Systematic Theology (part 11)

New Testament Names for the Church

What is man is what I got to ask last time. So I thought it kind of a neat coincidence that this time I'm going to get to ask a similar fundamental question to embark on yet another big systematic theology category.

What is the church? What is the church? And what better place to start than asking? What does the Bible say? What does the Bible name or call the church? That's where we're going to start Scriptural names or words for the church and I know the church exists in the New Testament.

So I'm going to start there. I'm going to start with the New Testament kind of a weird foreshadowing loaded statement there. I'm just saying that because Burkhoff decided to start his Thing with church in the Old Testament.

Yeah. So we'll get to that. But in the New Testament words or names for the church Ecclesia is almost always the Greek word, which we translate church. And that literally means assembly or assembled or the called out.

So it's a generic word assembly that on its own sort of just begs the question Asking us to fill in its meaning by context assembly assembly of what fill in the blank assembly of and The New Testament default fill-in-the-blank meaning is always assembly of believers in Christ.

It's the word used by Jesus prior to Pentecost in Matthew 16 18 and 18 17. It's used one time to designate a big group of churches in Acts 9 31. But it also sometimes refers to the whole body of believers across the whole world and through all of time.

The other word is soon. I go gay. Which we just say synagogue. It seemed a little strange to me that Burkhoff threw this out along a coliseum with equal mention because it's Really only he's always talking about the first century Jewish gatherings the synagogues.

But we have to admit that there is one place though. And I think only one place where the word sooner go gay seems to be pointing to a church gathering and that's James 2 2. Where it's talking about people discriminating in partiality against poor believers coming in it says there for if there comes unto your assembly Soon, oh go gay a man with a gold ring in Goodly apparel and there comes in also a poor man in vile raiment and then the partiality thing.

But really interesting to me was that our English word church Is not even derived from ecclesia at all, but rather Korea coasts. And you can kind of see how it evolved into church kuric Kirk soften the K sounds church and it means belonging to the Lord and According to Burkhoff.

It was first used to describe the church buildings being an object or structure which belongs to the Lord. But then this label gradually quote transferred to the church itself the spiritual building of God.

Unquote to refer to believers. And it makes sense with the first century there being a lot of house churches that don't have a church building. And it's a logical transference, right? Because don't we also?

Belong to the Lord if we have the right view of God and ourselves that he owns us. That he bought us off the slave block of sin and we've been redeemed by his blood. Pastor Mike just said that about first Corinthians 6 at the end of last Sunday's sermon.

We've been bought with a price. So interestingly the only places that Greek word Korea coast shows up is first Corinthians 1120 talking about the supper Belonging to the Lord the Lord's Supper and in Revelation 110 talking about the day Belonging to the Lord the Lord's Day.

So the entire New Testament the very Greek word which gives us our English word church. It's never referring to the church the building or the people. Very interesting. So then we have other designations or names body of Christ.

Used both of the church universal but also singular congregation The Bride of Christ which surprisingly Burkhoff missed that one. The temple temple of the Holy Spirit temple of God also spiritual house in first Peter 2 5.

Jerusalem. The Jerusalem that's above a new Jerusalem a heavenly Jerusalem. Emphasizing that place where God dwelt from the Old Testament and then applying that to us. Who he dwells inside of in the New Testament and then pillar and ground of the truth only in first Timothy 3 15.

They're talking about the church as a general guardian or defender or supporter of the truth against deceptive attacks. So we'll pause there any thoughts or questions or comments on New Testament names words.

Any thoughts. So now we get to the fun part. Old Testament words. These are Hebrew words translated assembly or congregation. Kahel and a da and Like I said before Burkhoff started his discussion about names of the church with the Old Testament words that mean assembly.

So they're kind of like Old Testament equivalents for the Greek word Ecclesiastes. But I found it a little strange. Burkhoff started with the Old Testament like right out of the gates I wanted to ask wait a second Louie.

Does the church even exist in the Old Testament? And Burkhoff sort of just assumes that right in the beginning and then 16 pages later, he finally gets to explaining it and Trying to justify and prove his point about that.

But before I tell you about what Burkhoff thinks or before I tell you what I think, what do you think? Does the church exist in the Old Testament and if so In what sense or what way does the church exist in the Old Testament as compared to the New Testament?

Come on, somebody's got to have some thoughts on this one, John. So you're saying the remnant in the Old Testament we can count that as the church. Okay, a good question though were they meeting together as the remnant anybody our thoughts, yeah, okay.

