what is church according to bible

With this explanation we will use the word, church, as translated in our English Bibles, bearing in mind it does not refer to a building of stone or brick, but to the congregation of believers, called out of the world by the grace of God between the day of Pentecost, and the coming again of our Lord; to the body of believers at any given time since the day of Pentecost or to any assembly of believers, in a given place.

One thing I feel to be important at the outset; that is, to define the principal term employed in the announcement of our subject. You may suppose that the expression "the church" is so commonly used, and so generally understood, as not to need defining. But the fact is, there is hardly an expression as to the meaning of which people's thoughts are so vague and indefinite. Some apply the term to the building in which professing Christians meet for worship. And even among those too well instructed for this, it is still far from being distinctly understood. It is either applied to any religious association with which men happen by birth, or conversion, or other circumstances, to be connected; or it is understood to mean the aggregate of all such associations, the whole world over; or in a still wider sense, it is considered as including all true believers of all ages, from Abel down to the last person who shall be saved. Now it is well to remember that it is only in the New Testament we find the word; and this of itself might suggest the inquiry, whether that which it denotes be not peculiar to New Testament times. In former ages, as all Christians understand, there were individual believers, such as Abel, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, and all those spoken of in Heb. 11, whether their names be mentioned there, or included among those of whom the apostle says, "The time would fail me to tell of them." Besides this, there was one nation which God had outwardly separated to himself, as his people. The vast majority of that nation were, however, in every period of their history, unconverted. There were individual saints not gathered together in a body; and there was a nation, a body of people in that sense, outwardly owned of God: but the mass of them were never God's people in truth; but stiff-necked and hard-hearted adversaries of God. Now the church of God is God's assembly. The word rendered church is derived from one which means to call out, and is used of any assembly of persons called out from among others for any purpose whatever. But the use of the word in the New Testament is what must determine its meaning there; and there it is applied either to the assembly of all believers from Pentecost to the coming of Christ into the air, to receive his saints to himself in glory — or to the assembly of all believers alive upon the earth at any given time between these two epochs — or to the assembly of all the believers in any given locality; as, for instance, the church at Jerusalem, Antioch, or Ephesus, and even "the church in thy house." There are but two instances in the New Testament in which the word "church" is used in any other sense or application than these. In Acts 7:38, it is applied to the assembly of the Israelites in the wilderness; and in Acts 19:32 and 39, the same word in the original is translated "assembly," not church. But it is the same word; and there it is used of the assembly of Ephesian idolaters and others. With these exceptions, which hardly could be confounded with our present subject, the word church will be found in the New Testament to mean either (1) all believers from Pentecost to the taking up of the saints at the coming of Christ; or (2) all believers at any one time upon earth, during the period between these; or (3) all the believers in any given locality, or assembling as such in any given place. I do not stop here, to prove that such is the use of the word in the New Testament. Many considerations will present themselves in proof of it in the course of our evening's inquiry into Scripture on this subject; and I would entreat you to give to the subject the most diligent examination afterwards, when you have leisure to do so. But it is important, when we speak of the distinct calling and glory of the church, that we should have clearly before our minds who they are that form the church, to which this distinct calling and glory belong. And it is evidently in the widest application of the term, that is, as including all true believers from Pentecost to the taking up of the saints, that we use it in our present inquiry. Both the other uses of it are included within this.

This is what the Church is-a body of true believers in Christ, baptized by the Spirit of God into the body of Christ and joined to the Lord and to one another by that same Spirit. This we shall consider in detail a little later.

God’s Word only knows one church. This church consists of all believers. They have been joined together in one body, not through membership of an organisation but by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13 and Eph.1:23).

The word, church, is the translation of the Greek word ekklēsia, meaning that which is called out. It is translated church 112 times, referring to the whole body of Christians at any given time since the Day of Pentecost.* That was the day when the church of God was formed by the descent of the Holy Spirit of God, indwelling each believer, uniting them to Christ in glory, and to each other as members of the one body of Christ on earth.

