Grace and Peace

Is the New Testament church so crucial that it is worthy of several weeks of study? By and large the world has written off the church as irrelevant and a waste of time, as a bunch of fanatics who are ‘doing their own religious thing.’ Even among Christians there are those who are say, “I’m believe in Jesus, but I want no part of the church!”

I want to deal with this challenge of playing down the local church by many who call themselves Christians by way of two responses. First of all, I want to emphatically state that it is inconceivable for a Christian to be a part of Christ’s body, the universal church, without any relationship to the local church.  The local, geographical manifestation of the Body of Christ is the local church and fellowship with Jesus implies and necessitates fellowship with the saints. [1]

Second, there have been many failures in local churches, which justify a great deal of criticism. Much of the evangelism in the world, which has occurred in recent years, is not directly attributable to the local church. Even worse, a significant portion of the follow-up and fellowship, which these new Christians have received, has been a result of organizations other than the local church.

But these failures do not justify an abandonment of the local church; they necessitate a fresh look at the Scriptures in order to instruct us as to how the church must change in order to conform to the Scriptures, and to once again carry out its task in the world. Just as marriage is not to be abandoned because of its failures, so too, the church cannot be forsaken.

In my study thus far, I have by no means exhausted the wealth of images in the New Testament that depict the church.  Neither have I said all that is possible to say about the metaphors I chose to highlight. Yet, in reading through the New Testament in preparation for this discussion, there was one thing that struck me as common to each of the images of the church.  That common thread was that each symbol depicted some aspect of the relationship between Christ and the church.

The emphasis on God as Husband, King, Father, Foundation, Shepherd, Head, etc. and his gracious initiative in establishing the relationship and providing for every need of the church is readily apparent. The object of this extraordinary love is his people as a community, both in relation to him as his bride, kingdom, family, temple, flock, body, etc. and in relation to each other as branches of the same vine, sheep in the same flock, children in the same family, and members of the same body.

The fact that the church reciprocates his love and depends on his provision is understandable.  God loves his people and by a mystery we will never fully understand this side of heaven, desires to be in relationship with us and use us in his great plan.  We need look no further than the cross to understand the profundity of that love or the urgency of his desire to bring us into fellowship with him.  How then can we selfishly ignore our responsibility to share this good news with others?