How did they belong to God though? Chosen in what way to be his in what way? But even oh. Do you want to say something? Okay, right but again called out for what? Yeah, and I think your your comment connects with John's right that there's a remnant that are truly saved by faith and Shouldn't we at least be able to count them as the church?

Maybe I don't know Brian. Yeah, so like the idea of a replacement theology, I think it's called where the church replaces Israel. All right. So a lot of people I'll just say quickly a lot of people think like, oh, well the church started at Pentecost, right?

But I think we have to say that it had probably existed before that because Jesus uses the word church. Before we even get to Pentecost in Matthew 16 and 18, like I mentioned. They're talking about the church discipline process and tell it to the church, right?

So when burka finally 16 pages later gets down to explaining his viewpoint that the church exists in the Old Testament. He gives a list of a bunch of points, which I've listed out in your outline. Number one pious households.

The church was quote best represented in the pious households where the fathers served as priests unquote. Calling on the name of the Lord. He claims the reference in Genesis 4 26 as some sort of public Community of calling on the Lord and therefore he says this reference is equivalent to the church being in the Old Testament.

Number three the patriarchs when we get to Abraham Berkov seems to almost equate genealogical lineage and separation unto God and the sign of circumcision as Being God's people in the same sense as those who are in the church set apart spiritually.

He writes quote up until the time of Moses. The families of the patriarchs were the real repositories of the true faith in Which the fear of Jehovah and the service of the Lord was kept alive and Then forth he gets to Moses and Berkov even goes more extreme and more explicit in his language and word choices with Moses.

He writes quote after the Exodus the people of Israel were not only organized into a nation But were also constituted the Church of God. The whole nation Constituted the church and the church was limited to the one nation of Israel though foreigners could enter it by being incorporated into the nation.

The worship of God was regulated down to the minutest of details was largely ritual and Ceremonial and was centered in one central sanctuary. I don't like it. I really personally struggle with these blatant assignments of Old Testament and New Testament church Being equivalent as they're as if they're both the Church of God.

I think some of these thoughts they just blur the lines too much between these categories of God working symbolically in shadows through genealogical and national and ceremonial means and then muddying all that up together.

With the categories of spiritual and eternal and individual salvation. I didn't list them all out here in my notes, but I just there's got to be almost more you than you could even list. In the New Testament making statements that are like trying to separate the two not make them equivalent.

I think of Colossians 2 16 to 17 where it talks about all this Old Testament stuff being shadows. Of all kinds of stuff in the book of Hebrews, which Mike took three years to explain to us, right? Galatians 3 7 I just read in my daily reading this morning.

It says only those of faith are sons of Abraham spiritual sons of Abraham. So it's not about physical lineage. I See the Old Testament as a very physical Typological almost like theatrical performance pointing us to the spiritual Jesus and the New Testament and So just try to equate them.

I don't know. I just don't like it and I have this other point in here. We know it's not just the nation. Because we see Jesus making specific statements to trash those types of rigid national boundaries of God's spiritual we'll say salvation ish blessings because we don't know they're saved but he's preaching in Nazareth and he says in Luke 4 I Tell you truly many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah but none of them was Elijah sent to except Zarephath in the region of Sidon to a woman who was a widow and Many lepers were in Israel at the time of Elisha the Prophet.

None of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian. But he yeah, exactly. Is it a spiritual reality or is it as Corey is saying is in a Assembly realities. I'm not a I'm not part of the church unless I'm assembled what?

Yeah, I do think there's a lot of weird overlaps. Like where did the truth come from? How do people hear the truth? How do people know the truth? It's a that's a rabbit trail. We probably don't have time to go down but.

Yeah, the Romans 11 passage, yeah. Yeah, and I think that connects back to John's comments about the remnant right even in Romans 11. He talks about how you know, he's able to graft back in Jews. But what the question is, what are they being grafted into are being grafted into a nation?

Maybe a spiritual nation, you know in the New Testament. We the church is called the Israel of God. Right. So I guess the question is is it a national? Is it a ceremonial? Is it a genealogical thing or is it a spiritual thing?

I think we have to say it's a spiritual thing, right? So you could be grafted into the spiritual lineage of the remnant, right the Abraham remnant. Like I said the sons of Abraham. The only true sons of Abraham are those of faith, right?

