The Church of God

“And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against at? (Matt. xvi:18):-

You will remember that Jesus, when he came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, asked the disciples, “Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?” And they said, “Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some Elias; and others Jeremias or one of the prophets.” You will remember there was a promise by Malachi, the prophet, that Elijah should come before the great and terrible day of the Lord; so some were saying, this surely must be Elijah; some were saying it is John the Baptist come to life again; others were saying it is Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

Remember, we are well on in the ministry of the Lord Jesus now. There was coming into His teaching the shadow of the cross. Already it was evident that Israel had rejected the kingdom, and His testimony was taking on more and more the tone and coloring of the stern prophetic testimony of Jeremiah and the Old Testament prophets.

After the apostles had answered Him, he put to them the personal question, “Whom say ye that I am?” Notice the answer:

“And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him:

Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee.”

Thus Christ approved the quality of Peter’s faith. He was not merely expressing an opinion, echoing statements which he had heard, but was witnessing to a divine revelation — that of the Father in heaven. It is true, indeed, that for a whole year (that which is commonly called the “year of public favor’’) vast multitudes were thronging after Christ, yet there was really in most of them no heartfelt faith. They were seeing the miracles He was doing, and were saying, “Surely this must be the Messiah; we shall see after a while; it will develop; meanwhile, we think He is the Christ.” He was distinguishing Peter from that class of believers. “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” It was a true spiritual conception; it was a heartfelt belief produced by the revelation of God. Jesus was revealed to Peter through the power of God as the Christ. It was a true faith produced by the power of God, and not a mere conviction arising out of evidence or reasoning, or the sway of human opinion at the time.

“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

It was with some hestitation that I resolved to make this particular text our point of departure, and my hesitation grew out of this fear: that straightway, the minds would go off upon the question of what Christ meant by the rock. I did not select the passage for the purpose of expounding that part of it, though I will say that I utterly reject the Roman Catholic view that He intended to build His church upon a Papacy, beginning with Peter. I do not find this here, neither do I find it anywhere else. If I found it in the Word of God, I would believe it, but I do not find it there; therefore, whatever may be the meaning of this passage, that opinion does not seem to be tenable. As you know, there is a little play upon words here. Literally what our Lord said was this: ““Thou art Petros” — a fragment of rock — ‘“and upon this rock — petra — I will found my church.” You may take it in either one of two ways, and it will not harm you; you may believe either that by the “rock” He meant Himself (and that would be in harmony with great numbers of passages in the prophets, and in the Psalms, and in the Epistles) or you may take it that by the “rock” he meant the confession which Peter had just uttered: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

What I desire you to notice particularly, hacen is that we have here the first mention in the Word of God of the church. You may begin at Genesis to look for the church, and you may turn over page after page and chapter after chapter, and read verse after verse, and you will never find the church mentioned until you come to this verse.

Remember that when our Lord uttered these words, He was well on in His earthly ministry. He had been sending out heralds to preach, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He had been offering Himself to Israel, according to the prophets, as the King foretold, and now, when it is perfectly evident, that, nationally, Israel is not going to receive Him as the king, He utters for the first time the word church. “Upon this rock I will build my church.”

I. I believe we have two things settled for us by this passage alone. First of all the church was not then in existence. Our Lord did not say, “upon this rock I have been building the church through all past ages,” nor did He say, “Upon this rock I am building my church,” but He points forward and says “Upon this rock I will build my church.” The church then, was, when Christ spoke, still a thing in the prophetic purpose of God, but not yet in existence. He announces an intention to build, and He was soon to lav the foundation in His death and resurrection. Meanwhile, He Himself quarried out the first stones, and had them ready for the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. This is a very essential part of Bible truth: the church is not an Old Testament institution, but is a very distinct body of believers, having a distinct mission, a definite point of beginning and a definite point of ending. It begins in the

30 / second chapter of the Acts, and ends (prophetically) in the fourth chapter of First Thessalonians.

In further proof of this fact read only one additional passage: Ephesians iii:1-10.

“For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, if ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward; how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery (as I wrote afore in a few words whereby when ye read ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel; whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ; to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.”

In other words, the Apostle Paul distinctly tells us that the church was a mystery hid in God in all the ages and dispensations which went before, but now is revealed; a statement which harmonizes with Christ’s words speaking of His church as yet future: ‘Upon this rock I will build my church.”

