The Church

Introduction

This is now our sixth week in this series of sermons based on the Apostles’ Creed. We’ve thought about God the Father almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And we’ve thought about Jesus Christ, his Only-Begotten Son, our Lord. And we’ve thought about how Jesus Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary; and he suffered under Pontius Pilate; and he was crucified, died and was buried; and he descended into hell in the sense that he really did die and was held under the power of death for a time. And then we thought about how Jesus Christ rose again from the dead on the third day; and he ascended into heaven; and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty; and he will come again to judge the living and the dead. And then, the last time, which was before Easter, we thought about the Holy Spirit. We thought about what the Old Testament says about him and his work. We thought about what the New Testament says about him and his work in terms of his relationship to the Lord Jesus and in terms of his relationship to believers.

Today we’re thinking about the next line of the Creed where it refers to the holy, catholic church. The church — and the communion of saints and the forgiveness of sins which are mentioned next in the Creed — are related to the person and work of the Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is the one who unites us through faith to the Saviour, so that we become members of the church; where we enjoy communion with Christ and with one another; and where we receive the forgiveness of our sins. And so, we receive these good things because of the Holy Spirit, who unites us to Christ in accordance with the Father’s will.

What is the church?

Let’s begin by answering the question, ‘What is the church?’ Our church’s Confession of Faith distinguishes between the visible and invisible church. I’ll say more about that distinction in a moment. But for now we want to pay attention to what the Confession says about the visible church. It says that the visible church consists of all those throughout the world who profess the true religion, together with their children. And when the Confession refers to those who profess the true religion, it means believers. The church consists of all those throughout the world who are believers, together with their children.

When we gather on Sundays as the church, no doubt there will be people present who do not really believe. In fact, it’s possible that people who profess to believe, but who do not believe, will be admitted to the membership of the church. And so, it’s possible that the church might have among its members some people who do not believe. Nevertheless, the fact remains that those who do not believe are not true members of the church and they do not really belong, because the true church consists only of those who really believe in Christ the Saviour and who are trusting in him for forgiveness and eternal life. It belongs to them and to their children.

And according to the Confession, the church is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ and it is the house and family of God. While Christ’s kingdom is bigger than the church, nevertheless the church is part of his kingdom, because the Lord Jesus Christ is our King and we are his people, who are under his rule and authority and who benefit from his protection and care. And the church is the house and family of God, because believers are members of God’s household and he is our Heavenly Father and we are his children, adopted into his family through faith in his Son.

And the Confession also says about the church that there is no ordinary possibility of salvation outside of the church. As one Church Father has said: you cannot have God as your Father without having the church as your mother. Now, there are always extra-ordinary cases. For instance, the thief on the cross who repented and trusted in Christ had no time to become a member of the church, because he died as soon as he believed. But under normal circumstances, whenever God calls us to Christ he also calls us into Christ’s church. And so, on the day of Pentecost, when Peter preached to the crowd in Jerusalem, we read in Acts 2 that those who accepted his message were baptised and about three thousand were added to their number that day. So, they were baptised and added to the church. And then, a few verses later, we’re told that the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. So, those who were being saved became members of the church. Whenever sinners repent and trust in Christ for salvation, they are added to the church which Christ is building throughout the world.

Whenever we’re born into the world, God does not leave us on our own, but he places us in a family. And whenever we’re born again of the Spirit of God and enabled to trust in Christ for salvation, God does not leave us on our own, but he places us in the church, which is the family of God on earth.

The next thing to say about the church is that the church exists because of God. We are his people, because God the Father chose us from all eternity to belong to him. And in time he called us through his word and he enabled us by his Spirit to respond to his call with faith and repentance. And so, the reason we’re here today and are members of Christ’s church is because of God. This is not what most Protestants believe today. The most common idea among Protestant believers today is that they are members of the church because they decided of their own free will to put their faith in Christ and to join his church. But as Presbyterians we confess that the reason we believe in Christ and are members of his church is because the Father chose us and called us. And so, in Ephesians 1, Paul tells us that God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world. So, before we existed, God had already chosen us in Christ for salvation. And in Romans 1, Paul writes to the believers in Rome and he addresses them in this way: ‘To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints’. God loved them and called them. And the point is that we are here today, and we are members of Christ’s church, because God chose us in Christ before the world was made and he called us into his church. We’re here because of him.

