Continuing our study on how the lordship of Christ and the message of the Gospel affect our entire lives, last night we looked what the New Testament has to say about church. We started off trying to answer some big, essential questions, and then moved on to some more practical applications of the core truths.
1. First: What is the Church? Note that the Greek word that our English bible’s translate “church” is ekklesia (ἐκκλησία) and simply means “assembly”–which is what the church is, but this still doesn’t get to the heart of the question for us. Fortunately, we can string together some of the Apostle Paul’s writings to get a big, surprising, cosmic picture. This part may have lost some of you, but I think reflection on it will bear good fruit and understanding. So here’s a four-step look at what Paul says the church is:
1. There was a first man, and then a second man: See 1 Cor 15:45-47. In this passage Paul collapses all of human history into two people. In 1 Corinthians he calls them by various names which line up like this:
- Creation → Adam (the old man, fallen, “the First Man”, the “first Adam”)
- New Creation, Resurrection → Christ (the new man, perfected, “the Last Adam”, the “Second Man”)
2. All humans are born into the category of the First Man. (1 Cor 15:21-22). Here we begin to see why God would have us see things this way. In begin created as the first man, and falling into sin, Adam gave birth to a whole family of sinful, fallen human beings. In other words, he became a category as well as an individual. Now, when we are born, we are all born into the category of “Adam.” But there’s hope in these verses as well, because we see that there is a second category as well: “In Christ.” How does someone change categories? How do they go from being “In Adam” to “In Christ”…? Paul answers that question in Romans 5:12, 5:18-9, and 5:1. Trusting what this Second Man has done, specifically, trusting in the fact that He never sinned like the first Adam and therefore, when He died He didn’t die for Himself but for us, and then rose again, trusting that Last Adam, leads to what Paul calls in Romans 5 “justification.” If you follow his logic, you see that the Lord has given us a plan: faith in Christ leads to being “In Christ.” You are now no longer in Adam. You are in the Second Man.
3. Which is, in fact, what he says in 1 Co2 12:27… Those who trust Christ are now in or united with the Him. That is, they are part of His body.We get this theme elaborated on in Colossians and Ephesians. Christ is the head of this new body. (Col 1:18, 24)
4. Thus, the Church is the New Man. See Ephesians 2:15, 1:22-23.
Christ as head + believers together as body = one complete new man. The Church is the beginning of God’s new Humanity, destined for God’s new earth.
We aren’t in a position to answer the practical questions about church until we grapple with the huge truths about what the church really is. Do we see the gravity of this?
2. Christ is Head, that is, He is Lord of the Church.
The Lordship of Christ: So we see that the church is a group of people over which He is reigning in Authority, in actual presence, and in living connection (and control). See Matthew 28:18-20, 18:20, 1 Peter 2:4-5, Ephesians 4:1-16, and (Colossians 2:18)
3. The Message of the Gospel is the seed by which God births the Church.
The Gospel: The church is brought into existence by people believing the Gospel. It continues to exist as the place where those changed by the gospel enjoy the effects of the gospel. It is the base of operations from which those preaching the Gospel are sent out. Therefore, it must always be a place shaped by the message of the Gospel: that Christ came, lived perfectly, died in our place, and rose again. So, our relationships, our gatherings, should be totally saturated with real affection, sacrificial living and forgiveness. Our gathering has to preach the Gospel.
4. Getting Practical.
How do we:
1. …decide where/when/how to go to church? We must ask the Lord of the Church. He should direct your church participation. If we are currently in connection with a body of believers, it is a serious thing.
2. Look at and think about other believers? How does the Lord of the church think about them? How does the Gospel describe them? Do we see them as fellow members of the same body? Not, “what should I think about them?” but “what is really true about them?”
3. Decide how to give ourselves to fellow Christians? How did the Lord of the church give Himself? What do we want our community to proclaim? Does it preach the gospel? Does it give a current, visible witness to the existence of Christ?
4. Submit ourselves to other believers and leadership? Who is our Lord and how has He constructed the church?
5. Govern our relationships with other believers? Does the Head direct how we relate to our own body?
6. Think about and talk about the church as a whole? What place do we see ourselves holding…part of the Body? How we relate to our actual local church often shows how we feel about the church as a whole.
See Ephesians 5:25-32. Christ loves the church. Do we?
Challenge: Being saved means being in Christ’s body. It’s time to allow our thinking and our living to be determined by actual truth. It will take a death of some things in our life, but it will lead to the kind of spiritual life and growth we so often long for.