Who or What Is the Church? (Part 1 of 2)

Welcome to Truth for Life. Alistair Begg is beginning a new series today by asking who or what is the church?

Seems like a pretty simple, straightforward question, but there's more to the answer than you might think. Let's join Alistair as he addresses basic biblical truth regarding the nature of the church. Father, we are glad of the privilege of singing your praise, and now we expect, and as we take our Bibles and open them, that in these precious moments we will hear your voice. This is the end to which we pray, and this is our earnest expectation, that far beyond the voice of a mere man, we may know ourselves to be under the sound of your truth by your Spirit through the pages of your holy Scriptures. For Jesus' sake. Amen.

Amen. Can I invite you, then, to turn with me once more to Ephesians chapter 2? And if you like, the title of our study this morning is simply Who or What is the Church? Who or What is the Church? Men and women may say, of course, that that is a rather esoteric area of study, something that we can perhaps leave well alone. There are more practical and pressing issues, given the nature of each of our lives today.

But I think we'll discover as we go along that no matter whether we begin from that mindset, we will discover just how vitally relevant and crucial it is at this point of the twenty-first century. There is no question that the very word church conjures up all kinds of things in the minds of men and women. It is a word, a phrase, the church that is very often misunderstood.

People will immediately think or talk in terms of buildings that are configured in a certain way. They may speak in terms of denominational structures they have known or out of which they have come. They may speak in terms of individuals that they see in the street who seem to be dressed rather quaintly, identifying themselves as members of the clergy, distinct from the laity that attends these buildings.

And the extent to which misunderstanding is represented by a consideration of the church is almost limitless. Other people view the church as an object of mistrust. If you talk with them for any length of time, they will speak of the hypocrisy that they've encountered, and they may also speak of the harm that they have experienced. I don't like those people.

They may say, I don't want to go there ever again. After all, the place is full of hypocrites, and there is never a place I've been more harmed than in Mr. So-and-so's establishment or whatever it might be. At the same time, the church is increasingly marginalized in the minds of men and women. Let us not allow the numbers that presently wander into church buildings to confuse this issue. The church in the West is increasingly pushed to the periphery of public life and thought. The very way in which it is difficult for buildings to find a place now anywhere close to the center, as it were, of a town or village or city, any opportunity of them being placed in the very heart of the public square, is almost nonexistent in America.

Instead, they're being pushed out to outlying areas and often, in many cases, actually into industrial sites. Some people are seeing this as a cause for encouragement, others of us, I think, a cause of alarm. And the marginalized way in which the church is regarded by the secular mind is only followed two steps behind by the way in which the church is marginalized in the experience of those who would regard themselves as the faithful. I don't want to be unkind to any of you in any way, but I think this makes the point as clearly as I can—namely, that when you think that some two and a half thousand to three thousand will have been present in worship this morning, there won't be a third of that here this evening. Now, the answer, of course, is not in every instance that it is being marginalized, but the answer is in part that it is being marginalized.

And even those who would regard it as an issue of concern are themselves saying, Once I've done my duty, within whatever timeframe it is, then I can disperse any other considerations of that and get on with the main business of life. After all, say, Son, the church is really benign. It's really for old women who need blankets over their legs. It's for the kind of people that like singing in choirs and doing weird things like that. It deserves to be dwindling to a halt.

It really is a completely useless institution. So harmless, so gentle, so proper, so benign. Many of the younger generation regard it not as benign but, frankly, as bizarre, that anybody would ever want to give any consideration to these things they regard as something quite outlandish. After all, who are these people, and what are they doing, and why do they speak in all of those strange words? And why does the man behind the box always seem to have a funny voice? Why is it that if you meet him in the street, he says, Hello, how are you? And if you meet him in the pulpit, he says, Good morning, and how are you all today? They say, Well, I don't want to deal with a man like that.

I don't want to deal with that kind of thing. One of my friends, Peter Cottrell, wrote a book years ago called Church Alive. And in the course of that, he was writing about this distinction between the way in which the average member of the populace goes about their day and talks, and then they come into an establishment that is represented by Christianity, and they have to cross a bridge into another subculture altogether. And he wrote a little poem that he thought might have been on the lips of a bus driver who had attended one of their services. This is written as an Englishman in England. And it goes like this, I drive a bus, yes, that's my job at sixty quid a week. That's sixty pounds a week, which at the moment is working out for yourselves.