I suppose it is-ageneral impression that all good people, in all ages — past, present and future — make up the church, and that heaven is to be-composed, as regard its inhabitants, at least, of angels and church members.

Now, if we are having some difficulty in receiving this truth from the Lord Jesus land from the Apostle Paul, that the church is a new thing which was never in existence until Pentecost, it may help us to re-Kal member that there was a time, for instance, when there. were no Hebrews. Abram was the first Hebrew. There were no Israelites until after Jacob. But what, then, of Adam, and Abel, and Seth, and Enoch, and Noah and. Job? These men were all men of God; they were saints in the true sense of the word, and yet it is perfectly evident that they did not belong to Israel, for there was no Israel for them to belong to at that time. Neither did they belong to the church, because there was no church at that time. After these men had passed through this earthly scene, and had been received into the presence of God, and into their eternal rest, there came the development of a new thing in God’s dealing with earth, namely, Israel. That is clear enough. Now we need only to see that after Israel had run its course, God brought out of His storehouse another new thing, the church. Why should we suppose then that all good people through all ages, were members, and are members, of the church? As a matter of fact they were nothing of the kind.

But our very text furnishes a conclusive reason why the saints of past dispensations do not belong to the particular body of saved ones called the church. The testimony upon which the church is gathered is that Jesus is the Christ. (See 1 John v:r.)

II. Now let us look at this word “church” a little, and try to find out what this body is which -had its: beginning after the words of our Lord were uttered. There is in the Greek language a word, kalleo, which means “TI call,” and another, ek, meaning “out of.” Put them together, ekkalleo, “I call out of,” and you have the essentials of the word used some 350 times in the New Testament, and translated “church;’ — the called out ones. The church is made up of those who are “called out” by the preaching of the gospel. The word, in itself, is an ordinary Greek word and is used in scripture for other assemblies than the church. For instance, the turbulent assembly at Ephesus, Acts xix :32, 39, is called an “ekklesia.” It was an assembly called out of the people of Ephesus. So Israel in the wilderness is called a church, Acts vii:38. This word, however, in the ordinary scripture use of it, applies to the called out ones since the day of Pentecost. It means the whole body of the saved ones in this dispensation or age, and in that sense I shall use it.

Let us inquire of scripture, first of all what the church is in the purpose of God? We know, alas! too well, what it has become, but let us get the divine design concerning it. I believe, that the church has gone very far away from the divine thought and the divine purpose. When I say the church, I mean the body of the saved; I am not speaking in any sectarian or narrow sense. We must find out what the primary purpose of God was in the calling out of this church. He had a distinct purpose in calling out Israel. We shall find that He had another distinct purpose in the calling out of this body’ called the church.

First of all: the church is the body of Christ — an expression that has its difficulties, of course, but let us look at it (Ephesians 1:17 to 23):

“That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he-wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his.own right hand in the heavenly places; far above all principality and. power and might, / and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, ‘ but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under

his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in lall.”

I would like to give the remainder of my time to the exposition of this long statement, each item of which is exceedingly precious, but let me take these ideas: There was necessary the incarnation of the Son of God, the death of the Son of God, the resurrection of the Son of God and the exaltation of the Son of God to the right hand of the Father before he did, or could have given him to be the head over all things to the church; therefore, there could not have been any church before that time. He raised him to his own right hand and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body. The church, therefore, could not have been in existence before there was a head. It is not like God to make headless things.

In x Corinthians xii:12, 13 we are told how this body is

constituted:

“For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles; whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.”

It was the baptism of the Holy Spirit, according to the doctrine of the xii. of First Corinthians, which brought individual believers together into one body. The baptism of the Holy Spirit then is the second condition for the existence of the church. There cannot be a church, first of all, without a head; nor, secondly, without the baptism of the Holy Spirit which began at Pentecost; therefore we say that the church began with the baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and since then all who have believed from the heart, believed sincerely and really, in the evangelical sense of the word, that Jesus is the Christ, have been, by the Spirit baptized into that body, which is ever growing and which is still incomplete, but which will be completed in this age.

The church then is the body of Christ. I have said there is some difficulty in the expression. Yet, when you come to think of it for a moment, perhaps a large part of the

-mystery of it will disappear. For instance, what is your body for? Is it not for the manifestation of yourself? You need a body for your manifestation. You might actually exist without your body, but it would be impossible for you to make that existence manifest. The manifestation of the real life and being within is by means of the body.

