“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” (Matt. 16:18).
This is the first reference to the word ekklhsia, ekklesia, i.e. “church” in the New Testament. The word comes from the lips of Jesus and involves his personal building of the church; namely “my church” (Matt. 16:18). It is stated in the Old Testament, “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it” (Ps. 127:1). While this particular passage in the psalm refers directly to building the family, the church is a family in a spiritual sense (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15). It behooves all serious Bible students to ponder deeply and carefully into the mind of deity to see what are the real sensibilities of God toward the church. What does the church mean to God?
1. The Purpose of God from Eternity. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him” (Eph. 3:10-12). Any who would say that the church was a mere afterthought in the mind of God due to the rejection of the Jews concerning Jesus and the kingdom cannot harmonize that position with Paul’s definitive declaration here. The church is nothing more and nothing less than the very product of what God had in mind from eternity. Before time and space, the eternal purpose of God was to bring the church into the world through the work of Jesus. Those beings in heavenly places know that. It is important for all mankind to know that. The Old Testament is replete with citations of God’s purpose to establish the kingdom through the coming of the Messiah (cf. Dan. 2:44; 7:13-14). That kingdom is realized in the church, the kingdom of heaven (cf. Matt. 16:18-19; Col. 1:13; Rev. 1:9). What does deity think of the church? It is the essence of the eternal purpose of God.
2. The Purchased Possession Through His Son. Paul stated to the elders from Ephesus, “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). What value does God place upon the church? The blood of Christ is the answer. One must value the church from this vantage point and never despise what God values.
3. The Pillar and Ground of the Truth. Paul wrote to Timothy, “But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). The God of truth (cf. Deut. 32:4) expects his people to “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15), loving while it “Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth” (1 Cor. 13:6), to “speak every man truth with his neighbour” (Eph. 4:25) and many other activities tied to truth with like passages of reference. Each lost soul which came to the saved relationship with God became purified “in obeying the truth” (1 Peter 1:22). One is sanctified by the truth, which is the word of God (cf. John 17:17). Therefore, the church is to continue to have “the love of the truth, that they might be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10).
Jimmy Clark