The Biblical Doctrine of The Church

Transcript

GR 1292
05-01-05
The Biblical Doctrine of the Church
I Corinthians 1:2a
Gil Rugh

We began our study of the book of I Corinthians with a background consideration, and then we looked into the first verse. So you might turn in your Bibles to I Corinthians 1. I noted we would be taking extra time in this salutation. The salutation is the introductory portion of the letter; it follows the normal pattern of letters of Paul’s time. Begins by introducing who the writer of the letter is, the recipients of the letter, and then gives a word of greeting. And as the Spirit directs the apostle Paul in the writing of this letter, he brings to the fore some of the key theological issues that will unfold through the letter. So we’re taking extra time to look at these matters, and then as we move through the letter we’ll be able to refer back to our initial considerations. And we’re going to really be spending the next couple of studies looking into the matters in the second verse of this letter that deals with the church.

We started with verse 1 where Paul unfolded himself as the apostle who wrote the letter. And we looked into what the biblical identification of an apostle was. And we found there that Paul himself was the last one to qualify as an apostle, because one of the key requirements is, you had to have seen Jesus Christ personally, bodily, following His resurrection from the dead. And the other apostles did see Him; but following His ascension in Acts 1 Jesus Christ made a special appearance to Paul in Acts 9. Paul writes about that in I Corinthians 15, and after listing various post-resurrection appearances of Christ, he says, last of all He appeared to me, as one untimely born. And we noted that apostles were used as eye witnesses of the resurrection of Christ, and were the recipients of new revelation from God regarding the purposes and plans of God following the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.

The apostles and New Testament prophets are the foundation of the church, Ephesians 2:20 tells us. It was their ministry, their teaching and the truth that God revealed to them that formed a foundation upon which the church is built. And we as the church today, some 2000 years later, continue to study what God has revealed concerning the church, as we have recorded in our New Testament. It was given originally through the apostles and prophets. Paul’s position as an apostle will become an issue, in not only I Corinthians, but II Corinthians. So at least we have some background on that position.

Now in verse 2 of chapter 1, Paul turns his attention to the recipients of the letter. He is writing to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, theirs and ours. He’s writing to the church of God which is at Corinth. The biblical doctrine of the church is what I want to focus our attention on in our study together. It’s absolutely essential that we understand what the church is, what its role in the world is, because we are the church. We must understand who we are when we are the church. What is our function as the church? And sad to say, confusion in this area is permeating the church and leading it away from its biblical foundation and its biblical responsibility. I want to give you some examples. Let me clarify. Some people say, why are you always criticizing other people, other churches, other ministries? I’m not particularly criticizing these other ministries; I have nothing to say to them. I am addressing you. I use them as an example so that you can see something of the present- day issues. That what the Spirit of God directed to be written some 2000 years ago is an issue for us today. And if we don’t adhere closely to what the scripture says, we will wander off into chaos and confusion.

I received two pieces of material from two different conferences in the last two weeks. One is more local, these are sponsored by groups that claim to be Bible-believing groups. One is a conference on the vision that we are to have for our ministry as God’s people. There are a number of sponsors for this conference that will be held in an evangelical church in another city, and it says concerning the sponsors, Omaha, Lincoln sponsoring churches and ministries. A movement of local churches and ministries committed to a missional vision, a vision for mission, to see what our mission is to be. And what is that missional vision? “Not to do church, but to be church.” I must say when I received this and read it over I scratched my head and I read it and reread it and put it aside and read it later. I’ve read this and heard this in other places. Our missional vision is not to do church, but to be church.

