From The New Dictionary of Biblical Theology :
Although the church is often thought to be a human institution, a social arrangement to facilitate the interests and mission of like-minded people, as indeed it is, the Bible presents it as primarily a consequence of the character and purposes of the trinitarian God. Its origins lie in God’s desire to have a people of his own (Deut. 7:6). It is a community of those who acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord (1 Cor. 12:3). It is a fellowship where the Holy Spirit lives (1 Cor. 3:16), directing and energizing its community life.
Throughout this most interesting discussion stimulated by George Barna’s Revolution, has been a thread about the difference, priority and relatedness of the “Big C” universal, invisible, “catholic” Church and the “little c” local congregation. The assumption, even for those who take Barna to task for abandoning the local church, is that when in comes right down to it, in the New Testament, the Big C Church is really the point. That what Jesus meant when he said things like “Upon this rock I will build my church…” (Matt 16:18) and what Paul meant when he said things like, “(Jesus) is the head of the body the church…” (Col 1:18) is primarily—and maybe solely—about the Big C Church.
To them the point of the “ecclesia” or “gathering” (or “called out ones” as some like to translate the word that is usually simply, “church”) is not the “gathering” at all. For them, the point is that God is calling out of society individuals who will respond to Jesus Christ in faith and acknowledge his Lordship so that they may be connected--even “ingrafted”--mysteriously, both Jew and Gentile, as the one people of God, the one Body of Christ, the one universal, invisible, catholic, Church.
And they are partly right.
There is no doubt that in the New Testament the great mystery (Eph. 3:5-6) is how God is making of many tribes and peoples and races—both Jew and Gentile—one people that is his presence on earth, the Body of Christ, “incarnation” of the Triune God in Jesus. But, in every instance, the point, the radical—yes, revolutionary—point of that mystical “Big C” Church is that it is present in each "little c" church and that the way each church lives together is the witness not only to the presence of the "Big C", but of the Triune God's own presence.
For the New Testament writers, one is saved, joined to Christ and joins the (Big C) Church by confessing faith and being baptized into the (little c) church (Acts 2:41-47). The primary point of the church of the New Testament ISN’T that everyone who makes a personal commitment to Jesus is part of some mystical universal, catholic church, but that every true church in every place is the Universal Church for that particular locale. The Spirit is the gift given to the church and passed on through the fellowship of believers, not what individual Christians bring to a gathering. One receives the Holy Spirit by trusting Christ and joining God's people in a specific church through baptism.
Ecclesia is not a collection of distinct “called out” individuals but an intentionally social and covenantal gathering, that is distinct because the people have no earthly reason to be committed to each other except for the work of God in Jesus, making them one body, one family, one people—both with each other and in a wonderful way linked to every other "gathering."
Never does Paul address individual Christians and tell them anything like “stop going to church and be the church”. Instead over and over again, Paul and the other New Testament writers tell small gatherings of Christians that they ARE the church and that in the way they act together they should BE the church--together. Again, the emphasis of the New Testament is not on the mystery of how believers all belong to the “Big C” church, but the mystery and wonder that every “little c” church with all it’s foibles and faults is the Big C Church for a particular place and time. The New Dictionary of Biblical Theology again:
There is little reason to believe that Paul thought of the church as some abstract or other-worldly entity. When he uses the term ‘the church’ generically, as he does in 1 Corinthians 10:32; 15:9; Galatians 1:13, he is referring to all the Christians on earth, to the entire Christian community which finds expression in many varied local congregations. But the one is never disconnected from the other after the manner of Platonic substance and form.
While Barna and the Revolutionaries may indeed be experiencing a heightened and more fulfilling form of Christian community with other likeminded souls (a real problem that I will address in a later post), they miss the even greater point of the New Testament understanding of the BIG C church. That is, the absurd surprise that the local church—with all it’s foibles and faults, boring people and hypocrites, wheat and weeds (Matthew 13:24-30), “puny man preachers” (Calvin), and oh-so-humanness—is the very presence of the Triune God on earth.
If, of course, it is a true church. Which is where we will pick up next post.
A bonus for you...
