Thirdly, the Church is the Community of Faith
We have discussed so far that the Church is the Body of Christ, the community of those who have been called or chosen by God for a particular role in God's plan for His creation.
(Let's not forget, with all this talk about the Body of Christ being specifically chosen, that God has also chosen all mankind to be saved at the end of the ages before "we step into eternity" together. See the previous "God's Biblical Plan" posted in January 2019)
To perform their task or chosen role, members of the Body of Christ will require faith.
Why?
Because the gospel is pretty hard to get your head around without it.
Imagine trying to understand the gospel - the God of creation sending his Son to earth in a human body, His virgin birth, His death for our sins, His resurrection, His promised return, God being reconciled to us even as sinners, God's promise to reconcile all of us to Him eventually, etc.
It's way beyond what we would call rational. (See the previous "Is God Rational?" posted in August 2013)
We could not accept such a fantastic story without God's intervention in some way.
The gospel needs to be revealed to us - and then believed by us.
My understanding is this: If, before the foundation of the earth, God has chosen those who are to be members of the Body of Christ, then those chosen must hear the gospel (have the gospel revealed to them) and be given the faith to embrace it at some point in their life's journey on planet earth - the chosen need to be given the faith to act upon the gospel God has arranged for them to hear.
(Conversely, those who do not hear the gospel, or who hear the gospel but are not given the faith to believe it, have not been chosen to be members of the Body of Christ. Their salvation, their reconciliation to God, must wait until an event beyond their time in their earth-suits.)
Jesus (the Head) and we (the Body) have been given the faith to fulfil the roles God has given us. Both are referenced in this one verse from Hebrews.
Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. He did not give up because of the cross! On the contrary, because of the joy that was waiting for him, he thought nothing of the disgrace of dying on the cross, and he is now seated at the right side of God's throne. [Hebrews 12 : 2 GNB]
Jesus required faith to complete His challenging mission. (See the previous "The Faithfulness of Jesus" posted in May 2017)
and
The Body requires faith to embrace the message and embark on its mission (which we will discuss in the final post of this mini-series).
The Gentiles listened with delight and extolled the Lord's Message; and all who were pre-destined to the Life of the Ages believed.
[Acts 13 ; 48 Weymouth]
So then, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message comes through preaching Christ.
[Romans 10 : 17 GNB]
Confirmed by Paul's personal experience ...
Though I was previously a blasphemer and a persecutor and had been insolent in outrage. Yet mercy was shown me, because I had acted ignorantly, not having as yet believed; and the grace of our Lord came to me in overflowing fulness, conferring faith on me and the love which is in Christ Jesus.
[1 Timothy 1 : 13 - 14 Weymouth]
Yes, we are blessed by our early calling but we are not to boast about our being chosen or our being given faith.
And because of God's gracious gift to me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you should. Instead, be modest in your thinking, and judge yourself according to the amount of faith that God has given you.
[Romans 12 : 3 GNB]
What is so special about you? What do you have that you were not given? And if it was given to you, how can you brag?
[1 Corinthians 4 : 7 CEV]
Correct. The Body of Christ is not special - just chosen earlier than the rest of mankind and equipped for a specific task.
Blessings, Barry
(Part 4 coming in the next post)
Secondly, the Church is the Community of The Called or The Chosen
I appreciate that this makes it sound like the Church is an exclusive club - but it is.
That's God's choice, not mine.
You don't have to look far to see how exclusive it is, how few might be in the Body of Christ compared to how many who are not, just in the place where you live.
(But keep reading to the final post in this mini-series to discover why this smallish group has been chosen to receive its calling before the eventual reconciliation of the remainder at the consummation of the ages - the called have a distinct role to play in God's plan for His creation.)
Reports of God's calling of those he has chosen permeates all of Scripture. Here's a small sample relating to the church.
Symeon has related how God first looked graciously on the Gentiles to take from among them a People to be called by His name.
[Acts 15 : 14 Weymouth]
James said this referring to Simon Peter's earlier comment that "God originally made a choice among you that from my lips the Gentiles were to hear the Message of the Good News, and believe." [Acts 15 : 7 Weymouth]
Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be saints ... [1 Corinthians 1 : 1 - 2 NIV]
He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created. [James 1 : 18 NIV]
God has saved us and called us to a holy life - not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.
[2 Timothy 1 : 9 - 10 NIV]
It is clear that the Church is a community of people who have been specifically called (chosen) by the Spirit of God to be members of the Body of Christ, and incredibly, that choice was made by God before time began.
That's how God operates - always choosing people, as individuals or groups, to implement His plans.
And we'll discuss what that plan is for the Body of Christ in a coming post.
Let's see a few more examples of God's choosing throughout Biblical history.
After Adam and Eve sinned, God promised that He would undo the curse of sin that the human race inherited. [Genesis 3 : 15]
After Cain killed Abel, God gave them another son named Seth (meaning the set or appointed one) as the one appointed to take the place of Abel.
