62 - Church as an Institution, Part 1

Well, welcome to the Striving for Eternity Academy. I am Andrew Rappaport, your instructor today, and this is part of a ministry of Striving for Eternity where you can find all the details about Striving for Eternity at strivingforeternity .org.

At that location, you can also pick up a syllabus. This is Systematic Theology, or the School of Systematic Theology, Book 4. This is a four-book series, or a four-class series, really, where we are going over all of Systematic Theology.

The Course Overview and the Doctrine of Last Things

And this will now start the last of the series of the four books, really four introductory classes. And that's really what these are, all the introductory classes. As we begin with this, we're going to look at, in this class, we're going to look at God's program for the ages, the doctrines of the church, and ooh, the doctrine of last things.

That's eschatology, for those that want to know that, that know that big term. Eschatology is the study of last things. You know, that's where everyone gets into their debates, you know, you hear the terms thrown out, pre-mill, post-mill, all-mill, and you go, what is this?

I thought a mill is where they cut wood. Well, the reality is, each of those have a differing view of what is to come. And we're going to look at those, and I understand that there's some that they really hold firm to what they believe, and they're willing to call anyone that disagrees with them, like even a heretic.

But the reality is, is that we're going to look at those, and we're going to look at each of the different views, I'm going to obviously tell you which one I think is biblical, doesn't mean I'm actually 100 right.

It just means that's what I think in my study of scriptures is the most biblical. But in that area, there's got to be room for allowing for one another to have differing views. Because, just like in the first coming, things were not as clear as it was afterwards, like for us, it's like, when Jesus came the first time, well, duh, look at all the fulfilled prophecy.

Yeah, it seems really clear when you're looking after the cross, in hindsight, when you're looking back at what already happened. But when you're looking forward, it's not always as clear. And when we get to some of those, you're going to see that we're going to have to have some give and take in these differing views.

But with that, this lesson, where we're going to start, is the doctrine of the church. So let's get a quick overview of what we're going to do through this introductory class. We're going to look at the doctrine of the church, we're going to look at the church as an institution, the people in the church, the church's government, which will be an interesting one.

We're going to get into different politics of how churches are organized. Then we're going to look at the ordinances of the church. And then we'll move from there into the study of last things. And with that, we're going to look at an understanding of what these last things are, we're going to look at the second advent of Christ, look at the events between the rapture and the return, which means I'm going to talk about this thing called the rapture.

And then we're going to talk about the millennium and eternal state. Right there, you kind of get a guess of where I'm going to be at, right? I'm talking about a millennium. We're going to talk about whether there is a millennium, whether there's not a millennium, whether it's literal, whether it's figurative, spiritual.

We're going to discuss all those things. But this lesson, and I do hope you have a syllabus. Did I mention that? I don't know if I mentioned that. But if you have a syllabus, go grab it. If you don't have a syllabus, I encourage you to go to store .strivingforeternity .org and pick one up from Striving for Eternity.

They are helpful for you to have a syllabus through these classes so that you can take notes, so that you can follow along. You'll see that throughout the class, I will have some fill-in-the-blanks for you so that you can, as we're going, look at the different passages and fill in blanks where we need.

The Church as an Institution: Definition, Origin, and Purpose

So, in this lesson, this is going to be lesson number one in book number four, and this is the church as an institution. And an all-important doctrine for believers to understand is the doctrine of the church.

What does it mean to have something called a church? In this lesson, we're going to examine the church as an institution by looking at its biblical definition of the church, the origin of the church, the pictures of the church that are used to portray the church, and the object of the church while on earth.

And so, we're going to go through this, and the reason I think this is important is because I have noticed, in some circles, a redefinition of the church, and many don't think about it that way. There is a book that came out recently that talks about the role of women in evangelism, specifically in a role of an evangelist called open-air evangelism or open-air preaching.

And the conclusion, apart from the conclusion, putting that aside, because the issue I have with the book is not its conclusion, but how it got there. And the reason is because what it did is redefine the street corner where someone is proclaiming the gospel to be a church.

And I think we have to be careful in what we define church. And the reason it was laid out was that on the street, you have people praying, you have people worshipping, or singing was what was defined, you have people proclaiming God's word, you have two or three believers, and all those things were used to say that that is church.