Then, it is your body which serves you — obeys the purposes which your intelligence — your real being — forms. Your feet carry you whither you would go; your hands toil for you; with your eyes you see, and with your tongue you speak. All these members are made to serve the real man which is within the body and which is greater and more than the body. Well now, Christ has purposes to carry out in this age and dispensation; it is necessary that he shall be manifested, and he is manifested through his church, which is his body. The church then exists for the purpose of manifesting the unseen Christ, of carrying out the will of the unseen Christ, of running his errands in the world, and of preaching his gospel in the world.

The second relation revealed in scripture as the purpose of God in the church is as the bride of Christ. In 2 Corinthians xi:2, we have this statement:

“For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.”

Again in Ephesians v:25 to 30:

“Husbands teve your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it;that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot.or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife Joveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord ‘the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones.”

The church then is related to Christ as a bride is to a bridegroom. This relation speaks of affection, of intimacy,

of tenderness, of nearness, and all these things are involved.

in that relationship of the church to Christ. It is the unique and peculiar distinction of the saved of this dispensation. Higher than this, salvation cannot lift a sinner. Its obligation is that the church shall be obedient, loving, chaste and fruitful.

The third purpose for which the church is called out is that she may be the earthly habitation and temple of God.

There was a time when in a peculiar sense, the habitation of God was the holy of holies in the Tabernacle in the wilderness, The shekinah glory was the manifest presence of God, invisible Himself, but evidenced Ly that mysterious radiance, which was not produced by any earthly or natural means. That glory manifested the presence of God as dwelling among his people Israel. Afterwards when Solomon built the temple, it was by this shining that God took possession of it. That radiance abode in the temple. It pleased him to have a habitation among Israel in the temple.

During this period, when Israel, nationally, is out of fellowship with Jehovah, the church becomes, in herself, the habitation of God through the Spirit. Let me refer you to Ephesians ii:19 to 22:

“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God. And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple im the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through them spirit.

The fourth reason given for the calling out of the church is that she may be, in the ages or dispensations to come, an object-lesson and an illustration of the grace of God. This is the teaching of Ephesians ii:5 to 7:

“Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace are ye saved); and hath raised us up to- — — gether, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”

You know, that what gives distinctive character to this age is grace. The age which immediately follows this, the millennial age, the kingdom age, will not be an age of grace, but an age of righteousness. What is the explanation of the permitted evil which we see all about us? It is that God is forbearing with men; he is holding off judgment from the world while he is calling out the church. God is not now dealing in righteousness; he is dealing in grace. In the age of law, we Gentiles were without hope; we had no promise, no Christ, no God, no light, in fact, nothing. “Without hope and without God in the world.” It was Israel which had the promises of God; it was Israel which had the book of God, and it was Israel who had the promise of the Messiah. Remember that not a promise was given to us Gentiles — not one. But now God deals with us in pure grace. We have no promise to plead — no claim in Old Testament covenant, but he takes us up anyway, without promise, and lifts us very high in Christ Jesus; and part of his purpose in so doing is that He may point to us in the ages to come as an object lesson in grace.

If, for instance, I wished to show how gracious I could be, I would not seek out the most deserving person of my acquaintance upon whom to lavish my kindness; neither would I refer to my kindness to my own child as grace, because I owe a personal duty to that child; I have assumed a certain responsibility toward that child; but if I wished to show how gracious I could be, I should seek out the most undeserving person I could find anywhere, and then heap benefit upon benefit upon that person. Now that is just what Christ has done for us who have been called out of the lowest place and put into the highest. “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set him among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory” (1 Samuel ii:8).

Fifthly, the church is revealed as being, in this dispensation, and for eternal purposes, a priesthood.

You will remember God had a priesthood on this earth before this age began, and he will have a priesthood again after it is ended. The priesthood which God first established has passed away. It is not in existence now. There comes in, in the interim, between the age of law and the kingdom age which follows this, the spiritual priesthood composed of the church. I need not read the familiar scriptures which assure you of that.

