The Need for Studying the Church

Introduction: The Church is the Gospel Made Visible

Many people in our day, including some Christians, think the doctrine of the Church is, at best, unimportant, or at worst, divisive. Nothing could be further from the truth however. How Christians live their lives together is the most visible and practical part of theology. How we live is teaching people about the gospel and often speaks louder than our actual words.

The Church is the Gospel made visible

I. Problems Facing the Church Today

1. The Problem of Pragmatism

The first and most pervasive problem in the estimation of many is a pragmatic mentality regarding the church.

Reformation and Revival Volume 3 Truth vs. Technique

Pragmatism is the notion that ideas may be judged by their practical consequences. A pragmatist concludes that a course of action or concept is right if it brings good results, wrong if it doesn’t seem to work.

The “do whatever works” mentality assumes the Christ did not give clear instructions to his Church on how she is to order and conduct herself. How inconsiderate would it be for our Lord to begin his kingdom and then leave it without guidance.

2. The Problem of Individualism

This is the mindset behind those who see being part of a local church as an optional part of Christianity.

“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.” - Lenny Bruce, Comedian

3. The Problem of Traditionalism

This is the mindest of many churches with older congregations or older traditions, such as Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. It sees the way things have been done in the past as much more authoritative than it really is.

II. What Our Fathers Believed About the Church

“No man can have God for his father who does not have the church for his mother.” - Cyprian

“The visible church…is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ; the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.” - Westminster Confession of Faith (Chapter 25.2)

“Furthermore, away from [the Church] one cannot hope for any forgiveness of sins or any salvation” - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (4. The Visible Church as Mother of Believers)

All of this may sound shocking at first, but what these Christians of the past understood is that God’s salvation of humanity involves the establishment of His kingdom on earth, and a kingdom isn’t made up of random, isolated individuals, but rather a collection of people with a common identity, namely, that they are in Christ.

To hate the church — the bride of Christ — is to hate the husband of the bride.

III. What the Scriptures Teach About the Church

Christ founded the church

Matthew 16:18 ESV

18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

God purchased the church with his own blood

Acts 20:28 ESV

28 Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

The Church is the Body of Christ

Acts 9:4 ESV

4 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

1 Corinthians 12:12 ESV

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:27 ESV

27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

Ephesians 1:22–23 ESV

22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

The Dwelling place of the Holy Spirit

1 Corinthians 3:16–17 ESV

16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

The Chief Instrument for Glorifying God in the World

Ephesians 3:10 ESV

10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

Ezekiel 36:22–38 ESV

22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. 29 And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. 30 I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. 31 Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. 32 It is not for your sake that I will act, declares the Lord God; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel. 33 “Thus says the Lord God: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt. 34 And the land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. 35 And they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.’ 36 Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the Lord; I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it. 37 “Thus says the Lord God: This also I will let the house of Israel ask me to do for them: to increase their people like a flock. 38 Like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts, so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

The Church is God’s Instrument for bringing both the gospel to the nations and redeemed humanity to himself

Luke 24:46–48 ESV

46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.

Revelation 5:9 ESV

9 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,