However, there were some problems because you can have all that at your secular job, can't you? I mean, I worked at a job where I used to have two other believers, and the three of us would gather early in the morning at work and we'd pray together.

We would sometimes even sing songs. We would study the scriptures during lunch. And we would do this, but that wasn't church. That was a secular job. And I wouldn't take the rules of church and apply it to the secular job.

And that's what I saw happening with that. And so the issue that I had with it was the conclusion, how they came to it. And there's been many people, apart from that, that have tried to make the argument that when you're evangelizing to people, that's church.

That's why this becomes important because we don't, we want to be careful that we don't redefine a term church just to fit our definitions or just to fit what we think that we, or shall we say what we want the scripture to teach.

And so we have to understand clearly what the church is. I actually, and we're going to go over this, I do have a paper on striving for eternity under resources and under resources, I think it's under theology, but you could just search what is, let me look at the title.

What is the church is the title of the message or the paper that we're going to go through here because it's going to help to define this and help us to keep clear. What is the church and what's the, what is the church not?

The Meaning of Ecclesia and the Time of the Church

Okay. So let's start, if we could, with the origin of the church, the origin of the church. And we're going to start by looking at the word church, the word church, the word church is ecclesia from the Greek.

Now, if you have your syllabus outside of the new Testament, this word was to describe the, an assembly of those called out from a community for a purpose that your blank there is assembly. It was actually a, it's a general assembly.

Actually, we, we first see it in Greek being used to refer to a political meeting in their government. It was required that every male must vote. That might be an interesting idea to, to try. You actually had to attend a, an assembly, an ecclesia.

And for, I think it was like two weeks where you had to attend, listen to arguments, and then everyone had to vote. And if you didn't attend, you could pass off your, your, your, if you had to be absent, you could pass it off to someone that stands in your place.

But every male of the household would have to do that. And so that was the assembly. It was for a political purpose initially. Within the New Testament, though, while the term is used to describe secular assemblies, as well as Christian church assemblies as a whole, the primary use for church is described as a called out community of Christians assembling for what we call the local church.

It's used a hundred times for local churches, local church or churches. Five times in the New Testament, it's used for non-church assembly. So you see, that's why I say the majority out of 105 times, a hundred of them are for what we would refer to as the church, the Christian church.

And so looking at that, let me explain what the church is not. Okay. So some misunderstandings of the word ecclesia. We see this as well. The, the church is not used as a reference to a building. That's your first blank.

It's not a building. It's not where you meet. We talk in our day and age, at least our culture, of going to church as if church is the building. We go to church. We meet in a church. That's not the right way to speak.

Church is not a building. The building is where the church meets, but the church is not the building. The second thing is that, is it's not used to reference a denomination. That's your next blank, denomination.

The church is not a denomination, but we talk about that. What church do you go to? People say Presbyterian or Baptist or Lutheran, as if the denomination is the definition. No, the church gathers and they may be part of a denomination, but the denomination is not a church.

And then third, I'm going to give away some of my views. But if you've been following all of the classes that we have in theology, you already know my view on this one. Ecclesia is not used to reference a new Israel, a new Israel.

That's your next blank. You don't see ecclesia being used to refer to a new Israel. And this is something we looked at when we talked about how to interpret the Bible, the school of biblical hermeneutics.

We talked about this when we talked through the doctrine of the Bible. We talked about dispensationalism versus covenant theology. If you're not familiar with those, I'd encourage you to go back to the previous lessons that we had on the Word of God in the systematic theology classes and review those.

Those would be helpful for you. But the point that we're saying is that the term church is more specific and it doesn't refer to a building. It doesn't refer to a denomination. It doesn't refer to a new Israel.

Real quick, let's just look at the time of the church. The time of the church was Pentecost. At Pentecost, there was basically four reasons why believers of Pentecost was the time that the church was initiated or started.

Pentecost was this new thing. Number one is there's no church referred to until the advent of the Holy Spirit. Let's look at Ephesians 1 .23. Ephesians 1 .23 says, If you notice here, the reference to the body is a reference to this thing that we're going to call church.

