The Church, what is It?

Everybody speaks more or less about the Church, and yet there is perhaps no subject about which there is more general ignorance. To many the Church is the building in which Christians assemble, and they look upon it as a Jew looked at the Temple which Solomon had built at Jerusalem. To others it is the clergy. To others (probably the most), it is an organized body of professing Christian people, after the fashion of an army, or a club, or a business company, to which others may join themselves. Officers are chosen, a minister is called, a building is erected, and membership to this is sought for.

All this is far from the thought of God as to what the Church is, or how it is formed. Yet, after the salvation of one's own soul and its relationship with God is established, there is perhaps nothing so important as to have God's thoughts in this matter. It greatly affects our growth in grace and Christian development; it affects all our relations with our fellow-Christians. False views as to it may plunge us into sectarianism, superstition, bondage to men and other evils. But the truth on this subject sanctifies, as all divine truth does; it enlarges the heart, produces love and nearness to all our fellow-Christians, and places us in direct intercourse with Christ, the Head of the Church of God.

To our question then, "What is the Church? " let us turn to the Word of God, for there alone can we find its true answer.

In Ephesians 5 :22, etc., the relationship of husband and wife is used to illustrate that of Christ and the Church. He says:"We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." In chapter i:22, 23, He calls the Church "the fulness or complement of Him that filleth all in all." This carries us back to Genesis 2, when God formed put of Adam himself a companion suited to him. Adam said of her, as Christ says of the Church, "This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh." Ephesians 5 :32 calls Christ and the Church "a great mystery." Romans 12:4, 5, says, "For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." i Corinthians 12 :12, 13 says, " For as the [human] body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." All this shows that the Church is not a piece of religious machinery run by human hands, but a living organism formed by the living Spirit uniting in one Body those alive in Christ. None has ever of his own will joined that Body, even as a man's hand or foot has never joined his body, but have been joined by a higher Power. So, " By one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body." It is not only the work of God to save our souls, but also to make us members of the Church which is the Body of Christ.

How elevating, how satisfying, and sanctifying to know and to realize that we. in common with every other child of God, have by grace, been made members of that Body.

There are vivid illustrations of the Church in the book of figures and types-the Old Testament. As
already referred to, Eve is the first and principal one In her we have the origin of the Church- how she was formed. So Christ must first die and rise again before the Church could be formed. The Acts gives us the history of this and of the coming down of the Holy Spirit to form the Church. In Matthew 16:18, after Peter has confessed Him as "the Christ, the Son of the living God," the Lord calls that confession, or the One whom Peter confessed, "this Rock."He says, "Upon this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."This tells:(i) that He is the builder;(2) that it was then yet a future thing; (3)that the powers of darkness cannot prevail against it. In Acts 2, the Lord having died, risen, gone back to heaven, and sent down the Holy Spirit, the Church was formed out of the believers then at Jerusalem, and so in chapter 2:47 we are told:" The Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved." He has been adding ever since, and is adding still day by day. Wherever a poor sinner turns to God confessing his sins, and to the Lord Jesus as his own personal Saviour, the Lord adds that person to His Church. He is a member of it, without any act whatever of his own. None but Christ could put him into it, and none can take him out of it. Should he sin so grievously as to call for discipline (which the Church is bound to exercise), he is not deprived of his membership, but of the fellowship which flows from that membership.

In Sarah, the wife of Abraham, we have the principle upon which the Church is united to Christ. She illustrates grace, and what but God’s sovereign grace could give to such as we a relationship to Christ, so great and so blessed.

In Rebecca, the wife of Isaac, the calling of the Church is illustrated. She is already a relation. So must we be children . of God before we can be made members of the Body of Christ. Abraham's steward, type of the Holy Spirit, is sent after a companion for Isaac. By God's leading he finds her, and calls her away from her people, even as we are separated from the world for Christ; and she is led across the desert to Isaac, as the Holy Spirit, who is still here is now leading the Church to Christ in heaven.

