The Foundation of the Church
Today, as in the New Testament,
the local church is the organization that God is building in fulfillment of
prophesy in the Old Testament. The history of an organization almost always
reveals (and sometimes dictates) many of the reasons that the people belonging
to that organization behave the way they do. Additionally, there is a vision
and an intent that the founder of an organization has. As the Holy Spirit
guided individuals through history, church today, it is important to re-examine
the foundation that Christ laid for the church and to question whether or not
the organization as a whole is continuing to build upon this foundation as He
intended. As Paul reminded the Corinthian church, a wise master builder must
examine both the foundation and the materials used in building. The size of the
work is not as important as the quality (I Corinthians 3:10-15).
Jesus Christ established His
church with authority with the first mention of the word “church” in the Bible.
After Peter recognized Jesus as “the Christ” (Matt. 16:16-18), Jesus replied that “…upon this rock I will
build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Often this
passage has been misunderstood (and misconstrued) to mean that Jesus promised
to build His church upon Peter. However, taken in the context of the entire
Bible, this cannot be the case. That “this rock” directly referred to the
person of Jesus Christ being established in three Old Testament prophecies
(Exodus 17:6 and numbers 20:10,11; Isaiah 8:14;
Daniel 2:45) and was recognized by
both Paul and Peter in their writings (Romans 9:30-33;
I Cor. 10:4; I Peter 2:6-8). This single statement
made during the earthly ministry of Jesus established who would build the
church (“…I will build…”), who would own the church (“…my church…”) and upon
whom the church would be built (“…upon this rock…”). Victory was declared as
the former barrier embodied in the law of sin and death was abolished and
replaced by grace. Jesus stated this authoritatively since He was (and is) the
Son of God as Peter recognized. Jesus accomplished this statement by dying on the cross since He was (and is) the Messiah for whom the
Jews awaited just as Peter believed and testified. Jesus still owns His church
and continues to work in the churches that recognize Him as Messiah and God.
Jesus created His church to be
unified as a single body with Christ directing as head (Ephesians 4:15, 16). John began his gospel with a
historical chronology from the creation of the world by Christ to the time that
Jesus came into the world as a human to save His people. John concluded that
the world did not know Jesus as creator, the Jews rejected Jesus as Messiah,
and only those that “received” Jesus became a part of God’s family (John 1;
1-12). Interestingly, John describes the believers as those who were “…born,
not of blood, nor have the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God.” He makes it clear that the unifying factor within the body of believers
is not heritage, nor self determination, nor assistance from or coercion by
others, but simply being born of God (John 1; 13) Within the church then, there
is to be only one kind of believer since all believers have been made “one” in
Christ (Gal. 3:28).
In the early church this was a
problem. Believers were divided over the issue of heritage because some had
been saved while they were Jews while others were saved as Gentiles. This issue
became contentious enough that God revealed to Peter in vision that Jesus
Christ came not only to save the Jews but also the Gentiles (Acts 10:9-17, 34, 35). Later in Acts 15, believers became divided because some
taught that a person could not be saved without physical circumcision in the
flesh. The question surrounded whether only Jews (who had been circumcised)
were saved or whether Gentiles could be saved (through circumcision). Yet Peter
was reminded that only grace through Jesus saves (Acts 15:11) James was reminded that the prophets had foretold
of a time during which the Gentiles would be saved (Acts 15:15-19). Believers were also divided over the
importance of their spiritual heritage. In Corinth,
believers linked their salvation more to the names of the people who led them
to Christ than to Christ himself. So Paul instructed (I Corinthians 1:10-13) the believers not to consider whether
they were saved under the ministry of particular man (e.g., Paul, Apollo’s, Cephas) but to “…be perfectly joined together in the same
mind and in the same judgment.”
The key to abolishing the
barriers between people, including former Jews and Gentile, is grace. Despite
Jesus offering grace to escape the fate of a Gentile past (death), divisions
crept into the church because those born of God did not allow themselves to be
led by the Spirit of God Paul instructed the Ephesians very clearly regarding
the matter of doctrinal purity and unity (Eph. 4;1-6,14). For believers to be
unified within a church, they must be unified in belief. More importantly, they
must seek to be unified by the Spirit (Eph. 4:3). Jesus, being the rightful
head, set the example by humbling himself to become a servant (Philippians
2:5-8) and a man yielding even to death. Jesus, being a Jew, broke with his
earthly heritage and shared the kingdom
of God with outcasts (Matthew
15:22-28, Luke 23:39-43, John 4:9-26). Jesus still intends for His church to be
unified as they seek to love as He intended (John 13:35) and as they seek those that are still divided by
Satan and lost (II Timothy 2:24-26).
Jesus located His church in the
world (Matt. 28:19, John 17:18). To clarify that neither Jerusalem nor the
mountain in Samaria would be competing as centers of worship, Jesus told the Samaritan
woman that “…the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in truth…” (John 4:23). In the past,
worship had been located primarily in Jerusalem
because the glory of God attended the temple (2 Chron.
7). However, Jesus did not leave us wondering about the new location of the
church. In Matthew 18:20, Jesus said that He would be present wherever two or
three people gathered together in His name. The context for this passage is