The Church and the Mission of God

  1. Three Questions
  2. Why is the church Important?
  3. What is the church?
  4. What is the mission of the church?
  1. WHY IS THE CHURCH IMPORTANT?
  2. Four Reasons We Don’t Study the Church
  3. For many of us to study the church is an afterthought. It is what we do, not what we need to reflect upon. Yet a thorough doctrine of the church is of utmost importance for understanding the mission of the church. Why do Christian’s not think enough about the doctrine of the church? There are a number of reasons but I have identified four.
  4. First, we neglect studying what the church is because of individualism. Church is about community, fellowship, but many times we still think of our Christian walk as a private thing between God and I. As Justin Bieber said, “You don’t need to go to church to be a Christian.” Our concept of the Church is basically influenced by the form of the Church at any given time. Every age has its own image of the Church, arising out of a particular historical situation.
  5. 1 Peter 2:9
  6. Second, we don’t study the church because we don’t think the Scripture speaks to how we “do” church. In other words we don’t think the Scripture is sufficient to tell us how to do church. We assume that God left that up to us and we are called to contextualize what the church is in each age.
  7. It seems to me that in the Bible God demonstrates that he does care about the organization and structure of the local church. He seems to be interested in the leaders of the church, the servants of the church, that things are done in an orderly fashion, and that certain practices take place when the community gathers.
  8. Third, we don’t study the church because we at times separate our policy theology from our operations theology. Policy theology is theology about God and his nature, about the church and its nature. Operations theology is how we interpret and apply policy theology. We might be tempted to think that Scripture teaches us policy theology, but not operations theology. Or we might separate the two and not realize that our operations must flow from our policy.
  9. Fourth, we don’t study the church because we don’t think it is central to God’s plan. We think of the church as an interim program, and then we will all be in heaven with God. The church is thus extrinsic to the gospel logic and we focus on the gospel, not the church. But the church is not merely an apparatus for the proclamation of the Word but central to it.
  10. Eph 3:10
  1. Four Reasons the Church is Important (Mike Bird)
  2. The Church is internal to the logic of the Gospel.
  3. One of the biggest reasons we have neglected the doctrine of the church is because we have eliminated the church from the economy of salvation. We need to view the church as part of the process of the economy of salvation that begins with the grace of the triune God.
  4. How is the Christian community internal to the logic of the Gospel?
  5. God the Father created us to be in fellowship with him.
  6. The Son Jesus Christ accomplishes the reconciliation who is both the maker and the re-maker of creatures and calling them back into being when they have fallen into estrangement from God.
  7. This work is completed or perfected in the Spirit.
  8. A distorted view of the church usually arises from distorted views of God and the Gospel. Show me your church and I will show you your picture of God.
  9. As the late John Webster said “the existence of a new social order is a necessary implicature of the gospel of Jesus Christ, hence the life of the Christian community is internal to the logic of the gospel and not simply accessory and accidental.”
  10. The point is that the Gospel is about fellowship with the Triune God and the manifestation of this fellowship is not just an announcement. God’s purpose for his creatures generates a social space where the power of Gospel becomes visible. The Christian faith is thus ecclesial.
  11. As Webster again says, “First there can be no doctrine of God without a doctrine of the church, for according to the Christian confession God is the one who manifests who he is in the economy of his saving work in which he assembles a people for himself. Second there can be no doctrine of the church which is not wholly referred to the doctrine of God, in whose being and action alone the church has its being and action.”
  12. In the church is the company of the gospel.
  13. The church is the company of actors in the drama of God’s redemption casted to perform the redemptive drama of the Gospel.
  14. There is a real sense in which there is no salvation outside the church.
  15. You can’t have God as your father without the church as your mother.
  16. God has redeemed a people.
  17. The church is the public face of the gospel.
  18. While this is scary, it is the way God wanted it to be. The church with all its warts, weirdo’s, and willing rebellion is the public face of the Gospel.
  19. Jesus says in John 13:35,“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” We are the picture of the Gospel to the world.
  20. The church is the hermeneutic of the gospel
  21. The only way for the gospel to become credible in a pluralistic society is to have a congregation of men and whom who believe it and live it.
  22. Jesus did not write a book, but formed a community around him.
  23. As Jamie Smith said, “We cannot hope to restore the world if we are always reinventing the church.”
  1. WHAT IS THE CHURCH?
  2. To understand the mission of the church we also have to answer the question of what is the church. We can’t make an argument for the purpose of a thing before we answer what the “thing” is. If you try to go swimming with your bicycle you will quickly understand you didn't comprehendthat the nature of bicycle relates to its purpose.
  3. To put this in a more academic way…ontology must precede methodology.
  4. But Christopher Wright also says that we can’t understand what it the church is (identity) without paying attention to its purpose (its mission).
  5. He uses 1 Peter 2:9-12. Royal Priesthood, Holy Nation
  6. I don’t want to spend too much time here but some clarifications are necessary. I have divided these into biblical and historical considerations, and then distinctions.
