THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. NO. 2.
As we learned last week the church of Christ is not confined to one age or dispensation, but is contemporaneous with the Gospel. The church of Christ is continuous from the time she was espoused a chaste virgin to her Lord. When John saw her at the beginning of the Christian dispensation she had then for five centuries been travailing for the conquering Son. The very word rendered “church,” ekklesia, means those “regularly summoned” through all the ages, and it is so used in the Old Testament Greek Scriptures. The One who calls them is “the God of all grace.” 1 Peter 5:10. He calls through Jesus Christ, who thus writes: “Come unto Me.” “And the spirit and the bride say, Come.” All heaven is interested in the work of calling as well as all who have partaken of the spirit of heaven. All are called, yea, even all who have “sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Rom. 3:23. “I came not to call the righteous,” says Jesus, “but sinners.” “Even us whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.” Rom. 9:24. God calls all; He therefore certainly calls you, whoever you are. Before sin entered, there was none occasion to call us. But now He calls us out of the world, out of sin and darkness and woe and misery and death. “Who hath called you out of darkness” (1 Peter 2:9); “I have chosen you out of the world” (John 15:19); “Wherefore come out from among them [the unbelieving, the unrighteous, the children of darkness, the idolators], and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you” (2 Cor. 6:17); “Come out of her [Babylon], My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4). This does not mean that the called of God shall not mingle with the unbelieving, with the idolator, with the worldling; it is his work, his duty, his privilege, to remain in this world for a season, among the people of the world; but he is to be actuated by a different spirit, different aims, objects, purposes. This is shown by the means which God uses to call him out of the world, and the work and station to which He calls him. The voice which calls the sinner, the weary pilgrim of earth, is “the Gospel of God.” “He called you by our Gospel” (2 Thess. 2:14); and “called me by His grace” (Gal. 1:15), “the Gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24); God calls to repent, “and believe the Gospel” (Mark 1:15); and His Gospel ever testifies, “Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). How blessed is God’s wondrous invitation to a race of rebels. Not to take a certain definite name, not call ourselves the elect and all others reprobate, not to an ancient and superstitious creed, not to prescribe ritual or ceremony, not to a certain mountain or city or temple or tomb, not to a certain line of priests or succession of priests according to the flesh. It calls us all to better things. It calls us out of sin “to be saints” (Rom. 1:7); called out of the fellowship of the world, “unto the fellowship of His son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9). From the strife and unrest of sin, “God hath called us to peace” (1 Cor. 7:15); from bondage He has “called unto liberty” (Gal. 5:13); “not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness” (1 Thess. 4:7); “called us with an holy calling” (2 Tim. 1:9); “called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:7); called from the infamy of sin “unto His eternal glory” (ch. 5:10); “called you unto His kingdom and glory” (1 Thess. 2:12); and thus being separated from sin, and by His grace translating us “into the kingdom of His dear Son” (Col. 1:13), He calls us “sons and daughters” (2 Cor. 6:18), “sons of God” (1 John 3:2): “and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:17); “fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19); whose “citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subject all things unto Himself” (Phil. 3:20, 21). He calls us to the keeping of the “commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:12. This is the church of God, the called-out-ones by His Gospel unto Himself, separate from the world unto Himself; separate from sin unto holiness. Those who heed that call, the “regularly summoned” ones, according to God’s Word, in each age form the church for that age. Making the Call Effectual.
He who responds to that multiform call to the end makes his “calling and election sure.” But it inevitably follows that he who will not accept of God’s call, who will not let the Gospel of the grace of God work out the sin and work in the righteousness, can not be a citizen of God’s kingdom. He is not one of the called-out of God; he is not a member of the church of God. The church to which he belongs may be called by man, “The Church of God,” or “The Church of Christ,” or “The Church of the Apostles,” or “The Christian Church,” or “The Holy Catholic Church,” or the “Methodist” or “Baptist” or “Adventist Church;” the name of the church will not make him a citizen of heaven or a called-out one from the world; for a man may nominally belong to any ecclesiastical body, and yet be as much of the world as one who believes in no church whatever. It must also inevitably follow that he who once yielded to God’s call, but who turned from the path of right, and in time of trial preferred, and walked in, his own way and the way of the world instead of that of God, would by thus doing take himself out from among the called-out ones, the church, and become one of the world, wherever his name might be enrolled. And this is as true of a church or body of such persons as it is of the individual. “Many are called, but few are chosen,” because the many will not submit to God’s call. It means something to be called of God. No greater honor could come to the child of earth. No greater privilege and blessing could come to him than to be one of those “citizens” which the King of Heaven regularly summons. [In our next we will inquire as to the Head of the Church, the Gifts of the Church, and the Test of the Church].