And the church depends on Christ. This is clear from the various images which we have of the church in the Bible. For instance, the church is depicted in the Bible as the bride of Christ: Christ loved the church so much that he gave up his life for us in order to make us holy and radiant and spotless and a perfect, beautiful bride. Or Christ and his church are pictured as a vine with its branches: Christ is the vine and we are the branches and his life flows into us. Or the church is pictured as a body: Christ is the head and we are his body and just as our bodies are made up of various parts, so the church, the body of Christ, is made up of various people and we’re all vital to the whole. Or the church is a flock of sheep and Jesus Christ is our shepherd; and the shepherd lays down his life for the sake of his sheep. The Bible contains all these images of the church.

And the one thing all of the images have in common is the centrality of Jesus Christ. If the church is a bride, then Christ is the groom who loves us. If the members of the church are branches, then Christ is the vine whose life flows into us. If the church is a body, then Christ is the head. If the church is a flock of sheep, then Christ is the shepherd. In the Bible we have all these different images of the church and each one underlines how vital and necessary Jesus Christ is to the church. Without Christ there would be no church. And when we gather together on Sundays for worship, we come before God in the name of Jesus Christ to give thanks to God for the Lord Jesus and for the redemption which he accomplished on our behalf.

And before we go on to consider the history of the church in the Bible, let me go back to that distinction which theologians make between the invisible and the visible church. By this distinction, the theologians are not saying that there are two different churches in the world. There is only one true church, but the one true church is both invisible and visible.

It is invisible in the sense that those who belong to the church don’t look any different from those who don’t belong to the church. The things that make us different are not visible to the human eye. What are the things that make us different? The fact that we’ve been born again of the Spirit and united to Christ through faith. But regeneration by the Spirit and faith in Christ are invisible to the human eye. No one is able to peer into my heart and see my faith. Even if I were to be x-rayed in hospital and if I underwent various scans, my faith in Christ would not show up in the results. And so, the church is invisible in the sense that we don’t look any different from anyone else.

However, the invisible church takes on a visible form when we organise ourselves into congregations with elders to oversee us and with a Congregational Committee to support us and when we meet together for worship and instruction and fellowship.

So, the things that make us truly different from the world are invisible to the human eye, because no one can see our faith. But our faith becomes visible in the things we do.

The church in the Bible

Let’s move on now to consider the history of the church in the Bible. And the Bible makes clear that the church has always existed on the earth, because from the time of Adam there have been believers on the earth who worshipped God. Presumably this first happened in families. However at the end of Genesis 4, we read that in the days of Seth and Enosh, men began to call on the name of the Lord, which perhaps means they began to call on him in public worship. However, in those days, the church and its worship does not appear to be very organised. That all changed after the Exodus from Egypt and with the giving of the law at Sinai, when God laid down regulations for worship and instituted the priesthood and the sacrifices and the religious festivals which the people were to observe. Eventually Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem under God’s direction. And the temple was to be the centre of the church’s worship.

However, at some point in Israel’s history, synagogues began to appear throughout the land where God’s people could meet for worship and instruction and fellowship, without having to go all the way to Jerusalem. And when the Lord Jesus was on the earth, he visited those synagogues and there he read God’s word and preached to the people.

After the Lord’s resurrection, he chose the apostles and sent them out to make disciples of all nations, baptising them and teaching them. And so, he made clear that the gospel was for all and the church would not longer be confined to Israel, but would be established everywhere. The book of Acts makes clear that it took the apostles a while to understand this fully. However, in time they preached the gospel not only among the Jews but also among the Samaritans and the Gentiles. And churches were established throughout the Roman Empire where believing Jews and Gentiles would meet for worship and instruction and fellowship under the oversight of elders. New believers and their children were baptised, instead of being circumcised. And instead of offering sacrifices, they celebrated the Lord’s Supper to remember and proclaim Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice for sins. And Christ the King has promised to be with his people always, to the end of the age, and to prevent the gates of hell from triumphing over the church, which he is building on the earth.