  1. Biblical Considerations
  2. The Church as the People of God
  3. There can be no faith, no sacraments, no offices, nothing of an institutional nature, without men and women. These things cannot precede or be superior to the people. All these things only exist in the fellowship of believers, who are the Church; it is this fellowship, which is identical with the new people of God.
  4. The story of the church begins with Israel, the OT people of God. The idea of the people of God is the oldest and most fundamental concept underlying the church. The many-layered basic structure of the Church must be understood in light of the people of God (Kung, 162).
  5. The church is also “of God.” The origin of the church is not individuals or even in believing Christians, but in God himself. The church begins with God. By of God I also mean that the Church is the creation of the Spirit and redeemed by the Son.
  1. The Church as God’s New Assembly
  2. The church is not only the people, but the gathering of the people.
  3. Ekklesia is an important word used for the church in the NT (see Mt 16:18). The church is the people gathered. Which works against individualism and shows that the church is a corporate entity. It also highlights the continuity/discontinuity between the OT and NT gathering
  4. OT Assemblies as the Background to NT Usage. In the OT, the great assembly was at Sinai (Dt 4:10; 9:10; 10:4; 18:16). Later assemblies recalled that great assembly (Nu 10:1-10; Josh 24:1, 25; Lev 23). To be a member of the people of God was to have the privilege of standing in the great assembly before the Lord. But as the OT unfolds, we discover that Israel failed in its calling before the Lord. The nation was sent into exile. But the prophets held out hope. They proclaimed a ‘new assembly’ of the people of God. It would come in the future when God would again manifest his presence – when the remnant of Israel would be gathered and the nations would be gathered in (Is 2:2-4; 25:6-8; 49:22; 66:18-21; Jer 48:47; 49:6, 39). Zechariah sees a new Jerusalem transformed by the presence of the Lord (Zech 12:7-9; 13:1, 9; 14:7-8).
  5. The Use of Assembly in the NT. The word ekklesia is found 114x in the NT (3x in Matthew; 23x in Acts; 62x in Paul; 20x in Revelation; 6x in non-Pauline letters). In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is presented as the one who promises to build his assembly by his death and resurrection (Mt 16:18). After his resurrection, he commanded his disciples to remain in Jerusalem until they received the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was poured out as they were ‘assembled.’ The NT presents Jesus’ new assembly as what the prophets anticipated and foretold. However, the greatest and most significant use of ekklesia is found in Paul.
  1. The Church as God’s New Humanity.
  2. The assembly of the people is God’s new humanity.
  3. In Ephesians 2:11-22 Paul treats both the horizontal and vertical dimensions of God’s gracious work of salvation in Jesus Christ. Paul presents salvation in light of God’s purposes in Christ that are tied to the eternal plan of God (see 1:3-14, especially the theme of ‘mystery’ in 1:9-10). God’s intention is to bring ‘all things’ together in unity in Christ. Two obstacles need to be overcome before the divine purposes reach their fulfillment – the subjection of the powers (=‘things in heaven’), and the church, particularly the relationship of Jews and Gentiles (=‘things on earth’). The second of these areas is addressed in 2:11-22 and it reaches its height when the consequences of Christ’s mighty reconciling work are drawn out in a series of images depicting the privileges of God’s people which transcend the old Jew-Gentile divisions. The context of 2:11-22 is 2:1-10. In 2:1-10 Paul has reminded his Gentile Christian readers of the dramatic change that God had effected in raising them from death to new life in Christ. Literally they are now ‘new creations.’ Now Paul unpacks their privileges in relation to Israel’s privileged position in the saving plan of God. The paragraph may be broken down into three units: (1) vv. 11-13 – the pre-Christian past of the Gentile Christians in relation to Israel; (2) vv. 14-18 – the explanation of how this coming ‘near’ was made possible through Christ’s reconciling death; (3) vv. 19-22 – application of these realities to the church, God’s new humanity and community.
  1. The Church as God’s Dwelling (Temple).
  2. The church is not only the gathering of the people of God, the new humanity, but is described as God’s dwelling, his new temple.
  3. In the NT, the individual believer and the church is viewed as a ‘temple’ – the dwelling place of God (1 Cor 6:19; 2 Cor 5:1; Eph 2:13-22; 1 Cor 3:16-17; 1 Pet 2:5; 2 Cor 6:16). But it’s important to note how this biblical theme develops, reaches fulfillment as one moves through the canon and is led to the affirmation that the believer and the church is the ‘temple’ of God.
  1. The Church as the Body of Christ.
  2. In Scripture, many terms and metaphors are used in the NT to describe the nature of the church. But Paul emphasizes a unique term – the church as the ‘body of Christ.’ In the Hellenistic world of the 1st century it was possible to speak of any organization as a body of people. But Paul speaks of the church, not as a body of people, but as the body of Christ. So what does he mean?
  3. Saul the Pharisee, persecuting the church was confronted on the Damascus road by the risen Lord. Jesus asks him, why are you persecuting me when he is persecuting the church. The identification that Paul sees between Christ and the church, i.e. the body of Christ, is first of all ‘representative’ and ‘covenantal.’
