What did Jesus say about the church?

The church of God clearly does not include Old Testament saints. In Matthew 16:18, the Lord said, “Upon this rock [the confession of His Person: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”] I WILL build My church; and the gates of hell [hades] shall not prevail against it.” When the Lord spoke He had not begun to build. “I will build,” is in the future tense. Not till the redemption work was completed, not till His resurrection and ascension, and the gift of the Holy Spirit had taken place, could that building begin.

As to "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church," Peter had by grace confessed what none ever had, that Christ was the Son of the living God. As entitled to be called Son of God according to promises to Messiah, He had been owned, but Son of the living God He had never been called. This the Father revealed to Peter. The Lord owns the grace conferred on him, and declares that his name should be called Peter (a stone), partaking by grace through his confession of that which he confessed, for it was upon that truth so confessed (that is, on Christ's being the Son of the living God) that He would build His church. Hence it is said that the gates of hades, of the power of death (Satan as having the power of death), should not prevail against the church. For Christ by resurrection was declared to be Son of God with power, above all the power of Satan; and, the church being built on this rock, of His being the Son of the living God, Satan's power, that of death, could not overthrow it. So Chrysostom repeatedly uses it. As James has said, to suppose any real foundation but Christ is denying the Lord. And it is in this character of a divine person having the power of life over death that He can build the church.

Another important point is, that the church is not seen as existent in the Gospels. Indeed the word is only found three times in Matthew, and not at all in the other evangelists. We have only then to examine the places where it occurs in the first Gospel. The first passage in which it occurs is as follows: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,' etc. (Matt. 16:18). Now mark the language employed by our Lord. He says, ‘Upon this rock I WILL build my church,' speaking in the future tense of something which had not yet begun to be, but which He was going to build. Such language would have been impossible had the church been in existence, and reveals, as plainly as words could reveal, that the commencement of the church was at that time a yet future thing. The only other passage (for the word occurs twice in it.) Is Matt. 18:17, containing instruction as to how we should deal with a brother who should trespass against us. But the very place of this instruction, coming as it does after the revelation of the future building of the church, and bound up with church or corporate action, as it is in the context, explains its significance, especially if we are careful to note that the Lord concludes this instruction with the especial promise of being in their midst when they should be gathered together unto His name, (Matt. 18:20) a thing that could take not take place as long as He was present with them. The church therefore is no more found in the Gospels than it is in the Old Testament Scriptures.

"The Church" is again mentioned in Matt. 18 "tell it to the Church." But here also, our Lord evidently speaks anticipatively of His own departure, and of the time when His name should replace His bodily presence, as the centre around which His disciples should be gathered. John 16:23-24, shows, that while He continued with them, they did not ask in His name, but that they were to do so, when His bodily presence had been withdrawn. One thing is undeniable: that where Christ Himself mentions "the Church" He speaks of its formation as a then future event. The above are the only two instances in which we read of the word being used by Him; and further investigation will show, that where without the use of this term, the subject is contemplated in His discourses, He speaks of the existence of "the Church," as well as of that by which it exists, as dependent on His own departure.

"But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established." Is it possible he may resist one or two who come to him, witnesses of the love of Christ? He has refused Christ pleading by one; can he refuse Christ now that He pleads by more? It may be, alas, that he will. "And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church." The Church means the assembly of God in the place to which these all belong. "If he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church; but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican" (ver. 17). The assembly, then, is told of the guilty person's fault. The thing has been investigated and pressed home. The Church warns and entreats this man, but he refuses to hear; and the consequence is — "Let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican." A most solemn issue! A man who is called a brother in the verse before is to me as a heathen man and a publican now. We are not to suppose the man to be a drunkard or a thief; but showing the hardness of self-will and a spirit of self-justification. It may arise out of small circumstances; but this unbending pride about himself and his own fault is that on which he may, according to the Lord, be regarded as a heathen man and a publican — no more to acknowledge him in his impenitent state. And yet it may spring mainly from the spirit of justifying oneself. In the case of open sin or wickedness, the duty of the Church is clear: the person is put away. Nor would there be reason in such a case for going one at a time, and then one or two more. But the Lord shows here how the end of this personal trespass might be that the Church has finally to hear it — and it may lead to something more.

"Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in (Gk., unto) my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:18-20). This scripture is not addressed to the apostles, as a similar one (John 20:23) , nor to Peter alone (Matt. 16:19), but to the prospective Church (Matt 18:18). It will be seen that the authority for discipline and the power of prayer are both linked with His name, and intrusted to the two or three gathered to that name.

