What is the church?

The church of the living God is the body of saints formed on earth in unity with Christ in heaven as the Head, by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven to form them into unity with Christ at the right hand of God. The church is not merely a number of saved persons, but a body formed into unity with Christ their Head, by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven consequent on the exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God. There has been a habit of calling all the saints from first to last the church, and there is a fear lest tender-hearted saints who have done so should be alarmed by altering it. I greatly respect the jealousy of souls (who have the consciousness of the electing love of God, in saving every one whom He has called from Adam downward), in being alarmed lest this distinction should affect the foundation of salvation through the blood according to God's electing love; but still it is my duty as well as my privilege to understand the position in which God has set me, and to call by the right name what God has called by name in scripture.

397 The Lord said to Peter, "On this rock I will build my church." He had not been building from Adam downwards, but He says, "I will build." What do I find people talking about? A visible and invisible church. Now this is Satan's lie. The so-called visible church is in fact the world, and cannot give any testimony at all for Christ. If I say it is an invisible body, the testimony is all gone. In Israel, what was the visible body then? A nation. God's unity then was the unity of a nation, ninety-nine out of a hundred of whom were not converted - the true saints were invisible for God had His hidden ones among them. When Christ came Anna spake of Him to all who waited for redemption in Israel. But the church of God is very different, though so often confounded with this state of believers in Israel. The saints are now formed on earth into a body in unity with Christ risen by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven in consequence of the exaltation of Jesus. Our relations, our affections and our duty to Christ are all founded on this truth; and if it be not understood, there must be defect in the walk and in the consciences of the saints. When the Lord said to Peter, "I will build," of course it was a thing not yet done. The foundation stone was Christ.

The Church is that body which the Holy Ghost forms into unity, as connected with, and united to, the Lord Jesus Christ, its Head, sitting at the right hand of the Father in heaven; and that which the Holy Ghost so unites to Him is the only* thing in Scripture called "the Church" (i.e. specially such).

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.

Thus we have found the church of the scriptures to be the church of God, composed of every believer born of God since God began the church at Pentecost. And that all believers are now baptized into the one body of Christ. And that to use the word church, as meaning any worldly system, as that of Rome, or England, is not only unscriptural, but calculated to deceive souls.

333 Take the word: it includes an assembly such as at Ephesus. Take the thing; and the assembly in the wilderness, and God's assembly formed consequent on Christ's death, are founded on principles diametrically opposed and destructive one of another. And the definition ("A church comprehended a society of the people of God") is as vague and incorrect as may be. A church is an assembly: what is the meaning of "comprehending a society"? An assembly means an assembly; if not actually assembled, it may be used in a general way for those who habitually assemble, but then it is the society. When we speak of the Church in its Christian sense (and that only is what we are occupied with), it is God's assembly founded on the death of Christ, assembled by the power of the Holy Ghost, and dwelt in by Him. Christ gave Himself not for that nation only, but to gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad. This is the general idea, for it is only stated here in general.

But if the Church is a treasure hid it the field, only God could discern it. From other scriptures we learn that the manifestation of the Church (i.e., in its perfect state) will not be in this world, or age, or rather, the manifestation will take place in the new age; for this will have closed when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven, taking vengeance, etc., but then the Church will be revealed also (Col. 3:4). The manifestation of the sons of God, the Church, is an event for which all creation, animate and inanimate, are represented as earnestly waiting (Rom. 8:19-23.) But this manifestation of the Church refers to the future glory, and is the term put to this hiding of our life in the passage above cited, viz., Col. 3:4, "Our life is hid with Christ in God," etc. We hear in our day about an invisible Church, as if it were the will of God and the Church should be hidden now; but there is no scriptural warrant for such a thought. It is a sad and solemn fact that there are many of God's children who walk not as children of the light, and the Church corporately is not known as a distinct and separate body from the world. There may be a few here and there who endeavour so to walk in separation from evil, and to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace; but alas, how few comparatively! But it does not appear from scripture that God designed the Church to occupy such a position, in which it could scarcely be distinguished from the world, but on the contrary, it does appear from scripture that the word "hid" refers to the past. Nowhere do we find the idea of an invisible Church as God's intention and desire. It was set up in broad day, in the face of all the languages assembled in Jerusalem, and in an instant the tongue of the unlearned was loosened, and gave testimony to the grace of God in the various languages to the astonished multitude. Enemies reviled, and said, "These are full of new wine." There was no invisibility here. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another." God designed that unity and love, after Christ's pattern, were to be the evidence to all men that they were his disciples. This is quite inconsistent with invisibility, save as the result of man's sin; for alas! here, as in every other position in which man has been placed, is failure. The Church as a body visible, is ruined; it is broken and split up into sects and parties, and in many cases the bitterest enmity exists between the rivals. Surely this is not what was intended. This cannot be the effect of the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church, but because that presence has been denied, and human authority has usurped the place of the Spirit. The natural, necessary consequence is, that, till Christ comes, the lusts of the flesh and the power and subtlety of Satan have broken up and for ever marred the visible unity of the Church upon the earth. "From whence come wars and fightings among you?" etc. It was the secret purpose of God before the foundation of the world, that from the race of men living in the world, and irrespectively of His governmental distinctions, He would at the proper time form His Church. This purpose was intimated when Christ came, and developed by the Spirit afterwards. "On this Rock I will build my Church." At the day of Pentecost God put his plan into execution. He began to build His spiritual house when the Holy Ghost descended upon the saints (Acts 2:1-4). For the Church is not merely an assembly of believers, but an assembly formed into one body corporate, by the actual and personal presence of the Holy Ghost, who is just in the same sense present, as the Lord Jesus is now absent. This is the Church. It is evident that such a body could not exist previously, because that Christ had not ascended, and the Comforter could not come till Christ had gone up (John 14, et seq.) It is true, that many things in the old economy typified the Church, or rather, Christ's members, in certain respects; but it is equally true that the Lord revealed His assembly as his purpose, and that Paul was the chosen one to bring it fully out. Eph. 2, Col. 1.

