Diagram to understand some biblical concepts of Church

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Department of Liberal Education

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

Introduction

We go into a concrete building, white walls, benches with soft leather cushions, heated floor for the winter, all looking in one direction to the pulpit for two hours, eat potluck at church together, chat about daily lives, sit again for the next Sabbath School lesson (teachers only), gather in the dining hall for church board meetings, then leave to visit sick people, or hand out pamphlets in the community, eat dinner together in the dining room again or at a restaurant and then separate for Tuesday prayer-meeting. Church. That’s what we call it. To be precise the prophetic periodical garment of Laodicea covers the church (Revelation 3:14-22) covering the period since 1798 until now. The condition of this church in prophetic language and reality is that it is blind, naked, poor but not deaf (Revelation 3:22). They can still hear. We are a listening church. We sit and listen. Blind because we just read power-point selections of the Bible and not the Bible, blind because we see the truth about ourselves but it is just ivory tower ideas but no active practical change in ourselves. Spiritually naked and spiritually poor. Last night at the university, my wife and I taught the community students and the subject was “Me and Religion”. One student is a wealthy CEO of a Tourist company. On the question: “Do you have a Bible, Koran or Holy Book?” he answered, “No, I do not have a Bible, Koran or Holy Book”. Spiritually bankrupt. The good side is that as a Buddhist starting the class, he said that he chose money rather than God but in his presentation at the end he said that he thinks God exists. Not only him, also the current and contemporary church condition is “lukewarm spirituality”. It is a force that is to be actively fought on a spiritual plane, otherwise one is passively part of it.

The Bible provides us with images of the church. It helps us to understand the word church. Whereas the New Testament word has the meaning of the “called out ones” [ek-klesia], think about it, called out of darkness to light, called out of Babylon of denominations, called out of a sinful environment, called out of participation in sins, the Old Testament had the meaning of a “gathering together of people” [qahal].

Belonging

The church belongs to God [15], the Lord [16], Jesus [17] and the Holy Spirit [6]. It is the “church of God” [18, 15]; “church of Christ” [18, 17]; “church of the Lord” [18, 16]. This is just an opening statement, since there are so much involved in this concept.

Foundation and Pillar of Truth

For Seventh-day Adventists, more than for other churches, the church foundation and pillar is truth [1-5] as Paul spells out in 1 Timothy 3:14-15. Embodied in Jesus as the active Revelator or Lord of the Old Testament, who declared and revealed Himself through the faithful and prophets of the Old and New Testaments in written form, called the Bible, precision theology and precision doctrines is a key part of the blueprint for this church. As an ex-SDA wrote to me this week: “no longer do people follow precision theology because they are into existentialism, mesmerism, post-modernism”. He is right. He was talking about Christianity in general but we also feel the winds at times.

The church for Seventh-day Adventists, as emphasized, is the “house of God” [oiko theou] [1] of which the pillar [4] and the foundation [5] is truth [2]. When all these components are firmly established in a church, it is called “church of the living God” [3]. Scholars argue that doctrines and exegesis are not the same (see Ernst Käsemann followed by Hermann Diem that reacted that it seems as if New Testament scholars [exegetical scholars] and Dogmatic / Systematic Theology scholars [doctrinal scholars] “are working with two different Bibles”). Adventist Systematic Theologian Edward Heppenstall said in Our High Priest chapter 12 paragraph 33 “Doctrines are the formalized aspects of the faith”. If your faith is imprecise, your doctrines are, and vice versa. Your lifestyle is determined by the way you think and the way you think is composed and propped-up by a regular reading of the Bible, not as a traditional slavish confessional follower [“my parents use to believe this way”] but as an active readjusting force in our thinking and in our lives. Our actions follow as a result of these adjustments. Refusal to adjust is volitional not forced by God but forced by Satan and his agents. Honesty is a necessary ingredient for this discovery of truth. People are blind in the Laodicea period because of tradition, feelings over reason, rationalizing over acknowledgement, self-navigation instead of seeking navigation. Independency lifestyles breed this status of blindness. Seventh-day Adventists thus stress the importance of precision theology following honestly the Bible as marker and indicator of truth. A Mercedes Benz engine cannot afford to be imprecise and neither does God’s truths of the Bible. It is not good enough to put Volkswagen parts on a Mercedes Benz. Denominational borrowing or remainders of wrong views in centuries past cannot suffice for the modern church or movement of God. That is why Calvinism with their fresh approach but clinging to Roman Catholic institutions like infant baptism and Sunday Keeping instead of adult baptism and Sabbath keeping is biblically not good enough and thus imprecise theology. Other denominations are the same and sometimes even in a worse situation. The Catholic Church is the main engineer of non-biblical doctrines and one outstanding doctrine is the priest taking the role over from Christ as intercessor in the atonement at the Lord’s Supper, holding the so-called real body of Christ in his hand, and only his hand and no other way at all [thus vicarius filii dei]. They have Mary taking the place of the Holy Spirit as intercessor in heaven. Mariology destroys the doctrine of the Trinity by creating a new chain of access to God that is non-biblical but based on post-biblical traditions. It is not that Seventh-day Adventists who are Catholic bashing here, it is Catholics who are proud with their R&D para-biblical designs. The foundation and pillar of truth makes it the church of the living God. There is no other way. It is not Mary, not the Priest, not infant baptism, not Sunday Keeping, not existentialism, not eclecticism, not politics, not nationalism, not contemporary music fashion and trend following, but biblical truth.