It was upon the Holy Spirit's advent. We see this 1 Corinthians 12 .13. We are all baptized into one body, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and we're all made to drink of one spirit. So it is by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, that we're into one body.

Next, let's look at Acts 1 .5. Acts 1 .5 says, So the tie to this body is tied to the Holy Spirit. Throughout the New Testament, the church was considered to be a future event. That's number two. It's a future event.

We see this in Matthew 16 .18 where it says, Notice that's future. I will build my church. So Jesus has the idea that this term church, he uses it. Matthew 16 .18, he uses the term Ekklesia. But this is the first time we're starting to see this term Ekklesia to have a different meaning than just the general assembly.

It's something more specific. Ekklesia was a known term at the time that meant a general gathering for a purpose. Some sort of assembly. But Jesus is starting to use it in a different way. So he's saying he's going to start a church.

It's something that's future. It's a future assembly. Third, is that in Peter's reference to Pentecost as the beginning, he refers in Acts 11 .15. Acts 11 .15, Peter says, Well, many see that as the beginning of the church.

This is the start. This is something new. This is what Jesus referred to as the future church. Peter is now going back and saying the beginning. And number four is that no, there was no church until the death of Christ.

There's no church. Acts 20 .28, Acts 20 .28 says, Now notice this. You see here, to care for the church of God. The church of God was obtained by his own blood. So you don't have a church before the death of Christ.

Now, this is an argument. I understand that there's some who believe that Israel is the church. The church is Israel. They intermix those. You see, I'm seeing that there's a distinction between these two elements.

Because Jesus spoke of the church as a future thing. Peter speaks of the beginning of the church as a past thing. And Luke argues that, I think it was in a message Paul was writing, that Paul was preaching.

But Luke records that there was no church until the death of Christ. So you see, this shows that the advent of Christ begins something new. So we would see this at Pentecost. Now let's quickly, if we could, before we get to the paper that I have.

I want to look at the pictures. The pictures of the church. Because this helps us. First is the church is described as a body. A body. Let's take a look at Ephesians 1. Ephesians 1, 22 to 23. And he put all things under his feet and gave them as head over all things to the church, which is his body.

So what's the church? All things to the church. Defines the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fits all. Now we can cross-reference Colossians 1 .18 with this. Which Colossians 1 .18 says, and he is the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning and firstborn of the dead. That is everything put to be preeminent. We also see this in Colossians 2 .19. Colossians 2 .19 says, and not withhold, not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished the kit and knit together the joints and ligaments, grows in a growth from God.

So you see, the body has a head, it's Jesus, the church is defined as his body, where he is the head. So what you end up seeing there is that you can also look at, do we have 1 Corinthians 12? Good. 1 Corinthians 12.

1 Corinthians 12, 12 to 27, if you read that whole portion, we're just going to look at the verse 12 here. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

Now, this whole passage in 1 Corinthians 12, 12 to 27, is describing this body. How we're many members, but we make up one body. So the emphasis that we have there is that we are a body of Christ. We're many people.

Though we're many people, we're one body. That is something that is important to understand when we look through this, because this helps us to understand not everyone is going to have the same role. God gives each of us different gifts so that we would serve one another.

So that as many members, we have many members of the body, we've got eyes, we've got ears, we've got a nose, we've got a mouth, we've got hands, we've got feet. Hopefully we've got a brain between those ears, just saying.

Maybe some of us are, can you see through the other side? No, okay. But the reality is, is that we have different members, but we're one body. That is the picture of the church. Many members, one body.

Many different people who are serving in different ways. Not everyone's going to be the teacher. Not everyone's going to be the Sunday school teacher or the Awana leader. Some are going to clean the bathrooms.

Some are going to be, you know, ordering the hymnals. Do we do those anymore? Do churches have hymnals anymore? I'm just wondering, you know, I don't know. It just, it seems as I travel and speak, I'm finding that less and less.

I understand they're saving the money. Put the, put the words up on the screen. I don't know. My old fashioned, I just like to have a hymnal in my hand. I can't read the music anymore anyway, so what does that matter, right?

