and participation; you are regularly present in worship and entering into that worship with your whole being. Supporting the church in its work means that you are excited about the vision of Redeemer and are willing to invest yourself—your time, your spiritual gifts, your physical gifts—to help see the vision of Redeemer take shape in Knoxville.
5. Do you submit yourselves to the government and discipline of the church and promise to study its purity and peace?
Church membership involves a two-way accountability. In one direction, you are asking the members and the leadership of Redeemer to hold you accountable to faithfully living out the Christian life. You are opening up and giving them authority to be a voice of counsel in your life, even if its counsel of tough love. In the other direction, we are asking you to hold us accountable as well. We are giving you the authority to be a voice of counsel in our lives, even if its a counsel of tough love. But above all, we are wanting to pursue this two-way accountability in love so as to preserve the purity and the peace of the church.