1. Today's Confusion⤒🔗

Today's questions do not concern details, but are often more basic: "What's a church?" "Who needs one?" "Why have any?" We need to be saved by faith in Christ and what a wonderful salvation that is. What has "church" to do with all this? Many would answer, "Nothing at all!" One meets people who say they believe in Christ, but, if asked about their church, say they never joined any, or got disgusted with one they knew and quit — one can hear better services on the radio or TV anyway. I recall a foreign missionary who said that he felt he was more useful if not connected with any denomination.

In addition to such confusion around us, we face the surprising fact that our denominational seminary has not taught the doctrine of the church in its theology in nearly 2 decades, and our synods have declared that we can change the number and characters of church of­fices as we wish to fit changing times. Harry Blamires in his The Christian Mind (p. 119) faced this confusion, observing: "We must not talk — and we must not allow critics ... to talk — as though the Apostles sat round a table ... and one of them said, 'I propose we have a Church,' and another said, 'I second that,' and it was carried ... God made it, not man ... To talk of not seeing the need for the Church is like talking of not seeing the need for the moon. The Church, like the moon, is not a human project, but a divine crea­tion."

To escape the present con­fusion, we must go back, as in other times of Reformation, to what the Lord said in His Word about the sub­ject.

2. The Lord's Building, House, Family←⤒🔗

Nowhere is Our Lord's teaching about this matter plainer than in His words to Peter (Matthew 16:16) after his confession of faith in "Christ, the Son of the living God." "You are Peter (meaning "stone"), and on this rock I will build MY church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven..." He does not only say to the confes­sor of faith in Him, "You will be saved," but, "On this ... I will build my church!" How then can any Christian say, "I want to be saved, but I don't want any church?" When mem­bers or church leaders say, "We like" or 'We want," this or that, they are forgetting whose the church is and who really builds and has a right to run it. When Peter and other church leaders and members (Matthew 18:18-20) are faithfully confessing their Lord, He will, "build His church" with them. If, however, they, like Peter, begin to contradict Him, He says, as He did to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan..." for they are not mind­ing the things of God but of men. Thus churches that contradict their Lord become "salt that has lost its flavor" and is therefore "good for nothing" (Matthew 5:13), or as the Westminster Confession, recalling Revelation 2:9 and 3:9, says, "synagogues of Satan."

Thus Christ saves people by faith in Him and puts them into relation­ship with one another. They are no longer lonely "strangers and foreign­ers," but as Paul in Ephesians 2:19ff. says, "fellow citizens with the saints, and members of the household of God ... being built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit." "Having been born again" through the gospel of Christ (1 Peter 1:23; James 1:18), they must "as newborn" babies, grow with the nourishment of the same Word of God as spiritual food, be­coming "living stones" in relation­ship to Christ, the "cornerstone," to become God's glorious temple in the world (1 Peter 2:2-10).

3. United with Christ by His Word←⤒🔗

All believers in Christ have eternal life and, in that living relationship to Him, are also united with one another. The Lord prayed for them that they might "be one" in this way (John 17:11). This unity does not in­clude all mankind, but only believers in Him as they are distinguished from the world ("sanctified"), separated from it and related to God through the gospel (vv. 14-26).

4. Its General and Special Offices←⤒🔗

The Lord calls all believers in Him to serve Him as His prophets, priests and kings, as we have noted pre­viously (1 Peter 2:9). To call and equip these believers for such united service of the Lord, He provided spe­cial "offices" (Ephesians 4:11-16). Thus the Lord's Word gives His directions for choosing men for these offices of the church and for their duties (1 Timothy 2, 3; Titus 1) to help that church and its members to grow. Elders, called to "rule" as they "watch out for your souls" (Hebrew 13:17), must be examples of what they teach (1 Peter 5:1-4).

5. Service of the Lord's Word and Sacraments←⤒🔗

The Lord calls people to salvation through faith in Him by His Word and Spirit. Along with that Word He has given Baptism and the Lord's Supper as "signs" and "seals," or "pictures" and "proofs," to help us understand and be assured that His saving grace is given to us (Romans 4:11; Mark 16:15, 16; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; 10:16). Baptism pictures and assures the washing away of our sins and being brought into fellowship with God. The Lord's Supper pictures and assures our being nourished in the fellowship of Christ's Body as we remember Him in faith and proclaim His death for us. These are given to strengthen our faith (not to be a su­perstitious substitute for it).

6. The Church Needs the Lord's Discipline←⤒🔗

In our united faith in and service of our Lord we are given the necessary order and discipline. The Apostle points out (2 Timothy 2:4, 5) that an army requires it and that even a game could not be played without rules. (The growing con­fusion in the churches is the certain result when they foolishly think that they can discard the Lord's rule­book, His Word.) The believers and churches in their confession of faith in Christ are given the "keys of the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 16:19; 18:15-20). This trust gives direction both to individual members and to church officers. They are to join in a common testimony to Christ in the church and toward the world and try to remove offenses in faith and life that contradict it (1 Corinthians 5; Acts 20:28-32). Despite the ravages of error, "God and the word of His grace" (Acts 20:32) will build His Church and assure its inheritance.

Questions:←⤒🔗

1. If we are saved by faith in Christ, why need we join a church?
    
2. Who should decide what the church should be and do?
    
3. How does the Lord intend His church to be one? (John 17:6-11; 14­-26.)
    
4. What is the relationship be­tween the office of each believer and the special offices in the church? (Ephesians 4:11-16.)
    
5. What is the relationship be­tween God's Word and the sacra­ments as means of grace?  (Mark 16:15, 16; 1 Corinthians 1:17.)
    
6. What does the Bible's reference to sacraments as "signs" and "seals" mean?  (Romans 4:11.)
    
7. Why must a church have dis­cipline? (Matthew 16:19; 18:15-20.)