But anyway, I used to play the trumpet, believe it or not. I'm getting mocked. I used to play the trumpet. I used to be able to read music. I didn't say I read it well, and I didn't say I played well.

I just said that I used to do it. All right. But, but the thing is, is that the body has many different people that are going to serve in the way that God's gifted each of us to serve. And it's, it's really a sad thing when some churches make people feel like they all have to be doing a certain thing.

Like if everyone's not out evangelizing, then the church is not functioning as a church. No, God put you, you, you're in that job of being the evangelist to go out and evangelize and encourage others to evangelize.

It may come very more natural to you because God's gifted you in that way, but it's not going to come natural to everyone, but it's still commanded. That's one of the things, by the way, with the gifts, we're going to get to this next class, but all the gifts are commanded for all of us.

We're all commanded to teach. It's going to come easier for some, but we're all commanded to teach. We're all commanded to have mercy. It's going to come easier for some, but we're all commanded to do it.

So each of the gifts are commanded. Let's look at another one, the bride. Now this one, the bride, we see in Ephesians chapter five and verse 31 to 32. So Ephesians 5, 31 to 32. He says there, and this is in the context of a wife submitting to her husband.

He says, This is a pro this, this mystery is profound. And I am saying that this refers to Christ and the church. Now it's more specific in Revelation 19 verse seven. So the bride in that is the church, the groom is Christ, and it's a describing a wedding feast.

So the church is described as the bride of Christ. Now, when we say that, I think it's important to note that God's view of a husband and wife relationship, well, it's different than our culture. I mean, our culture has attacked marriage, belittled marriage, and tried to make it as if marriage is like a meaningless thing, as if it's just, you can kind of enter into marriage and then leave it and get divorced.

And it's no big deal. Some people just live together. They don't even want to think about getting married. And it's craziness. Marriage is under attack. You know, if you look at many of the social ills that we see in our culture, you see this racism that occurs.

You see people that are being, they're just, they're blaming racism for a lack of being able to get ahead in the world. And the reality is you could tie much of these things to poor families, a lack of family values, a lack of a strong family, a lack of, you know, basically, I think it was Ronald Reagan that said that basically three things, three elements would make America strong.

A strong family, valuing an education, and a religious belief. The reality is that a strong family, family has been under attack. And we don't understand the view of a bride. A bride is one that you hold up in honor and respect.

A husband is to protect and care for the bride. One of the things people sometimes ask me, because I always refer to my wife as my bride, not my wife, and some people pick up on that. And will ask me, why do you always refer to your wife as a bride?

I think a bride has a differing view. For many men, that bride, we see that in many marriages. At that point of marriage, there was this such a respect and a love for husband and for groom and bride. And then over time, sometimes, some seem to grow apart.

The closest it seems that many are is at that day of the marriage when one is called a bride. Well, I don't want to let that go. I want my marriage to be one that continues to grow in value, to grow in deep, rich love for one another.

So my wife is still my bride. And I think the same is true for the church. Christ wants the church to grow in a richer, deeper value of the relationship. And so the idea of a bride is very beautiful. Now, next one is the idea of the temple.

Now, I just said Israel's not the church. And you're going to say, Andrew, but you're going to say it's the temple. Well, let's look at the passage. Ephesians 2, 19 to 22. Ephesians 2, 19 to 22. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints.

And members of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple of the Lord.

In him, you also are being built together in the dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Now, I put this up here because, and leave it up for a second because I want people to read this. What you see here is, you've got to understand the context.

Christ is being referred to a building that has a cornerstone. That's how they build. They put the cornerstone and from the cornerstone, they build the rest of the building. That would be how the temple was built.

And he's saying the temple, the temple was a place where God dwelt. And he's saying the church is a place where God dwelt. So let's put up 1 Corinthians 3, 1 Corinthians 3, 16 and 17. Do you not know that God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you?

So you're God's temple. If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him for God's temple is holy and you are that temple. Now notice, in the first one, it was the church, the gathering of believers that was the temple.

In the second one, it's you as an individual are the temple. You see how both are in play there. The last picture that I want to look at is the family, the family. We see this in 1 Timothy 3, 15. If I delay, if I delay, you may know that one ought to behave how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and a buttress of truth.

