THE CHURCH OF GOD
PORTION OF SCRIPTURE—Ephesians v. 22-33.
"Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it." [Footnote: Eph. v. 25.] Two precious truths shine out in these words. He loved, He gave. He not only gave Himself for the Church when He died on the Cross, but He is still sanctifying and cleansing it, and by and by when He comes again "He will present it unto Himself a glorious Church." [Footnote: Eph. v. 27.]
So we have the history of the Church in the past, in the present, and in the future. We look back to the past and we see Christ giving Himself, that is, laying down His life on the Cross; but we must also look far, far back into the past Eternity to find out another precious truth. (Perhaps you have never thought about it.) It is, that the Church was in God's thoughts from the very beginning! The Son of God was in the bosom of the Father "in the beginning"; and it was then—before the world was created, that God chose us in Him and gave us to Him. [Footnote: Eph. i. 4.] Now we see why "Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it."
What is the Church? The word "Church" means "called out," so the Church embraces all who have been "called out" during the present age to form the "Body of Christ." In the Old Testament we find that the Jews were God's chosen people, [Footnote: Exod. vi. 7.] so they had all the privileges, but in later times, the Jews rejected the Gospel of the grace of God, and then God graciously visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people to be called by His Name. [Footnote: Acts xv. 14.]
When did this special "calling out" begin? Nearly 1900 years ago on the Day of Pentecost, and it has been going on ever since, and when the number of "the called-out ones" has been completed, then "The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." [Footnote: I Thess. iv. 16, 17.]
Each of those three words, "chosen," "called out," and "caught up," leads us on to something more. We were chosen in Him to be holy; [Footnote: Eph. i. 4.] we are called out to be the Body of Christ now, and by and by we shall be caught up to meet the Bridegroom and to be with Him for ever. If you are a child of God, you can say with holy wonder, "God has done all this for me."
The Church was formed out of a little company of 120 men and women who were gathered together praying in the Upper Room at Jerusalem. [Footnote: Acts i. 14, 15.] Suddenly they heard a wonderful sound and saw a heavenly vision, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost; and before the day was over that little company increased to the number of 3,000 souls. How many does it number now? No one knows, but it is a "multitude which no man can number." [Footnote: Rev. vii. 9.] Some are already in glory, some are still on earth, but it matters not where they are, they belong to the "whole family" of God "in heaven and in earth." [Footnote: Eph. iii. 15.]
On the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out, His special work was to create a new thing—it was then that the Church of God was formed into one Body by the Holy Spirit, "For, as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ." [Footnote: I Cor. xii. 12, 27.] "Now ye are the Body of Christ and members in particular," that is, individually, for every saved soul is a member.
The Church is a living body united to Jesus Christ, for He is the living Head of the Body. He needs His Church just as much as His Church needs Him. It is the Holy Spirit who unites us to the risen and glorified Christ Who is the Head, and then He unites us to one another in Him. It is a living union, because we pass through death into the resurrection life of Christ, for by "One Spirit we are all baptized into One Body, and we have all been made to drink into that One Spirit." [Footnote: I Cor. xii. 13.] The Holy Ghost sustains the life of the Church. In Him we live and move and have our being. As the bird lives in the air, as the flower lives in the sunshine, so we live in the Spirit, and when we drink in His fulness there is growth and fruitfulness.