26. —The Church, The House And The Body.
As we publish this month a special Article upon the Body, our remarks will be but brief.
We observe at the outset, from the fourth division of this subject, that the church of God is also Christ’s body, and is also the house of God. These three words are therefore in a measure interchangeable: we will proceed to point out one or two distinctive points.
The church is not composed of members, but of saints, called of God (1 Corinthians 1:22Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours: (1 Corinthians 1:2)). There is but one church of God, composed of all who in every place call upon the Lord Jesus, both theirs and ours. Local churches of a city or place are also spoken of, but all the saints form but part of the one church of God. This church was still future when Matthew 16:1818And 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. (Matthew 16:18) was spoken. Christ is its head: He loves it, and treats it as His Bride.
The body is composed of members. The only membership in scripture is of the Body of Christ, and of one another. The one loaf at the Lord’s Supper is figurative of this one body, just as the broken loaf is figurative of our Lord’s body. There is but one body, in which every member of Christ has his foreordained place. The great aim for a Christian is to seek to know what this is, in order that, if a hand, he may not be seeking to do the work of a foot, or vice versa. There are no local “bodies,” as there are local assemblies or churches. By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. Christ the head, and the members the body, are together called “the Christ,” in 1 Corinthians 12.
The house is composed of living stones, and of these only, when regarded as God’s building, as in Ephesians and 1 Peter. In 1 Corinthians 3, where men build, although the house is God’s, that which is not of value, which will not stand the fire, may enter into its composition—wood, hay, stubble.
In 2 Timothy the simile of “a great house” is used; but we no longer hear of the house of God at all, so great is the corruption.
We may note that, while the “church at Corinth” might contain in like manner some who were mere professors, the “ church which is His body” never could. Hence we might say, that in scripture the body is never spoken of as containing any but real believers; the church spoken of locally might contain others; and the house, in its present aspect, actually does.
The second part into which the subject is divided anticipates any remark we might make, by giving an epitome of the church’s history in the words of scripture. We read of the church of God, of the body of Christ, and of the house as the habitation of God through the Spirit. This threefold aspect of believers collectively is thus connected with the Trinity.
We can find no warrant in the scriptures collected by the Class for dating the beginning of the church, the body, or the house, before the day of Pentecost.