What is the Church, really?

It would be an understatement to say that the Church, in her almost 2000 years of existence, has presented a varied and often contradictory picture to the rest of the world. At times full of compassion and service, at times more of a spiritual police force; an organization at most times more than an organism.

There may be many reasons to account for this, but a point of analysis occurred to me recently, while preparing a message on the Church; and that point has to do with what the Church is, which should be driving what the Church does. The difference between the Church and Israel is much more than a comparison of the Law of Moses vs. the Age of Grace, or one nation vs. all nations.

Fundamentally, Israel was related by birth as the seed of Abraham, called to please God by living out their faith in Him through obedience to statutes, doctrines and practices. The Church, on the other hand, is related by second birth as the spiritual seed of Abraham, called to relate to God through faith in the Savior, whose obedience to the will of God led Him to the cross, where He fulfilled the sacrifices of Moses' law for all who trust in His death on their behalf.

The bottom line of this contrast is that Israel was a people united by their common ancestry and by a relationship to God as a nation. They were charged with not only obeying the Law, but with enforcing obedience on the rest of the nation, so as to remain a holy people. The nation's holiness was a direct result of scrupulous observance of the Law, though mere legalism was never meant to substitute for the faith modeled by father Abraham.

The Church, meanwhile, is a people united by a common Spirit, and by a personal relationship to God as born-again individuals. The Church, unlike Israel, is not charged with enforcing the holiness of her members, because each one is already holy (thus addressed as "saints"). Church discipline was practiced, not to mandate holiness, but to prevent the fleshly behavior of some "so-called brethren" from diluting the testimony of the Church, which is supposed to be "lights in a crooked and perverse" world.

The Church has too often in her history acted as if Christians were just "Israel 2.0", an updated version of the nation of the Ten Commandments and laws of the Old Testament. Many subgroups of the Church have used updated versions of priests (ignoring the fact that all of us are priests under one Great High Priest). Many use rules of conduct patterned after the Ten Commandments, while some try to use those commands as the basis of a moral society by placing them in front of the courthouse; ignoring the fact that the Law can't change anyone since it can only convict, not change the heart.

The Church has engaged in countless wars over doctrine and practice, as if trying to "purge the camp of sin", like Israel in the wilderness, attempting to enforce standards and rules as each one sees them. Of course, the many and varied interpretations of those standards is why there's so many different kinds of churches, and so many different schools of thought about how the Church is supposed to be changing the world. Indeed, doctrine and practice are important, but not as the basis for our holiness.

The Church is a holy people by virtue of being indwelt by the Holy Spirit; and, when we walk with Christ in a common love for Him and for one another, we allow Christ to express His power and grace through us. When we demonstrate the light of Christ in us to a lost world, we exert more power than any crusade or inquisition could do by brute force. And that's something that good old Moses, on his best day, couldn't do.