The pandemic crisis has drawn the curtain on many things the world and the church have taken for granted for a long time. Not to say that may look like denying the truth. Afterall no saying the coronavirus has affected the church may be a misnomer. Because the most important thing the church needs now is a reset after many years of drifting from the truth of her origin and destination.
Nowadays, it is may not exactly serve the truth to say that seven out of ten believers may not really know what the church is, and why the Lord formed her in the first place. This is enough proof that there is a necessity to re-instruct the true believers of the true meaning of the church. Since the majority has lost the real meaning of what it means to be counted as a living church that is in conformity to the standard truth of the New Testament.
The necessity of discovering the truth of the invisible, heavenly, and the universal church of Christ cannot be overemphasized. This may be difficult to some extent to digest as one of the fruits of the pandemic crisis. As the pandemic crisis of today has introduced a twist so humbling and climatic on the church worldwide. Therefore there is a need for stock-taking of what has gone wrong among the churches that have brought us down to this level, and the believers worldwide.
In line with that many local churches have started to question their core beliefs, practice, and activities according to the standard of God’s word. With the aim of destroying every root of superiority, individualistic, and standalone concept that men have put up to separate brethren. The scale is finally coming down on the existence of the man-made doctrines that call for the doctrinal separation of believers along doctrinal lines and all such that denies the headship of Christ.
If that should be the case then the Galatian church that practiced circumcision should not be a church in any sense. Also, the Corinthian church with her many tongue talkers, divisions, heresies should be denied fellowship with other churches. And the Thessalonian church that was caught in the web of a wrong doctrine concerning the second coming of Christ should be taken off the list. Then perhaps Apostle John should not have fellowship with Diotrephes mentioned in the Third Epistle of John.
In accordance with that, believers are realizing that it is time to do away with the church's cultural habits and traditions that oppose changes in our churches in line with the truth. The majority of believers are beginning to take a second look at the doctrines they have been taught by the church about what a church really stands for. Resulting in so many turning to the study of theology in the desire to improve on what they have received.
However, the study of theology is a good starting point in the training of believers to search the scriptures, while questioning every doctrine offered by the church. In the long run, it patterned to enables believers to grow spiritually to the end of arriving at a workable theological conclusion in all matters of concerns.
The study of theology also fashioned to help believers stay alert and thoughtful about every teaching they hear. It enables the church to proclaim the old truths afresh and new in every generation. In no other area is this imperative than in the doctrine of the church called ecclesiology.
Ecclesiology means the study of the church. Ekklesia is the proper Greek word that means church in English. The Greek word "Ekklesia" means the gathering of the called out, or assembly of called-out ones. Hence the church, the Ekklesia, is the gathering of all people who God has called out of the world.
Today people have many strange ideas, concepts of what the church is, and what it should be. The question then is what is the Church according to the Bible? Is the church a building where believers meet? Or the church meets in a building? Is the church an organization? Or a living organism? These are some of the questions we shall answer in the sermon.
For the church is the place where God calls out, collects, and joins those people together in a proper and harmonious way for his purpose and good pleasure. The church is not a physical building; it is a people called out by God. Besides she is a living organism that has life, growing up to reach the statue of the fullness of Christ. But the Church can only grow when believers are connected or joined with the Head, Christ Jesus, and one another.
Besides, the church is involved in a continuous process of transformation in conformity with true changes to reach the full nature of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Therefore, the visible church does not enjoy the immutable nature of God as the invisible church since changes are going on simultaneously in her as time passes.
Again, the church is the place where the Holy God meets with sinners washed in the Blood of Jesus. It is the fellowship of a perfect God with a perfect nature with a people imperfect with a dual nature. The duality of believers is expressed in the natural and spiritual dimension of believers. And that is one of the reasons one can find denominational strife, divisions, and disagreement among churches and believers.
Besides, the Lord created the Church as His workmanship to show His goodness in His grace towards man. It is the heavenly institution set to fulfill His plans and purposes in the present dispensation of God on earth. Through the offering of gifts, and the blessings of the Holy Spirit she has received.
Therefore the church operates on the principles of working out the revealed mysteries of God. Moreover, she is heavenly oriented and directed to reflect the high standards of God. Therefore she is not the product of the human invention. And she has no role in furthering any worldly agenda and human intentions, objectives, and desires contrary to the will of God.
The problem of the church today is that believers and leaders willfully ignore the plain instruction of the epistle of Ephesians about the true church in favor of denominational teachings. The reason could be because the Ephesian epistles speak against many of the illogical church beliefs and practices. However, the climate of today requires that believers be re-indoctrinated again on the truth of the church.
The Church was first mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 16, verse 15 and 16 to selected apostles in response to a question and a revelation of a hidden truth. The law of the first mention is very important as it can lead us to understand the bigger picture. There Christ revealed the foundation of the Church in response to the revelation given by Peter on His personality. He tied the revelation of the Church to the revelation of His person.
