Christ and the Church
by Foy E.
Wallace, Jr. (deceased)
“For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.” (Ephesians 5:23)
There is a common sentiment that it makes no difference what church one belongs to, if any at all and that church membership is not essential to salvation. So the indifferentism of “join the church of your choice,’ as though God had none, is age-old in religious nomenclature. Such expressions can only be viewed as a sort of “pious profanity” by those who know and believe what the Bible says about the church.
Jesus built the church; he died for it and purchased it with his blood; ransomed and redeemed it; washed and cleansed it. He is the Saviour of it and he will come again to own and claim it. Yet we are told that it is a very “non- essential” thing.
There are only two senses in which the church can be scripturally viewed. First, the comprehensive, or universal, sense, to include all the saved of the earth—all who have obeyed the gospel. Second, the limited, or local, sense, to include all Christians, or saved people in a particular place described and limited by geographical terms. The denominational idea does not fit either case. A denomination is smaller than the whole church, but larger than a local church in that it is composed of many local churches of the same faith and order; therefore, a denomination is both too large and too small to be scriptural.
It is admitted that one can be
saved without belonging to any denomination.
The Lord adds saved people to the church (Acts
The Church Is The
Body
Paul’s theme in the book of Ephesians is the church in its relation to Christ—Christ and the church. In the first chapter he compares the church to a body, with Christ as head (vv. 21-22) and in chapter four he declares that “there is one body” (v 4) ...in chapter five he compares Christ to the husband and the church to the wife (vv. 21-23). Hence, Paul’s view is, one head and one body—one husband and one wife.
Continuing his comparison, Paul
uses the family analogy God the Father, the church the family (Ephesians
If Christ would not accept Jew and Gentile in separate bodies, but united them that they should be “one fold and one shepherd,” what must be his attitude toward the spectacle of (more than) 200 denominational bodies today that dishonor his name and ignore his prayer? (John 17:20-21).
Salvation Is In The
Church
The idea that one is first saved by
some mystical or mystified, unintelligible or intangible process and afterwards
“joins some church” is a common religious delusion. Yet there is no truth more plainly emphasized
in the Bible than the fact that the process of being saved is the process of
entering the church (Acts
First, it is affirmed in Acts
Second, Paul makes the fact that
Christ is “the Savior of the body”
(Ephesians
Third, the relation between Christ
and the church is the same as that which exists between God and Christ. Christ is the “fullness” of God (Colossians
We exhort the unsaved to come to Christ, “gladly receive the word,” be “baptized into Christ,” and the Lord will add you to his church.