The House of God

The "church" and the "kingdom" are different terms, describing the same group of people. The "church" refers to those called out by the gospel (II Thessalonians 2:14). The "kingdom" is composed of people who have submitted themselves to the reign of heaven. Every one who has submitted to the reign of heaven, has been called out by the gospel.

In Matthew 16:18 Jesus promised, "I will build my church". He kept that promise on the day of Pentecost, recorded in Acts 2. The people who obeyed the instruction in Acts 2:38 were added by God to the number of the saved, the church, Acts 2:47.

Jesus also promised concerning the kingdom, that it would "come with power" (Mark 9:1); that "you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you (Acts 1:8); and that "(w)hen the day of Pentecost arrived" the twelve were together, "(a)nd they were all filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:1, 4). The Holy Spirit came, with the power, and the kingdom.

So: the kingdom, and the church, came on the day of Pentecost - as Jesus had promised.

Jesus is the head of His church. The Holy Spirit had Paul write that God "gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all" (Ephesians 1:22, 23). Paul further wrote that "(t)here is one body" (Ephesians 4:4).

The word "church" is used to describe the saved, in the New Testament, in two senses. On the one hand, it speaks of all the saved people everywhere. It is in this sense that it is used in the passages we have looked at so far. It is in this sense that there is "one" church, "one" body.

The word is also used in a local sense. The church at Corinth and the church at Philippi, as well as the seven churches of Asia, are local churches of Christ. Their existence poses no contradiction to the concept of "one body", because they are looking at the relationship in a different sense: local, rather than universal.

Occasionally some one, troubled by the implications of "one body", wants to know to which "one body" we refer - the one at Colossae? Or at Ephesus? Or at Thessalonica? Along the same line, ever so often we notice in the cornerstone of the building of a local church of Christ the notation, "est. AD 33". This reveals a misunderstanding of just what Jesus built.

Every Christian is a member of the one body, having been added to the number of the saved by the Lord. This would include the Ethiopian whose conversion was recorded in Acts 8 - obviously he was a member of no local church of Christ, but he was nonetheless added by the Lord to the church.

Local churches of Christ share similar organization, mission and worship, as these are revealed in the New Testament. They are composed of people who have obeyed the gospel, and then have agreed to share that work of the Lord which is collective.

With organization prescribed by the Lord (Acts 14:23, Philippians 1:1) the local church is the only functional unit of the church. Each local church is autonomous ("self-ruled"), by the provisions set forth in Acts 20:28, and I Peter 5:1, 2. No organization is revealed for the church in the universal sense; therefore there are no "brotherhood" programs or institutions.

Subsequent articles are planned to examine some local churches of Christ in the New Testament.

Related

Abundant Life: June 2008

• Who Can Change Your Heart? by Mark Roberts