Now what does that mean? Here we are gathered together, the church. Here we be, we be church. We’re just going to spend the next 45 minutes and we won’t be church. What does it mean, we will not do church, we will be church? Our vision for mission is not to do church, but to be church. So we must understand what the church is, what it means to be the church of Jesus Christ. But then you understand we must understand what the church of Jesus Christ is to do. So sometimes we come up with a slogan, and I don’t think that it helps. It creates confusion. There is much the church is to do. The letter to the Corinthian church will be about its responsibilities in doing the will of God. And that’s true for much of the New Testament. But the missional vision not to do church, but to be church? Now here’s the point I really want to make with you—not to grow the church, but to grow the kingdom. The missional vision that they want to establish in these churches and come together to promote is not to grow the church, but to grow the kingdom. Now this is a serious, serious issue, this is not semantics. Because what this statement says in light of what the Bible reveals, these are churches and ministries committed not to be part of what Jesus Christ is doing in the world today. They have their own agenda. Because Jesus Christ is not building the kingdom today, He is building the church. How can our missional vision be not to grow the church, but to grow the kingdom. What did Jesus say in Matthew 16:18? I will build my church. We must be clear on this. This comes into the confusion. People don’t understand, the church is not the kingdom. We are not in the kingdom today, the kingdom is not present. We are not building the kingdom; we not doing the work of the kingdom. We are building the church as co-laborers with God. The work of Jesus Christ today is building His church. And Paul will write to the Corinthians as we’ll see when we move on a few chapters. But we are co-laborers with God that He is using us in the work He is doing in the world today.
Now if you confuse the kingdom and the church, this will lead you into totally different areas. This is how churches get involved in social programs. If we are building the kingdom, that has a political dimension, because when the kingdom is established, it will have a political setting. It will be a time of peace on earth. It will be a time when there will be no poverty; there will be no sickness, and so on. And so when people become confused and think their work is building the kingdom, that they’re in the kingdom, pretty soon they think they ought to be involved in the political process so that our country and our world is more like what the kingdom ought to be. They ought to be involved in social programs to deal with poverty and alleviate it, because in the kingdom we shouldn’t be having poverty. And on and on it goes. And it’s because of a misunderstanding—we are not in the kingdom, the church is not ever, not one time, called the kingdom in the Bible.

Furthermore, the Bible is absolutely clear that the kingdom will be established by the personal return of Jesus Christ to this earth. And it will not occur until He personally comes to earth. And then we won’t join with Him in building the kingdom because He will establish it and remove anything that offends, bring into judgment all who oppose Him, and so the kingdom will start out just as He wants it. You say, these people have good intentions, do you always have to be attacking them? Well I’m not attacking them in the sense that I’m telling them they can’t do this; they’re going to go on and do it. That’s fine. I want you to see the problems we have, because sometimes people in this congregation hear of these kinds of programs--oh our church is doing what other churches…, and we have a ministry to help alleviate poverty in our city. Isn’t that good? Yes it’s good to alleviate poverty, but it is a disaster if you turn the church into a work to alleviate poverty.

I received another invitation, this is conference week, I guess. This conference is going to be held this weekend; I won’t be able to make it. But there’s another conference held two days before that one; this is held in Missouri. This is a provision for the vision. Vision is the key, see—missional vision; now here’s another conference, provision for the vision. A pastor’s conference. It is sponsored by the kingdom grant. The word kingdom in there again, and this is a good one because, meet the national consortium of Christian businessmen who plan to donate $50 billion a year to the body of Christ for the purpose of reviving Christian values in America. See what the goal is? For proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ? For reviving Christian values in America. Now if we are in the kingdom, that’s a valid goal and purpose. But if we’re not in the kingdom but we’re in the church, that is not a valid goal and purpose of the church.

Big print, let’s take America back for God. The kingdom grant conference is being sponsored by a consortium of Christian businessmen and women who believe we live in critical times and are determined to do all that is within their power to bring resources to God’s ministries. For what purpose? To help them in their struggle to preserve Christian values in this country. I’m sorry, you never find Paul writing to the churches that he writes to, telling them that their responsibility is to preserve the better values of the Roman Empire. And we often mention the negative things of the Roman Empire, but it had many sterling qualities. But you never find Paul writing, the church ought to be involved in their city, helping to preserve values that are more consistent with what the Bible says. That’s not the role of the church; we are not in the kingdom, we are not here to change the social conditions of the world.

Come to an event to take America back for God. Get an annual kingdom grant from $1-50 million to be used to support Christian values in your community. I mean are we off track? I thought I might go and ask for a couple million and then say, you could save the other $49,998,000,000 because now that I have my $2 million I just wanted you to note you are not in the kingdom, so don’t waste your money.

