The Call and Purpose of The Church

The formation of the Christian Church is the predominant theme of the New Testament. The major part of the four Gospels contains the teachings Jesus gave his disciples to fit them for their role as the founding members of his Church; the Book of Acts relates the early history of its establishment in the Jewish and Greek worlds by the ministry of St. Paul, the Epistles concentrate upon instructions and exhortation relative to the Christian life, and Revelation pictures the ultimate triumph of the Church when its enemies have been overthrown and the object of its calling achieved. This latter factor, the object, and purpose of the Church, is one to which singularly little importance has been attached in contemporary theology, but it is one a clear understanding of which is vitally necessary to every dedicated Christian. The common practice of referring to any individual Christian denomination or organisation with its full membership—or to all of them jointly as "the Church" and equating their membership rolls with that of the "Church of the Firstborn, whose names are written in Heaven," (Heb.12:23 NIV) obscures the fact that from the New Testament point of view the Church includes only those believers in Christ who have consecrated themselves completely to his service by a dedicated life in the positive knowledge that by so doing they are being conformed to his likeness. Such will be associated with him in the eventual evangelising and reconciliation of the world. The Church is a "called out" people, its members those who find their vocation in the service of God, and identify themselves completely with his purpose to eliminate evil from the world and persuade all who can be persuaded to come into harmony with him and take their appointed place in his creation. This is the meaning of the declaration of James at the first Council of Jerusalem "God…visited the nations to take out of them a people for his Name." (Acts 15:14 WEB) The general evangelical appeal to all, exhorting to conversion and reconciliation, goes on after the completion of the Church, and in fact this completion is the signal for an immensely intensified and widened scope of that appeal, for at its completion, the Church is joined with its Lord in heaven and invested with enhanced powers which can never be its possession on earth.

This is the truth that lies behind the many Scriptural allusions to the reign of the saints with Christ, the "marriage of the Lamb," (Rev.19:7) and so on. "In the regeneration" said Jesus "when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." (Matt.19:28) Regeneration here means the giving of new life; the function of the Church is to be the medium of that new life to humanity; the thrones of judgment symbolise the Divine authority with which the Church will execute that duty. "They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years" (Rev.20:4) says the Revelator, assigning this process in time to the Millennial reign of Christ following his Advent. St. Paul had the same idea in mind when he reminded the Corinthian believers "do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?" (1 Cor.6:2) The Christian life therefore is not merely a means whereby the individual can assure their personal salvation and attain the felicity of a future life when this one is ended; it is a vocation which must be entered with dedicated loyalty to God in whatever path He indicates is his will, and for the acquirement of qualifications which will fit the individual for continued and increased active service for God in that next life. The Church is a "people for a purpose," "called according to his purpose" (1 Pet.2:9 Diaglott; Rom.8:28), and the recognition of that purpose is essential to one who would "follow the Lamb wherever he goes." (Rev.14:4 Diaglott)

An apparently casual remark of St. Paul extends this purpose to fields of activity beyond the human race. "Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" he asks (1 Cor.6:3) The fact of, and the nature of, sin in the celestial world is only hinted at in the Scriptures, but that there is a time of trial and judgment yet to come for certain celestial beings as well as for humanity is clearly stated several times. Christ is definitely to "reconcile all things unto himself…whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven." (Col.1:20) It is unthinkable that Divine creative activity will ever come to an end, and the eternally close association with the Father and the Son promised to those who make their "calling and election sure" (2 Pet.1:10) is sufficient ground for expecting that the Church will play an important part in the execution of the Creator’s future plans, whatever they may be.

Many notable Christian thinkers and writers have realised the importance of this element of future purpose in the call of the Church and have left their thoughts on record. Space permits of only some quotations.