But the church is not only on earth, but it’s also in heaven. And so, in Revelation 7 we read about the church triumphant, a great multitude from every nation, who are gathered around the throne of God to worship God and to worship the Lamb who was slain. These are the saints in glory, members of the church who have died and who have gone to heaven to await the resurrection. And right at the end of Revelation, we read of the new Jerusalem, which is the church in glory after the resurrection, when all of God’s people will be with God forever and forever.

Holy

In the Apostles’ Creed, we say that the church is holy. And the church is holy for three reasons.

It’s holy because we have been set apart, which is what the Greek word for ‘holy’ means. So, in the Jerusalem temple, the various utensils the priests used were holy, because they were set apart from ordinary use to be used for God’s glory in the temple. The priests themselves wore a sign on their forehead which read ‘Holy to the Lord’, because they too had been set apart from the rest of the people to serve God in the temple. Nowadays, we talk about Holy Communion, because the bread we take and the cup we take when we receive the Lord’s Supper have been set apart by prayer to be used in this special way to worship the Lord. The Bible is the Holy Bible, because it’s set apart from every other book, because it alone of all the books in the world is God’s word. And the church and its members are holy, because we are a people who have been set apart by God to belong to him. He has chosen us from the rest of humanity to be his special people.

And the church is holy because God has begun his work in us to sanctify us and to make us more and more willing and able to obey him and to do his will here on earth. We will never be sinless in this life. We will never be perfect while we go on living on the earth. But God is renewing us by his Spirit. He is working in us to enable us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled and upright and godly lives while we wait for Christ to come. Paul says in Ephesians 5 that Christ loved his bride, the church, and gave up his life for us, so that we would become a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other moral blemish, but holy and blameless. That’s what we will be one day. That’s what we will be in the life to come. We’re not like that yet, but Christ is working us in by his Spirit to make us like that more and more.

And so, the church is holy because we’ve been set apart to belong to God. And the church is holy because God has begun to sanctify us and to make us holy. But the church is also holy because, although we are still sinners who fall short in countless ways, our sins and shortcomings are covered over with the perfect obedience of Christ our Saviour. This is what it means to be justified. Through faith in Christ we are justified, which means God pardons our sins and God regards Christ’s righteousness — his perfect obedience — as ours. His perfect obedience covers our disobedience. And so, even though we sin and fall short in countless different ways, God regards us for the sake of Christ as if we had done everything right. In other words, he regards us as holy. And so, in 1 Corinthians 1, Paul refers to the believers in Corinth as ‘those sanctified [or made holy] in Christ Jesus’. And what’s remarkable about the way Paul described the believers in Corinth as ‘made holy’ is that he’s about to describe the problems that were going on in the church in Corinth. He’s about to talk about their sins and their shortcomings. The church in Corinth was messed up in many ways. But because of Christ’s perfect obedience which had become theirs, they were regarded as holy in God’s sight.

And so, the church is holy because we’ve been set apart to belong to God. And we’re holy because God is renewing us right now by his Spirit. And we’re holy because our sins and shortcomings have been covered over by Christ’s perfect obedience.

Catholic

And in the Apostles’ Creed, we say that the church is catholic, which means universal. Catholic simply means universal.

And the church is universal in terms of time and place. It is universal in terms of time because throughout history Christ has been gathering his people to himself and he has promised that he will be with his church always to the very end of the age. And that means he will ensure that his church continues to exist on the earth right up to the very end of history.

In Old Testament times, the church consisted of all those who believed in the Christ who was to come into the world. And the promises and prophecies and the sacrifices and religious festivals which we read about in the Old Testament all pointed forward to the coming Saviour of the world. That was the church in Old Testament times. And the church now consists of all those who believe in the Christ who has come and who suffered and died on the cross for the salvation of his people.