These things are a concern; the church doesn’t know what it is, doesn’t know what it is to do, doesn’t know its distinction from the kingdom. We’re going to talk about some of these things so that hopefully we are clear. Look in I Corinthians 1:2, to the church of God which is at Corinth. Let’s start out with the word church, and this may sound technical, but if you follow with me it will help and you will see how some get into confusion. The Greek word for church is ekklesia. We carry it over into English, ekklesia. It’s two words—ek, which is a preposition meaning out or out of; and then the second part, klesia, comes from a verb, kaleo, which means to call. So the basic meaning of the word is to call out. It’s a word that was used in secular Greek long before the New Testament, it’s a word that will be used in our Old Testaments in the Greek translation of the Old Testament.

Now we sometimes get into confusion here because we say the Greek word, its etymology is it’s a compound word, to call out. The church is a group called out of the world to be separated to God. You know that’s not necessarily wrong to say that, but it’s not what the word itself means. If the church is called out of the world to be separated to God, we get that from other teachings, not out of this word. You don’t just go back to a word and trace its etymology and therefore you know what it meant in the day in which it was used. You have to go to its context and its usage. And in classical Greek the word ekklesia simply came to mean an assembly. It was used of political assemblies in Greek cities. The ekklesia would meet; the political assembly of that city. It can be used of any kind of assembly or group.

You can leave your marker in I Corinthians and go toward the front of your Bible to Acts 19. Now important to remember, in secular Greek ekklesia simply meant an assembly, and particularly a physical assembly. The word never had any connotation for the Greeks of a spiritual group; it was a physical assembly or meeting of people. In Acts 19 the Apostle Paul is in the city of Ephesus preaching the gospel and causing trouble. And a riot occurs and people pour into the theatre of the city. Look in Acts 19:32, so then some were shouting one thing, some another. We have a disorganized mob gathered together. For the assembly, and some of you have a note, and if you look in the margin of your Bible it says the Greek word translated assembly here is the word ekklesia. For the church was in confusion. Here you have a disorderly mob that is called an ekklesia. But that’s consistent because the word ekklesia simply meant an assembly of people, a physical group of people called together. Here you have a mob and a riot, one hollering one thing, one called another. They are an ekklesia, an assembly. Look down in verse 39, they try to take charge of the meeting and so you have the person who is the town clerk wants to bring order, says in verse 39, but if you want anything beyond this, it shall be settled in the lawful assembly, the regular ekklesia. This disorganized mob that is meeting together, this assembly isn’t the official political assembly. If you have something you want to deal with, we need to call together the regular assembly. Both places the word ekklesia is used. Look down in verse 41, after saying this he dismissed the assembly, the church.

Now obviously we wouldn’t translate it the church in each of these three references. That disorganized mob wasn’t the church. We use the word church as it develops a special technical meaning later in the New Testament. But you understand the word basically means assembly. So you could have used the word in New Testament times and before New Testament times, you’d say the political leaders of our city will be getting together. Or you might have said, the assembly will be meeting; the ekklesia will be meeting. You could have said, there was a riot down on campus; they had a mob of people. You might have said, they had an ekklesia. We have so come to, over the last 2000 years, understand ekklesia as a technical word for the church and those who have come to trust in Christ and become part of His body, that sometimes it creates confusion for us. Remember the word basically just meant an assembly.

Back up to Acts 7. I want to say something and then we’ll come back to it. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew basically; a little portion of it was written in Aramaic, but basically in Hebrew. About 200 years before Christ some Jewish scholars who were also scholarly in the Greek language translated the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek, because Greek had become the language commonly used. So they wanted to put the Old Testament into the language of their people, into the Greek language. The Septuagint is very helpful because it enables us to have some kind of grasp of how they understood certain Hebrew words and expressions. And they lived in the Hebrew language and made the translation. In fact the majority of references to the Old Testament in our New Testament are drawn from the Septuagint. Septuagint is usually abbreviated LXX for the 70, because tradition said 70 scholars sat down and translated it in 70 days. Not necessarily facts, but that’s how we come to the 70 as an abbreviation to the Septuagint. Now in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the assembly of Israel is often referred to as the church, either the gathering of the nation or the gathering of portions of the nation is called the ekklesia. In Acts 7 Stephen is presenting a defense of his preaching the gospel and the truth concerning Christ to the Jewish leaders. And he says in verse 38, he’s referenced where Moses prophesied that God would raise up a prophet like himself. Verse 38, this is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness. That word translated congregation is the word ekklesia. This is the one who was in the church in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mt. Sinai, who was with our fathers, and so on.

