What is the Church?

“This leads us to the second question, an all-important question, What is the church? No-one can answer such a question fully in a few minutes, but we can look at  the picture which the New Testament affords us, and find there the central important truth. The name given to the place of worship very often by our forefathers was Meeting House. It was a good name. But the question which arises today is, For what reason are we meeting? We have already seen that many think the church is a place where people meet together on Sunday, in a public religious service, but they also insist that they should meet one another during the week to speak together, to debate, to listen to lectures on all sorts of topics, to play together, to perform plays, to dance, and so on. The church, they say, should do all these things, more especially in order to entice the young people and to keep hold of them.  Now, the important question is not what we think about these things in and of themselves, but does the church have anything to do with such matters? 

What is the church in the New Testament?

There is only one answer to that question – a fellowship of saints.  What we see there is a number of people coming together for a special purpose. Who are those people? What brings them together? What is the common interest which is so strong in their hearts, that they often endanger their lives in order to be present at such meetings? They are people who are very different from others, people, according to the apostle Paul, who have been pulled out from the world and divorced from society; people who have proved things which the world knows nothing about; people who have had an experience of God’s grace in the Lord Jesus Christ, people who have come to see that the most important thing in life is a knowledge of God, in a relationship in accord with His commandments. They have seen their pitiful, desperate state before God, but they have also seen God forgiving all of their sins in Jesus Christ. They are aware of a new life and an uplifting power which makes them more than conquerors – even when face to face with the temptations and trials of life. 

Everything is new to them, and they see life in this world as a pilgrimage towards God and heaven. They do not scorn the world, but they do not live for it, or because of it, either. ‘For here have we no continuing city,’ they say, ‘but we seek one to come’ (Hebrews 13:14). They meet together – for what reason? To worship God, to praise His blessed Name, to thank Him for the grace which has led to the forgiveness of sins, and for new life in Christ.  They meet together also so that they may know Him better and come to understand His providence more perfectly. They hunger and thirst after righteousness. They also thirst for the sincere milk of the Word, and listen to it being proclaimed. They feel a strong urge to meet with one another, in order that they may exchange experiences, that they might help one another to unravel many a problem, and that they should stimulate one another to go forward. They all have the same basic experience, they are all traveling in the same direction. They feel, therefore, that ‘the company of brothers who have their faces set towards that country is sweet’. A church is a place where they recite “His faithfulness to them in the burning desert’ and where they love to speak about ‘journey’s end’. This is the picture which we have in the New Testament, the portrayal which has been a hundredfold since then in the life of the church. The church portrays a collection of people, of whom it can be said: ‘But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light’ ( 1 Peter 2:9). No-one else has a right to be a member of the society.

What can we do then? Above all else we would see that the first step is not to bring down the standard of church membership, but to raise it. We must grasp once again the idea of church membership as being the membership of the body of Christ and as the biggest honour which can come a man’s way in this world. Through discipline, we must lay great acclaim on membership of the society and we must re-emphasize the truth that God gives the Holy Spirit only ‘to those who obey him’ (Acts 5:32). The need is not for widening the appeal, but to proclaim that ‘strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life’ (Matthew 7:14). 

This means possibly that many will shy away from the churches and will leave them; and from the point of view of statistics and accounts and collections everything looks hopeless, and those who try to keep the churches alive are afraid. But as sure as that, the Lord’s word will be verified: ‘whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it’ (Luke 9:24). Like Paul in Athens long ago, we must realize that our work is not to argue about the truth but to declare it and proclaim it with authority. We are not just to get people to take an interest in the truth, and to appeal to their minds only; that is not our business, but rather to awaken their consciences by proclaiming God’s judgment on sin, and God’s wrath against ‘all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men’ (Romans 1:18), and to warn them to flee from the wrath that is to come. We must convict men of the truth of the extreme importance of the spiritual side to life, of an everlasting world and everlasting destiny. No-one will see the need of the Lord Jesus Christ as a Saviour but the person who has seen himself as lost before God, and the only true motive to live a moral and worthy life is thankfulness to God and the realization that one day we will stand before Him.

We must realize that the state of the world is such that nothing but the power of the Holy Spirit can cure it, and we must feel this to such an extent that we are brought down upon our knees to pray to God in His mercy to look down upon us in pity, and for His great name, that He should send a mighty revival among us. That is the only way, that is the only hope, because with men it is impossible, but not with God, for ‘with God, all things are possible’ (Matthew 19:16)."

Lloyd-Jones, David Martyn. "Religion Today and Tomorrow." Knowing the Times: Addresses Delivered on Various Occasions 1942-1977. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2013. 27-31. Print.