Temple

The church is the “temple of the Holy Spirit” [6]. The interesting thing is that your [plural = humoon] body [singular = to soma] [7] is the temple [singular = naos] of the Holy Spirit. Many people walk with the idea that each one of us in our bodies is a temple of the Holy Spirit and together, many temples, but Paul did not have that idea in mind in 1 Corinthians 6:19 [see 8].

Company

The church member is connected to a group and that is church as Jesus explained in Matthew 18:17 [10]. The person cannot just live as they pleases without affecting the church and there are ways to deal with licentious and permissive living styles contrary to the guidelines of the Bible.

Family

The church is also the family [13] as Paul made clear in 1 Corinthians 14:23. He said that εαν ουν συνελθη η εκκλησια ολη επι το αυτο = ean oun sunelthei he ekklesia ole epi to auto “if then a church should gather all upon the same place” which in essence means that they were church in their own houses before they gathered. The church comes from the house to gather in one place.

Diamond for Christ the farmer and Christ the heater

The church is a diamond [12] meaning that Christ treasures the church, but in a way that one can divide in two images as it is portrayed in Ephesians 5:29. Two Greek words are used and both indicate that Christ takes care of the church in two ways: Christ nourishes the church and help to stimulate its proper growth or the Greek word εκτρεφει = ektrephei, thus, Christ the farmer taking care of His vineyard [11] like in Isaiah 5:1-12 and secondly, Christ warms the church as one find in the other Greek word θαλπει = thalpei [12].

Nations

The church is not only for ethnic Jews or ethnic Greeks [19]. Paul speaks of “all the churches of the nations” αι εκκλησιαι των εθνων = ai ekklesiai toon ethnoon in Romans 16:4.

Holy Ones

The church is seen as the “holy ones” [14]. Paul says “in all the churches of the holy ones” (1 Corinthians 14:33).

Body

The church is compared to a body [20] of which Christ is its head [26]. All members are part of the same body which strengthens its unity [25]. But, not all are hands [22] or all feet [23]. Paul also stressed the diversity [24] since there is not one member (ουκ εστιν εν μελοζ = ouk estin hen melos) but many members in the body and different ones (1 Corinthians 12:14). The teacher is not the pastor and the pastor is not the evangelist. Each one has their role to play in the church.

Bride

Tied into the body image of the church in Corinthians is the bride image of the church in Ephesians 5:23-32 [21]. The church is the bride of Christ and Christ is the husband. It is the same as one finds in the Old Testament in Isaiah 54:5-8. Spiritual Israel from all nations is the spiritual wife of Christ. All the benefits of protection and compassion are included in this unity and marriage.

Localities

The church is also connected to localities like the church of Asia [27]; church of Galatians [28] and the church of Laodicea [29]. Then there is the concept that the church is not tied to any specific locality but all over the world whether on the other side of a mountain, ocean, everywhere [31]. Says Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:2 that the church is “all who in every place call upon the name of the Lord”. Not all who says “Lord, Lord” are saved but those who do the will of God and follow the pillars and foundations of truth as we have indicated all along here. It is not a case of how much you know but how honest are you from point 1 to where you are now? If one plays with God tricks, “Lord, Lord” is not helping.

Fishtank

A very remarkable image of the church is that the church is a fishtank [30] for the unfallen worlds to see the outworking of God’s salvation plan upon sinners in this world. Ephesians 3:10 reads “in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places” εν επουρανιοιζ = en epouraniois.