The apostle Paul used the analogy of the human body a lot to describe the Church, and it's a fitting comparison, at least in theory. Like the human body, the Church is a diverse collection of parts, personalities, gifts and backgrounds, with many different roles and jobs for its members to do. And all of it is meant to be united under one Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 1:22-23) And, if one might wonder why the unity of heart and effort that is supposed to characterize the Church is not more evident in real life, the most obvious place to look for an answer would be in the Church's relationship to her Head.
When a human body is sick, it may be due to one of many different diseases that afflict its various parts. But when a person's entire body is devastated by a system-wide disease that affects the movements and functions of the whole body, it's usually a problem somewhere in the brain, or an interruption in the nervous system that gets its signals from the brain. Parkinson's, Cerebral Palsy, paralysis, strokes and other brain injuries, and many other dysfunctions can totally disable an otherwise healthy body.
Unlike the human body, the Body of Christ has a Head that always does His job. But the Church Body, and its individual members, have a will of their own that may prevent the Head from giving the right directions. So with the Church, there may be different members who are suffering the effects of spiritual sicknesses, like undisciplined desires, lust, pride or ambition; but when the whole body of a local church or a church denomination is reeling from the effects of sinful practices, fleshly politics and worldly ambitions, you can bet there's a significant loss of communication with the Head.
If the Church was always following her Head, there would be no fractious splits, no heresies, no drifting into worldliness, no rivalries and disputes and other things that Paul attributes to the "deeds of the flesh." There would be no "arms" of the church going off in a direction totally contrary to His Word. If Christ was truly directing His Body, there would be harmony of heart and effort in carrying out His mission of making disciples; there would be unity of faith in His Word, instead of myriad theologies and sects competing with each other.
Instead, the Church is seen by an increasingly skeptical world as "spastic", given to "convulsions" and widely divergent signals in communication that totally distort the unity of message and mind that Paul sought for the Body of Christ when he urged Christians to "make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose." (Philippians 2:2) How different would be the history and present life of the Church, if the apostle's words had been lived out on a world-wide scale. Though we can't reverse history, we could at least commit ourselves in our own local churches to making sure our Head is in charge of His Church, rather than just being attached to a dysfunctional Body.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
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.
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.
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