So then fifth Burkoff goes to confessions and catechisms. He talks about the Belgic confession and Heidelberg catechism and the comments in those Catechisms that he quotes they talk about the church being from the beginning of the world and that God chose people out of all humanity from the beginning until the end.

And I just see those quotes as talking about people who are saved but not necessarily a church it's a it's a little bit of a Jump too big of a conclusion to say Israel is the church just because there were saved people in the Old Testament.

Like I have this example here if there was a modern church With a thousand people in it and only five of them were saved the pastors are unsaved. The elders are unsaved. Is that a church? I? Don't think so.

And I would say the Nation of Israel at times was worse than that. The sixth point he makes is the Septuagint Ecclesia. Burkoff uses the fact that the the Septuagint has the word Ecclesia in the Old Testament for assembly and he says the martyr Stephen in his big long-sermon ish thing.

He uses the Greek word Ecclesia when he's talking about the assembly of Israelites wandering in the wilderness. It seems like a stretch to me. It's just a general Greek word assembly. You could use it the default is of believers in Christ, but it can be used to be an assembly of anything.

It's like if we were going to do that rigid word equivalency logic thing we could say Oh, well, it says synagogue in James 2 2 so every place synagogue shows up has to also be a church. Which we know isn't true because Paul was evangelizing synagogues in Acts, right?

So in general, I see the New Testament going out of its way to make sharp distinctions between God's physical genealogical nation and all the ceremonial symbolisms like circumcision. Versus God's spiritual saved people.

So I see big distinctions in the New Testament rather than equivalencies, I Do think the Nation of Israel makes a great typology. It's a great type of the church. That's why in in the New Testament does call us the Israel of God.

Because it's a chosen people to be a nation and we're a chosen spiritual people. Yeah, so I just I don't see being able to equate them. I see the church as really the fulfillment of what Israel was theatrically ceremonially Doing in the Old Testament.

So yeah any thoughts on this. I know we spent a lot of time on this part, but it's kind of a neat controversy any. Last thoughts on the church in the Old Testament. Yeah, I really like that. I like John's comment that the remnant in the Old Testament is part of the church the spiritually saved of the church.

I just don't like the idea of saying the nation was the church as Burkhoff says. Yeah, I think that's true. I but it I don't think covenant theologians would. At least the the one book I read on it would say that the Old Testament nation was the church.

But there's definitely more way more continuity from Old and New Testament with covenant theology whereas Dispensationalists have a hard cutoff and they would say well the church didn't even exist until Pentecost.

There was no say that like a totally different plan of salvation. Some of them say I think She gets four stars. All right as I mentioned I mentioned in my last talk systematic theology often takes a look at doctrines throughout church history.

So wrong or right? How have religious men answered this question? What is the church throughout church history? The main focus or emphasis of the church up until the latter part of the second century.

Was that the church is a communio? Sanctorum we got to get a Latin phrase in every time right. Which means a sanctified community those who are set apart by God as his people his possession. But then heresies kind of arose around that time which forced church leaders to try to find some way.

To distinguish between those people are part of the true church and those people who are part of the false church. Who's in who's out? We got to figure this out and so that need to make in-or-out distinctions ended up resulting in these unfortunate following emphases.

They started emphasizing one the external or organizational Church. Quote from the days of Cyprian down to the Reformation. The essence of the church was sought ever increasingly in its external visible organization.

Unquote. Number two they started focusing on apostolic succession. And who were the official bishops and overseers that came down from them and are the good bishops you know? Submit to the bishops or forfeit your fellowship your salvation from the church.

Number three traditions. Who's following the true traditions who's got the right? Sacraments. Who's doing the sacraments correctly? That's as an indicator a requirement and of course who's doing them right and what are the true sacraments was determined to find by those bishops and then universality the universal Church.

And if you're going to focus on the visible. What we can see? Universal Church now that visible church needs to have overseers needs to have a hierarchy needs to have. Those bishops overseeing everything.

The British politician Lord Acton said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and this external focused universal overseeing system that the church turned itself into Lent itself to power and therefore corruption.

So it allowed for moral corruption to kind of show up pretty early in. In reaction to that various holiness sects sort of rose up in those first few centuries like Montanism and novation ism and donatism and these sects just kind of deepened.

That need to make distinctions, which is the true church, which is the false church, and they had to double down right? Eventually Augustine had this battle with the Donatists, and he viewed the church as communio sanctorum.