"We are to be priests and kings. There are vast spaces in the universe that may have to be evangelised or ruled or influenced for righteousness. It may be that important spheres of ministry are needing those to fill them who have learned the secret of victory over the power of Satan. Earth may be the school, the training ground, the testing place for the servants and soldiers of the hereafter. If it became him to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering, it stands to reason that his comrades and soldiers must pass through the same, that having overcome they may sit with him on his Throne." (F. B. Meyer: "The Call and Challenge of the Unseen" 1928)

"We know not what great works in respect to the future our Creator may have in view...but we do know...the promise is ours that we shall be like him and see him as He is, and share his glory. Whatever, therefore, shall be the future activities of the… ‘heirs of all things’ we shall be with him and share his work...The sacrificing...will be at an end, the reigning, the ruling, the blessing, the assisting, will all have begun and they will be entirely competent to accomplish the Divine promise; namely, that all the families of the earth shall be blessed, through whom ‘whosoever will’ may come back into full harmony with the Creator and his laws." (C.T. Russell: "The New Creation" p70‑72 1904)

"Not for our own sakes alone should we long for the return of our Lord and Saviour, but that the earth, now groaning and travailing in pain, may be delivered from the curse. Christ has already in his own Person triumphed over the serpent, and He now waits only for the completion of the company of joint heirs that shall rule with him. It is an idle dream which now possesses so many that the Church is to bring in the Kingdom in the absence of the King. It is inconsistent with the foretold humiliation and sorrow of the Church during the whole of this dispensation in which she is to walk in his footsteps and be perfected by the fellowship of his sufferings. The one great hope for the whole creation, towards which, blindly and unconsciously, all are reaching forward, is the ‘marriage of the Lamb.’ It is the hope of the Bride, who shall then be one with the Lord in all his glory, and power, and fullness of blessing." (William Andrews c.1850)

"When the Gospel is preached again, it may be that Christ will not be the only preacher. If we are of those who have been chosen and redeemed, it may be that we shall be the happy messengers of God’s love and mercy to those who are still being purged from their sins, thus entering at once into the eternal passion of God and into the redeeming work of Christ; thus afflicted, like the Father, in all the sins and afflictions of the unrighteous. It may be through our ministry that the purpose of God will be accomplished. God grant that it may be so, for that surely would be an infinitely diviner service and reward than to sit, clothed in white raiment, striking harps of gold." (Dr. Samuel Cox: "Salvator Mundi" 1877)

The standards set for those who would attain entry into the company of the Church are high. That is only to be expected if its future mission is anything like that suggested above. The first and essential requirement is unreserved dedication to the service of God, of complete and wholehearted consecration of life, possessions, abilities, everything, to him, to be henceforth administered as a stewardship in his interests. That is what St. Paul had in mind when he exhorted "I beseech you, therefore, brethren... that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice…which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Rom.12:1‑2) He touches here on the basic principle of the dedicated life—our transformation from earthly‑mindedness to heavenly‑mindedness by a process of renewal which is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (creation): old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (2 Cor.5:17) It is to illustrate this truth that the New Testament so many times depicts the entry into this "new life" as a dying to earthly things and a raising again to heavenly things. "We are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." (Rom.6:4) "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." (Col.3:3) The consecrated believer is of necessity dead, not only to evil things of this world which are to be repudiated anyway, but also to many good things of this world, honourable and elevating and benevolent and useful interests, purely on account of his life’s dedication to God which fills his hands and his time with active service for God in the world. The very meaning of the word "consecration," which is an Old Testament term, is "to fill the hands." Hence it quickly becomes true of the believer aspiring to inclusion in the Church and ultimate association with Christ in his glory and work that, as Jesus said of such, "they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." (John 17:14) That might appear to the onlookers as a spirit of exclusiveness, or denoting indifference to the troubles and necessities of society, but it is not really so. The consecrated Christian life is tantamount to the position of the medical student or other aspirant to a profession who willingly gives up much of life’s ordinary interests during their youth that they might undergo the training, the instruction, the discipline, necessary to fit themselves for their intended vocation. Thus, it is with those who would be members of the Church of Christ.