I drive a bus, yes, that's my job at sixty quid a week. I'm a sinner, so they tell me, one what Jesus came to seek. So the parson says, and he's the bloke what really ought to know, with his everlasting sermons, he's the bloke what runs the show. At the church down in the high street, Zion Chapel—that's the name.

Methodist or maybe Baptist, I don't know, they're all the same. Services at ten and six, and wear a suit, men, if you please. If you've got a cold, don't come, or if you do, don't dare to sneeze.

Because the vicar doesn't like it, and he makes an awful fuss. But you have to treat folks different when you're a driver of a bus. I've often thought I'd like to be a Christian, just like you, with a hymnbook in the end, and maybe learn a prayer or two. Of course, I'd have to learn the language, all them thees and thous and thuses and the shouts and shoulds and mayists.

We don't use them on the buses. Yes, I'd like to be a Christian if the Christians spoke like us. But you have to talk like humans when you're a driver of the bus. We're really going to invite people into the establishment of the church and then make them learn a completely new vocabulary. We're not talking about theological terminology.

We're just talking about the way we talk to people. People say, That's bizarre. And yet young families feeling a sense of burden, feeling that now with their garage door opener and their mortgage, they really ought to do something for these kids that are wandering around in the yard. They hasten to bring them along and put them in establishments that they themselves really care very little about. Into this archaic language of shibboleths and platitudes, the families still come, pressing upon their youngsters the importance of being in the church while all the time doubting the significance of it themselves.

Doonesbury, months ago, years ago, probably, judging by the color of this paper here from my files, has a quite significant cartoon in this regard. But it's a mother and father with their boy, and they're sitting down with their son, and they're saying to him, Alex, honey, Mom and I have been talking, and we've decided it's time for us to start attending church as a family. Church? Church is boring! Well, we thought you might say that.

All kids think that. Didn't you think church was boring when you were a kid? Well, sure, I hated going, but church was good for me, so my parents made me stick it out. You may end up hating church too, but you have to come by that feeling honestly.

You have to put in the pew time, like Mom and I did. Oh! What if I like it? Like it? What do you mean? And then says, Mom, we'll cross that bridge when we get there, honey.

In other words, there is no possibility of you liking it. Who would ever like this benign, bizarre experience that is encapsulated in our culture, offered up in a certain way, prepackaged? Is this church? Who or what is the church?

That's the question. And you know, if I gave that as an essay assignment to this congregation, the reason that I need to address it is because I honestly think that ninety percent of you would be unable to get anything above a C-minus in answering. You shouldn't feel bad about that for a moment.

I should feel horrible, and so should my colleagues. Because to us has been entrusted the privilege and the responsibility of teaching you so that you then may be able to work these things out for yourselves, so that we would encourage you to read your Bibles and to ask, Is this what the Bible says, or is that just what he is telling me? Is this the instruction of the Bible, or are they just trying to jam me in a certain direction? So, in the face of misunderstanding, in the face of misgiving, at a time, as I say, when religion is being pushed to the corners of the public square, what I want to do is address with you some of the certain basic truths regarding the nature of the church. I do want to let those of you who come from a Roman Catholic tradition know—and you should just get ready for this—that I'm about to quote from a most recent Roman Catholic piece that is about to make you feel distinctly uncomfortable. I hasten to say, in preparation for it, that I have no interest in making you feel uncomfortable. Nor would I ever seek to allege anything concerning these things, but I feel free to quote what the church itself is saying.

So for those of you who need to, just sit a little more comfortably in your seat, then do be prepared. First of all, this is what we want to say. The church is not a human invention. It is a divine institution. When you listen to people talk, you have the impression that the church is simply a human society that owes its origin and its establishment to some kind of voluntary agreement among its members. In other words, it's a kind of Christian rotary club, if you like. Everybody gets together, they're from a similar background, and they all sit down, and they like doing the same sort of things. And so somebody along the journey of time said, you know, why don't we establish this as a kind of institution? Those of you who remember Paul Simon's songs may remember the line in the song where he's talking to this girl, and he says, Hey, senior reader, that's astute. Why don't we get together and call ourselves an institute?

