What is the Church? By Robert P. Mills The Presbyterian Layman Volume 33, Number 4 Posted August 4, 2000 What is the Church? Note the question carefully. It is not, Who belongs to the Church, or How should the Church be structured, or What is the role of the Church in the world? These and other related questions are indeed important, but none can receive a satisfactory answer unless we first understand what the Church is. A people called by God “Church” comes from the German kirche, which in turn derives from the Greek kyriakon, meaning “of the Lord.” However, in English translations of the New Testament, the Greek word normally translated “church” is ekklesia, which combines the verb kaleo, “to call,” with the prefix ek, meaning “from.” Paul often speaks of “the church of God,” which sets this group of people apart from secular gatherings and indicates that the Church is a people created by and belonging to God. Thus an initial answer to the question “What is the Church?” is “a people who are called by God.” Since the act of God in calling out his people and founding the Church is mediated by Jesus Christ, we cannot understand what the Church is without knowing who Jesus is. So we must understand the person and work of Jesus Christ, fully God and fully human, who became incarnate to restore the sin-ruptured relationship between God and his human creation. The connection between Christ and the Church is especially visible in Ephesians and Colossians, in which statements about the Church become statements about Christ, particularly as this connection is expressed when the Church is called “the body of Christ” (Eph. 1:22-23; 4:11-15; Col. 1:24; 3:15). The body of Christ To say that the Church is the body of Christ is to say that it is not primarily an organization or institution but a living organism, one made up of many parts that relate to and depend on one another (I Cor. 12:12-27), all of which have Jesus Christ as their head (Eph. 5:23; Col. 1:18) and depend on him for their growth (Col. 2:19). “Calling the church the body of Christ,” writes Wolfhart Pannenberg, “is no mere metaphor nor is it just one of the Biblical ways of depicting the nature of the church. Instead, the realism of the inseparable union of believers with Christ that finds expression in the idea of the church as the body of Christ is basic to an understanding of the church.” Although “the body of Christ” describes the basic character and nature of the Church, and although the body can never be separated from Christ even though it must not be confused with Christ, the body can at times act in ways that are contrary to its nature. Consider, for example, the church at Corinth which, within the lifetime of those who had walked with the incarnate Jesus, was being pulled apart by its own members. Is Christ divided? “Is Christ divided?” Paul asked the rapidly factionalizing Corinthian Christians (I Cor. 1:13). His question is rhetorical, requiring a negative answer. If Christ is not divided, and if the Church is the body of Christ, can the Church be divided? Again, the answer must be no. The New Testament does not distinguish between congregation (the body of Christians gathered at a specific place) and Church (the totality of all Christians). The ekklesia is neither a secondary union of local congregations nor an organizational sub-unit of the one true Church. Rather, both the local assembly of Christians and the extended community of believers are the ekklesia. This Biblical understanding of the Church as one body speaks directly to a question causing great controversy today: Should I (or we) leave this church? One may, for a variety of reasons, leave a particular congregation or denomination. (And that is usually the question underlying discussions of “leaving the church.”) Unfortunately, lack of precision concerning the meaning and use of such words as “church,” “congregation,” and “denomination” has resulted in much confusion on this topic. Some have suggested that “leaving the church” is schismatic, a tearing apart of the body of Christ, and therefore sinful. However, if the Church is the body of Christ, and if the body of Christ is indivisible, then leaving the Church is not a sin but an oxymoron. For at no point in the process of changing congregations or denominations does one cease to be a member of the body of Christ. All Christians at all times are members of one body (Rom. 12:4-5; I Cor. 12:27). Like the existence of individual congregations, the existence of varied denominations does not compromise that unity. The Church is not constituted by the time, place or style of its worship. It is not defined by a congregational, episcopal or presbyterian form of governance. The Church is now what it always has been and eternally will be: the people called by God, the body of Christ. What is the Church? As the called out people of God, the body of Christ, the Church is first and foremost a theological – not anthropological, sociological or political – entity. Therefore the question “What is the Church?” ultimately must be answered in terms of God and our divinely initiated relationship with him. The Church is the visible, earthly expression of the people of God, whose true home is heaven. Since God’s call to Abram there has been a people of God. Since Jesus’ resurrection the people of God have been the body of Christ. Because it has been formed by God and forms a single society with the citizens of heaven, the Church transcends history while remaining concretely historical. The Church is the whole communion of persons called by God the Father to acknowledge the Lordship of his Son Jesus, in word and sacrament, in witness and in service, and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to collaborate with Jesus’ mission for the sake of the Kingdom of God. The Church is one, just as there is only one God, one faith, one baptism, one hope. Individual congregations are in communion among themselves because in Christ they are in community with God. These truths, which merely hint at the depth of the realities they convey, are both temporal and spiritual. They are seen only in part. They remain objects of hope. One day they will be realized in a richness that exceeds our comprehension. In the next issue of The Presbyterian Layman we will consider such issues as the marks of the Church and possible responses when a congregation or denomination fails to exhibit those marks.

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