What is the Church?

Coming to faith is generally an individual thing, and we stress the personal commitment involved. But the Kingdom of God is not a collection of individuals; it is a community. (It has always been so: even Noah was not saved from the Flood on his own, but as one of a group.)

But the Church today has an ‘image’ problem.
“One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate...”(C S Lewis: The Screwtape Letters)

For most people in this country, ‘church’ is a building – somewhere that you go to on a Sunday (if you feel so inclined and have nothing more exciting to do), something that is separate from everyday life. It can be quite difficult to break away from that way of thinking. But in the New Testament, the word ‘church’ is used to refer to any assembly of God’s people. ‘Church’ is not a place to go to on Sundays, but something we are called to be - seven days a week.

To help us understand this, the New Testament gives us several pictures of the Church. I want to go through the main ones:

1) The Church is God’s family
2) The Church is Christ's Body
3) The Church is God's new Temple
4) The Church is Christ's Bride

Each of these pictures tells us not only something about the Church, but also something about our relationship to Jesus. He is the firstborn member of the family, the head of the body, the cornerstone of the temple, and the bridegroom.