The word translated "church" in our King James Bible is "ecclesia" and means "a called out assembly." It signifies a people called out of the world to be true to their rejected Lord, and who are joined to Him in the glory and are waiting for His return. The true Church is not a mere gathering together of a mixed company of converted believers and unconverted or natural men, as in the Jewish synagogue. Thus we see that there is the greatest difference between the Assembly of God; the Church, and Judaism with its temple and synagogues.

When we speak of THE CHURCH we do not refer to any ecclesiastical building nor to any denomination, nor to any number of professed Christians banded together into what is called nowadays "a church." We use the term in its scriptural sense. The Greek word rendered "church" simply means "called-out ones." Those, who are called out of the world by God during this period of Christ's rejection, are by this means, and by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, banded together into God's assembly, the church.

The title precisely indicates the change accomplishing. The Church of God is indeed every way the precise opposite of Satan's synagogue. The word which we translate "church" is, as well known, properly "assembly," — a title which, if it had been retained in our common version, would have prevented the possibility of some significant perversions. The assembly could not be confounded, for instance, with a material building, though spiritually indeed God's house. Nor could it be the clergy merely, as from Romanism, though by more than Romanists, it has been made to signify. These applications of the term are but indications of the very change of which we are now speaking. The assembly of God in Scripture is Christ's body, the fellowship of those who are His members, and of none but these. It is true that the responsibility of this place may be assumed by those who are not such, and so eve find the assembly in Sardis pronounced by the Lord to be dead, and not alive. Yet in the divine thought this is what the assembly is, and at the Lord's table every one declares this: "we being many are one bread, one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread."

We must therefore look for some passage in Scripture to settle the meaning and use of the word "assembly"; we find one which has all the clearness of a definition: "And hath made Him head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:22-23). We are in this part of Ephesians occupied with a risen and glorified Christ. He has been raised from the dead in proof of an accomplished redemption, and, exalted to the right hand of God, all things being put beneath His feet. He occupies that position not merely as the witness of eternal redemption — that God has accepted His work on the cross not merely as the representative of His people before God, the measure of their acceptance and their righteousness — but He is there as Head of the Church, which is His Body. This is figurative language, no doubt, but clear none the less. It suggests not only Lordship over His people, but declares for them the closest connection, the same life, the same interests, and the same prospects as His own. "The fulness of Him that filleth all in all" shows that through grace the Church is the complement of Christ. As at the beginning, when God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a help meet for him" (Gen. 2:18), so God now likens the Church in its relation to Christ to a wife in relation to the husband — the complement, the rounding out (amazing thought!) of the second Adam (Eph. 5:22-33). We would not for a moment hint that our adorable Lord needed the Church to add anything to the worth, dignity, or beauty of His peerless person, either as Son of God or Son of Man. In grace, however, He has taken her into fellowship with Himself, and to all eternity she will be the vessel in which His grace, love, power, and blessing, will be displayed.

"And hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:22-23), In the verses just preceding, our Lord had been set forth as quickened and raised up from the grave, and then placed at God's right hand, "far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named." It is Christ glorified, after redemption has been accomplished through His death, that is given as Head to the Church which is His Body. Here we have the beginning marked, for the body could not exist without a Head, and Christ was made Head of the Church when He was glorified. We will find this confirmed when we come to the baptism of the Spirit. I merely mention it now. In answering the question, What is the Church, we turn to a glorified Christ at God's right hand and say, There is the Head. The Church is His body, the fulness, or complement of Him who in His divine being fills all things. Think of the link here: how complete, how intimate. We shall find it is so intimate that in one place at least (1 Cor. 12:12) Christ and His Church are spoken of under one name, "So also is Christ." It reminds us of that expression in the book of Genesis, where speaking of the creation of the man and the woman, we read, God "called them Adam."