So you see that the pillar of the church, the foundation is the family. This is a family. You know, just think about all the terms, the terms we use, the brother and sister throughout the scriptures talks about this idea of the family.

And that's the point. We see that those pictures. Now, what I want to do is, as we talk about the origin of the church and the pictures of church, I want to talk about how this term ecclesia has changed over time historically to become more and more specific over time.

And I want to do this before we start looking at the way that, you know, the way that we function within the church. All right. So I'm going to not completely read, but I'm going to give you from an article that I wrote.

Again, this is if you go to striving for eternity dot org, do a search there for what is the church. You're going to see this article. All right. Ecclesia is a term most often used for church in the Greek.

The meaning of it means assembly or congregation. The term is used over 100 times in the New Testament. The Greek translation of the Hebrew, which is called the Spaduagint, if you ever hear someone talking to Spaduagint, what that is, is the Hebrew Old Testament translated into Greek.

And the word that's most often used in the Hebrew that is translated ecclesia, OK, is quahal. Quahal has the same meaning as the Greek term, which is a gathering. It's used over 57 times of the 97 times that we see it in the Old Testament is we have that word.

All right. So but it can refer to an assembly, a congregation. In Hebrew, it can also refer to an army or a crowd. So ecclesia had several meanings in the first century. As I said, it started by a regularly summoned legislative body or assembly.

This meaning was generally understood. The generally understood concept in the Greco-Roman world in Ephesus where the use was word used for a theater. Second is a casual gathering of people for an assemblage.

OK, so people just gathering, not necessarily for a specific purpose, but just a casual. People are meeting in the street and it could be called an ecclesia. The third is that people with shared belief, community or congregation.

And this was the meaning most often used in both the Old and New Testament. It came to have that meaning. The root of this word is it means to be called out or, you know, to call out. It's a common term used for any kind of congregation, called out people, people that are to be called out for an assembly in a public affair of a free state, a body of free citizens are called out or to be heralds, called out by a herald, I should say, that constituted when the herald would call out, let's gather together.

They gather together. And as they gather together, that would be called an ecclesia, a church. The word ecclesia is nowhere used of heathen religious assemblies in Scripture. That's on a note. We don't see this term being used to refer to pagan gatherings.

For biblical history, the word, though it originally meant a public gathering, it started to change over time. And that's what I want to look at here. Over time, ecclesia came to have a more specific term for a more specific assembly or congregation.

That was a called out that we know of as church. The term ecclesia was not specifically a Christian term. In the Greek world, it's used, as I said, for a public gathering. But by indicating that it was used that term, we are referring to a change from the wider usage in a secular community of the Greco-Roman Empire to be used in a more biblical sense as we now want to use it today.

We want to be a little bit more specific in the way that that term is used. This constitutes what might be called a narrowing of the definition of the word from a general sense of an assemblage to a particular sense of an assemblage around certain doctrines and parameters.

And what I want to do is show how it changes through history. From the early period, it was recognized that the church was one. It presents different aspects and forms for the church in reference. This is already in the Bible itself makes a distinction between Old Testament church and what, you know, this is and this is, by the way, a quote that I have from a, that this is a quote actually from a, I should quote it specifically because you can see this is a quote from someone that's a covenant theologian so he's going to talk old and New Testament church.

But the reason I include this is because I want you to see that this person does show the difference that there's a difference in Old Testament church, New Testament church, even though he uses that language.

I would say Israel and the church, but let me be specific and quote it from an early period. It has been recognized that while the church is one and Catholic, and by the way, Catholic just means united, one and Catholic, it presents different aspects or forms from which call for differentiation in reference.

This already, thus already in the Bible itself, there is a distinction between Old Testament church and New Testament church. It would be wrong to deduce from the complete dichotomy, from a complete dichotomy, as though the New Testament church were something quite different, which began only at some point in the New Testament story, i .e. Pentecost.

On the other hand, it would be pointless to deny that there are valid differences between the Old Testament church and the New Testament church. A legitimate distinction may be drawn, may thus be drawn, unquote.

So the point there is, as I already said, I do think there's a distinction. He agrees there's a distinction. I would distinguish between Israel and the church and I would say that the church had a starting point.