The eventual home of those who thus "endure to the end" and receive "an abundant entrance into the Kingdom" is Heaven. That, of course, is always the hope of every Christian. Ideas as to the nature and location of Heaven vary from individual to individual and much depends upon one’s personal interpretation of the symbolic imagery of the Scriptures. The modern idea that Heaven is a "state" rather than a "place" means, when analysed, just nothing. We are living beings needing an environment in which to live our lives and a means of contact with that environment, which is provided by our bodies. "Heaven" is clearly defined in the Scriptures as another world, another sphere of being, in which we shall exist as individuals as truly as now, having communion with fellow‑beings and activities relevant to an environment just as truly as now. But the nature of that life and the conditions of that sphere are transcendently superior to those we know now. Paraphrasing the cogent reasoning of Paul in 1 Cor.15, there is a terrestrial world and terrestrial body, and a celestial world and celestial body. As we now bear the image of the terrestrial, we shall then bear the image of the celestial. But since terrestrial flesh and blood cannot enter the celestial world, being of a different order of creation, we must, at the time of entry, be changed from terrestrial beings to celestial beings. The nature of that change is incomprehensible to us, for as John says in 1 John 3:2 "it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." In another vivid picture—2 Cor.5:1‑4—St. Paul likens the earthly body to a house, an earthly house, in which we live temporarily while looking forward to a celestial house which God is building for us in Heaven. With a swift transition of symbol, he changes his thought to a set of clothing; in our desiring that which is from Heaven we do not wish to be "unclothed" but to exchange our present inadequate garments for the better ones which Heaven provides. In no clearer fashion could Paul have indicated the radical nature of the change that takes place when at the end of our earthly experience the terrestrial body is discarded and returns to its dust, and we are "clothed upon" with the celestial body with all its enhanced powers and attributes. As Paul so eloquently puts it, "that mortality might be swallowed up of life." (2 Cor.5:4)

The fact that the Church, thus developed, completed, and "changed" to celestial conditions, is then to be the Divine instrument in the final and crucial era of world evangelisation implies that there must be a time limit to the "call of the Church." There is a point in human history after which entry into the Church will no longer be possible because the Church is complete and God is ready to speak his final word to the "residue of mankind." "The earnest expectation of the creature (creation)" said Paul "waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God" (Rom.8:19) and in this pithy sentence he enshrines the truth that the promised era of Christ’s reign over the world with its progressive elimination of evil cannot begin until his Church is joined to him and ready to take part in this work. Hence the many Scriptural allusions which insist that the first work of the Lord at his Advent is to gather to himself his entire Church and only then reveal himself to the world and commence his reign.

It is this consummation of the hope of the Church which is depicted as a royal marriage—the Church is the Bride of the Lamb, to use the symbolism of Revelation, and the time of the wedding feast has come. At this climax in human history the heavenly chorus is depicted singing "Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth…for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready." (Rev.19:6‑7) Immediately following this wedding feast the symbols change; the Lamb becomes a militant and avenging rider upon a white horse, issuing forth from Heaven to wage battle upon, and defeat, the massed evil forces of earth; the Bride becomes the "armies of Heaven," following him and sharing in the work that must be done.

The Christian gospel has been preached in the world for two thousand years. The commission given to the first disciples was "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation" (Mark 16:15 ASV) "You will be witnesses to me" Jesus told them "to the uttermost parts of the earth." (Acts 1:8 WEB) True to that injunction, the evangel of Christ has been carried by word of mouth or by printed page to every part of the inhabited earth, although not all of the earth’s millions have accepted or even heard it. It must be noted that Jesus did not say they would; his disciples were to be witnesses to him and to declare his word in a world‑wide manner and this they have done. But this has not been an increasingly successful campaign in consequence of which the whole world has ultimately become Christian, and with no reverses. In some lands the missionary work of one period has had its successes completely blotted out in a later period. Much of the present‑day Muslim world was predominantly Christian in the early Middle Ages; large Christian populations existed in China and other parts of Asia and in North Africa in the sixth to eighth centuries. Even the Western world, where Christianity is nominally accepted, is increasingly rejecting the faith. One might say, hastily, that the two thousand years of preaching has been a failure and the intention of Christ not realised. But there has been no failure. Jesus himself indicated that upon his return at the end of this Age lack of faith in him would still be a prominent factor in the world situation. The most effective result of the witness has been the call and selection of the Church; that work has proceeded throughout the past centuries quietly, unostentatiously, and yet effectively, in full harmony with the Divine intent. With that aspect of the Divine plan an accomplished fact, God will turn to the nations which has yet known him not or will not have him, with the full force of his persuasive power, exerted through the agency of this same Church. Those who have trodden the dark paths themselves will be the ones best fitted to lead sin‑sick humanity into the green pastures and by the still waters of the Divine goodness. So, it will become literally, true that "the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together" (Isa.40:5) and the triumph of the Church be realised.

AOH