THE CRITICISM OF THE CHURCH
1. It isn’t difficult to understand why people believe in God, Christ or the Holy Spirit. To believe in the Church is a different matter entirely.
2. Christians have shown themselves to be self-serving, cowardly, divisive, self-righteous and blind. There have been times when they should have spoken with prophetic passion against oppression and they kept quiet. They preached Jesus as the Prince of Peace while they engaged in civil war and divided into splinter groups. The Church has saved its own life while masses died without meeting God in the ghettos where they lived and died. And she has been pompous and self-righteous, acting as though she was the one virgin in a world of prostitutes. The Church has been blind. Blind to the real needs of the world she was meant to serve.
3. But that’s only one side of the picture. Not all church-people are hypocrites of divisive of self-righteous. There have been countless thousands down through the years who cared for the needy and strove for an honourable unity among believers. They worked themselves into ill-health in the service of others and knew the difference between vast needs and trivial concerns. And they knew that but for the grace of God they would live in darkness.
4. The Church deserves criticism. But do you know any critic more severe on the Church than she herself? The Church arms her critics. She proclaims the light of God even though it exposes her own shabbiness. Of course she’s unworthy! She’s made up of and exists for unworthy people. What is the Church judged by? The Lord she mirrors and proclaims! She has convinced the world to accept the judgement of Christ on all that is shabby and hypocritical even if she herself comes under that judgement.
THE PLACE OF THE CHURCH IN THE BIBLE
5. The Church is where one finds fellowship with God! The Church doesn't save anyone—it is the saved Body (Ephesians 5:23). People are saved one at a time but they are saved by being added to the Community of the Saved. The saved people are not saved in isolation, outside the Body of Christ! No one can say yes to Jesus as Saviour and reject him as Head of the Body which is the Church (Colossians 1:18). He reconciles us to God in one Body (Ephesians 2:16). Being a part of the Church is not optional! Reconciliation with God is experienced by each individual within the one Body of Jesus, the Church and not outside it (Ephesians 2:16).
6. The Church is where one finds fellowship with other believers! Christians aren’t at liberty to live as independent units. One of the marks of the anti-Christ is a refusal to love and fellowship fellow-Christians (see the entire book of 1 John which is devoted to this truth). Sometimes we hear people say they are for Christ but against the Church. If Christ is willing to tolerate the Church despite her weakness it wont do for us to reject her. One of the visible signs of Christ’s healing power is the coming together in the Church of Jews, Gentiles, slaves, free, rich, poor, male and female (Galatians 3:26-28 and Ephesians 2:14-22).
7. The Church helps to sustain the individual’s faith! If you love and believe in your country, said Fosdick, a patriotic and noble-spirited meeting will help you believe in it and love it more. You come away from such meetings thrilled and renewed. Church assemblies can do that for you too. Meetings that are Christ-centred, comforting and challenging send us back to daily life with renewed trust and a deeper sense of mission and hope.
8. Down through the centuries the faith of the Church has been more stable and consistent than any individuals. As individuals we are more inclined to wander than we are as a Church. To be identified with the NT Church gives a person a sense of purpose, destiny that is stronger than his own personal convictions. To be part of a Community of Believers subjects him to influences and experiences deeper and richer than his own can ever be. God ordained from the beginning that there should be a Fellowship of Believers. (See passages such as Hebrews 10:24-25; 2 Timothy 2:22; Psalm 122:1.)
THE PROCLAMATION OF THE CHURCH
9. The love of God is supremely shown in Jesus Christ! Gods love has been shown in a thousand ways down through the centuries before and since Christ’s appearance. The NT Church joyfully acknowledges all this but it insists that, above all, he sent Christ to make his love known. By this we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us says 1 John 3:16 as if the love of God had not been made known before! In 4:9 he says: This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. The Church proclaims that!
10. The centrality of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection! That’s all Paul wants to preach (1 Corinthians 2:2). It’s all he wants to boast about (Galatians 6:14). In the book of Acts we find the apostolic preaching tirelessly presents the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the foundation for salvation and life with God. See, for example, 2:22-40; 10:34-38 with Luke 24:25-27, 46. The NT is crammed with this kind of proclamation. Once you begin to look for it you’ll be amazed at how much there is of it.
11. The Church’s view of the centrality of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection is seen in its insistence on baptism. Those who wanted to become Christians were told to be baptized into his death that they might share that death and experience his resurrection (Romans 6:3-7). Why has baptism remained a constant in the Church’s teaching? It mirrored the suffering and resurrection of Christ which are central to the Christian faith and proclamation! People expressed their trust in the crucified and resurrected Christ by being baptized into him (Galatians 3:26-27; Colossians 2:10-12).
12. The Lord's Supper (Holy Communion or The Eucharist) proclaims these blessed events. The Church has never failed to embrace this ordinance down the centuries. It too finds its meaning and power in the Christ events and every genuine participant becomes a preacher (1 Corinthians 11:26). When Christians gather and share the Lord's Supper they are acting out, rehearsing and proclaiming the redeeming life and death of Jesus until he comes again. In proclaiming by this ordinance that he is coming again they are reminding the world that he rose from the dead, is alive and reigning and is coming to right all wrongs.
13. The sinfulness and inability of Man to save himself! This too has been the Church’s consistent proclamation. Paul is especially blunt about it: Man is saved by grace or he isn’t saved at all (Romans 11:5-6; Ephesians 2:5, 8-9). Man is not saved by moral performance (Titus 3:4-7). If our pathetic lives don’t even satisfy our own sinful hearts, how much less would they satisfy a holy God?
THE CHURCH: THE SIGN OF GOD'S REIGN
14. The Church must get to know who and what she is or she won’t know what to do! God’s purpose for her is part of her nature! She exists to witness to Gods work in Christ.
15. In her unity she exposes the divisiveness of Sin in a fragmented and warring world.
16. In her sinful but forgiven state she visibly proclaims the possibility of forgiveness and life with God for sinful and unforgiven people.
17. In her doing costly things for mankind she reminds the world of her risen Lord whose Body she is.
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