Obviously this is extremely important, because what people think and talk about as the "invisible church" — though scripture never uses the expression — was substantially in existence before "the church;" and, in fact, this invisible state of things is what the Lord was putting an end to, when He formed the church. In Old Testament times, we all know, there was a nation which God accounted and called His people, in the midst of whom there were isolated believers, as no doubt there were other believers among the Gentiles. Thus, there was Job, for instance, in early days; and every now and then, throughout the scriptures, we have one Gentile and another who evidently manifested divine life in them, and a looking for the Redeemer, outside the limits of Israel. For all that, there was no such thing as "the church" — no gathering together of the scattered believers into one, till the death of Christ. The children of God had been scattered abroad, but then they were gathered together. Henceforth disciples in Israel were not only destined to salvation, but they were gathered into one upon the earth. This is the church. The assembly necessarily supposes a gathering of the saints into one body, separate from the rest of mankind. There was no such body before. Hence, to talk of "the church" in Jewish times, or in earlier days, is altogether a mistake. The mixture of believers with their unbelieving countrymen (i.e., what is called "the invisible church") was the very thing which the Lord was concluding — not beginning — when He "added to the church daily such as should be saved."

Yet, notwithstanding these things, is all lost? No, indeed, but the answer is not to set up something else in addition to the vast numbers of Christian groups, even if it were with more light and godliness; nay, rather, it is for us to cleave to that which was from the beginning and, while owning the ruin and failure that has come in, to gather simply as members of the body of Christ recognising no other membership. On that ground we can act for the whole church, not as being the whole church, but as being on the ground of the church and therefore representative of the whole church. And I believe that God holds us responsible as such. Every local gathering ought to realise that being on the ground of the one body, it acts for the body, the whole church, in its action. Reception and discipline ought to be looked at in this light. That is, as being gathered as members of the one body and owning His authority in their midst, their action cannot be viewed as of themselves locally only, but is in reality an act of the church and for the church, the one body, irrespective of locality.

The church is not made up of a federation of local churches, but each church is a local expression of the one church, hence the churches are not a number of independent bodies but are part of an indivisible whole, and their constitution and character should be moulded and governed by the truth of the whole church. Christ is the one and only Head and Director of the church, which is His body; and the Holy Ghost who dwells in each member of the body and in the church as a whole, is the medium and power by which His mind is made known to us and carried out, as it is revealed in the Scriptures.

So here, upon Peter's confession, the Lord says, "Upon this rock I will build My Church." You understand the glory of My Person; I will show you the work I am going to accomplish. Mark the expression. It is not, I have been building; but I will build My Church. He had not built it yet, nor begun to build it: it was altogether new. I do not mean there had not been souls believing in Him before, and regenerate of the Spirit; but the aggregate of saints from the beginning to the end of time it is an error to call "the Church." It is a common notion which has not one shred of Scripture for it. The expression in Acts 7:38, "The church in the wilderness," means the whole congregation — the mass of Israel — the greater part of whose carcasses fell in the wilderness. Can you call that "the Church of God?" There were but few believers among them. People are deceived in this by the sound. The word, "church in the wilderness," merely means the congregation there. The very same word is applied to the confused assembly in Acts 19, which would have torn Paul to pieces. If it were translated like Acts 7, it would be the "church in the theatre," and the blunder is obvious. The word that is translated "church" simply means assembly. To find out what is the nature of the assembly, we must examine the scriptural usage and the object of the Holy Ghost. For you might have a good or bad assembly: an assembly of Jews, of Gentiles, or of God's assembly distinct from either and contrasted with both, as can be readily and undeniably seen in 1 Cor. 10:32. Now it is this last which we mean, i.e., God's assembly, when we speak of "the Church."