He did have that view but then that became kind of muddied up with this Cyprian introduced view of the focus on the bishops and the hierarchy and the succession from the Apostles and Augustine also hold held that view and.

So the first century view and Augustine's view of the communio sanctorum focus of what the church is pretty much got disregarded and Lied dormant for in the entire Middle Ages. And so in this way Augustine quote prepared the way for the Roman Catholic identification of the church and the kingdom of God on earth and Before studying this I had no idea a that it started that early or B that Augustine was kind of this pivotal director of everything in that way.

So to take us from that time period all the way up to the Reformation, I'm just going to hit you with three Workoff quotes. Quote number one Hugo of st. Victor speaks of the church and the state as the two powers instituted by God for the government of the people.

Both are monarchical in Constitution. But the church is the higher power because she ministers to the salvation of men. While the state only provides for their temporal welfare. Quote number two. Step by step the doctrine of the papacy came to development until at last the Pope became virtually an absolute monarch.

Quote number three. This identification of the visible and organized church with the kingdom of God had far-reaching Consequences it required that everything be brought under the control of the church the home and the school Science and art commerce and industry and so on.

It involved the idea that all the blessings of salvation come to man only through the ordinances of the church particularly through the sacrament. It led to gradual secularization of the church since the church began to pay more attention to politics than to the salvation of sinners and the Popes.

Finally claimed Dominion also over secular rulers. The Reformation. The Reformation comes in and seeks to correct all this mess all kinds of aspects of this gradual Derailment of the church which had been going on going downhill for over a thousand years.

They return to this communio sanctorum focus and of course a wholesale return to the foundation of God's Word Sola Scriptura and of course all the other Solas and Then from there until now burkhoff only really touches briefly on that and With a compromising impact of rationalism where we end up with the common quote modern liberal conception of the church as a mere social center a human institution Rather than a planting of God.

Okay thoughts on church history any comments any things that were interesting in there John. Well, we're gonna actually talk much more about visible versus invisible in a bit, but I Guess the question is sure.

They both exist. Which one are we going to emphasize? I mean other thoughts on church history stuff. Steve I don't think that burkhoff puts a time on it or that I would put a time on it. But there's like a gradual descent I think for according to burkhoff, there's a gradual descent from Cyprian to Augustine and then Goes completely Gradually downhill from there until the Reformation.

So When do you go below zero? I don't know with that curve. I mean, I read it. I read another book I think it was the Matthew 1618 controversy or something. But it definitely seemed to be really off the rails around a thousand like really bad I Probably just made it even more political, right?

I don't know when's when's Augustine and Constantine is which one's first? Yeah, so if Augustine teed up the golf ball Constantine drove it, right? So let's go a little deeper beyond just the names and labels to really ask.

What is the church? What's its nature? What's its essence? What's its character? And So burkhoff does this many-sided character of the church compare and contrast? You know, could we could we say the church is a coin and they have a head side and a tail side.

Where do we heard that before? I don't know. So if you flip over your note sheet, there's a chart on the back, which I'm gonna just talk through. The first one there is the idea of a militant church versus a triumphant church and embattled church versus a victorious church.

So now on earth we are in a spiritual war. But we look forward someday to a very different situation where we will be in heaven and there the war will be over a Really cool quote from burkhoff on this point.

If the church on earth is the militant Embattled church the church in heaven is the triumphant church. There the sword is exchanged for the palm of victory. The battle cries are turned into songs of triumph and the cross is replaced by the crown.

The strife is over the battle is won and the Saints reign with Christ forever and ever. In these two stages of her existence the church reflects both the humiliation and exaltation of her heavenly Lord.

Then we look at visible versus invisible as was just brought up. The first one is very similar to the Embattled victorious contrast now on earth. We see the church we can see churches gathering people gathering people being saved but What's the church look like in heaven?

Can we see it now? No, we can't. It's a future invisible reality. We also see invisible and visible contrast in even our own Sanctification. What is primary? What is secondary? What comes first? What comes second?

So what's primary is the fact that we're saved on the inside justified. Regenerated by faith. It's all invisible but out of that from the inside out comes the visible our sanctification good works and Then the visible invisible contrast for the church itself visibly.

We see an organizational church. We see practical but imperfect embodiments. We see baptisms we see professions and that includes a certain body of people. But then there's an invisible ideal church spiritual church that are all the saved only.

