The Doctrine of the Church as an Alternative Community

Upon This Rock

Jesus says, "You are the salt of the earth, but if that salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden" (Matthew 5:13, 16). As Christians, we provide flavor and light to an otherwise flavorless and dark world. It is said that the church should influence culture and society, but it could be said that culture and society as we know it has influenced the church. Most churches and leaders have bought into the philosophy of the church without having to be the church. In Renovation of The Church: What Happens When a Seeker Church Discovers Spiritual Freedom, Carlson and Lueken note that "We bought into this philosophy of how to do church with total and almost reckless abandon" (Carlson/Lueken 22). The church is God's community of faith-based citizens founded on five layers of doctrine; Christology, Ecclesiology, the Gospel, Soteriology, and the Trinity. These five layers provide a set of rules and standards that solidifies the church as an alternative community. This paper will explore this alternative community based on the layers mentioned above, using the Bible, bible commentaries, and scholarly journals to support the church's idea as an alternative community. As a result, the church can view itself as an alternative community that matches their new citizenship based on receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Paul writes, "But our citizenship is in heaven…" (Philippians 3:20a), suggesting that as members of Christ's body, we belong to an alternative community with different rules and higher standards. The Greek word politeuma means commonwealth in the governing of a place. The unsaved minds the things of this realm, while believers set their minds on the heavenly commonwealth's interests to which they belong. Carroll notes, "The emphatic first place of the pronoun our stresses the contrast between those who are earthly minded and those who are heavenly in order to highlight this contrast" (Carroll 100). The church, Jesus' bride, is the alternative community and the antithesis to man's commonwealth. John and Jesus both preached the impending arrival of God's kingdom and heaven to both Gentile and Jew as the alternative community to orthodox Judaism.

Ecclesiology: The Study of the Church

God established Israel as the Old Testament's alternative community, beginning in Genesis 12 and establishing the New Testament church. God, through Moses, describes Israel in the manner: "And you shall be to me a kingdom of priest and a holy nation." These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel" (Exodus 19:6 ESV). Peter confirms and describes the "church" in this manner: "you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy" (1 Peter 2:5, 9-10 ESV). Among others, these two passages create a clear description of the differences between the church and secular culture.

In its simplest form, ecclesiology is the study of the church. In Ecclesiology today and its potential to serve a missionary church, Kristin Colberg writes, "Ecclesiology has therefore migrated to the forefront of theological discussion because of the inherent import of its content and because a deeper sense of ecclesial identity is critical for Christians to speak meaningfully on any topic among themselves and in proclaiming the gospel to the world" (Colberg 24). As an alternative community seeking to impact the current culture, she must know who she is, what she is, and why she is here. In Exploring Ecclesiology, the authors write, "…the church is the concrete manifestation of Christ on earth" (Harper/Metzberger 22). The church is the alternative community or commonwealth of Jesus. A person cannot see the Trinity in the flesh, so many treat them as abstract figures or figments of their imagination. Jesus built his church to represent him personally and carry on his work to bring salvation to the world. As an alternative community, the church provides this world with a choice between God and the world. The church is the eschatological community of the kingdom, existing in the already and not yet living out God's eternal purpose of reconciliation. The church is comprised of both Jewish and Gentile Christians united together in Christ, displaying how life was always supposed to be and how life will be in the end times.

The Trinity: The Faith of the Church

The result of understanding how the Son and the Spirit stand concerning the Father in the doctrine of the Trinity. The one God exists as three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This formula, combining the three persons in this order, was given directly by the Lord Jesus (Matthew 28:19), though the keywords usually used to explain the doctrine do not themselves appear in Scripture: person, essence, relation, or even Trinity (italics mine). What matters, of course, is that the ideas they point to are biblical. As long as that is established, one is free to use enormously helpful terms inherited from ancient Christian usage. The doctrine of the Trinity can be broken down into a handful of truth claims, each of which can be demonstrated from Scripture. There is one God. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Spirit is God. The Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Spirit or the Father, nor the Spirit the Father or the Son; and so on.

God did not reveal his triunity before sending the Son or the Holy Spirit. The Son and the Spirit’s revelation was directly tied to their coming in-person to accomplish salvation through sacrifice and apply salvation through faith. The revelation of this interpersonal depth in God, in other words, was bundled with redemption. The Trinity's doctrine is thus the result of a thorough understanding of the nature of the Gospel, drawing out the implications of what the Gospel is and what it entails about the God who is its source. Thus, the Trinity's doctrine answers the question of who God is according to the good news of salvation in Christ. It is the Christian doctrine of God.

Gorman writes, "Paul's description of the sending of the Son echoes 3:14. Born to a Jewish woman and fully human, the Son was not sent fundamentally to teach, but to identify with and redeem those under the law, thereby to open up adoption as God's children to a broader group that also includes Gentiles. This redemption was accomplished by Jesus' death; those who identify with the death of the Son become God's children and receive God's Spirit, as the Galatians believers have done" (Gorman 256).The Son and Spirit are of the same essence as the Father and have coexisted with him in perfect unity. Thus the God in Scripture is the one God who always shows himself to have been three persons in one being. Irenaeus of Lyons writes, "This is the rule of our faith, the foundation of the building, and what gives support to our behaviour" (McGrath 151).