III. What the church is, its mission and business in the world constitutes another body of testimony.

I believe that the failure of the church to see that she is a separated, a called-out body in the purposes of God, charged with a definite mission limited in its purpose and scope, and the endeavor to take from Israel her promises of earthly glory, and appropriate them over into this church period, has done more to swerve the church from the appointed course, than all other influences put together. It is not so much wealth, luxury, power, pomp, and pride that have served to deflect the church from her appointed course, as the notion, founded upon Israelitish promises, that the church is of the world, and that therefore, her mission is to improve this world. Promises which were given to Israel alone are quoted as justifying what we see all about us. The church, therefore, has failed to follow her appointed pathway of separation, holiness, heavenliness and testimony to an absent but coming Christ; she has turned aside from that purpose to the work of civilizing the world, building magnificent temples, and acquiring earthly power and wealth, and in this way, has ceased to follow in the footsteps of Him who had not where Peas His head. Did you ever put side by side the promises given to the church, and to Israel, and see how absolutely in contrast they are? It is impossible to mingle them.

The Jew was promised an earthly inheritance, earthly wealth, earthly honor, earthly power. The church is promised no such thing, but is pointed always to heaven as the place where she is to receive her rest and her reward.

The promise to the church is a promise of persecution, if faithful in this world, but a promise of a great inheritance and reward hereafter. In the meantime, she is to be a pilgrim body, passing through this scene, but not abiding ‘here:

Again, the church is to be a witnessing body. In the 1st chapter of Acts, 8th verse, we have these words:

“But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.”

That is the commission the church received, to witness for Christ; yet to-day, there are 800,000,000 beings on this earth who never heard of Christ. Who are we that we should point the finger of scorn to Israel and say that Israel failed? After 1900 years we are a great church, with an open Bible, and boundless wealth, yet so faithless that 800,000,000 of human beings on this earth have never heard of Christ or the Bible!

In the New Testament we have the history of the church ‘down to the year 96. Let us see, briefly, what that history is. In the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we have the birth of the church, and oh, how beautiful she was in her first freshness of faith! It was a lovely manifestation of / simplicity, unselfishness, holiness and power. We pass on but a few years, and in the Epistles to the Corinthians, what do we find? Paul writes, “I hear there are divisions among you; one saith I am of Paul; another Apollos, another

Cephas, another of Christ.” You see, already, before the apostles had departed from the scene, there had come in divisions. They began then, and they have never ceased. Let me point you to the more than 320 sects in America to-day. Further on we find heresies coming in to defile the faith of the church. In the second and third chapters of Revelation, we have the condition of the church at that time; full of works still, but fallen from first love. In these very chapters of Revelation may also be found prophecies concerning the church which now, alas, have become, in greater part, history.

After Ephesus, A. D. 96, comes the period of persecution. For 300 years the church was in awful suffering. Then came a great change. The Emperor Constantine professed conversion, and Christianity became the court religion. Then the tables were turned and the church began to persecute. And, of all things she should never have done, she turned persécutrix of the Jews. The church, saved by faith in the Messiah who came from the Jews; having in her hand a Bible which was written by the Jews; receiving her teaching solely and only through Jewish sources, became, for 1,000 years, the bitter, relentless, bloody persecutor of Judaism. With that came worldliness and priestly assumption, and the Dark Ages. Then in the fifteenth century, came the Reformation out of which have come Protestant movements of various kinds. The Bible was put into the hands of the people, and has been translated into many tongues. With an open Bible came light and liberty again, but never union again. On the contrary, division followed division; sect followed sect. I know, of course, that there is a substantial unity in doctrine amongst the churches. The great body of the churches believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, but they have turned aside the greater part of their resources, to the attempt to reform the world, to educate the world, and, in short, to anticipate the next dispensation in which those things belong, and to do now the work that is distinctly set apart for restored and converted Israel,

We shall never succeed in doing it. Oh, that the church might come back to her own mission, leaving to the next age that which is appointed for it. Oh, that we might take up the one commission which we have received, to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

IV. It now remains for me to point out, in conclusion, the destiny — the final end — of the true church of God on earth. It is found in many places, but very distinctly and compactly in the first Epistle to the Thessalonians, fourth chapter. Here we have the.end of the true church on earth. I do not say the end of the vast mass of profession that calls itself Christian but is not.

“For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them

in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

I believe that that day is drawing very near. Oh that in the last remnant of time, before we hear the shout of our descending Lord and rise to meet him in the air, we might come back with holiness of heart to the simplicity-of our mission, the evangelization of the world! Dear friends, let us leave the government of the woild till the King comes; let us leave the civilizing of the world to be the incidental effect of the presence there of the / gospel of Christ, and let us give our time, our strength, our money, our days to the mission distinctively committed to the church, namely; to make Christ known “tolevery creature,”

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