  1. The Church as God’s ‘New Covenant Community.
  2. What is the nature of the new covenant? (Jeremiah 31:31-34; cf. Hebrews 8, 10; see Ezek 34, 36-37; Is 40-66; cf. Is 42:6 where covenant language is applied to the enigmatic ‘servant of Yhwh’ – a figure whose mission closely parallels that of the ‘seed’ of Abraham and David). Among the expectation of the prophets living during and post-exile is the coming of a ‘new covenant’. The new covenant will have a purpose similar to the Mosaic covenant – that is, to bring the blessing of the Abrahamic covenant back into the present experience of Israel – and the nations. However, the ‘new covenant’ will also be different than the old – see the structural changes in Jeremiah 31:29-30.
  3. ‘New’ (Heb. hadas). This can mean absolutely new or novel – Ex 1:8; Dt 32:17; 1 Sam 6:7; Eccl 1:10 or carry the sense of ‘renewed’ (Lam 3:22-23). LXX – kainos instead of neos which of some qualitative newness.
  4. Continuity/Discontinuity. It is made to the ‘house of Israel’ and ‘house of Judah’ (continuity), but it is not like the Mosaic covenant in its type. What then is ‘new’ about the ‘new covenant?’
  5. ‘Structural’ changes.
  6. ‘New Heart’: Jer 31:33; cf. Ezek 11:19-20; 36:26-27; Isa 59:21. The law will be written on the heart – cf. circumcision of the heart (Dt 30:6; cf. Dt 10:16; Jer 4:4; 9:25). This new heart will bring about the ‘fear of the Lord’ (Jer 32:39-40). This is not to say that believers in the OT did not have ‘circumcision’ of heart. Rather, minimally, it is to say that the ‘scope’ of the covenant has changed – everyone will have a circumcised and new heart. Of course, this is linked to the Spirit in other texts.
  7. ‘Forgiveness of sin’. Jer 31:34; cf. Ezek 16:62-63; 36:25. This is at the heart of the ‘new covenant’ – a complete forgiveness of sin (cf. Heb 7-10).
  8. ‘Resurrection life.’ Ezekiel 37:1-23; cf. Dan 12:2; Isa 25:6-9. Ezekiel 36 presents resurrection life in the land similar to Eden (vv. 28-38). The renewal of Israel, tied to the new covenant, is associated with the renewal of Israel’s land. Isaiah 40-66 link covenant renewal with the New Jerusalem which is in turn linked with the new creation (see 40:3-5; 55:12-13; 65:17) tied to the work of the Servant (Isa 53).
  1. Historical Considerations
  2. Marks of the Church
  3. The Nicene Creed defines the attributes of the church as ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic.
  4. One
  5. The church is one, or unified. This refers to both the local and the universal church, the local community and the community as a whole – which is really and positively one Church, one people of God, one body of Christ, one spiritual creation. The whole NT message bears witness to this (1 Cor 1:10-30; 1 Cor 12; Gal 3:27; Rom 12:3-8; Acts 2:42; Acts 4:32; Jn 10:16; Jn 17:20-26; Eph 4:1-6).
  6. The unity of church should not be judged by externals, that is to misunderstand this. It is true that no proof of this unity can be given to the unbeliever. The unity of the church is a spiritual entity. It is not chiefly a unity of the members among themselves, it depends finally not on itself but on the unity of God, which is efficacious through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. It is one and the same God who gathers and scattered from all places and all ages and makes them into one people of God. It is the one and same Christ who through his word and Spirit unites all together in the same bond of fellowship.
  7. In Christwe are already united – in spite of the conflicting multiplicity of Churches. The unity of the church is not merely a goal, but is the foundation of necessary work for unity.
  8. The church is one, and therefore should be one.
  9. So is the multiplicity of churches a bad thing? The unity can exist within multiplicity. Although it presupposes a common life shared by all the word ecclesia is quite naturally used in the plural in the NT and linked with place-names. Although the Church in Acts is regularly idealized it is clear that from the beginning there were differences, different communities, and even differences between the apostles themselves.
  10. Thus the unity of the Church presupposes a multiplicity of Churches: the various Churches do not need to deny their origins or specific situations; their language, their history, their customs and traditions, their way of life and thought, their personal structure will differ fundamentally, and one has the right to take this from them. Thus the co-existence does not jeopardize the unity of the churches.
  11. Some marks of the unity and oneness of the church are baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
  12. Catholic
  13. καθολικος the whole, general. The original sense of whole, the total Church. The total Church is the Church as manifested, represented and realized in the local churches. Inasmuch as the Church in this sense of the total Church is the entire Church, it may be called, according to the original usage of the word, the catholic, that is the whole, universal, all-embracing Church. Catholicity is essentially a question of totality.
  14. This does not means a number of things. First, it does not mean that spatial extension alone makes the Church catholic. Catholicity is not primarily a geographical concept.