Spurgeon’s Five Marks of a Healthy Church

In 1860, Spurgeon spoke to the London Missionary Society and expressed a desire for fruitful missions. He titled his talk “Peace at Home, and Prosperity Abroad.” For Spurgeon, successful missions started with healthy local churches. He asked, “What are the points which constitute the healthiness of the church at home?” His answer:

1. Purity of life (conversion) confirmed through membership examination;
2. The soundness of the gospel (sound doctrine);
3. The saved bond of brotherhood (unity);
4. Constant activity (devoted to good works);
5. Abounding in prayer.[1]

Perhaps he could have added four or six more, but these points are certainly a good place to start if we want to see a local church become healthier.

1. Purity of Life (Conversion) Confirmed Through Membership Examination

Spurgeon believed saints should be “sufficiently distinguished from the world” and “in our purity—and in our purity alone—we stand.” How is a church “pure” and distinguished from the world?

Conversion. This view was consistent in Spurgeon’s preaching. In another sermon, Spurgeon said, “An unholy, unregenerated church can never be the pillar of the truth. If there be a failure in vital godliness, if humble walking with God be neglected, the church cannot long remain a healthy church of God.”[2] He preached, “If we take into our churches those who are not converted, we swell our numbers, but we diminish our real strength.”

For Spurgeon, true success was not measured by numbers alone but “our success in a measure depends upon the vitality, healthiness, and godliness of each individual.” Spurgeon knew that unconverted individuals impacted the rest of the body.

Those tempted to compromise biblical membership for the sake of numerical growth should listen to Spurgeon’s caution: “We have not brought the world up to us; we only brought ourselves down to it. We have not conquered the world; we have only yielded to it. . . . We have brought the chaste spouse of Christ to commit fornication among people.”

How can churches work to be sure her members are Christians?

For Spurgeon, the answer is simple: careful membership examination. He preached, “We cannot possibly be too strict in the examination of those who are proposed for church fellowship.”

Regarding membership, Spurgeon sought to combine the mildness of the Savior’s mind and the love of the Spirit with a stern firmness. This means churches should work hard “with the most prudent discretion in maintaining the purity of discipleship.” We guard conversion “when we are engaged in the acceptance or rejection of candidates for the fellowship of the visible church.”

Furthermore, pastors should labor in our membership examinations. He concluded this point of health with these words,

That God might grant to each of us, who are the pastors of the church, that unceasing vigilance and constant watchfulness whereby we shall be able to detect the wolves in sheep’s clothing, and whereby we shall be able to say calmly, sternly, yet lovingly, to those who come before us seeking communion, without satisfactory evident that they belong to the living family of God, “You must go your way until the Spirit of God hath touched your heart, for until you have received the living faith in Jesus, we cannot receive you into the number of his faithful ones.”

2. The Soundness of the Gospel (Sound Doctrine)

Is the gospel faithfully preached? Is sound doctrine affirmed and celebrated? If not, a church might be headed toward hell rather than health. Spurgeon said, “Alas! If her doctrines be tainted, her faith will not be maintained, and the church being unsound, can tell what next may occur.” Spurgeon held true to this conviction throughout his preaching. In another sermon he said, “A healthy church kills error, and tears in pieces evil.”[3]

While he was an unflinching defender of the truth, Spurgeon also sought to be charitable and to seek unity around vital truth.

He mentioned the Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate as an example:

I should be prepared to go a very long way for charity’s sake and admit that very much of the discussion which has existed even between Arminians and Calvinists has not been a discussion about vital truth, but about the terms in which that vital truth shall be stated. . . . When I have read the conflict between that mighty man who made these walls echo with his voice, Mr. Whitfield, and that other mighty man equally useful in his day, Mr. Wesley, I have felt that they contended for the same truths, and that the vitality of godliness was not mainly at issue in the controversy.

Now, these words might sound strange because elsewhere Spurgeon is clearly dogmatic about Calvinism. After all, this is the same Spurgeon who viewed Calvinism as “the spiritual meat which enables a man to labor on in the ways of Christian service,”[4] and who believed “Calvinism gives you ten thousand times more reason for hope than the Arminian preacher.”[5] We should remember that the man who preached charity in this talk is the same man who also said,

I have my own private opinion that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and Him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else. I do not believe we can preach the gospel, if we do not preach justification by faith, without works; nor unless we preach the sovereignty of God in His dispensation of grace; nor unless we exalt the electing, unchangeable, eternal, immutable, conquering love of Jehovah; nor do I think we can preach the gospel, unless we base it upon the special and particular redemption of His elect and chosen people which Christ wrought out upon the cross; nor can I comprehend a gospel which lets saints fall away after they are called, and suffers the children of God to be burned in the fires of damnation after having once believed in Jesus. Such a gospel I abhor.[6]

His aim in speaking of church health at home is to focus his hearers on vital, fundamental truths which show whether or not a church’s teaching is sound. Spurgeon preached, “I do maintain there should be, and there must be if our churches are to be healthy and sound, a constant adherence to the fundamental doctrines of divine truth.” A lack of unity around the truth “clearly proves that the body of the church is not in a healthy state.” Spurgeon clearly affirmed unity around sound doctrine while also boldly defending the truths he believed.