His problem is he sees a distinction. Well, what's the starting point of that distinction then? But I include that just to show that even people that speak in covenant theology see a distinction. So, at this point it's helpful to indicate that there are theological differences and understandings between authors.

The covenant point of view, as I've stressed, and the dispensational point of view. So, we have a differing view of the church and that's going to play out historically as we see. So, let's address the issue of the definition of the church from both points of view.

The point on which both will agree regards to the main theme that we can get to. So, in a covenant point of view, well, you know what, let me skip most of that because I want to get to the history. So, you can read that on the, well, because I want to get to the historical view of this.

So, what you end up seeing is that the church over time, in the early church, Paul spoke of the church. When he did so, he spoke of it as a separate congregation but one church. And so, this is a thing where what I want you to recognize is when he would speak of the church, when he would talk of, when Paul would speak of church, he's using it in a New Testament sense.

And this is the first that we begin to see a change of ways that it's being used. Because of the fact that what you see is, you start to see the beginning of the term not being used in this general way but in a more specific way.

Alright? So, with that, what we end up seeing is that, and this is, the real importance here is that the church changes the usage. So, when Paul spoke of the church, he did so without a separate congregation but as one church.

So, he speaks of a church. This is where, if you look in the early centuries, as I mentioned, they talk of a Catholic church. It means a unified church, one body. Though Paul wrote to individual groups of congregations that were recognized as separate and distinct from one another, he also saw them as true believers of the one church.

So, he speaks of one church, one body, one family. As the congregation of believers met for the purpose of worship of God, the term started to come to have a more specific meaning to a more specific group of people that functioned in a specific manner.

You see, now it starts to change. From Paul's usage of just a general church, everyone, the body of believers, all believers everywhere around the world, it's going to immediately, throughout history, start to change.

And now, it changed from that general assembly to a specific gathering of believers for a specific group of people for a specific manner. It's starting to become more specified. Thus, the word Ekklesia took on new and more specific Christian meaning.

It no longer refers to a general gathering or assembly of people but a group that meets for the worship of God, rendering the explanation of His Word. The practice and ordinances, such as baptism and communion, and the purity of the church through church discipline.

Now, that's basically pretty much where the paper ends on the website. The rest of what I'm going to give you is going to be from a new book that I'm going to be working on called, What Do We Believe?

And it's going to be a companion to What Do They Believe? the book that I've already written. But, this is going to be on Christian doctrine. And I go into a little bit more detail than I do in the paper.

So, the paper kind of wets your appetite for the book, just saying. But, I say, the early church then started to change the specific meaning of the term we call church. The church referred to those believers who met regularly for the worship of God.

You see, now it becomes specific. It's believers who are worshipping, who are gathering for a very specific purpose. It's not the fellowships at homes. It's not when you gather with other believers just as a gathering.

It's now being more specific for the worship of God. The early church did not seem to make much of a distinction between local congregations. As we see the evolution of this term happens over time, the early church focused on a general gathering of people for the purpose of the worship of God.

Now, during the church in the Middle Ages, we see a change. As the church moved into the Middle Ages, theologians started to be more specific in their meaning of church, making a separation between what they called the church visible and the church invisible, or the church local and the universal.

So, the visible church is that church that would gather locally. The universal church is what Paul referred to, everybody. That's the invisible or universal church that is made up of all believers everywhere.

The local church is referred to those who gather locally for the purpose of worship. So, that has that sense of the original word in it, original meaning in it. This distinction was made to refer to the church, meaning the body of believers in Christ, that are local and visible congregations, and met for the purpose of the worship of God.

This could also include unbelievers. So, the universal church or invisible church does not include unbelievers. But the visible local church could, and this is what ended up happening. When church became mandated, you had unbelievers that would attend church.

They'd be part of the church. They're part of that local gathering. And so, this is why there became the distinction. The universal church is made up only of all believers. And when people would speak of the church as a group of people that believe in God, that repented, this would be the reference of the church.

So, those who are believers as the church are the universal church. But those that would gather in a local assembly would be called the visible or local church. Now, a second distinction then ended up happening.