And burkhoff has a great quote that kind of points this out. It's like there's two like a Venn diagram. They they overlap, but there's stuff hanging out on the side. He says quote. It's possible that some who belong to the invisible Church.

May never become members of the visible organization. On the other hand, there may be unregenerated children and adults who while professing Christ have no true faith in him. Are only part of the church as an external institution and these as long as they're in that condition and do not and will not.

They do not and will not belong to the invisible Church. So a sad reality there, you know, there's some people that are just I'm not into organized religion. But they're actually saved sitting at home.

And then there's people here who got baptized and said they believe in Christ, but they're not saved. He makes a key distinction that these again are not two different churches but they're really describing the same church with a little bit of different viewpoint and clarification and.

Then he looks at the organic versus the institutional. The organic is sort of like what all of it. Oh Steve. No, I just I just say that's a possibility. He didn't say there's people at home that refuse to go to church that are saved.

I'm saying I think that could be possible. I have friends that I think that are saved that refuse to go to church. Well, actually Shannon I were just talking about this on the right here. You know, what is Hebrews 10 saying when it says?

Don't refuse to be. To gather together, right? If you get together in small group, but you refuse to go on Sunday. Are you disobeying that command? I don't know. You're still gathering together you're not refusing to gather together, but I still love Jesus.

Yeah, and there's you know what Vadim said to maybe there's other countries like maybe there's a Muslim that got saved and he can't find The church, right? You're a spiral of ignorance of oh, I thought I didn't know that was important.

I should go what? Okay, so to get back to the last entry on our church. We have the organic versus institutional. There's a priesthood of all believers. We all have gifts talents. Everyone's kind of doing general ministry and service.

That's not like official and not being like managed. Right, you're you're evangelizing your co-worker while you're at work. That's organic ministry organic church. Activity and then we have the institutional church kind of the elders and deacons the church leadership the government.

The word and sacrament here on Sunday very public official. So those that contrasts. All right. So then the second chart on the back of your page the attributes of the church. I'm not going to read all these boxes here, but he has three attributes of the church.

He focuses on unity holiness and the universality of the church each one of these in the book. He kind of compares and contrasts Catholic Roman Catholic viewpoint on them versus the Protestant but intertwined in that.

He talks about invisible and visible and I thought that was kind of a cooler distinction. So that's the way I set it up in this chart for you. So with unity, there's a spiritual unity and a physical unity.

We're all unified in Christ. We've all been justified by faith in Christ. Sanctified and regenerated on the inside by the Holy Spirit. We're unified in doctrine. So there's a spiritual unity that we have that's in invisible.

You can't see but then we also have this we have a visible unity. We're all gathering together. Except for those rebels staying at home, right Steve. The we're all gathering for the same sermon. We're all taking the same Juice and crackers.

We're all Together as one visible church as well. Our holiness is also invisible and visible. We have an imputed perfect righteousness of Christ deposited to our account. That's invisible. We're a new creation on the inside, but we can't see that.

We're hoping to be in heaven. Like I said, which we can't see. But there's also if those things are real those invisible things are realities for us. There should also be a visible holiness. It should be lived out.

God is sanctifying us to practically live differently if his Holy Spirit is truly in us changing us. Are we living differently? It should be tangible. There should be something out here showing up, right?

The universality of the church. There is a as we've mentioned multiple times there's all believers on the earth are all part of the church. But who are they? How do we count them all up? We don't it's all in.

It's an invisible reality of a church worldwide and even more so a church across all of humanity through all of time. And then the visible universal church that is a punt. That one doesn't exist. We messed that one up that obviously was a big mistake.

Yeah, so some good quotes from Burkhoff there. I won't Read them, but it didn't prove productive to try that one so attributes of the church. He talks about that actually in the chapter how like. But the tension they're like shouldn't we be trying to do this or should we I don't know it failed.

Should we try it again? Should we emphasize it going in that direction or do it as much as we can on a local level like? Denominations. He talks a lot about that. I it's too much to really get into but yeah, there is a tension there.

So is there any that he missed should we have used Rick Warren's purpose-driven church? List of five instead like what do you think? Attributes of the church. All right, so the marks of the church. Remember our church history section how they tried to mark out and make markings of who's the true church.

And who's not. How that kind of messed up. Let's go back. Let's do a woulda coulda shoulda. What what should they have done to mark out? What's the true church, and what's the false church? Berkos gives us three number one true preaching of the word.