There are many other minor illustrations which the attentive reader will find in the Scriptures, confirming and adding to what has already been shown as the New Testament doctrine found in Paul's epistles – chiefly in Ephesians.

The hope of the Church is not to convert this world, as many have supposed; nor is her calling even to improve this world, though the light which shines by her if she is faithful, puts to shame the evil that is in the world. Her business here is to keep Christ before the world, to let her light so shine as to be a bright witness for Christ and draw men to Him. She is to keep in mind that He is coming after her to take her to heaven to be forever with Him. This is her bright to-morrow, as i Thess. 4:14-18 shows, while for the present she is a stranger and a pilgrim on earth, waiting for the return of her Redeemer to take her home to Himself.

The people of God may, through sin, have formed numberless divisions among themselves, yet the
Church which is the Body of Christ remains one, even as men may worship many gods, yet "there is one God "-only one. So there is one Body-only one:and to it every believer in Christ, to the ends of the earth, belongs. This man may join the Romish church, that man the Methodist, the other the Baptist, yet all of them be unconverted men; but every converted man is by the Holy Ghost made a member of the Body of Christ, and of nothing else.

Dear reader, are you a member of that Body ? This is, of course, asking if you have been born of God and your sins forgiven you; for, as we have already said, the Holy Spirit puts only saved persons in the Body of Christ.

In conclusion religious organizations calling themselves the Church, or a church, may be headed by man, such as the pope of Rome, who is head of the Roman Catholic organization, or the king of England who is head of the Church of England organization, etc.; but these are only imitations of the Church which is Christ's Body. Christ alone can make us members of that, because He alone baptizes with the Holy Ghost. Imitations are not the real thing. In them are found, no doubt, many of the children of God. As soon, however, as they learn their membership in the Body of Christ, they cannot remain with a good conscience in the imitations, for they see it is disloyalty to the truth of membership in Christ's Body, already theirs through grace, by the act of God.

Nothing perhaps at the present time tests our obedience to the truth more than this. In days gone by the test was salvation by Christ instead of by the Church-by faith instead of by works. Now it is something- else. There is always something to suffer-some loss, in connection with Christ, and it requires "the joy of the Lord " in the soul -to take the path of obedience, whatever that be, with all that belongs to it. But "if we suffer with Him. we shall also reign with Him." It will be no small matter at the end to have been followers, doers of the will of God, in the face of human arrangements popular in this world, and to refuse which means to lose caste among men.

What is a Priest? and Who are now Priests?

When God had redeemed Israel out of the land of Egypt, He commanded Moses to build Him a tabernacle for His dwelling among His people. He loved the praises and worship of their grateful hearts. In John 4 the Samaritan woman enquires of the Lord where the right place to worship was. The Lord replies, " The hour cometh and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him." He saves men to make worshipers of them. Those worshipers are priests. They can draw nigh to God and offer their thanksgivings and praise. In Jewish, typical times, God chose Aaron and his family to illustrate Christ and His people, who are the Christian priesthood (i Pet. 2:5, 9). The tabernacle built by Moses typified God's dwelling-place in heaven. The furniture in it illustrated Christ and His work on the cross as the means of approach to God. The priests came in there to burn incense, which prefigures the prayers, praise au£l worship of God's people. The epistle to the Hebrews defines all this for us:Christ is the Great High Priest, and all His own, "the children which God has given Him," form the priestly family of the New Testament, as has already been shown in i Peter.

The priesthood must not be confounded with the ministry (We shall look at the ministry later on, D. V.). The priesthood, as already mentioned, has to do with worship, with drawing nigh to God where He is, and pouring out to Him the grateful praises of our hearts because of His grace to us. Ministry has to do with service, with going about on God's errands to men, with caring for His people, or anything else which has to do with His affairs on earth. The Levites, in Judaism, illustrated this. While related to the priests, being of the same tribe, they were servants to the priests, even as the Christian ministry now is servant to the Christian priesthood.