Perhaps a more Spurgeon-esque attitude is reflected in what he preached next:

But, my brethren, if it should ever come to be a matter which casts doubts upon the divinity of Christ, or the personality of the Holy Ghost, if it should come to a matter of using gospel terms in a sense the most contrary to that which has ever been attached to them in any age of the truth; if it should ever come to the marring and spoiling of our ideas of divine justice, and of that great atonement which is the basis of the whole gospel, as they have been delivered to us; then it is time my brethren once for all that the scabbard be thrown aside, that the sword be drawn. Against any who assails those precious vital truths which constitute the heart of our holy religion, we must contend even to the death.

Spurgeon affirmed unity in the body, but not a superficial unity. In his view, a healthy church is united around sound doctrine.

3. The Saved Bond of Brotherhood (Unity)

A third point for Spurgeon was unity, especially unity among minsters of the gospel. In a day with much division, Spurgeon’s point is a good reminder. He said, “Whenever the foot is at enmity with the hand there must be something like madness in the body; there cannot be a sound mind within that frame which is divided against itself.” And elsewhere:

If there be among us any remnants of the spirit of division; if there be aught in us that would make us excommunicate and cut off brethren, because we cannot see with them in all the points of the spiritual compass, though we agree in the main; if it be so, then there must be somewhere or other an unhealthy disease. . . . Oh my heart longs to see a more thorough union among the minsters of Christ Jesus.

Spurgeon said, “These three points—purity of life, soundness of doctrine, and unity of the ministers of the church of Christ—will help to constitute a healthy church at home.” Yet these were not exhaustive. He added two others: constant activity and prayer.

4. Constant Activity (Devoted to Good Works)

Spurgeon said, “Oh, my brethren, we are wrong when we think that the church is healthy when it is comfortable and still.” And elsewhere: “At intervals some earnest speech stirs the members up to spasmodic action, then they return again to their apathy and Laodicean lukewarmness.”

His solution to idleness wasn’t a continuous cycle of programs. Instead, Spurgeon believed churches should focus on making disciples. Spurgeon warned, “It is a marvel that they should be comfortable while souls are dying, and sinners perishing; when hell is filling, and the kingdom of Christ is not extending.”

5. Abounding in Prayer (Corporate Prayer)

While each of these points are important, Spurgeon also taught, “The church is never healthy except when she abounds in prayer.” He warned, “I care not if the place is crowded at your other services; the church is not prosperous if the prayer-meetings be thin.”

Spurgeon was quick to mention his own failure in this area when he lamented, “I have to mourn and confess in my own case, that I have had to feel in myself—and I think I can speak for many others—a want of prayerfulness with regard to missionary effort especially.” Spurgeon saw room to grow in other churches but also in his own life.

Conclusion

As he concluded preaching on these five points, he said, “It shall be left to each individual heart, and each member of the church, to answer for himself the question, whether his own church is in a state of spiritual health, taking these things as a test; namely, purity, soundness, unity, and prayerfulness.”

Friend, perhaps your church is excelling in these five points. Or perhaps your church is a long way from the health Spurgeon describes. If your local church is far from health, then let me suggest you begin where Spurgeon ended this talk. Spurgeon did not conclude with a condemning word about unhealthy churches or a call to thoughtless, swift action. Instead, Spurgeon concluded with a call that can ring in all our pulpits—he called his hearers to believe in the crucified and risen Christ.

Remember, you are lost and ruined; ruined utterly, helplessly, and hopelessly. So far as you yourself are concerned, there is no hope of your salvation. But there is help laid on One that is mighty to save even Jesus Christ. Look out of yourself to him, and you are saved. . . . The soul-quickening words are “believe and live.” Oh! May the Lord enable you now to trust Jesus and you shall be saved, be your sins never so many. The hour which sees you look to Christ, sees sin’s black garment all unbound and cast away. The hour which sees your eye salute the bleeding Savior, sees the eye of God looking down on you with manifest complacency and joy. “He that believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved,” be his sins never so many; “he that believeth not shall be damned,” be his sins never so few. I would earnestly exhort those who feel their need of Jesus, those who are “weary and heavy-laden, lost and ruined by the fall,” now to take the Savior, even now, for he is yours.

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[1] These five points are taken from one sermon by C. H. Spurgeon, NPSP Vol. 6, “Peace at Home, and Prosperity Abroad.” Here is one place you can find this sermon online: https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/peace-at-home-and-prosperity-abroad/#flipbook/

[2] C. H. Spurgeon, MTP Vol. 24, “What the Church Should be.”

[3] C. H. Spurgeon, MTP Vol 29, “The Best War-Cry.”

[4] C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures, Vol. 2, “Lecture One: Illustrations in Preaching.”

[5] C. H. Spurgeon, MTP Vol. 53, “The Parable of the Ark.”

[6] C.H. Spurgeon, “A Defense of Calvinism.” The Spurgeon Archive, MBTS. https://archive.spurgeon.org/calvinis.php