People say, see, Stephen called Israel in the Old Testament the church. Furthermore there are, I think there are about 70 uses of the word ekklesia in the Old Testament, in the Septuagint. I went through each of them but I didn’t write down the numbers. It may be 70 total references. The vast majority of those refer to Israel, because what assembly does the Old Testament talk about mostly? Mostly talks about Israel, right? And there is one particular Hebrew word that ekklesia translates, but we don’t need to go into all that. But people get confused. People will say, well if you studied the Septuagint, which is how the Jews understood their Bibles 200 years before Christ, you see they called Israel the church. Yes they did, but the church did not mean the body of Christ then. It just meant the assembly. I mean are you telling me in Acts 19 that mob gathered in the theater was the church of Jesus Christ? Nobody thinks that, but it’s called the ekklesia. It was an assembly, and that mob that was in an assembly was distinguished from a regular or lawful assembly.

Job would have lived in the time of the patriarchs, most probably, if not before. He could have lived even earlier. The patriarchs are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I mention that because he lived before there was a nation Israel. That becomes clear in the book of Job and the worship that is carried out and so on. Job functions as the priest for his family; there is no priestly class or anything referred to. I mention that because, just jot it down, we won’t turn there, in Job 30:28 remember, there is no nation Israel. Job says, I go about mourning without comfort; I stand up in the assembly and cry out. And the word we translate into English, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it’s the word ekklesia. I stand up in the middle of the ekklesia and cry out. Well we are hundreds of years before the establishing even of the nation Israel, but Job could refer to standing up in the ekklesia, the assembly.

Listen to what David says in Psalm 26:5, I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked. Do you think you’d translate that, I hate the church of evildoers and will not sit with the wicked? No. If evildoers get together you will not find David with them. The ekklesia as he referred to it was the assembly of evildoers. I say all that because if you read any commentaries by reformed writers, those who equate Israel and the church and so on, you will see this just shows the continuity that the Israel of the Old Testament was the church and so it’s a natural transition that now there is not a physical Israel but we have a new entity. But it is still the church, so the church of the Old Testament and the church of the New Testament are just the people of God. And so all of a sudden we have confusion. The word ekklesia has its history in being used both in classical Greek and in the Greek of the Old Testament to refer to an assembly. What kind of assembly is determined by the words that modify ekklesia, and the context in which it is found.

Turn back to Matthew 16. The connection here is important because people who see the church in Israel in the Old Testament know that a kingdom was promised to Israel. And so their view is because Israel rejected their Messiah, the nation Israel is no longer the church, but now it’s a new group that is the church, but they take over the promises of Israel and it is a spiritual group, not a physical group. And they have a spiritual kingdom, and thus we are involved in building the kingdom. Many manifestations of this. The Roman Catholic Church believes we are in the kingdom and the pope is the vicar of Christ and overseeing the kingdom. And that’s why entrance into the kingdom is a physical act of being baptized--that places you into the kingdom and also their unbiblical view of the church. Matthew 16:18. There is a lot you would probably like to get into in this verse, but we’re going to exercise restraint. Verse 18, Jesus is speaking and we’re moving toward His crucifixion. I say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock, now note this, I will, future tense, I will build, not present tense I am building, not perfect tense I have been building and will continue to build My church. Future tense—I will build My church. Did you ever study Matthew and wonder, what did the disciples think when He said He was going to build the church? Aren’t you surprised they didn’t say, excuse me. We know Peter would have blurted it out. Lord, what’s a church? Well it’s an ekklesia. But you understand they knew perfectly well what an ekklesia was, it was an assembly. What is unique here is not the use of the word ekklesia particularly, but the pronoun My. I will build My assembly, I will build My church, the ekklesia that belongs to Me. It will be unique in that I will build it and it will be Mine. So what makes the ekklesia here unique and special is Christ said He is going to build one of His own for Himself. So the disciples wouldn’t have been confused what is an ekklesia. The word was rather common. They would have known it from secular usage, like we read in Acts 19 of different assemblies. They would have been familiar with it, been used of assemblies in the Old Testament, the Greek translation of the Old Testament which they were well familiar with. But this ekklesia, My ekklesia, is going to develop into a technical term for this special group of people that are called out by Christ to belong to Himself, an assembly that is His. And so that will become established in such a way that the word becomes a technical word and used not then in other ways. It loses its common meaning and becomes a special word. And that’s what happened with church.

