The Grace Discipleship Group

If you have been a part of the church for any length of time, you have heard pastors and

teachers refer to the “true church.” There is a true church versus a false church, to be

sure. There are true believers and there are false professors. There are true churches that

adhere to the gospel and there are false churches that have abandoned it. But that is not

how I mean to use the phrase “true church” here.

I have often used the phrase “true church.” When I use the phrase, what I am thinking is

every pastor’s desire to fashion his church according to the model of the New Testament.

Every pastor wants to pastor a true NT church. “Folks, we need to be a true NT church.”

Have you heard it used this way? This kind of usage usually precedes any

recommendation for change. “Folks, we need to more closely align ourselves with the

way the NT church did things. If you will follow this proposal we will become a true NT

church.” Of course! Who would not want to follow? And I have led many

conversations like that over the past thirteen years. Everyone gets afraid of Acts 2-3.

People begin to wonder what the pastor is going to wind up doing. Perhaps they begin to

murmur thoughts like: “The next thing you know, Pastor is going to be telling us to sell

our houses and bring the money to lay at his feet!”

The charismatic types, the seeker-sensitive types, the emergent church types, the

Reformed types, the Fundamentalist types – they all claim to be aligning their philosophy

of ministry with the true NT model. I have searched for that true church model and have

not found it. Today, I am declaring the search to be officially off. Why?

I am calling off the search for the true church model not because I’m tired (although

that’s true), not because I’m frustrated (although that too is true), but because this true

NT church does not exist. I set out on a mission that is not able to be completed. I

started to play a game that is not able to be won. There is no true NT church model tofollow. That is my conclusion from the past 13 years and the premise of everything I will

of the church. What is the church? This is a question we all assume we know and

consequently, think very little about. If we could think clearly about this topic, so much

of the tension between what we ought to do and want to do would be erased. But second,

there was growth in my own understanding with regard to handling Scripture. I said

earlier that we all want to follow that true NT church model. That means we assume

there is one to follow. If this true NT model is there, where do we find it? If the

assumption is that we must align ourselves as closely as possible to the NT church, then

how closely must we align ourselves? Should we be selling our houses and living in a

communal society? That certainly is what they were doing early on in Acts. So the

question becomes one of hermeneutics. How do we know what to align ourselves with

and what to ignore? Big question!

Let’s tackle these two issues separately. We will examine in this article the nature of the

church. Then in the next article we will address the nature of hermeneutics.

The church is a real and vibrant entity. In fact, it is a powerful reality that exists on the

earth. It is being built and forcefully advancing the cause of Christ throughout the world.

The church proclaims the gospel, restrains evil and promotes virtue and truth. The

church is actively being built. But let there be no doubt as to who it is that is doing the

activity of building. Remember Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:18, “I will build my

church.” Jesus is the one who builds the church. He is the active one, which makes us

the passive builders.

The first thing to be said about the nature of the church is that Jesus is building only one

church. While there are many individual local churches throughout the world, they are

not institutions in themselves. That was a remarkable revelation to me. The local church

is not an institution in itself. Instead it is a microcosm of a much larger unit – the body of

Christ.

Much damage is done to Christ’s body because of an abuse on this very point. When one

church thinks it has more closely aligned itself with that “true NT church model” they

automatically start to reflect on other churches as what…false churches? Pretty soon, the

only people who have the truth are the people who are just like them. Authority and

Holiness then are seen to pass through the church. For example, in order for any ministry

to be deemed as a valid work it is assumed that the ministry must be sanctioned by “the

church.” The problem is that when one views the church in this way, it is no longer

really viewed as part of the larger body of Christ but as a single local church that has

become an institution in itself.

The second thing to see about the nature of the church is that membership is by Divine

initiation. We are acted upon by Christ. Christ joins people to His church by issuing his

Divine effectual call (1 Cor. 1:9, 24, 26). The very nature of conversion and justification

demands this. The work of justification is done solely by Christ himself (John 1:12-13).

Jesus picks sinners out of the world, rescues them from their sin and God’s wrath and

places them inside his care. So you do not join the church. You are joined to the church.

The Scriptures use three main metaphors when speaking of the church: body, building,

family. Think about each of these as metaphors for the church. How does any single part

of the body get joined to the other parts? How does any single brick get attached to his

place in the wall? How does any new family member come in? Not by their choice but

by the activity of another.

When we examine the reality that all Christians (all believers) in the NT were called by

God, we discover that the church is that body of believers called by God and assembled

into his Body, the church. So Paul speaks of the reality that Christ died for his bride –

“the church” in Ephesians 5:25. The church is all those for whom Christ died. “That

The first is the market place. We live in a culture inundated by the free market.

Anything of substance and value will survive and thrive in the marketplace. The church

has put up a booth in Vanity Fair. That’s the problem. We are now just as much a part of

corporate America as any other industry. Is the church an industry? We have our own

publishing companies, record labels, law firms, architects and builders, educational

systems, etc. The church has become main-stream in our culture. It is impossible to

survive in corporate America without institutional characteristics. We must have articles

of incorporation, governing boards, tax identification numbers and the whole cup of tea

just as any other business institution would. Now these things aren’t wrong. They

simply contribute over the long-haul to a wrong view of the church – an institutional

view.

We have said nothing about the financial pressures the church has put on itself with the

buying and selling of land and the building of edifices for corporate gatherings. This is

perhaps the single most damaging thing the church has done. If you are going to buy

land and build buildings by going into the market arena for money loans then you have

just put yourself under the pressure for survival. Now you have to keep the crowds

coming so you can keep the payments flowing, etc. Institutionalized churches get

1 John Reisinger in an unpublished article, “The Ekklesia of God” from his website

www.soundofgrace.com

measured by buildings, bodies and bucks. How many buildings? How many bodies?

How many bucks? Is success in ministry tied to these? Only in the market place. The

market place has contributed to our demise. The church has bought the lie of Vanity

Fair: success is measured institutionally. False!

The second factor that contributes to an institutional mentality is the desire for doctrinal

precision and uniformity. For the earliest churches there seemed to be no subcategories

for Christianity. While there were disagreements and divisions at times, there was still a

sense of unity. Believers were viewed as either members of the world or members of the

Church. The only kind of divisions approved by the Apostles was over the gospel, not

side issues (even important ones). There were schisms, but they still recognized each

other to be part of “the” church. But today, many have defined and re-defined

themselves based on their doctrinal precision. And more to the point, they have sought

unanimity in their congregations. Their Statements of Faith have become the litmus for

membership. That breeds an institutional view of the church when they speak in terms of

membership requirements: “You cannot be a member of this church unless you agree

with us on the millennium, or the sign gifts, or on baptism, etc.”

If the nature of the church is a spiritual reality comprised of all those who have been

called, regenerated, and justified by His activity, then the one and only unifying reality

we have in common is the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we start forbidding or

embracing people into our fellowships based upon their adherence to things other than or

lesser than the gospel, we have institutionalized our church. How can we forbid entrance

and membership to any person who has been called by, regenerated by and justified by

Christ?

Well, we are just getting the conversation started. I hope you can already see some of the

implications and applications we need to address. The church, by its very nature as the

body of Christ, the family of God, and the building of God is much more dynamic and

much less institutional than many have made it.

Next week, we will continue with a look at the hermeneutical questions as to how we

should align ourselves with that first church in Acts.