And the impression that is given by some is that these folks along the journey of time said, Hey, you know what? I think it'd be a nice idea if we just got together. Why don't we get together? Sing a few things? You like to sing? I like to sing. In the same way that you find people in your neighborhood saying, Do you like to bowl?

I like to bowl. Why don't we have a bowling club? Why don't we have a religious club? And so you have the church.

Nobody really knows where it came from or why it should have emerged, but it has been perpetuated down through the years as a result of somebody having the bright idea, Why don't everybody that likes this kind of thing, why don't we all just get together and have a society? Well, we're going to read the Bible, and what does the Bible say? The Bible says that the church owes its origin not to man but to God.

There is no such thing as the church were it not for the fact that God from all of eternity planned to have a people that are his very own. And the solidarity and the corporate distinctiveness of the people of God, as distinct from all other communities, can be tied to only one thing—namely, to the call of God. That's why when you read the Old Testament, you find that Abram is going about his day, and God comes to him and he calls to him and he says, Hey, Abraham. And Abram says, Yes. And he says, Abram, this is what I want you to do, and this is where I want you to go. Now, was it that Abram said, You know, I'd like to be involved in a religious society?

No, he was just going about his day, and God said, Hello, and suddenly he established a relationship. Now, that same call then came down through the line of the prophets in order that, as he promised to Abraham, through his descendants all the nations of the earth would be blessed. That, I suggest to you, is a strange thing to say to anybody—not least of all to one of the patriarchs.

Abraham, here you are, and you're living at this moment in time. Time is about to come all out in front of you, extend for thousands of years, and I want you to know that through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed. What could that possibly mean?

What does it possibly mean? How is such a blessing brought about in all the nations of the world? And what is the blessing? Well, that's why we read from Ephesians 2.

You thought I was never going to refer to it, but let me turn you back to it just now. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 13. What we discover is this, that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God's purpose from all eternity finds fulfillment as he establishes what he refers to as this new man, which is nothing other than the church. Now, he's writing to these Gentile believers, and he says, Now in Christ Jesus… Notice the phrase, In Christ Jesus.

We'll come back to that. …you who were once far away have been brought near… And how has this happened? …through the blood of Christ.

Why? Well, he himself is our peace. He has made the two one. He has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace. And what he is referring to here is the way that the promises of God to the nation of Israel ultimately find their fulfillment as he calls the Gentiles to faith in himself. And so we have a community now that is not distinguishable by ethnic origin but is identifiable as a result of God's grace in terms of his initiative throughout all of time. And that's why, as you come to the end of the chapter, verse 22, it says, In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord, and in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Now, let's just leave that there and move on. The first point is this. The Bible makes it clear that the church is not a human invention. It is a divine institution. Second point to notice is this—that membership in that church is not a matter of external attachment but of spiritual union.

It is not a matter of external attachment but of spiritual union. We'll say more about this in a moment, but we didn't go any further without recognizing that right alongside the question, the church, what is it? is the question—and it's a crux question—who's in it? And the correlative question, by what means? If there is a church that not everyone is in, who's in?

And how do you get in? I think it would become immediately apparent to each one of us that we're not talking here about how you become a member of the local gathering of the church. We're talking about a much bigger, cosmic, more significant question. How do I, as someone who by virtue of my birth is not a member of the church, is not part of the community of God, how is it that I would ever be in it? And I suggest to you that the answer to that question and the disagreements over the answer to that question are absolutely crucial.

Because clearly not every answer that is given is the right answer. And if there is a right answer that the Bible gives, then we need to discover it, because it's gonna have an impact not only on the immediacy of our lives and the way in which we rear our children and the things that we say to our friends and neighbors, but it matters for all of eternity. For the community that God has been putting together from eternity to eternity is this community, the church. And that's why his focus is not on America. That's why his focus is not on Britain. That's why God in heaven is not somehow or another preoccupied even with Jerusalem at the moment, or with P. King.