So in chapter 18, two chapters later, when Jesus talks about how you deal with a sinning brother, he tells them if all else fails in your attempts to restore him, verse 17, tell it to the church. The disciples had no idea what that assembly would be. They had a concept of Jews and the assemblies they would be part of, and the synagogue would have been one of those assemblies. They had no understanding at this point that this related to that special assembly that would be a new entity, that could not be founded until after Christ dies on the cross and is raised from the dead, and until after the Holy Spirit comes and begins His baptizing ministry. So up until this point, up until Matthew 16, 18, and even there it is not clear yet, ekklesia, and that will go on into the book of Acts, really, as we see. It continues that general use. And Stephen uses it of an assembly. But it will develop into a special, technical use. And in the general use up to this time, both in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and in non-biblical Greek, it always referred to just a physical assembly. There was never any concept of a spiritual group of people in this word. That is an added dimension that will come to the word. We find out that the assembly that Christ will build for Himself will not only have a physical identity, but it will have a spiritual identity, what we call the universal church and the local church. So it will take on, this word ekklesia will take on an added dimension as it becomes focused in a special more technical way to refer to the people redeemed by the death of Christ.

All right the church begins in Acts 2, important that we understand this. Go to Acts 1. Now follow along here, we did this when we did the book of Acts but we’ll do just a quick review. Remember Peter says his ministry was to stir up your minds, pure minds by way of remembrance. That’s what I’m doing today. Look in Acts 1:5, Jesus is speaking to His disciples. He has been crucified; He has been buried; He has been raised from the dead; He spent forty days of ministry with His disciples. Now He is preparing for His departure from this earth, the ascension, to be seated at the right hand of His Father, to await the time when He ultimately will come and establish His kingdom, without going into anything in between. Look at verse 5, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Now I want you to note something, the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit had not yet occurred. Even these closest followers of Christ and the closest of the closest followers, Peter, James and John, had not experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit yet. This will occur not many days from now, Jesus said. It’s in the near future. But we know that happens in Acts 2.

Now it doesn’t say so in Acts 2, so we go to Acts 11. Now Peter has preached the gospel at the house of a Gentile, Cornelius, and some remarkable things have happened. But the Jews, the believing Jews, the church at Jerusalem, are uncomfortable that Peter would go and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to Gentiles. So He has to come and give an account. And He tells about what was going on as He spoke the message of Christ at the house of Cornelius. Verse 15, as I began to speak the Holy Spirit fell upon them, came upon Cornelius and his household, just as He did upon us at the beginning. So you note: the Holy Spirit fell upon them, those Gentiles, just as He did upon us, us Jews, at the beginning. Same thing happened to these Gentiles in Acts 10 that happened to us in Acts 2. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So the baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs for the first time in Acts 2 and it occurs to Jews. It will occur for the first time for Gentiles in Acts 10. And you realize you cannot be part of the church apart from the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Turn over to I Corinthians 12. Paul is drawing an analogy between what is called the body of Christ and the physical body. Your physical body is one body but it has many parts—eyes, ears, fingers, arms and so on. So the spiritual body of Christ is one body, but it has many parts, many members. Verse 12, for even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members are of the body, though they are many they are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, we were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one member but many. How did we become members of the body of Christ? Through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When did the baptism of the Spirit begin? When did it occur for the first time? Acts 2. Could the church as we know the church be in existence before Acts 2? No. How do people get the church in the Old Testament? Well one way they get it is they fail to understand that the word ekklesia had a broad general usage until the time that the New Testament church was established and it took on a technical meaning of a particular kind of assembly, an assembly of people redeemed through faith in Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in placing them into the spiritual body of Christ. And that spiritual body, of course, will have its physical manifestation. And that’s the point in I Corinthians 12 as we talk about the gifts that every physical part of the body has a role to play.

