What is the purpose of the church?

What then, we may enquire, are the great spiritual features of the Church? This raises another important question: For what purpose was the Church left on earth? There is surely only one answer. It was left here to witness for Christ during the time of His absence. It is God's great thought that, though Christ has been rejected and has gone from earth to heaven, yet there should be a company of people left behind on earth in whom the character of Christ should be continued so that, though Christ is personally gone, He should still be seen in His people.

When the world cast out God's Son, a new structure came in view; it was God's Assembly, which He had bought with the blood of His own. It was something very precious to God; it had cost Him the life-blood of His own dear Son. That blessed Son had come Himself to redeem and bring that Church out of the world to God, as the apostle puts it in another epistle: "Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world" (Gal. 1:4). God looked to have something here in this world, that was peculiarly His own, and separate from the world. And why was it left in the world? To let the world know what the character of God was, whose Son it had cast out. The Church is to be morally the continuation of Christ, characteristically. "For to me to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21), said Paul. The life of Jesus is to be repeated in the lives of His people (see 2 Cor. 4:10-11). The world is to learn the nature of God through His Assembly. If this is to be, He will need to establish it — not the world.

The body is the vehicle, we might almost say, for the spirit. So the Church as the body of Christ is the vehicle, — may we not say? — for the activities of Christ. He uses the Church, through the indwelling Spirit, to perform His work in the world, to represent Him. "As My Father sent Me into the world so send I you into the world." It is through His members that the Lord acts in saving souls, in building up saints and nourishing and caring for His Church.

There is your answer. The church is to be always the display of Christ to the glory of God.

Yes, we believe in good works, but we believe those good works should be performed under the guidance and help of the Holy Spirit so that we know that whatever we are doing is being done effectively for God's glory and of course for the benefit of humanity at any given moment. So we believe in doing good. When we gather together to the Lord's name we do not want to hear a long discussion about doing good, we do not want to hear a long discussion about the condition of the world, we want to know about Christ, that is the function of the church. We want to know something about God. That too is the function of the church. Then in other ways we will know how these practical measures are to be carried out by each person, and there is a wide, wide field open to us.

(V. 3). Clearly, then, Christianity is not a system for the advancement of our social position in this world. It is true that the believer, as he passes through this world, is to do good, and that the presence of the Christian and right Christian conduct must have a beneficial effect. Nevertheless, the great object of the house of God is not to improve the world, but to witness to the grace of God in order that men may be saved out of the world which, in spite of civilisation and any social improvements, is going on to judgment.

The divine plan for this dispensation may then be stated in few words. God is sending forth the gospel amongst all nations, to gather out of all a people for the name of Christ, i.e. "the church."

But what about the process by which this end is to be reached? This is simplicity itself. Amongst all nations, said the Lord, "ye shall be witnesses to Me." No elaborate arrangements were made. No cumbrous machinery was instituted. Christ and all that He stands for is to be the subject of testimony, and every disciple according to his or her measure is to be a witness-bearer. In thus way the plan will be put into execution.

The conversion of the world is not the object of the divinely instructed evangelist, but the gathering out of a people to the Lord's name — a people for the heavens — the body of Christ — the Church of God. ([Acts 15:14.)]

You who read the Scriptures cannot be ignorant of these things; and, happily, in this country, at any rate, most men read the Bible, and you must know that I am referring to plain positive Scripture in what I have been saying. The Bible is an open book in Scotland, and the children learn to read it, even though sometimes their elders do not explain it to them as it might be looked for. But there it is, and in very plain terms in the last book of the New Testament. Further, it is quite a mistake to suppose that it is only the last book of the New Testament which speaks of that day. On the contrary, all the Old Testament prophets are full of it, though they do not define it as a period of a thousand years. This was hidden from them. It awaited a prophet still greater than they. It was suitable in God's wisdom that John the Evangelist should be also John the Prophet, and that he should remove the veil off those times and seasons which the Lord would not allow His disciples to occupy themselves with when He was going up to heaven. It was enough for them to know, not the times and seasons of the redemption of Israel, but that now God the Father was about to accomplish the promise of the Holy Ghost, and to make them witnesses for Jesus throughout all the earth; and this is going on now. Witnessing to the Lord Jesus by the Holy Ghost is now proceeding. That is what we commonly call the gospel, and very rightly. But along with the gospel you must always remember there goes the church — the gospel being the testimony of God to every creature, and the church being the gathering together of those that receive the gospel and acknowledge the Lord Jesus, baptized by one Spirit into that which is called in Scripture the body of Christ.

The assembly too was to be a place of prayer (ch. 2); and in chapter 3 is stated to be the pillar and base of the truth ‑ a witness of God's being made manifest in flesh, is true, blessed Manhood, the Spirit of God publicly justifying Him in His descent upon Him at His baptism, and in the power of this anointing seen in His life. It is also a witness to the act that in Christ God had appeared to angels, who had never before seen Him. And He has been preached to Gentiles, providing a world‑wide gospel for all mankind. "Believed on in the world," whether by many or few makes no difference, but faith has responded to such a revelation. "Received up in glory" completes this list of blessed facts to which the assembly bears witness.