It is of this, and of this only, the keys were entrusted to Peter. The prime use of keys is to open doors (Rev. 3:7). Accordingly, in Acts 2 we have Peter divinely selected to preach the first discourse after the Holy Ghost came down from heaven, and three thousand persons were brought to repentance, being baptised forthwith in the Saviour's name. But these were Jews only. In Acts 10 we have the same apostle proclaiming Christ for the first time to a Gentile congregation, with the happy result that all who were assembled in Cornelius' house believed, and were granted the privilege of Christian baptism forthwith. Speaking of this event afterwards, Peter said: "Brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the Word of the Gospel and believe." (Acts 15:7).

Peter has thus used the keys entrusted to him by the Lord, and the door of the kingdom has been thrown open to both Jews and Gentiles. The Church belongs to heaven; the kingdom belongs to earth; of the latter only have the keys been committed to human hands. But what of the binding and loosing? This has reference to discipline here below, eternal issues being in Christ's keeping alone. Peter's stern dealing with Ananias and Sapphira, and with Simon Magus, are incidents illustrative of binding. Is there anything successional in this authority committed to the apostle? There is no hint of such a thing in Matt. 16:19. Nothing beyond a personal commission can possibly be deduced from the Saviour's words. But when we pass to Matt. 18:18 we find the very same words in an altogether different connection. Peter is not there in view, but the assembly of God's saints, gathered together in any given locality upon earth, and at any time. Even supposing the number be but "two or three," the authority to "bind" and "loose" is with them, the Lord's own presence in the midst supplying them with the necessary power and grace. To receive into communion from the world outside is to "loose"; to put away a transgressor, such as he of 1 Cor. 5, is to "bind"; to welcome once more the repentant one, as in 2 Cor. 2:6-8, is to "loose" again. But in all this heaven is not in question. To import such an idea to the Saviour's words is to produce inextricable confusion, to say nothing of the spiritual terrors thus injected into the minds of the unthinking. The apostle is gone but the Church remains; though as far as its external unity and order is concerned it has degenerated into a shapeless wreck. But wherever two or three are gathered together to the name of the absent Christ, His presence is assured, conveying with it all that is needed in grace and competency to act for Him until He come.

In the eighteenth chapter of this gospel we have further and most important instruction as to the church. Only in that place, indeed, besides the one just noticed, have we throughout the four gospels any distinctive mention of it. We have there, (Matt. 18:15-20,) in connection with an important rule as to discipline, the grand principle of the constitution of the church of God. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Of such an assembly it is that the Lord says, "Tell it to the church," and, "if he will not hear the church." This passage presents the very simplest idea of the church. "Wherever two or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus," there is the church.

Here it may be well to state that the Church is distinct from the kingdom. All who form part of the assembly are in the kingdom; but all in the kingdom do not form part of the assembly. Every saint who will have left the earth ere the Lord returns to it shall reign with Christ (Rev. 20:4); but every one of such will not be a member of His body, the Church. Saints before the cross were not members of His body; saints who will be on earth after the rapture of 1 Thess. 4:15-17 will likewise never become part of that wonderful company. Kingdom truth is common to both the Old and New Testaments. It pervades the volume of revelation. Church truth is only taught us in the latter. In conformity with this, it is only subsequent to the introduction of the King upon the scene, and when the character of the kingdom, during the time of His rejection by the Jews and the world, has been sketched out by Himself in parabolic teaching (Matt. 13), that we have any mention of His assembly. (Matt. 16) Just as Eve was the latest production of the Creator's handiwork, so the assembly, the body, the bride of Christ, is the last new subject of which the volume of inspiration treats. Eve, however, appeared when Adam's authority was owned, and his place in this creation unquestioned. The Church is only revealed when the Lord has been openly rejected, and the cross, as the witness and expression of it, has to form a necessary part of His teaching.

If this be so, it is clear that the present divided condition of the Church is not according to the mind of the Spirit. It may be well, however, to look at some other scriptures bearing on this subject. In John 17 we find that, whether our Lord was praying for the disciples then with Him, or whether He enlarges the sphere to the whole of those who should believe on Him through their word, in both cases the first petition that He presents concerning them is — for their oneness. In verse 21 He prays, "That they all," that is all believers, "may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." Here, then, the special object for which the Lord desires this oneness is that it may be a testimony to the world. No invisible unity can be this. The world can receive no evidence but that presented to it, and unless the oneness of believers is a thing discernible by the world, the testimony here spoken of is not given. The Church indeed was not formed when these words were uttered, but they were uttered in full view of the fact that the Church was soon to be formed; and the formation of the Church could not dissolve, but rather cement and define the oneness here spoken of.