Agreed that this is the most important mark. This is why the Reformation was mainly just a return to Scripture. Some say that even the church basing everything on the Word of God is really the only Mark of the church and everything else flows out of that the set but he gives us two more number two the right administration of the sacraments and Again you could go all the way the Catholics took that and say you have to do them here in this building with this wafer.

Right, but burkhoff says no the right administration of the sacraments is word based. He says quote the sacraments should never be divorced from the word. For they have no content of their own. But derive their content from the Word of God.

They should stay Christ focused they should emphasize the spiritual reality and meaning behind the ceremony so we don't get lost in all the externals. And third faithful exercise of church discipline.

Some said church discipline though is not necessary for being a church, but it is necessary for the well-being of the church. The purity of the church. So in other words they would say it's really important.

Sure, but it would be really kind of an exaggeration to say well, they're not doing church discipline. So they don't even count as a church. Okay, so marks of the church any thoughts on that. Did he miss one?

Is there a mark he should have kept? Yeah, well, he did use the word true preaching of the word, right? So like we were we were doing the evangelism thing yesterday with Jonathan and we've hit these Jehovah's Witnesses and so I We Encountered them and there was on their little poster.

There was like this word Biblica and I was like does that mean Bible and he goes yeah, and I'm like. So what's the purpose of the Bible? What's the whole message of the Bible and he goes? Well God's kingdom?

And I was like, okay. All right, and so we got into it and you know, they would be not true preaching of the word. But they would be preaching of the word. Right because they're emphasizing the kingdom rather than the king and even in the emphasis of the king.

They don't emphasize the prophet or priest aspects is what I told him. So it was an interesting debate. We had with them Jonathan. Yeah that that actually Jonathan is a perfect segue to my last point, which is why does it matter?

And this again is me not Berkoff. So if it stinks, it's my fault. If we look back at our church history portion of our discussion that shows just by itself why it matters. If we don't keep the right focus in how we answer this question What is the church then we'll emphasize all the wrong things and soon our church is promoting Christless Christianity like Andrew said and.

So now I'm going to venture into a little bit of preaching to the choir. So certainly our focus for what is the church must be on the communio sanctorum for the church? But not just for the church also for you.

Communio sanctorum is made up a lot of a lot of solo sanctorums. We talked about the body of Christ, but as first Corinthian says the body is made up of many members. You are what make up the church. You're the church.

Our view of the church must be the communio sanctorum. But that means our view of ourselves has to also be sanctorum. Are you solo sanctorum? Are you sanctified? Are you set apart? Do you know that you know that you know that you've been spiritually?

Separated unto God by God the Holy Spirit and are confident. You're in Christ the Son of God by faith. Is that your main and primary focus when it comes to you being part of this thing? We call the church.

Or is it just being part of the BBC organization and social gatherings the programs and ministries serving at BBC? Involved in the church ordinances making sure we're baptized and taking the Eucharist as the Catholics would call it.

You went through the BBC membership class with Corey. That's great. Are you reading your Bible regularly. Sure all these things are great things, but they can't be our primary focus in 2nd Corinthians 1214 Paul says I do not seek yours your stuff.

But you that's where it starts that's what God wants. He doesn't want your membership. He doesn't want your money primarily. What God wants from you is? You all those other good activities in the communio sanctorum are mere outflows from the solo sanctorum and.

In the next chapter 2nd Corinthians 13 5 Paul says examine yourselves as to whether you're in the faith test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you unless indeed you're disqualified?

We're only solo sanctorum with saving faith in Christ if Christ is in us and we are in Christ. That's what sanctifies us. That's what makes us sanctorum and nothing else. And then to the degree With which are all aspects of our lives are sanctified in that sit to that same degree.

That's the degree that which we're being the church as God intends. So you remember how when we discovered what that word church originally means it's actually from the Greek word belonging to the Lord.

So that begs the question is he is he your Lord. Is he Lord to you. Are you God's. Does God own you? Are you one who by faith let God buy you through Christ's price of blood? Did you at one time and do you continue to let God have your soul?

If so, then God owns us and we are each solo sanctorum and each belong to the Lord. And Then as members of the body of Christ were communio sanctorum and we're all together belong to the Lord curiacos the church.

Any thoughts before we pray in clothes. And communio, yep, awesome. All right, great place to stop. Let me pray for us God. Thank you for Making us part of the church by your son. Without him we would be lost.