And so, the church is universal in terms of time, because the church has always existed and it always will exist. It’s not confined to one time or era, but it exists throughout history.

However, the church is universal in terms of place, because the church exists throughout the world and it’s not confined to one nation only. This, of course, was not the case in the Old Testament, when the church was confined to Israel and in order to become a member of the church, you had to become an Israelite. However, even in the pages of the Old Testament, God made clear that his saving purposes were for the whole world and not just for Israel; and the day would come when people from every nation would worship him. And so, after the Lord’s resurrection, he commissioned the apostles to go and make disciples of all nations. No longer was the church to be confined to one nation only, but it would exist throughout the world and it would cross every boundary; and membership of the church is not restricted, but it is open to men and women, young and old, rich and poor, free and slave, educated and uneducated, the high and mighty and the weak and lowly. Whoever believes in Christ becomes a member of the church.

And this is so because the message of the gospel is universal. And the message of the gospel is universal because the message of the gospel is that God so loved the world that he sent his Only-Begotten Son. This is God’s world, because he created it in the beginning. And though the world has been spoiled because of sin and is now under the control of the evil one, God still loves the world; and he sent his Son into it, so that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have everlasting life. And since the message of the gospel is that God so loved the world and whoever believes will be saved, then it follows that that church is universal and it exists throughout the world in every place and it crosses every boundary.

Some theologians distinguish between the church as an institution and the church as an organism. When they refer to the church as an institution, they’re referring to the way we organise ourselves as a congregation with a minister and elders and a Congregational Committee and we meet together in this building for worship and instruction and fellowship. And, of course, the church as an institution exists throughout the world, because in every place today, Christian congregations will meet together for worship and instruction and fellowship.

But when those theologians refer to the church as an organism, they’re referring to what happens once the service of worship ends and the church of Christ goes back out into the world which God loves. And there they live their lives for Christ and seek to honour him in all they do and say. And in that way, the church as an organism penetrates every area of life and affects every part of society and thereby evangelises every part of society. As one theologian (H. Bavinck) puts it: everything can be evangelised. There is nothing that cannot or ought not to be evangelised. Let me explain what that means.

Our homes have been spoiled because of sin. But as members of Christ’s church in the world, we’re able — by God’s grace and so far as it depends on us — to renew our homes so that they become more and more what God intended them to be.

And our schools have been spoiled because of sin. But as members of Christ’s church in the world, we’re able — by God’s grace and so far as it depends on us — to renew our schools so that they become more and more what God intended them to be.

And our workplaces has been spoiled because of sin. But as members of Christ’s church in the world, we’re able — by God’s grace and so far as it depends on us — to renew our workplaces so that they become more and more what God intended them to be.

And the clubs and societies we belong to have been spoiled because of sin. But as members of Christ’s church in the world, we’re able — by God’s grace and so far as it depends on us — to renew our clubs and societies so that they become more and more what God intended them to be.

The whole world has been spoiled by sin. But as members of Christ’s church in the world, we’re able — by God’s grace and so far as it depends on us — to renew the world around us, so that it becomes more and more what God intended it to be.

And so, the church as an institution gathers together for worship and instruction and fellowship. And then, afterwards, the church as an organism goes back out into the world and its members penetrate the whole of life and society and they live for Christ and his glory. And by life and by lip, by what we say and by what we do, we seek to renew the whole of life so that the world around us becomes more and more what God intended it to be. And this is what we should continue to do until Christ comes again and makes everything new.

The church is catholic or universal in terms of time, because the church has always existed and it always will exist. It’s not confined to one time or era, but it exists throughout history. And the church is catholic or universal in terms of place, because the church exists everywhere. The members of the church meet together for worship and instruction and fellowship in congregations throughout the world. And the members of the church live in the world and penetrate it and influence it; and, with the help of God, they renew it for God’s glory, until the times have reached their fulfilment and all things in heaven and on earth are brought together under one head, even Christ.