Okay, you come back to I Corinthians 1. I just want you to remember that I remember that we are in I Corinthians. He’s writing to the church of God which is in Corinth. It’s the church of God. So you see he identifies this particular assembly in a special way and this is particularly prominent in Paul’s earlier letters, like Galatians, I Thessalonians, II Thessalonians. Here in Corinthians he specifies, he’s not just writing to any assembly; he’s writing to the assembly of God, not the assemblies of God, as it’s become a denominational title. It’s the church that belongs to God, like Jesus talks about My church. It’s His church because He purchased it. All right we know we’re in Corinthians and we can leave there again and go back to Acts 20. What’s it mean to be the church of God? How did it become the church of God, His possession belonging to Him? Acts 20 Paul is addressing the elders, the leaders, of the church from Ephesus. So a local church in the city of Ephesus. Acts 20:28, speaking to these elders, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Now note this, to shepherd the church of God. Same thing it is called, writing to the church of God. Here he is addressing the elders of the church of God which are at Ephesus, in the Corinthian letter it is Corinth. The church of God, now note this, which He purchased with His own blood. The blood of Christ, His death on the cross, was the provision for the purchase of the church. Now the blood of Christ made possible, His death is the foundation for the forgiveness of Old Testament saints as well, but it served the purpose of making possible the bringing into existence of the church as we know it. So you can’t have the church before you have the death of Christ in this context, because the church is that which He purchased with His own blood. So you need the death of Christ, you need the baptism of the Spirit. Of course they go hand in hand. The Holy Spirit is applying the death of Christ to those who believe and thus placing them into the body of Christ.

Turn over to Titus 2:14, it’s more toward the back of your New Testament. Speaking of Jesus Christ, we are looking for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. Note verse 14, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 16:18? I will build my church, future tense. So He died on the cross so He could redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession. That’s the church, and so brought out in multiple passages. The church could not have existed before Acts 2, could not have existed before the death of Christ, which provided for the sending of the Holy Spirit as He made clear in the closing time He had with His disciples.

Now you have to understand, there is both the universal and the local aspects of the church as it has become technically known. The church has a universal dimension. When Christ purchased the church with His own blood, that didn’t just mean a local church in a given place, the church at Corinth or the church at Ephesus. There the church is used metaphorically or with its spiritual dimension to encompass all those who become believers in Jesus Christ and thus experience the benefit of His death and the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit that places them into the church, the body of Christ. There is also the local manifestation of the church, which are local churches in given localities. The universal church, I will build my church, obviously it is not limited to this local church. For 2000 years that truth has been applicable, it’s been the work that Christ has been doing in the world. Began with the establishing of the church at Jerusalem. In Acts 9:31 Paul’s persecution and the end of the persecution, it said, so the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace. We’ll see he’s not talking about just a church in Jerusalem, not just a church in Galilee, not just a church in Samaria, but the church, singular. So you can refer, and the Bible does in Colossians and Ephesians especially, to the church in its universal dimension, comprised of all believers everywhere. And that church, the universal church, includes believers who have died since Acts 2. They are part of the body of Christ; that part of the body is in glory, but they are part of the church. And the church in its entirety, all believers in Jesus Christ from Acts 2 to the rapture, will form the bride of Christ. That’s the universal church, sometimes called the invisible church. But we have to be careful because that means some people begin to disassociate it from the local church.

One more passage here, maybe two. Go to Ephesians 1:22, speaking of Jesus Christ, and He, God the Father, put all things in subjection under His feet, the feet of Christ. And gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body. The church is His body. How did you get into the body? For by one Spirit we have all been baptized into one body, we saw in I Corinthians 12:13. The fullness of Him who fills all in all. So here obviously Christ is the head of the church, His body, He’s not talking about just the church in one place. I mean there are multitudes of local churches around the world, multitudes of believers in Jesus Christ. They are all part of the body of Christ and are all to be in subjection to Him who is the head. Look in Ephesians 5:25, husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that she would be holy and blameless. You see that work of Christ in providing redemption, purification, a people for Himself. That will encompass all those who come to believe in Him from Acts 2 to the rapture. So it’s not limited. The Apostle Paul was part of the church, but he’s not part of our local church, and you multiply that out and it becomes obvious. But important we see there is the universal church.

