What is the church? Maybe this seems like a senseless question. Isn’t it the building with the tall tower, glazed windows and wooden pews? Perhaps it is any type of meeting place for Christians. The church is in fact living and breathing, it moves - shrinks and expands. It is the actual body of believers. It carries out the functions of Christ on earth. It is you and I.
BIRTH OF THE CHURCH
In Acts 2 the Holy Spirit was showered out in flaming tongues over the heads of the disciples. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” (Acts 2: 4 NIV). Jews and converted Jews from all over the world heard of the wonders of God in their own languages. “Those who accepted (Peter’s) message were baptised, and about three thousand were added to their number that day . . .They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2: 41 -42). This is the birth, the nature and the very essence of the church of Christ. The Holy Spirit lit the flame and by its power, people believed and became the adopted children of God.
DEFINITION / IDENTITY OF THE CHURCH
“Church” is the translation of the Greek term ekklesia. – It literally means “assembly,” “congregation,” or “meeting.” The word ekklesia was used in the Gospels only two times (Matt 16:18 and Matt 1817). However in the Book of Acts it was mentioned twenty two times. In the New Testament, no synagogue, temple, chapel, tabernacle, building or any other meeting place was ever called a “church.” The term always referred to the Christian assembly and, in the New Testament, it was used for both the local community of believers and the overall collection of Christians.The church of Christ can therefore not be found within four walls. But what then is the church? Is it tangible, where do we find it? This question brings us to the book of Ephesians.
THE CHURCH IS THE BODY AND BRIDE OF CHRIST
In Ephesians 5:22-33 we read that husbands must love their wives as Christ loves the church. Christ “loved the church and gave himself up for her”, “cleansing her . . . to present her to himself as a radiant church . . .holy and blameless.” We are called Christ’s body. Paul elaborates on the body of Christ to the church of Corinth, explaining that all believers in Christ are members of the same body. Just as an ekklesia or assembly cannot consist of one member, an eye or an ear cannot be a body in itself. An individual believer in Christ is not the church. The believers of Christ in unity together make up the church. The purposes and functions of the church as a unified body, is somewhat mysterious to us. Each individual will have specific functions for the service of the body as a whole.
“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptised by one Spirit so as to form one body - whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free … “ (1Corinthians12:12 - 14 NIV)
THE RAPTURE AND THE GLORIFICATION OF THE CHURCH
The church’s destiny is even more mysterious and profound than the idea of the body and bride. It is unfathomable, completely out of reach for the wildest of imaginations.
“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye,at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable will clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. “ (1 Cort 15:51-53 NIV)
“For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. “ (1 Thes 4:16-18 NIV)
This is what we wait for, our hope lies in this truth. Apostle Paul says to “encourage each other with these words.” (1 Thes 4:18 NIV) For as the church of Christ, we have a promise from God. We will be raptured to the clouds in glorified bodies. Our old decaying bodies will be gone and for a period of seven years we will be away from this earth. We will only return once the great tribulation, the period of time where the antiChrist is allowed to rule on earth, is over. We will be glorified and protected.
THE CHURCH WILL RULE AND REIGN WITH CHRIST
“I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” (Revelation 20:4-6 NIV)
Within these words lie our ultimate purpose as the church. We do not have the details, but it is clear that we who persist in the faith will reign with Christ on earth in the Millennial Kingdom. Dressed in our imperishable eternal glorified bodies we will make decisions for the good of God’s world. We will be the executors of Christ’s perfect plans for humanity and we will do it perfectly, for our will and minds will be perfectly unified with His.
THE CHURCH IS NOT
Now that we know who the church is and when it started, we can easily expel the myths that some Christians believe. Many churches believe that the church of Christ started either with Abraham or with Noah, that as God’s people, they were automatically a part of God’s church. Yes, they were God’s people, beloved and set apart by Him. But the Jews are a separate entity from the church. God’s plan for Israel ,His prophetic nation, is not to be raptured at the start of the seven year tribulation. Neither is His plan for His church, the gentile nations, to be under the covenant with Abraham and the laws of the Israelites as given by Moses.
CONCLUSION
Why is it important for us to know what the church is and when it started? Once we can acknowledge the day of Pentecost as the birthday of the church, we know how to read and understand our bibles. We know who we are; gentiles, adopted children of God. Not children of God’s covenant with Israel. We can look forward to God’s specific promises to us and our future in Him.
We, the church, are held together by Jesus Christ, our bridegroom. He is the glue that fastens individual members into a single unified body, His body. The church, not God’s people in the Mosaic covenant, started on the Pentecost, and could not have come into existence if it were not for the Holy Spirit that inhabited the new believers. God’s plan for His church is unique and Holy, we are to be taken by Jesus up into the sky and to return with Him and reign under Him on earth, carrying out His perfect will and plans for the world. Our identity and future is certain.
This article is summarised by Christine Van Reenen from the semon of Marko Kiroglu on 21 January 2024