God later chose Noah (meaning comfort or rest), a descendant of Seth and a righteous man, to save mankind when God judged the wicked in the flood.
Through Noah's son Shem (meaning name, fame, renown) God chose another man named Abram (meaning high or exalted father) to be an ancestor of Jesus Christ.
God's plan in calling Abram, who was later called Abraham, was to make a great nation of people who would be, not only the people from whom the Messiah would come, but also they would be God's chosen nation (Israel), a witness and example to all other nations. [Genesis 12 : 1 - 3, Exodus 19 : 3 - 6]
In fact, Abraham was to be more than the father of just one nation, but of a multitude of nations - those of the circumcised (Hebrews) and those of the uncircumcised (Gentiles). [Genesis 17 : 3 - 6, Romans 4 : 11 - 12]
And what about the mighty Pharaoh, who thought he was completely in charge of his world. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very reason I have raised you up, so that I may demonstrate my power in you, and so that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." [Romans 9 : 17 LEB]
And finally the words of Jesus as He responds to the grumbling of the Jews: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me should draw him ..." [John 6 : 44 DBH]
It is clear that one's calling into the Body of Christ is God's doing, God's choice - and His alone. It is not a choice that we make, no matter how often we hear people saying things like "I invited Jesus into my heart" and "I decided to become a Christian" or "I decided to give Christianity a go". It is not an "I" decision at all: it is solely God's choice as to whom He calls into the Body of Christ.
Interestingly, C.S.Lewis admits he was dragged into the church kicking and screaming, definitely not his choosing at the time.
To finish, an interesting point from the Greek of the New Testament.
The word klesis is translated in English as 'a calling' and the word ekklesia is translated as 'church' or assembly.
Notice the similarity between these Greek words demonstrating that the church consists of those who have received a calling by God.
Blessings, Barry
(Part 3 coming in the next post)
Over the centuries, the word "church" has come to mean either the building in which people of Christian persuasion meet or the actual people who have so gathered.
Neither meaning is consistent with Scripture, which tells the story about what the real church is, has and does.
Let's explore what the Bible says about the Church - the Real Church.
(We'll use several posts to cover this exploration)
Firstly, the Church is described as the Body of Christ.
Although this might seem a strange term to use, it is full of meaning and symbolism.
The Apostle Paul used the term frequently to describe the various communities of believers - assemblies of Christians - that he founded and served.
... Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. [Ephesians 5 : 23 NIV]
After all, people never have never hated their own bodies, but they feed and care for them, just as Christ does the church - for we are members of his body. [Ephesians 5 : 29 - 30 NIV]
And he (the Son) is the head of the body, the church; ... [Colossians 1 : 18 NIV]
Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. [Colossians 1 : 24 NIV]
God has put all things under His (Christ's) feet, and has appointed Him (Christ) universal and supreme Head of the Church, which is His Body, the completeness of Him who everywhere fills the universe with Himself. [Ephesians 1 : 22 - 23 Weymouth]
The statement "Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it"
follows a fascinating exposition on the unity and diversity in the Body in 1 Corinthians 12, which all assemblies of Christians would
find value in reading on a regular basis.
Interestingly, many churches also teach that the Church is the Bride of Christ, although the Bible does not specifically say this.
However, Paul metaphorically links the Church with a betrothed virgin.
I betrothed you to one husband, to present to the Anointed* as a pure virgin. [2 Corinthians 11 : 2 DBH]
Also Paul uses the love of Christ for his Church to set the expected standard for a husband's love for his wife,
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy ... [Ephesians 5 : 25 - 26 NIV]
and the fact that a husband and wife become one flesh to show that Christ, the Head, and the Church, the Body, are one.
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church. [Ephesians 5 : 31 - 32 NIV]
So although this idea can appear to have some biblical support I struggle to get my head around the arrangement whereby the same entity can be the Bride and the Body of the Bridegroom at the same time.
I am thinking that it is more likely that Israel will become the Bride of Christ after she is saved (after the full number of the Gentiles come into the Body of Christ - Romans 11 : 25 - 26) as she is described as the Wife of God in the Old Testament [Jeremiah 3 : 14] and, in the future, God plans to restore her to that position after her long period of unfaithfulness. [Jeremiah 31 : 31 - 33, Isaiah 54 : 4 - 8, the whole book of Hosea especially Hosea 2 : 16, Revelation 19 : 7 - 9, Revelation 21 : 1 - 2]
(The Revelation references linked to Israel in this way may also challenge some traditional church thinking.)
So for me, the Church is clearly the Body - the hands and feet - of Christ on this planet at this time, and operates under the direction of Christ - the Head.
The Body members are those who are living under this direction through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Blessings, Barry
*David
Hart always translates the Greek 'Christos' as the Anointed rather than
the Messiah or the Christ as other translators usually do.