Come back to I Corinthians 1. Paul is writing to the church of God which is at Corinth. I just want to make some comments here, this is where we’re going to break off and pick up. The church of God which is at Corinth, or literally, the one being in Corinth. Now you note, he doesn’t write to the portion of the church of God which is in Corinth, or that part of the church which is in Corinth. He writes to the church of God which is in Corinth. In other words, the universal church is manifested in the local church, and that local church at Corinth was a full manifestation of the church. It wasn’t a piece of the church; it was the church of God, the church fully manifested in that local church. Now that’s not all there was to the church, because Paul has already written to the church of Thessalonians at Thessalonica. And he’ll write to other churches. Jesus Christ will address letters to the seven churches of Asia in Revelation 2 and 3. But you understand the local church is the visible manifestation, in fact, and we’ll see this in our next study. The New Testament knows of no concept of a people who belong to the universal church who do not manifest that membership of a universal church in a local church. In fact, at the beginning in Acts 2, when the church had its beginning, the universal church and the local church were synonymous. All the people who were a member of the universal church were also a member of the local church in Jerusalem, right? That’s all there was. So the Bible does not make the radical distinction.

And we oughtn’t to think, and I’ve been in conversations recently, last month, extensive, with someone who has been trying to draw our church into a collection of churches. And we are not really the church by ourself, only those churches that were joined with others. The only problem with that, it has no biblical support. Paul never tells the church at Corinth that they ought to join with another church, even when churches get closer together in proximity, like the seven churches of Asia. Christ never instructs them on how they ought to be functioning together. Each church is an independent entity, and each church is the church of God in that place, and a full manifestation. Now I’m emphasizing this now and it will unfold as you will see as we go through the book of Corinthians. So understand the significance that the Bible places on the local church. In fact the word ekklesia is used 114 times, I’ve shared this with you before, in the New Testament. At least 90 of those references are to local churches, because it’s just not the universal church. The Bible does talk about the fact that the body of Christ is bigger than one local church, but its focus is on the local church as the manifestation of the body of Christ, a complete manifestation of the body of Christ. It’s not well we just aren’t complete unless we are joined with other churches. Well we are complete, just like the church of God. Not the piece of the church of God, not the part of the church of God, not the little bit of the church of God. The church of God, period, which is at Corinth. That’s the assembly that belongs to God that is located in that place.

We will get into that in our next study, more in the local church, and some of the distinctions that take place in the church that further separate it from the kingdom. Let me back up a moment. You can be part of the physical assembly of believers, but not truly part of the church. Ideally in the New Testament the church is comprised only of believers. We welcome unbelievers to come and sit under the ministry of the Word of God. That’s a disaster of the changing of the church, supposedly, to be a place where the unbeliever is comfortable. That totally is in conflict with what the church is by its very nature. We are the body of Christ. Anyone sitting here, even if they have been here for 20 years who has not placed their faith in Christ and thus been made part of the body of Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, is not part of the church, not truly part of this local church, which is a manifestation of the spiritual body of Christ. You can’t get baptized into the church, you can’t get on a roll and thus have the confidence you’re part of the church. You might be part of the physical entity that identifies the church, but you are not really part of the church, even the local church in a true sense. Because this church is only comprised of those who are truly believers in Jesus Christ. The others are just outside observers. I don’t say that to be mean or unkind, but the local church, the physical church meaning like in Corinth, is what? The church of God. It’s the body of Christ at that place. Can unbelievers be part of the body of Christ? No, you have to be placed into the body of Christ by the Spirit. So in a real way the universal church and the local church are distinct, but they cannot be separated.
The question comes, are you a member of the body of Christ? Not do you attend this church, not are you a member of that church or this church. But are you truly a member of the church of Christ? He paid the price; that price is applied when you place your faith in Jesus Christ. Then you are purified; you are cleansed’ you become His possession, and that’s part of His work in building His church.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for who we are, and that shapes all we do in our service to you as the head of the church. Lord, you are the head of the body; we are in subjection to you. It is not my church, it is not our church in the sense that it belongs to us, because you purchased it for yourself with your own blood. God forbid that we should take it lightly, the church, as you have brought it into existence, that we should treat it casually, fail to appreciate the awesome significance of the church which is the body of Christ. I pray for any who are here. Lord, they may be faithful; they may come; they may even be involved, but Lord they cannot be part of the church as your body without the saving work of your Son being applied to their heart and life. I pray that they might come to trust in Christ also. Thank you for your grace, thank you for your goodness. In Christ’s name, amen.