Therefore, the book of Ephesian has eight words that effectively describes what the church is to the believer. The Apostle Paul knowing the seriousness of the matter started by a prayer for spiritual understanding and enlightening to enable believers to absorb the truth.
1. The Church is the Body of Christ, Ephesians 1:22-23
This is the first revelation of what the true church really is in truth. The passage calls her the Body of Christ. This means the church is not a denomination, a lifeless organization formed by man according to his own interest, but a living spiritual body of a person and that PERSON is the resurrected Christ Jesus. It is comparable to our physical body because we are living organisms. The Body of Christ, the church is a living organism and entity of life. It is not a brick wall structure, nor a society or a lifeless organization, structured and arranged according to the concept of man.
The life of the Body issues from the life of Christ who is the Head of the body. Christ is the life in the believers who are members of His Body. Therefore all the members of the Body have the eternal life of Christ. Ephesians 4:4-5, 16
The consequence of this is that persons cannot become Christians or believers by taking an oath of allegiance, reciting a few words or agreeing to a creed, or signing a paper of commitment. The only way one becomes a member of the Body of Christ is to be regenerated, or born again from above with divine life.
2. The Church is one new man, Ephesians 2:15
The church here is revealed as the one new man comprising of two groups of people made one in Him without any wall of separation. That one new man is the new living person of Christ resurrected. So Christ Jesus our Lord is the person of the Church with His personality. As members of the one new man, we live by His life and person. In Christ, we do not live as individuals having our own personality in conflict with the new man.
Because Christ Himself now lives in us as a new man to be our new person. Believers can now accept the Lord in His personality as our person.
3. The Church is the gathering of fellow citizens of the kingdom of God, Ephesians 2:19
The Church is the gathering of fellow citizens with the saints that belong to a new nation, and a new kingdom, the kingdom of God. Therefore all believers are fellow citizens in God’s kingdom. According to the law, all citizens of a particular country have certain inalienable rights. Today all believers have the rights and the responsibilities as citizens of the kingdom of God.
4. The Church is the household of God, Ephesians 2:19
The Church is called the household of God, the home of God, and the family of God comprising all fellow citizens of the heavenly kingdom of God. Belonging to the household of God is a family affair. It is the relationship of being in God's family. So it does not matter whatsoever our race, the family background may be, preferences, and culture, as long as we are saved by grace, we are members of the household of God, and the family of God. God becomes our Father caring for us as we belong to His family with other believers becoming our brothers and sisters. Ephesians 3:14-15, 4:6
5. The church is the building, the temple of God, Ephesians 2:21-22
The church is also the building, holy temple, and the dwelling place of God on earth. This is the result of the Holy Spirit that lives in us. The church is the temple of God. And our spirit is the temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 corinthians 3:16, 6:19. The body of the believer is not only the temple of God individually, but corporately with all the believers in Christ. (1 Pet. 2:5). The church is growing into a holy temple. The building of the church is the house of God, the temple of God.
Therefore, the temple or the dwelling place of God on earth is not a physical building but the body of the redeemed and regenerated believers. Acts 17:24. When believers grow in the life of Christ, the church or the temple grows and it is built up.
6. The Church is the mystery of Christ, Ephesian 3:4-7
The church is revealed as the hidden mystery of Christ revealed in this age. It was the mystery of the ages hidden from many generations. But now in this new dispensation of Grace, God has revealed it through the writings of the Apostles and prophets.
The mystery was how God was going to call other nations to be fellow heirs, of the same body of Christ and partakers of His promises in Christ. This was solved by the formation of the Church. It was a mystery hidden from the angelic being of heaven, who must learn through the church what was revealed.
7. The Church is the bride of Christ, the wife of Christ, Ephesians 5:25-27, 32
The church is revealed as the bride, the wife of Christ. This again pictures the church in a marriage relationship. Just as Adam said in the book of Genesis, the Church is bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. Moreover, marriage is an institution ordained by God to bring comfort and strength to a family by dispelling the ills of loneliness. Here Christ reveals His filial relationship as a husband to His wife. So Christ loves the church with the tender love of a husband. The church as His bride loves the Bridegroom.
8. The Church is the soldiers, or army of God, Ephesians 6:10-11
The church is here revealed as the soldiers, army, and the warrior by which God wrestle or combat with His enemy, the devil in the spiritual sphere. This is the most crucial aspect of the church as she is involved in a mortal battle against the powers of darkness. The key to understanding this aspect of the Church is found in verse 10, where the plural and corporate term is used for believers.
Therefore, the armor is not only for the individual believers but for the corporate body, the church of God to put on the armor of God. Thus, the church is the corporate army of God empowered in the Lord Jesus to fight spiritual warfare.