Because his focus is on his people, a people that he is determined to call out from all of time. Now, Paul addresses this in Ephesians 2. He reminds these Ephesian Christians, first of all, of what they wear. Consider, he says, what you wear. Now, I can't expound all of this. I don't have time, but I don't want you to miss it.

What does he say they wear? As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. In other words, you were spiritually dead.

That's not difficult to understand. There was no life spiritually in us at all. We are depraved. That doesn't mean that we're as bad as we could possibly be, but it does mean that there is no part of our human nature that is not touched and tainted by sin. And we have no ability to disassociate ourselves from that trap in which we're born—spiritually dead, disobedient, pleasing ourselves, and, at the end of verse 3, the objects of wrath. This, if you like, my friends, is the plight of man.

This you will not find in the average newspaper—indeed, in hardly any newspaper. This you will not find in the history books as an explanation for the sad and sorry predicament in which we find ourselves. People are trying desperately to explain it in terms of their responses to various factors in life, whether they're economic factors or environmental factors or whatever they might be. We are better equipped in analyzing that than we have ever been in the history of humanity. And yet even the leaders of our country are unable to extricate themselves from the sorryness and the rottenness and the fallenness and the sinfulness of it all. And these are the people to whom we would look in order to provide the solutions for our predicament. No, our predicament is so deep that there is no human agency that is going to be able to extricate ourselves. And yet the message comes, Try and fix yourself, try and find yourself, try and reform yourself, try and embrace religion, try and be a little better.

And all of these apparent stepping stones are nothing other than stumbling blocks. My dear friends, if we're going to be made spiritually alive, it's going to have to happen as a result of a power outside of ourselves and not as a result of our being able to look into ourselves and find the God part in ourselves. Or find the spiritual part in ourselves.

Which is, of course, so much contemporary thought. Why don't you just go away for the afternoon and find yourself? And you'll find that you have a lovely self in there, and if you can just cultivate that like a large sunflower, then you will just be a lovely sunflower just sitting in your car at the traffic lights.

Well, I encourage you to try it, and you'll see how quickly a sunflower can wither as a result of self-help. Consider what you were. Consider, secondly, what Christ did. Verse 13. He shed his blood.

Why? Because without the shedding of blood, there is no way for sin to be remitted. If there is any other way, then there is no need for a crucified Christ. He shed his blood. He brought us near. He made us alive. He saved us.

That's why he's then able to go on and say, Consider what you are. Verse 6. You are seated in the heavenly realms. You are ready, verse 10, to do good.

Verse 7. You're being prepared for a quite incredible show and tell. He's seated as with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might have a show and tell of the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Jesus. In other words, he's going to have this amazing event, and he's going to bring people along, and he'll say, There she is. Look at her.

Do you know what she once was? Made alive, saved, transformed. This is the church. The church is a divine institution. Membership in it is a spiritual union with Christ and with other believers.

We'll hear more tomorrow. You're listening to Truth for Life. That is Alistair Begg, beginning a series titled, What is the Church? As we heard today, the church is a community that God has been putting together for himself from all eternity. He created us to worship him, not only in private, but together with other believers. This is what we call corporate worship. The New Testament makes it clear that corporate worship is important. And there's a small book titled Corporate Worship, How the Church Gathers as God's People, that we think would make an ideal supplement to this current series. The book explains why corporate worship matters, what we should do when we gather together, and how corporate worship adds value to our lives, both individually and as a group. It's a book we recommend for every Christian. You can request your copy of the book today when you give a donation to support the teaching you hear on Truth for Life.

Again, the title is Corporate Worship. Request the book when you give online at truthforlife.org slash donate or when you call us at 888-588-7884. If you'd prefer to mail your donation along with your request for the book, our address is Truth for Life, P.O. Box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio. The zip code is 44139. Now, if you're still planning a vacation for this year, there is still room aboard the Deeper Faith Mediterranean Cruise with Alistair.

It departs from Rome, Italy, August 26th. You'll enjoy each day in a new port exploring the fascinating historical and cultural sites surrounding the Mediterranean and then share evenings studying from the Bible with Alistair. For further details or to book your cabin, go to deeperfaithcruise.com. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening today. Some people who identify with a particular church as a result of their heritage or their family tradition may not actually be included in the real church. You'll want to join us tomorrow to find out what's missing. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.