The Gospel: The Message of the Community

The Gospel is the message of what God has graciously done for those who accept him through Jesus Christ. Through Jesus he satisfied his wrath against us, secured the forgiveness of sins and perfected righteousness for all who trust in him by faith alone. Christ fulfilled, on our behalf, the perfectly obedient life under God's law that we should have lived but never could. He died the death we deserved to suffer but now never will. Furthermore, by his rising from the dead, he secures for believers the promise of a resurrected and glorified life in a new heaven and a new earth in fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Gospel is about something that has happened. No power in heaven or earth can overturn or reverse it. As a settled achievement, it exerts radical and far-reaching influence on both our present experience and our future hopes. The Gospel is not only how man is saved, but it is the truth and power by which people are sanctified; it is the truth of the Gospel that enables the church to do what is pleasing to God and grow in progressive conformity to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29 ESV). The Gospel is not the sin gospel; it is the kingdom's message, inviting the listener to become disciples. The gospel message has been preached for over two thousand years, and at its core is the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The gospel presentation is often dreary and dreadful, often reminding the listeners of their sin and need for a savior. Jesus, in the Great Commission, instructs his disciples to go, make, and teach disciples. The Gospel invites the hearer to "yoke up," and "take up," and follow Christ as apprentices and disciples. The Gospel provides the blueprint for Christians to pattern their lives after Christ.

Christology: The Focus of the Community

Christology is the study of Jesus relating to the person, nature, and role of Christ. Oden defines Christology as "that discipline that inquires critically and systematically into this person, his relation to his Father and to us. In him the true relation between God and ourselves is alleged to be knowable" (Oden 217). The Council of Chalcedonian believes Jesus' divinity and humanity, in reality, are two natures and that the one hypostasis of the Logos entirely subsists in these two natures. Christology answers the eternal question about Jesus' identity. Oden writes, "The core question focuses upon the identity of Jesus. Who is this itinerant teacher? Why is he called "Mary's son?" (Oden 233).Christological heresy is a line of thought or practice that deviates from the mainstream of Christianity. Christology heresy questions Jesus' divinity and humanity, deviating from the Christian doctrine that Jesus was both God and man.

Jesus Christ is eternal, and He is equal with the Father in his deity. Oden writes, "The Son is Equal to the Father. Oden writes, "God the Son, by being truly human without ceasing to be truly God, is both equal to the Father and less than the Father—equal by nature and less by volition to service" (Oden 252). Heretics believe that Jesus was not equal with God the Father, but Scripture bears out that Jesus was/is equal with God. God has always existed as the Trinity. While God is one, and the three persons are therefore inseparable, so we must distinguish them.

It would take a man like Adam to redeem man from the law of sin to receive salvation. Jesus is the incarnate Son of God with a hypostatic union, being both God and man. "Fallen humanity needs an impeccable divine mediator who shares our human condition" (Oden 217). Adam failed to please God, thus requiring the last Adam to come and be the propitiation for humankind. The eternal Son of God underwent a normal process of human gestation and birth. The conception was supernatural; the birth was not conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.

Jesus Christ is the Word who existed with the Father since before the beginning. John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Christological heresy asserts that Jesus was not in the beginning, but he was created by God inferior to God by some standards. John begins his Gospel with a prologue underscoring the deity fundamental to Christ's incarnation. John's opening words imply Christ's deity because he, the Word, takes place that God holds in the Bible's first verse. By affirming the positive and denying the negative, John teaches that the Word created absolutely everything (John 1:3, 10), and since creation is the work of God alone, the Word must be God. Furthermore, Jesus displays the divine qualities of glory, grace, and truth. From God's fullness alone, believers receive grace upon grace, and John says this very thing about the incarnate Son.

Soteriology: The Means of Entry into the Community

"The triune God arranged this great plan or economy (oikonomia) for our restoration through which the Father would be rightly brought near (propitiated) to sinners, the Son himself being the means of this reconciliation" (Oden 403). What a prolific statement concerning God's plan to redeem man from the trespass of Adam. Jesus Christ is utterly sufficient as our Savior. A man had sinned; a man had to make atonement. We could not do it, for we had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Only God can save us, for only he has the power to do so. Christ is the supreme revelation of God, as he is the personal embodiment of God. As the Son of God, the only source of eternal life (John 20:3-31), he can save us; as the sinless man, he is qualified to do so (Hebrews 4:114-15).

Salvation is the act or state of deliverance from danger, especially God's deliverance from the penalty and power of sin. The New Testament's hope of salvation lies in its witness of Christ, the Savior of the world. John writes, "They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world" (John 4:42). Salvation rescue us from damnation and adopt believers as spiritual sons and daughters of the heavenly Father (John 1:11-13; 1 John 3:1-3). Paul writes, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:8-10). Paul reminded the Ephesians and us today that we are incapable of saving ourselves, but salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

`Lyons writes in his Ransom Theory of the Atonement, "…he poured out the Spirit of the Father to bring about the union and fellowship of God and humanity, bringing God down to humanity through the Spirit while raising humanity to God through his incarnation, and in his coming surely and truly giving us incorruption through the fellowship which we have with him" (McGrath 285). Christ's blood, his death on the cross, is the redemption price that liberates slaves from sin. His propitiation answers the question of how a holy and loving God can rescue sinners without compromising his upright character.